Tharon of Lost Valley

by Vingie E. Roe

  CHAPTER VIII

  WHITE ELLEN

  So old Pete, the snow-packer, had paid the price of gallantry. Thebullet he had averted from Tharon Last's young head that day in theGolden Cloud but sheathed itself to wait for him. All the Valley knewit. Not a soul beneath the Rockface but knew beyond a shadow of adoubt who, or whose agents, had followed Pete that night to the CanonCountry. Whispers went flying about as usual, and as usual nothinghappened.

  When the news of this came to Last's Holding the mistress sat down atthe big desk in the living room, laid her tawny head on her arms andwept.

  There was in her a new softness, a new feeling of misery--as if onehad wantonly killed a rollicking puppy before her eyes. Those tearswere Old Pete's requiem. She dried them quickly, however, and setanother notch to her score with Courtrey.

  It was then that the waiting game ceased abruptly.

  Tharon, riding on El Rey, went in to Corvan. She tied the horse atthe Court House steps and went boldly in to the sheriff's office.

  Behind her were Billy, like her shadow, and the sane and quietConford.

  Steptoe Service, fat and important, was busy at his desk. His spurslay on a table, his wide hat beside them. The star of his office shoneon his suspender strap.

  "Step Service," said the girl straightly, "when are you goin' to lookinto this here murder?"

  Service swung round and shot an ugly look at her from his small eyes.

  "Have already done so," he said, "ben out an' saw to th' buryin'!"

  Tharon gasped.

  "Buried him already? How dared you do it?"

  "Say," said Service, banging a fist on his table, "I'm th' sheriff ofMenlo County, young woman. I ordered him buried."

  "Where?"

  "What's it to you?"

  "Was Jim Banner there?"

  "Jim Banner's sick in bed--got th' cholery morbus."

  Tharon's eyes began to blaze.

  "Bah!" she snapped, "th' time's ripe! Come on, boys," and she whirledfrom the Court House.

  As she ran across the street to where the Finger Marks were tied, shecame face to face with Kenset on Captain.

  Her face was red from brow to throat, her voice thick with rage.

  "You talked o' law, Mr. Kenset," she cried at the brown horse'sshoulder, her eyes upraised to his, "an' see what law there is inLost Valley! Step Service has buried th' snow-packer--without aby-your-leave from nobody! Th' man--or woman--that kills Courtreynow 'counts for three men--Harkness, Last an' Pete. I'm on my wayto th' Stronghold."

  She whirled again to run for the stallion, but the forest man leaneddown and caught her shoulder in a grip of steel.

  "Not now," he said in that compelling low voice, "not now. I want totalk to you."

  "But I don't want to talk to you!" she flung out, "I'm goin'!"

  Over her head Conford's anxious eyes met Kenset's.

  "Hold her," they begged plainly, "we can't."

  And Kenset held her, by physical strength.

  The grey eyes of Billy were on him coldly. The boy was hot with angerat the man. He put a hand on Kenset's arm.

  "Let go," he said, but Kenset shook him off.

  "Come out on the plain a little way with me, all of you," he said,"this is no place to talk."

  Tharon, standing where he had stopped her, her breast heaving, herlips apart, seemed struggling against an unknown force. She put up ahand and tried to dislodge his fingers on her shoulder, but couldnot.

  Presently she wet her lips and looked around the street, alreadyfilled with watching folk, then up at Kenset.

  "What for?" she asked.

  "I think I can tell you something," he answered quietly.

  "All right," she said briefly, "let go an' I'll come."

  Without a word the man loosed her. She went to El Rey and mounted.

  Her riders mounted with her, Billy's face frowning and set. From thesteps of Baston's store a few cowboys watched. There were noStronghold men in town, for it was too early in the day.

  In silence Kenset led out of town at a brisk canter. His lips wereset, his eyes very grave.

  In the short gallop that followed while they cleared the skirts of thetown, he did some swift thinking, settled some heavy questions forhimself.

  He was about to take a decided step, to put himself on record insomething that did not concern his work in the Valley.

  He was going directly opposite to the teaching of his craft. He wasabout to take sides in this thing, when he had laid down for himselfrigid lines of non-partisanship. His mind was working swiftly.

  If he flung himself and his knowledge of the outside world and the lawinto this thing he sunk abruptly the thing for which he had come toLost Valley--the middle course, the influence for order that he hadhoped to establish that he might do his work for the Government.

  But he could not help it. At any or all costs he must stop thisblue-eyed girl from riding north to challenge Courtrey on hisdoorstep.

  The blood congealed about his heart at the thought.

  Where the rolling levels came up to the confines of the town they rodeout far enough to be safe from eavesdroppers, halted and faced eachother.

  "Miss Last," said Kenset gently, "I'm a stranger to you. I have littleor no influence with you, but I beg you to listen to me. You say thereis no help for the conditions existing in Lost Valley. That outragefollows outrage. True. I grant the thing is appalling. But there isredress. There is a law above the sheriff, when it can be proven thatthat officer has refused to do his duty. That law is invested in thecoroner. Your coroner can arrest your sheriff. He can investigate amurder--he can issue a warrant and serve it anywhere in the State. Hecan subpoena witnesses. Did you know that?"

  Tharon shook her head.

  "Nor you?" he asked Conford.

  "I knew somethin' like that--but what's th' use? Banner's a brave man,but he's got a family. An' he's been only one against th' whole push.What could he do when there wasn't another man in th' Valley dared tostand behind him? You saw what happened to Pete. He struck upCourtrey's arm when he shot at Tharon one night last spring. Th' samething'd happen to Banner if he tried to pull off anythin' like that."

  A light flamed up in Kenset's eyes.

  "If you, Miss Last," he said straightly, "will give me your word to dono shooting, something like that will be pulled off here, andshortly."

  He looked directly at Tharon, and for the first time in her life shefelt the strength of a gaze she couldn't meet--not fully.

  But Tharon shook her head.

  "I'm sworn," she said simply.

  Kenset's face lost a bit of colour. Billy, watching, turned greybeneath his tan. He saw something which none other did, a thing thatdarkened the heavens all suddenly.

  "Then," said Kenset quietly, "we'll have to do without your promiseand go ahead anyway. We'll ride back to town, demand of Service aproper investigation by a coroner's jury, and begin at the bottom."

  Tharon moved uneasily in her saddle.

  "Why are you doin' this?" she asked. "Why are you mixin' up in ourtroubles? Why don't you go back to your cabin an' your pictures an'books an' things, an' let us work out our own affairs?"

  Kenset lifted a quick hand, dropped it again.

  "God knows!" he said. "Let's go."

  And he wheeled his horse and started for Corvan, the others fallinginto line at his side.

  When Kenset, quietly impervious to the veiled hostility that met himeverywhere, faced Steptoe Service and made his request, that dignitaryfelt a chill go down his spine. Like Old Pete he felt the man beneaththe surface. He met him, however, with bluster and refused allreopening of a matter which he declared settled with the burial of thesnow-packer in the sliding canyons where he was found.

  "Very well," said Kenset shortly, "you see I have witnesses to this,"and he turned on his heel and went out.

  "Now, Miss Last," he said when they were in the wholesome summersunlight once more, "if you have any friends whom you think wouldstand for the right, send fo
r them."

  "Th' Vigilantes," said the girl, "we'll gather them in twenty-fourhours."

  "The Vigilantes?"

  "Th' settlers," said Conford.

  "All right. Until they are here we'll guard the mouth of this canyonthat leads into the Rockface, as I understand it. Now take me to thisman Banner."

  At a low, rambling house in the outskirts of Corvan they found JimBanner, sitting on the edge of his bed, undeniably sick from someacute attack. His eyes were steady, however, and he listened insilence while Kenset talked.

  "Mary," he said, "bring me my boots an' guns. I been layin' for thisday ever sence I been in office. I wisht Jim Last was here to witnessit."

  In two hours Kenset was on his way to the blind mouth of the pass thatled into the Canon Country, Tharon was shooting back to the Holding onEl Rey to put things on a watching basis there, while Conford andBilly went south and west to rouse the Vigilantes.

  With Kenset rode Banner, weak and not quite steady in his saddle, buta fighting man notwithstanding.

  All through the golden hours of that noonday while he jogged steadilyon Captain, Kenset was thinking. He had food for thought, indeed. Hecarried a gun at last--he who had ridden the Valley unarmed, had meantnever to carry one. He felt a stir within him of savagery, ofexcitement.

  He meant to have justice done, to put a hard hand on the law of LostValley. Murders uninvestigated, cattle stolen at will, settlers' homesburned over their heads, their hearths blown up by planted powder whenthey returned from any small trip, their horses run off--these thingshad seemed to him preposterous, mere shadows of facts. Now they weredown to straight points before him, tangible, solid. He got them fromthe blue eyes of Tharon Last, the gun woman, and he had taken sides!He who had meant to keep so far out of the boiling turmoil.

  He camped that night at the base of the Wall where the blind doorentered, made his bed just inside the dead black passage, and watchedwhile Banner, weary and still weak, slept in his blankets besidehim.

  This was new work for Kenset, strange work, this waiting for men whocalled themselves the Vigilantes--for a slim golden girl who rode andswore and pledged herself to blood!

  More than once in the quiet night that followed, Kenset wiped a handacross his brow and found it moist with sweat.

  What did he mean? Again and again he asked himself that question.

  What did he mean by Tharon Last? What was this cold fire that burnedhim when he thought of her pulling those sinister blue guns onCourtrey? Did he fear to see her kill Courtrey--to see that shadowystain on her hands--or did he fear something worse, infinitelyworse--to see Courtrey, famous gun man, beat her to it!

  He shuddered and sweat in the clear cold of the starlit night andsearched his bewildered heart. He could find no answer save and exceptthe weary one that Tharon Last must be holden from her sworn course.

  Tharon Last who looked at him with those deep blue eyes and spoke socoolly of this promised killing! He recalled the earnest frown betweenher brows, the simple directness of her duty as she saw it and told itto him.

  Either way--either way--she was lost to him forever--There he caughthimself and started all over again.

  What was she to him?

  What could she ever be? She with her strange soul, _her lack ofsoul_!

  What did he want her to be? One moment he ached with her loveliness--thenext he shuddered at her savagery.

  He did not want her to be anything! Why not go out to the dim andhalf-remembered world that he had left, the world of lights, paddedfloors and marble steps, leave this impossible land with its blood andwrongs? Nay, he could not leave Lost Valley. He was as much a part ofit as the grim Rockface itself, the Vestal's Veil eternally shimmeringin its thousand feet of beauty. Life or death, for Kenset, it must behere.

  So he waited and listened and watched the stars wheeling ineverlasting majesty, and he found his hands falling now and again uponthe gun-butts at his sides!

  Near dawn Banner awoke, refreshed and stronger, and made him lie downfor a few hours' sleep.

  When he awoke the sun was well up along the heavens and Banner wasoffering him a piece of dry bread and some jerky, spiced and smokedand as dry and sweet as anything he had ever eaten in all his life.

  "They're comin'," said the man, "thar's five comin' from down alongth' Wall at th' south--that'll be Jameson, Hill and Thomas, an' someothers--an' I see about ten or twelve, near's I can make out, driftin'in from up toward th' Pomo settlement. Thar's a dust cloud movin' upfrom th' Bottle Neck, too. They'll be here by one o'clock at th'furdest."

  And they were, a grim, silent group of men, determined, watchful, benton the second step of the program to which they had pledged themselvesthat night at Last's Holding. Tharon was there, too, and with her BentSmith on Golden.

  It was a goodly number who left their horses in charge of Hill andDixon at the blind mouth and entered the long black cut. They climbedin low spoken quiet, their voices sounding back upon them with an odddead effect. They went faster than Old Pete was wont to travel, forthey meant to reach the spot of the tragedy before the early shadowsshould begin to sift down from the high world above. Tharon wenteagerly, her eyes dilated.

  Always she had dreamed of the Canon Country. Always she had wonderedwhat it was like. When she left the mouth of the black roofed cut andcame out into the narrow, rockwalled canyon with its painted facesreaching up into the very skies, she gasped with amaze. Above her headshe could see the endless cuts and crosscuts, the standing spires andnarrow wedgelike walls that made a labyrinthian maze.

  Billy, close beside her, as always, watched her with a pensivesadness.

  And so the Vigilantes went in and up along the lower ways. There werethose among them who had been here before, who from time to time hadaccompanied the snow-packer on his nightly trips just for thecuriosity of the thing. These several men, among whom were Albrightfrom the Pomo settlement--a squawman--took the lead, and Albright,keen as a hound on trail, picked up Old Pete's marks and signs at arunning walk.

  And so it was, that, while the sun was still shining on the high peaksabove and the canyons were filled with a strange pink light reflectedfrom the red and yellow faces of the rock, the Vigilantes camesuddenly to a halt, for Albright had stopped.

  "Here's where it happened," he said, "there's a blood-sign." And hepointed to the Wall at a spot about breast high. A thin dark line, nowider than a blade of grass and about as long, spraying out to nothingat the upper end, leaned along the rock like a native marking. Noother eye had seen it. Not one in a thousand would have seen it.

  "Good," said Kenset, "you're the man for more of this."

  They crowded around and examined the telltale spray.

  Not one among them but knew it for the stain of blood.

  From that they spread out and back to search the sliding heaps ofdust-like powdery rock-slide that lay everywhere along the walls.

  It took Albright five minutes by Kenset's watch to find the disturbedand clumsily smoothed dump which held all that was mortal of thesnow-packer.

  "Miss Last," said Kenset as the men began to dig with the spadesbrought along for the purpose, "you had best step back a bit."

  But Tharon pushed nearer.

  "This is my work," she said with dignity. "I started this, I think."

  It was a pitiful job that Service and those with him had done for OldPete. Rolled head-first into a shallow hole--no doubt with jest andlaughter--it was his booted foot which first came to view, stickinggrotesquely up through the loose slide-stuff.

  It was brief work and grim work that followed, and soon the weazenedform, bent and stiffened into something hardly human, lay in the softpink light on the canyon's floor.

  Jim Banner knelt and examined it carefully and minutely, then everyman in the group did likewise. They found evidence of one simple,staring fact--Old Pete had been shot squarely from behind, a little tothe left.

  The bullet had undoubtedly pierced the heart--a great gaping hole inthe left centre of the breast
in front attesting its course.

  "Here," said Albright, coming back from a short distance down, beneaththe spray on the wall, "here's where something was taken up from th'floor--th' blood he lost, I make no doubt."

  "Gentlemen,--Miss Last," said Kenset, "I move we all move back andleave the ground to Albright. There is fine work here."

  With one accord the mass moved back, clearing a goodly space.

  In the immediate vicinity there was little chance of doing anything,for Service's bunch, and themselves, had trampled over the soft flooruntil all original traces of the murder were blotted out.

  Albright looked around and seemed to hesitate.

  "Me, alone?" he asked. "Gimme Dick Compos, there."

  "Done," said Kenset.

  A tall, silent half-breed stepped forward and without another word thetwo began to scan the walls, the floors, the heaps of rotted rock, theloose and tumbled boulders, not yet decomposed, that lined the cut onboth sides.

  They stood in their tracks and looked, and the concentration in theireyes was akin to that in the eyes of a wild animal, hiding,hard-pressed, and looking for a loophole for life.

  The Vigilantes watched them in silence.

  Presently Dick Compos stepped forward, leaned down and searched thewall at the left. Then he went forward, bent over, scanning each inch.He looked above and below, the height of a man's shoulders, his hips,his knees.

  Then he crept back, stopped at a particular upstanding piece of stone,searched it closely--stepped in behind.

  When he came out he looked over at Tharon Last standing at the head ofher people.

  "Some one went along th' Wall here," he waved a slender brown hand atthe canyon face. "Three signs--here--here--here."

  He indicated the heights he had scanned. They stepped a bit nearer andlooked. Several pairs of Valley eyes saw what Dick Compos had seen, asign so fine that few would have called it that--merely a brushing, asmoothing of the fine-sandstone surface where a man's shoulders, hiships, his knees might have pressed had he stood waiting there.

  A bit nearer the standing pinnacle of rock, they were evident again.

  With one accord they turned and looked down the canyon to where thatthin line sprayed the face. A close shot, such as would be necessaryin the darkness of the cut. Albright and Compos both stepped to therock and stood looking with those narrowed, concentrated eyes.

  Suddenly Albright, looking back across his shoulders, moved like a catand picked up something from ten feet away.

  He held it on his palm--an empty shell, such as fitted a .44 Smith andWesson.

  He scanned it minutely, turned it over this way and that, looked at itfore and aft.

  "Firin' pin's nicked," he said, "an' a leetle off centre."

  For ten minutes the thing went from hand to hand.

  Then Kenset gave it to the coroner.

  "There's your clew, Mr. Banner," he said. "Now we can begin. Let us begoing back to Corvan."

  And so it was that Old Pete, the snow-packer, went back in state tothe Golden Cloud, by relays on men's shoulders down the soundingpasses, through the dead cut, by pack-horse across the levels, lashedstiffly to the saddle, a pitiful burden.

  Tharon Last, riding close after the calm fashion of a strong man inthe face of tragedy, thought pensively of that night in spring whenthis little old man had taken his life in his hands to save her own.

  It was a gift he had given her, nothing less, and she made up her mindthat Old Pete should sleep in peace under the pointing pine at Last'sHolding--and that his cross should also stand beside those other twoin the carved granite.

  Billy, watching, read her mind with the half-tragic eyes of love.

  Kenset, seemingly unconscious, but keenly alive to everything, was atgreat loss to do so.

  He hoped, with a surging tenseness, that this fateful thing wassliding over into his hands to work out, his and Banner's. He knewfull well that he and Banner both were like to be slated for an earlydeath, but he did not care. In Corvan, night had fallen when thecavalcade passed through.

  Bullard of the Golden Cloud had the grace to come out and look at thelittle old man who had worked for him so long and faithfully. Butthat was all. They carried him home to Last's and buried him decentlyat dawn.

  Then the Vigilantes again rode out. At their head was Tharon; thoughboth Kenset and Billy tried to dissuade her.

  At Corvan, Banner went through the town like a wind, asking for thegun of every man he met. By noon every .44 had been examined, oneshell exploded. Not one left the nicked, uneven sign of the mysterioushammer which had snapped its death into Old Pete's heart.

  When the sun was straight overhead and all Lost Valley was sweet withthe summer haze, the Vigilantes, close packed and silent, swung outtoward the Stronghold.

  It was blue-dusk when they drew up at the corrals beside the fortresshouse. Lounging around in cat-like quiet were some thirty men, riders,gun men, _vaqueros_.

  When Banner called for Courtrey there was a sound of boots on theboard floors, inside, a woman's pleading voice, and the cattle kingcame swinging out, his hands at his waist, his two guns covering thecrowd.

  Tall, straight as a lance, his iron-grey head uncovered, he was astriking figure of a man. His henchmen watched him sharply. At hisside clung the slim woman, Ellen, her milky face thin and tragic. Heshook her loose and faced the newcomers.

  "Well?" he snapped, "what's this?"

  "Courtrey," said Banner, "we're here in th' name o' th' law. We demandt' see them guns o' yours."

  If the knowledge that Jim Banner was a brave man needed confirmation,it had it in that speech. Few men in the world could have made it, andgotten away with it. None in a different setting. Courtrey heard it,but he paid little heed to it at the moment. His eyes went to the faceof Tharon Last and drank in its beauty hungrily.

  Presently he shifted his gaze and regarded Kenset with a cold lightthat was evil.

  "Who wants 'em?" he asked drawlingly.

  "We do."

  "Hell! Want _Courtrey's_ guns! You're modest, Jim.

  "An' what do you want, Tharon?"

  In spite of the tenseness of the moment the voice that had laughed atdeath and torture in Round Valley became melting soft as it addressedthe girl.

  "Law!" said Tharon, "Law--th' law I promised you on Baston's porch!"

  "Yes? An' how do you think you'll get that? If I nod my head we'lldrive this bunch o' spawn out o' here so quick it'll make your headswim! What do you think you're doin'?"

  "I don't _think_. I _know_ now. Know what we can do--what th' lawmeans."

  Courtrey glanced again at Kenset.

  "Got some imported knowledge, I take it."

  "Take it or leave it! Show us them guns!" cried Tharon harshly.

  "I--don't--think--so," said Courtrey, nodding.

  Like a pair of snakes gliding forward, Wylackie Bob and the Arizonastranger were suddenly in the foreground, hands hanging apparentlyloose and careless, in reality tense as strung wires, ready to snapwith fire and lead.

  The moment was pregnant. The very air seemed charged with danger anddeath.

  Then, with a strange cry, Tharon Last swung sidewise from her saddle,for all the world as if she were breaking under the strain, leaned farover El Rey's shoulder, and the next moment there came a shot,snapping in the stillness.

  With an oath and a lurch Courtrey flung backward, tossed up his rightarm, and fired with his left. His ball went high in the air, wild. Theblood from that tossed right hand spurted over Wylackie Bob besidehim, the gun it had held went hurtling away along the earth.

  There was a movement, a surge, the flash of guns and one of thesettlers tumbled from his saddle, poor Thomas of the doubting heart.Courtrey's men flashed together as one, thundered backward to the widedoorstep, pressed together, waited. The voice of Kenset rang like aclarion.

  "Stop!" he cried, "don't shoot!"

  And he swung off his horse to leap for that gun.

  But another was before him.

/>   With a scream of anguish that rang heaven-high, Ellen shot forward andsnatched it from the spot where it had fallen.

  Tall, white as a ghost in the rose-pink light that was tinged withpurple, she stood, swaying on her feet, and faced them.

  And she put the gun to her temple!

  "I ain't got nothin' t' live for," she said clearly and pitifully,"but Courtrey's life is worth what I got to me. If you don't clear outI'll pull th' trigger."

  She was tragic as death itself. The big blue wells of her eyes wereblack with the spreading pupils. Dark circles lay beneath them.

  Her blue-veined hands were so thin the light seemed to shine throughthem.

  Her long white dress clung to her slim form. From far back by thecorral fence Cleve Whitmore watched her silently, his hands clenchedhard.

  Tharon Last looked at her with wide eyes. She had forgotten all aboutthis woman in the passionate hatred of Courtrey and the desire to pinhis crimes upon him. Now she wet her lips and looked at Ellen long andsilently. The pale lips were quivering, the long arm shook as it heldthe gun.

  "God!" whispered the girl, watching, "she loves him! Like I loved JimLast! Th' pain's in her heart, an' no mistake!"

  Then, as if something strong within her folded its iron arm uponitself, she began to back El Rey. "Back out!" she called, "we ain't nowoman-killers!"

  With one accord, carefully, watching, the Vigilantes began to back,counting the seconds, expecting each moment to witness the mostpitiful thing Lost Valley with all its crimes, had ever seen.

  Some one lifted the body of Thomas and swung it across a horse.

  Back to the corner of the house, around, they went, and finally, outin front they turned as one man and rode away from the Stronghold--andJim Banner was swearing like a fury, steadily, in a high-pitchedvoice.

  "Failed!" he cried between his oaths, "failed in our biggest job!That's th' gun, all right, all right, an' that damned woman beat us toit! Beat us to it with her fool's courage an' her sickenin' love! Oh,t' hell with Courtrey an' all this Valley! I'm a-goin' t' move downth' Wall, s'help me!"

  But Tharon Last forged to his side and gripped his arm in her strongfingers.

  "Shut up, Jim Banner," she said tensely. "You've only begun. That'sth' gun, I make no doubt, an' Ellen knew it--but if we're worthkillin' we'll dig into this harder'n ever. Here's poor Thomas, makesone more notch on my record. I'm not sayin' quit! An' you're th'bravest man in Corvan, too!"

  At Last's Holding the Vigilantes stopped for rest and food.

  They had been in saddle the better part of forty-eight hours.

  Young Paula, Jose and Anita set up a steaming meal, and they ate likefamished men, by relays at the big table in the dining room.

  Tharon Last sat quietly at the board's head throughout the meal,pensive, thinking of Ellen, but grimly planning for the future.

  And Billy and Kenset watched her, each with a secret pain at hisheart.

  "Lord, Lord," said Billy to himself, "she's listenin' when he speakslike she never listened to any one before!"

  In Kenset's mind drilled over and over again the ceaseless thought "Ahand or a heart--she could hit them both with ease. It's true,true,--she's a gun woman! Oh, Tharon, Tharon!" and he did not know hespoke her name beneath his breath.

  But other things were crowding forward--he was leaning forward tellingthat circle of grim, lean faces, that if they could not handle thisthing themselves, there were those in the big world of below whocould--that there were men of the Secret Service who could find thatgun no matter where Courtrey or Ellen hid it, that Lost Valley, nomatter what its isolation or its history, was yet in the U. S. A., andcould be tamed.

  Then the Vigilantes were gone with jangle of spur and bit-chain, andhe was the last to go, standing by Captain in the dim starlight.Tharon stood beside him, and for some unaccountable reason the grimpurpose of their acquaintance seemed to drift away, to leave themtogether, alone under the stars, a man and a maid. Kenset stood for along moment and looked at the faint outline of her face. She was stillin her riding clothes, her head bare with its ribbon half untied inthe nape of her slender neck.

  The tree-toads were singing off by the springhouse and the cattle inthe big corrals made the low, ceaseless night-sounds common to aherd.

  The riders were gone, the _vaqueros_ were at their posts around theresting stock, the low adobe house was settling into the quiet of thenight.

  Miserably Kenset looked at this slip of a girl.

  She was strange to him, unfathomable. There were depths beneath thechanging blue eyes which appalled him. How would he feel toward herwhen the thing was done--when she had killed Courtrey?

  But she must not be allowed to do it. Not though it took his life.

  If she was pledged to this thing, he was no less pledged to itsprevention.

  He felt a sadness within him as he saw the soft curve of her cheek,the outline of her tawny head.

  With an impulse which he could not govern he reached out suddenly andtook her hands in his and pressed them against his heart. The poundingof that heart was noticeable through her hands into his.

  But he did not speak--he could not.

  But he had no need. He could have said nothing that would havecleared the situation, would have told himself or her what was in thatpounding heart of his--for to save his life he did not know.

  And Tharon frowned in the darkness and drew her hands from under thosepressing ones.

  "Mr. Kenset," she said steadily, "you're always tryin' to make meweak, to break me down with words an' looks an' touches. These handso' yours,--_damn 'em_, they _do_ make me weak! Don't put 'em on meagain!"

  And with a sudden, sharp savagery she struck his hands off his breast,whirled away in the darkness and was gone.