Tharon of Lost Valley Page 9

  CHAPTER IX

  SIGNAL FIRES IN THE VALLEY

  Kenset, two days later, gave Sam Drake a check for five hundreddollars and a letter, unpostmarked but sealed with tape and wax.Drake, who owned some half-breed Ironwoods, rode the best one down theWall.

  Kenset had cautioned him not to talk before he left--he feared Drake'spropensity for speech. But he was the only man in Lost Valley whom hefelt he could approach.

  With the courier's departure he rode back to the Holding and toldTharon and Conford what he had done.

  "These men are the best to be had," he said, "and they will goanywhere on earth for money."

  But Tharon frowned and struck a fist into a soft palm.

  "What you mean?" she cried, "by takin' my work out of my hands likethis? I won't have it! I won't wait!"

  "What I meant when I caught your bridle that day in the glade,"answered the man, "to stop you from bloodshed."

  Then he went back to his cabin and his interrupted work and sethimself to wait in patience for the return of Drake.

  * * * * *

  But in Lost Valley a leaven was rising. It had begun insidiously towork with the appearance of Kenset in Tharon's band at Courtrey'sdoorstep. It burst up like a mushroom with a chance remark made byLola of the Golden Cloud--Lola, who had seen, since that night inspring when Tharon Last stood in the door and promised to "get" herfather's killer, that Courtrey was slipping from her. A woman likeLola is hard to deceive.

  Much experience had taught her to feel the change of winds in thematter of allegiance.

  She knew that surely and swiftly this man had gone down the path ofunreasoning love, that he would give anything he possessed, doanything possible, to win for himself this slim mistress of Last'sHolding.

  Therefore she played the one card she held, hoping to rouse the bully,and did just the thing she was trying to avert.

  "Buck," she said, her black head on his shoulder, her dark eyeswatching covertly his careless face, "the Last girl is lost to everyValley man. Sooner or later she'll leave the country, mark my word,with this Forest Service fellow, for she's in love with him, thoughshe doesn't know it yet."

  With a slow movement Courtrey loosed his arm about Lola and lifted herfrom him. His eyes were narrowed as he looked into her face.

  "For God's sake!" he said, "what makes you think that?"

  "Knowledge," said Lola, "long knowledge of women and men."

  "If I thought that," said Courtrey slowly, his eyes losing sight ofher as he seemed to look beyond her. "If--I--thought that--why, hell!If that's th' truth--why, it--it's th' lever!"

  And he rose abruptly, though he had just settled himself in Lola'sapartment for a pleasant chat, as was his habit whenever he rode infrom the Stronghold.

  "Lola," he said presently, "I might's well tell you that I'm plannin'to have this girl for mine,--_mine_, you understand, legally, by law.I can't have her like I've had you. She'd blow my head off th' firsttime I stopped holdin' her hands." He laughed at the picture he hadconjured, then went on.

  "An' so I feel grateful to you, old girl, for that remark. It sets methinkin'." And he stooped and kissed her on the lips. The womanreturned the kiss, a wonderful caress, slow, soft, alluring, but theman did not notice.

  His face was flushed, his eyes studying.

  Then he swung quickly out through the Golden, Cloud, and Lola slippedlimply down on a couch and covered her ashen cheeks with her hands.

  "Oh, Buck!" she whispered brokenly, "Oh, Buck! Buck!"

  * * * * *

  Courtrey went straight home, still, cold, thinking hard. His henchmenleft him in solitude after the first word or two. They knew him well,and that something was brewing.

  At midnight that night he roused Wylackie Bob, Black Bart and the manwho was known as Arizona, and the four of them went out on the levelsfor a secret talk.

  The next day the master of the Stronghold rode away on Bolt. As heleft, Ellen, standing in the doorway like a pale ghost, lifted hertragic eyes to his face with the look of a faithful dog.

  "Where you goin', Buck?" she asked timidly.

  "Off," said the man shortly.

  "Ain't you goin'--goin' to kiss me?"

  He laughed cruelly.

  "Not after what I ben a-hearin', I ain't!"

  She sprang forward, catching at his knee.

  "What--what you ben a-hearin'? There ain't nothin' about me you coulda-heard, Buck, dear! Nothin' in this world! I ben true to you as yourshadow!"

  Every soul within hearing knew the words for the utter and absolutetruth, yet Courtrey looked at Wylackie Bob, at Arizona, and laughed.

  "Like hell, you have!" he said, struck the Ironwood and was gonearound the corner of the house with the sound of thunder.

  Ellen wet her lips and looked around like a wounded animal.

  Her brother Cleve, saddling up a little way apart, cast a longstudying glance at Wylackie and Arizona. He jerked the cinch sosavagely that the horse leaped and struck.

  For four days there was absolute dearth at the Stronghold.

  Courtrey did not return. Ellen timidly tried to find out from the_vaqueros_ where he had gone, but they evaded her.

  Then, on the morning of that day, Steptoe Service, grinning andimportant, came to the Stronghold and served on Ellen a summons insuit for divorce.

  She met him at the door and invited him in, timidly and shyly, but hestood on the stone and made known his business.

  At first she did not understand, was like a child told something toodeep for its intellect to grasp, bewildered.

  Then, when Service made it brutally plain, she slipped down alongthe doorpost like a wilted lily and lay long and white on thesand-scrubbed floor. Her women, loving her desperately, gathered herup and shut the door in the sheriff's face.

  They sent for Cleve, and not even the presence of Black Bart in thenear corral could keep the brother from running into the darkened roomwhere Ellen lay, too stunned to rally.

  "Damn him!" he gritted, falling on his knees beside her, "this'swhat's come of it! I ben lookin' for something of its like. Let himgo. We'll leave Lost Valley, Ellen. We'll go out an' start anotherlife, begin all over again. We're both too young to be floored by aman like Courtrey. Let him go."

  But the woman turned her waxen face to the wall and shook her head.

  "There ain't no life in this world for me without Buck," shewhispered. "If he don't want me, I don't want myself."

  "You dont' want to hang to him, do you, Sis?" begged the man, "don'twant to stay at th' Stronghold after this?"

  "Rather stay here under Buck's feet like th' poorest of his dogs thanbe well-off somewheres where I couldn't never see him again, neverlook in his face."

  "God!" groaned Cleve, "you love him like that!"

  "Yes," said Ellen, wearily, "like that."

  "Then by th' Eternal!" swore Cleve softly, "here you'll stay if ittakes all th' law in th' United States to keep you here. I'll fileyour answer tomorrow--protest to th' last word!"

  And he rode into Corvan, only to find that Courtrey and Courtrey'sinfluence had been there before him, that a cold sense of disasterseemed to permeate the town and all those whom he met therein.

  He found the "Court House crowd" tight-lipped and careful.

  And Ben Garland set the day for trial at a ridiculously early date,for all the world as if the thing had been cut and dried at somesecret conclave.

  Courtrey was playing his game with a daring hand, true to his name andhabit.

  Dusk was falling in Lost Valley. The long blue shadows had swept outfrom the Rockface, covering first the homesteads under the Wall, thenthe great grazing stretches, then Corvan, then the open levels again,then the mouth of Black Coulee and lastly sweeping eastward to hushthe life at Last's Holding in that soft, sweet quiet which comes withthe day's work done.

  Out at the corrals Billy and Conford, Jack and Bent and Curly, put thefinishing touches to t
he routine of precaution which the Holding neverrelaxed, day or night.

  Inside the dusky living room where the bright blankets glowed on thewalls and the _ollas_ hung in the deep window places, Tharon Last satat the little old melodeon and played her nameless tunes. She did notlook at the yellowed keys. Instead her blue eyes, deep and glowing,wandered down along the southern slopes and she was lost inunconscious dreams. Once again she saw the trim figure of the forestman as she had seen him come stiffly into her range of vision that dayin Corvan. She recalled his quiet eyes, dark and speaking, the odd wayhis hair went straight back from his forehead. She wondered why sheshould think of him at all.

  He was against her--was a force that played directly against all herplans of life, her precepts. Moreover, she had told him she feared hewas soft--like a woman--some women--that there was in him a lack ofthe straight man-courage which was the only standard in Lost Valley.

  And yet--she waited on his word, somehow--held her hand from her swornduty for a while, waiting--for what?

  Ah, she knew! Deep in the soul of her she knew, vaguely and dimly tobe sure, but she knew that it was for the time when the die should becast--that he might prove himself for what he was.

  For some vague reason she knew she would not kill Courtrey until thisman stood by.

  She wondered what Courtrey meant by this strange quiet following thetragic moment at the Stronghold steps when the Vigilantes hadchallenged him and ridden away.

  And then, all suddenly, into her dreaming there came the sound of ahorse's hoofs on the sounding-board without--slow hoofs, uncertain.For one swift second that sound, coming out of the dusk with itsuncertainty, sent a chill of memory down her nerves. So had come ElRey that night in spring when he brought Jim Last home to die!

  She rose swiftly and silently and stepped to the western door.

  There, in the shadows and the softness of coming night, a horse loomedalong the green stretch, came plodding up to stop and stand beforeher, a brown horse, with the stirrups of his saddle hung on thepommel, his rein tied short up--Captain, the good, common friend ofKenset--of the--foothills!

  Tharon felt the blood pour back upon her heart and stay there for anawful moment. She put up a hand and touched her throat, and to saveher life she did not know why this sudden sickening fear should comeupon her.

  She had seen men killed, had known tragedy and loss and heartache, butnever before had she seen the crest of the distant Wall to dance uponthe pale skyline so. Then she whirled into the house and her youngvoice pealed out a call--Billy, Conford, Bent--she drew them to herrunning through the deep house--to point to the silent messenger andquestion them with wide blue eyes where fear rose up like a livingthing.

  Billy at her shoulder, looked not at Captain, but at her.

  A sigh lifted his breast, but he stifled it at birth and turned withthe others back toward the corrals. Tharon, running toward the deeproom where the Virgin stood in Her everlasting beauty, unfastened hersoft white dress as she ran. Inside she flung herself on her kneesbefore the Holy Mother and poured out a trembling prayer.

  "Not that! Oh, Mary, not that! Let it not be _that_!" she whisperedthickly. Then she was up, into her riding clothes--was out where theboys were hurriedly saddling the Finger Marks. Presently she was on ElRey and shooting like a silver shaft in the summer dusk down along thegreen levels toward the east. They rode in silence, Conford, Bent,Jack, Curly, Billy and herself, and a thousand thoughts were boilingmiserably in two hearts.

  El Rey, Golden, Redbuck, Drumfire, Westwind and Sweetheart, they wentdown along the sounding dark plain, a magnificent band. The wholeearth seemed to resound to the thunder of their going, and for once intheir lives her beauties could not run fast enough for the mistress ofLast's.

  They went like the wind itself, and yet they were slow to Tharon.

  Out of the open levels there swung up to meet them and to fade intothe night, the standing willows by the Silver Hollow. The slopingstretches began to lift, dotted by the oaks and digger-pines for whosesake Kenset had come to Lost Valley. They shot through them, up alongthe sharply lifting skirts of the hills, in between the guarding pinesthat formed the gateway to the little glade where the singing streamwent down and the cabin stood at the head. Tharon's throat was tight,as if a hand pressed hard upon it. The high tops of the pines seemedto cut the sky grotesquely. There was no light at the dim log house,no sound in the silent glade. Off to the right they heard the low ofthe little red cow which served the forest man with milk.

  They pounded to a sliding stop in the cabin's yard and Conford calledsharply into the silent darkness.

  "Kenset! Hello--Kenset!"

  Tharon held her breath and listened. There was no sound except a nightbird calling from the highest pine-tip.

  Carefully the men dismounted.

  "You stay up, Tharon, dear," the foreman said quietly, "until we lookaround."

  But to save her life the girl could not. What was this trembling thatseized her limbs? Why did the stars, come out on the purple sky, shiftso strangely to her eyes? She slipped off El Rey and stood by hisshoulder waiting. Conford struck a flare and lit a candle, holding itcarefully before him, shielding it with his palm behind it to throwthe gleam away from his face, into the cabin. The pale light illuminedthe whole interior, and it was empty. The keen eyes of the riders wentover every inch of space before they entered--along the walls, in thebed, under the tables. Then they filed in and Tharon followed, gazingaround with eyes that ached behind their lids. There on the northernwall between the windows, was the great spread of the beautifulpicture she had helped the forest man to hang. There were his books onthe table's edge. She looked twice--the last one on the pile at acertain corner was just as she had placed it there, a trifle crookedwith the edge, but neatly in line with those beneath it. There was thebig chair in which she had waited while he made the little meal--therewas his desk in the ingle nook, his maps upon it. It was all sofamiliar, so filled with his personality, that Tharon felt the verypower of his dark eyes, smiling, grave----

  "Hello!" said Jack Masters suddenly. "Burt, what's this?"

  Conford stepped quickly around the table and held his candle down.

  Tharon pushed forward and looked over the leaning shoulders.

  There on the brown and green grass rug a rich dark stain wasdrying--blood, some three days old.

  Then, indeed, did the universe sag and darken to the Mistress ofLast's.

  She put out a hand to steady herself and found it grasped in thestrong one of Billy, who stood at her shoulder like her shadow.

  "Steady!" he whispered. "Steady, Tharon."

  She drew her trembling fingers across her eyes, wet her lips whichfelt dry as ashes. The same ache that had come with Jim Last's finalsmile was already in her heart, but intensified a thousand times. Shefelt all suddenly, as if there was nothing in Lost Valley worth while,nothing in all the world! That drying stain at her feet seemed to shutout the sun, moon and stars with its sinister darkness. She felt anausea at the pit of her stomach, a need for air in her crampedlungs.

  Strange, she had never known that one could be so detached from allfamiliar things, could seem so lost in a sea of stupid agony. Why wasit so? If this dark blot of blood had come from the veins of Billynow, of Conford, or Jack or Curly, her own men, would she have losther grip like this? And then she became dully conscious that Billy hadput her in the big chair by the table and had joined the others intheir exhaustive search for any clew to the tragedy. She saw the moonrising over the tops of the pine trees at the glade's edge, heard thelittle song of the running stream.

  That was the little stream that Kenset had looked for in his idealspot, this was the home he had made for himself, these were the thingsof the other life he had known, these soft, dark pictures, the bookson the tables, the brass things shining in the light from the lamp....She knew that she was cold in the summer night, that she was staringmiserably out of the open door, scarcely conscious of the scatteredvoices of her men, searching, search
ing, hunting, in widening circlesoutside.... Then they came back talking in low voices and she rousedherself desperately. Her limbs were stiff when she rose from the bigchair, her hands were icy.

  "No use, Tharon," said Conford quietly, "we can't find a damned thing.If Courtrey's bunch killed Kenset they made a clean get-away with allevidence. That much has th' new law done in th' Valley--killed th'insolence of th' gun man. Let's go home."

  It was Billy, faithful and still, who helped her--for the first timein her life!--to mount a horse. She went up on El Rey as if shewere old. Then they were riding down the smooth floor of the littleglade, leaving that darkened cabin at its head to stand in tragicloneliness.

  She saw the tops of the guarding pines at the gateway, rode outbetween them. The moon was up in majesty, and by its light JackMasters suddenly leaned down to look at something, pulled up, sweptdown from his saddle, cowboy fashion, hanging by a foot and a hand,and picked up something which he examined keenly.

  "Look," he said quickly, "th' beet-man's badge!"

  He held out on his palm a small dark object, the copper-colouredshield which had shone on Kenset's breast!

  Its double-tongued fastener was twisted far awry, as if it had beenwrenched away by violence.

  Conford turned and looked back to the cabin, as if he measured thedistance.

  "There's been funny work here as sure's hell," he said profoundly.

  Then they rode on, all silent, thinking. It was near dawn when theyrode up along the sounding-board and put in at Last's. Billy reachedup tender arms and took Tharon off El Rey, and for the first time shegave herself wearily into them as if she were done.

  As she opened the door into her own dusky room the pale Virgin,touched by a silver shaft of the sinking moon, stood out in startling,ethereal beauty, Her meek hands folded on Her breast. Tharon Laststumbled forward and sank in a heap at Her feet, her arms about thestatue's knees.

  "Hail--Mary--intercede for--him--" she faltered, and then the shiningVirgin, the dim mystery of the shadowy room, faded out to leave herfor the first time in her strong life, a bit of senseless clay.

  When she again opened her eyes the little winds of day were fanningher cheeks and old Anita was tugging at her shoulders, voluble withfright.

  To the riders of Last's the tragedy was nothing more than any otherthat they had known in Lost Valley. They went about their work asusual.

  Only Billy was filled with a sickening anguish at the knowledge thathe was not able to offer one smallest saving straw to the girl in thebig house--for Billy knew.

  All day Tharon sat like a rock in her own room, staring with unseeingeyes at the blank whitewashed walls. She did not yet know what ailedher, why this killing, more than that of poor Harkness, should makeher sick to her soul's foundations. Yet it was so. Even the thought ofher sworn duty was vague before her for a time. Then it seemed to comeforward out of the mass of fleeting memories--Kenset that day atBaston's steps shapely, trim, halted--Kenset laughing over the littlemeal beside the table where the books lay--Kenset grasping hershoulder when she whirled to mount El Rey and challenge the Strongholdsingle-handed--to come forward like a calming, steadying thing andturn the pain to purpose.

  There was no one now to hold her back, no vital hands to press hersupon a beating heart, to make her untrue to her given word!

  Now she could go out, reckless and grim in her utter disregard of theoutcome, and kill Courtrey where he stood. The time had come. Thereshould be another cross in the granite beneath the pointing pine.

  As if the whirling universe settled back to its ordered place theright proportion came back to her vision, the breath seemed to lightenher holden lungs.

  Once again the girl arose and steadied herself, smoothed her tawnyhair, looked at her hands to find them free from the shaking that hadweakened them.

  She dressed herself and went out among her people, quiet and pale.

  The twilight had fallen and all the western part of the Valley wasblue with shadow. Only on Kenset's foothills was the rosy lightglowing, a tragic, aching light, it seemed to her. She saw all thelittle world of Lost Valley with new eyes, sombre eyes, in which therewas no sense of its beauty. She wondered anxiously how soon she couldmeet Courtrey, and where. And then with the suddenness of an orderedplay, the question was answered for her, for out of the dusk and thepurple shadows a Pomo rider came on a running pony and halted out astone's throw, calling for the "Senorita," his hands held up in tokenof friendliness.

  Without a thought of treachery Tharon went out to him and took theletter he handed her--swinging around for flight as the paper left hishand, for the riders of Last's were known all up and down the land.This dusky messenger took no chances he could avoid. He was well downalong the slope by the time the boys came clanking around the house.

  And Tharon, standing in the twilight like a slim white ghost, wasstaring over their heads, her lips ashen, the scrawled lettertrembling in her hands. For this is what she read, straining her youngeyes in the fading light.

  "Tharon. You must know by now that I mean bisness. All this Vigilant bisness ain't a-goin' to help things eny. If it hadn't of ben that I love you, what you think I'd a-done to that bunch? That's th' truth. I ben holdin' off thinkin' you'd come to your senses an' see that Buck Courtrey ain't to be met with vilence. Now I'm playin' my trump card--now, tonight.

  "Lola says you love this dude from below. That don't cut no ice with me. I ain't carin' for no love from you at present. All I want is _you_. I can make you love me once I've got you safe at th' Stronghold. I ain't never failed with no woman yet. An' I mean to have you, fair means or foul.

  "Rather have you fair. So here's my last word.

  "This Kenset ain't dead--yet. I went and took him. I've got him safe as hell in the Canon Country. Ain't no man in th' Valley can find God's Cup but me. He's guarded an' there's a lookout on th' peak above th' Cup that can see a signal fire at th' Stronghold. One fire out by my big corral means 'Send him out by False Ridge with ten days' grub.' Two fires means 'Put a true bullet in his head an' leave him there.' Now, here's the word. I've got a case fixed up to divorce Ellen, legal. If you'll marry me soon's I'm free, I'll build one fire out by that corral.

  "If you say yes, you build one fire out by th' cottonwoods to th' left of the Holdin'. I'm watchin' an' will see it at once. You can see for yourself I mean bisness, as if you'll watch too, you'll see that one fire here.

  COURTREY."

  For a long moment the Mistress of Last's stood in profound quiet, asif she could not move. She was held in a trance like those dreadfulnight-dreams when one is locked in deadly inertia, helpless. The netwhich had been weaving in Courtrey's fertile brain was finished,flung, and closing in upon her before she knew of its existence. Anawe of his cleverness, his trickery, gripped her in a clutch of ice.The whole fabric of her own desires and plans and purposes seemed tocrumple like the white ash in a dead fire, leaving her nothing. Shehad been out-witted instead of outfought. One more evidence of theman's baseness, his unscrupulous cunning.

  He played his trump card and it was a winner, sweeping the table--forshe knew before she finished that difficult reading that she would doanything in all the world to stop that "true bullet" in the heart thathad pounded beneath her open palms.... Knew she would break her givenword to Jim Last--knew she would forsake the Holding--that she wouldcrawl to Courtrey's feet and kiss his hand, if only he would spareKenset of the foothills, would send him out to that vague world ofbelow, never to return!

  She swayed drunkenly on her feet for a time that seemed ages long.Then life came back in her with a rush. She broke the nightmare dreamand gasped out a broken command to her faithful ones.

  "Billy!" she said thickly, "Oh, Billy! If you love me, run! Run an'build a fire--one fire!--only _one_ fire, Billy, dear--out by th'cottonwoods to th' left--of th' Holdin'!"

  Then she went and sat limply down on the step at the western door,leaned
her head against the deep adobe wall, and fell to weeping as ifthe very heart in her would wash itself away in tears.

  And Billy, numb with anguish but true to the love he bore her, wentswiftly out and set that beacon glowing. Its red light flaring againstthe blue darkness of the falling night seemed like a bodeful omen ofsorrow and disaster, of death and failure and despair.

  Tharon on the sill roused herself to watch it leap and glow, thenturned her deep eyes to where she knew the Stronghold lay.

  Presently out upon the distant black curtain of the night there flaredthat other fire, signal of life to Kenset somewhere in the CanonCountry--and then her lips drew into a thin hard line and shestraightened her young form stiffly up, put a hand hard upon herbreast.

  "A little time, Courtrey!" she whispered to herself, "Jus' a littletime an' luck, an' I'll give you th' double-cross or die, damn yoursoul to hell!"

  Billy, coming softly in along the adobe wall, caught the whisper,felt rather than heard its meaning, and turned back with the step of acat.

  * * * * *

  An hour later, when all the Holding was quiet for the night, driftingto early rest after the day's hard work, the Mistress of Last's,booted, dressed in riding clothes, her fair head covered by asombrero, her daddy's guns at her hips, crept softly to the gate of ElRey's own corral. She went like a thief, crouching, watching, withouta sound, and saddled the big stallion in careful softness. She led himgently out and around toward the cottonwoods, away from the house.When she was well away she put foot to stirrup and went up as the kingleaped for his accustomed flight.

  But Tharon pulled him down. She wanted no thunder on the sounding-boardtonight. But soft as she had been, as careful, there was one at theHolding who followed her every act, who went for a horse, too, whosaddled Drumfire in silence and who crept down the sounding-board--Billythe faithful. Far down along the plain toward the Black Coulee he letthe red roan out, so that the girl, keen of hearing as of sight, caughtthe following beat of hoofs, stopped, listened, understood and reined ElRey up to wait.

  And soon out of the shadows cast by the eastern ramparts, where themoon was rising, she saw the rider coming. A quick mist of tearssuffused her eyes, a sick feeling gripped her heart.

  Here was another mixed in the sorry tangle! She had always knownvaguely that Billy was one with her, that his heart was the deep heartof her friend.

  He was the one she always wanted near her in times of stress, it waswith him she liked to ride in the Big Shadow when the sun went downbehind the Canon Country.

  But now she did not want him. She had a keen desire to see him safelyout of this--this which was to be the end, one way or the other, ofthe blood-feud between the Stronghold and Last's.

  Now as he loped up and stopped abreast of her in silence, she reachedout a hand and caught his in a close clasp.

  "I don't want you, Billy, dear," she said miserably, "not because Idon't love you, but because I ain't a-goin' to see you shot byCourtrey's gang. This is one time, boy, when I want you to leave mealone, to go back without me."

  The rider shook his head against the stars.

  "Couldn't do it, little girl," he said wistfully, "you know I couldn'tdo it."

  "Ain't I your mistress, Billy?" asked Tharon sternly. "Ain't I yourboss?"

  "Sure are," said the boy with conviction.

  "Ain't I always been a good boss to you?"

  "Best in th' world. Good as Jim Last."

  "Then," said Tharon sharply, "it's up to you to take my orders. Iorder you now--go back."

  The cowboy leaned down suddenly and kissed the hand he held.

  "I'm at your shoulder, Tharon, dear," he said with simple dignity,"like your shadow. At your foot like the dogs that never forsake th'herds. I couldn't go back an' leave you--not though I died for ittonight.

  "We'll say no more about it. I don't know where you're goin', butwherever it is, there I'm goin', too, an' on my way. You can tell meor not, just as you please, but let's go."

  For a long time Tharon Last sat in the starlight and watched thecrests of the distant mountains fringed with the silver of the moonthat was rising behind them, and her throat ached with tears. Allthese things that hurt her, these unknown, tangled things that sheknew dimly meant Life, had come to her with the advent of Kenset inLost Valley. She wished passionately for a fleeting moment that he hadnever come, that the old swinging, rushing life of the ranges hadnever known his holding influence. Then she felt again the hammeringof his heart beneath her palms, and nothing mattered in all the worldbeside.

  It was a thing beyond her ken, something ordered by fate. She must goon, blindly as running waters, regardless of all that drowned.

  But she loosed her hand from Billy's, leaned to his shoulder, put herarm about his neck and drew his face to hers. Softly, tenderly, shekissed him upon the lips, and she did not know that that was thecruelest thing she had ever done in all her kindly life, did not seethe deathly pallor that overspread his face.

  "I'm goin' to th' Canon Country, Billy," she said simply, "to find th'Cup o' God an' Kenset."

  Then she straightened in her saddle and gave El Rey the rein.

  * * * * *

  It was two of the clock by the starry heavens when these two ridersentered the blind opening in the Rockface and disappeared. El Rey, themighty, tossed his great head and whistled, stamped his hoofs in thedead sift of the silencing floor. He had never before lost sight ofthe sky, never felt other breath in his nostrils than the keen plain'swind.

  Now he shook himself and halted, went on again, and again halted, tobe urged forward by Tharon's spurred heels in his flanks. Up throughthe eerie pass they went without speech, for each heart was filled tooverflowing with thoughts and fears.

  To Billy there was something fateful, bodeful in the dead darkness,the stillness. It seemed to him as if he left forever behind him theopen life of the ranges, the gay and careless days of riding afterTharon's cattle.

  For five years he had lived at Last's, under master and mistress,content, happy. The half-remembered world of below had never calledhim. The light on the table under the swinging lamp with Tharon's facetherein, the murmur of the stream through her garden, the whisper ofthe cottonwoods, these had been sufficient. He had, subconsciously,thanked his Maker for these things, had served them with a wholeheart. They had been his all, his life. Now the cottonwoods seemed faraway, remote, the life of the deep ranch house a thing of long ago.All these things had given way to something that sapped the sunlightfrom the air, the very blueness from the vaulted skies, something thathad come with the quiet man of the pine-tree badge. So Billy sighed inthe darkness and sat easily on Drumfire, his slim left hand fidgetingwith the swinging rein.

  And Tharon was lost, too, in a maze of thoughts. She sat straightas a lance, tense, alive, keen, staring into the narrow bore of the highceiled cut, thinking feverishly. Was Kenset really alive? HadCourtrey been square with her? Or was he even now lying stiff andstark somewhere in the high cuts, his dark eyes dull with death, thatbeating heart forever stilled? She caught her breath with a whistlingsigh, felt her head swim at the picture. If he was--_if_--_he_--_was_--!She fingered the big guns at her hip and savagery took hold of her.Courtrey's left wrist to match his right. Then some pretty work abouthim to make him wait--then a shot through his stomach--he would spitblood and reel, but he wouldn't die--the butcher!--for a little while,and she would taunt him with Harkness--and Jim. Last shot in theback--with Old Pete--and with--with Kenset--the one man--Oh, the oneman in all the world whose quiet smile was unforgettable, whose vitalhands were upon hers now, like ghost-hands, would always be upon hersif she lived to be old like Anita or died at dawn today! And Kensethad counseled her to peace! To keep the stain of blood from her ownhands! She laughed aloud, suddenly, a ghastly sound that made coldchills go down her rider's spine, for it was the mad laughter of theblood-lust! Billy knew that Jim Last in his best moments was neverso coldly a k
iller as his daughter was tonight.

  So they traversed the roofed cut and came out into the starlight ofthe first canyon. Up this they went in single file. They passed theplace where Albright had found the dark spray on the canyon wall, thestanding rock where the gun with the untrue firing pin had kicked awayits shell. A little farther on was the disturbed and trampled heap ofslide which had held Old Pete's body. In silence they rode on, thehorses' hoofs striking a million echoes from the reverberatingcrosscuts.

  The moon was shining above, but here there was only a sifted light, aghostly radiance of starlight and painted walls. Tharon, riding ahead,went unerringly forward as if she traveled the open ways of the Valleyfloor. She turned from the main canyon toward the left and passed themouth of Old Pete's snow-bed. Between this and that standing spire andpinnacle she went, with a strong certainty that presently stirredBilly to speech.

  "Tharon, dear," he said gently, "hadn't we better leave a mark or twoalong this-a-way? Ain't you got no landmarks?"

  "Can if you want," the girl said briefly, "I don't need landmarks."

  "Then how you know the way? There ain't no one knows th' CanonCountry--but Courtrey."

  "I don't know it," she said simply but with profound conviction. "I'm_feelin'_ it, Billy. I know I'm goin' straight to th' Cup o' God. I'mblind as a bat, it seems, yet goin' straight."

  She lifted a hand and crossed herself.

  "Goin' straight--Mary willin'--an' I'll come back straight. It lies upthere an' to th' left again." She made a wide gesture that swept upand out, embracing the towering walls, the half-seen peaks against thestars.

  Billy shut his lips and said no more.

  Up there lay False Ridge, the sinister, dropping spine that came downfrom the uplands outside where the real great world began, and luredthose who traveled down it to crumbling precipice and yawning pit, tosliding slope and slant that, once ridden down, could never be scaledagain, according to the weird stories that were told of it.

  But if Tharon went to the Canons, there lay his trail, too. If shewent down False Ridge to death in the pits and waterless cuts, heasked no better lot than to follow--the faithful dog at her foot, theshadow at her shoulder.

  And so it was that dawn crept up the blue-velvet of the night sky andsent its steel-blue light deep in the painted splits, and they rodeunerringly forward up the sounding passes.

  When the light increased enough to show the way they came abruptly tothe spot where it was necessary to leave the horses. The floor of thecanyon up which they were traveling lifted sharply in one huge step,breast-high to a man.

  Tharon in the lead halted and looked for a moment all up and down thewondrous maze of pale, tall openings that encompassed them all round.

  She turned in her saddle and looked back the way they had come. Therewas darker shadow, going downward, but here and there those palemouths gaped, long ribbons of space dropping from the heights abovedown to their level.

  Up any one a man might turn and lose himself completely, for they inturn were cut and ribboned with other mouths, leaving spires and wallsand faces a thousand-fold on every hand.

  Tharon, even in the tensity and preoccupation of the hour, drew in herbreath and the pupils of her blue eyes spread.

  "Th' Canon Country!" she said softly, "I always knew it would be likethis--too great to tell about! I knew it would hold somethin' forme--always knew it--either life an' its best--or death."

  There was a simple grandeur about the earnest words, and Billy, hisface grey in the steely light, felt the heart in his breast thrillwith their portent.

  No matter what the Canons held for her--either that gloriousfulfillment of life, or the simple austerity of death--he would have apart in it, would have served her to the last, true to the love hebore her, true to himself.

  And nothing--nothing under God's heaven, save death itself--could everwipe out the memory of that kiss, given from the depths of her lovingheart, the sign-manuel of her undying affection and friendship, theone and only touch of her inviolate red lips that he had ever knownthe Mistress of Last's to give to any man, save Jim Last himself.

  He wiped a hand across his forehead, damp with more than the nightcold, and dismounted.

  "We'll leave th' horses here," he said. "I've an extra rope to stringacross an' make a small corral."

  He did not add that he would fasten this slim barrier lightly, so thata horse that really wanted to break out--in the frantic madness ofthirst, say,--might do so.

  Then he set about his task--but Tharon stood with strained eyeslooking up--and up--and ever up to the dimly appearing, looming spineof False Ridge.

  Over there, she knew in her heart, lay the hidden Cup o' God, with itssecret, the secret that meant all the world to her.