So old Pete, the snow-packer, had paid the price of gallantry. The bullet he had averted from Tharon Last’s young head that day in the Golden Cloud but sheathed itself to wait for him. All the Valley knew it. Not a soul beneath the Rockface but knew beyond a shadow of a doubt who, or whose agents, had followed Pete that night to the CaÑon Country. Whispers went flying about as usual, and as usual nothing happened.

When the news of this came to Last’s Holding the mistress sat down at the big desk in the living room, laid her tawny head on her arms and wept.

There was in her a new softness, a new feeling of misery––as if one had wantonly killed a rollicking puppy before her eyes. Those tears were Old Pete’s requiem. She dried them quickly, however, and set another notch to her score with Courtrey.

It was then that the waiting game ceased abruptly.

Tharon, riding on El Rey, went in to Corvan. 188 She tied the horse at the Court House steps and went boldly in to the sheriff’s office.

Behind her were Billy, like her shadow, and the sane and quiet Conford.

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

“Step Service,” said the girl straightly, “when are you goin’ to look into 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 of Menlo 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 whirled from the Court House. 189

As she ran across the street to where the Finger Marks were tied, she came 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’s shoulder, her eyes upraised to his, “an’ see what law there is in Lost Valley! Step Service has buried th’ snow-packer––without a by-your-leave from nobody! Th’ man––or woman––that kills Courtrey now ’counts for three men––Harkness, Last an’ Pete. I’m on my way to th’ Stronghold.”

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

“Not now,” he said in that compelling low voice, “not now. I want to talk 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 anger at the man. He put a hand on Kenset’s arm.

“Let go,” he said, but Kenset shook him off. 190

“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, her lips apart, seemed struggling against an unknown force. She put up a hand and tried to dislodge his fingers on her shoulder, but could not.

Presently she wet her lips and looked around the street, already filled 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 the steps of Baston’s store a few cowboys watched. There were no Stronghold men in town, for it was too early in the day.

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

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

He was about to take a decided step, to put 191 himself on record in something that did not concern his work in the Valley.

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

If he flung himself and his knowledge of the outside world and the law into this thing he sunk abruptly the thing for which he had come to Lost Valley––the middle course, the influence for order that he had hoped 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 this blue-eyed girl from riding north to challenge Courtrey on his doorstep.

The blood congealed about his heart at the thought.

Where the rolling levels came up to the confines of the town they rode out far enough to be safe from eavesdroppers, halted and faced each other.

“Miss Last,” said Kenset gently, “I’m a stranger to you. I have little or no influence with you, but I beg you to listen to me. You say there is no help for the conditions existing in Lost Valley. That outrage follows outrage. True. I grant the thing is appalling. But there is redress. 192 There is a law above the sheriff, when it can be proven that that officer has refused to do his duty. That law is invested in the coroner. Your coroner can arrest your sheriff. He can investigate a murder––he can issue a warrant and serve it anywhere in the State. He can 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 to stand behind him? You saw what happened to Pete. He struck up Courtrey’s arm when he shot at Tharon one night last spring. Th’ same thing’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 do no shooting, something like that will be pulled off here, and shortly.”

He looked directly at Tharon, and for the first time in her life she felt 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, 193 turned grey beneath his tan. He saw something which none other did, a thing that darkened the heavens all suddenly.

“Then,” said Kenset quietly, “we’ll have to do without your promise and go ahead anyway. We’ll ride back to town, demand of Service a proper 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 our troubles? 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 falling into line at his side.

When Kenset, quietly impervious to the veiled hostility that met him everywhere, faced Steptoe Service and made his request, that dignitary felt a chill go down his spine. Like Old Pete he felt the man beneath the surface. He met him, however, with bluster and refused all reopening of a matter which he declared settled with the burial of the snow-packer in the sliding caÑons where he was found. 194

“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 summer sunlight once more, “if you have any friends whom you think would stand for the right, send for them.”

“Th’ Vigilantes,” said the girl, “we’ll gather them in twenty-four hours.”

“The Vigilantes?”

“Th’ settlers,” said Conford.

“All right. Until they are here we’ll guard the mouth of this caÑon that leads into the Rockface, as I understand it. Now take me to this man Banner.”

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

“Mary,” he said, “bring me my boots an’ guns. I been layin’ for this day ever sence I been in office. I wisht Jim Last was here to witness it.”

In two hours Kenset was on his way to the blind mouth of the pass that led into the CaÑon Country, Tharon was shooting back to the Holding on El Rey to put things on a watching basis there, 195 while Conford and Billy went south and west to rouse the Vigilantes.

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

All through the golden hours of that noonday while he jogged steadily on Captain, Kenset was thinking. He had food for thought, indeed. He carried a gun at last––he who had ridden the Valley unarmed, had meant never to carry one. He felt a stir within him of savagery, of excitement.

He meant to have justice done, to put a hard hand on the law of Lost Valley. Murders uninvestigated, cattle stolen at will, settlers’ homes burned over their heads, their hearths blown up by planted powder when they returned from any small trip, their horses run off––these things had seemed to him preposterous, mere shadows of facts. Now they were down to straight points before him, tangible, solid. He got them from the 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 door entered, made his bed just inside the dead black passage, and watched while Banner, weary and still weak, slept in his blankets beside him. 196

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

More than once in the quiet night that followed, Kenset wiped a hand across 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 burned him when he thought of her pulling those sinister blue guns on Courtrey? Did he fear to see her kill Courtrey––to see that shadowy stain on her hands––or did he fear something worse, infinitely worse––to see Courtrey, famous gun man, beat her to it!

He shuddered and sweat in the clear cold of the starlit night and searched his bewildered heart. He could find no answer save and except the 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 so coolly of this promised killing! He recalled the earnest frown between her brows, the simple directness of her duty as she saw it and told it to him.

Either way––either way––she was lost to him 197 forever––There he caught himself and started all over again.

What was she to him?

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

What did he want her to be? One moment he ached with her loveliness––the next he shuddered at her savagery.

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

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

Near dawn Banner awoke, refreshed and stronger, and made him lie down for a few hours’ sleep.

When he awoke the sun was well up along the heavens and Banner was offering him a piece of dry bread and some jerky, spiced and smoked and 198 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 along th’ Wall at th’ south––that’ll be Jameson, Hill and Thomas, an’ some others––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’ up from 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, bent on the second step of the program to which they had pledged themselves that night at Last’s Holding. Tharon was there, too, and with her Bent Smith on Golden.

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

Always she had dreamed of the CaÑon Country. Always she had wondered what it was like. When she left the mouth of the black roofed cut 199 and came out into the narrow, rockwalled caÑon with its painted faces reaching up into the very skies, she gasped with amaze. Above her head she could see the endless cuts and crosscuts, the standing spires and narrow wedgelike walls that made a labyrinthian maze.

Billy, close beside her, as always, watched her with a pensive sadness.

And so the Vigilantes went in and up along the lower ways. There were those among them who had been here before, who from time to time had accompanied the snow-packer on his nightly trips just for the curiosity of the thing. These several men, among whom were Albright from 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 a running walk.

And so it was, that, while the sun was still shining on the high peaks above and the caÑons were filled with a strange pink light reflected from the red and yellow faces of the rock, the Vigilantes came suddenly to a halt, for Albright had stopped.

“Here’s where it happened,” he said, “there’s a blood-sign.” And he pointed to the Wall at a spot about breast high. A thin dark line, no wider than a blade of grass and about as long, spraying out to nothing at the upper end, leaned along the 200 rock like a native marking. No other 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 of dust-like powdery rock-slide that lay everywhere along the walls.

It took Albright five minutes by Kenset’s watch to find the disturbed and clumsily smoothed dump which held all that was mortal of the snow-packer.

“Miss Last,” said Kenset as the men began to dig with the spades brought 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 Old Pete. Rolled head-first into a shallow hole––no doubt with jest and laughter––it was his booted foot which first came to view, sticking grotesquely up through the loose slide-stuff.

It was brief work and grim work that followed, 201 and soon the weazened form, bent and stiffened into something hardly human, lay in the soft pink light on the caÑon’s floor.

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

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

“Here,” said Albright, coming back from a short distance down, beneath the 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 and leave 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 floor until 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. 202

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

They stood in their tracks and looked, and the concentration in their eyes 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 the wall 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 of her people.

“Some one went along th’ Wall here,” he waved a slender brown hand at the caÑon face. “Three signs––here––here––here.”

He indicated the heights he had scanned. They stepped a bit nearer and looked. Several pairs of Valley eyes saw what Dick Compos had seen, a sign so fine that few would have called it that––merely a brushing, a smoothing of the fine-sandstone 203 surface where a man’s shoulders, his hips, 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 caÑon to where that thin line sprayed the face. A close shot, such as would be necessary in the darkness of the cut. Albright and Compos both stepped to the rock and stood looking with those narrowed, concentrated eyes.

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

He held it on his palm––an empty shell, such as fitted a .44 Smith and Wesson.

He scanned it minutely, turned it over this way and that, looked at it fore 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 be going back to Corvan.”

And so it was that Old Pete, the snow-packer, went back in state to the Golden Cloud, by relays 204 on men’s shoulders down the sounding passes, through the dead cut, by pack-horse across the levels, lashed stiffly to the saddle, a pitiful burden.

Tharon Last, riding close after the calm fashion of a strong man in the face of tragedy, thought pensively of that night in spring when this 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 mind that Old Pete should sleep in peace under the pointing pine at Last’s Holding––and that his cross should also stand beside those other two in the carved granite.

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

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

He hoped, with a surging tenseness, that this fateful thing was sliding over into his hands to work out, his and Banner’s. He knew full well that he and Banner both were like to be slated for an early death, but he did not care. In Corvan, night had fallen when the cavalcade passed through.

Bullard of the Golden Cloud had the grace to come out and look at the little old man who had worked for him so long and faithfully. But 205 that was all. They carried him home to Last’s and buried him decently at dawn.

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

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

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

It was blue-dusk when they drew up at the corrals beside the fortress house. 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 the board floors, inside, a woman’s pleading voice, and the cattle king came swinging out, his hands at his waist, his two guns covering the crowd.

Tall, straight as a lance, his iron-grey head uncovered, he was a striking figure of a man. His henchmen watched him sharply. At his side clung the slim woman, Ellen, her milky face thin and 206 tragic. He shook 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 demand t’ 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, and gotten 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 face of Tharon Last and drank in its beauty hungrily.

Presently he shifted his gaze and regarded Kenset with a cold light that 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 at death and torture in Round Valley became melting soft as it addressed the 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’ll drive this bunch o’ spawn 207 out o’ here so quick it’ll make your head swim! What do you think you’re doin’?”

“I don’t think. I know now. Know what we can do––what th’ law means.”

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 Arizona stranger were suddenly in the foreground, hands hanging apparently loose and careless, in reality tense as strung wires, ready to snap with fire and lead.

The moment was pregnant. The very air seemed charged with danger and death.

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 far over 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 right arm, and fired with his left. His ball went high in the air, wild. The blood from that tossed right hand spurted over Wylackie Bob beside him, the gun it had held went hurtling away along the earth. 208

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

“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 and snatched it from the spot where it had fallen.

Tall, white as a ghost in the rose-pink light that was tinged with purple, 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 out I’ll pull th’ trigger.”

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

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

Her long white dress clung to her slim form. From far back by the corral fence Cleve Whitmore 209 watched her silently, his hands clenched hard.

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

“God!” whispered the girl, watching, “she loves him! Like I loved Jim Last! Th’ pain’s in her heart, an’ no mistake!”

Then, as if something strong within her folded its iron arm upon itself, she began to back El Rey. “Back out!” she called, “we ain’t no woman-killers!”

With one accord, carefully, watching, the Vigilantes began to back, counting the seconds, expecting each moment to witness the most pitiful 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, out in front they turned as one man and rode away from the Stronghold––and Jim Banner was swearing like a fury, steadily, in a high-pitched voice. 210

“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 to it! 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 down th’ Wall, s’help me!”

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

“Shut up, Jim Banner,” she said tensely. “You’ve only begun. That’s th’ gun, I make no doubt, an’ Ellen knew it––but if we’re worth killin’ we’ll dig into this harder’n ever. Here’s poor Thomas, makes one 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, JosÉ and Anita set up a steaming meal, and they ate like famished 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 his heart. 211

“Lord, Lord,” said Billy to himself, “she’s listenin’ when he speaks like she never listened to any one before!”

In Kenset’s mind drilled over and over again the ceaseless thought “A hand 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 he spoke her name beneath his breath.

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

Then the Vigilantes were gone with jangle of spur and bit-chain, and he was the last to go, standing by Captain in the dim starlight. Tharon stood beside him, and for some unaccountable reason the grim purpose of their acquaintance seemed to drift away, to leave them together, alone under the stars, a man and a maid. Kenset stood for a long moment and looked at the faint outline of her face. She was still in her riding clothes, her 212 head bare with its ribbon half untied in the nape of her slender neck.

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

The riders were gone, the vaqueros were at their posts around the resting stock, the low adobe house was settling into the quiet of the night.

Miserably Kenset looked at this slip of a girl.

She was strange to him, unfathomable. There were depths beneath the changing blue eyes which appalled him. How would he feel toward her when 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 its prevention.

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 and took her hands in his and pressed them against his heart. The pounding of 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 213 that would have cleared the situation, would have told himself or her what was in that pounding heart of his––for to save his life he did not know.

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

“Mr. Kenset,” she said steadily, “you’re always tryin’ to make me weak, to break me down with words an’ looks an’ touches. These hands o’ yours,––damn ’em, they do make me weak! Don’t put ’em on me again!”

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