o hell with you," said the lad bitterly, raising blazing eyes to her
face. "You've made me false t' Courtrey. I'd die first."

"Die, then!" she flung back, "an' tell your master that th' law is
workin' in this Valley at last!"

As the last rider of the cavalcade went down over the slanting edge of
the Cup Rim there came the sound of quick shots snapping in the
distance and the belated sight of riders streaming down from the
Stronghold hurried the descent.

They had reached the level floor of the sunken range and spread out
upon it for better travelling before Courtrey and his men, some ten or
fifteen riders, appeared on the upper crest.

The settlers stopped instantly at a call from Conford, drew together
behind the cattle, turned and faced them. They were too far away for
speech, out of rifle range, but the still, grim defiance of that
compact front halted the outlaw cattle king and his followers.

For the first time in all his years of rising power in Lost Valley
Courtrey felt a challenge. For the first time he knew that a tide was
banking in full force against him. A red rage flushed up under his
dark skin, and he raised a silent fist and shook it at the blue
heavens.

The grim watchers below knew that gesture, significant, majestic,
boded ill to them.

But Tharon Last, muttering to herself in the hatred that possessed her
of late at sight of Courtrey, raised her own doubled fist and shook it
high toward him, an answer, an acceptance of that challenge.

Then they calmly turned and drove the recovered cattle down along the
sloping levels at a fast trot.

The die was struck. Lost Valley was no longer a stamping-ground for
wrong and oppression. It had gone to war.

That night the white and yellow herd bedded at the Holding, _vaqueros_
rode about it all night long, quietly, softly under the stars. The
settlers walked about, smoking, or sat silently in the darkened
living room. At midnight Tharon and young Paula made huge pots of
coffee which they dispensed along with crullers.

By dawn the cattle were well on their way, still safeguarded by the
band of men, down toward the homesteads where they belonged.

During that night of unlighted silence plans had been perfected in low
voices, a name chosen for the band itself. They would call themselves
the Vigilantes, as many another organization had called itself in the
desperate straits that made its existence imperative.

By sundown the hundred head had been dr