per-coloured badge on his breast? What mattered it that he
was beginning to send out word of his desire to work with and for the
cattlemen of Lost Valley, the settlers, the homesteaders?

What was this matter of "grazing permits" of which he had spoken at
the Stronghold?

Permits?

They had grazed their cattle where and when they chose--and
could--from their earliest memory.

They asked no leave from Government.

When Kenset rode into Corvan he was treated with exaggerated politeness
by those with whom he had to deal, with utter unconsciousness by all
the rest. To cattleman and settler alike he was as if he had not been.

None spoke to him in the few broad streets, none asked him to a bar to
drink.

Serene, quiet, soft spoken, he came and went about his business, and
sneers followed him covertly.

It was not long after Tharon's visit to the cabin in the glade, that
Kenset, riding alone along the twilight land, passed close to the
mouth of Black Coulee one day at dusk. He rode loosely, slouching
sidewise in his saddle, for he had been to Corvan for his monthly mail
and a few supplies tied in a bag behind his saddle, and he carried his
broad hat in his hand.

The little cool wind that blew in from the narrow gorge of the Bottle
Neck and spread out like an invisible fan, breathed on his face with a
grateful touch. The day had been hot, for the summer was opening
beautifully, and he had ridden Captain far. Therefore he jogged and
rested, his arms hanging listlessly at his sides, his thoughts two
thousand miles away.

At the mouth of Black Coulee where the sinister split of the deep wash
came up to the level, there grew a fringe of wild poplar trees. They
were beautiful things, tall and straight and thickly covered with a
million shiny leaves that whirled and rustled softly in the wind,
showing all their soft white silver sides when the breeze came up from
the south as it did this day. There was water in Black Coulee, many
small springs, not deep enough nor steady enough to count for water in
a range country, but sufficient to keep the poplars growing on the rim
of the great wash, to stand them thick on the caving sides. Whole
benches of earth with their trees upon them slipped down these sides
from time to time, making of the Coulee a mysterious labyrinth of
thickets and shelves, of winding ways and secret places.

Kenset had heard a few wild stories about Black Coulee. Sam Drake had
talked a bit more than mo