n him, boys."

"I don't," spoke up Old Pete, shuffling by on his bandy legs,
"sometimes that quiet, soft-spoken kind rises--an' then hell's to pay
in their veecinity."

But Wylackie looked at the weazened snow-packer with his snake-like
eyes and snapped out a warning.

"Some folks takes sides too quick, sometimes."

But Old Pete went on about his business. He knew, as did all the
Valley, that a price was on his head with Courtrey's band for the
daring leap which had saved the life of Tharon Last that day in
spring.

Sooner or later that price would be paid, but Old Pete was true
western stuff. He had lived his life, had had his day, and he was full
of pride at the turn of fate which had made him a hero in a way at the
end.

All the Valley stood off and admired Jim Last's daughter.

Pete basked in the reflected light. And Tharon herself had taken his
gnarled old hand one day in Baston's store and called him a
thoroughbred.

Folks in Lost Valley were chary of words, conservative to the last
degree. That simple word, the handclasp, the look in the clear blue
eyes, had been his eulogy.

It was whispered about, as was every smallest happening, and came to
the ears of Courtrey himself, who had promised those vague things for
the future on the fateful night. But Courtrey was playing a waiting
game. He was obsessed with the image of Tharon. Sooner or later he
meant to have her, to install her at the Valley's head. He had always
had what he wanted. Therefore, he expected to have this girl with the
challenging eyes, the maddening mouth, like crimson sumac.

Ellen?

Already he was setting in motion a thing that was to take care of
Ellen.

The thing in hand now was to placate Tharon, the mistress of Last's,
to play the overwhelming lover.

Courtrey knew better than to go near the Holding. Bully that he was he
yet had sense enough to know that no fear of him dwelt in the huge old
house under the cottonwoods. If Tharon herself did not shoot him,
one--or all--of her riders would. The day of the armed band riding
down to take her was, if not past, passing fast. He recalled the look
of the settlers--poor spawn that he hated--whirling their solid column
behind her to face him that day from the Cup Rim's floor.

No. Courtrey meant to have the girl some day--to hold in his arms that
ached for her loveliness, the strong, resistant young body of her--to
sate his thief's mouth with kisses. But he would call her to him of