laughing over the little
meal beside the table where the books lay--Kenset grasping her
shoulder when she whirled to mount El Rey and challenge the Stronghold
single-handed--to come forward like a calming, steadying thing and
turn the pain to purpose.

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

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

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

Once again the girl arose and steadied herself, smoothed her tawny
hair, looked at her hands to find them free from the shaking that had
weakened 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 was
blue with shadow. Only on Kenset's foothills was the rosy light
glowing, a tragic, aching light, it seemed to her. She saw all the
little world of Lost Valley with new eyes, sombre eyes, in which there
was no sense of its beauty. She wondered anxiously how soon she could
meet Courtrey, and where. And then with the suddenness of an ordered
play, the question was answered for her, for out of the dusk and the
purple shadows a Pomo rider came on a running pony and halted out a
stone's throw, calling for the "Senorita," his hands held up in token
of friendliness.

Without a thought of treachery Tharon went out to him and took the
letter he handed her--swinging around for flight as the paper left his
hand, 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 down
along the slope by the time the boys came clanking around the house.

And Tharon, standing in the twilight like a slim white ghost, was
staring over their heads, her lips ashen, the scrawled letter
trembling in her hands. For this is what she read, straining her young
eyes 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