h bore these few simple lines:

"We, the signers named below, do solemnly promise and pledge ourselves
to stand together, through all consequences of this act, for the
protection of our lives and property. For every piece of property
taken from any one of us, we shall go together and take back it, or
its worth, from whoever took it. For every person killed in any way,
but fair-and-open, we promise to hang the murderer."

Billy had drafted the document. Tharon, whom Jim Last had taught her
letters, read it aloud. The names of Last's Holding headed it. The
thirty names and marks--and of the latter there were many--stretched
to the bottom of the sheet.

When it was done the girl folded it solemnly and put it away in the
depths of the big desk. Old Anita, watching from the shadows of the
eating room beyond, put her _reboso_ over her head and rocked in
silent grief. She had seen tragic things before.

Then these lean and quiet men filed out, mounted the waiting horses
and went away in the darkness, mysterious figures against the stars.

That night Tharon Last sat late by the deep window in her own room at
the south of the ranch house. It was a huge old room, high walled and
sombre. There were bright blankets hung like pictures on the walls,
baskets marvelously woven of grass and rushes, thick mats on the floor
made in like manner and of a tough, long-fibred grass that grew down
in a swale beyond the Black Coulee, while in one corner there shone
pale in the darkness the one great treasure of that unknown mother, an
almost life-size statue of the Holy Virgin.

Of this beautiful thing Tharon had stood in awe from babyhood.

A half fearful reverence bowed her before it on those rare times when
Anita, throwing back to her Mexic ancestors, worshipped with vague
rites at its feet.

Always its waxen hands bore offerings, silent tribute from the girl's
still nature. Sometimes these were the prairie flowers, little wild
things, sweet and fragile. Sometimes they were sprays of the water
vines that grew by the wonderful spring of the Holding.

Again they were strings of bright beads, looped and falling in
glistening cascades over the tarnished gilt robes of the Virgin.

Under the deep window there was a wide couch, piled high with a narrow
mattress of wild goose feathers and covered with a crimson blanket.
Here the girl sat with her arms on the sill and looked out into the
darkness that covered the Valley. She thought of the