"Hold on, Pete," said Bullard, slapping an indulgent hand on the grotesque shoulder, "You go tell Wan Lee that if he don't put up th'

best lunch in camp for you, an' _muy p.r.o.nto_ at that, I'll come in an'

skin him alive. Tell him----"

But Bullard was never to finish that sentence.

There was a sound of running horses stopping square at the rack without, the rattle of chains, the creak of saddles.

Booted feet struck the boards of the porch, and almost upon the instant the great iron door of The Golden Cloud swung inward.

The dancers stopped in their stride, the players laid down their cards, the noise of the room ceased with the suddenness that characterized the time and place, for Lost Valley was quick upon the trigger, tragedy often swept in upon hilarity.

In the opening stood Tharon Last, her blue eyes black and sparkling, her tawny skin cream white, her lips tight-set and pale. She wore a plain dark dress that b.u.t.toned up the front, and at her hips there hung her father's famous guns. Her two hands rested on their b.u.t.ts.

Behind her head against the starlight there was the dim suggestion of ma.s.sed sombreros.

For a moment she stood so in breathless silence, scanning the room.

Then her glance came to rest on the face of Buck Courtrey.

"Men," she said clearly, "we buried Jim Last today. El Rey brought him home last night--finished. You all know he was a gun man--th' best in these parts. It was no gun man that killed him, in fair-an'-open, for he was shot in th' back. It was a skunk, a coyote, a son-of-th'-devil, an' I'm goin' to kill him."

At the last word there was a lightning movement at the bar as Courtrey's hand flashed at his hip, a flash of fire, a shot that went high and lodged in the deep beam above the door, for the weazened form of the snow-packer had leaped up against him in the same instant.

The girl had not moved. Her hands still rested on the guns in their holsters. Now a grim smile curled her mouth, but her eyes did not laugh.

"I'm a-goin' t' kill him," she said quietly, still in that clear voice, "but I'll do it accordin' to th' law Jim Last laid down to me all my life--in certainty. I know--but I'll prove. We hain't no a.s.sa.s.sins, Jim Last an' me. Some day I'll draw--an' my father's killer must beat me to it."

Without another word Tharon backed out on the porch, the door swung to at the pull of an unseen hand on the iron strap by the hinge.

There was again the rattle and creak, the whirl of hoofs, and in the breathless stillness that lasted for a few seconds, there came to the strained ears in the Golden Cloud the clip-clap of a singlefooter as the great El Rey led out of town.

Then Buck Courtrey, flushed and unsmiling, sent his coldly narrowed eyes over the crowded room, man by man. Laughter came, a trifle cracked and forced, cards slapped on the tables, chairs creaked as the players drew up again, the dancers swung into step as the fiddle took up its interrupted strain.

Only Lola, over by the door, looked for a pregnant moment at Courtrey's face, and shut her lips in a hard, straight line.

Then, lastly, the cold eyes of the king came down to rest upon the weazened figure of the snow-packer busily engaged in rolling up his sacks for departure. If the strange old creature knew and felt their promise, he gave no sign as he trundled himself outdoors on his bandy legs.

"Skunks," said Old Pete, as he fumbled with his straps about the patient burros, "are plumb pizen t' pure flesh."

CHAPTER II

THE HORSES OF THE FINGER MARKS

At Last's Holding a change had taken place. The sun of spring still shone as brightly, the work of the place went on as usual. The riders went at dawn and came at dusk, their herds lowing across the rolling green s.p.a.ces, the days were as busy as they had ever been, but it seemed as if Last's waited for something that would never happen, for some one who would never come. Conford, quiet, forceful, businesslike, carried on the work without a ripple. To a casual eye all things were as they had been. But to the keen eyes in the tanned faces of Last's riders the change was appallingly apparent. They saw it creep day by day into their lives, felt it in the very atmosphere, and it was grim and promising.

Old Anita felt it and watched with dim and wistful eyes. Pretty young Paula from the Pomo Indian settlement far to the north of the Valley under the Rockface felt it and was more silent, cat-like of step than ever. Jose, always full of laughter at his outside work, was sobered.

For this change was not material, but spiritual, and it had to do with Tharon, who was now the mistress of Last's.

She no longer sang her wordless songs, no longer played for hours on the little old melodeon by the western door. Something had gone from the brightness of her face, a shadow had come instead. She was just as swift and gentle in her care for all the things of every day, as efficient and painstaking, but she did not laugh, and the tiny lines that had characterized her father's blue eyes, began to show distinctly about her own.

They began to take on the look of great distances, as if she gazed far.

And for exactly three hours each day there could be heard the monotonous bark-bark-bark of the big guns Jim Last had given her in his final hour. To Billy Brent there was something terrible in this.

Bred to violence and the quick disasters of the country as he was, he could not reconcile this grim practice with Tharon Last, the sane and loving girl who could not bear the sight of suffering.

"I tell you, Curly," he complained to his friend of nights when they came in and lounged in the soft dusk by the bunk-house, "it's unnatural. Not that I don't pay full respect to Jim Last's memory, an' him th' best man in all this h.e.l.l-bent Valley, but it ain't right an' natural fer no woman t' do what she's doin'. Ain't she Jim Last's own daughter already with th' guns? Sure. Can drive a nail nigh as far as he could. Quick as Wylackie Bob on th' draw an' as certain, now.

Then why must she keep it up?"

Curly, more silent in his ways but given to thought, studied the stars that rode the darkening heavens and shook his head.

"Let her alone," he said once, "it was Last's command, an' he knew what he was about even if he was toppin' th' rise of the Big Divide.

"He said 'you'll have to pro--'--you rec'lect? He meant _protect_ an'

unless I miss my guess, Billy, he'd have added '_yourself_' if th'

hand of Ol' Man Death hadn't stopped his words. Somethin' happened out there in th' Cup Rim that day when Last got his that had to do with Tharon, an' he knew she'd be in danger. Let her alone."

So Billy let her alone, as did the rest. She went her ways, saw to the garden and made the b.u.t.ter in the cool springhouse, and sat in the window seat in the twilights. She liked to have the men come in as usual, but the talk these times was desultory, failing and brightening with forced topics, to fail again and drop into silence while the dim red lights of the smokers glowed in the shadows.

Time and again she stirred and sighed, and they knew that once again she waited for Jim Last, listened for the clip-clap of El Rey coming home along the sounding ranges.

Once, on a night when there was no moon and the tree-toads sang in the cottonwoods by the spring, the girl, sitting so in the familiar window, suddenly dropped her head on her knees and sobbed sharply in the silence.

"Never again!" she said thickly from the folds of her denim skirt, "I'll never see him comin' home again!"

The riders stirred. Sympathy ached in their hearts, but not a man had speech to comfort her. It was Billy, the impulsive, who reached a hand to her shoulder and gripped it hard. Tharon reached up and touched the hand in grat.i.tude.

It was about this time, when the master of Last's Holding had lain a month beneath the staring mound under the pine tree out to the east where they had buried Harkness, that Jose finished a work of art. For many days he had laboured secretly in a calf-shed out behind the small corrals, and in his slim dark fingers there was beauty unleashed.

Finest carving he knew, since his forbears, peons across the Border, had spent their lives upon the beams of the Missions. None had taught Jose. It was in his blood. Therefore, from a block of the hard grey stone of the region, which was almost like granite, he fashioned a cross, as tall as Tharon herself, struck it out freehand and true, and set upon its austere face fine tracery of vines and Jim Last's name.

He took into the secret Billy and Curly, since these two he was sure of, and together they hauled the huge thing out and set it up.

When Tharon, looking to the east with dawn, as was her habit, beheld this silent tribute to the man she had so loved, she leaned her forehead against the deep window-case and wept from the depths.

Then she went out to see it and with a knife she set her own mark thereon--a tiny cross scratched in the headpiece, another in the arm that stretched toward all that was mortal of poor Harkness.

"Two," she said, dry-eyed, while the glorious dawn shot up to bathe the world in glory, "full pay for you both."

El Rey, stamping in his own corral, lifted his beautiful head, scanned the wide reaches that spread away in living green, and tossing up his muzzle, sent out on the silence a ringing call. He c.o.c.ked his silver ears and listened. No clear-cut human whistle answered him. Once more he called and listened.

Then he lowered his head and stepped along the fence. His great body, shining like blue satin with a silver frost upon it, gave and lifted with every step. The pastern joints above his striped hoofs were resilient as pliant springs. The muscles rippled in his shoulders, the blue-white cascade of his silver tail flowed to his heels, his mane was like a cloud upon the arch of his neck. He was strength and beauty incarnate, a monster machine of living might.

Unrest was upon him. Life had become stagnant, a tasteless thing. He was keen for the open stretches, honing to be gone down the wind. He fretted and ate out his heart for the freedom of the range. Old Anita, pa.s.sing at some work or other, stopped and gazed at him for a compa.s.sionate moment.