All day Tharon sat like a rock in her own room, staring with unseeing eyes at the blank whitewashed walls. She did not yet know what ailed her, why this killing, more than that of poor Harkness, should make her sick to her soul's foundations. Yet it was so. Even the thought of her sworn duty was vague before her for a time. Then it seemed to come forward out of the ma.s.s of fleeting memories--Kenset that day at Baston's steps shapely, trim, halted--Kenset 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 Buck Courtrey ain't to be met with vilence.

Now I'm playin' my trump card--now, tonight.

"Lola says you love this dude from below. That don't cut no ice with me. I ain't carin' for no love from you at present. All I want is _you_. I can make you love me once I've got you safe at th' Stronghold. I ain't never failed with no woman yet. An' I mean to have you, fair means or foul.

"Rather have you fair. So here's my last word.

"This Kenset ain't dead--yet. I went and took him. I've got him safe as h.e.l.l in the Canon Country. Ain't no man in th' Valley can find G.o.d's Cup but me. He's guarded an' there's a lookout on th'

peak above th' Cup that can see a signal fire at th' Stronghold.

One fire out by my big corral means 'Send him out by False Ridge with ten days' grub.' Two fires means 'Put a true bullet in his head an' leave him there.' Now, here's the word. I've got a case fixed up to divorce Ellen, legal. If you'll marry me soon's I'm free, I'll build one fire out by that corral.

"If you say yes, you build one fire out by th' cottonwoods to th'

left of the Holdin'. I'm watchin' an' will see it at once. You can see for yourself I mean bisness, as if you'll watch too, you'll see that one fire here.

COURTREY."

For a long moment the Mistress of Last's stood in profound quiet, as if she could not move. She was held in a trance like those dreadful night-dreams when one is locked in deadly inertia, helpless. The net which had been weaving in Courtrey's fertile brain was finished, flung, and closing in upon her before she knew of its existence. An awe of his cleverness, his trickery, gripped her in a clutch of ice.

The whole fabric of her own desires and plans and purposes seemed to crumple like the white ash in a dead fire, leaving her nothing. She had been out-witted instead of outfought. One more evidence of the man's baseness, his unscrupulous cunning.

He played his trump card and it was a winner, sweeping the table--for she knew before she finished that difficult reading that she would do anything in all the world to stop that "true bullet" in the heart that had pounded beneath her open palms.... Knew she would break her given word to Jim Last--knew she would forsake the Holding--that she would crawl to Courtrey's feet and kiss his hand, if only he would spare Kenset of the foothills, would send him out to that vague world of below, never to return!

She swayed drunkenly on her feet for a time that seemed ages long.

Then life came back in her with a rush. She broke the nightmare dream and gasped out a broken command to her faithful ones.

"Billy!" she said thickly, "Oh, Billy! If you love me, run! Run an'

build a fire--one fire!--only _one_ fire, Billy, dear--out by th'

cottonwoods to th' left--of th' Holdin'!"

Then she went and sat limply down on the step at the western door, leaned her head against the deep adobe wall, and fell to weeping as if the very heart in her would wash itself away in tears.

And Billy, numb with anguish but true to the love he bore her, went swiftly out and set that beacon glowing. Its red light flaring against the blue darkness of the falling night seemed like a bodeful omen of sorrow and disaster, of death and failure and despair.

Tharon on the sill roused herself to watch it leap and glow, then turned her deep eyes to where she knew the Stronghold lay.

Presently out upon the distant black curtain of the night there flared that other fire, signal of life to Kenset somewhere in the Canon Country--and then her lips drew into a thin hard line and she straightened her young form stiffly up, put a hand hard upon her breast.

"A little time, Courtrey!" she whispered to herself, "Jus' a little time an' luck, an' I'll give you th' double-cross or die, d.a.m.n your soul to h.e.l.l!"

Billy, coming softly in along the adobe wall, caught the whisper, felt rather than heard its meaning, and turned back with the step of a cat.

An hour later, when all the Holding was quiet for the night, drifting to early rest after the day's hard work, the Mistress of Last's, booted, dressed in riding clothes, her fair head covered by a sombrero, her daddy's guns at her hips, crept softly to the gate of El Rey's own corral. She went like a thief, crouching, watching, without a sound, and saddled the big stallion in careful softness. She led him gently out and around toward the cottonwoods, away from the house.

When she was well away she put foot to stirrup and went up as the king leaped for his accustomed flight.

But Tharon pulled him down. She wanted no thunder on the sounding-board tonight. But soft as she had been, as careful, there was one at the Holding who followed her every act, who went for a horse, too, who saddled Drumfire in silence and who crept down the sounding-board--Billy the faithful. Far down along the plain toward the Black Coulee he let the red roan out, so that the girl, keen of hearing as of sight, caught the following beat of hoofs, stopped, listened, understood and reined El Rey up to wait.

And soon out of the shadows cast by the eastern ramparts, where the moon was rising, she saw the rider coming. A quick mist of tears suffused her eyes, a sick feeling gripped her heart.

Here was another mixed in the sorry tangle! She had always known vaguely that Billy was one with her, that his heart was the deep heart of her friend.

He was the one she always wanted near her in times of stress, it was with him she liked to ride in the Big Shadow when the sun went down behind the Canon Country.

But now she did not want him. She had a keen desire to see him safely out of this--this which was to be the end, one way or the other, of the blood-feud between the Stronghold and Last's.

Now as he loped up and stopped abreast of her in silence, she reached out a hand and caught his in a close clasp.

"I don't want you, Billy, dear," she said miserably, "not because I don't love you, but because I ain't a-goin' to see you shot by Courtrey's gang. This is one time, boy, when I want you to leave me alone, to go back without me."

The rider shook his head against the stars.

"Couldn't do it, little girl," he said wistfully, "you know I couldn't do it."

"Ain't I your mistress, Billy?" asked Tharon sternly. "Ain't I your boss?"

"Sure are," said the boy with conviction.

"Ain't I always been a good boss to you?"

"Best in th' world. Good as Jim Last."

"Then," said Tharon sharply, "it's up to you to take my orders. I order you now--go back."

The cowboy leaned down suddenly and kissed the hand he held.

"I'm at your shoulder, Tharon, dear," he said with simple dignity, "like your shadow. At your foot like the dogs that never forsake th'

herds. I couldn't go back an' leave you--not though I died for it tonight.

"We'll say no more about it. I don't know where you're goin', but wherever it is, there I'm goin', too, an' on my way. You can tell me or not, just as you please, but let's go."