Then she rose, and it was as if a light of activity burned up in her.

She became practical on the instant.

"I'm glad you brought th' thin rope, Billy," she said, "it's longer'n mine. An' th' little axe, too. We'll need 'em all to get him up an'

down False Ridge. An' we must get busy right p.r.o.nto. Th' Pomo killer we'll leave where he is. The Canon Country will make him a silent grave."

CHAPTER XI

FINGER MARK AND IRONWOOD AT LAST

It was another noon in Lost Valley. The summer sun sailed the azure skies in majesty. Little soft winds from the south wimpled the gra.s.s of the rolling ranges, shook all the leaves of the poplars. Down the face of the Wall the Vestal's Veil shimmered and shone like a million miles of lace.

At Corvan wild excitement ruled. Swift things had come upon them, things that staggered the tight-lipped community, even though it was used to speed and tragedy. For one thing, Ellen, pale, sweet flower, had hanged herself in the gaudy apartment of Lola behind the Golden Cloud where the dance-hall woman had peremptorily brought her when they took her off Cleve Whitmore's shoulder. She left a little note for Courtrey, a pathetic short scrawl, which simply reiterated that she had "ben true to him as his shadow," and that if he did no longer want her, she did not want herself.

At that pitiful end to a guiltless life, Lola, who knew innocence and sin, sat down on the only carpeted floor in Corvan and wept. When she finished, she was done with Corvan and Lost Valley, ready to move on as she had moved through an eventful life.

For another thing, two strange men had ridden up the Wall from the Bottle Neck a few days back, and they had put through some mysterious doings.

This day at noon these two strangers were riding down on Corvan from up the Pomo way, while from the Stronghold, Buck Courtrey's men were thundering in with the cattle king at their head. He was grim and silent, black with gathering rage. His news-veins tapped the Valley, he knew a deal that others tried to hide, and he was coming in to reach a savage hand once more toward that supremacy which he knew full well to be slipping from him.

And from the blind mouth in the Rockface at the west where the roofed cut led to the mystery and the grandeur of the Canon Country, a strange procession came slowly out to crawl across the green expanse--a woman on a silver horse, a rider on a red roan who sat behind the saddle and bore in his arms a man whose heavy head lolled upon his shoulder in all but mortal weakness.

Thus Fate, who had for so long played with life and death in Lost Valley, tiring of the play, drew in the strings of the puppets and set the stage for the last act.

As Tharon and Billy crept up to Baston's store and stopped at the steps, a dozen eager men leaped forward to their help.

"Easy!" warned the girl. "He's ben hurt a long time, an' he's had an awful trip. There's fever in him, an' th' wound in his shoulder opened a bit with th' haulin'. Lay him down on th' porch a while to rest."

But Kenset opened his dark eyes with the old quiet smile and looked at her.

"I'm worth a dozen dead men yet, Miss Last," he said.

As he lay, a trim, long figure in his semi-military garments, on the edge of the porch, the populace of Corvan streamed in from the outskirts and gathered in the open street. Whispers and comments were rife among them, a new courage was noticeable everywhere. The Vigilantes were present, many of them.

Question and answer pa.s.sed swiftly and quietly back and forth between Dixon, Jameson, Hill and Tharon. In a few pregnant moments she knew what had happened in Corvan--they knew the secret of False Ridge and the Cup o' G.o.d.

"An' now these strangers from below--they ben a-actin' awful queer, ain't a-feared o' nothin' an' they ben goin' all over like a couple o'

hounds. One of 'em's got on a badge of some sort," said Jameson, "didn't mean t' show it, I allow, but Hill, here, seen it by chanct----"

Kenset raised himself quickly on an elbow.

"By all that's lucky!" he said softly, excitedly. "Burn-Harris and O'Hallan! My Secret Service men!"

And it was even so, for by the end of another hour the two strangers came riding in and were brought forward to the steps where Kenset lay, to clasp his hand and greet him with all the pleasure of previous acquaintance.

Then they requested that a s.p.a.ce be cleared to the end of ear-shot and together with Kenset, Tharon, Billy, and all the Vigilantes, they held a long and earnest colloquy.

At its end Kenset's eyes were deep and troubled, but Tharon's were beginning to glow with the old fire that all the Holding knew, the leaping flame that rose and died and rose again, exciting to the beholder, promising, threatening, unfathomable.

"Why, it's a cinch!" said O'Hallan, "a dead moral cinch! Don't see how it's held on like it has. Couldn't have in any other place in the good old U. S. A. but this G.o.d forsaken hole! Well named, Lost Valley!

Why, we've found enough evidence already to convict a dozen men! Your Courtrey's the man that planned a dozen murders, I can see that, and he's pulled off a lot of them himself. The people are talking now, rumbling from one end of the Valley to the other. We've had to hold up our hands to ward them off lately. Your Vigilantes here have opened up since we got them together and showed some of them your letter. You were wise to tell us to go ahead if you were not here--what did you look for?"

"Just about what I got," said Kenset smiling, "and I wanted things to be pushed through anyway."

"Well,--they're pushing," said Burn-Harris. "Your little old sheriff has had the fear-of-the-Lord put into him somewhat. He's shaking in his boots about the snow-packer. There's only one thing lacking to make our grip close down on Courtrey, and that's vital--the gun with the untrue firing pin you speak about in your instructions."

"Not lackin'," said Tharon grimly, "we've got it, Mister."

The Secret Service man whirled to her.

"You have?" he cried, "then show me your man!"

But Tharon stood for a long moment looking off across the rolling green stretches, toward the north where a moving dot was drawing down--the riders from the Stronghold.

"This," she said at last, tapping the gun which Billy handed over, "this, then, is proof--is proof in law?"

"If it's the true gun that fits the sh.e.l.l which Mr. Kenset left for us here at Baston's--yes."

"Then," said Burn-Harris, "a little time and your man's ours as sure's the sun shines. Why, this is a hot-bed of crime--there's enough work here to keep a whole force busy for months."

But Tharon Last did not heed his words. Her mind had leaped away from the present back to that day in spring when Jim Last came home to die.

She heard again his last command, "Th' best gun woman in Lost Valley,"

heard her own voice promising to his dulling ears, "I'll get him, so help me, G.o.d!"

And this was the end. Strangers were waiting to fulfill that promise, to take her work out of her hands. She absently watched the moving dot take form and sharply string out into a line of riding men. These strangers with their hidden signs of authority would bring to his just desserts Buck Courtrey, the man who had instigated the killing of poor Harkness, who had personally shot her daddy in the back! For them, then, she had made her crosses of promise in the granite under the pointing pine.

They who had no right in Lost Valley would settle its blood scores, would pay her debts!

She frowned and the fingers of her right hand fiddled at the gun-b.u.t.t at her hip.

For what had she striven all these many months? For what had she perfected herself in Jim Last's art?

A little white line drew in about her lips, the flame in her blue eyes leaped and flickered. The tawny brows gathered into a puckered frown.

Billy, watching, moved restlessly on his booted feet. He it was who saw--who feared. He touched her wrist with timid fingers and she flashed him a swift glance that half melted to a smile. Then she forgot him and all the rest--for the Ironwoods were thundering in from the outside levels, were coming into town.

Ahead rode Courtrey, big, black, keen, his wide hat swept back on his iron-grey hair, an imposing presence.

"Here's your man!" said Kenset softly, rising excitedly on his elbow.

"He's coming! And G.o.d grant that there is no bloodshed!"

All of Corvan, so long meek and quiet under Courtrey's foot, moved dramatically back to give him room to come thundering down to his accounting.