Then she dropped forward again and watched the distance closing down.

Nearer--nearer--nearer!

The note rose another notch.

Never in his life had El Rey run as he ran now. Always he had had reserves. He had them now. The bottom of his power was not reached.

Bolt was doing his best. Once he threw up his head and foam flew on the wind--red foam that shot back and whipped on Tharon's hand, a wet pink stain, thinned and faded.

At that sight an exultant cry, savage, inhuman, ugly, burst from her throat.

She was within long gunshot now--was closing her fingers lightly on the blue gun-b.u.t.ts----.

Courtrey heard that cry.

He rose in his saddle--turned--flashed up his hand and fired. Quick as the motion of the gun man was, Tharon Last was quicker. She dropped over El Rey's shoulder like a cat, firing as she went.

Courtrey's bullet clipped the cantle of the big saddle an inch above her flattened leg across it. Hers did something else--what she had dreamed of. It struck that other wrist of Courtrey's, the left--and sent his six-gun tumbling.

Once again she yelled as she came back in her saddle.

And El Rey was closing--closing up the gap between.

Once again Tharon raised her guns to shoot--both, this time, as her daddy had taught her. This was the pinnacle of her life, her skill, her training.

Never again would she live a moment like it. She laughed and crouched for the final act.

But a sudden coldness went over her from head to foot, sent the hot blood shaking down her spine.

What was Courtrey doing?

He rode straight up at last, like an Indian showing, and his bleeding left hand swung at his side. With the other he had swept off his wide hat, so that his handsome iron-grey head was bare to the summer sun.

His keen hawk face was lifted. He made a spectacular figure--like a warrior, unarmed, waiting his end with courage.

_Unarmed!_

That it was which struck Tharon like a hand across her face. The gun he had used with his left hand was his only one! He had carried but one since that night at the Stronghold when she had first marked him.

She should have known! Word of this had been about Corvan and the Valley.

And so she had Buck Courtrey at her mercy. She could close the lessening gap and kill him in his saddle----

But the icy blood still seemed to trickle down her back.

She--and Jim Last--they had always fought in fair-and-open. They were no murderers.... They did not strike in the dark--shoot a man from ambush--nor kill a man unarmed.... And Kenset--Kenset of the foothills--what had he said about the stain of blood--blood-guilt--clean hands----

The girl caught her breath with a choking sob.

The game was up.

Neither Jim Last--nor Kenset--nor she--would shoot a man unarmed.

And Courtrey was riding toward the Bottle Neck.

He would go down the Wall to freedom.

And the crosses in Jim Last's granite--they would be forever unredeemed, a shame, a sadness, a living accusation!

Nay--not that! Not that!

She had promised--and the Law was waiting--the big Law of below.

She was Jim Last's daughter still.

She leaned closer to El Rey's neck--held her two guns ready--and rode with the very wind.

She was near now--she could see Courtrey's face, waxen white but fearless, his dark eyes turned back toward her in a sort of desperate admiration.... Courtrey loved strength and courage and all things wild and fierce. She could see Bolt's staring eyeb.a.l.l.s, his open mouth, gasping and piteous. One more moment--another--yet one more--then she rose in her stirrups and fired straight at the broad bay temple, shining and black with sweat!

The great gallant Ironwood went down in a huge arc--first his beautiful head, then the sinking arch of his neck, then the shoulders that had worked so wondrously. He rolled on his back like a hoop, his iron-shod hoofs spinning for one spectacular moment in the air. Then he lay at sudden ease, his still fluttering nose pointing directly back the way he had come.

With the first catching stumble of the true forefeet, the man on his back had shot out of the saddle and far ahead. He landed twenty feet away and squarely on his head and shoulders. Like Bolt, Courtrey's body turned a complete somersault--and lay still, at sudden peace.

Tharon Last and El Rey went on like an arrow--they could not stop.

When at last she did draw the great king down she was far and away from the spot. She turned her head, panting and dizzy, and looked back.... She could see the p.r.o.ne red heap that was Bolt--a little way beyond that other, lesser, darker heap....

For a long time she sat on El Rey's heaving back and stared unseeingly at the green earth where the short gra.s.ses quivered in the little wind.

There was a deathly white line about her lips, but her eyes blazed with the fire that had characterized them from birth, the flickering, unfathomable flame that came and went.

Then, presently, new lines came in her young face, unstable lines that quivered and worked, and all the good green earth danced grotesquely before her vision, for a wall of tears shut out the world. ... She laid her head down on El Rey's cloudy mane--and wept.

It was early dawn at Last's Holding. The sun was not yet up behind the eastern ramparts. The cottonwoods whispered in the dawn-wind, the spring beneath the milk-house talked and murmured. Out in the big corrals the cattle were beginning to stir and bawl.

In the kitchen old Anita and young Paula had breakfast waiting for the men.

Deep in that dim south room where the pale Virgin kept watch and ward, Kenset of the foothills slept in healing peace.

And at the step of the western door, Billy stood by Golden--Golden the beautiful, who ranked next to El Rey himself--and his face was lifted to Tharon who drooped against the lintel with her forehead on her arm.

The boy held her hand clasped in both of his own, and there was a yearning tenderness in his soft voice when he spoke, a pride and joy ineffable that glowed above the pain that was never to leave him.

"It ain't that I love you less, Tharon, dear," he said gently, "that I must go. Not that, little girl. I'll love you till I die--that I know in dead certainty. But I can't stay here--not where I'll have to see you givin' all your sweet self to another man. A good man, too, Tharon--I think there ain't a better one in th' land--but--well,--I can't--that's all. I can't thank you for all you've done for me sence you was a little mite of a girl--five years back,"--his voice broke a bit, but he controlled it, "nor for th' joy you've given me--th' rides together--an' th' jokes an' playin'----"

He paused a moment, unhappily, and the mistress of Last's drooped more heavily against the old adobe wall.

"Nor for Golden here," went on the rider, "we'll be pals as long as we both live--nor fer-fer--" he stopped again, hesitated, looked yearningly at the quivering cheek against the curving arm, and went on to the finish.