yet, there
was somethin' about him, somethin' that made me think of Jim Last
himself--somethin' in his quiet eyes--as if they had both come from
somewhere outside Lost Valley where they grow different men. It was
a--bigness, a softness. I don't know."

And with that last wistful thought she forgot all about the incident
and the man, for the prediction of Jameson that dusk at the head of
Rolling Cove became reality.

Dixon, who lived north along the Wall near the Pomo settlement, lost
ten head of steers, all white and deeply earmarked, unmistakable
cattle that could not be disguised.

Courtrey was resenting the vague something in the air that was
crystallizing into resistance about him.

Word of the stealing ran about the Valley like a grass fire, more
boldly than usual.

It came to Last's in eighteen hours, brought by a horseman who had
carried it to many a lonely homestead.

Tharon received it with a thrill of joy.

"Good enough," she said, "no use wasting time."

And she sent out a call for the thirty men.

CHAPTER V

THE WORKING OF THE LAW

It was a clear, bright morning in early summer. All up and down Lost
Valley the little winds wimpled the grass where the cattle grazed, and
brought the scent of flowers. In the thin, clear atmosphere points and
landmarks stood out with wonderful boldness.

The homesteads set in the endless green like tiny gems, the stupendous
face of the Wall, stretching from north to south and sheer as a plumb
line for a thousand feet, was fretted with a myriad of tiny seams and
crevasses not ordinarily visible.

Far up at the Valley's head against the huge uplift of the jumbled and
barren rocklands the scattered squat buildings of the Stronghold
brooded like a monster.

Spread out on the velvet slopes below lay the herds that belonged to
it, sleek fat cattle, guarded carelessly by a few lazy and desultory
riders. Courtrey was too secure in his insolent might to take those
rigid and untiring precautions which were the only price of safety to
the lesser men of the community. Toward the south where the Valley
narrowed to the Bottle Neck and the Broken Bend went out, there
shimmered and shone like a silver ribbon hung down the cliff the thin,
long shower of Vestal's Veil fall.

The roar of it could be heard for miles like the constant and
incessant wail of winds in time-worn canyons.

Along the floor of the Cup Rim range, sunken and hidden from the upper
levels, there