t time.

She looked down at him and the black pupils were spread across the
azure of her eyes, making them strangely exciting in their straight
glance.

"This," she said, panting, "is some of the law of Lost Valley.
Courtrey's law. That is the man I'm goin' to kill some day."

Kenset felt the blood flow back upon his heart, an icy flood. The
words were simple, sincere, unconscious of dramatic effect. They were
as final as death itself, and he dropped his eyes unconsciously to the
two guns at her hips. He wondered why she had ridden without a shot
this time.

He found his lips suddenly dry and moistened them before he spoke.

"Why?" he asked, and his voice sounded strange to him.

"Because," said Tharon simply, "because he kissed me--once--an' shot
my daddy--in th' back, th' hound!"

"God!" said Kenset

For a moment there was silence while a bird called sharply from a pine
top and the voice of the little stream became subtly audible.

It seemed to the man that all his values of life had suddenly become
shifted, changed. The commonplace had become the unreal, the unlikely
the familiar.

Guns and threats and racing horses with a woman for prize became on
the moment natural events in this hidden setting.

And what a woman she was! He looked up in her face again and saw there
sweetness and strength, and grim purpose beyond his conception. He
knew that her words were downright, and that they meant no more to her
than duty to be done, a conscience cleared of debt. He glanced at the
hand lying so quietly on the pommel and thought of it as stained with
blood. At the fancy he frowned and mentally shook himself.

Then, with an impulse wholly beyond his command, he reached up and
laid his own hand over that one on the pommel.

"Miss Last," he said gravely, "I have no words to express what I feel
this moment about Lost Valley and its people. Will you get down and
let me show you my house, here in my glade?"

Tharon sat quietly for a moment and looked down at him. She did not
remove her hand from under his, neither did she seem to be conscious
of it.

"Why should I?" she asked presently, "you don't owe me anything. I
sent you away from my house. I wouldn't have come here if I'd known
where I was goin'. It was a chance."

"Granted. And yet I want you to come across my threshold, to sit in my
big chair. Will you come?"

Never in her life had the girl heard so low a voice. It was soft and
gentle, yet full of a vib