rant quality that belied its softness. The
man himself was unlike Lost Valley men. He wore the olive drab
trousers of the semi-military uniform, the leather leggings, a tan
leather belt and a soft woolen shirt of the same drab color. It lay
open at the throat, and the base of his strong neck was white as a
woman's. The dark eyes upturned to hers were deep and winning. The
dark beard showed through his sharply shaven cheeks where the red
blood pulsed, like dusky shadows.

A strange man, surely.

Tharon wondered what made him so different from other men she had
known. There was Billy who had come into Lost Valley from somewhere
"below," and Conford, and Curly. Jack Masters had been born in the
Valley. So had Bent Smith. These men were her men, like herself and
Jim Last. This man was from "below," too, yet he was unlike.

While she studied him he met her glance with the same grave look.

Presently, without a word, she swung herself from the saddle, dropped
El Rey's rein, and stepped around his shoulder.

"All right," she said briefly, "but I won't stay any longer than I let
you stay."

For the first time Kenset laughed.

"Twenty minutes, then," he said, "I don't think you let me exceed that
limit."

He led the way to the door, stepped back and let her enter. As she did
so she passed close to him and caught the scent of him, the clean
soft smell of shaving soap, blended with the aroma of good tobacco.

That, too, was different.

Inside the cabin there was a sense of comfort, of brightness. The long
pennants, like captured rainbows, tacked to the rough walls, the soft
toned prints, the gay cushions, all these lent an air of permanence,
of home, that she had never before seen in a man's cabin. She stood
and looked all around with that same half-insolent stare which had
greeted Kenset at the Holding that memorable day.

Then she went slowly forward and sat down in the big chair by the
table.

The man stood in her presence for a moment, thereby giving a subtle
effect of deference which was not wholly lost upon Tharon, though she
would have been at a loss to define it.

Then, he, too, sat down on the edge of the table desk in the corner,
and with folded arms waited while she finished her scrutiny of the
interior.

"I am proud of my home, Miss Last," he said presently. "What do you
think of it?"

"I think," said Tharon slowly, "that it looks like there's a woman
somewhere."

This time Kenset laughed in earn