fire and reached half across Lost
Valley. All the western part of the Valley lay in that blue-black
shadow. They could see Corvan set like a dull gem in the wide green
country, the scattered ranches, miles apart.

They swung down to the west a bit, for Tharon said she wanted to go by
the Gold Pool and see how it was holding out.

"Fine," said Billy, "she's deep as she ever was at this time of year,
an' cold as snow."

Where one tall cottonwood stood like a sentinel in the widespread
landscape they drew rein and dismounted. Here a huge boulder cropped
from the plain and under its protecting bulk there lay as lovely a
spring as one would care to see, deep and golden as its name implied,
above its swirling sands, for the waters were in constant turmoil as
they pressed up from below.

The girl lay flat at its edge and with her face to the crystal
surface, drank long and deeply.

As she looked up with a smile, Billy Brent felt the heart in him
contract with a sudden ache.

Her fresh face, its cheeks whipped pink under their tan by the winds,
its blue eyes sparkling, its wet red lips parted over the white teeth,
hurt him with a downright pain.

"Oh, Tharon," he said with an accent that was all-revealing, "Oh,
Tharon, dear!"

The girl scrambled to her feet and looked at him in surprise.

"Billy," she said sharply, "what's th' matter with you? Are you
sick?"

"Yes," said the boy with conviction, "I am. Let's go home."

"Sick, how?" she pressed, with the born tyranny of the loving woman,
"have you got that pain in your stomach again?"

Billy laughed in spite of himself, and the romantic ache was
shattered.

"For the love of Pete!" he complained, "don't you ever forget that?
You know I've never et an ounce of Anita's puddin's since. No, I
think," he finished judiciously as he mounted Golden, "that I've
caught somethin', Tharon--caught somethin' from that feller of th'
red-beet badge. Leastways I've felt it ever sence I left th'
clearin'."

And as they swung away from the spring toward the Holding, far ahead
under its cottonwoods, he let out the young horse for another
stretch.

"Bet Golden can beat El Rey up home," he said over his shoulder.

"Beat th' king?" cried Tharon aghast, "you're foolin', Billy, an' I
don't want to run nohow. I've run enough this day."

So the rider held up again and together they paced slowly up through
the gathering twilight where long blue shadows were reaching out to
touch the