m from the western Wall and the golden shafts were turning to
crimson, were lifting as the sun sank, were travelling up and up along
the eastern mountains toward the pale skies. Soon they rode in purple
dusk while the whole upper world was bathed in crimson and lavender
light and Lost Valley lay deep in the earth's heart, a sinister spot,
secret and dark.

"Sometimes, Billy," said Tharon softly, "I like to ride like this, in
th' big shadows--an' then I like to have some one with me that I know,
some one like you, some one who will understand when I don't talk, an'
who is always there beside me. It's a wonderful feelin'--but somehow,
it's soft, too--mebby too soft--like--like--like a woman who's just a
woman."

The boy swallowed once, miserably.

"Always, Tharon," he said huskily, "always--when you want me--or need
me--I'll be there, beside you. An' you don't need to even speak a word
to me. I'm like th' dogs--there whether you call or not."

"I know," said the girl, and reaching over she caught the rider's
hand, brown beneath its vanity of studded leather cuff, and gave it a
little tender pressure.

Billy set his teeth to keep from crushing her fingers, and together
they rode slowly up along the sounding slopes to the beautiful
security and comfort of Last's Holding.

CHAPTER VII

THE SHOT IN THE CANONS

Kenset of the foothills was very busy. Between study of his maps and
the endless riding of their claimed areas he was out from dawn till
dark.

He found, indeed, that none but he, of late years, had ridden those
sloping forest covered skirts. Some one, sometime, must have done so,
else the maps themselves would not have been, but what marks they must
have left were either gone through the erosion of the elements or been
wantonly destroyed.

He fancied the former had been the case, for he saw no signs of
destruction, and the very curiosity of the denizens of the Valley
precluded familiarity with forest work.

So he laid out for himself the labour of a dozen men and went at it
with a vim that kept him at high tension. Therefore he had little time
to think of Tharon Last and the strange life in Lost Valley. Only
when he rode between given points, unintent on the land around, did he
give up to his speculations. At such times his mind invariably went
back to that first day at Baston's steps and he saw her again as he
had seen her then, tense, stooping, her elbows bent above the guns at
her hips, comin