o?"

But Tharon shook her head.

"Nothin' you'd understand," she said quietly.

"I can show you something you will understand," he said, and reached
for Captain's bridle. He pulled the horse around and pointed to the
saddle horn.

"See that?"

She looked up quickly. With the sure instinct of a dweller in a gun
man's land she knew the meaning of the splintered wood of the pommel,
the torn and ragged leather that had covered it.

"Hell!" she said softly, "where did you get that?"

"At the mouth of Black Coulee, at dusk a week ago."

For a long moment Tharon studied the saddle. Then her gaze dimmed,
lengthened, went beyond into infinitude. The pupils of her eyes drew
down to tiny points of black against the brilliant blue.

At last she turned and held out a hand, rising from her elbow.

"I beg your pardon, Mister," she said quaintly, "fer that day at the
Holdin' an' th' meal I offered an' took, an' fer my words. I know now
that you are--that you were--straight. I don't yet know what you may
mean in Lost Valley with your talk of Government, but I do know you
ain't a Courtrey man."

Kenset took the hand. It was firm and shapely and vibrant with the
young life there was in her. He laid his other one over it and held it
in a close clasp for a moment.

"I mean only right," he said, "sanity and law and decency. I think I
have a big problem to handle here--aside from my work on the forest--a
problem I must solve before I can be effective in that work--and I am
more sincerely glad than I can say that my friend, the outlaw, took
that warning shot at me. It ruined a perfectly good saddle, but it has
made one point clear to you. I am no Courtrey man, and that's a solemn
fact."

"An' I ain't ashamed to say I'm glad, too," said Tharon.

So, with the sun shining in the cloud-flecked heavens and the little
winds blowing up from the south to ruffle the hair at the girl's
temples, these two sat by the Silver Hollow and talked of a thousand
things, after the manner of the young, for Kenset found himself
reverting to the things of youth in the light of Tharon's grave
simplicity.

They looked into each other's eyes and found there strange depths and
lights. They were aliens, strangers, groping dimly for a common
ground, and finding little, though presently they fell once more upon
the law in Lost Valley and earnestness deepened into gravity.

"Miss Last," said Kenset, thrilling at his daring, "why must this law
dwell in