ven. That had been four
years back. He had been pretty young then, but the young feel deeply.

Now he held a gun woman's hand in the thin shade of a willow clump in
the heart of Lost Valley--and the blood surged in his ears, the levels
and slopes danced before his vision.

"Miss Tharon," he said, for the first time using her given name, "I
beg your pardon. You are strong, simple, serene. You know your land
and its ways. I am an alien, an interloper--but I can't bear to think
of you as waiting for the time to kill a man--or to be killed in the
killing. It sickens me."

Tharon snatched her hand from his and leaped to her feet.

"Don't talk like that!" she cried passionately, "I don't like to hear
it! I thought you were a real man, maybe, but you're not! You--you're
a woman! A soft woman--I hate th' breed!"

Her face was flushed, for what reason Kenset, stunned by her vehement
words, could not tell. She flung the rein up and followed it, leaping
to saddle like a man.

"I tol' you we couldn't be friends!" she cried, her eyes blazing with
sudden fire, "there ain't no manner of use a-tryin'."

Kenset, springing forward, caught El Rey's bit. The stallion reared
and struck, but he held him down.

"There is use, Tharon," he panted. "It's vital! Since that day on
Baston's steps, when you backed out past me I have had you in my
mind--my thoughts by day and night--there is use, and I'll keep your
hands from blood--Courtrey's or any other--if it takes my life--so
help me God!"

The girl leaned down and her blue eyes blazed in his face.

"An' make me false to th' crosses on Jim Last's stone?" she cried.
"No--not you or anybody else--could do that trick! Let go!"

The next moment she had whirled out from the flickering shade of the
willows and was gone around toward the north--there was only the sound
of hoofs ringing on the earth. Kenset, left alone where the Silver
Hollow bubbled softly above its snowy sands, passed a trembling hand
across his eyes and stood as in a trance.

What did it mean? What had he promised? What vital emotion had gripped
him that his usually quiet tongue had rushed into that torrential
speech that dealt with life and death? What was Tharon Last to him?

A figure of the old West! A romantic gun woman with her weapons on her
hips! A rider of wild horses!

Slowly, as if he had gained an added weight of years, he reined
Captain and swung himself up. He rode east from the spring toward the
lacy a