nd far-reaching skirts of the forest, and for the first time he
saw the rolling country with tragic eyes.

It held deep issues--life and death and the passing or continuing of
regimes and and dynasties--but it was a wondrous country, and, come
good or bad, it had become his own. He swung around in his saddle and
looked far back across the Valley. He saw the golden light on its
uncounted acres, the shadow falling at the foot of the great Rockface,
the mighty Wall itself with the silver ribbon of the Vestal's Veil
falling straight down from the upper rim, the distant town, looking
always like a dull gem in a dark setting, and a thrill shot to his
heart.

Yes, if he lived to do his work in the hidden Valley--if he was shot
this night on his own doorstep, it was his country.

He who was alien in every way, was yet native.

Something in the depths of him came down as from far distant racial
haunts and was at home.

So he rode slowly up among the scattered oaks with his hands folded on
the mutilated pommel, and he knew that his lines were definitely
cast.

* * * * *

Tharon Last rode into the Holding and dismounted in unwonted silence.

There was a frown between her brows, an unusual thing. She turned the
stallion into his corral, dragged off the big saddle to hang it on its
peg, flung the studded bridle on a post.

The men were not in yet. Far toward the north beyond the big corrals
she could see the cattle grazing toward home. A surge of savage joy in
her possessions flooded over her. These things were her own. They were
what Jim Last had worked for all his life.

Not one hoof or hide should Courtrey take without swift reprisal.

Not one inch should he push her from her avowed purpose--not though
all the strangers in the world came to Lost Valley and prated of
blood-guilt.

But for some vague reason which she could not have analyzed had she
wished, she went to the paled-in garden where the silver waters
trickled and searched among the few flowers growing there for some
blossom, sweeter, tenderer, more mild and timid than usual for the
pale hands of the Virgin in the deep south room.

With the posy in her fingers she slipped quietly to her sanctuary and
knelt before the statue, pensive, frowning, vaguely stirred. She
whispered the prayers that Anita had taught her, but she found with a
start that the words were meaningless, that she was saying them
mechanically.

H