upon his features. With a deadly knowledge she was
printing them indelibly upon her heart.

Presently Jim Last sighed and opened his eyes. They sought hers and he
smiled, a tender lighting from within. He fumbled for the buckle of
his gun-belt. The girl unclasped it and pulled it free. She noticed
that both guns were in their holsters.

"Put it on," whispered the master of Last's Holding.

Without a question Tharon stood up and buckled the belt about her
slender waist.

Her father raising himself with difficulty on an elbow, wet his lips.

"Tharon, my girl," he said, "show your dad th' backhand flip."

Strange play, this, when every second counted, but Last's daughter
obeyed him to the letter.

She stepped clear by the table, stood at attention a second, and, with
a peculiar outward whirl, lightning-quick, of her two wrists, had him
covered with the big blue guns.

He nodded.

"Good as I learned ye," he whispered, "make it better."

"I will," promised Tharon swiftly.

The man closed his eyes, swayed, recovered as Conford caught him, and
brightened again.

"Now th' under-sling."

Again she obeyed, replacing the weapons, standing that second
at attention, and flipping them from the holsters so quickly
that the eye could scarcely catch the motion. Both draws were
peculiar--and peculiarly Last's own. "Good girl," he said with
a husk grown suddenly in his voice, "take--three hours--a day.
I want t' leave you th' best gun-handler in Lost Valley--because,
my girl--you'll--have--to--to--pro----"

He ceased, wilting forward in Conford's arms.

Then he opened his eyes again for one last smile at the daughter he
had loved above all things on earth, save and except the memory of the
woman who had given her to him.

For once in her life Tharon did not wait his finished speech. She saw
the Hand reach out of the shadows and flung herself upon his breast
where the blood still seeped and fairly forced the last flutter of
life to brighten in him. She kissed his rugged cheek.

"Who, Dad," she called into his dulling senses, "tell me who? I'll get
him, so help me God!" and she loosed one hand to cross herself, as old
Anita had taught her.

But the promise was late. None knew whether or not Jim Last heard it,
for before the last word was done the breath had ceased in his
throat.

Another twilight came down upon Lost Valley. The wide ranges lay dim
and mysterious, grey and pink and lavendar, as if the hand of a
Mas