ter Painter had coloured them, as indeed it had. The Rockface at
the west was black with shadow for all its rugged miles, the eastern
uplands were bathed and aglow with purplish crimson light.

In Corvan lights twinkled all up and down the one main street. Horses
were tied at the hitch-racks and among them were the Ironwoods
from Courtrey's Stronghold, beautiful big creatures, blood-bay,
black-pointed, noticeable in any bunch. There were no Finger Marks,
however, the blue roans, red roans and buckskins with the four
black stripes on the outside of the knee, as if one had slapped them
with a tarred hand, which hailed from Last's. There were horses
from all up and down the Valley. Cow ponies and half-breeds of the
Ironwood stock which Courtrey would not keep at the Stronghold but was
too close to kill, shouldered pintos from the Indian settlements,
big, half-wild horses from over the mountains at the North. Inside
the brightly lighted saloons men passed back and forth, drank neat
liquor at the worn bars, played at the green felt and canvas
covered tables. At one, The Golden Cloud, more pretentious than the
rest, there foregathered the leading spirits of the Valley. Here
Courtrey came and played and drank, his henchmen with him. He was in
high mettle this night. Always a contained man, slow to laughter
and to speech, he seemed to have unbent more than usual, to respond
to the human nature about him. He was not playing steadily as was
his wont. He took a turn at poker with three men from the south of
the Valley where the river ran out of the Bottle Neck, won a hand
or two, threw down the cards and swung away to talk a moment with
this one, listen a moment where those two spoke of hushed matters.
Always when he came near he was accorded deference. There was
nothing sacred from Courtrey of the Stronghold, seated like a feudal
place at the north head of Lost Valley, no conversation so private
that he could not come in on it if he chose.

For Courtrey was the king of the country, undisputed sovereign, the
best gun man north of the Rio Grand and south of the Line, if one
excepted Jim Last. With him tonight were Black Bart, tall, swarthy,
gimlet-eyed, a helf-breed Mexican, and Wylackie Bob his right-hand
man. Without these two he seldom moved. They were both able
lieutenants, experts with firearms. A formidable trio, the three went
where and when they listed, and few disputed their right-of-way.

Courtrey, a smile in his dark