g glance at Wylackie and Arizona. He jerked the cinch so
savagely that the horse leaped and struck.

For four days there was absolute dearth at the Stronghold.

Courtrey did not return. Ellen timidly tried to find out from the
_vaqueros_ where he had gone, but they evaded her.

Then, on the morning of that day, Steptoe Service, grinning and
important, came to the Stronghold and served on Ellen a summons in
suit for divorce.

She met him at the door and invited him in, timidly and shyly, but he
stood on the stone and made known his business.

At first she did not understand, was like a child told something too
deep for its intellect to grasp, bewildered.

Then, when Service made it brutally plain, she slipped down along
the doorpost like a wilted lily and lay long and white on the
sand-scrubbed floor. Her women, loving her desperately, gathered her
up and shut the door in the sheriff's face.

They sent for Cleve, and not even the presence of Black Bart in the
near corral could keep the brother from running into the darkened room
where Ellen lay, too stunned to rally.

"Damn him!" he gritted, falling on his knees beside her, "this's
what's come of it! I ben lookin' for something of its like. Let him
go. We'll leave Lost Valley, Ellen. We'll go out an' start another
life, begin all over again. We're both too young to be floored by a
man like Courtrey. Let him go."

But the woman turned her waxen face to the wall and shook her head.

"There ain't no life in this world for me without Buck," she
whispered. "If he don't want me, I don't want myself."

"You dont' want to hang to him, do you, Sis?" begged the man, "don't
want to stay at th' Stronghold after this?"

"Rather stay here under Buck's feet like th' poorest of his dogs than
be well-off somewheres where I couldn't never see him again, never
look in his face."

"God!" groaned Cleve, "you love him like that!"

"Yes," said Ellen, wearily, "like that."

"Then by th' Eternal!" swore Cleve softly, "here you'll stay if it
takes all th' law in th' United States to keep you here. I'll file
your answer tomorrow--protest to th' last word!"

And he rode into Corvan, only to find that Courtrey and Courtrey's
influence had been there before him, that a cold sense of disaster
seemed to permeate the town and all those whom he met therein.

He found the "Court House crowd" tight-lipped and careful.

And Ben Garland set the day for trial at a ridiculously early date