ng that darkened cabin at its head to stand in tragic
loneliness.

She saw the tops of the guarding pines at the gateway, rode out
between them. The moon was up in majesty, and by its light Jack
Masters suddenly leaned down to look at something, pulled up, swept
down from his saddle, cowboy fashion, hanging by a foot and a hand,
and picked up something which he examined keenly.

"Look," he said quickly, "th' beet-man's badge!"

He held out on his palm a small dark object, the copper-coloured
shield which had shone on Kenset's breast!

Its double-tongued fastener was twisted far awry, as if it had been
wrenched away by violence.

Conford turned and looked back to the cabin, as if he measured the
distance.

"There's been funny work here as sure's hell," he said profoundly.

Then they rode on, all silent, thinking. It was near dawn when they
rode up along the sounding-board and put in at Last's. Billy reached
up tender arms and took Tharon off El Rey, and for the first time she
gave herself wearily into them as if she were done.

As she opened the door into her own dusky room the pale Virgin,
touched by a silver shaft of the sinking moon, stood out in startling,
ethereal beauty, Her meek hands folded on Her breast. Tharon Last
stumbled forward and sank in a heap at Her feet, her arms about the
statue's knees.

"Hail--Mary--intercede for--him--" she faltered, and then the shining
Virgin, the dim mystery of the shadowy room, faded out to leave her
for the first time in her strong life, a bit of senseless clay.

When she again opened her eyes the little winds of day were fanning
her cheeks and old Anita was tugging at her shoulders, voluble with
fright.

To the riders of Last's the tragedy was nothing more than any other
that they had known in Lost Valley. They went about their work as
usual.

Only Billy was filled with a sickening anguish at the knowledge that
he was not able to offer one smallest saving straw to the girl in the
big house--for Billy knew.

All day Tharon sat like a rock in her own room, staring with unseeing
eyes at the blank whitewashed walls. She did not yet know what ailed
her, why this killing, more than that of poor Harkness, should make
her sick to her soul's foundations. Yet it was so. Even the thought of
her sworn duty was vague before her for a time. Then it seemed to come
forward out of the mass of fleeting memories--Kenset that day at
Baston's steps shapely, trim, halted--Kenset