reoccupation of the hour, drew in her
breath and the pupils of her blue eyes spread.

"Th' Canon Country!" she said softly, "I always knew it would be like
this--too great to tell about! I knew it would hold somethin' for
me--always knew it--either life an' its best--or death."

There was a simple grandeur about the earnest words, and Billy, his
face grey in the steely light, felt the heart in his breast thrill
with their portent.

No matter what the Canons held for her--either that glorious
fulfillment of life, or the simple austerity of death--he would have a
part in it, would have served her to the last, true to the love he
bore her, true to himself.

And nothing--nothing under God's heaven, save death itself--could ever
wipe out the memory of that kiss, given from the depths of her loving
heart, the sign-manuel of her undying affection and friendship, the
one and only touch of her inviolate red lips that he had ever known
the Mistress of Last's to give to any man, save Jim Last himself.

He wiped a hand across his forehead, damp with more than the night
cold, and dismounted.

"We'll leave th' horses here," he said. "I've an extra rope to string
across an' make a small corral."

He did not add that he would fasten this slim barrier lightly, so that
a horse that really wanted to break out--in the frantic madness of
thirst, say,--might do so.

Then he set about his task--but Tharon stood with strained eyes
looking up--and up--and ever up to the dimly appearing, looming spine
of False Ridge.

Over there, she knew in her heart, lay the hidden Cup o' God, with its
secret, the secret that meant all the world to her.

CHAPTER X

THE UNTRUE FIRING PIN

Tharon turned back and looked long at El Rey. She wondered if she
would ever see the great silver-blue stallion again, ever feel the
wind singing by her cheeks, ever hear the thunder of his running on
the hollow ranges. She saw the stain of Jim Last's blood on the big
studded saddle and a pain like death stabbed her.

"I'll get him," she had promised on that tragic day, "so help me God!"
and had made the sign of the Cross.

What did she now?

Cast away all certainty of that fulfilment because a man--a man almost
a stranger--lay somewhere in the Canon Country, crawled somewhere
along False Ridge, perhaps, wounded and sick with fever.

"Oh, hurry!" she whispered as Billy made secure his last light knot in
the rope gateway across the cut and came to