he gathered
himself, straightened, whirled, shook his giant frame and leaped clear
of the ground in a spectacular turn. The man on his back snatched off
his hat and shook it defiantly at the town--the people--the very
Valley that he had ruled so long. It was a dramatic gesture--daring,
scorning, renouncing. Then, without a word to his henchmen, a single
look of farewell, Buck Courtrey struck the Ironwood, and was gone back
along the little street.

His men whirled after him, but strange turn of destiny, they swung
directly north away from him, for he was turning south at the town's
edge.

"For the--Wall!" breathed Lola, her face like milk, one hand on her
glittering breast. "He--goes--for below!"

Then all the watchers knew the same.

The master of the Stronghold, having played for Lost Valley and for a
woman and lost them both--was done with both.

He leaned on the Ironwood's mighty neck and went south toward the
Bottle Neck.

All eyes were upon him--all, that is, save the earnest grey ones of
Billy Brent. They were fixed in anguish on the face of Tharon Last
beside him--Tharon Last, who shoved the gun-butts hard down in the
holsters at her hips, who whirled on her booted heel, who cleared the
space between her and El Rey in three cat-like leaps.

As she went up the stallion rose with her, came down with a pounding
of iron-shod hoofs, dropped his huge hips in the first leap--and was
away.

Corvan saw the silver horse shoot out from its midst and woke from its
lethargy.

"_Th' race!_" some one cried, high and shrill, "_th' race at last!_"

The two strangers saw it, and their lips fell open with amaze.

Kenset from his low porch saw it--and dropped his face on his arms.

"Lord God!" he groaned, "it's come! I couldn't hold her! I might have
known! I might have known! She's Valley bred--she _is_ the Valley!
I--and all I stand for--chaff in the wind! Nothing could hold her now!
Aye--nothing could hold her."

True at last to herself--true to Harkness--true to Jim Last--true to
the Vigilantes and to the Valley she loved, Tharon flung the sombrero
from her bright head, settled her feet in the stirrups, slid the rein
on El Rey's neck, leaned down above him and began to call in his
ears.

No need of that cry.

El Rey heeded nothing that she might say. She was not his master--never
had been. He had had but one, the big, stern man whose sharp word
had been his law--the one who had ever had his best, his love