dropped its long
points to the edge of his jaw. Black hair showed beneath the hat. He
was a remarkable figure, even in Lost Valley, and he commanded
attention.

He carried the customary two guns of the country, and he bestrode a
horse that was as noticeable as himself.

This horse was no denizen of Lost Valley. It was an utter alien. Its
colour was a dingy black, as if it had recently been through fire, its
coat rough and unkempt. Its long head was heavy and slug-like, its
nose of the type known among horsemen as Roman. It was roughly built,
raw-boned and angular, and of so stupendous a size that the man atop,
who was six foot tall himself, seemed small by comparison.

However, for all its ugliness, it possessed a seeming of vast power, a
suggestion of great strength.

The stranger looked the group over with his keen, hard eyes, and spoke
in a slow drawl.

"I reckon," he said, "I'm a-ridin' th' wrong trail. I hain't expected
hyar."

And turning abruptly, without another word, he jogged away around the
house and started down the long slope already greying with the coming
night.

The foreman and the five punchers clamped over to the corner of the
kitchen and watched him in speculative silence. Tharon came along and
stood by Billy, her hand on the boy's arm. To Billy that sober touch
confused the distances, set the strange rider dancing on the slope.

"H'm," said Conford, his grey eyes narrow, "come from far an's goin'
somewheres. I'll watch that duck. He looks like he's a record man to
me."

At supper there was much speculation about the stranger.

"I'll lay a month's pay he come from Texas," said Billy, casting a
side glance at his pal Curly, "them long lankys usually do. An'
somehow it shows in their eyes, sort o' fierce an'--"

"Billy," said Tharon severely, "if I was Curly I'd take a fall out of
you. He can do it, _you_ know that an' _I_ know it."

"Thanks, Miss Tharon," said Curly in his soft Southern drawl, "if you
feel that-a-way about it, w'y, I don't care what _no_ little
yellow-headed whipper-snapper from up Wyomin' way says to th'
contrary."

Billy was a bit abashed, but he stubbornly supported his contention
that the stranger was a bad-man from Texas.

"Plenty bad-men right here in Lost Valley," said the girl quietly,
"an' th' breed ain't dyin' out as I can see. Th' settlers need a new
leader--now that Jim Last's gone." And she fell to playing absently
with her fork upon the cloth.

The