Part 29 (1/2)

Her blue-veined hands were so thin the light seemed to s.h.i.+ne through them.

Her long white dress clung to her slim form. From far back by the corral fence Cleve Whitmore watched her silently, his hands clenched hard.

Tharon Last looked at her with wide eyes. She had forgotten all about this woman in the pa.s.sionate hatred of Courtrey and the desire to pin his crimes upon him. Now she wet her lips and looked at Ellen long and silently. The pale lips were quivering, the long arm shook as it held the gun.

”G.o.d!” whispered the girl, watching, ”she loves him! Like I loved Jim Last! Th' pain's in her heart, an' no mistake!”

Then, as if something strong within her folded its iron arm upon itself, she began to back El Rey. ”Back out!” she called, ”we ain't no woman-killers!”

With one accord, carefully, watching, the Vigilantes began to back, counting the seconds, expecting each moment to witness the most pitiful thing Lost Valley with all its crimes, had ever seen.

Some one lifted the body of Thomas and swung it across a horse.

Back to the corner of the house, around, they went, and finally, out in front they turned as one man and rode away from the Stronghold--and Jim Banner was swearing like a fury, steadily, in a high-pitched voice.

”Failed!” he cried between his oaths, ”failed in our biggest job!

That's th' gun, all right, all right, an' that d.a.m.ned woman beat us to it! Beat us to it with her fool's courage an' her sickenin' love! Oh, t' h.e.l.l with Courtrey an' all this Valley! I'm a-goin' t' move down th' Wall, s'help me!”

But Tharon Last forged to his side and gripped his arm in her strong fingers.

”Shut up, Jim Banner,” she said tensely. ”You've only begun. That's th' gun, I make no doubt, an' Ellen knew it--but if we're worth killin' we'll dig into this harder'n ever. Here's poor Thomas, makes one more notch on my record. I'm not sayin' quit! An' you're th'

bravest man in Corvan, too!”

At Last's Holding the Vigilantes stopped for rest and food.

They had been in saddle the better part of forty-eight hours.

Young Paula, Jose and Anita set up a steaming meal, and they ate like famished men, by relays at the big table in the dining room.

Tharon Last sat quietly at the board's head throughout the meal, pensive, thinking of Ellen, but grimly planning for the future.

And Billy and Kenset watched her, each with a secret pain at his heart.

”Lord, Lord,” said Billy to himself, ”she's listenin' when he speaks like she never listened to any one before!”

In Kenset's mind drilled over and over again the ceaseless thought ”A hand or a heart--she could hit them both with ease. It's true, true,--she's a gun woman! Oh, Tharon, Tharon!” and he did not know he spoke her name beneath his breath.

But other things were crowding forward--he was leaning forward telling that circle of grim, lean faces, that if they could not handle this thing themselves, there were those in the big world of below who could--that there were men of the Secret Service who could find that gun no matter where Courtrey or Ellen hid it, that Lost Valley, no matter what its isolation or its history, was yet in the U. S. A., and could be tamed.

Then the Vigilantes were gone with jangle of spur and bit-chain, and he was the last to go, standing by Captain in the dim starlight.

Tharon stood beside him, and for some unaccountable reason the grim purpose of their acquaintance seemed to drift away, to leave them together, alone under the stars, a man and a maid. Kenset stood for a long moment and looked at the faint outline of her face. She was still in her riding clothes, her head bare with its ribbon half untied in the nape of her slender neck.

The tree-toads were singing off by the springhouse and the cattle in the big corrals made the low, ceaseless night-sounds common to a herd.

The riders were gone, the _vaqueros_ were at their posts around the resting stock, the low adobe house was settling into the quiet of the night.

Miserably Kenset looked at this slip of a girl.