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They rode in silence, Conford, Bent, Jack, Curly, Billy and herself, and a thousand thoughts were boiling miserably in two hearts. El Rey, Golden, Redbuck, Drumfire, Westwind and Sweetheart, they went down along the sounding dark plain, a magnificent band.
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.
She slipped off El Rey and stood by his shoulder waiting. Conford struck a flare and lit a candle, holding it carefully before him, shielding it with his palm behind it to throw the gleam away from his face, into the cabin. The pale light illumined the whole interior, and it was empty.
A thousand times did Conford, the foreman, catch himself in the act of going to the big room to find him at his desk, a big, vital force, intent on the accounts of the ranch, a thousand times did he long for his keen insight. The vaqueros missed him and his open hand.
Then she whirled into the house and her young voice pealed out a call Billy, Conford, Bent she drew them to her running through the deep house to point to the silent messenger and question them with wide blue eyes where fear rose up like a living thing. Billy at her shoulder, looked not at Captain, but at her.
A simple declaration, awaiting her disposal. Conford, not half approving, his heart heavy with foreboding, stood at his mistress' shoulder and waited, too. For a long moment there was no sound save the eternal tree-toads at their concert. Then the girl spoke, and it seemed to those shadowy listeners that they heard again the voice of Jim Last, sane, commanding, full of courage and conviction.
"Courtrey's beginnin'," she said. "He's heard th' word I sent th' settlers. He's goin' t' use th' tactics now with Last's that he's used with every poor devil he wanted to run out of th' Valley, th' tactics he darsent use while Jim Last lived. Well go send Conford to me, Billy." The girl sat down in the doorway and gazed sombrely out over the summer land.
If this dark blot of blood had come from the veins of Billy now, of Conford, or Jack or Curly, her own men, would she have lost her grip like this? And then she became dully conscious that Billy had put her in the big chair by the table and had joined the others in their exhaustive search for any clew to the tragedy.
She talked with Conford who rode beside her, and now and then she smiled, for all the world as if she went to some young folks' gathering, instead of to the first uncertain issue of blind mob law against outlaws. But if she felt a lightness of excitement in her heart it was more than actuated by the grim and quiet band that followed.
Conford took the slab, scratched his head, holding his hat between thumb and finger, read it over, read it again, smiled, and then looked up. "Might work," he said, "an' you're givin' out your stand an' knowledge broadcast, ain't you?" "Certainly am," said Tharon briefly. "I said I'd fight, an' I want th' whole Valley t' know it." "It does," said Conford with conviction.
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