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Then he swung quickly out through the Golden, Cloud, and Lola slipped limply down on a couch and covered her ashen cheeks with her hands. "Oh, Buck!" she whispered brokenly, "Oh, Buck! Buck!" Courtrey went straight home, still, cold, thinking hard. His henchmen left him in solitude after the first word or two. They knew him well, and that something was brewing.
The king struck into his gait and his rider, facing backward, swung away down the narrow street. Until she was well out of range the tension held. Then Steptoe Service struck a fist into a palm and began to swear in a fury, but Courtrey laughed, one of his rare, short bursts of mirth that were more bodeful than oaths. He turned on his heel and strode back the way he had come.
The girl, for she was scarce more, looked up at him and he saw at once, even under the disfiguring headgear, that here was a breaking heart laid open for all eyes. The very droop and tremble of the lips were proof. "Mrs. Courtrey?" he asked gently.
"I said I'd get you, Buck Courtrey!" she muttered, "that some day I'd run th' Ironwoods off their feet th' heart out of their master! "Run, damn you for it's your last ride!" Then she dropped forward again and watched the distance closing down. Nearer nearer nearer! The note rose another notch. Never in his life had El Rey run as he ran now. Always he had had reserves. He had them now.
No neither was she like Lola of the Golden Cloud, past-master of men because she had belonged to many. Courtrey, who had run life's gamut himself, thought of Tharon Last's straight young purity with growing desire. It began to obsess him with a mania. His temper, bad at all times, became worse.
She wondered what Courtrey meant by this strange quiet following the tragic moment at the Stronghold steps when the Vigilantes had challenged him and ridden away. And then, all suddenly, into her dreaming there came the sound of a horse's hoofs on the sounding-board without slow hoofs, uncertain.
"Do," said Courtrey, and swung away around the wall of the house. There were no more artless songs that day at Last's Holding. Anita was awake and peering with dim eyes when Tharon came in from the door sill. "Mi querida," she asked, "what happened?" "Nothing," said the girl, "it's time to begin supper. Th' boys'll soon be comin' in."
She laughed and crouched for the final act. But a sudden coldness went over her from head to foot, sent the hot blood shaking down her spine. What was Courtrey doing? He rode straight up at last, like an Indian showing, and his bleeding left hand swung at his side. With the other he had swept off his wide hat, so that his handsome iron-grey head was bare to the summer sun.
He recalled the look of the settlers poor spawn that he hated whirling their solid column behind her to face him that day from the Cup Rim's floor. No. Courtrey meant to have the girl some day to hold in his arms that ached for her loveliness, the strong, resistant young body of her to sate his thief's mouth with kisses.
He had said to Courtrey that night at the Stronghold that he had come to stay. No bunch of lawless bullies were going to scare him out. No other shot followed. He had not expected one. For a time after that he went about his work as usual. Nothing happened; he had no outward sign of the distaste with which he was regarded by all factions alike, it seemed.
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