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Once again the crowd in the room stirred and Courtrey's narrow eyes went over it in that cold, promising glance. For once in his life Courtrey, the bully, felt a premonitory chill down his spine because for the first time that promising glance of his failed of its effect! Only here and there along the rows of faces did one cower.
Th' man or woman that kills Courtrey now 'counts for three men Harkness, Last an' Pete. I'm on my way to th' Stronghold." She whirled again to run for the stallion, but the forest man leaned down and caught her shoulder in a grip of steel. "Not now," he said in that compelling low voice, "not now. I want to talk to you." "But I don't want to talk to you!" she flung out, "I'm goin'!"
At the end of the store porch she came face to face with Courtrey and Steptoe Service, the sheriff of Menlo county. She swung to one side to descend the rough steps, vouchsafing them no word or look, but Service blocked her way. She raised her eyes and looked him full in the face, scanning his coarse red features coolly. "Well?" she said sharply.
It was shaded by cottonwoods and spruces, flanked by corrals and barns and sheds until the place resembled a small town. Cleve Whitmore rode for Courtrey but his heart was not in Courtrey's game. He was slim and sullen, dissatisfied, slow of speech, repressed. He worked early and late and thought a lot.
Jim Last could talk when he needed, though he was a man of conserved speech. Yes, Courtrey was like a king in Lost Valley, absolute.
Courtrey came rapidly up toward her, swinging a bit to the west. The others, set somewhat apart to right and left, bore down upon her. It looked very much as if they meant to ride her down to the Black Coulee. Once in its sheltering deep wash she would be helpless, cut off from escape.
They knew, every man of them, that this slow banding together for resistance against Courtrey and his power meant open war. For years they had suffered indignities and hardship without protest. While Jim Last lived they had had a sort of leader, an example, though they had feared to follow in his lead too strongly.
"We saw Courtrey an' his ruffians ridin' up east watched 'em with th' glass, an' Anita said you rode south. Thought you might have met 'em." "I didn't meet 'em, so to speak," she said, smiling, "though if I'd been on anythin' but El Rey I would. They tried to drive me into Black Coulee." "Hell!" said Billy softly. Then the Mistress of Last's remembered her manners.
Few men in the world could have made it, and gotten away with it. None in a different setting. Courtrey heard it, but he paid little heed to it at the moment. His eyes went to the face of Tharon Last and drank in its beauty hungrily. Presently he shifted his gaze and regarded Kenset with a cold light that was evil. "Who wants 'em?" he asked drawlingly. "We do." "Hell! Want Courtrey's guns!
For a moment she stood so in breathless silence, scanning the room. Then her glance came to rest on the face of Buck Courtrey. "Men," she said clearly, "we buried Jim Last today. El Rey brought him home last night finished. You all know he was a gun man th' best in these parts. It was no gun man that killed him, in fair-an'-open, for he was shot in th' back.
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