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It was a skunk, a coyote, a son-of-th'-devil, an' I'm goin' to kill him." At the last word there was a lightning movement at the bar as Courtrey's hand flashed at his hip, a flash of fire, a shot that went high and lodged in the deep beam above the door, for the weazened form of the snow-packer had leaped up against him in the same instant. The girl had not moved.
When Kenset, quietly impervious to the veiled hostility that met him everywhere, faced Steptoe Service and made his request, that dignitary felt a chill go down his spine. Like Old Pete he felt the man beneath the surface. He met him, however, with bluster and refused all reopening of a matter which he declared settled with the burial of the snow-packer in the sliding cañons where he was found.
So old Pete, the snow-packer, had paid the price of gallantry. The bullet he had averted from Tharon Last's young head that day in the Golden Cloud but sheathed itself to wait for him. All the Valley knew it. Not a soul beneath the Rockface but knew beyond a shadow of a doubt who, or whose agents, had followed Pete that night to the Cañon Country.
As she ran across the street to where the Finger Marks were tied, she came face to face with Kenset on Captain. Her face was red from brow to throat, her voice thick with rage. "You talked o' law, Mr. Kenset," she cried at the brown horse's shoulder, her eyes upraised to his, "an' see what law there is in Lost Valley! Step Service has buried th' snow-packer without a by-your-leave from nobody!
"I don't," spoke up Old Pete, shuffling by on his bandy legs, "sometimes that quiet, soft-spoken kind rises an' then hell's to pay in their veecinity." But Wylackie looked at the weazened snow-packer with his snake-like eyes and snapped out a warning. "Some folks takes sides too quick, sometimes." But Old Pete went on about his business.
Along the foot of the Rockface in the early evening a tiny procession had crawled, three burros, their pack-saddles empty save for a couple of sacks tied across each, and a weazened form that followed them Old Pete, the snow-packer, bound on his nightly journey to the Cañon Country for the bags of snow for the cooling of the Golden Cloud's refreshments.
Then Kenset gave it to the coroner. "There's your clew, Mr. Banner," he said. "Now we can begin. Let us be going back to Corvan." And so it was that Old Pete, the snow-packer, went back in state to the Golden Cloud, by relays on men's shoulders down the sounding passes, through the dead cut, by pack-horse across the levels, lashed stiffly to the saddle, a pitiful burden.
He dragged two grain sacks behind him, and he was so grotesquely bow-legged that the first sight of him always provoked laughter. This was old Pete the snow-packer, bound on his nightly trip to the hills. Outside his burros waited, their pack-saddles empty. By dawn they would come down from the world's rim, the grain sacks bulging with hard-packed snow for the cooling of Bullard's liquor.
Then, lastly, the cold eyes of the king came down to rest upon the weazened figure of the snow-packer busily engaged in rolling up his sacks for departure. If the strange old creature knew and felt their promise, he gave no sign as he trundled himself outdoors on his bandy legs. "Skunks," said Old Pete, as he fumbled with his straps about the patient burros, "are plumb pizen t' pure flesh."
"Your little old sheriff has had the fear-of-the-Lord put into him somewhat. He's shaking in his boots about the snow-packer. There's only one thing lacking to make our grip close down on Courtrey, and that's vital the gun with the untrue firing pin you speak about in your instructions." "Not lackin'," said Tharon grimly, "we've got it, Mister." The Secret Service man whirled to her.
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