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Updated: June 22, 2025
Not a man in Lost Valley could have done it and gotten away with it. Tharon knew it, too, but she did not care. "An' now you know what you are, Courtrey. I'll tell th' same to you, Step Service. Law! In Lost Valley? Yes, Courtrey's law! Th' law of th' gun alone th' law of thieves th' law of murderers. An' you stand for that, you bet! What were you before you took th' oath of office? Tell me that!
Down in the Valley itself there could be seen the lights of Corvan which never went out from dusk to dawn. Far to the north a black blot might have been visible with a fuller moon Courtrey's herds bedded on the range, the only stock in the Valley so privileged.
Laughter came, a trifle cracked and forced, cards slapped on the tables, chairs creaked as the players drew up again, the dancers swung into step as the fiddle took up its interrupted strain. Only Lola, over by the door, looked for a pregnant moment at Courtrey's face, and shut her lips in a hard, straight line.
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.
Kenset, where did you get this gun?" But Kenset did not speak. His shoulders trembled, his dark head was bowed to the earth. "Answer me," said Billy, "for as sure's I live, this here's Buck Courtrey's favourite gun the gun with the untrue firin' pin. Look here." And he held it toward Tharon who leaned near to look. True enough.
The blood from that tossed right hand spurted over Wylackie Bob beside him, the gun it had held went hurtling away along the earth. There was a movement, a surge, the flash of guns and one of the settlers tumbled from his saddle, poor Thomas of the doubting heart. Courtrey's men flashed together as one, thundered backward to the wide doorstep, pressed together, waited.
He rose in his saddle turned flashed up his hand and fired. Quick as the motion of the gun man was, Tharon Last was quicker. She dropped over El Rey's shoulder like a cat, firing as she went. Courtrey's bullet clipped the cantle of the big saddle an inch above her flattened leg across it. Hers did something else what she had dreamed of.
And Ellen, chilled by Courtrey's sneering face, the cold disapproval of Ben Garland's striking mallet, sank back in her chair and covered her face with her shaking hands.... She heard some more awful things then the voice of Dick Burtree beginning soft, low, silver like running waters.
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.
Couldn't have in any other place in the good old U. S. A. but this God forsaken hole! Well named, Lost Valley! Why, we've found enough evidence already to convict a dozen men! Your Courtrey's the man that planned a dozen murders, I can see that, and he's pulled off a lot of them himself. The people are talking now, rumbling from one end of the Valley to the other.
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