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Updated: June 27, 2025
"Here," said Albright, coming back from a short distance down, beneath the spray on the wall, "here's where something was taken up from th' floor th' blood he lost, I make no doubt." "Gentlemen, Miss Last," said Kenset, "I move we all move back and leave the ground to Albright. There is fine work here." With one accord the mass moved back, clearing a goodly space.
Kenset went swiftly across the cabin to that part which served as kitchen, and took from a curtain-covered set of shelves, a shiny nickel object on spindly legs, which he brought and placed near Tharon on the table. He struck a match and presently a clean blue flame grew up beneath it. He lifted the lid and filled the small pot, thereby exposed, with water from the bucket on a bench.
Sane as Kenset was, as cool and self-contained, he could not repress a cold prickle of resentment at that memory. He had gone to the Holding in such good faith, actuated by a lively desire to see Tharon again after that one amazing meeting at Baston's steps, and he had been so readily received at first, so coolly turned out at last.
So, with the sun shining in the cloud-flecked heavens and the little winds blowing up from the south to ruffle the hair at the girl's temples, these two sat by the Silver Hollow and talked of a thousand things, after the manner of the young, for Kenset found himself reverting to the things of youth in the light of Tharon's grave simplicity.
Then he went back to his cabin and his interrupted work and set himself to wait in patience for the return of Drake. But in Lost Valley a leaven was rising. It had begun insidiously to work with the appearance of Kenset in Tharon's band at Courtrey's doorstep.
Why not go out to the dim and half-remembered world that he had left, the world of lights, padded floors and marble steps, leave this impossible land with its blood and wrongs? Nay, he could not leave Lost Valley. He was as much a part of it as the grim Rockface itself, the Vestal's Veil eternally shimmering in its thousand feet of beauty. Life or death, for Kenset, it must be here.
He played his trump card and it was a winner, sweeping the table for she knew before she finished that difficult reading that she would do anything in all the world to stop that "true bullet" in the heart that had pounded beneath her open palms.... Knew she would break her given word to Jim Last knew she would forsake the Holding that she would crawl to Courtrey's feet and kiss his hand, if only he would spare Kenset of the foothills, would send him out to that vague world of below, never to return!
"Very well," said Kenset shortly, "you see I have witnesses to this," and he turned on his heel and went out. "Now, Miss Last," he said when they were in the wholesome summer sunlight once more, "if you have any friends whom you think would stand for the right, send for them." "Th' Vigilantes," said the girl, "we'll gather them in twenty-four hours." "The Vigilantes?"
"I am proud of my home, Miss Last," he said presently. "What do you think of it?" "I think," said Tharon slowly, "that it looks like there's a woman somewhere." This time Kenset laughed in earnest, a ringing peal that startled El Rey at the doorstep, and made him clink his bit-chains. "There is," said the man, "assuredly." Tharon turned her head and looked quickly over her shoulder.
It was as if some fateful Power at Washington had set down a careless finger on a map of the U.\S.\A., and said to Kenset, "Here is your country," without knowledge or interest. Sometimes he wondered if there was another forest in the land as utterly lost as this, as little known. But with this wonder came a thrill.
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