Tharon of Lost Valley Part 30

She knew that surely and swiftly this man had gone down the path of unreasoning love, that he would give anything he possessed, do anything possible, to win for himself this slim mistress of Last's Holding.

Therefore she played the one card she held, hoping to rouse the bully, and did just the thing she was trying to avert.

"Buck," she said, her black head on his shoulder, her dark eyes watching covertly his careless face, "the Last girl is lost to every Valley man. Sooner or later she'll leave the country, mark my word, with this Forest Service fellow, for she's in love with him, though she doesn't know it yet."

With a slow movement Courtrey loosed his arm about Lola and lifted her from him. His eyes were narrowed as he looked into her face.

"For G.o.d's sake!" he said, "what makes you think that?"

"Knowledge," said Lola, "long knowledge of women and men."

"If I thought that," said Courtrey slowly, his eyes losing sight of her as he seemed to look beyond her. "If--I--thought that--why, h.e.l.l!

If that's th' truth--why, it--it's th' lever!"

And he rose abruptly, though he had just settled himself in Lola's apartment for a pleasant chat, as was his habit whenever he rode in from the Stronghold.

"Lola," he said presently, "I might's well tell you that I'm plannin'

to have this girl for mine,--_mine_, you understand, legally, by law.

I can't have her like I've had you. She'd blow my head off th' first time I stopped holdin' her hands." He laughed at the picture he had conjured, then went on.

"An' so I feel grateful to you, old girl, for that remark. It sets me thinkin'." And he stooped and kissed her on the lips. The woman returned the kiss, a wonderful caress, slow, soft, alluring, but the man did not notice.

His face was flushed, his eyes studying.

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.

At midnight that night he roused Wylackie Bob, Black Bart and the man who was known as Arizona, and the four of them went out on the levels for a secret talk.

The next day the master of the Stronghold rode away on Bolt. As he left, Ellen, standing in the doorway like a pale ghost, lifted her tragic eyes to his face with the look of a faithful dog.

"Where you goin', Buck?" she asked timidly.

"Off," said the man shortly.

"Ain't you goin'--goin' to kiss me?"

He laughed cruelly.

"Not after what I ben a-hearin', I ain't!"

She sprang forward, catching at his knee.

"What--what you ben a-hearin'? There ain't nothin' about me you could a-heard, Buck, dear! Nothin' in this world! I ben true to you as your shadow!"

Every soul within hearing knew the words for the utter and absolute truth, yet Courtrey looked at Wylackie Bob, at Arizona, and laughed.

"Like h.e.l.l, you have!" he said, struck the Ironwood and was gone around the corner of the house with the sound of thunder.

Ellen wet her lips and looked around like a wounded animal.

Her brother Cleve, saddling up a little way apart, cast a long studying glance at Wylackie and Arizona. He jerked the cinch so savagely that the horse leaped and struck.

For four days there was absolute dearth at the Stronghold.

Courtrey did not return. Ellen timidly tried to find out from the _vaqueros_ where he had gone, but they evaded her.

Then, on the morning of that day, Steptoe Service, grinning and important, came to the Stronghold and served on Ellen a summons in suit for divorce.

She met him at the door and invited him in, timidly and shyly, but he stood on the stone and made known his business.

At first she did not understand, was like a child told something too deep for its intellect to grasp, bewildered.

Then, when Service made it brutally plain, she slipped down along the doorpost like a wilted lily and lay long and white on the sand-scrubbed floor. Her women, loving her desperately, gathered her up and shut the door in the sheriff's face.

They sent for Cleve, and not even the presence of Black Bart in the near corral could keep the brother from running into the darkened room where Ellen lay, too stunned to rally.

"d.a.m.n him!" he gritted, falling on his knees beside her, "this's what's come of it! I ben lookin' for something of its like. Let him go. We'll leave Lost Valley, Ellen. We'll go out an' start another life, begin all over again. We're both too young to be floored by a man like Courtrey. Let him go."

But the woman turned her waxen face to the wall and shook her head.

"There ain't no life in this world for me without Buck," she whispered. "If he don't want me, I don't want myself."

"You dont' want to hang to him, do you, Sis?" begged the man, "don't want to stay at th' Stronghold after this?"

"Rather stay here under Buck's feet like th' poorest of his dogs than be well-off somewheres where I couldn't never see him again, never look in his face."

"G.o.d!" groaned Cleve, "you love him like that!"

"Yes," said Ellen, wearily, "like that."

"Then by th' Eternal!" swore Cleve softly, "here you'll stay if it takes all th' law in th' United States to keep you here. I'll file your answer tomorrow--protest to th' last word!"

And he rode into Corvan, only to find that Courtrey and Courtrey's influence had been there before him, that a cold sense of disaster seemed to permeate the town and all those whom he met therein.

He found the "Court House crowd" tight-lipped and careful.

And Ben Garland set the day for trial at a ridiculously early date, for all the world as if the thing had been cut and dried at some secret conclave.

Courtrey was playing his game with a daring hand, true to his name and habit.

Dusk was falling in Lost Valley. The long blue shadows had swept out from the Rockface, covering first the homesteads under the Wall, then the great grazing stretches, then Corvan, then the open levels again, then the mouth of Black Coulee and lastly sweeping eastward to hush the life at Last's Holding in that soft, sweet quiet which comes with the day's work done.