and set up monuments with odd and undecipherable hieroglyphics upon them.
And with each blaze, each mark and monument and sign, he drew closer in about him the net of suspicion and disapproval which was weaving in Lost Valley, for there was not one but ran the gamut of close inspection and speculation by Courtrey’s men, by the settlers who came many miles over from the western side of the Valley for the purpose, and by Tharon’s riders.
Low mutters of disapproval growled in the Valley.
Who was this upstart, anyway, to come setting signs and marks in the land that had been theirs from time immemorial? What mattered the little copper-coloured badge on his breast? What mattered it that he was beginning to send out word of his desire to work with and for the cattlemen of Lost Valley, the settlers, the homesteaders?
What was this matter of “grazing permits” of which he had spoken at the Stronghold?
Permits?
They had grazed their cattle where and when they chose––and could––from their earliest memory.
They asked no leave from Government.
When Kenset rode into Corvan he was treated with exaggerated politeness by those with whom 161 he had to deal, with utter unconsciousness by all the rest. To cattleman and settler alike he was as if he had not been.