“Th’ Vigilantes,” said the girl, “we’ll gather them in twenty-four hours.”
“The Vigilantes?”
“Th’ settlers,” said Conford.
“All right. Until they are here we’ll guard the mouth of this cañon that leads into the Rockface, as I understand it. Now take me to this man Banner.”
At a low, rambling house in the outskirts of Corvan they found Jim Banner, sitting on the edge of his bed, undeniably sick from some acute attack. His eyes were steady, however, and he listened in silence while Kenset talked.
“Mary,” he said, “bring me my boots an’ guns. I been layin’ for this day ever sence I been in office. I wisht Jim Last was here to witness it.”
In two hours Kenset was on his way to the blind mouth of the pass that led into the Cañon Country, Tharon was shooting back to the Holding on El Rey to put things on a watching basis there, 195 while Conford and Billy went south and west to rouse the Vigilantes.
With Kenset rode Banner, weak and not quite steady in his saddle, but a fighting man notwithstanding.
All through the golden hours of that noonday while he jogged steadily on Captain, Kenset was thinking. He had food for thought, indeed. He carried a gun at last––he who had ridden the Valley unarmed, had meant never to carry one. He felt a stir within him of savagery, of excitement.
He meant to have justice done, to put a hard hand on the law of Lost Valley. Murders uninvestigated, cattle stolen at will, settlers’ homes burned over their heads, their hearths blown up by planted powder when they returned from any small trip, their horses run off––these things had seemed to him preposterous, mere shadows of facts. Now they were down to straight points before him, tangible, solid. He got them from the blue eyes of Tharon Last, the gun woman, and he had taken sides! He who had meant to keep so far out of the boiling turmoil.