He camped that night at the base of the Wall where the blind door entered, made his bed just inside the dead black passage, and watched while Banner, weary and still weak, slept in his blankets beside him. 196
This was new work for Kenset, strange work, this waiting for men who called themselves the Vigilantes––for a slim golden girl who rode and swore and pledged herself to blood!
More than once in the quiet night that followed, Kenset wiped a hand across his brow and found it moist with sweat.
What did he mean? Again and again he asked himself that question.
What did he mean by Tharon Last? What was this cold fire that burned him when he thought of her pulling those sinister blue guns on Courtrey? Did he fear to see her kill Courtrey––to see that shadowy stain on her hands––or did he fear something worse, infinitely worse––to see Courtrey, famous gun man, beat her to it!
He shuddered and sweat in the clear cold of the starlit night and searched his bewildered heart. He could find no answer save and except the weary one that Tharon Last must be holden from her sworn course.
Tharon Last who looked at him with those deep blue eyes and spoke so coolly of this promised killing! He recalled the earnest frown between her brows, the simple directness of her duty as she saw it and told it to him.
Either way––either way––she was lost to him 197 forever––There he caught himself and started all over again.
What was she to him?
What could she ever be? She with her strange soul, her lack of soul!