He looked at her sharply.
“Who for?”
“Yes. What outfit?”
There was a hard quality in her voice. If he had come in to ride for Courtrey, why he must know at once that Last’s was no friend of his, now or ever.
He caught the drift of her thought in part.
“For no outfit, Miss Last,” he said with a gentle dignity. “I am in the employ of the United States Government.”
A swift change came over Tharon’s face.
Government!
That was no word to conjure by in Lost Valley. Steptoe Service prated of Gov’ment. It was a farce, a synonym for juggled duty, a word to suggest the one-man law of the place, for even Courtrey, who made the sheriffs––and unmade them––did 92 it under the grandiloquent name of Government. She looked at him keenly, and there was a sudden hardening in her young eyes.
“Then I reckon, Mister,” she said coolly, “that you an’ me can’t be friends.”