THE WORKING OF THE LAW
It was a clear, bright morning in early summer. All up and down Lost Valley the little winds wimpled the grass where the cattle grazed, and brought the scent of flowers. In the thin, clear atmosphere points and landmarks stood out with wonderful boldness.
The homesteads set in the endless green like tiny gems, the stupendous face of the Wall, stretching from north to south and sheer as a plumb line for a thousand feet, was fretted with a myriad of tiny seams and crevasses not ordinarily visible.
Far up at the Valley’s head against the huge uplift of the jumbled and barren rocklands the scattered squat buildings of the Stronghold brooded like a monster.
Spread out on the velvet slopes below lay the herds that belonged to it, sleek fat cattle, guarded carelessly by a few lazy and desultory riders. Courtrey was too secure in his insolent might to take those rigid and untiring precautions which 103 were the only price of safety to the lesser men of the community. Toward the south where the Valley narrowed to the Bottle Neck and the Broken Bend went out, there shimmered and shone like a silver ribbon hung down the cliff the thin, long shower of Vestal’s Veil fall.
The roar of it could be heard for miles like the constant and incessant wail of winds in time-worn cañons.
Along the floor of the Cup Rim range, sunken and hidden from the upper levels, there rode a compact group of horsemen. They went abreast, in column of fours, and they were armed to the teeth, a bristling presentation. All in all there were forty-two of them and at their head rode Tharon on El Rey, a slim and gallant young figure.
Her bright hair, tied with a scarlet ribbon, shone under her wide hat like an aureole. She talked with Conford who rode beside her, and now and then she smiled, for all the world as if she went to some young folks’ gathering, instead of to the first uncertain issue of blind mob law against outlaws.
But if she felt a lightness of excitement in her heart it was more than actuated by the grim and quiet band that followed.
They knew––and she knew, also––that what 104 they did this day, in the open sunlight, meant savage strife and bloodshed for some as sure as death.