Under the dust cloud raised by the plunging 107 hoofs, the whirling horses, the workers kept as close together as possible.
They rounded up the cut-outs, bunched them together compactly and swinging into a half circle, drove them rapidly back toward the oak-fringed edge of the Cup Rim. They passed close to where the slim boy stood by his horse, trying to wind the big red kerchief from his neck about his right arm from which the blood ran in a bright stream. Tharon swung out of her course and shot toward him.
“Here,” she cried swiftly, “let me tie it.”
“To hell with you,” said the lad bitterly, raising blazing eyes to her face. “You’ve made me false t’ Courtrey. I’d die first.”
“Die, then!” she flung back, “an’ tell your master that th’ law is workin’ in this Valley at last!”
As the last rider of the cavalcade went down over the slanting edge of the Cup Rim there came the sound of quick shots snapping in the distance and the belated sight of riders streaming down from the Stronghold hurried the descent.
They had reached the level floor of the sunken range and spread out upon it for better travelling before Courtrey and his men, some ten or fifteen riders, appeared on the upper crest.
The settlers stopped instantly at a call from 108 Conford, drew together behind the cattle, turned and faced them. They were too far away for speech, out of rifle range, but the still, grim defiance of that compact front halted the outlaw cattle king and his followers.
For the first time in all his years of rising power in Lost Valley Courtrey felt a challenge. For the first time he knew that a tide was banking in full force against him. A red rage flushed up under his dark skin, and he raised a silent fist and shook it at the blue heavens.
The grim watchers below knew that gesture, significant, majestic, boded ill to them.