An hour or so later, Harlan, having finished his labors in a clearing at the edge of the level near the gorge, climbed slowly on Purgatory and sent him back down the valley trail toward the Star. From the first his sympathies for Barbara had been deep, beginning on the evening Lane Morgan had mentioned her in his presence--when the man seemed to see her in that strange, awesome moment before his death--when he had seemed to hold out his arms to her. Later, at Lamo, when Harlan had held the girl in his arms, he felt that at that instant he must have experienced much the same protective impulse that Morgan would have felt, had the experience occurred to him. Harlan had been slightly cynical until that minute; but since then he had known that his rage against the outlaws was deeply personal. That rage, though, had centered most heavily upon Deveny. He had hated Haydon, too--from the first. In the beginning it had been a jealous hatred, aroused over the conviction that Barbara loved the man. But later--when he had discovered that Haydon was the mysterious "Chief," that he was the real murderer of Lane Morgan, and that behind his professed love for the girl was meditated trickery--his hatred had become a passion in which Barbara did not figure. His hatred for Haydon, though, could not be compared with the passionate contempt and loathing he felt for Deveny. The man had attempted, in Lamo, a thing that Harlan had always abhorred, and the memory of that time was still vivid in Harlan's brain. Into Harlan's heart as he rode toward the Star flamed that ancient loathing, paling his face and bringing a gleam to his eyes that had been in them often of late--a lust for the lives of the men whose evil deeds and sinister influence had kept Barbara a virtual prisoner at the Rancho Seco. He rode the valley trail slowly, his thoughts upon Barbara, his lips straightening when he thought of how he would have to return to the Rancho Seco, some day, to tell her of her brother's death. Twice had tragedy visited her, and again he would be the messenger to bring her the grim news. When he reached the Star he rode up to the corral fence and dismounted. He stood for a long time at the fence, his elbows on one of the rails, his thoughts dwelling upon Barbara. Pity for her whitened his face, set his lips in rigid lines. She had been in danger, but it seemed to him that it would soon be over. For Haydon would bother the girl no more, and as soon as he could meet Deveny he would remove another menace to Barbara's life and happiness. He had no regrets for the men he had killed; they deserved what he had given them. As he had told Morgan, he had considered himself merely an instrument of the law of right and justice--which law was based upon the very principle that governed men in civilized communities.