Before him stretched a green grass level, about two miles long, running the entire width of the valley. It was dotted with mesquite, sage, and here and there the thorny blade of a cactus rose. Some cattle were grazing on the level; they were several miles south, and he could see some horsemen near them. He decided he must be close to the Star; and he urged Purgatory on again, down upon the level, toward some timber that grew at the farther edge of the level. Just as he slipped down the slope of the ridge, he saw, far ahead of him, the horseman he had seen when he had entered the valley. The horseman was on the crest of a bald hill--low, and small--but Harlan caught a glimpse of him as he crossed it, riding fast. Harlan smiled again, and rode on his way, resuming his scrutiny of the country. The valley was mighty, magnificent; it deserved all the praise Barbara Morgan had heaped upon it. From the low mountain range on the north to the taller mountains southward, it was a virgin paradise in which reigned a peace so profound that it brought a reverent awe into the soul of the beholder. It thrilled Harlan despite the certain blasé, matter-of-fact attitude he had for all of nature's phenomena; he found himself admiring the majestic buttes that fringed it; there was a glint of appreciation in his eyes for the colossal bigness of it--for the gigantic, sweeping curves which seemed to make of it an oblong bowl, a cosmic hollow, boundless, hinting of the infinite power of its builder. The trail that ran through it, drawled to threadlike proportions by the mightiness of the space through which it ran, was, for the greater part of the distance traveled by Harlan, a mere scratch upon a low rock ridge. And as he rode he could look down upon the floor of the valley, green and inviting. When he entered the timber at the edge of the grass level, he was conscious of a stealthy sound behind him. He turned quickly in the saddle, to see a man standing at the edge of some brush that fringed the trail. The man was big, a heavy black beard covered his chin and portions of his cheeks; his hat was drawn well down over his forehead, partially shielding his eyes. A rifle in his hands was held loosely, and though it appeared that the man did not intend to use the weapon immediately, Harlan could see that his right forefinger was touching the trigger, and that the muzzle of the weapon was suggestively toward him. For the past few miles of his ride Harlan had been expecting an apparition of this sort to appear, and so he now gave no sign of surprise. Instead, he slowly raised both hands until they were on a level with his shoulders--and, still twisted about in the saddle, he grinned faintly at the man. "From now on I'm to have company, eh?" he said. The man smirked grimly at him. "You've hit it," he answered. "You're Harlan, ain't you? 'Drag' Harlan, the Pardo two-gun man?"