Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: AS EL REY ROSE ON HIS HIND FEET WHIRLING, THAT UNWAVERING MUZZLE WHIRLED ALSO TO KEEP IN LINE] THARON OF LOST VALLEY BY VINGIE E. ROE Author of "The Maid of the Whispering Hills," "The Heart of Night Wind," etc. ILLUSTRATIONS BY FRANK TENNEY JOHNSON NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1919 Copyright, 1919 By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. The Gun Man's Heritage 1 II. The Horses of the Finger Marks 29 III. The Man in Uniform 52 IV. Unbroken Bread 76 V. The Working of the Law 102 VI. El Rey and Bolt 128 VII. The Shot in the Canons 157 VIII. White Ellen 187 IX. Signal Fires in the Valley 214 X. The Untrue Firing Pin 247 XI. Finger Mark and Ironwood at Last 277 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE As El Rey rose on his hind feet whirling, that unwavering muzzle whirled also to keep in line _Frontispiece_ Near them sat a rider on a buckskin horse 38 She talked with Conford who rode beside her and now and then she smiled 104 In fact Courtrey, burning with the new desire that was beginning to obsess him, was working out a new design 131 THARON OF LOST VALLEY CHAPTER I THE GUN MAN'S HERITAGE Lost Valley lay like a sparkling jewel, fashioned in perfection, cast in the breast of the illimitable mountain country--and forever after forgotten of God. A tiny world, arrogantly unconscious of any other, it lived its own life, went its own ways, had its own conceptions of law--and they were based upon primeval instincts. Cattle by the thousand head ran on its level ranges, riders jogged along its trail-less expanses, their broad hats pulled over their eyes, their six-guns at their hips. Corvan, its one town, ran its nightly games, lined its familiar streets with swinging-doored saloons. Toward the west the Canon Country loomed behind its sharp-faced cliffs, on the east the rolling ranges, dotted with oak and digger-pine, went gradually up to the feet of the stupendous peaks that cut the sapphire skies.