The gun man whirled, drawing like lightning. In the Court House door, Cleve Whitmore with his sister's limp form on his shoulder, beat him to it. He had drawn as he called. Before the words were off his lips he pulled the trigger and shot Wylackie through the heart. As his henchman fell Courtrey's good hand flashed to his hip, but Dixon of the Vigilantes, shot out an arm and knocked him forward from behind. For the second time Courtrey had missed a life because a brave heart dared him. Old Pete had paid the price for that trick. Dixon had no thought of it. And in one moment the chance was past, for a sound began to roar from that silent crowd which had poured from the courtroom--the deep, bloodcurdling sound of the mob forming, inarticulate, uncertain. For the first time in his life Courtrey felt real fear grip him. He had killed and stolen and wronged among these people and gotten away with it. He had never feared them. They had been silent. Now with the first deep rumble from the concrete throat of Lost Valley he got his first instinctive thrill of disaster. He stood for a moment in utter silence. Then he flung up his hands, snapped out an order, whirled on his heel and went swiftly to the near rack where stood Bolt and the rest of the Ironwoods. Like a set of puppets on strings his men drew after him--and they left Wylackie Bob where he fell. In a matter of seconds the whole Stronghold gang was mounted and clattering down the street--out of the town toward the open range. * * * * * And the killer on the Court House steps? He stood where he was and looked with blazing eyes over the motley crowd beneath him. Steptoe Service made a step toward him, looked round, wet his lips and thought better of it. * * * * * And then, in another second, the crowd was a mob and the mob was the Vigilantes. Some one took Ellen from Cleve's shoulder with careful hands and carried her away. Then some one reached down and picked him up bodily. Another joined, and they set him on their shoulders, lifting him high. The inarticulate mob cry swelled and deepened and rose to a different sound--a shout that gathered volume and roared out across the spaces where Courtrey rode with a menace, a portent. With one accord the mob started on a journey around Corvan. White as Ellen, Cleve Whitmore rode that triumphant journey, his eyes still blazing, his lips tight. The town went wild. Public feeling came out on every hand. Daring took the weak, hope took the oppressed, and they called Courtrey's reign right there. For three uproarious hours the bar-tenders could not wipe off their bars. A new regime was ushered in--and she who had been its sponsor was not there to see it. * * * * *