"Why, it's a cinch!" said O'Hallan, "a dead moral cinch! Don't see how it's held on like it has. Couldn't have in any other place in the good old U. S. A. but this God forsaken hole! Well named, Lost Valley! Why, we've found enough evidence already to convict a dozen men! Your Courtrey's the man that planned a dozen murders, I can see that, and he's pulled off a lot of them himself. The people are talking now, rumbling from one end of the Valley to the other. We've had to hold up our hands to ward them off lately. Your Vigilantes here have opened up since we got them together and showed some of them your letter. You were wise to tell us to go ahead if you were not here--what did you look for?" "Just about what I got," said Kenset smiling, "and I wanted things to be pushed through anyway." "Well,--they're pushing," said Burn-Harris. "Your little old sheriff has had the fear-of-the-Lord put into him somewhat. He's shaking in his boots about the snow-packer. There's only one thing lacking to make our grip close down on Courtrey, and that's vital--the gun with the untrue firing pin you speak about in your instructions." "Not lackin'," said Tharon grimly, "we've got it, Mister." The Secret Service man whirled to her. "You have?" he cried, "then show me your man!" But Tharon stood for a long moment looking off across the rolling green stretches, toward the north where a moving dot was drawing down--the riders from the Stronghold. "This," she said at last, tapping the gun which Billy handed over, "this, then, is proof--is proof in law?" "If it's the true gun that fits the shell which Mr. Kenset left for us here at Baston's--yes." "Then," said Burn-Harris, "a little time and your man's ours as sure's the sun shines. Why, this is a hot-bed of crime--there's enough work here to keep a whole force busy for months." But Tharon Last did not heed his words. Her mind had leaped away from the present back to that day in spring when Jim Last came home to die. She heard again his last command, "Th' best gun woman in Lost Valley," heard her own voice promising to his dulling ears, "I'll get him, so help me, God!" And this was the end. Strangers were waiting to fulfill that promise, to take her work out of her hands. She absently watched the moving dot take form and sharply string out into a line of riding men. These strangers with their hidden signs of authority would bring to his just desserts Buck Courtrey, the man who had instigated the killing of poor Harkness, who had personally shot her daddy in the back! For them, then, she had made her crosses of promise in the granite under the pointing pine. They who had no right in Lost Valley would settle its blood scores, would pay her debts! She frowned and the fingers of her right hand fiddled at the gun-butt at her hip. For what had she striven all these many months? For what had she perfected herself in Jim Last's art?