As she went up the stallion rose with her, came down with a pounding of iron-shod hoofs, dropped his huge hips in the first leap--and was away. Corvan saw the silver horse shoot out from its midst and woke from its lethargy. "_Th' race!_" some one cried, high and shrill, "_th' race at last!_" The two strangers saw it, and their lips fell open with amaze. Kenset from his low porch saw it--and dropped his face on his arms. "Lord God!" he groaned, "it's come! I couldn't hold her! I might have known! I might have known! She's Valley bred--she _is_ the Valley! I--and all I stand for--chaff in the wind! Nothing could hold her now! Aye--nothing could hold her." True at last to herself--true to Harkness--true to Jim Last--true to the Vigilantes and to the Valley she loved, Tharon flung the sombrero from her bright head, settled her feet in the stirrups, slid the rein on El Rey's neck, leaned down above him and began to call in his ears. No need of that cry. El Rey heeded nothing that she might say. She was not his master--never had been. He had had but one, the big, stern man whose sharp word had been his law--the one who had ever had his best, his love and his speed. What was it now that rode in his saddle--the saddle with the long dark stain? Assuredly it was not the slim girl-thing with the golden voice! El Rey had ever looked through, beyond her. Nay, it was something bigger, stronger, sterner--who shall say? Perhaps the spirit of that master whom he had served, whom he had brought faithfully home that night in spring, for whom he had looked and listened all these weary months! There was something, indeed--for El Rey, the great, lay down to earth and ran without the need of guidance. He set the long red horse out there on the green plain before him like a beacon and put the mighty machinery of his massive body into motion. Bolt was a rival worthy of his best--Bolt, the king of the Ironwoods, huge, spirited, fast as the wind and wild as fire. El Rey's silver ears lay back along his neck, the mane above them was like a cloud, his long tail streamed behind him like a comet--and forgotten was his singlefooting. He ran, his great limbs gathering and spreading beneath him--gathering and spreading--with the regularity, of clock-work. Tharon's blue eyes were narrow as her father's, the little lines about them stood out. She rode low, like a limpet clinging, and her mind was on the two ahead--the man and the great bay horse. As she felt the wind sing by her cheeks, sting the tears beneath her lids, she shut her lips tighter and hugged the pommel closer. The green carpet went by beneath her like a blur. The thunder of El Rey's beating hoofs was like the sound of the cataracts when the canyons shot their freshets from the Rockface. The note of his speed was rising--rising--rising. The blood began to pound in her temples with pride and exultation.