This was a little old man, weazened and bent, his unkempt head thrust forward from hunched shoulders. He dragged two grain sacks behind him, and he was so grotesquely bow-legged that the first sight of him always provoked laughter. This was old Pete the snow-packer, bound on his nightly trip to the hills. Outside his burros waited, their pack-saddles empty. By dawn they would come down from the world's rim, the grain sacks bulging with hard-packed snow for the cooling of Bullard's liquor. "Dick," he said when he faced his employer, "here 'tis time t' start an' there ain't a damned bit o' grub put up fer me! Ef ye don't make that pig-tailed Chink pay 'tention t' my wants, I quit! I quit, I tell ye!" And he emphasized his vehement protest by whirling the bags over his head and flailing them upon the floor. A roar of laughter greeted him, which brought dim tears of indignation to his old eyes. "Ye don't care a damn!" he whimpered in impotent rage. "Jes' 'cause it's me. Ef 'twas yer ol' Chink, now--if 'twas him, th' ol' he-pigtail, ye'd----" "Hold on, Pete," said Bullard, slapping an indulgent hand on the grotesque shoulder, "You go tell Wan Lee that if he don't put up th' best lunch in camp for you, an' _muy pronto_ at that, I'll come in an' skin him alive. Tell him----" But Bullard was never to finish that sentence. There was a sound of running horses stopping square at the rack without, the rattle of chains, the creak of saddles. Booted feet struck the boards of the porch, and almost upon the instant the great iron door of The Golden Cloud swung inward. The dancers stopped in their stride, the players laid down their cards, the noise of the room ceased with the suddenness that characterized the time and place, for Lost Valley was quick upon the trigger, tragedy often swept in upon hilarity. In the opening stood Tharon Last, her blue eyes black and sparkling, her tawny skin cream white, her lips tight-set and pale. She wore a plain dark dress that buttoned up the front, and at her hips there hung her father's famous guns. Her two hands rested on their butts. Behind her head against the starlight there was the dim suggestion of massed sombreros. For a moment she stood so in breathless silence, scanning the room. Then her glance came to rest on the face of Buck Courtrey. "Men," she said clearly, "we buried Jim Last today. El Rey brought him home last night--finished. You all know he was a gun man--th' best in these parts. It was no gun man that killed him, in fair-an'-open, for he was shot in th' back. It was a skunk, a coyote, a son-of-th'-devil, an' I'm goin' to kill him." At the last word there was a lightning movement at the bar as Courtrey's hand flashed at his hip, a flash of fire, a shot that went high and lodged in the deep beam above the door, for the weazened form of the snow-packer had leaped up against him in the same instant.