Far out ahead she saw a bunch of cattle feeding. They were lazily circling in a wide arc, content under the beaming sun. Near them sat a rider on a buckskin horse, Bent Smith on Golden. This Golden was one of the prides of Last's Holding. Bigger than Drumfire or Redbuck, he ranked next to El Rey himself in speed, for his slim legs, slapped smartly with the distinguishing finger marks on the outside of the knee, were long and shapely, his back short-coupled and strong, his withers low, his narrow hips high. Tharon bore hard on El Rey's bit, leaned her body to the left, and they swung in toward Bent and Golden in a beautiful sweeping curve that brought the cowboy up in his stirrups with his hat a-wave above him. "Good girl!" he yelled with leaping gladness as the superb pair shot by. "Good girl! Go to it!" Tharon loosed a hand long enough to wave back and was gone, on down the sloping land toward the country of the Black Coulee, her dark skirts fluttering at her knees, the two heavy guns pounding her thighs at every jump. It was a long time before El Rey came down from his sweeping flight. He had been too long holden in cramping bars. The free winds and the rolling earth filled him with a sort of madness. He ran with joy and the surety of unbounded power. The rider, left far behind, watched them anxiously for a time, thought of following, glanced at his cattle, remembered the gun man's heritage and turned to his business. The sun was well down over the western Rockface when Tharon and El Rey came back to Last's Holding. The riders were bringing in the cattle, dust was rising in clouds above the moving masses. From the ranch house came the savory smells of cooking. [Illustration: NEAR THEM SAT A RIDER ON A BUCKSKIN HORSE] The stallion was limber as a willow. He tossed his handsome head and his eyes were bright as stars set in his silver face. Life was at high tide in him, flowing magnificently. Tharon, her cheeks whipped into pulsing colour by the wind and the bounding speed, her tawny mane loosed from its bands and flying in a cloud behind her, smoothed back from her face, looked wild as an Indian. As she drew up and sat watching the work of the evening, she smiled for the first time in many days, and Jack Masters, passing, felt his heart leap with gladness. When the mistress of Last's was sad, so were her people. When the last big corral gate had swung to and the boys turned in to unsaddle, she touched El Rey with a toe and went over among them. "Line up the horses, boys," she said, "I want to see them all together once more. Somethin' came back in me today--somethin' I been missing for a long time. I'll be myself again."