The girl's upper lip lifted from her teeth in a sneer that was the acme of insult. The fire was beginning to play in her blue eyes. "Law?" she said. "My God! Law!" "Yes, _law_! you young hussy, an' don't you fergit that I represent it." The girl threw down the sack and flashed both hands on the gun-butts. Courtrey, watching, was half-a-second behind her and stopped with his hands hovering. "Not much, Courtrey," she said, "you fast gun man! You're too slow. An' this ain't your game, anyway, not face t' face. You're all right on a dark night--_an' from behind_. Fine! But you're a coward. You're what I called you before--an assassin." She was pale as ashes, her eyes narrowed to blazing slits. Jim Last, gun man, was in her like those composite pictures which show the shadow in the substance. There was a gasp from the store porch where Thomas stood with a shaking hand covering his lips. Baston was stuck against his wall like a leech, rigid. These men knew that she tempted death. Not a man in Lost Valley could have done it and gotten away with it. Tharon knew it, too, but she did not care. "An' now you know what you are, Courtrey. I'll tell th' same to you, Step Service. Law! In Lost Valley? Yes, Courtrey's law! Th' law of th' gun alone--th' law of thieves--th' law of murderers. An' you stand for that, you bet! What were you before you took th' oath of office? Tell me that! Th' man who killed old Mike McCrea an' took his cattle down th' Wall! Th' whole Valley knows it--but we've never dared to say it before!" The porch was lined with people now. Soft-footed Indians and Mexican _vaqueros_, sprung from nowhere, cowboys, ranchers, women, they came silently up and listened. The sheriff's red face was the colour of liver, purple and mottled with bursting rage. His fingers worked at his sides. He set his lips, and his small eyes never left the girl's face. Tharon, crouched a bit, her feet apart, her elbows crooked above her hips, her fingers curled on her gun-butts with nice precision, wet her own pale lips and continued: "An' who put you in office? That laugh of an office! Who? Why, Courtrey--th' biggest thief, th' coldest murderer in th' country! _He_ put you there! An' what are you good for? My daddy was shot--_in th' back_--an' did you make one inquiry into the murder? Come out to Last's, even to find a clew? Not you! There's only one sheriff in this Valley--one bit o' law that will avenge his death--an' that's _me_! Now, you two fine gentlemen--I'm goin'. There's my hand! I throw th' cards on th' table! Shoot me in the back if you've got th' nerve. Come out in th' open an' fight! _But you better be quick about it!_" With that she backed slowly along the porch, keeping them in view.