That was no word to conjure by in Lost Valley. Steptoe Service prated of Gov'ment. It was a farce, a synonym for juggled duty, a word to suggest the one-man law of the place, for even Courtrey, who made the sheriffs--and unmade them--did it under the grandiloquent name of Government. She looked at him keenly, and there was a sudden hardening in her young eyes. "Then I reckon, Mister," she said coolly, "that you an' me can't be friends." "What?" "No, sir." "Are you in earnest?" "Certainly am," said Tharon. "I ain't on good terms at present with anything that has t' do with law." David Kenset leaned forward and looked into her face with his deep, compelling eyes. "I guessed as much from my first knowledge of you the other day," he answered, "but we are on unfamiliar ground. You have a wrong conception of Government, a perverted idea of law and what it stands for." "All right, Mister," said the girl rising. "We won't argy. I asked you t' dinner, but I take it back. I ask ye t' forgive me my manners, but th' sooner we part th' better. Then we won't be a-hurtin' each other's feelin's. I'm fer law, too, but it ain't your kind, an' we ain't likely to agree." She picked up his hat from where it lay on the melodeon and fingered it a bit, smiling at him in the ingenuous manner that was utterly disarming. A slow dark flush spread over the man's face. He laughed, however, and in reaching for the hat, caught two of her fingers, whether purposely or not, Tharon could not tell. "Admirable hospitality in the last frontier," he said. "But perhaps I should not have expected anything different." "You make me ashamed," said Tharon straightly, "but Last's ain't takin' chances these days. You may belong to Government, an' you may belong to Courtrey, an' I'm against 'em both." She walked with him to the door, stepped out, as if with some thought to soften her unprecedented treatment of the stranger under her roof. She noted the trim figure of him in its peculiar garb, the proud carriage, the even and easy comportment under insult. From his saddle he untied a package wrapped in paper. "Will you please take this?" he asked lightly, holding it out. "Just on general principles." But she shook her head. "I can't take no favours from you when I've just took stand against you, can I?" she asked in turn. "Well, of all the ridiculous----" The man laughed again shortly, tossed the package on the step, mounted, whirled and rode away without a backward glance. Tharon stood frowning where he left her until the brown horse and its rider were well down along the levels toward Black Coulee. Then a sigh at her shoulder recalled her and she turned to see the wistful dark face of Paula gazing raptly in the same direction. "He was so handsome, Senorita," said the girl, "to be so hardly dealt with." "Paula," said the mistress bitingly, "will you remember who you're talkin' to? Do you want to go back to th' Pomos under th' Rockface?"