The two men spoke, reached to shake each other's hands, and took a long survey that was mutual. As the two pairs of eyes met, a wall seemed to rear itself between them, a mist, a curtain, something intangible, but there. They looked across the woman's shoulder, and from that moment she was to stand between, though what there could be in common between the man in the U. S. service and the common rider from Last's was not apparent. El Rey was eager for flight and by the time Tharon's foot was in the stirrup he was up on his hind feet, fore feet beating the air, silver mane like a flying cloud. The girl rose with him gracefully, threw her leg across the saddle, waved a hand to Kenset in the door, and in another moment they were gone away down the grassy slope, out through the opening, had stretched away along the oak-dotted plain, swung toward the north, and were out of sight. The forest man turned away from the doorway, stood a moment looking over the cabin where the late light was making golden patterns on the green and brown rug, sighed and reached for his pipe. Somehow all the spirit seem to have gone from the summer day. The long twilight was setting in. "She wouldn't shake hands," he muttered to himself, "and what she said was true as death. She's _sworn_--and it is a solemn oath to her. God help the man who killed her daddy!" Then once more he sighed, unconsciously. "And Lord God help her!" he finished very gravely, "she is so sweet--so wild and spirited and sweet." Tharon and Billy let the horses run. Golden was a racer himself, though he could not hold a candle to the silver king, and the two young creatures atop were free as the summer winds, as buoyant and filled with joy of being. So they shot down along the levels, Tharon holding El Rey up a bit, though it was a man-size job to do so, and Billy's rein swinging loose on Golden's neck. They passed the last of the scattered oaks, came out to the green stretches. The sun was swinging like a copper ball above the Wall at the west. Down through the canyons the light came in long red shafts that cut through the cobalt shadows like sharp lances of fire and reached half across Lost Valley. All the western part of the Valley lay in that blue-black shadow. They could see Corvan set like a dull gem in the wide green country, the scattered ranches, miles apart. They swung down to the west a bit, for Tharon said she wanted to go by the Gold Pool and see how it was holding out. "Fine," said Billy, "she's deep as she ever was at this time of year, an' cold as snow." Where one tall cottonwood stood like a sentinel in the widespread landscape they drew rein and dismounted. Here a huge boulder cropped from the plain and under its protecting bulk there lay as lovely a spring as one would care to see, deep and golden as its name implied, above its swirling sands, for the waters were in constant turmoil as they pressed up from below.