Tharon of Lost Valley.

by Vingie E. Roe.

CHAPTER I

THE GUN MAN'S HERITAGE

Lost Valley lay like a sparkling jewel, fashioned in perfection, cast in the breast of the illimitable mountain country--and forever after forgotten of G.o.d.

A tiny world, arrogantly unconscious of any other, it lived its own life, went its own ways, had its own conceptions of law--and they were based upon primeval instincts.

Cattle by the thousand head ran on its level ranges, riders jogged along its trail-less expanses, their broad hats pulled over their eyes, their six-guns at their hips. Corvan, its one town, ran its nightly games, lined its familiar streets with swinging-doored saloons.

Toward the west the Canon Country loomed behind its sharp-faced cliffs, on the east the rolling ranges, dotted with oak and digger-pine, went gradually up to the feet of the stupendous peaks that cut the sapphire skies.

Lost indeed, it was a paradise, a perfect place of peace but for its humans. Through it ran the Broken Bend, coming in from the high and jumbled rocklands at the north, going out along the sheer cliffs at the south.

Out of its ideal loneliness there were but two known ways, and both were worth a man's best effort. Down the river one might drive a band of cattle, bring in a loaded pack train, single file against the wall.

That was a twelve days' trip. Up through the defiles at the west a man on foot might make it out, provided he knew each inch of the Secret Way that scaled False Ridge.

It was spring, the time of greening ranges and the coming of new calves. Soft winds dipped and wantoned with Lost Valley, in the Canon Country shy flowers, waxen, heavy-headed on thin stems, clung to the rugged walls.

All day the sun had shone, mild as a lover, coaxing, promising. The very wine of life was a-pulse in the air.

All day Tharon Last had sung about her work scouring the boards of the kitchen floor until they were soft and white as flax, helping old Anita with the dinner for the men, seeing about the number of new palings for the garden. She had swept every inch of the deep adobe house, had fixed over the arrangement of Indian baskets on the mantel, had filled all the lamps with coal-oil. She was very careful with the lamps, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the wicks to smokeless perfection, for oil was scarce and precious in Lost Valley, as were all outside products, since they must come in at long intervals and in small quant.i.ties. And as she worked she sang, wild, wordless melodies in a natural voice as rich as a harp. That voice of Tharon's was one of the wonders of Lost Valley.

Many a rider went by that way on the chance that he might catch its golden music adrift on the breeze, her father's men came up at night to hear its martial stir, its tenderness, for the voice was the girl, and Tharon was an unknown quant.i.ty, sometimes all melting sweetness, sometimes fire that flashed and was still.

So on this day she sang, since she was happy. Why, she did not know.

Perhaps it was because of the six new puppies in the milk-house, rolling in awkward fatness against their shepherd mother, whose soft eyes beamed up at the girl in beautiful pride. Perhaps it was because of the springtime in the air.

At any rate she worked with all the will and pleasure of youth in a congenial task, and the roses of health bloomed in her cheeks. The sun itself shone in her tawny hair where the curls made waves and ripples, the blue skies of Lost Valley were faithfully reflected in her eyes.

Her skin was soft-golden, the enchanting skin of some half-blonds which can never be duplicated by all the arts of earth, and her full mouth was scarlet as pomegranates.

Sometimes old Anita who had raised her, would stop and look at her in wonder, so beautiful was she to old and faithful eyes.

And not alone to Anita was she entirely lovely.

There was not a full grown man in Lost Valley who would not go many a mile to look upon her--with varying desires. Few voiced their longings, however, for Jim Last was notorious with his guns and could protect his daughter. He had protected her for twenty years, come full summer, and he asked no odds of any. His eyes were like Tharon's--blue and changing, with odd little lines that crinkled about them at the corners, elongating them in appearance. He was a big man, vital and quiet. The girl took her stature from him. Her flashes of fire came from her mother, of whom she knew little and of whom Jim Last said nothing. Once as a child she had asked him, after the manner of children, about this mother of dim memories, and his eyes had hazed with a look of suffering that scared her, he had struck his palm upon a table, and said only:

"She was an angel straight out of Heaven. Don't ask me again."

So Tharon had not asked again, though she had wondered much.

Sometimes old Anita, become garrulous with age, mumbled in the twilight when the rose and the lavendar lights swept down the eastern ramparts and across the rolling range lands, and the girl gleaned scattered pictures of a gentle and lovely creature who had come with her father out of a mystic country somewhere "below."

"Below" meant down the river and beyond, an unnamable region.

In the big living room there was one relic of this mysterious mother, a tiny melodeon, its rosewood case a trifle marred by unknown hardships, its ivory keys yellow with age. It had two small pedals and two slender sticks which fitted therein and pushed the bellows up and down when one trampled upon them. And to Tharon this little old instrument was wealth of the Indies. The low piping of its reedy notes made an accompaniment of surpa.s.sing sweetness when she sat before it and sang her wordless melodies. And just as she found music in her throat without conscious effort, so she found it in her fingers, deep, resonant chords for her running minors, thin, trickling streams of lightness for her own slow notes.

The sun had turned to the west in its majestic course and Tharon, the noon work over, drew up the spindle-legged stool and sat down to play to herself and Anita. The old woman, half Mexic, half Indian, drowsed in a low chair by the eastern window, her toil-hard hands clasped in her lap, a black _reboso_ over her head, though the day was warm as summer. A kitten frisked in the sunlight at the open door, wild ducks, long domesticated, squalled raucously down the yards, some cattle slept in the huge corrals and the little world of Last's Holding was at peace. It seemed that only the girl idling over the yellowed keys, was awake.

For a long and happy hour Tharon sat so, sometimes opening her pretty throat in ambitious flights of sound, again humming lowly--and that was enchanting, as if one sang lullabies to flaxen heads on shoulders.

And it did enchant one--a man who stood for the better part of that hour at the edge of the deep window in the adobe wall and watched the singer.

He was a splendid figure of a man, tall, broad, muscular, built for strength and endurance. His face was unduly lined, even for his age, which was near fifty, but the eyes under the arched black brows were vital as a hawk's. He wore the customary garments of the Lost Valley men, broad sombrero, flannel shirt, corduroys and cowboy boots, st.i.tched and decorated above their high heels. At his hips hung two guns, spurs clinked when he stepped unguardedly. He rarely stepped that way, however.

When presently the girl at the melodeon ceased and drew the lid over the keys with reverent fingers, he moved silently back a pace or two along the wall. Then he waited. As he had antic.i.p.ated, she came to the door to look upon the budding world, and for another moment he watched her with a strange expression. Then he swung forward and let the spurs rattle. Tharon flashed to face him like a startled animal.

"h.e.l.lo, Tharon," he said and smiled. The girl stared at him with quick insolence.

"Howdy," she said coldly.

He came close to the doorway, put one hand on the facing, the other on his hip and leaned near. She drew back. He reached out suddenly and gripped her wrist in fingers that bit like steel.

"Pretty," he said, while his dark eyes narrowed.

Tharon flung her whole young strength against his grip with a twisting wrench and came free. The quick, tremendous effort left her calm. And she did not retreat a step.

"h.e.l.l," said the man admiringly, "little wildcat!"

"What you want?" she asked sharply.

"You," he answered swiftly.

"Buck Courtrey," she said, "you might own an' run Lost Valley--all but one outfit. You ain't never run Last nor put your dirty hand on th'

Holdin'. An' that ain't all. You never will. If you ever touch me again, I'll tell Dad Jim an' he'll kill you. I'd a-told him before when you met me that day on the range, only I didn't want his honest hands s.m.u.tted up with such as you. He's had his killin's before--but they was always in fair-an'-open. You he'd give no quarter--if he knew what you ben askin' me."

The man's eyes narrowed evilly. They became calculating.

"Tell him," he said.

"Eh?"

"Tell him."

"You want to feed th' buzzards?" the girl asked with an insulting peal of laughter.

"Not yet--but I'll remember that speech some day."

"Remember an' be d.a.m.ned," said Tharon. "Now kindly take your dirty carca.s.s off Last's Holding--back to your wife."

The fire was flashing a little in her blue eyes as she spoke, and she half turned to enter the house.

As she did so, Courtrey flung out an arm and caught her about the shoulders. He drew her against him with the motion and kissed her square on the lips. For a second his narrowed eyes were drunken.