Tharon of Lost Valley Part 13

The riders, cl.u.s.tered at her shoulder, watched the thing take shape and form. At the end of twenty painstaking minutes Tharon straightened and looked up in the interested faces.

"There," she said, "an' its dull copper colour!"

And this was the shield with its unknown heraldry which Conford took up and studied carefully for a long time.

"'Forest Service,'" he read aloud, "'Department of Agriculture.' Well, so far as I can see, it ain't so terrifyin'. That last means raisin'

things, like beets an' turnips an' so on, an' as for th' forest part, why, if he stays up in his 'fringe o' pines' I guess we ain't got no call to kick. Don't you worry, Tharon, about this new bird."

"I'm a darned sight more worried about that other one, th' Arizona beauty which Courtrey's got in."

"Forget th' gun man, Burt," said Billy, "this feller's a heap more interestin' to me, for I've got a hunch he's a poet. Now who on this footstool but a poet would come ridin' into Lost Valley with his badge o' beets an' his line o' talk about 'fringes o' pines' an' 'runnin'

streams,' to quote Tharon?"

"Even poets are human, you young limb," drawled Curly in his soft voice, "an' I'm sorry for him if he starts your 'interest,' so to speak. He'll need all his poetic vision t' survive."

"I hope, Billy," said Tharon severely, and with lofty inconsistency, "that you'll remember your manners an' not start anything. Last's is in for trouble enough without any side issues."

"True," said the boy instantly, "I'll promise to leave th' poet alone."

Then the talk fell about the new well that had taken the place of the old Crystal and which was proving a huge success.

"Can't draw her dry," said Bent Smith, "pulled all of three hours with Nick Bob an' Blue Pine yesterday an' never even riled her.

"She's good as th' Gold Pool or th' Silver Hollow now."

"You're some range man t' make any such a comparison," said Curly with conviction, "there ain't no artificial water-well extent that can hold a candle t' th' real livin' springs of a cattle country, when they're such bubblin', shinin' beauties as th' Springs of Last's."

"You're right, Curly," said Tharon quietly from under the light, "there's nothin' like them. They must be th' blessin's of G.o.d, an' no mistake. They're th' stars at night, an' th' winds an' th' sunshine.

They're th' lovers of th' horses, th' treasure of th' masters. I love my springs."

"So do th' herds," put in Jack Masters. "They'll come fast at night now because they can smell th' water far off, an' it's gettin' pretty dry on th' range."

"Yes," sighed Tharon, "it's summer now, an' Jim Last died in spring. A whole season gone."

A whole season had gone, indeed, since that tragic night.

Last's Holding had missed its master at each turn and point. A thousand times did Conford, the foreman, catch himself in the act of going to the big room to find him at his desk, a big, vital force, intent on the accounts of the ranch, a thousand times did he long for his keen insight. The _vaqueros_ missed him and his open hand.

The very dogs at the steps missed him, and so did El Rey, waiting in his corral for the step that did not come, the strong hand on his bit.

And how much his daughter missed him only the stars and the pale Virgin knew.

For the next few days following the short, awkward visit of the stranger Tharon felt a p.r.i.c.kle of uneasiness under her skin at every thought of it. There was something in the memory that confused and distressed her, a feeling of failure, of a lack in her that put her in a bad light to herself.

She knew that, instinctively, she had been protecting her own, that since Last's had stepped out in the light against Courtrey she must take no chance. But should she have taken back the common courtesy of the offered meal? Would it not have been better to let him stay and meet Conford who would have been in at noon?

She vexed herself a while with these questions, and then dismissed them with her cool good sense.

"It's done," she told herself, "an' can't be helped. An' yet, there was somethin' about him, somethin' that made me think of Jim Last himself--somethin' in his quiet eyes--as if they had both come from somewhere outside Lost Valley where they grow different men. It was a--bigness, a softness. I don't know."

And with that last wistful thought she forgot all about the incident and the man, for the prediction of Jameson that dusk at the head of Rolling Cove became reality.

Dixon, who lived north along the Wall near the Pomo settlement, lost ten head of steers, all white and deeply earmarked, unmistakable cattle that could not be disguised.

Courtrey was resenting the vague something in the air that was crystallizing into resistance about him.

Word of the stealing ran about the Valley like a gra.s.s fire, more boldly than usual.

It came to Last's in eighteen hours, brought by a horseman who had carried it to many a lonely homestead.

Tharon received it with a thrill of joy.

"Good enough," she said, "no use wasting time."

And she sent out a call for the thirty men.

CHAPTER V

THE WORKING OF THE LAW

It was a clear, bright morning in early summer. All up and down Lost Valley the little winds wimpled the gra.s.s where the cattle grazed, and brought the scent of flowers. In the thin, clear atmosphere points and landmarks stood out with wonderful boldness.

The homesteads set in the endless green like tiny gems, the stupendous face of the Wall, stretching from north to south and sheer as a plumb line for a thousand feet, was fretted with a myriad of tiny seams and creva.s.ses not ordinarily visible.

Far up at the Valley's head against the huge uplift of the jumbled and barren rocklands the scattered squat buildings of the Stronghold brooded like a monster.

Spread out on the velvet slopes below lay the herds that belonged to it, sleek fat cattle, guarded carelessly by a few lazy and desultory riders. Courtrey was too secure in his insolent might to take those rigid and untiring precautions which were the only price of safety to the lesser men of the community. Toward the south where the Valley narrowed to the Bottle Neck and the Broken Bend went out, there shimmered and shone like a silver ribbon hung down the cliff the thin, long shower of Vestal's Veil fall.

The roar of it could be heard for miles like the constant and incessant wail of winds in time-worn canons.

Along the floor of the Cup Rim range, sunken and hidden from the upper levels, there rode a compact group of hors.e.m.e.n. They went abreast, in column of fours, and they were armed to the teeth, a bristling presentation. All in all there were forty-two of them and at their head rode Tharon on El Rey, a slim and gallant young figure.

Her bright hair, tied with a scarlet ribbon, shone under her wide hat like an aureole. She talked with Conford who rode beside her, and now and then she smiled, for all the world as if she went to some young folks' gathering, instead of to the first uncertain issue of blind mob law against outlaws.

But if she felt a lightness of excitement in her heart it was more than actuated by the grim and quiet band that followed.

They knew--and she knew, also--that what they did this day, in the open sunlight, meant savage strife and bloodshed for some as sure as death.

For two hours they rode across the sunken range where the cottonwoods and aspens made a lovely and mottled shade, to reach at last the sharp ascent to the uplands above. When they topped the rim and started forward, the huge herds of Courtrey lay spread before them, bright as paint on the living green. Two thousand cattle grazed there in peace and plenty. Here and there a rider sat his horse in idleness. At the first sight of the solidly formed ma.s.s coming out of the Cup Rim on to the levels, these riders straightened in their saddles and rode in closer to their charges.

The eyes of the newcomers went over the bright pattern of the grazing cattle. A motley bunch they were, red, black and white, with here and there descendants of the yellows which none but John Dement had ever owned in Lost Valley. Dement, riding near the head of the line saw this and muttered in his beard.

"Thar's some o' mine," he said pointing, "th' very ones that was stampeded. I'd know 'em in h.e.l.l."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHE TALKED WITH CONFORD WHO RODE BESIDE HER AND NOW AND THEN SHE SMILED]