Tharon of Lost Valley Part 19

Inside the cabin there was a sense of comfort, of brightness. The long pennants, like captured rainbows, tacked to the rough walls, the soft toned prints, the gay cushions, all these lent an air of permanence, of home, that she had never before seen in a man's cabin. She stood and looked all around with that same half-insolent stare which had greeted Kenset at the Holding that memorable day.

Then she went slowly forward and sat down in the big chair by the table.

The man stood in her presence for a moment, thereby giving a subtle effect of deference which was not wholly lost upon Tharon, though she would have been at a loss to define it.

Then, he, too, sat down on the edge of the table desk in the corner, and with folded arms waited while she finished her scrutiny of the interior.

"I am proud of my home, Miss Last," he said presently. "What do you think of it?"

"I think," said Tharon slowly, "that it looks like there's a woman somewhere."

This time Kenset laughed in earnest, a ringing peal that startled El Rey at the doorstep, and made him clink his bit-chains.

"There is," said the man, "a.s.suredly."

Tharon turned her head and looked quickly over her shoulder.

"Where?" she asked in surprise.

"There in my big chair."

"Oh--I meant a woman livin' here, th' woman who owns the pretties."

And she waved a hand at the gay furnishings.

"No," said Kenset, "these are all my own pretties. I have books, as you see, and my maps and several more pictures to put up, not to mention some Mexican pottery that I brought from Ciudad Juarez, and my chiefest treasure, a tapestry from France. That last I can't decide upon. I have two splendid s.p.a.ces--over there between the northern windows, facing the door, and yonder at the end. Perhaps you will be good enough to help me choose."

There was a boyish eagerness in his voice.

"Will you? After a while, I mean, when you have rested from your ride."

"Rested?"

Tharon looked at him in wonder. That ride had been like wine to her, a stimulant, a thing that sent the blood pounding in her veins.

Over the excitement had fallen a subtle shade, however, a hush, with the sight of Bolt so close behind El Rey. If it had not been for that grave thing she would have felt like a wound-up spring, intent with energy, filled with action. She was always so when El Rey ran beneath her. And this stranger spoke of rest! Tharon Last could ride all day without a thought of rest.

"Sure," she said, "I'll help you if I can. But what's this thing?"

"A sort of picture," replied Kenset quickly, "a picture woven in cloth. But first, if you'll be so kind, I want you to break bread with me. You said we would not be friends. I'm not so sure of that. There is nothing like a man's bread and salt for the refutation of logic."

He slipped off the desk with a lithe rippling of his body, but Tharon was first on her feet.

"You mean stay to supper?" she asked decisively. "No, I can't do that.

I took back a meal from you. That stan's between."

"Why, you funny girl," said Kenset, "nothing stands between. And I don't mean supper, exactly, either. Please sit down."

Tharon stood, considering. She turned the matter over in her mind.

She had taken this man's house by storm. It had, indeed, given her refuge. If it had not been for the glade in the pines, she wondered where she would be now--driven deep into Black Coulee, she made no doubt, a prisoner to Courtrey.

"All right," she said abruptly, "I'll stay. But you must be quick. Th'

time is goin' fast."

Kenset went swiftly across the cabin to that part which served as kitchen, and took from a curtain-covered set of shelves, a shiny nickel object on spindly legs, which he brought and placed near Tharon on the table.

He struck a match and presently a clean blue flame grew up beneath it.

He lifted the lid and filled the small pot, thereby exposed, with water from the bucket on a bench. Then he delved in one of the big trunks against the farther wall and brought out a little tin of cakes, such as one could buy in any city of the world.

All this was absorbing to the girl in the big chair, who watched with grave eyes. And Kenset kept up a running stream of gay talk all the time. He wanted to make her at ease, to cover the thought of the strain between them, and how much he wanted to drive from his own mind the knowledge that this sweet and wholesome creature was a potential murderer, he did not know. From a can he measured chocolate. From a pan somewhere outdoors he brought milk. Sugar he added carefully as a woman, and presently he spread between them on the table a small repast that was strange to this girl of the wilderness.

He watched her with appraising eyes and saw that there was in her no consciousness of the unusual. She might have sat at meat in the big room of the Holding for all the flutter there was in her.

He told her somewhat of himself, of his life in the East, but he was careful not to ask about Lost Valley, to make mention of the circ.u.mstances that had brought her to his door. And so an hour pa.s.sed as if it had been a bagatelle. The afternoon was waning when Tharon rose swiftly and abruptly terminated this first visit inside his home of any Lost Valley denizen.

"Bring out your picture," she said decisively, "I'll help you hang it, an' then I must go home."

So Kenset dived once more into the mysterious recesses of the trunk and this time brought out a thing of rare beauty and value, a large tapestry, some four by six feet in size, a wonderful thing of soft and deathless hues, of cunning distances, of Greek figures and leaning trees, of sea-line so faint as to be almost lost in the misty skies.

"Oh!" said Tharon Last with an intake of her breath, "Oh, where do they make such things?"

"Far on the other side of the world," said Kenset gently, pleased with the wonder in her wide eyes, the evident and quick realization of beauty.

She whirled from it and glanced quickly at the two s.p.a.ces on the rugged walls.

"There," she said, pointing to the broad expanse between the northern windows, "hang it there."

"Done," said Kenset, and went promptly for a hammer.

When the huge thick mat was securely stretched in place, Tharon helping to hold it while he pounded in the broad-topped tacks, Kenset stepped back and wondered how he had ever for a moment considered hanging it in any other spot. The tempered light from the door came in upon it, bringing out each enchanted charm, each tender vista.

"Wonderful!" he said to himself, "I never knew how lovely it was amid conventional surroundings!"

"Huh?" asked Tharon.

The man laughed in spite of himself and turned his eyes to hers, to lose his quick amus.e.m.e.nt in the earnest blue depths that seemed to question him at every angle.

"I mean that it looks better here in my cabin than it ever did on city walls."

"Why?"

"Well--I don't know. Contrast, perhaps."

Tharon stood a moment thinking.

"Perhaps," she answered slowly, "yes, perhaps. I guess that's why you seem so diff'rent to me. Jim Last used to say that was why th' Valley was so soft-like an' lovely, contrasted by th' Rockface."