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Not one soul except myself will raise hand against you. By Tharon, I swear it! Choose! And the victor passes freely and whither he wills!" The Erie mocked him from his high perch: "Squirrels talk! Long since has your Tharon been hurled headlong into Biskoonah by Atensi and her flaming grandson!"
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 circumstances that had brought her to his door. And so an hour passed 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.
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.
Sane as Kenset was, as cool and self-contained, he could not repress a cold prickle of resentment at that memory. He had gone to the Holding in such good faith, actuated by a lively desire to see Tharon again after that one amazing meeting at Baston's steps, and he had been so readily received at first, so coolly turned out at last.
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.
But Tharon stopped the reluctant egress. "Don't go, boys," she said, "come on in th' room. There's no moon tonight." But she did not play on the melodeon. Instead she sat in the deep window that looked over the rolling uplands and was quiet, listening. "Turn out th' light, Bent," she said, "somehow I feel like shadows tonight."
"These men are the best to be had," he said, "and they will go anywhere on earth for money." But Tharon frowned and struck a fist into a soft palm. "What you mean?" she cried, "by takin' my work out of my hands like this? I won't have it! I won't wait!" "What I meant when I caught your bridle that day in the glade," answered the man, "to stop you from bloodshed."
The keen eyes of the riders went over every inch of space before they entered along the walls, in the bed, under the tables. Then they filed in and Tharon followed, gazing around with eyes that ached behind their lids. There on the northern wall between the windows, was the great spread of the beautiful picture she had helped the forest man to hang. There were his books on the table's edge.
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 prickle of uneasiness under her skin at every thought of it.
When the light increased enough to show the way they came abruptly to the spot where it was necessary to leave the horses. The floor of the cañon up which they were traveling lifted sharply in one huge step, breast-high to a man. Tharon in the lead halted and looked for a moment all up and down the wondrous maze of pale, tall openings that encompassed them all round.
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