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Updated: April 30, 2025
But with the new knowledge Tharon Last took on a light, a halo. Men spoke in whispers about her daring. They felt it themselves. Word of her lightning quickness with her daddy's guns, of her accuracy, went softly all about and about, garbled and accentuated. They said she could shoot the studs from the sides of a man's belt and never touch him.
The boys washed at the big sink on the porch, and were ready for the hearty fare that steamed in the lamp-lighted room. For the last hour Tharon had been watching the eastern slopes for her father. "He's ridin' late, Anita," she said anxiously as the men trooped in with the usual jest and laughter. "He went far, no doubt, Corazon," said old Anita comfortably.
In the opening stood Tharon Last, her blue eyes black and sparkling, her tawny skin cream white, her lips tight-set and pale. She wore a plain dark dress that buttoned up the front, and at her hips there hung her father's famous guns. Her two hands rested on their butts. Behind her head against the starlight there was the dim suggestion of massed sombreros.
Thus Fate, who had for so long played with life and death in Lost Valley, tiring of the play, drew in the strings of the puppets and set the stage for the last act. As Tharon and Billy crept up to Baston's store and stopped at the steps, a dozen eager men leaped forward to their help. "Easy!" warned the girl. "He's ben hurt a long time, an' he's had an awful trip.
A horseman was coming in from the west, making for the Silver Hollow, but Tharon smiled and her fingers relaxed on the gun. This man rode straight like a lance, she thought and his mount was brown, a good-enough common horse, but no steed of Lost Valley. Captain lacked the fire, the ramping keenness of the Ironwoods, the spirit and dash of the Finger Marks.
Farther back a little farther back was Arrow, running magnificently, too. A greater distance behind the two came Slingshot. Tharon was frightened. Not for herself. Not for the intent of the men who came after her. Not for gun-fire, nor for capture. She was afraid for the king! Afraid that Bolt could hold that wonderful pace! Then a surging rage rose and sickened her.
Therefore, from a block of the hard grey stone of the region, which was almost like granite, he fashioned a cross, as tall as Tharon herself, struck it out freehand and true, and set upon its austere face fine tracery of vines and Jim Last's name. He took into the secret Billy and Curly, since these two he was sure of, and together they hauled the huge thing out and set it up.
He laughed, however, and in reaching for the hat, caught two of her fingers, whether purposely or not, Tharon could not tell. "Admirable hospitality in the last frontier," he said. "But perhaps I should not have expected anything different." "You make me ashamed," said Tharon straightly, "but Last's ain't takin' chances these days.
After him swept his two lieutenants, to fade swiftly from sight behind the shielding forest. A grim expression spread over the face of the man at the step as he, too, beheld the end of the vital play. Then he looked up at the girl on the silver stallion and his dark eyes were alight. "What's this?" he asked abruptly. Then Tharon seemed to become conscious of him for the first time.
"What's this I hear, Tharon?" asked Service, "about you a-makin' threats?" "What have you heard?" she wanted to know. "W'y, that you're a-makin' threats." "Yes?" "Yes, sir." "Well?" The sheriff flushed darker.
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