Tharon of Lost Valley

by Vingie E. Roe

None spoke to him in the few broad streets, none asked him to a bar to drink.

Serene, quiet, soft spoken, he came and went about his business, and sneers followed him covertly.

It was not long after Tharon’s visit to the cabin in the glade, that Kenset, riding alone along the twilight land, passed close to the mouth of Black Coulee one day at dusk. He rode loosely, slouching sidewise in his saddle, for he had been to Corvan for his monthly mail and a few supplies tied in a bag behind his saddle, and he carried his broad hat in his hand.

The little cool wind that blew in from the narrow gorge of the Bottle Neck and spread out like an invisible fan, breathed on his face with a grateful touch. The day had been hot, for the summer was opening beautifully, and he had ridden Captain far. Therefore he jogged and rested, his arms hanging listlessly at his sides, his thoughts two thousand miles away.

At the mouth of Black Coulee where the sinister split of the deep wash came up to the level, there grew a fringe of wild poplar trees. They were beautiful things, tall and straight and thickly covered 162 with a million shiny leaves that whirled and rustled softly in the wind, showing all their soft white silver sides when the breeze came up from the south as it did this day. There was water in Black Coulee, many small springs, not deep enough nor steady enough to count for water in a range country, but sufficient to keep the poplars growing on the rim of the great wash, to stand them thick on the caving sides. Whole benches of earth with their trees upon them slipped down these sides from time to time, making of the Coulee a mysterious labyrinth of thickets and shelves, of winding ways and secret places.

Kenset had heard a few wild stories about Black Coulee. Sam Drake had talked a bit more than most men of Lost Valley would have talked, and he had listened idly.

Now as he rode up along the levels and neared the dark mouth of the cut he studied it with appraising eyes. It was sinister enough, in all truth, a deep, dark place behind its veil of poplars, secretive, hushed.

The red light that dyed Lost Valley so wondrously at the hour of the sun’s sharp decline above the peaks and ridges of the Cañon Country was awash in all the great sunken cup, save at the west under the Rockface where the shadows were already dark. 163

Kenset drank in the beauty of the scene with smiling eyes. Already a love for this hidden paradise had grown wonderfully in his heart. He felt as if he had never lived before, as if he had never known beauty.

And so, dreaming a little of other scenes, smiling to himself, he jogged along on Captain and was nearly past the frowning mouth of the Coulee, when there came the sharp snap of a rifle in the stillness, and Captain changed his feet, sagged and quivered, then caught himself and leaped ahead. For one amazed moment Kenset thought the horse was hit. Then, as he straightened in his saddle and dropped his hand to catch up his hanging rein, he looked quickly down. Where he was accustomed to the smooth feel of the pommel beneath his palm there was a sharp raw edge. A splinter of wood stood up and a small flare of leather hung to one side.