“Of all th’ tenderfeet!” said Baston, watching the small by-play. “I b’lieve you could spit on him, boys.”
“I don’t,” spoke up Old Pete, shuffling by on his bandy legs, “sometimes that quiet, soft-spoken kind rises––an’ then hell’s to pay in their veecinity.”
But Wylackie looked at the weazened snow-packer with his snake-like eyes and snapped out a warning. 165
“Some folks takes sides too quick, sometimes.”
But Old Pete went on about his business. He knew, as did all the Valley, that a price was on his head with Courtrey’s band for the daring leap which had saved the life of Tharon Last that day in spring.
Sooner or later that price would be paid, but Old Pete was true western stuff. He had lived his life, had had his day, and he was full of pride at the turn of fate which had made him a hero in a way at the end.
All the Valley stood off and admired Jim Last’s daughter.
Pete basked in the reflected light. And Tharon herself had taken his gnarled old hand one day in Baston’s store and called him a thoroughbred.
Folks in Lost Valley were chary of words, conservative to the last degree. That simple word, the handclasp, the look in the clear blue eyes, had been his eulogy.
It was whispered about, as was every smallest happening, and came to the ears of Courtrey himself, who had promised those vague things for the future on the fateful night. But Courtrey was playing a waiting game. He was obsessed with the image of Tharon. Sooner or later he meant to have her, to install her at the Valley’s head. He had always had what he wanted. Therefore, 166 he expected to have this girl with the challenging eyes, the maddening mouth, like crimson sumac.