Tharon of Lost Valley

by Vingie E. Roe

But to save her life the girl could not. What was this trembling that seized her limbs? Why did the stars, come out on the purple sky, shift so strangely to her eyes? She slipped off El Rey and stood by his shoulder waiting. Conford struck a flare and lit a candle, holding it carefully before him, shielding it with his palm behind it to throw the gleam away from his face, into the cabin. The pale light illumined the whole interior, and it was empty. The keen eyes of the riders went over every inch of space before they entered––along 226 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. She looked twice––the last one on the pile at a certain corner was just as she had placed it there, a trifle crooked with the edge, but neatly in line with those beneath it. There was the big chair in which she had waited while he made the little meal––there was his desk in the ingle nook, his maps upon it. It was all so familiar, so filled with his personality, that Tharon felt the very power of his dark eyes, smiling, grave–––

“Hello!” said Jack Masters suddenly. “Burt, what’s this?”

Conford stepped quickly around the table and held his candle down.

Tharon pushed forward and looked over the leaning shoulders.

There on the brown and green grass rug a rich dark stain was drying––blood, some three days old.

Then, indeed, did the universe sag and darken to the Mistress of Last’s.

She put out a hand to steady herself and found 227 it grasped in the strong one of Billy, who stood at her shoulder like her shadow.

“Steady!” he whispered. “Steady, Tharon.”

She drew her trembling fingers across her eyes, wet her lips which felt dry as ashes. The same ache that had come with Jim Last’s final smile was already in her heart, but intensified a thousand times. She felt all suddenly, as if there was nothing in Lost Valley worth while, nothing in all the world! That drying stain at her feet seemed to shut out the sun, moon and stars with its sinister darkness. She felt a nausea at the pit of her stomach, a need for air in her cramped lungs.

Strange, she had never known that one could be so detached from all familiar things, could seem so lost in a sea of stupid agony. Why was it so? If this dark blot of blood had come from the veins of Billy now, of Conford, or Jack or Curly, her own men, would she have lost her grip like this? And then she became dully conscious that Billy had put her in the big chair by the table and had joined the others in their exhaustive search for any clew to the tragedy. She saw the moon rising over the tops of the pine trees at the glade’s edge, heard the little song of the running stream.