Part 11 (1/2)

Only the tree-toads, long since silent, knew that a cigarette, carefully s.h.i.+elded in a palm, glowed in the darkness.

Two days after this a visitor came to Last's. From far down they saw him coming, in the mid-morning while the work of the house went forward. Paula, bringing a pan of milk from the springhouse spied him first and stopped to satisfy her young eyes with the unwonted appearance of him. She looked long, and hurried in to tell her mistress.

”Senorita,” she said excitedly, ”see who comes! A stranger who has different clothes from any other. He rides not like Lost Valley men, either, being too stiff and straight. Come, see.”

And Tharon, busy about the kitchen in her starched print dress, dropped everything at once to run with Paula to the western door of the living room that they might look south.

”_Muchachas_ both,” complained old Anita, ”the milk is spilled and the _pan dulce_ burns in the oven! Tch, tch!”

But the young creatures in the west door cared naught for her grumbling.

”Who can it be, to come so, Senorita?” wondered Paula, her brown cheek beside her mistress, ”is he not handsome!”

”For mercy sake, Paula,” chided Tharon laughing, ”I believe you'd look for beauty in th' ol' Nick himself if he rode up. But I've seen this man before.”

”Where? When?”

”In town that day I met Courtrey an' Service. I remember seen' him come into line as I backed out--he was standin' between th' racks an'

th' porch, somewhere.” And she narrowed her eyes and studied the rider as he came jogging up across the range.

”H'm,” she said presently, ”he does ride funny. I bet he ain't rode range much in _his_ life. Stiff as a ramrod, an' no mistake.”

Then with an unconscious grace and poise that set well upon her as the mistress of Last's, Tharon moved into the open door and waited.

As the stranger came closer both girls subjected him to a frank and careful scrutiny that in any other place than Lost Valley would have been rudeness itself.

Here it catalogued the stranger, set the style of his welcome.

It left him stripped of surprise, outwardly, before he was within speaking distance.

It told the observers that he was young, of some twenty-six or seven, that his face, the first point taken in with lightning swiftness--was different from most faces they had ever seen, that it was open, smiling, easy, that he was straight as a ramrod, indeed, that he rode as if he feared nothing in the earth or the heavens, that he carried no gun, that he wore the peculiar uniform that Tharon had noticed before, and that there was something on his breast, a dark s.h.i.+eld of some sort which made them think of Steptoe Service and his disgraced sheriff's star. This thought brought a frown to Tharon's brows, and it was there to greet the stranger when he rode up to the step and halted, his smart tan hat in his hand. The morning sun burned warmly down on his dark hair, which was brushed straight back from his forehead in a way unknown in those parts. His dark eyes, slow and deep but somehow merry, took in the pretty picture in the door.

”Miss Last?” he asked in a low voice.

”Yes,” said Tharon promptly and waited.

Every one waited in Lost Valley for a stranger to make known his business. Paula drew back behind her mistress.

The man sat still on his horse and waited, too. The silence became profound. The hens cackling about the barns intruded sharply.

”Well,” he said presently, ”I am a stranger, and I came to see you.”

The girl in the doorway felt a hot surge of discomfort flare over her for the first time in her life for such a reason.

There was something in the low voice that implied a lack, accused her of something. She resented it instantly.

”If that is so,” she said slowly, ”light.”

The man laughed delightedly, and swung quickly down, dropping his rein. Tharon noticed that. That much was natural. He held his hat against his breast with one hand and came forward with the same quickness, holding out the other. Tharon was not used to shaking hands with strange men. She gave her hand diffidently, because he so evidently expected it, and took it away swiftly.