HORNS

"I couldn't let them hurt you, of course," he said. "And I'm afraid to make you prisoner,

because I might not be able to keep you free from hurt. And I won't run away. So talk no

more, but go—go!"

She thrust the gleaming spears into the ground, slipped the golden bracelets back on her arms,

held white hands out to him.

"Now," she whispered, "now, by the Wisdom of the Mother, I will save you—if I can."

There was the sound of a horn, far away and high in air it seemed. It was answered by others

closer by; mellow, questing notes—with weirdly alien beat in them.

"They come," the girl said. "My followers. Light your fire to-night. Sleep without fear. But

do not wander beyond these trees."

"Sierra—" he began.

"Quiet now," she warned. "Quiet—until I am gone."

The mellow horns sounded closer. She sprang from his side and darted away through the

trees. From the ridge above the camp he heard her voice raised in one clear shout. There was

a tumult of the horns about her—elfin and troubling. Then silence.

Graydon stood listening. The sun touched the high snowfields of the majestic peaks toward

which he faced, touched them and turned them into robes of molten gold. The amethyst

shadows that draped their sides thickened, wavered and marched swiftly forward.

Still he listened, hardly breathing.

Far, far away the horns sounded again; faint echoing of the tumult that had swept about the

girl—faint, faint and fairy sweet.

The sun dropped behind the peaks; the edges of their frozen mantels glittered as though sewn

with diamonds; darkened into a fringe of gleaming rubies. The golden fields dulled, grew

amber and then blushed forth a glowing rose. They changed to pearl and faded into a ghostly

silver, shining like cloud wraiths in the highest heavens. Down upon the algarroba clump the

quick Andean dusk fell.

Not till then did Graydon, shivering with sudden, inexplicable dread, realize that beyond the

calling horns and the girl's clear shouting he had heard no other sound—no noise either of

man or beast, no sweeping through of brush or grass, no fall of running feet.

Nothing but that mellow chorus of the horns.