Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/91

Rh Even yet Sheridan was in doubt. The girl was letting Thora show off. But, as the big woman took up the instrument, he noticed how well-shaped were her fingers and how lissome. She cuddled the fiddle under her clean-cut chin, couched on her bosom, that had been undisturbed throughout her feat with Hollister, and turned a key, picking lightly at the strings. The man who had been skinning the puma came in. He had missed Hollister's defeat, and, chagrined at his lack of knowledge of the laughter, had hurried to finish his job.

"You've got a fine skin, there," he said. "Eight foot from snoot to tail-tip, or I'm a liar."

They hushed him down and Thora, taking up her bow, began to play.

There were folk-songs at first, lilting melodies some of them, others plaintive, all with the human note throbbing from the strings. That they were unfamiliar with them made no difference; they reached their hearts and they sat silent, enthralled. Thora played with no fireworks of execution, no great technique, but her ear was precise and, these things that she loved, she phrased beautifully.

She had them half-jigging finally to a dance, nodding their heads and tapping with their feet, as amiably, innocently delighted as children at a puppet show. Save for Hollister, who froze his face into a sneer. At last she put down the violin amid protest.

"Do you know 'Money Musk,' marm?" asked one of them. The size of Thora seemed to make it imperative for them to address her as if she were a matron. She looked puzzled.