Jana had spoken of her brother to Jason, but if she had ever mentioned
his name, the American had forgotten it, and so he continued to think
that Thoar was the sweetheart and possibly the mate of The Red Flower
and his reaction to this belief was unpleasant; yet why it should have
been he could not have explained. The more he thought of the matter the
more certain he was that Thoar was Jana's mate, for who was there who
might more naturally desire to kill one who had wronged her. Yes, he
was sure that the man was Jana's mate. The thought made him angry for
she had certainly led him to believe that she was not mated. That was
just like a woman, he meditated; they were all flirts; they would make
a fool of a man merely to pass an idle hour, but she had not made a
fool of him. He had not fallen victim to her lures, that is why she had
been so angry--her vanity had been piqued--and being a very primitive
young person the first thought that had come to her mind had been to
kill him. What a little devil she was to try to get him to make love
to her when she already had a mate, and thus Jason almost succeeded
in working himself into a rage until his sense of humor came to his
rescue; yet even though he smiled, way down deep within him something
hurt and he wondered why.
"Where did you last see Jana?" asked Thoar. "We can return there and
try and locate her tracks."
"I do not know that I can explain," replied Jason. "It is very
difficult for me to locate myself or anything else where there are no
points of compass."
"We can start together at the point where we found your tracks with
Jana's," said Thoar.
"Perhaps that will not be necessary if you are familiar with the
country on the other side of the range," said Jason. "Returning
toward the mountains from the spot where I first saw Jana, there was
a tremendous gorge upon our left. It was toward this gorge that the
two men of the four that had been pursuing her ran after I had killed
two of their number. Jana tried to find a way to the summit, far to
the right of this gorge, but our path was blocked by a deep rift which
paralleled the base of the mountains, so that she was compelled to turn
back again toward the gorge, into which she descended. The last I saw
of her she was going up the gorge, so that if you know where this gorge
lies it will not be necessary for us to go all the way back to the
point at which I first met her."
"I know the gorge," said Thoar, "and if the two Phelians entered it it
is possible that they captured her. We will search in the direction of
the gorge then and if we do not find any trace of her, we shall drop
down to the country of the Phelians in the lowland."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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