Riders of the Purple Sage

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"What do I care who she is or what she was!" he cried,
passionately. And he knew it was not his old self speaking. It
was this softer, gentler man who had awakened to new thoughts in
the quiet valley. Tenderness, masterful in him now, matched the
absence of joy and blunted the knife-edge of entering jealousy.
Strong and passionate effort of will, surprising to him, held
back the poison from piercing his soul.

"Wait!...Wait!" he cried, as if calling. His hand pressed his
breast, and he might have called to the pang there. "Wait! It's
all so strange--so wonderful. Anything can happen. Who am I to
judge her? I'll glory in my love for her. But I can't tell
it--can't give up to it."

Certainly he could not then decide her future. Marrying her was
impossible in Surprise Valley and in any village south of
Sterling. Even without the mask she had once worn she would
easily have been recognized as Oldring's Rider. No man who had
ever seen her would forget her, regardless of his ignorance as to
her sex. Then more poignant than all other argument was the fact
that he did not want to take her away from Surprise Valley. He
resisted all thought of that. He had brought her to the most
beautiful and wildest place of the uplands; he had saved her,
nursed her back to strength, watched her bloom as one of the
valley lilies; he knew her life there to be pure and sweet--she
belonged to him, and he loved her. Still these were not all the
reasons why he did not want to take her away. Where could they
go? He feared the rustlers--he feared the riders--he feared the
Mormons. And if he should ever succeed in getting Bess safely
away from these immediate perils, he feared the sharp eyes of
women and their tongues, the big outside world with its problems
of existence. He must wait to decide her future, which, after
all, was deciding his own. But between her future and his
something hung impending. Like Balancing Rock, which waited
darkly over the steep gorge, ready to close forever the outlet to
Deception Pass, that nameless thing, as certain yet intangible as
fate, must fall and close forever all doubts and fears of the
future.

"I've dreamed," muttered Venters, as he rose. "Well, why
not?...To dream is happiness! But let me just once see this
clearly wholly; then I can go on dreaming till the thing falls.
I've got to tell Jane Withersteen. I've dangerous trips to take.
I've work here to make comfort for this girl. She's mine. I'll
fight to keep her safe from that old life. I've already seen her
forget it. I love her. And if a beast ever rises in me I'll burn
my hand off before I lay it on her with shameful intent. And, by
God! sooner or later I'll kill the man who hid her and kept her
in Deception Pass!"

As he spoke the west wind softly blew in his face. It seemed to
soothe his passion. That west wind was fresh, cool, fragrant, and
it carried a sweet, strange burden of far-off things--tidings of
life in other climes, of sunshine asleep on other walls--of other
places where reigned peace. It carried, too, sad truth of human
hearts and mystery--of promise and hope unquenchable. Surprise
Valley was only a little niche in the wide world whence blew that
burdened wind. Bess was only one of millions at the mercy of
unknown motive in nature and life. Content had come to Venters in
the valley; happiness had breathed in the slow, warm air; love as
bright as light had hovered over the walls and descended to him;
and now on the west wind came a whisper of the eternal triumph of
faith over doubt.

"How much better I am for what has come to me!" he exclaimed.
"I'll let the future take care of itself. Whatever falls, I'll be
ready."

Venters retraced his steps along the terrace back to camp, and
found Bess in the old familiar seat, waiting and watching for his
return.

"I went off by myself to think a little," he explained.

"You never looked that way before. What--what is it? Won't you
tell me?"

"Well, Bess, the fact is I've been dreaming a lot. This valley
makes a fellow dream. So I forced myself to think. We can't live
this way much longer. Soon I'll simply have to go to Cottonwoods.
We need a whole pack train of supplies. I can get--"

"Can you go safely?" she interrupted.

"Why, I'm sure of it. I'll ride through the Pass at night. I
haven't any fear that Wrangle isn't where I left him. And once on
him--Bess, just wait till you see that horse!"

"Oh, I want to see him--to ride him. But--but, Bern, this is what
troubles me," she said. "Will--will you come back?"

"Give me four days. If I'm not back in four days you'll know I'm
dead. For that only shall keep me."

"Oh!"

"Bess, I'll come back. There's danger--I wouldn't lie to you--but
I can take care of myself."

"Bern, I'm sure--oh, I'm sure of it! All my life I've watched
hunted men. I can tell what's in them. And I believe you can ride
and shoot and see with any rider of the sage. It's not--not that
I--fear."

"Well, what is it, then?"

"Why--why--why should you come back at all?"

"I couldn't leave you here alone."

"You might change your mind when you get to the village--among
old friends--"

"I won't change my mind. As for old friends--" He uttered a
short, expressive laugh.

"Then--there--there must be a--a woman!" Dark red mantled the
clear tan of temple and cheek and neck. Her eyes were eyes of
shame, upheld a long moment by intense, straining search for the
verification of her fear. Suddenly they drooped, her head fell to
her knees, her hands flew to her hot cheeks.

"Bess--look here," said Venters, with a sharpness due to the
violence with which he checked his quick, surging emotion.

As if compelled against her will--answering to an irresistible
voice-- Bess raised her head, looked at him with sad, dark eyes,
and tried to whisper with tremulous lips.

"There's no woman," went on Venters, deliberately holding her
glance with his. "Nothing on earth, barring the chances of life,
can keep me away."

Her face flashed and flushed with the glow of a leaping joy; but
like the vanishing of a gleam it disappeared to leave her as he
had never beheld her.

"I am nothing--I am lost--I am nameless!"

"Do you want me to come back?" he asked, with sudden stern
coldness. "Maybe you want to go back to Oldring!"

That brought her erect, trembling and ashy pale, with dark, proud
eyes and mute lips refuting his insinuation.

"Bess, I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have said that. But you
angered me. I intend to work--to make a home for you here--to be
a--a brother to you as long as ever you need me. And you must
forget what you are-- were--I mean, and be happy. When you
remember that old life you are bitter, and it hurts me."

"I was happy--I shall be very happy. Oh, you're so good
that--that it kills me! If I think, I can't believe it. I grow
sick with wondering why. I'm only a let me say it--only a lost,
nameless--girl of the rustlers. Oldring's Girl, they called me.
That you should save me--be so good and kind--want to make me
happy--why, it's beyond belief. No wonder I'm wretched at the
thought of your leaving me. But I'll be wretched and bitter no
more. I promise you. If only I could repay you even a
little--"

"You've repaid me a hundredfold. Will you believe me?"

"Believe you! I couldn't do else."

"Then listen!...Saving you, I saved myself. Living here in this
valley with you, I've found myself. I've learned to think while I
was dreaming. I never troubled myself about God. But God, or some
wonderful spirit, has whispered to me here. I absolutely deny the
truth of what you say about yourself. I can't explain it. There
are things too deep to tell. Whatever the terrible wrongs you've
suffered, God holds you blameless. I see that--feel that in you
every moment you are near me. I've a mother and a sister 'way
back in Illinois. If I could I'd take you to them--to-morrow."

"If it were true! Oh, I might--I might lift my head!" she cried.

"Lift it then--you child. For I swear it's true."

She did lift her head with the singular wild grace always a part
of her actions, with that old unconscious intimation of innocence
which always tortured Venters, but now with something more--a
spirit rising from the depths that linked itself to his brave
words.

"I've been thinking--too," she cried, with quivering smile and
swelling breast. "I've discovered myself--too. I'm young--I'm
alive--I'm so full--oh! I'm a woman!"

"Bess, I believe I can claim credit of that last
discovery--before you," Venters said, and laughed.

"Oh, there's more--there's something I must tell you."

"Tell it, then."

"When will you go to Cottonwoods?"

"As soon as the storms are past, or the worst of them."

"I'll tell you before you go. I can't now. I don't know how I
shall then. But it must be told. I'd never let you leave me
without knowing. For in spite of what you say there's a chance
you mightn't come back."

Day after day the west wind blew across the valley. Day after day
the clouds clustered gray and purple and black. The cliffs sang
and the caves rang with Oldring's knell, and the lightning
flashed, the thunder rolled, the echoes crashed and crashed, and
the rains flooded the valley. Wild flowers sprang up everywhere,
swaying with the lengthening grass on the terraces, smiling wanly
from shady nooks, peeping wondrously from year-dry crevices of
the walls. The valley bloomed into a paradise. Every single
moment, from the breaking of the gold bar through the bridge at
dawn on to the reddening of rays over the western wall, was one
of colorful change. The valley swam in thick, transparent haze,
golden at dawn, warm and white at noon, purple in the twilight.
At the end of every storm a rainbow curved down into the
leaf-bright forest to shine and fade and leave lingeringly some
faint essence of its rosy iris in the air.

Venters walked with Bess, once more in a dream, and watched the
lights change on the walls, and faced the wind from out of the
west.

Always it brought softly to him strange, sweet tidings of far-off
things. It blew from a place that was old and whispered of youth.
It blew down the grooves of time. It brought a story of the
passing hours. It breathed low of fighting men and praying women.
It sang clearly the song of love. That ever was the burden of its
tidings--youth in the shady woods, waders through the wet
meadows, boy and girl at the hedgerow stile, bathers in the
booming surf, sweet, idle hours on grassy, windy hills, long
strolls down moonlit lanes--everywhere in far-off lands, fingers
locked and bursting hearts and longing lips--from all the world
tidings of unquenchable love.

Often, in these hours of dreams he watched the girl, and asked
himself of what was she dreaming? For the changing light of the
valley reflected its gleam and its color and its meaning in the
changing light of her eyes. He saw in them infinitely more than
he saw in his dreams. He saw thought and soul and nature--strong
vision of life. All tidings the west wind blew from distance and
age he found deep in those dark-blue depths, and found them
mysteries solved. Under their wistful shadow he softened, and in
the softening felt himself grow a sadder, a wiser, and a better
man.

While the west wind blew its tidings, filling his heart full,
teaching him a man's part, the days passed, the purple clouds
changed to white, and the storms were over for that summer.

"I must go now," he said.

"When?" she asked.

"At once--to-night."

"I'm glad the time has come. It dragged at me. Go--for you'll
come back the sooner."

Late in the afternoon, as the ruddy sun split its last flame in
the ragged notch of the western wall, Bess walked with Venters
along the eastern terrace, up the long, weathered slope, under
the great stone bridge. They entered the narrow gorge to climb
around the fence long before built there by Venters. Farther than
this she had never been. Twilight had already fallen in the
gorge. It brightened to waning shadow in the wider ascent. He
showed her Balancing Rock, of which he had often told her, and
explained its sinister leaning over the outlet. Shuddering, she
looked down the long, pale incline with its closed-in, toppling
walls.

"What an awful trail! Did you carry me up here?"

"I did, surely," replied he.

"It frightens me, somehow. Yet I never was afraid of trails. I'd
ride anywhere a horse could go, and climb where he couldn't. But
there's something fearful here. I feel as--as if the place was
watching me."

"Look at this rock. It's balanced here--balanced perfectly. You
know I told you the cliff-dwellers cut the rock, and why. But
they're gone and the rock waits. Can't you see--feel how it waits
here? I moved it once, and I'll never dare again. A strong heave
would start it. Then it would fall and bang, and smash that crag,
and jar the walls, and close forever the outlet to Deception
Pass!"

"Ah! When you come back I'll steal up here and push and push with
all my might to roll the rock and close forever the outlet to the
Pass!" She said it lightly, but in the undercurrent of her voice
was a heavier note, a ring deeper than any ever given mere play
of words.

"Bess!...You can't dare me! Wait till I come back with supplies--
then roll the stone."

"I--was--in--fun." Her voice now throbbed low. "Always you must
be free to go when you will. Go now...this place presses on
me--stifles me."

"I'm going--but you had something to tell me?"

"Yes....Will you--come back?"

"I'll come if I live."

"But--but you mightn't come?"

"That's possible, of course. It'll take a good deal to kill me. A
man couldn't have a faster horse or keener dog. And, Bess, I've
guns, and I'll use them if I'm pushed. But don't worry."

"I've faith in you. I'll not worry until after four days. Only--
because you mightn't come--I must tell you--"

She lost her voice. Her pale face, her great, glowing, earnest
eyes, seemed to stand alone out of the gloom of the gorge. The
dog whined, breaking the silence.

"I must tell you--because you mightn't come back," she whispered.
"You must know what--what I think of your goodness--of you.
Always I've been tongue-tied. I seemed not to be grateful. It was
deep in my heart. Even now--if I were other than I am--I couldn't
tell you. But I'm nothing--only a rustler's
girl--nameless--infamous. You've saved me-- and I'm--I'm yours to
do with as you like....With all my heart and soul--I love you!"

CHAPTER XV. SHADOWS ON THE SAGE-SLOPE

In the cloudy, threatening, waning summer days shadows lengthened
down the sage-slope, and Jane Withersteen likened them to the
shadows gathering and closing in around her life.

Mrs. Larkin died, and little Fay was left an orphan with no known
relative. Jane's love redoubled. It was the saving brightness of
a darkening hour. Fay turned now to Jane in childish worship. And
Jane at last found full expression for the mother-longing in her
heart. Upon Lassiter, too, Mrs. Larkin's death had some subtle
reaction. Before, he had often, without explanation, advised Jane
to send Fay back to any Gentile family that would take her in.
Passionately and reproachfully and wonderingly Jane had refused
even to entertain such an idea. And now Lassiter never advised it
again, grew sadder and quieter in his contemplation of the child,
and infinitely more gentle and loving. Sometimes Jane had a cold,
inexplicable sensation of dread when she saw Lassiter watching
Fay. What did the rider see in the future? Why did he, day by
day, grow more silent, calmer, cooler, yet sadder in prophetic
assurance of something to be?

No doubt, Jane thought, the rider, in his almost superhuman power
of foresight, saw behind the horizon the dark, lengthening
shadows that were soon to crowd and gloom over him and her and
little Fay. Jane Withersteen awaited the long-deferred breaking
of the storm with a courage and embittered calm that had come to
her in her extremity. Hope had not died. Doubt and fear,
subservient to her will, no longer gave her sleepless nights and
tortured days. Love remained. All that she had loved she now
loved the more. She seemed to feel that she was defiantly
flinging the wealth of her love in the face of misfortune and of
hate. No day passed but she prayed for all--and most fervently
for her enemies. It troubled her that she had lost, or had never
gained, the whole control of her mind. In some measure reason and
wisdom and decision were locked in a chamber of her brain,
awaiting a key. Power to think of some things was taken from her.
Meanwhile, abiding a day of judgment, she fought ceaselessly to
deny the bitter drops in her cup, to tear back the slow, the
intangibly slow growth of a hot, corrosive lichen eating into her
heart.

On the morning of August 10th, Jane, while waiting in the court
for Lassiter, heard a clear, ringing report of a rifle. It came
from the grove, somewhere toward the corrals. Jane glanced out in
alarm. The day was dull, windless, soundless. The leaves of the
cottonwoods drooped, as if they had foretold the doom of
Withersteen House and were now ready to die and drop and decay.
Never had Jane seen such shade. She pondered on the meaning of
the report. Revolver shots had of late cracked from different
parts of the grove--spies taking snap-shots at Lassiter from a
cowardly distance! But a rifle report meant more. Riders seldom
used rifles. Judkins and Venters were the exceptions she called
to mind. Had the men who hounded her hidden in her grove, taken
to the rifle to rid her of Lassiter, her last friend? It was
probable--it was likely. And she did not share his cool
assumption that his death would never come at the hands of a
Mormon. Long had she expected it. His constancy to her, his
singular reluctance to use the fatal skill for which he was
famed-- both now plain to all Mormons--laid him open to
inevitable assassination. Yet what charm against ambush and aim
and enemy he seemed to bear about him! No, Jane reflected, it was
not charm; only a wonderful training of eye and ear, and sense of
impending peril. Nevertheless that could not forever avail
against secret attack.

That moment a rustling of leaves attracted her attention; then
the familiar clinking accompaniment of a slow, soft, measured
step, and Lassiter walked into the court.

"Jane, there's a fellow out there with a long gun," he said, and,
removing his sombrero, showed his head bound in a bloody scarf.

"I heard the shot; I knew it was meant for you. Let me see--you
can't be badly injured?"

"I reckon not. But mebbe it wasn't a close call!...I'll sit here
in this corner where nobody can see me from the grove." He untied
the scarf and removed it to show a long, bleeding furrow above
his left temple.

"It's only a cut," said Jane. "But how it bleeds! Hold your scarf
over it just a moment till I come back."

She ran into the house and returned with bandages; and while she
bathed and dressed the wound Lassiter talked.

"That fellow had a good chance to get me. But he must have
flinched when he pulled the trigger. As I dodged down I saw him
run through the trees. He had a rifle. I've been expectin' that
kind of gun play. I reckon now I'll have to keep a little closer
hid myself. These fellers all seem to get chilly or shaky when
they draw a bead on me, but one of them might jest happen to hit
me."

"Won't you go away--leave Cottonwoods as I've begged you
to--before some one does happen to hit you?" she appealed to him.

"I reckon I'll stay."

"But, oh, Lassiter--your blood will be on my hands!"

"See here, lady, look at your hands now, right now. Aren't they
fine, firm, white hands? Aren't they bloody now? Lassiter's
blood! That's a queer thing to stain your beautiful hands. But if
you could only see deeper you'd find a redder color of blood.
Heart color, Jane!"

"Oh!...My friend!"

"No, Jane, I'm not one to quit when the game grows hot, no more
than you. This game, though, is new to me, an' I don't know the
moves yet, else I wouldn't have stepped in front of that bullet."

"Have you no desire to hunt the man who fired at you--to find
him--and-- and kill him?"

"Well, I reckon I haven't any great hankerin' for that."

"Oh, the wonder of it!...I knew--I prayed--I trusted. Lassiter, I
almost gave--all myself to soften you to Mormons. Thank God, and
thank you, my friend....But, selfish woman that ] am, this is no
great test. What's the life of one of those sneaking cowards to
such a man as you? I think of your great hate toward him who--I
think of your life's implacable purpose. Can it
be--"

"Wait!...Listen!" he whispered. "I hear a hoss."

He rose noiselessly, with his ear to the breeze. Suddenly he
pulled his sombrero down over his bandaged head and, swinging his
gun-sheaths round in front, he stepped into the alcove.

"It s a hoss--comin' fast," he added.

Jane's listening ear soon caught a faint, rapid, rhythmic beat of
hoofs. It came from the sage. It gave her a thrill that she was
at a loss to understand. The sound rose stronger, louder. Then
came a clear, sharp difference when the horse passed from the
sage trail to the hard-packed ground of the grove. It became a
ringing run--swift in its bell-like clatterings, yet singular in
longer pause than usual between the hoofbeats of a horse.

"It's Wrangle!...It's Wrangle!" cried Jane Withersteen. "I'd know
him from a million horses!"

Excitement and thrilling expectancy flooded out all Jane
Withersteen s calm. A tight band closed round her breast as she
saw the giant sorrel flit in reddish-brown flashes across the
openings in the green. Then he was pounding down the
lane--thundering into the court--crashing his great iron-shod
hoofs on the stone flags. Wrangle it was surely, but shaggy and
wild-eyed, and sage-streaked, with dust-caked lather staining his
flanks. He reared and crashed down and plunged. The rider leaped
off, threw the bridle, and held hard on a lasso looped round
Wrangle's head and neck. Janet's heart sank as she tried to
recognize Venters in the rider. Something familiar struck her in
the lofty stature in the sweep of powerful shoulders. But this
bearded, longhaired, unkempt man, who wore ragged clothes patched
with pieces of skin, and boots that showed bare legs and
feet--this dusty, dark, and wild rider could not possibly be
Venters.

"Whoa, Wrangle, old boy! Come down. Easy now. So--so--so. You re
home, old boy, and presently you can have a drink of water you'll
remember."

In the voice Jane knew the rider to be Venters. He tied Wrangle
to the hitching-rack and turned to the court.

"Oh, Bern!...You wild man!" she exclaimed.

"Jane--Jane, it's good to see you! Hello, Lassiter! Yes, it's
Venters."

Like rough iron his hard hand crushed Jane's. In it she felt the
difference she saw in him. Wild, rugged, unshorn--yet how
splendid! He had gone away a boy--he had returned a man. He
appeared taller, wider of shoulder, deeper-chested, more
powerfully built. But was that only her fancy--he had always been
a young giant--was the change one of spirit? He might have been
absent for years, proven by fire and steel, grown like Lassiter,
strong and cool and sure. His eyes--were they keener, more
flashing than before?--met hers with clear, frank, warm regard,
in which perplexity was not, nor discontent, nor pain.

"Look at me long as you like," he said, with a laugh. "I'm not
much to look at. And, Jane, neither you nor Lassiter, can brag.
You're paler than I ever saw you. Lassiter, here, he wears a
bloody bandage under his hat. That reminds me. Some one took a
flying shot at me down in the sage. It made Wrangle run
some....Well, perhaps you've more to tell me than I've got to
tell you."

Briefly, in few words, Jane outlined the circumstances of her
undoing in the weeks of his absence.

Under his beard and bronze she saw his face whiten in terrible
wrath.

"Lassiter--what held you back?"

No time in the long period of fiery moments and sudden shocks had
Jane Withersteen ever beheld Lassiter as calm and serene and cool
as then.

"Jane had gloom enough without my addin' to it by shootin' up the
village," he said.

As strange as Lassiter's coolness was Venters's curious, intent
scrutiny of them both, and under it Jane felt a flaming tide wave
from bosom to temples.

"Well--you're right," he said, with slow pause. "It surprises me
a little, that's all."

Jane sensed then a slight alteration in Venters, and what it was,
in her own confusion, she could not tell. It had always been her
intention to acquaint him with the deceit she had fallen to in
her zeal to move Lassiter. She did not mean to spare herself. Yet
now, at the moment, before these riders, it was an impossibility
to explain.

Venters was speaking somewhat haltingly, without his former
frankness. "I found Oldring's hiding-place and your red herd. I
learned--I know-- I'm sure there was a deal between Tull and
Oldring." He paused and shifted his position and his gaze. He
looked as if he wanted to say something that he found beyond him.
Sorrow and pity and shame seemed to contend for mastery over him.
Then he raised himself and spoke with effort. "Jane I've cost you
too much. You've almost ruined yourself for me. It was wrong, for
I'm not worth it. I never deserved such friendship. Well, maybe
it's not too late. You must give me up. Mind, I haven't changed.
I am just the same as ever. I'll see Tull while I'm here, and
tell him to his face."

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