Riders of the Purple Sage

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"Bern, it's too late," said Jane.

"I'll make him believe!" cried Venters, violently.

"You ask me to break our friendship?"

"Yes. If you don't, I shall."

"Forever?"

"Forever!"

Jane sighed. Another shadow had lengthened down the sage slope to
cast further darkness upon her. A melancholy sweetness pervaded
her resignation. The boy who had left her had returned a man,
nobler, stronger, one in whom she divined something unbending as
steel. There might come a moment later when she would wonder why
she had not fought against his will, but just now she yielded to
it. She liked him as well--nay, more, she thought, only her
emotions were deadened by the long, menacing wait for the
bursting storm.

Once before she had held out her hand to him--when she gave it;
now she stretched it tremblingly forth in acceptance of the
decree circumstance had laid upon them. Venters bowed over it
kissed it, pressed it hard, and half stifled a sound very like a
sob. Certain it was that when he raised his head tears glistened
in his eyes.

"Some--women--have a hard lot," he said, huskily. Then he shook
his powerful form, and his rags lashed about him. "I'll say a few
things to Tull--when I meet him."

"Bern--you'll not draw on Tull? Oh, that must not be! Promise
me--"

"I promise you this," he interrupted, in stern passion that
thrilled while it terrorized her. "If you say one more word for
that plotter I'll kill him as I would a mad coyote!"

Jane clasped her hands. Was this fire-eyed man the one whom she
had once made as wax to her touch? Had Venters become Lassiter
and Lassiter Venters?

"I'll--say no more," she faltered.

"Jane, Lassiter once called you blind," said Venters. "It must be
true. But I won't upbraid you. Only don't rouse the devil in me
by praying for Tull! I'll try to keep cool when I meet him.
That's all. Now there's one more thing I want to ask of you--the
last. I've found a valley down in the Pass. It's a wonderful
place. I intend to stay there. It's so hidden I believe no one
can find it. There's good water, and browse, and game. I want to
raise corn and stock. I need to take in supplies. Will you give
them to me?"

"Assuredly. The more you take the better you'll please me--and
perhaps the less my--my enemies will get."

"Venters, I reckon you'll have trouble packin' anythin' away,"
put in Lassiter.

"I'll go at night."

"Mebbe that wouldn't be best. You'd sure be stopped. You'd better
go early in the mornin'--say, just after dawn. That's the safest
time to move round here."

"Lassiter, I'll be hard to stop," returned Venters, darkly.

"I reckon so."

"Bern," said Jane, "go first to the riders' quarters and get
yourself a complete outfit. You're a--a sight. Then help yourself
to whatever else you need--burros, packs, grain, dried fruits,
and meat. You must take coffee and sugar and flour--all kinds of
supplies. Don't forget corn and seeds. I remember how you used to
starve. Please--please take all you can pack away from here. I'll
make a bundle for you, which you mustn't open till you're in your
valley. How I'd like to see it! To judge by you and Wrangle, how
wild it must be!"

Jane walked down into the outer court and approached the sorrel.
Upstarting, he laid back his ears and eyed her.

"Wrangle--dear old Wrangle," she said, and put a caressing hand
on his matted mane. "Oh, he's wild, but he knows me! Bern, can he
run as fast as ever?"

"Run? Jane, he's done sixty miles since last night at dark, and I
could make him kill Black Star right now in a ten-mile race."

"He never could," protested Jane. "He couldn't even if he was
fresh."

"I reckon mebbe the best hoss'll prove himself yet," said
Lassiter, "an', Jane, if it ever comes to that race I'd like you
to be on Wrangle."

"I'd like that, too," rejoined Venters. "But, Jane, maybe
Lassiter's hint is extreme. Bad as your prospects are, you'll
surely never come to the running point."

"Who knows!" she replied, with mournful smile.

"No, no, Jane, it can't be so bad as all that. Soon as I see Tull
there'll be a change in your fortunes. I'll hurry down to the
village....Now don't worry."

Jane retired to the seclusion of her room. Lassiter's subtle
forecasting of disaster, Venters's forced optimism, neither
remained in mind. Material loss weighed nothing in the balance
with other losses she was sustaining. She wondered dully at her
sitting there, hands folded listlessly, with a kind of numb
deadness to the passing of time and the passing of her riches.
She thought of Venters's friendship. She had not lost that, but
she had lost him. Lassiter's friendship--that was more than
love--it would endure, but soon he, too, would be gone. Little
Pay slept dreamlessly upon the bed, her golden curls streaming
over the pillow. Jane had the child's worship. Would she lose
that, too? And if she did, what then would be left? Conscience
thundered at her that there was left her religion. Conscience
thundered that she should be grateful on her knees for this
baptism of fire; that through misfortune, sacrifice, and
suffering her soul might be fused pure gold. But the old,
spontaneous, rapturous spirit no more exalted her. She wanted to
be a woman--not a martyr. Like the saint of old who mortified his
flesh, Jane Withersteen had in her the temper for heroic
martyrdom, if by sacrificing herself she could save the souls of
others. But here the damnable verdict blistered her that the more
she sacrificed herself the blacker grew the souls of her
churchmen. There was something terribly wrong with her soul,
something terribly wrong with her churchmen and her religion. In
the whirling gulf of her thought there was yet one shining light
to guide her, to sustain her in her hope; and it was that,
despite her errors and her frailties and her blindness, she had
one absolute and unfaltering hold on ultimate and supreme
justice. That was love. "Love your enemies as yourself!" was a
divine word, entirely free from any church or creed.

Jane's meditations were disturbed by Lassiter's soft, tinkling
step in the court. Always he wore the clinking spurs. Always he
was in readiness to ride. She passed out and called him into the
huge, dim hall.

"I think you'll be safer here. The court is too open," she said.

"I reckon," replied Lassiter. "An' it's cooler here. The day's
sure muggy. Well, I went down to the village with
Venters."

"Already! Where is he?" queried Jane, in quick amaze.

"He's at the corrals. Blake's helpin' him get the burros an'
packs ready. That Blake is a good fellow."

"Did--did Bern meet Tull?"

"I guess he did," answered Lassiter, and he laughed dryly.

"Tell me! Oh, you exasperate me! You're so cool, so calm! For
Heaven's sake, tell me what happened!"

"First time I've been in the village for weeks," went on
Lassiter, mildly. "I reckon there 'ain't been more of a show for
a long time. Me an' Venters walkin' down the road! It was funny.
I ain't sayin' anybody was particular glad to see us. I'm not
much thought of hereabouts, an' Venters he sure looks like what
you called him, a wild man. Well, there was some runnin' of folks
before we got to the stores. Then everybody vamoosed except some
surprised rustlers in front of a saloon. Venters went right in
the stores an' saloons, an' of course I went along. I don't know
which tickled me the most--the actions of many fellers we met, or
Venters's nerve. Jane, I was downright glad to be along. You see
that sort of thing is my element, an' I've been away from it for
a spell. But we didn't find Tull in one of them places. Some
Gentile feller at last told Venters he'd find Tull in that long
buildin' next to Parsons's store. It's a kind of meetin'-room;
and sure enough, when we peeped in, it was half full of men.

"Venters yelled: 'Don't anybody pull guns! We ain't come for
that!' Then he tramped in, an' I was some put to keep alongside
him. There was a hard, scrapin' sound of feet, a loud cry, an'
then some whisperin', an' after that stillness you could cut with
a knife. Tull was there, an' that fat party who once tried to
throw a gun on me, an' other important-lookin' men, en' that
little frog-legged feller who was with Tull the day I rode in
here. I wish you could have seen their faces, 'specially Tull's
an' the fat party's. But there ain't no use of me tryin' to tell
you how they looked.

"Well, Venters an' I stood there in the middle of the room with
that batch of men all in front of us, en' not a blamed one of
them winked an eyelash or moved a finger. It was natural, of
course, for me to notice many of them packed guns. That's a way
of mine, first noticin' them things. Venters spoke up, an' his
voice sort of chilled an' cut, en' he told Tull he had a few
things to say."

Here Lassiter paused while he turned his sombrero round and
round, in his familiar habit, and his eyes had the look of a man
seeing over again some thrilling spectacle, and under his red
bronze there was strange animation.

"Like a shot, then, Venters told Tull that the friendship between
you an' him was all over, an' he was leaving your place. He said
you'd both of you broken off in the hope of propitiatin' your
people, but you hadn't changed your mind otherwise, an' never
would.

"Next he spoke up for you. I ain't goin' to tell you what he
said. Only--no other woman who ever lived ever had such tribute!
You had a champion, Jane, an' never fear that those thick-skulled
men don't know you now. It couldn't be otherwise. He spoke the
ringin', lightnin' truth....Then he accused Tull of the
underhand, miserable robbery of a helpless woman. He told Tull
where the red herd was, of a deal made with Oldrin', that Jerry
Card had made the deal. I thought Tull was goin' to drop, an'
that little frog-legged cuss, he looked some limp an' white. But
Venters's voice would have kept anybody's legs from bucklin'. I
was stiff myself. He went on an' called Tull--called him every
bad name ever known to a rider, an' then some. He cursed Tull. I
never hear a man get such a cursin'. He laughed in scorn at the
idea of Tull bein' a minister. He said Tull an' a few more dogs
of hell builded their empire out of the hearts of such innocent
an' God-fearin' women as Jane Withersteen. He called Tull a
binder of women, a callous beast who hid behind a mock mantle of
righteousness--an' the last an' lowest coward on the face of the
earth. To prey on weak women through their religion--that was the
last unspeakable crime!

"Then he finished, an' by this time he'd almost lost his voice.
But his whisper was enough. 'Tull,' he said, 'she begged me not
to draw on you to-day. She would pray for you if you burned her
at the stake....But listen!...I swear if you and I ever come face
to face again, I'll kill you!'

"We backed out of the door then, an' up the road. But nobody
follered us."

Jane found herself weeping passionately. She had not been
conscious of it till Lassiter ended his story, and she
experienced exquisite pain and relief in shedding tears. Long had
her eyes been dry, her grief deep; long had her emotions been
dumb. Lassiter's story put her on the rack; the appalling nature
of Venters's act and speech had no parallel as an outrage; it was
worse than bloodshed. Men like Tull had been shot, but had one
ever been so terribly denounced in public? Over-mounting her
horror, an uncontrollable, quivering passion shook her very soul.
It was sheer human glory in the deed of a fearless man. It was
hot, primitive instinct to live--to fight. It was a kind of mad
joy in Venters's chivalry. It was close to the wrath that had
first shaken her in the beginning of this war waged upon
her.

"Well, well, Jane, don't take it that way," said Lassiter, in
evident distress. "I had to tell you. There's some things a
feller jest can't keep. It's strange you give up on hearin' that,
when all this long time you've been the gamest woman I ever seen.
But I don't know women. Mebbe there's reason for you to cry. I
know this--nothin' ever rang in my soul an' so filled it as what
Venters did. I'd like to have done it, but--I'm only good for
throwin' a gun, en' it seems you hate that....Well, I'll be goin'
now."

"Where?"

"Venters took Wrangle to the stable. The sorrel's shy a shoe, an'
I've got to help hold the big devil an' put on another."

"Tell Bern to come for the pack I want to give him--and--and to
say good-by," called Jane, as Lassiter went out.

Jane passed the rest of that day in a vain endeavor to decide
what and what not to put in the pack for Venters. This task was
the last she would ever perform for him, and the gifts were the
last she would ever make him. So she picked and chose and
rejected, and chose again, and often paused in sad revery, and
began again, till at length she filled the pack.

It was about sunset, and she and Fay had finished supper and were
sitting in the court, when Venters's quick steps rang on the
stones. She scarcely knew him, for he had changed the tattered
garments, and she missed the dark beard and long hair. Still he
was not the Venters of old. As he came up the steps she felt
herself pointing to the pack, and heard herself speaking words
that were meaningless to her. He said good-by; he kissed her,
released her, and turned away. His tall figure blurred in her
sight, grew dim through dark, streaked vision, and then he
vanished.

Twilight fell around Withersteen House, and dusk and night.
Little Fay slept; but Jane lay with strained, aching eyes. She
heard the wind moaning in the cottonwoods and mice squeaking in
the walls. The night was interminably long, vet she prayed to
hold back the dawn. What would another day bring forth? The
blackness of her room seemed blacker for the sad, entering gray
of morning light. She heard the chirp of awakening birds, and
fancied she caught a faint clatter of hoofs. Then low, dull
distant, throbbed a heavy gunshot. She had expected it, was
waiting for it; nevertheless, an electric shock checked her
heart, froze the very living fiber of her bones. That vise-like
hold on her faculties apparently did not relax for a long time,
and it was a voice under her window that released
her.

"Jane!...Jane!" softly called Lassiter.

She answered somehow.

"It's all right. Venters got away. I thought mebbe you'd heard
that shot, en' I was worried some."

"What was it--who fired?"

"Well--some fool feller tried to stop Venters out there in the
sage--an' he only stopped lead!...I think it'll be all right. I
haven't seen or heard of any other fellers round. Venters'll go
through safe. An', Jane, I've got Bells saddled, an' I'm going to
trail Venters. Mind, I won't show myself unless he falls foul of
somebody an' needs me. I want to see if this place where he's
goin' is safe for him. He says nobody can track him there. I
never seen the place yet I couldn't track a man to. Now, Jane,
you stay indoors while I'm gone, an' keep close watch on Fay.
Will you?"

"Yes! Oh yes!"

"An' another thing, Jane," he continued, then paused for
long--"another thing--if you ain't here when I come back--if
you're gone--don't fear, I'll trail you--I'll find you out."

"My dear Lassiter, where could I be gone--as you put it?" asked
Jane, in curious surprise.

"I reckon you might be somewhere. Mebbe tied in an old barn--or
corralled in some gulch--or chained in a cave! Milly Erne
was--till she give in! Mebbe that's news to you....Well, if
you're gone I'll hunt for you."

"No, Lassiter," she replied, sadly and low. "If I'm gone just
forget the unhappy woman whose blinded selfish deceit you repaid
with kindness and love."

She heard a deep, muttering curse, under his breath, and then the
silvery tinkling of his spurs as he moved away.

Jane entered upon the duties of that day with a settled, gloomy
calm. Disaster hung in the dark clouds, in the shade, in the
humid west wind. Blake, when he reported, appeared without his
usual cheer; and Jerd wore a harassed look of a worn and worried
man. And when Judkins put in appearance, riding a lame horse, and
dismounted with the cramp of a rider, his dust-covered figure and
his darkly grim, almost dazed expression told Jane of dire
calamity. She had no need of words.

"Miss Withersteen, I have to report--loss of the--white herd,"
said Judkins, hoarsely.

"Come, sit down, you look played out," replied Jane,
solicitously. She brought him brandy and food, and while he
partook of refreshments, of which he appeared badly in need, she
asked no questions.

"No one rider--could hev done more--Miss Withersteen," he went
on, presently.

"Judkins, don't be distressed. You've done more than any other
rider. I've long expected to lose the white herd. It's no
surprise. It's in line with other things that are happening. I'm
grateful for your service."

"Miss Withersteen, I knew how you'd take it. But if anythin',
that makes it harder to tell. You see, a feller wants to do so
much fer you, an' I'd got fond of my job. We led the herd a ways
off to the north of the break in the valley. There was a big
level an' pools of water an' tip-top browse. But the cattle was
in a high nervous condition. Wild-- as wild as antelope! You see,
they'd been so scared they never slept. I ain't a-goin' to tell
you of the many tricks that were pulled off out there in the
sage. But there wasn't a day for weeks thet the herd didn't get
started to run. We allus managed to ride 'em close an' drive 'em
back an' keep 'em bunched. Honest, Miss Withersteen, them steers
was thin. They was thin when water and grass was everywhere. Thin
at this season--thet'll tell you how your steers was pestered.
Fer instance, one night a strange runnin' streak of fire run
right through the herd. That streak was a coyote--with an oiled
an' blazin' tail! Fer I shot it an' found out. We had hell with
the herd that night, an' if the sage an' grass hadn't been
wet--we, hosses, steers, an' all would hev burned up. But I said
I wasn't goin' to tell you any of the tricks....Strange now, Miss
Withersteen, when the stampede did come it was from natural
cause-- jest a whirlin' devil of dust. You've seen the like
often. An' this wasn't no big whirl, fer the dust was mostly
settled. It had dried out in a little swale, an' ordinarily no
steer would ever hev run fer it. But the herd was nervous en'
wild. An' jest as Lassiter said, when that bunch of white steers
got to movin' they was as bad as buffalo. I've seen some buffalo
stampedes back in Nebraska, an' this bolt of the steers was the
same kind.

"I tried to mill the herd jest as Lassiter did. But I wasn't
equal to it, Miss Withersteen. I don't believe the rider lives
who could hev turned thet herd. We kept along of the herd fer
miles, an' more 'n one of my boys tried to get the steers
a-millin'. It wasn't no use. We got off level ground, goin' down,
an' then the steers ran somethin' fierce. We left the little
gullies an' washes level-full of dead steers. Finally I saw the
herd was makin' to pass a kind of low pocket between ridges.
There was a hog-back--as we used to call 'em--a pile of rocks
stickin' up, and I saw the herd was goin' to split round it, or
swing out to the left. An' I wanted 'em to go to the right so
mebbe we'd be able to drive 'em into the pocket. So, with all my
boys except three, I rode hard to turn the herd a little to the
right. We couldn't budge 'em. They went on en' split round the
rocks, en' the most of 'em was turned sharp to the left by a deep
wash we hedn't seen--hed no chance to see.

"The other three boys--Jimmy Vail, Joe Willis, an' thet little
Cairns boy--a nervy kid! they, with Cairns leadin', tried to buck
thet herd round to the pocket. It was a wild, fool idee. I
couldn't do nothin'. The boys got hemmed in between the steers
an' the wash--thet they hedn't no chance to see, either. Vail an'
Willis was run down right before our eyes. An' Cairns, who rode a
fine hoss, he did some ridin'. I never seen equaled, en' would
hev beat the steers if there'd been any room to run in. I was
high up an' could see how the steers kept spillin' by twos an'
threes over into the wash. Cairns put his hoss to a place thet
was too wide fer any hoss, an' broke his neck an' the hoss's too.
We found that out after, an' as fer Vail an' Willis--two thousand
steers ran over the poor boys. There wasn't much left to pack
home fer burying!...An', Miss Withersteen, thet all happened
yesterday, en' I believe, if the white herd didn't run over the
wall of the Pass, it's runnin' yet."

On the morning of the second day after Judkins's recital, during
which time Jane remained indoors a prey to regret and sorrow for
the boy riders, and a new and now strangely insistent fear for
her own person, she again heard what she had missed more than she
dared honestly confess--the soft, jingling step of Lassiter.
Almost overwhelming relief surged through her, a feeling as akin
to joy as any she could have been capable of in those gloomy
hours of shadow, and one that suddenly stunned her with the
significance of what Lassiter had come to mean to her. She had
begged him, for his own sake, to leave Cottonwoods. She might yet
beg that, if her weakening courage permitted her to dare absolute
loneliness and helplessness, but she realized now that if she
were left alone her life would become one long, hideous
nightmare.

When his soft steps clinked into the hall, in answer to her
greeting, and his tall, black-garbed form filled the door, she
felt an inexpressible sense of immediate safety. In his presence
she lost her fear of the dim passageways of Withersteen House and
of every sound. Always it had been that, when he entered the
court or the hall, she had experienced a distinctly sickening but
gradually lessening shock at sight of the huge black guns
swinging at his sides. This time the sickening shock again
visited her, it was, however, because a revealing flash of
thought told her that it was not alone Lassiter who was
thrillingly welcome, but also his fatal weapons. They meant so
much. How she had fallen--how broken and spiritless must she
be--to have still the same old horror of Lassiter's guns and his
name, yet feel somehow a cold, shrinking protection in their law
and might and use.

"Did you trail Venters--find his wonderful valley?" she asked,
eagerly.

"Yes, an' I reckon it's sure a wonderful place."

"Is he safe there?"

"That's been botherin' me some. I tracked him an' part of the
trail was the hardest I ever tackled. Mebbe there's a rustler or
somebody in this country who's as good at trackin' as I am. If
that's so Venters ain't safe."

"Well--tell me all about Bern and his valley."

To Jane's surprise Lassiter showed disinclination for further
talk about his trip. He appeared to be extremely fatigued. Jane
reflected that one hundred and twenty miles, with probably a
great deal of climbing on foot, all in three days, was enough to
tire any rider. Moreover, it presently developed that Lassiter
had returned in a mood of singular sadness and preoccupation. She
put it down to a moodiness over the loss of her white herd and
the now precarious condition of her fortune.

Several days passed, and as nothing happened, Jane's spirits
began to brighten. Once in her musings she thought that this
tendency of hers to rebound was as sad as it was futile.
Meanwhile, she had resumed her walks through the grove with
little Fay.

One morning she went as far as the sage. She had not seen the
slope since the beginning of the rains, and now it bloomed a rich
deep purple. There was a high wind blowing, and the sage tossed
and waved and colored beautifully from light to dark. Clouds
scudded across the sky and their shadows sailed darkly down the
sunny slope.

Upon her return toward the house she went by the lane to the
stables, and she had scarcely entered the great open space with
its corrals and sheds when she saw Lassiter hurriedly
approaching. Fay broke from her and, running to a corral fence,
began to pat and pull the long, hanging ears of a drowsy burro.

One look at Lassiter armed her for a blow.

Without a word he led her across the wide yard to the rise of the
ground upon which the stable stood.

"Jane--look!" he said, and pointed to the ground.

Jane glanced down, and again, and upon steadier vision made out
splotches of blood on the stones, and broad, smooth marks in the
dust, leading out toward the sage.

"What made these?" she asked.

"I reckon somebody has dragged dead or wounded men out to where
there was hosses in the sage."

"Dead--or--wounded--men!"

"I reckon--Jane, are you strong? Can you bear up?"

His hands were gently holding hers, and his eyes--suddenly 'she
could no longer look into them. "Strong?" she echoed, trembling.
"I--I will be."

Up on the stone-flag drive, nicked with the marks made by the
iron-shod hoofs of her racers, Lassiter led her, his grasp ever
growing firmer.

"Where's Blake--and--and Jerb?" she asked, haltingly.

"I don't know where Jerb is. Bolted, most likely," replied
Lassiter, as he took her through the stone door. "But Blake--poor
Blake! He's gone forever!...Be prepared, Jane."

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