Riders of the Purple Sage

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He reined Wrangle to a walk, halted now and then to listen, and
then proceeded cautiously with shifting and alert gaze. The
canyon assumed proportions that dwarfed those of its first ten
miles. Venters rode on and on, not losing in the interest of his
wide surroundings any of his caution or keen search for tracks or
sight of living thing. If there ever had been a trail here, he
could not find it. He rode through sage and clumps of pinon trees
and grassy plots where long-petaled purple lilies bloomed. He
rode through a dark constriction of the pass no wider than the
lane in the grove at Cottonwoods. And he came out into a great
amphitheater into which jutted huge towering corners of a
confluences of intersecting canyons.

Venters sat his horse, and, with a rider's eye, studied this wild
cross-cut of huge stone gullies. Then he went on, guided by the
course of running water. If it had not been for the main stream
of water flowing north he would never have been able to tell
which of those many openings was a continuation of the pass. In
crossing this amphitheater he went by the mouths of five canyons,
fording little streams that flowed into the larger one. Gaining
the outlet which he took to be the pass, he rode on again under
over hanging walls. One side was dark in shade, the other light
in sun. This narrow passageway turned and twisted and opened into
a valley that amazed Venters.

Here again was a sweep of purple sage, richer than upon the
higher levels. The valley was miles long, several wide, and
inclosed by unscalable walls. But it was the background of this
valley that so forcibly struck him. Across the sage-flat rose a
strange up-flinging of yellow rocks. He could not tell which were
close and which were distant. Scrawled mounds of stone, like
mountain waves, seemed to roll up to steep bare slopes and
towers.

In this plain of sage Venters flushed birds and rabbits, and when
he had proceeded about a mile he caught sight of the bobbing
white tails of a herd of running antelope. He rode along the edge
of the stream which wound toward the western end of the slowly
looming mounds of stone. The high slope retreated out of sight
behind the nearer protection. To Venters the valley appeared to
have been filled in by a mountain of melted stone that had
hardened in strange shapes of rounded outline. He followed the
stream till he lost it in a deep cut. Therefore Venters quit the
dark slit which baffled further search in that direction, and
rode out along the curved edge of stone where it met the sage. It
was not long before he came to a low place, and here Wrangle
readily climbed up.

All about him was ridgy roll of wind-smoothed, rain-washed rock
Not a tuft of grass or a bunch of sage colored the dull
rust-yellow. He saw where, to the right, this uneven flow of
stone ended in a blunt wall. Leftward, from the hollow that lay
at his feet, mounted a gradual slow-swelling slope to a great
height topped by leaning, cracked, and ruined crags. Not for some
time did he grasp the wonder of that acclivity. It was no less
than a mountain-side, glistening in the sun like polished
granite, with cedar-trees springing as if by magic out of the
denuded surface. Winds had swept it clear of weathered shale, and
rains had washed it free of dust. Far up the curved slope its
beautiful lines broke to meet the vertical rim-wall, to lose its
grace in a different order and color of rock, a stained yellow
cliff of cracks and caves and seamed crags. And straight before
Venters was a scene less striking but more significant to his
keen survey. For beyond a mile of the bare, hummocky rock began
the valley of sage, and the mouths of canyons, one of which
surely was another gateway into the pass.

He got off his horse, and, giving the bridle to Ring to hold, he
commenced a search for the cleft where the stream ran. He was not
successful and concluded the water dropped into an underground
passage. Then he returned to where he had left Wrangle, and led
him down off the stone to the sage. It was a short ride to the
opening canyons. There was no reason for a choice of which one to
enter. The one he rode into was a clear, sharp shaft in yellow
stone a thousand feet deep, with wonderful wind-worn caves low
down and high above buttressed and turreted ramparts. Farther on
Venters came into a region where deep indentations marked the
line of canyon walls. These were huge, cove-like blind pockets
extending back to a sharp corner with a dense growth of
underbrush and trees.

Venters penetrated into one of these offshoots, and, as he had
hoped, he found abundant grass. He had to bend the oak saplings
to get his horse through. Deciding to make this a hiding-place if
he could find water, he worked back to the limit of the shelving
walls. In a little cluster of silver spruces he found a spring.
This inclosed nook seemed an ideal place to leave his horse and
to camp at night, and from which to make stealthy trips on foot.
The thick grass hid his trail; the dense growth of oaks in the
opening would serve as a barrier to keep Wrangle in, if, indeed,
the luxuriant browse would not suffice for that. So Venters,
leaving Whitie with the horse, called Ring to his side, and,
rifle in hand, worked his way out to the open. A careful
photographing in mind of the formation of the bold outlines of
rimrock assured him he would be able to return to his retreat
even in the dark.

Bunches of scattered sage covered the center of the canyon, and
among these Venters threaded his way with the step of an Indian.
At intervals he put his hand on the dog and stopped to listen.
There was a drowsy hum of insects, but no other sound disturbed
the warm midday stillness. Venters saw ahead a turn, more abrupt
than any yet. Warily he rounded this corner, once again to halt
bewildered.

The canyon opened fan-shaped into a great oval of green and gray
growths. It was the hub of an oblong wheel, and from it, at
regular distances, like spokes, ran the outgoing canyons. Here a
dull red color predominated over the fading yellow. The corners
of wall bluntly rose, scarred and scrawled, to taper into towers
and serrated peaks and pinnacled domes.

Venters pushed on more heedfully than ever. Toward the center of
this circle the sage-brush grew smaller and farther apart He was
about to sheer off to the right, where thickets and jumbles of
fallen rock would afford him cover, when he ran right upon a
broad cattle trail. Like a road it was, more than a trail, and
the cattle tracks were fresh. What surprised him more, they were
wet! He pondered over this feature. It had not rained. The only
solution to this puzzle was that the cattle had been driven
through water, and water deep enough to wet their legs.

Suddenly Ring growled low. Venters rose cautiously and looked
over the sage. A band of straggling horsemen were riding across
the oval. He sank down, startled and trembling. "Rustlers!" he
muttered. Hurriedly he glanced about for a place to hide. Near at
hand there was nothing but sage-brush. He dared not risk crossing
the open patches to reach the rocks. Again he peeped over the
sage. The rustlers--four--five--seven--eight in all, were
approaching, but not directly in line with him. That was relief
for a cold deadness which seemed to be creeping inward along his
veins. He crouched down with bated breath and held the bristling
dog.

He heard the click of iron-shod hoofs on stone, the coarse
laughter of men, and then voices gradually dying away. Long
moments passed. Then he rose. The rustlers were riding into a
canyon. Their horses were tired, and they had several pack
animals; evidently they had traveled far. Venters doubted that
they were the rustlers who had driven the red herd. Olding's band
had split. Venters watched these horsemen disappear under a bold
canyon wall.

The rustlers had come from the northwest side of the oval.
Venters kept a steady gaze in that direction, hoping, if there
were more, to see from what canyon they rode. A quarter of an
hour went by. Reward for his vigilance came when he descried
three more mounted men, far over to the north. But out of what
canyon they had ridden it was too late to tell. He watched the
three ride across the oval and round the jutting red corner where
the others had gone.

"Up that canyon!" exclaimed Venters. "Oldring's den! I've found
it!"

A knotty point for Venters was the fact that the cattle tracks
all pointed west. The broad trail came from the direction of the
canyon into which the rustlers had ridden, and undoubtedly the
cattle had been driven out of it across the oval. There were no
tracks pointing the other way. It had been in his mind that
Oldring had driven the red herd toward the rendezvous, and not
from it. Where did that broad trail come down into the pass, and
where did it lead? Venters knew he wasted time in pondering the
question, but it held a fascination not easily dispelled. For
many years Oldring's mysterious entrance and exit to Deception
Pass had been all-absorbing topics to sage-riders.

All at once the dog put an end to Venters's pondering. Ring
sniffed the air, turned slowly in his tracks with a whine, and
then growled. Venters wheeled. Two horsemen were within a hundred
yards, coming straight at him. One, lagging behind the other, was
Oldring's Masked Rider.

Venters cunningly sank, slowly trying to merge into sage-brush.
But, guarded as his action was, the first horse detected it. He
stopped short, snorted, and shot up his ears. The rustler bent
forward, as if keenly peering ahead. Then, with a swift sweep, he
jerked a gun from its sheath and fired.

The bullet zipped through the sage-brush. Flying bits of wood
struck Venters, and the hot, stinging pain seemed to lift him in
one leap. Like a flash the blue barrel of his rifle gleamed level
and he shot once--twice.

The foremost rustler dropped his weapon and toppled from his
saddle, to fall with his foot catching in a stirrup. The horse
snorted wildly and plunged away, dragging the rustler through the
sage.

The Masked Rider huddled over his pommel slowly swaying to one
side, and then, with a faint, strange cry, slipped out of the
saddle.

CHAPTER V. THE MASKED RIDER

Venters looked quickly from the fallen rustlers to the canyon
where the others had disappeared. He calculated on the time
needed for running horses to return to the open, if their riders
heard shots. He waited breathlessly. But the estimated time
dragged by and no riders appeared. Venters began presently to
believe that the rifle reports had not penetrated into the
recesses of the canyon, and felt safe for the immediate present.

He hurried to the spot where the first rustler had been dragged
by his horse. The man lay in deep grass, dead, jaw fallen, eyes
protruding--a sight that sickened Venters. The first man at whom
he had ever aimed a weapon he had shot through the heart. With
the clammy sweat oozing from every pore Venters dragged the
rustler in among some boulders and covered him with slabs of
rock. Then he smoothed out the crushed trail in grass and sage.
The rustler's horse had stopped a quarter of a mile off and was
grazing.

When Venters rapidly strode toward the Masked Rider not even the
cold nausea that gripped him could wholly banish curiosity. For
he had shot Oldring's infamous lieutenant, whose face had never
been seen. Venters experienced a grim pride in the feat. What
would Tull say to this achievement of the outcast who rode too
often to Deception Pass?

Venters's curious eagerness and expectation had not prepared him
for the shock he received when he stood over a slight, dark
figure. The rustler wore the black mask that had given him his
name, but he had no weapons. Venters glanced at the drooping
horse, there were no gun-sheaths on the saddle.

"A rustler who didn't pack guns!" muttered Venters. "He wears no
belt. He couldn't pack guns in that rig....Strange!"

A low, gasping intake of breath and a sudden twitching of body
told Venters the rider still lived.

"He's alive!...I've got to stand here and watch him die. And I
shot an unarmed man."

Shrinkingly Venters removed the rider's wide sombrero and the
black cloth mask. This action disclosed bright chestnut hair,
inclined to curl, and a white, youthful face. Along the lower
line of cheek and jaw was a clear demarcation, where the brown of
tanned skin met the white that had been hidden from the sun.

"Oh, he's only a boy!...What! Can he be Oldring's Masked Rider?"

The boy showed signs of returning consciousness. He stirred; his
lips moved; a small brown hand clenched in his blouse.

Venters knelt with a gathering horror of his deed. His bullet had
entered the rider's right breast, high up to the shoulder. With
hands that shook, Venters untied a black scarf and ripped open
the blood-wet blouse.

First he saw a gaping hole, dark red against a whiteness of skin,
from which welled a slender red stream. Then the graceful,
beautiful swell of a woman's breast!

"A woman!" he cried. "A girl!...I've killed a girl!"

She suddenly opened eyes that transfixed Venters. They were
fathomless blue. Consciousness of death was there, a blended
terror and pain, but no consciousness of sight. She did not see
Venters. She stared into the unknown.

Then came a spasm of vitality. She writhed in a torture of
reviving strength, and in her convulsions she almost tore from
Ventner's grasp. Slowly she relaxed and sank partly back. The
ungloved hand sought the wound, and pressed so hard that her
wrist half buried itself in her bosom. Blood trickled between her
spread fingers. And she looked at Venters with eyes that saw him.

He cursed himself and the unerring aim of which he had been so
proud. He had seen that look in the eyes of a crippled antelope
which he was about to finish with his knife. But in her it had
infinitely more--a revelation of mortal spirit. The instinctive
bringing to life was there, and the divining helplessness and the
terrible accusation of the stricken.

"Torgive me! I didn't know!" burst out Venters.

"You shot me--you've killed me!" she whispered, in panting gasps.
Upon her lips appeared a fluttering, bloody froth. By that
Venters knew the air in her lungs was mixing with blood. "Oh, I
knew--it would--come--some day!...Oh, the burn!...Hold me--I'm
sinking--it's all dark....Ah, God!...Mercy--"

Her rigidity loosened in one long quiver and she lay back limp,
still, white as snow, with closed eyes.

Venters thought then that she died. But the faint pulsation of
her breast assured him that life yet lingered. Death seemed only
a matter of moments, for the bullet had gone clear through her.
Nevertheless, he tore sageleaves from a bush, and, pressing them
tightly over her wounds, he bound the black scarf round her
shoulder, tying it securely under her arm. Then he closed the
blouse, hiding from his sight that blood-stained, accusing
breast.

"What--now?" he questioned, with flying mind. "I must get out of
here. She's dying--but I can't leave her."

He rapidly surveyed the sage to the north and made out no animate
object. Then he picked up the girl's sombrero and the mask. This
time the mask gave him as great a shock as when he first removed
it from her face. For in the woman he had forgotten the rustler,
and this black strip of felt-cloth established the identity of
Oldring's Masked Rider. Venters had solved the mystery. He
slipped his rifle under her, and, lifting her carefully upon it,
he began to retrace his steps. The dog trailed in his shadow. And
the horse, that had stood drooping by, followed without a call.
Venters chose the deepest tufts of grass and clumps of sage on
his return. From time to time he glanced over his shoulder. He
did not rest. His concern was to avoid jarring the girl and to
hide his trail. Gaining the narrow canyon, he turned and held
close to the wall till he reached his hiding-place. When he
entered the dense thicket of oaks he was hard put to it to force
a way through. But he held his burden almost upright, and by
slipping side wise and bending the saplings he got in. Through
sage and grass he hurried to the grove of silver spruces.

He laid the girl down, almost fearing to look at her. Though
marble pale and cold, she was living. Venters then appreciated
the tax that long carry had been to his strength. He sat down to
rest. Whitie sniffed at the pale girl and whined and crept to
Venters's feet. Ring lapped the water in the runway of the
spring.

Presently Venters went out to the opening, caught the horse and,
leading him through the thicket, unsaddled him and tied him with
a long halter. Wrangle left his browsing long enough to whinny
and toss his head. Venters felt that he could not rest easily
till he had secured the other rustler's horse; so, taking his
rifle and calling for Ring, he set out. Swiftly yet watchfully he
made his way through the canyon to the oval and out to the cattle
trail. What few tracks might have betrayed him he obliterated, so
only an expert tracker could have trailed him. Then, with many a
wary backward glance across the sage, he started to round up the
rustler's horse. This was unexpectedly easy. He led the horse to
lower ground, out of sight from the opposite side of the oval
along the shadowy western wall, and so on into his canyon and
secluded camp.

The girl's eyes were open; a feverish spot burned in her cheeks
she moaned something unintelligible to Venters, but he took the
movement of her lips to mean that she wanted water. Lifting her
head, he tipped the canteen to her lips. After that she again
lapsed into unconsciousness or a weakness which was its
counterpart. Venters noted, however, that the burning flush had
faded into the former pallor.

The rustler's sun set behind the high canyon rim, and a cool
shade darkened the walls. Venters fed the dogs and put a halter
on the dead rustlers horse. He allowed Wrangle to browse free.
This done, he cut spruce boughs and made a lean-to for the girl.
Then, gently lifting her upon a blanket, he folded the sides over
her. The other blanket he wrapped about his shoulders and found a
comfortable seat against a spruce-tree that upheld the little
shack. Ring and Whitie lay near at hand, one asleep, the other
watchful.

Venters dreaded the night's vigil. At night his mind was active,
and this time he had to watch and think and feel beside a dying
girl whom he had all but murdered. A thousand excuses he invented
for himself, yet not one made any difference in his act or his
self-reproach.

It seemed to him that when night fell black he could see her
white face so much more plainly.

"She'll go, presently," he said, "and be out of agony--thank
God!"

Every little while certainty of her death came to him with a
shock; and then he would bend over and lay his ear on her breast.
Her heart still beat.

The early night blackness cleared to the cold starlight. The
horses were not moving, and no sound disturbed the deathly
silence of the canyon.

"I'll bury her here," thought Venters, "and let her grave be as
much a mystery as her life was."

For the girl's few words, the look of her eyes, the prayer, had
strangely touched Venters.

"She was only a girl," he soliloquized. "What was she to Oldring?
Rustlers don't have wives nor sisters nor daughters. She was
bad--that's all. But somehow...well, she may not have willingly
become the companion of rustlers. That prayer of hers to God for
mercy!...Life is strange and cruel. I wonder if other members of
Oldring's gang are women? Likely enough. But what was his game?
Oldring's Mask Rider! A name to make villagers hide and lock
their doors. A name credited with a dozen murders, a hundred
forays, and a thousand stealings of cattle. What part did the
girl have in this? It may have served Oldring to create
mystery."

Hours passed. The white stars moved across the narrow strip of
dark-blue sky above. The silence awoke to the low hum of insects.
Venters watched the immovable white face, and as he watched, hour
by hour waiting for death, the infamy of her passed from his
mind. He thought only of the sadness, the truth of the moment.
Whoever she was--whatever she had done--she was young and she was
dying.

The after-part of the night wore on interminably. The starlight
failed and the gloom blackened to the darkest hour. "She'll die
at the gray of dawn," muttered Venters, remembering some old
woman's fancy. The blackness paled to gray, and the gray
lightened and day peeped over the eastern rim. Venters listened
at the breast of the girl. She still lived. Did he only imagine
that her heart beat stronger, ever so slightly, but stronger? He
pressed his ear closer to her breast. And he rose with his own
pulse quickening.

"If she doesn't die soon--she's got a chance--the barest chance
to live," he said.

He wondered if the internal bleeding had ceased. There was no
more film of blood upon her lips. But no corpse could have been
whiter. Opening her blouse, he untied the scarf, and carefully
picked away the sage leaves from the wound in her shoulder. It
had closed. Lifting her lightly, he ascertained that the same was
true of the hole where the bullet had come out. He reflected on
the fact that clean wounds closed quickly in the healing upland
air. He recalled instances of riders who had been cut and shot
apparently to fatal issues; yet the blood had clotted, the wounds
closed, and they had recovered. He had no way to tell if internal
hemorrhage still went on, but he believed that it had stopped.
Otherwise she would surely not have lived so long. He marked the
entrance of the bullet, and concluded that it had just touched
the upper lobe of her lung. Perhaps the wound in the lung had
also closed. As he began to wash the blood stains from her breast
and carefully rebandage the wound, he was vaguely conscious of a
strange, grave happiness in the thought that she might live.

Broad daylight and a hint of sunshine high on the cliff-rim to
the west brought him to consideration of what he had better do.
And while busy with his few camp tasks he revolved the thing in
his mind. It would not be wise for him to remain long in his
present hiding-place. And if he intended to follow the cattle
trail and try to find the rustlers he had better make a move at
once. For he knew that rustlers, being riders, would not make
much of a day's or night's absence from camp for one or two of
their number; but when the missing ones failed to show up in
reasonable time there would be a search. And Venters was afraid
of that.

"A good tracker could trail me," he muttered. "And I'd be
cornered here. Let's see. Rustlers are a lazy set when they're
not on the ride. I'll risk it. Then I'll change my hiding-place."

He carefully cleaned and reloaded his guns. When he rose to go he
bent a long glance down upon the unconscious girl. Then ordering
Whitie and Ring to keep guard, he left the camp

The safest cover lay close under the wall of the canyon, and here
through the dense thickets Venters made his slow, listening
advance toward the oval. Upon gaining the wide opening he decided
to cross it and follow the left wall till he came to the cattle
trail.

He scanned the oval as keenly as if hunting for antelope. Then,
stooping, he stole from one cover to another, taking advantage of
rocks and bunches of sage, until he had reached the thickets
under the opposite wall. Once there, he exercised extreme caution
in his surveys of the ground ahead, but increased his speed when
moving. Dodging from bush to bush, he passed the mouths of two
canyons, and in the entrance of a third canyon he crossed a wash
of swift clear water, to come abruptly upon the cattle trail.

It followed the low bank of the wash, and, keeping it in sight,
Venters hugged the line of sage and thicket. Like the curves of a
serpent the canyon wound for a mile or more and then opened into
a valley. Patches of red showed clear against the purple of sage,
and farther out on the level dotted strings of red led away to
the wall of rock.

"Ha, the red herd!" exclaimed Venters.

Then dots of white and black told him there were cattle of other
colors in this inclosed valley. Oldring, the rustler, was also a
rancher. Venters's calculating eye took count of stock that
outnumbered the red herd.

"What a range!" went on Venters. "Water and grass enough for
fifty thousand head, and no riders needed!"

After his first burst of surprise and rapid calculation Venters
lost no time there, but slunk again into the sage on his back
trail. With the discovery of Oldring's hidden cattle-range had
come enlightenment on several problems. Here the rustler kept his
stock, here was Jane Withersteen's red herd; here were the few
cattle that had disappeared from the Cottonwoods slopes during
the last two years. Until Oldring had driven the red herd his
thefts of cattle for that time had not been more than enough to
supply meat for his men. Of late no drives had been reported from
Sterling or the villages north. And Venters knew that the riders
had wondered at Oldring's inactivity in that particular field. He
and his band had been active enough in their visits to Glaze and
Cottonwoods; they always had gold; but of late the amount gambled
away and drunk and thrown away in the villages had given rise to
much conjecture. Oldring's more frequent visits had resulted in
new saloons, and where there had formerly been one raid or
shooting fray in the little hamlets there were now many. Perhaps
Oldring had another range farther on up the pass, and from
theredrove the cattle to distant Utah towns where he was little
known But Venters came finally to doubt this. And, from what he
had learned in the last few days, a belief began to form in
Venters's mind that Oldring's intimidations of the villages and
the mystery of the Masked Rider, with his alleged evil deeds, and
the fierce resistance offered any trailing riders, and the
rustling of cattle-- these things were only the craft of the
rustler-chief to conceal his real life and purpose and work in
Deception Pass.

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