Riders of the Purple Sage

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And like a scouting Indian Venters crawled through the sage of
the oval valley, crossed trail after trail on the north side, and
at last entered the canyon out of which headed the cattle trail,
and into which he had watched the rustlers disappear.

If he had used caution before, now he strained every nerve to
force himself to creeping stealth and to sensitiveness of ear. He
crawled along so hidden that he could not use his eyes except to
aid himself in the toilsome progress through the brakes and ruins
of cliff-wall. Yet from time to time, as he rested, he saw the
massive red walls growing higher and wilder, more looming and
broken. He made note of the fact that he was turning and
climbing. The sage and thickets of oak and brakes of alder gave
place to pinyon pine growing out of rocky soil. Suddenly a low,
dull murmur assailed his ears. At first he thought it was
thunder, then the slipping of a weathered slope of rock. But it
was incessant, and as he progressed it filled out deeper and from
a murmur changed into a soft roar.

"Falling water," he said. "There's volume to that. I wonder if
it's the stream I lost."

The roar bothered him, for he could hear nothing else. Likewise,
however, no rustlers could hear him. Emboldened by this and sure
that nothing but a bird could see him, he arose from his hands
and knees to hurry on. An opening in the pinyons warned him that
he was nearing the height of slope.

He gained it, and dropped low with a burst of astonishment.
Before him stretched a short canyon with rounded stone floor bare
of grass or sage or tree, and with curved, shelving walls. A
broad rippling stream flowed toward him, and at the back of the
canyon waterfall burst from a wide rent in the cliff, and,
bounding down in two green steps, spread into a long white sheet.

If Venters had not been indubitably certain that he had entered
the right canyon his astonishment would not have been so great.
There had been no breaks in the walls, no side canyons entering
this one where the rustlers' tracks and the cattle trail had
guided him, and, therefore, he could not be wrong. But here the
canyon ended, and presumably the trails also.

"That cattle trail headed out of here," Venters kept saying to
himself. "It headed out. Now what I want to know is how on earth
did cattle ever get in here?"

If he could be sure of anything it was of the careful scrutiny he
had given that cattle track, every hoofmark of which headed
straight west. He was now looking east at an immense round boxed
corner of canyon down which tumbled a thin, white veil of water,
scarcely twenty yards wide. Somehow, somewhere, his calculations
had gone wrong. For the first time in years he found himself
doubting his rider's skill in finding tracks, and his memory of
what he had actually seen. In his anxiety to keep under cover he
must have lost himself in this offshoot of Deception Pass, and
thereby in some unaccountable manner, missed the canyon with the
trails. There was nothing else for him to think. Rustlers could
not fly, nor cattle jump down thousand-foot precipices. He was
only proving what the sage-riders had long said of this
labyrinthine system of deceitful canyons and valleys--trails led
down into Deception Pass, but no rider had ever followed them.

On a sudden he heard above the soft roar of the waterfall an
unusual sound that he could not define. He dropped flat behind a
stone and listened. From the direction he had come swelled
something that resembled a strange muffled pounding and splashing
and ringing. Despite his nerve the chill sweat began to dampen
his forehead. What might not be possible in this stonewalled maze
of mystery? The unnatural sound passed beyond him as he lay
gripping his rifle and fighting for coolness. Then from the open
came the sound, now distinct and different. Venters recognized a
hobble-bell of a horse, and the cracking of iron on submerged
stones, and the hollow splash of hoofs in water.

Relief surged over him. His mind caught again at realities, and
curiosity prompted him to peep from behind the rock.

In the middle of the stream waded a long string of packed burros
driven by three superbly mounted men. Had Venters met these
dark-clothed, dark-visaged, heavily armed men anywhere in Utah,
let alone in this robbers' retreat, he would have recognized them
as rustlers. The discerning eye of a rider saw the signs of a
long, arduous trip. These men were packing in supplies from one
of the northern villages. They were tired, and their horses were
almost played out, and the burros plodded on, after the manner of
their kind when exhausted, faithful and patient, but as if every
weary, splashing, slipping step would be their last.

All this Venters noted in one glance. After that he watched with
a thrilling eagerness. Straight at the waterfall the rustlers
drove the burros, and straight through the middle, where the
water spread into a fleecy, thin film like dissolving smoke.
Following closely, the rustlers rode into this white mist,
showing in bold black relief for an instant, and then they
vanished.

Venters drew a full breath that rushed out in brief and sudden
utterance.

"Good Heaven! Of all the holes for a rustler!...There's a cavern
under that waterfall, and a passageway leading out to a canyon
beyond. Oldring hides in there. He needs only to guard a trail
leading down from the sage-flat above. Little danger of this
outlet to the pass being discovered. I stumbled on it by luck,
after I had given up. And now I know the truth of what puzzled me
most--why that cattle trail was wet!"

He wheeled and ran down the slope, and out to the level of the
sage-brush. Returning, he had no time to spare, only now and
then, between dashes, a moment when he stopped to cast sharp eyes
ahead. The abundant grass left no trace of his trail. Short work
he made of the distance to the circle of canyons. He doubted that
he would ever see it again; he knew he never wanted to; yet he
looked at the red corners and towers with the eyes of a rider
picturing landmarks never to be forgotten.

Here he spent a panting moment in a slow-circling gaze of the
sage-oval and the gaps between the bluffs. Nothing stirred except
the gentle wave of the tips of the brush. Then he pressed on past
the mouths of several canyons and over ground new to him, now
close under the eastern wall. This latter part proved to be easy
traveling, well screened from possible observation from the north
and west, and he soon covered it and felt safer in the deepening
shade of his own canyon. Then the huge, notched bulge of red rim
loomed over him, a mark by which he knew again the deep cove
where his camp lay hidden. As he penetrated the thicket, safe
again for the present, his thoughts reverted to the girl he had
left there. The afternoon had far advanced. How would he find
her? He ran into camp, frightening the dogs.

The girl lay with wide-open, dark eyes, and they dilated when he
knelt beside her. The flush of fever shone in her cheeks. He
lifted her and held water to her dry lips, and felt an
inexplicable sense of lightness as he saw her swallow in a slow,
choking gulp. Gently he laid her back.

"Who--are--you?" she whispered, haltingly.

"I'm the man who shot you," he replied.

"You'll--not--kill me--now?"

"No, no."

"What--will--you--do--with me?"

"When you get better--strong enough--I'll take you back to the
canyon where the rustlers ride through the waterfall."

As with a faint shadow from a flitting wing overhead, the marble
whiteness of her face seemed to change.

"Don't--take--me--back--there!"

CHAPTER VI. THE MILL-WHEEL OF STEERS

Meantime, at the ranch, when Judkins's news had sent Venters on
the trail of the rustlers, Jane Withersteen led the injured man
to her house and with skilled fingers dressed the gunshot wound
in his arm.

"Judkins, what do you think happened to my riders?"

"I--I d rather not say," he replied.

"Tell me. Whatever you'll tell me I'll keep to myself. I'm
beginning to worry about more than the loss of a herd of cattle.
Venters hinted of-- but tell me, Judkins."

"Well, Miss Withersteen, I think as Venters thinks--your riders
have been called in."

"Judkins!...By whom?"

"You know who handles the reins of your Mormon riders."

"Do you dare insinuate that my churchmen have ordered in my
riders?"

"I ain't insinuatin' nothin', Miss Withersteen," answered
Judkins, with spirit. "I know what I'm talking about. I didn't
want to tell you."

"Oh, I can't believe that! I'll not believe it! Would Tull leave
my herds at the mercy of rustlers and wolves just
because--because--? No, no! It's unbelievable."

"Yes, thet particular thing's onheard of around Cottonwoods But,
beggin' pardon, Miss Withersteen, there never was any other rich
Mormon woman here on the border, let alone one thet's taken the
bit between her teeth."

That was a bold thing for the reserved Judkins to say, but it did
not anger her. This rider's crude hint of her spirit gave her a
glimpse of what others might think. Humility and obedience had
been hers always. But had she taken the bit between her teeth?
Still she wavered. And then, with quick spurt of warm blood along
her veins, she thought of Black Star when he got the bit fast
between his iron jaws and ran wild in the sage. If she ever
started to run! Jane smothered the glow and burn within her,
ashamed of a passion for freedom that opposed her duty.

"Judkins, go to the village," she said, "and when you have
learned anything definite about my riders please come to me at
once."

When he had gone Jane resolutely applied her mind to a number of
tasks that of late had been neglected. Her father had trained her
in the management of a hundred employees and the working of
gardens and fields; and to keep record of the movements of cattle
and riders. And beside the many duties she had added to this work
was one of extreme delicacy, such as required all her tact and
ingenuity. It was an unobtrusive, almost secret aid which she
rendered to the Gentile families of the village. Though Jane
Withersteen never admitted so to herself, it amounted to no less
than a system of charity. But for her invention of numberless
kinds of employment, for which there was no actual need, these
families of Gentiles, who had failed in a Mormon community, would
have starved.

In aiding these poor people Jane thought she deceived her keen
churchmen, but it was a kind of deceit for which she did not pray
to be forgiven. Equally as difficult was the task of deceiving
the Gentiles, for they were as proud as they were poor. It had
been a great grief to her to discover how these people hated her
people; and it had been a source of great joy that through her
they had come to soften in hatred. At any time this work called
for a clearness of mind that precluded anxiety and worry; but
under the present circumstances it required all her vigor and
obstinate tenacity to pin her attention upon her task.

Sunset came, bringing with the end of her labor a patient
calmness and power to wait that had not been hers earlier in the
day. She expected Judkins, but he did not appear. Her house was
always quiet; to-night, however, it seemed unusually so. At
supper her women served her with a silent assiduity; it spoke
what their sealed lips could not utter--the sympathy of Mormon
women. Jerd came to her with the key of the great door of the
stone stable, and to make his daily report about the horses. One
of his daily duties was to give Black Star and Night and the
other racers a ten-mile run. This day it had been omitted, and
the boy grew confused in explanations that she had not asked for.
She did inquire if he would return on the morrow, and Jerd, in
mingled surprise and relief, assured her he would always work for
her. Jane missed the rattle and trot, canter and gallop of the
incoming riders on the hard trails. Dusk shaded the grove where
she walked; the birds ceased singing; the wind sighed through the
leaves of the cottonwoods, and the running water murmured down
its stone-bedded channel. The glimmering of the first star was
like the peace and beauty of the night. Her faith welled up in
her heart and said that all would soon be right in her little
world. She pictured Venters about his lonely camp-fire sitting
between his faithful dogs. She prayed for his safety, for the
success of his undertaking.

Early the next morning one of Jane's women brought in word that
Judkins wished to speak to her. She hurried out, and in her
surprise to see him armed with rifle and revolver, she forgot her
intention to inquire about his wound.

"Judkins! Those guns? You never carried guns."

"It's high time, Miss Withersteen," he replied. "Will you come
into the grove? It ain't jest exactly safe for me to be seen
here."

She walked with him into the shade of the cottonwoods.

"What do you mean?"

"Miss Withersteen, I went to my mother's house last night. While
there, some one knocked, an' a man asked for me. I went to the
door. He wore a mask. He said I'd better not ride any more for
Jane Withersteen. His voice was hoarse an' strange, disguised I
reckon, like his face. He said no more, an' ran off in the
dark."

"Did you know who he was?" asked Jane, in a low voice.

Jane did not ask to know; she did not want to know; she feared to
know. All her calmness fled at a single thought

"Thet's why I'm packin' guns," went on Judkins. "For I'll never
quit ridin' for you, Miss Withersteen, till you let me
go."

"Judkins, do you want to leave me?"

"Do I look thet way? Give me a hoss--a fast hoss, an' send me out
on the sage."

"Oh, thank you, Judkins! You're more faithful than my own people.
I ought not accept your loyalty--you might suffer more through
it. But what in the world can I do? My head whirls. The wrong to
Venters--the stolen herd--these masks, threats, this coil in the
dark! I can't understand! But I feel something dark and terrible
closing in around me."

"Miss Withersteen, it's all simple enough," said Judkins,
earnestly. "Now please listen--an' beggin' your pardon--jest turn
thet deaf Mormon ear aside, an' let me talk clear an' plain in
the other. I went around to the saloons an' the stores an' the
loafin' places yesterday. All your riders are in. There's talk of
a vigilance band organized to hunt down rustlers. They call
themselves 'The Riders.' Thet's the report--thet's the reason
given for your riders leavin' you. Strange thet only a few riders
of other ranchers joined the band! An' Tull's man, Jerry Card--
he's the leader. I seen him en' his hoss. He 'ain't been to
Glaze. I'm not easy to fool on the looks of a hoss thet's
traveled the sage. Tull an' Jerry didn't ride to Glaze!...Well, I
met Blake en' Dorn, both good friends of mine, usually, as far as
their Mormon lights will let 'em go. But these fellers couldn't
fool me, an' they didn't try very hard. I asked them, straight
out like a man, why they left you like thet. I didn't forget to
mention how you nursed Blake's poor old mother when she was sick,
an' how good you was to Dorn's kids. They looked ashamed, Miss
Withersteen. An' they jest froze up--thet dark set look thet
makes them strange an' different to me. But I could tell the
difference between thet first natural twinge of conscience an'
the later look of some secret thing. An' the difference I caught
was thet they couldn't help themselves. They hadn't no say in the
matter. They looked as if their bein' unfaithful to you was bein'
faithful to a higher duty. An' there's the secret. Why it's as
plain as--as sight of my gun here."

"Plain!...My herds to wander in the sage--to be stolen! Jane
Withersteen a poor woman! Her head to be brought low and her
spirit broken!...Why, Judkins, it's plain enough."

"Miss Withersteen, let me get what boys I can gather, an' hold
the white herd. It's on the slope now, not ten miles out--three
thousand head, an' all steers. They're wild, an' likely to
stampede at the pop of a jack-rabbit's ears. We'll camp right
with them, en' try to hold them."

"Judkins, I'll reward you some day for your service, unless all
is taken from me. Get the boys and tell Jerd to give you pick of
my horses, except Black Star and Night. But--do not shed blood
for my cattle nor heedlessly risk your lives."

Jane Withersteen rushed to the silence and seclusion of her room,
and there could not longer hold back the bursting of her wrath.
She went stone-blind in the fury of a passion that had never
before showed its power. Lying upon her bed, sightless,
voiceless, she was a writhing, living flame. And she tossed there
while her fury burned and burned, and finally burned itself out.

Then, weak and spent, she lay thinking, not of the oppression
that would break her, but of this new revelation of self. Until
the last few days there had been little in her life to rouse
passions. Her forefathers had been Vikings, savage chieftains who
bore no cross and brooked no hindrance to their will. Her father
had inherited that temper; and at times, like antelope fleeing
before fire on the slope, his people fled from his red rages.
Jane Withersteen realized that the spirit of wrath and war had
lain dormant in her. She shrank from black depths hitherto
unsuspected. The one thing in man or woman that she scorned above
all scorn, and which she could not forgive, was hate. Hate headed
a flaming pathway straight to hell. All in a flash, beyond her
control there had been in her a birth of fiery hate. And the man
who had dragged her peaceful and loving spirit to this
degradation was a minister of God's word, an Elder of her church,
the counselor of her beloved Bishop.

The loss of herds and ranges, even of Amber Spring and the Old
Stone House, no longer concerned Jane Withersteen, she faced the
foremost thought of her life, what she now considered the
mightiest problem--the salvation of her soul.

She knelt by her bedside and prayed; she prayed as she had never
prayed in all her life--prayed to be forgiven for her sin to be
immune from that dark, hot hate; to love Tull as her minister,
though she could not love him as a man; to do her duty by her
church and people and those dependent upon her bounty; to hold
reverence of God and womanhood inviolate.

When Jane Withersteen rose from that storm of wrath and prayer
for help she was serene, calm, sure--a changed woman. She would
do her duty as she saw it, live her life as her own truth guided
her. She might never be able to marry a man of her choice, but
she certainly never would become the wife of Tull. Her churchmen
might take her cattle and horses, ranges and fields, her corrals
and stables, the house of Withersteen and the water that
nourished the village of Cottonwoods; but they could not force
her to marry Tull, they could not change her decision or break
her spirit. Once resigned to further loss, and sure of herself,
Jane Withersteen attained a peace of mind that had not been hers
for a year. She forgave Tull, and felt a melancholy regret over
what she knew he considered duty, irrespective of his personal
feeling for her. First of all, Tull, as he was a man, wanted her
for himself; and secondly, he hoped to save her and her riches
for his church. She did not believe that Tull had been actuated
solely by his minister's zeal to save her soul. She doubted her
interpretation of one of his dark sayings--that if she were lost
to him she might as well be lost to heaven. Jane Withersteen's
common sense took arms against the binding limits of her
religion; and she doubted that her Bishop, whom she had been
taught had direct communication with God--would damn her soul for
refusing to marry a Mormon. As for Tull and his churchmen, when
they had harassed her, perhaps made her poor, they would find her
unchangeable, and then she would get back most of what she had
lost. So she reasoned, true at last to her faith in all men, and
in their ultimate goodness.

The clank of iron hoofs upon the stone courtyard drew her
hurriedly from her retirement. There, beside his horse, stood
Lassiter, his dark apparel and the great black gun-sheaths
contrasting singularly with his gentle smile. Jane's active mind
took up her interest in him and her half-determined desire to use
what charm she had to foil his evident design in visiting
Cottonwoods. If she could mitigate his hatred of Mormons, or at
least keep him from killing more of them, not only would she be
saving her people, but also be leading back this bloodspiller to
some semblance of the human.

"Mornin', ma'am," he said, black sombrero in hand.

"Lassiter I'm not an old woman, or even a madam," she replied,
with her bright smile. "If you can't say Miss Withersteen--call
me Jane."

"I reckon Jane would be easier. First names are always handy for
me."

"Well, use mine, then. Lassiter, I'm glad to see you. I'm in
trouble."

Then she told him of Judkins's return, of the driving of the red
herd, of Venters's departure on Wrangle, and the calling-in of
her riders.

"'Pears to me you're some smilin' an' pretty for a woman with so
much trouble," he remarked.

"Lassiter! Are you paying me compliments? But, seriously I've
made up my mind not to be miserable. I've lost much, and I'll
lose more. Nevertheless, I won't be sour, and I hope I'll never
be unhappy--again."

Lassiter twisted his hat round and round, as was his way, and
took his time in replying.

"Women are strange to me. I got to back-trailin' myself from them
long ago. But I'd like a game woman. Might I ask, seein' as how
you take this trouble, if you're goin' to fight?"

"Fight! How? Even if I would, I haven't a friend except that boy
who doesn't dare stay in the village."

"I make bold to say, ma'am--Jane--that there's another, if you
want him."

"Lassiter!...Thank you. But how can I accept you as a friend?
Think! Why, you'd ride down into the village with those terrible
guns and kill my enemies--who are also my churchmen."

"I reckon I might be riled up to jest about that," he replied,
dryly.

She held out both hands to him.

"Lassiter! I'll accept your friendship--be proud of it--return
it--if I may keep you from killing another Mormon."

"I'll tell you one thing," he said, bluntly, as the gray
lightning formed in his eyes. "You're too good a woman to be
sacrificed as you're goin' to be....No, I reckon you an' me can't
be friends on such terms."

In her earnestness she stepped closer to him, repelled yet
fascinated by the sudden transition of his moods. That he would
fight for her was at once horrible and wonderful.

"You came here to kill a man--the man whom Milly Erne--"

"The man who dragged Milly Erne to hell--put it that way!...Jane
Withersteen, yes, that's why I came here. I'd tell so much to no
other livin' soul....There're things such a woman as you'd never
dream of-- so don't mention her again. Not till you tell me the
name of the man!"

"Tell you! I? Never!"

"I reckon you will. An' I'll never ask you. I'm a man of strange
beliefs an' ways of thinkin', an' I seem to see into the future
an' feel things hard to explain. The trail I've been followin'
for so many years was twisted en' tangled, but it's straightenin'
out now. An', Jane Withersteen, you crossed it long ago to ease
poor Milly's agony. That, whether you want or not, makes Lassiter
your friend. But you cross it now strangely to mean somethin to
me--God knows what!--unless by your noble blindness to incite me
to greater hatred of Mormon men."

Jane felt swayed by a strength that far exceeded her own. In a
clash of wills with this man she would go to the wall. If she
were to influence him it must be wholly through womanly
allurement. There was that about Lassiter which commanded her
respect. She had abhorred his name; face to face with him, she
found she feared only his deeds. His mystic suggestion, his
foreshadowing of something that she was to mean to him, pierced
deep into her mind. She believed fate had thrown in her way the
lover or husband of Milly Erne. She believed that through her an
evil man might be reclaimed. His allusion to what he called her
blindness terrified her. Such a mistaken idea of his might
unleash the bitter, fatal mood she sensed in him. At any cost she
must placate this man; she knew the die was cast, and that if
Lassiter did not soften to a woman's grace and beauty and wiles,
then it would be because she could not make him.

"I reckon you'll hear no more such talk from me," Lassiter went
on, presently. "Now, Miss Jane, I rode in to tell you that your
herd of white steers is down on the slope behind them big ridges.
An' I seen somethin' goin' on that'd be mighty interestin' to
you, if you could see it. Have you a field-glass?"

"Yes, I have two glasses. I'll get them and ride out with you.
Wait, Lassiter, please," she said, and hurried within. Sending
word to Jerd to saddle Black Star and fetch him to the court, she
then went to her room and changed to the riding-clothes she
always donned when going into the sage. In this male attire her
mirror showed her a jaunty, handsome rider. If she expected some
little need of admiration from Lassiter, she had no cause for
disappointment. The gentle smile that she liked, which made of
him another person, slowly overspread his face.

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