 CHAPTER X. LOVE During all these waiting days, Venters, with the exception of the afternoon when he had built the gate in the gorge, had scarcely gone out of sight of camp, and never out of hearing. His desire to explore surprise valley was keen, and on the morning after his long talk with the girl, he took his rifle and, calling ring, made a move to start. The girl lay back in a rude chair of bows he had put together for her. She had been watching him, and when he picked up the gun and called the dog, Venters thought she gave a nervous start. I'm only going to look over the valley, he said. Will you be gone long? No, he replied, and started off. The incident set him thinking of his former impression that after her recovery from fever she did not seem at ease unless he was close at hand. It was fear of being alone due, he concluded, most likely to her weakened condition. He must not leave her much alone. As he strode down the sloping terrace, rabbits scampered before him, and the beautiful valley quail, as purple in color as the sage on the uplands, ran fleetily along the ground into the forest. It was pleasant under the trees, in the gold-flect shade, with the whistle of quail and twittering of birds everywhere. Soon he had passed the limit of his former excursions and entered new territory. Here the woods began to show open glades and brooks running down from the slope, and presently he emerged from shade into the sunshine of a meadow. The shaking of the high grass told him of the running of animals, what species he could not tell. But from rings manifest desire to have a chase, they were evidently some kind wilder than rabbits. Venters approached the willow and cottonwood belt that he had observed from the height of slope. He penetrated it to find a considerable stream of water in great half-submerged mounds of brush and sticks, and all about him were old and new gnawed circles at the base of the cottonwoods. Beaver, he exclaimed, by all that's lucky, the meadows full of beaver! How did they ever get here? Beaver had not found a way into the valley by the trail of the cliff-dwellers, of that he was certain, and he began to have more than curiosity as to the outlet or inlet of the stream. When he passed some dead water, which he noted was held by a beaver dam, there was a current in the stream, and it flowed west. Following its course he soon entered the oak forest again, and passed through to find himself before masked and jumbled ruins of cliff-wall. There were tangled thickets of wild plum trees and other thorny growths that made passage extremely laborsome. He found innumerable tracks of wildcats and foxes. Rustlings in the thick undergrowth told him of stealthy movements of these animals. At length his further advance appeared futile for the reason that the stream disappeared in a split at the base of immense rocks over which he could not climb. To his relief he concluded that though beaver might work their way up the narrow chasm where the water rushed, it would be impossible for men to enter the valley there. This western curve was the only part of the valley where the walls had been split asunder, and it was a wildly rough and inaccessible corner. Going back a little way he leaped the stream and headed toward the southern wall. Once out of the oaks he found again the low terrace of Aspins, and above that the wide, open terrace fringed by silver spruces. This side of the valley contained the wind or water-worn caves. As he pressed on, keeping to the upper terrace, cave after cave opened out of the cliff, now a large one, now a small one. Then yawned quite suddenly and wonderfully above him the great cavern of the cliff dwellers. It was still a goodly distance, and he tried to imagine, if it appeared so huge from where he stood, what it would be when he got there. He climbed the terrace and then faced a long, gradual ascent of weathered rock and dust which made climbing too difficult for attention to anything else. At length he entered a zone of shade and looked up. He stood just within the hollow of a cavern so immense that he had no conception of its real dimensions. The curved roof, stained by ages of leakage, with buff and black and rust-colored streaks, swept up and loomed higher and seemed to soar to the rim of the cliff. Here again was a magnificent arch, such as formed the grand gateway to the valley. Only in this instance it formed the dome of a cave, instead of the span of a bridge. Ventures passed onward and upward. The stones he dislodged rolled down with strange, hollow crack and roar. He had climbed a hundred rods inward, and yet he had not reached the base of the shelf where the cliff dwellings rested, a long half-circle of connected stone house, with little dark holes that he had fancied were eyes. At length he gained the base of the shelf, and here found steps cut in the rock. These facilitated climbing, and as he went up he thought how easily this vanished race of men might once have held that stronghold against an army. There was only one possible place to ascend, and this was narrow and steep. Ventures had visited cliff dwellings before, and they had been in ruins and of no great character or size, but this place was of proportions that stunned him, and it had not been desecrated by the hand of man, nor had it been crumbled by the hand of time. It was a stupendous tomb. It had been a city. It was just as it had been left by its builders. The little houses were there, the smoked blackened stains of fires, the pieces of pottery scattered about cold hearths, the stone hatchets, and stone pestles and meeling-stones lay beside round holes polished by years of grinding maize, lay there as if they had been carelessly dropped yesterday. But the cliff dwellers were gone. Dust. They were dust on the floor or at the foot of the shelf, and their habitations and utensils endured. Ventures felt the sublimity of that marvellous vaulted arch, and it seemed to gleam with a glory of something that was gone. How many years had passed since the cliff dwellers gazed out across the beautiful valley as he was gazing now? How long had it been since women ground grain in those polished holes? What time had rolled by since men of an unknown race lived, loved, fought, and died there? Had an enemy destroyed them? Had disease destroyed them? Or only that greatest destroyer, time? Venture saw a long line of blood-red hands painted low down upon the yellow roof of stone. Here was strange portent, if not an answer to his queries. The place oppressed him. It was light but full of a transparent gloom. It smelled of dust and musty stone, of age and disuse. It was sad. It was solemn. It had the look of a place where silence had become master, and was now irrevocable and terrible and could not be broken. Yet at the moment, from high up in the carved crevices of the arch, floated down the low, strange wail of wind, a knell indeed for all that had gone. Ventures, sighing, gathered up an armful of pottery, such pieces as he thought strong enough and suitable for his own use, and bent his steps toward camp. He mounted the terrace at an opposite point to which he had left. He saw the girl looking in the direction which he had gone. His footsteps made no sound in the deep grass, and he approached close without her being aware of his presence. Whitey lay on the ground near where she sat, and he manifested the usual actions of welcome, but the girl did not notice them. She seemed to be oblivious to everything near at hand. She made a pathetic figure drooping there, with her sunny hair contrasting so markedly with her white, wasted cheeks, and her hands listlessly clasped and her little bare feet propped in the framework of the rude seat. Ventures could have sworn and laughed in one breath at the idea of the connection between this girl and Old Ring's masked rider. She was the victim of more than accident of fate, a victim to some deep plot, the mystery of which burned him. As he stepped forward with a half-formed thought that she was absorbed in watching for his return, she turned her head and saw him. A swift start, a change rather than rush of blood under her white cheeks, a flashing of big eyes that fixed their glance upon him, transformed her face in that single instant of turning, and he knew she had been watching for him that his return was the one thing in her mind. She did not smile, she did not flush, she did not look glad. All these would have meant little compared to her indefinite expression. Ventures grasped the peculiar, vivid, vital something that leaped from her face. It was as if she had been in a dead, hopeless clamp of inaction and feeling, and had been suddenly shot through and through with quivering animation. Almost it was as if she had returned to life. And Ventures thought with lightning swiftness, I've saved her. I've unlinked her from that old life. She was watching as if I were all she had left on earth. She belongs to me. The thought was startlingly new. Like a blow it was in an unprepared moment. The cheery salutation he had ready for her died unborn, and he tumbled the pieces of pottery awkwardly on the grass, while some unfamiliar, deep-seated emotion, mixed with pity and glad assurance of his power to succour her, held him dumb. Quite a load you had, she said. Why, there are pots and crocks. Where did you get them? Ventures laid down his rifle, and filling one of the pots from his canteen he placed it on the smoldering campfire. Hope it'll hold water, he said presently. Why, there's an enormous cliff-dwelling just across here. I got the pottery there. Don't you think we needed something that tin cup of mine has served to make tea, broth, soup, everything? I noticed we hadn't a great deal to cook in. She laughed. It was the first time. He liked that laugh, and though he was tempted to look at her, he did not want to show his surprise or his pleasure. Will you take me over there and all around in the valley pretty soon when I'm well? She added. Indeed I shall. It's a wonderful place. Rabbit's so thick you can't step without kicking one out. And quail, beaver, foxes, wildcats? We're in a regular den. But haven't you ever seen a cliff-dwelling? No, I've heard about them, though. The men say the pass is full of old houses and ruins. Why, I should think you'd have run across one and all you're riding around, said Ventures. He spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully, and he essayed a perfectly casual manner and pretended to be busy assorting pieces of pottery. She must have no cause again to suffer shame for curiosity of his. Yet never in all his days had he been so eager to hear the details of anyone's life. When I rode, I rode like the wind, she replied, and never had time to stop for anything. I remember that day I met you in the pass, how dusty you were, how tired your horse looked. Were you always riding? Oh, no, sometimes not for months, when I was shut up in the cabin. Ventures tried to subdue a hot tingling. You were shut up then? he asked carelessly. When Aldring went away on his long trips, he was gone for months sometimes. He shut me up in the cabin. What for? Perhaps to keep me from running away. I always threatened that. Mostly, though, because the men got drunk at the villages. But they were always good to me. I wasn't afraid. A prisoner, that must have been hard on you. I liked that, as long as I can remember I've been locked up there at times, and those times were the only happy ones I ever had. It's a big cabin high up on a cliff, and I could look out. Then I had dogs and pets I had tamed in books. There was a spring inside and food stored, and the men brought me fresh meat. Once I was there one whole winter. It now required deliberation on Ventures' part to persist in his unconcern and to keep it work. He wanted to look at her, to volley questions at her. As long as you can remember you've lived in deception pass, he went on. I have a dim memory of some other place and women and children, but I can't make anything of it. Sometimes I think till I'm weary. Then you can read. You have books? Oh yes, I can read and write too, pretty well. Old Ring is educated. He taught me. And years ago an old rustler lived with us, and he had been something different once. He was always teaching me. So Old Ring takes long trips, mused Ventures. Do you know where he goes? No. Every year he drives cattle north of Stirling, then does not return for months. I heard him accused once of living two lives, and he killed the man. That was at Stone Bridge. Ventures dropped his apparent task and looked up with an eagerness he no longer strove to hide. Bess, he said, using her name for the first time, I suspected Old Ring was something besides a rustler. Tell me, what's his purpose here in the past? I believe much of what he has done was to hide his real work here. You're right. He's more than a rustler. In fact, as the men say, his rustling cattle is now only a bluff. There's gold in the canyons. Ah! Yes, there's gold. Not in great quantities, but gold enough for him and his men. They wash for gold week in and week out. Then they drop a few cattle and go into the villages to drink and shoot and kill, to bluff the rodders. Drive a few cattle. But Bess, the Witherstein herd, the Red herd, twenty-five hundred head. That's not a few. And I tracked them into a valley near here. Old Ring never stole the Red herd. He made a deal with Mormons. The rodders were to be called in, and Old Ring was to drive the herd and keep it till a certain time. I won't know when. Then drive it back to the range. What his share was I didn't hear. Did you hear why that deal was made? queried ventures. No. But it was a trick of Mormons. They're full of tricks. I've heard Old Ring's men tell about Mormons. Maybe the Witherstein woman wasn't minding her halter. I saw the man who made the deal. He was a little queer-shaped man, all humped up. He sat his horse well. I heard one of our men say afterward there was no better rider on the sage than this fellow. What was the name? I forget. Jerry Card suggested ventures. That's it. I remember. It's a name easy to remember. And Jerry Card appeared to be on fair terms with Old Ring's men. I shouldn't wonder, replied ventures thoughtfully. Verification of his suspicions in regard to Tull's underhand work, for the deal with Old Ring made by Jerry Card assuredly had its inception in the Mormon elder's brain, and had been accomplished through his orders, revived in ventures a memory of hatred that had been smothered by press of other emotions. Only a few days had elapsed since the hour of his encounter with Tull. Yet they had been forgotten and now seemed far off, and the interval, one that now appeared large and profound with incalculable change in his feelings. Hatred of Tull still existed in his heart, but it had lost its white heat. His affection for Jane Witherstein had not changed in the least. Nevertheless he seemed to view it from another angle and see it as another thing, what he could not exactly define. The recalling of these two feelings was to ventures like getting glimpses into a self that was gone, and the wonder of them, perhaps the change which was too elusive for him, was the fact that a strange irritation accompanied the memory and a desire to dismiss it from mind, and straightway he did dismiss it to return to thoughts of his significant present. Bess, tell me one more thing, he said. Haven't you known any women, any young people? Sometimes there were women with the men, but Aldering never let me know them, and all the young people I ever saw in my life was when I rode fast through the villages. Perhaps that was the most puzzling and thought provoking thing she had yet said to ventures. He pondered more curious the more he learned, but he curbed his inquisitive desires for he saw her shrinking on the verge of that shame, the causing of which had occasioned him such self-reproach. He would ask no more. Still he had to think, and he found it difficult to think clearly. This sad-eyed girl was so utterly different from what it would have been reason to believe such a remarkable life would have made her. On this day he had found her simple and frank, as natural as any girl he had ever known. About her there was something sweet. Her voice was low and well modulated. He could not look into her face, meet her steady, unabashed yet listful eyes, and think of her as the woman she had confessed herself. Aldering's masked rider sat before him, a girl dressed as a man. She had been made to ride at the head of infamous forays and drives. She had been imprisoned for many months of her life in an obscure cabin. At times the most vicious of men had been her companions, and the vilest of women, if they had not been permitted to approach her, had at least cast their shadows over her. But in spite of all this, there thundered at Vinter's some truth that lifted its voice higher than the clamoring facts of dishonor, some truth that was the very life of her beautiful eyes, and it was innocence. In the days that followed, Vinter's balanced perpetually in mind this haunting conception of innocence over against the cold and sickening fact of an unintentional yet actual gift. How could it be possible for the two things to be true? He believed the latter to be true, and he would not relinquish his conviction of the former, and these conflicting thoughts augmented the mystery that appeared to be a part of Bess. In those ensuing days, however, it became clear as clearest light that Bess was rapidly regaining strength, that unless reminded of her long association with Aldering, she seemed to have forgotten it, that like an Indian who lives solely from moment to moment, she was utterly absorbed in the present. Day by day, Vinter's watched the white of her face slowly change to brown, and the wasted cheeks fill out by imperceptible degrees. There came a time when he could just trace the line of demarcation between the part of her face once hidden by a mask, and that left exposed to wind and sun. When that line disappeared in clear bronze tan, it was as if she had been washed clean of the stigma of Aldering's masked rider. The suggestion of the mask always made Vinter's remember. Now that it was gone, he seldom thought of her past. Occasionally he tried to piece together the several stages of strange experience and to make a whole. He had shot a masked outlaw, the very sight of whom had been ill omen to riders. He had carried off a wounded woman whose bloody lips quivered in prayer. He had nursed what seemed a frail, shrunken boy, and now he watched a girl whose face had become strangely sweet, whose dark blue eyes were ever upon him without boldness, without shyness, but with a steady grave and growing light. Many times Vinter's found the clear gaze embarrassing to him, yet, like wine, it had an exhilarating effect. What did she think when she looked at him so? Almost he believed she had no thought at all. All about her and the present there in Surprise Valley, and the dim yet subtly impending future, fascinated Vinter's and made him thoughtful as all his lonely vigils in the sage had not. Chiefly it was the present that he wished to dwell upon, but it was the call of the future which stirred him to action. No idea had he of what that future had in store for best in him. He began to think of improving Surprise Valley as a place to live in, for there was no telling how long they would be compelled to stay there. Vinter stubbornly resisted the entering into his mind of an insistent thought that clearly realized might have made it plain to him that he did not want to leave Surprise Valley at all. But it was imperative that he consider practical matters, and whether or not he was destined to stay long there he felt the immediate need of a change of diet. It would be necessary for him to go farther afield for a variety of meat, and also that he soon visit Cottonwood's for a supply of food. It occurred again to Vinter's that he could go to the canyon where Old Ring kept his cattle, and at little risk he could pack out some beef. He wished to do this, however, without letting best know of it till after he had made the trip. Presently he hid upon the plan of going while she was asleep. That very night he stole out of camp, climbed up under the stone bridge, and entered the outlet to the pass. The gorge was full of luminous gloom. Balancing rock loomed dark and leaned over the pale descent. Transformed in the shadowy light it took shape and dimensions of a spectral god waiting, waiting for the moment to hurl himself down upon the tottering walls, and close forever the outlet to deception pass. At night, more than by day, Vinter's felt something fearful and fateful in that rock, and that it had leaned and waited through a thousand years to have somehow to deal with his destiny. "'Old man, if you must roll, wait till I get back to the girl, and then roll,' he said, aloud, as if the stones were indeed a god. And those spoken words, in their grim note to his ear, as well as contents to his mind, told Vinter's that he was all but drifting on a current which he had not power nor wish to stem. Vinter's exercised his usual care in the matter of hiding tracks from the outlet, yet it took him scarcely an hour to reach Old Ring's cattle. Here, sight of many calves changed his original intention, and instead of packing out meat, he decided to take a calf out alive. He roped one, securely tied its feet, and swung it over his shoulder. Here was an exceedingly heavy burden, but Vinter's was powerful. He could take up a sack of grain and with ease pitch it over a pack saddle, and he made long distance without resting. The hardest work came in the climb up to the outlet and owned through to the valley. When he had accomplished it, he became fired with another idea that again changed his intention. He would not kill the calf, but keep it alive. He would go back to Old Ring's herd and pack out more calves. Thereupon he secured the calf in the best available spot for the moment and turned to make a second trip. When Vinter's got back to the valley with another calf, it was close upon daybreak. He crawled into his cave and slept late. Vest had no inkling that he had been absent from camp nearly all night, and only remarked solicitously that he appeared to be more tired than usual and more in the need of sleep. In the afternoon, Vinter's built a gate across a small ravine near camp and here corralled the calves and he succeeded in completing his task without Vest being any the wiser. That night he made two more trips to Old Ring's range and again on the following night and yet another on the next. With eight calves in his corral he concluded that he had enough, but it dawned upon him then that he did not want to kill one. I've rustled Old Ring's cattle, he said, and laughed. He noted then that all the calves were red. Red, he exclaimed. From the red herd have stolen Jane Withersene's cattle. That's about the strangest thing yet. One more trip he undertook to Old Ring's valley and this time he roped a yearling steer and killed it and cut out a small quarter of beef. The howling of coyotes told him he need have no apprehension that the work of his knife would be discovered. He packed the beef back to camp and hung it upon a spruce tree. Then he sought his bed. On the morrow he was up bright and early glad that he had a surprise for Vest. He could hardly wait for her to come out. Presently she appeared and walked under the spruce. Then she approached the campfire. There was a tinge of healthy red in the bronze of her cheeks and her slender form had begun to round out in graceful lines. Vest, didn't you say you were tired of rabbit? Hard ventures, and quail and beaver? Indeed I did. What would you like? I'm tired of meat, but if we have to live on it I'd like some beef. Well, how does that strike you? Ventures pointed to the quarter hanging from the spruce tree. We'll have fresh beef for a few days and then we'll cut the rest into strips and dry it. Where did you get that? asked Vest slowly. I stole that from Old Ring. You went back to the canyon, you risked while she hesitated the tinge of bloom faded out of her cheeks. It wasn't any risk, but it was hard work. I'm sorry I said I was tired of rabbit. Why, how, when did you get that beef? Last night? While I was asleep? Yes. I woke last night some time, but I didn't know. Her eyes were widening, darkening with thought, and whenever they did so the steady, watchful, seeing gaze gave place to the wistful light. In the former she saw as the primitive woman without thought, in the latter she looked inward, and her gaze was the reflection of a troubled mind. For long ventures had not seen that dark change, that deepening of blue which he thought was beautiful and sad, but now he wanted to make her think. I've done more than pack in that beef, he said. For five nights I've been working while you slept. I've got eight calves corraled near a ravine. Eight calves, all alive and doing fine. You went five nights. All that ventures could make of the dilation of her eyes, her slow pallor, and her exclamation was fear, fear for herself or for him. Yes, I didn't tell you because I knew you were afraid to be left alone. Alone. She echoed his word, but the meaning of it was nothing to her. She had not even thought of being left alone. It was not then fear for herself, but for him. This girl, always slow of speech and action, now seemed almost stupid. She put forth a hand that might have indicated the groping of her mind. Suddenly she stepped swiftly to him, with a look and touch that drove from him any doubt of her quick intelligence or feeling. Aldering has men watch the herds. They would kill you. You must never go again. When she had spoken, the strength and the blaze of her died, and she swayed toward ventures. Best I'll not go again, he said, catching her. She leaned against him and her body was limp and vibrated to a long, wavering tremble. Her face was upturned to his. Woman's face, woman's eyes, woman's lips, all acutely and blindly and sweetly and terribly truthful in their betrayal. But as her fear was instinctive, so was her clinging to this one and only friend. Ventures gently put her from him and steadied her upon her feet, and all the while his blood raced wild and a thrilling tingle unsteadied his nerve, and something that he had seen and felt in her that he could not understand seemed very close to him, warm and rich as a fragrant breath, sweet as nothing had ever before been sweet to him. With all his will, Ventures strove for calmness and thought and judgment unbiased by pity, and reality unsuayed by sentiment. Best's eyes were still fixed upon him with all her soul bright in that wistful light. Swiftly, resolutely, he put out of mind all of her life except what had been spent with him. He scorned himself for the intelligence that made him still doubt. He meant to judge her as she had judged him. He was face to face with the inevitableness of life itself. He saw destiny in the dark, straight path of her wonderful eyes. Here was the simplicity, the sweetness of a girl contending with new and strange and enthralling emotions, here the living truth of innocence, here the blind terror of a woman confronted with the thought of death to her savior and protector. All this Ventures saw, but besides, there was in Best's eyes a slow dawning consciousness that seemed about to break out in glorious radiance. Best, are you thinking? He asked. Yes. Oh, yes. Do you realize we are here alone, man and woman? Yes. Have you thought that we may make our way out to civilization or we may have to stay here, alone, hidden from the world all our lives? I never thought till now. Well, what's your choice, to go or to stay here alone with me? Stay. Newborn thought of self ringing vibrantly in her voice gave her answer singular power. Ventures trembled and then swiftly turned his gaze from her face, from her eyes. He knew what she had only half-divined, that she loved him. CHAPTER XI. FAITH AND UNFAITH At Jane Witherstein's home the promise made to Mrs. Larkin to care for little Faye had begun to be fulfilled. Like a gleam of sunlight through the cottonwoods was the coming of the child to the gloomy house of Witherstein. The big silent halls echoed with childish laughter. In the shady court where Jane spent many of the hot July days, Faye's tiny feet pattered over the stone flags and splashed in the amber stream. She prattled incessantly. What difference, Jane thought, a child made in her home. It had never been a real home, she discovered. Even the tidiness and neatness she had so observed and upon which she had insisted to her women became, in the light of Faye's smile, habits that now lost their importance. Faye littered the court with Jane's books and papers and other toys her fancy improvised and many a strange craft went floating down the little brook. And it was owing to Faye's presence that Jane Witherstein came to see more of Lasseter. The writer had for the most part kept to the sage. He wrote for her, but he did not seek her except on business, and Jane had to acknowledge in peak that her overtures had been made in vain. Faye, however, captured Lasseter the moment he first laid eyes on her. Jane was present at the meeting and there was something about it which dimmed her sight and softened her toward this foe of her people. The writer had clanked into the court, a tired yet wary man, always looking for the attack upon him that was inevitable, and might come from any quarter, and he had walked right upon little Faye. The child had been beautiful even in her rags and amid the surroundings of the hovel in the sage. But now, in a pretty white dress, with her shining curls brushed and her face clean and rosy, she was lovely. She left her play and looked up at Lasseter. If there was not an instinct for all three of them in that meeting, an unreasoning tendency toward a closer intimacy, then Jane Witherstein believed she had been subject to a queer fancy. She imagined any child would have feared Lasseter, and Faye Larkin had been a lonely, a solitary elf of the sage, not at all an ordinary child, and exquisitely shy with strangers. She watched Lasseter with great, round, grave eyes, but showed no fear. The writer gave Jane a favourable report of cattle and horses, and as he took the seat to which she invited him, little Faye edged as much as half an inch nearer. Jane replied to his look of inquiry and told Faye's story. The writer's gray, earnest gaze troubled her. Then he turned to Faye and smiled in a way that made Jane doubt her sense of the true relation of things. How could Lasseter smile so at a child when he had made so many children fatherless? But he did smile, and to the gentleness she had seen a few times he added something that was infinitely sad and sweet. Jane's intuition told her that Lasseter had never been a father, but if life ever so blessed him he would be a good one. Faye also must have found that smile singularly winning, for she edged closer and closer, and then by way of feminine capitulation went to Jane, from whose side she bent a beautiful glance upon the writer. Lasseter only smiled at her. Jane watched them and realized that now was the moment she should seize if she was ever to win this man from his hatred. But the step was not easy to take. The more she saw of Lasseter, the more she respected him, and the greater her respect, the harder it became to lend herself to mere coquetry. Yet as she thought of her great motive, of tall and of that other whose name she had schooled herself never to think of in connection with Millie Urn's Avenger, she suddenly found she had no choice, and her creed gave her boldness far beyond the limit to which vanity would have led her. Lasseter, I see so little of you now, she said, and was conscious of heat in her cheeks. I've been riding hard, he replied. But you can't live in the saddle. You come in sometimes. Won't you come here to see me? Offener? Is that an order? Nonsense. I simply ask you to come and see me when you find time. Why? The query once heard was not so embarrassing to Jane as she might have imagined. Moreover, it established in her mind a fact that there existed actually other than selfish reasons for her wanting to see him, and as she had been bold so she determined to be both honest and brave. I have reasons, only one of which I need mention, she answered. If it's possible I want to change you toward my people, and on the moment I can conceive of little I wouldn't do to gain that end. How much better and freer Jane felt after that confession. She meant to show him that there was one Mormon who could play a game or wage a fight in the open. I reckon, said Lasseter, and he laughed. It was the best in her, if the most irritating, that Lasseter always aroused. Will you come? She looked into his eyes, and for the life of her could not quite subdue an imperiousness that rose with her spirit. I never asked so much of any man, except Byrne Venters. Piers to me that you'd run no risk, or Venters either, but maybe that doesn't hold good for me. You mean it wouldn't be safe for you to be often here? You look for ambush in the Cottonwoods? Not that so much. At this juncture little Faye saddled over to Lasseter. "'Has o' a little Dural?' she inquired. "'No, Lassie,' replied the rider. Whatever Faye seemed to be searching for in Lasseter's sun-reddened face and quiet eyes she evidently found. "'Who can come to see me?' she added, and with that shyness gave place to friendly curiosity. First his sombrero with its leather band and silver ornaments commanded her attention. Next his quart, and then the clinking silver spurs. These held her for some time, but presently, true to childish fickleness, she left off playing with them to look for something else. She laughed in glee as she ran her little hands down the slippery, shiny surface of Lasseter's leather chaps. Soon she discovered one of the hanging gun sheaths, and she dragged it up and began tugging at the huge black handle of the gun. Jane Witherstein repressed an exclamation. "'What significance there was to her in the little girl's efforts to dislodge that heavy weapon?' Jane Witherstein saw Faye's play and her beauty and her love as most powerful allies to her own woman's part, in a game that suddenly had acquired a strange zest and a hint of danger. And as for the rider, he appeared to have forgotten Jane in the wonder of this lovely child playing about him. At first he was much the shire of the two. Gradually her confidence overcame his backwardness, and he had the temerity to stroke her golden curls with a great hand. Faye rewarded his boldness with a smile, and when he had gone to the extreme of closing that great hand over her little brown one, she said simply, "'Alaiku.'" Side of his face then made Jane oblivious for the time to his character as a hater of Mormons. Out of the mother-longing that swelled her breast, she divined the child-hunger in Lasseter. He returned the next day and the next, and upon the following he came both at morning and at night. Upon the evening of this fourth day, Jane seemed to feel the breaking of a brooding struggle in Lasseter. During all these visits he had scarcely a word to say, though he watched her and played absentmindedly with Faye. Jane had contended herself with silence. Soon little Faye substituted for the expression of regard, "'Alaiku,' a warmer and more generous one. I love you.'" Thereafter Lasseter came oftener to see Jane and her little protégé. Daily he grew more gentle and kind, and gradually developed a quaintly merry mood. In the morning he lifted Faye upon his horse and let her ride as he walked beside her to the edge of the sage. In the evening he played with the child at an infinite variety of games she invented, and then, oftener than not, he accepted Jane's invitation to supper. No other visitor came to Witherstein House during those days, so that in spite of watchfulness he never forgot Lasseter began to show he felt at home there. After the meal they walked into the grove of Cottonwoods or up by the lakes, and little Faye held Lasseter's hand as much as she held Jane's. Thus a strange relationship was established, and Jane liked it. At twilight they always returned to the house, where Faye kissed them and went in to her mother. Lasseter and Jane were left alone. Then, if there were anything that a good woman could do to win a man and still preserve her self-respect, it was something which escaped the natural subtlety of a woman determined to allure. Jane's vanity, that after all was not great, was soon satisfied with Lasseter's silent admiration, and her honest desire to lead him from his dark, blood-stained path would never have blinded her to what she owed herself. But the driving passion of her religion and its call to save Mormon's lives, one life in particular, bore Jane Witherstein close to an infringement of her womanhood. In the beginning she had reasoned that her appeal to Lasseter must be through the senses. With whatever means she possessed in the way of adornment, she enhanced her beauty. And she stooped to artifices that she knew were unworthy of her, but which she deliberately chose to employ. She made of herself a girl in every variable mood wherein a girl might be desirable. In those moods she was not above the methods of an inexperienced, though natural, flirt. She kept close to him whenever opportunity afforded, and she was forever playfully, yet passionately, underneath the surface, fighting him for possession of the great black guns. These he would never yield to her. And so in that manner their hands were often and long in contact. The more of simplicity that she sensed in him, the greater the advantage she took. She had a trick of changing, and it was not altogether voluntary, from this gay, thoughtless, girlish, coquettishness to the silence and the brooding, burning mystery of a woman's mood. The strength and passion and fire of her were in her eyes, and she so used them that Lassiter had to see this depth in her, this haunting promise more fitted to her years than to the flaunting guise of a willful girl. The July days flew by. Jane reasoned that if it were possible for her to be happy during such a time, then she was happy. Little Fay completely filled a long, aching void in her heart. In fettering the hands of this Lassiter, she was accomplishing the greatest good of her life, and to do good even in a small way rendered happiness to Jane Witherstein. She had attended the regular Sunday services of her church, otherwise she had not gone to the village for weeks. It was unusual that none of her churchmen or friends had called upon her of late, but it was neglect for which she was glad. Judkins and his boy-riders had experienced no difficulty in driving the white herd. For these warm July days were free of worry, and soon Jane hoped she had passed the crisis, and for her to hope was presently to trust and then to believe. She thought often of ventures, but in a dreamy, abstract way. She spent hours teaching and playing with Little Fay, and the activity of her mind centered around Lassiter. The direction she had given her will seemed to blunt any branching off of thought from that straight line. The mood came to obsess her. In the end, when her awakening came, she learned that she had builded better than she knew. Lassiter, though kinder and gentler than ever, had parted with his quaint humor and his coldness and his tranquility to become a restless and unhappy man. Whatever the power of his deadly intent toward Mormons, that passion now had a rival, the one equally burning and consuming. Jane Witherstein had one moment of exultation before the dawn of a strange uneasiness. What if she had made of herself a lure at tremendous cost to him and to her, and all in vain? That night in the moonlit grove she summoned all her courage, and turning suddenly in the path, she faced Lassiter and leaned close to him, so that she touched him and her eyes looked up to his. Lassiter, will you do anything for me? In the moonlight she saw his dark, worn face change, and by that change she seemed to feel him immovable as a wall of stone. Jane slipped her hands down to the swinging gun sheathes, and when she had locked her fingers around the huge, cold handles of the guns, she trembled as with a chilling ripple over all her body. May I take your guns? Why, he asked, and for the first time to her his voice carried a harsh note. Jane felt his hard, strong hands close round her wrists. It was not holy with intent that she leaned toward him, for the look of his eyes and the feel of his hands made her weak. It's no trifle, no woman's whim, it's deep as my heart. Let me take them. Why? I want to keep you from killing more men, Mormons. You must let me save you from more wickedness, more wanton bloodshed. Then the truth forced itself falteringly from her lips. You must let—help me to keep my vow to Millie Earn. I swore to her, as she lay dying, that if ever anyone came here to avenge her, I swore I would stay his hand. Perhaps I alone can save the man who—who—oh, Lassiter, I feel that I can't change you, then soon you'll be out to kill, and you'll kill by instinct, and among the Mormons you kill will be the one who—Lassiter, if you care a little for me, let me—for my sake, let me take your guns. As if her hands had been those of a child, he unclasped their clinging grip from the handles of his guns, and, pushing her away, he turned his gray face to her in one look of terrible realization, and then strode off into the shadows of the cottonwoods. When the first shock of her futile appeal to Lassiter had passed, Jane took his cold, silent condemnation in abrupt departure, not so much as a refusal to her entreaty, as a hurt and stunned bitterness for her attempt at his betrayal. Upon further thought and slow consideration of Lassiter's past actions, she believed he would return and forgive her. The man could not be hard to a woman, and she doubted that he could stay away from her. But at the point where she had hoped to find him vulnerable, she now began to fear he was proof against all persuasion. The iron and stone quality that she had early suspected in him had actually cropped out as an impregnable barrier. Nevertheless, if Lassiter remained in cottonwoods, she would never give up her hope and desire to change him. She would change him if she had to sacrifice everything dear to her, except hope of heaven. Passionately devoted as she was to her religion, she had yet refused to marry a Mormon. But a situation had developed wherein self paled in the great white light of religious duty of the highest order. That was the leading motive, the divinely spiritual one. But there were other motives, which, like tentacles, aided in drawing her will to the acceptance of a possible abnegation. And through the watches of that sleepless night, Jane Witherstein, in fear and sorrow and doubt, came finally to believe that if she must throw herself into Lassiter's arms to make him abide by, thou shalt not kill, she would yet do well. In the morning she expected Lassiter at the usual hour, but she was not able to go at once to the court, so she sent little fay. Mrs. Larkin was ill and required attention. It appeared that the mother, from the time of her arrival at Witherstein House, had relaxed and was slowly losing her hold on life. Jane had believed that absence of worry and responsibility, coupled with good nursing and comfort, would mend Mrs. Larkin's broken health. Such, however, was not the case. When Jane did get out to the court, Faye was there alone, and at the moment embarking on a dubious voyage down the stone-lined amber stream upon a craft of two brooms and a pillow, Faye was as delightfully wet as she could possibly wish to get. Clatter of hoofs distracted Faye and interrupted the scolding she was gleefully receiving from Jane. The sound was not the light-spirited trot that Belles made when Lassiter rode him into the outer court. This was slower and heavier, and Jane did not recognize in it any of her other horses. The appearance of Bishop Dyer startled Jane. He dismounted with his rapid, jerky motion, flung the bridle, and as he turned toward the inner court and stalked up on the stone flags, his boots rang. In his authoritative front and in the red anger unmistakably flaming in his face, he reminded Jane of her father. Was that the Larkin pauper? He asked brusquely, without any greeting to Jane. It's Mrs. Larkin's little girl, replied Jane slowly. I hear you intend to raise the child? Yes. Of course you mean to give her Mormon bringing up. No. His questions had been swift. She was amazed at a feeling that someone else was replying for her. I've come to say a few things to you. He stopped to measure her with stern speculative eye. Jane Witherstein loved this man. From earliest childhood, she had been taught to revere and love bishops of her church, and for ten years, Bishop Dyer had been the closest friend and counselor of her father, and for the greater part of that period, her own friend and scriptural teacher. Her interpretation of her creed and her religious activity in fidelity to it, her acceptance of mysterious and holy Mormon truths, were all invested in this bishop. Bishop Dyer, as an entity, was next to God. He was God's mouthpiece to the little Mormon community at Cottonwoods. God revealed himself in secret to this mortal. And Jane Witherstein suddenly suffered a paralyzing affront to her consciousness of reverence by some strange, irresistible twist of thought, wherein she saw this bishop as a man. And the train of thought hurtled the rising, crying protests of that other self, whose poise she had lost. It was not her bishop who eyed her in curious measurement. It was a man who trapped into her presence without removing his hat, who had no greeting for her, who had no semblance of courtesy. In looks as in action, he made her think of a bull stamping cross-grained into a corral. She had heard of Bishop Dyer forgetting the minister in the fury of a common man, and now she was to feel it. The glance by which she measured him in turn momentarily veiled the divine in the ordinary. He looked a rancher. He was booted, spurred, and covered with dust. He carried a gun at his hip, and she remembered that he had been known to use it. But during the long moment while he watched her there was nothing commonplace in the slow gathering might of his wrath. Brother Tull has talked to me. He began. It was your father's wish that you marry Tull, and my order. You refused him? Yes. You would not give up your friendship with that tramp ventures? No. But you'll do as I order, he thundered, why, Jane Witherstein, you are in danger of becoming a heretic. You can thank your Gentile friends for that. You face the damning of your soul to perdition. In the flux and reflux of the whirling torture of Jane's mind, that new, daring spirit of hers vanished in the old habitual order of her life. She was a Mormon, and the bishop regained ascendance. It's well I got you in time, Jane Witherstein. What would your father have said to these goings-on of yours? He would have put you in a stone cage on bread and water. He would have taught you something about Mormonism. Remember, you're a born Mormon. There have been Mormons who turned heretic, damned their souls, but no born Mormon ever left us yet. Ah, I see your shame. Your faith is not shaken. You are only a wild girl. The bishop's tone softened. Well, it's enough that I got to you in time. Now tell me about this lasseter. I hear strange things. What do you wish to know, queried Jane? About this man. You hired him? Yes, he's writing for me. When my writers left me, I had to have anyone I could get. Is it true what I hear that he's a gunman, a Mormon hater, steeped in blood? True, terribly true, I fear. But what's he doing here in Cottonwoods? This place isn't notorious enough for such a man. Sterling in the villages north, where there's universal gunpacking and fights every day, where there are more men like him, it seems to me they would attract him most. You're only a wild, lonely border settlement. It's only recently that the rustlers have made killings here. Nor have there been saloons till lately, nor the drifting in of outcasts. Has not this gunman some special mission here? Jane maintained silence. Tell me, ordered Bishop Dyer sharply. Yes, she replied. Do you know what it is? Yes. Tell me that. Bishop Dyer, I don't want to tell. He waved his hand in an imperative gesture of command. The red, once more, leaped to his face, and in his steel-blue eyes glinted a pinpoint of curiosity. That first day, whispered Jane. Lassiter said he came here to find Millie Earnes' grave. With downcast eyes Jane watched the swift flow of the amber water. She saw it, and tried to think of it, of the stones, of the ferns. But like her body her mind was in a leaden vice. Only the Bishop's voice could release her. Seemingly there was silence of longer duration than all her former life. For what else? When Bishop Dyer's voice did cleave the silence, it was high, curiously shrill, and on the point of breaking. It released Jane's tongue, but she could not lift her eyes. To kill the man who persuaded Millie Earnes to abandon her home and her husband and her God. With wonderful distinctness Jane Witherstein heard her own clear voice. She heard the water murmur at her feet and flow on to the sea. She heard the rushing of all the waters in the world. They filled her ears with low, unreal murmurings, these sounds that deadened her brain and yet could not break the long and terrible silence. Then from somewhere, from an immeasurable distance, came a slow, guarded, clinking, clanking step. Into her it shot electrifying life. It released the weight upon her numbed eyelids. Lifting her eyes she saw, ashen, shaken, stricken, not the Bishop but the man. And beyond him from round the corner came that soft, silvery step. A long black boot with a gleaming spur swept into sight, and then Lasseter. Bishop Dyer did not see, did not hear. He stared at Jane in the throes of sudden revelation. Ah, I understand, he cried, in hoarse accents. That's why you may love to this Lasseter, to bind his hands. It was Jane's gaze riveted upon the rider that made Bishop Dyer turn. Then clear sight failed her. Dizzily, in a blur, she saw the Bishop's hand jerk to his hip. She saw gleam of blue and spout of red. In her ears burst a thundering report. The court floated in darkening circles around her, and she fell into utter blackness. The darkness lightened, turned to slow, drifting haze, and lifted. Through a thin film of blue smoke she saw the rough-hewn timbers of the court roof. A cool, damp touch moved across her brow. She smelled powder, and it was that which galvanized her suspended thought. She moved to see that she lay prone upon the stone flags with her head on Lasseter's knee, and he was bathing her brow with water from the stream. The same swift glance, shifting low, brought into range of her sight a smoking gun and splashes of blood. Ah, she moaned, and was drifting, sinking again into darkness, when Lasseter's voice arrested her. It's all right, Jane, it's all right. Did you kill him? She whispered. Who, that fat party who was here? No, I didn't kill him. Oh, Lasseter. Say, it was queer for you to faint. I thought you were such a strong woman, not faintish like that. You're all right now, only some pale. I thought you'd never come to. But I'm awkward round women, folks, I couldn't think of anything. Lasseter, the gun there, the blood. So that's troubling you, I reckon it needn't. You see, it was this way. I come round the house, and seen that fat party, and heard him talking loud. Then he seen me, and very impolite, go straight for his gun. He oughtn't have tried to throw a gun on me, whatever his reason was. For that's meeting me on my own grounds. I've seen runnin' molasses that was quicker than him. Now I didn't know who he was, visitor or friend or relation of yours, though I seen he was a Mormon all over, and I couldn't get serious about shootin'. So I winged him, put a bullet through his arm as he was pullin' at his gun. And he dropped the gun there, and a little blood. I told him he'd introduced himself sufficient, and to please move out of my vicinity. And he went. Lasseter spoke with slow, cool, soothing voice in which there was a hint of levity. And his touch, as he continued to bathe her brow, was gentle and steady. His impassive face, and the kind gray eyes, further stilled her agitation. He drew on you first, and you deliberately shot to cripple him. You wouldn't kill him? You, Lasseter? That's about the size of it. Jane kissed his hand. All that was calm and cool about Lasseter instantly vanished. Don't do that. I won't stand it, and I don't care a damn who that fat party was. He helped Jane to her feet, and to a chair. Then with the wet scarf he had used to bathe her face, he wiped the blood from the stone flags, and picking up the gun he threw it upon a couch. With that he began to pace the court, and his silver spurs jangled musically, and the great gun sheaths softly brushed against his leather chaps. So it's true what I heard him say, Lasseter asked, presently halting before her. You may love to me to bind my hands. Yes, confessed Jane. It took all her woman's courage to meet the gray storm of his glance. All these days that you've been so friendly and like a partner, all these evenings that have been so bewildering to me, your beauty, and the way you looked and came close to me. They were woman's tricks to bind my hands. Yes. In your sweetness that seems so natural, and your throwin' little fey in me so much together, to make me love the child, all that was for the same reason? Yes. Lasseter flung his arms, a strange gesture for him. Maybe it wasn't much in your Mormon thinkin' for you to play that game. But to bring the child in, that was hellish. Jane's passionate, unheating zeal began to loom darkly. Lasseter, whatever my intention in the beginning, fey loves you dearly, and I have grown to, to like you. That's powerful kind of you now, he said. Sarcasm and scorn made his voice that of a stranger. And you sit there and look me straight in the eyes. You're a wonderful, strange woman, Jane Witherstein. I'm not ashamed, Lasseter. I told you I'd try to change you. You mind tellin' me just what you tried? I tried to make you see beauty in me, and be softened by it. I wanted you to care for me, so that I could influence you. It wasn't easy. At first you were stone blind. Then I hoped you'd love little fey, and through that come to feel the horror of making children fatherless. Jane Witherstein, either you're a fool or noble beyond my understanding. Maybe you're both. I know you're blind. What you meant is one thing. What you did was make me love you. Lasseter. I reckon I'm a human being, though I never loved anyone but my sister, Millie Earn. That was long. Oh, are you Millie's brother? Yes, I was, and I loved her. There never was anyone but her in my life till now. Didn't I tell you that long ago I back-trailed myself from women? I was a Texas Ranger till Millie left home, and then I became something else—Lasseter. For years I've been a lonely man set on one thing. I came here and met you, and now I'm not the man I was. The change was gradual, and I took no notice of it. I understand now that never-satisfied longing to see you, listen to you, watch you, feel you near me. It's plain now why you are never out of my thoughts. I've had no thoughts but a view. I've lived and breathed for you, and now when I know what it means, what you've done, I'm burning up with hell's fire. Oh, Lasseter, no, no, you don't love me that way, Jane Caste. If that's what love is, then I do. Forgive me, I didn't mean to make you love me like that. Oh, what a tangle of our lives. You, Millie Earns' brother, and I, heedless, mad to melt your heart toward Mormons. Lasseter, I may be wicked, but not wicked enough to hate. If I couldn't hate tall, could I hate you? After all, Jane, maybe you're only blind—Mormon blind. That only can explain what's close to selfishness. I'm not selfish, I despise the very word. If I were free, but you're not free, not free of Mormonism, and in play in this game with me, you've been unfaithful. Unfaithful, faltered Jane, yes, I said unfaithful. You're faithful to your bishop, and unfaithful to yourself. You're false to your womanhood, and true to your religion. But for a saving innocence, you'd have made yourself low and vile, betraying yourself, betraying me, all to bind my hands and keep me from snuffing out Mormon life. It's your damned Mormon blindness. Is it vile? Is it blind? Is it only Mormonism to save human life? No, Lasseter, that's God's law, divine, universal for all Christians. The blindness I mean is blindness that keeps you from seeing the truth. I've known many good Mormons, but some are blacker than hell. You won't see that even when you know it. Else, why all this blind passion to save the life of that—that? Jane shut out the light, and the hand she held over her eyes trembled and quivered against her face. Blind? Yes, and let me make it clear and simple to you, Lasseter went on, his voice losing its tone of anger. Take for instance that idea of yours last night when you wanted my guns. It was good and beautiful and showed your heart, but why, Jane, it was crazy. Mind, I'm assuming that life to me is as sweet as to any other man, and to preserve that life is each man's first and closest thought. Where would any man be on this border without guns? Where especially would Lasseter be? Well, I'd be under the sage with thousands of other men now living and sure better men than me. One packin' in the west since the Civil War has grown into a kind of moral law, and out here on this border it's the difference between a man and something not a man. Look what your takin' Ventur's guns from him all but made him. Why, your churchmen carry guns. Tull has killed a man and drawed on others. Your bishop has shot a half a dozen men, and it wasn't through prayers of his that they recovered. And today he'd have shot me if he'd been quick enough on the draw. Could I walk or ride down into Cottonwoods without my guns? This is a wild time, Jane Witherstein, this year of our Lord, 1871. No time for a woman, exclaimed Jane, brokenly. Oh, Lasseter, I feel helpless, lost, and don't know where to turn. If I am blind, then I need someone, a friend, you, Lasseter, more than ever. Well, I didn't say nothing about goin' back on you, did I? End of CHAPTER XI. Jane received a letter from Bishop Dyer, not in his own handwriting, which stated that the abrupt termination of their interview had left him in some doubt as to her future conduct. A slight injury had incapacitated him from seeking another meeting at present, the letter went on to say, and ended with a request which was virtually a command that she call upon him at once. The reading of the letter acquainted Jane Witherstein with the fact that something within her had all but changed. She sent no reply to Bishop Dyer, nor did she go to see him. On Sunday she remained absent from the service, for the second time in years, and though she did not actually suffer there was a dead lock of feelings deep within her, and the waiting for a balance to fall on either side was almost as bad as suffering. She had a gloomy expectancy of untoward circumstances, and with it a keen-edged curiosity to watch developments. She had a half-formed conviction that her future conduct, as related to her churchmen, was beyond her control and would be governed by their attitude toward her. Something was changing in her, forming, waiting for decision to make it a real and fixed thing. She had told Lasseter that she felt helpless and lost in the fateful tangle of their lives, and now she feared that she was approaching the same chaotic condition of mind in regard to her religion. It appalled her to find that she questioned phases of that religion. Absolute faith had been her serenity. Believing her faith unshaken, her serenity had been disturbed, and now it was broken by open war between her and her ministers. That something within her, a whisper, which she had tried in vain to hush, had become a ringing voice, and it called to her to wait. She had transgressed no laws of God. Her churchmen, however invested with the power and the glory of a wonderful creed, however they sat in inexorable judgment of her, must now practice toward her the simple, common, wished in virtue they professed to preach, do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Jane Witherstein, waiting in darkness of mind, remained faithful still. But it was darkness that must soon be pierced by light. If her faith were justified, if her churchmen were trying only to intimidate her, the fact would soon be manifest, as would their failure. And then she would redouble her zeal toward them and toward what had been the best work of her life, work for the welfare and happiness of those among whom she lived, Mormon and Gentile alike. If that secret intangible power closed its toils round her again, if that great invisible hand moved here and there and everywhere, slowly paralyzing her with its mystery and its inconceivable sway over her affairs, then she would know beyond doubt that it was not chance nor jealousy nor intimidation nor ministerial wrath at her revolt, but a cold and calculating policy thawed out long before she was born, a dark, immutable will of whose empire she and all that was hers was but an atom. Then might come her ruin. Then might come her fall into black storm. Yet she would rise again and to the light. God would be merciful to a driven woman who had lost her way. A week passed, little Faye played and prattled and pulled at Lassiter's big black guns. The writer came to Witherstein House oftener than ever. Jane saw a change in him, though it did not relate to his kindness and gentleness. He was quieter and more thoughtful. While playing with Faye or conversing with Jane, he seemed to be possessed of another self that watched with cool, roving eyes, that listened, listened always as if the murmuring amber stream brought messages and the moving leaves whispered something. Lassiter never rode bells into the court any more, nor did he come by the lane or the paths. When he appeared it was suddenly and noiselessly out of the dark shadow of the grove. I left bells out in the sage, he said, one day at the end of that week. I must carry water to him. Why not let him drink at the trough or here? asked Jane quickly. I reckon it'd be safer for me to slip through the grove. I've been watched when I rode in from the sage. Watched by whom? By a man who thought he was well hid. But my eyes are pretty sharp. In Jane, he went on, almost in a whisper, I reckon it'd be a good idea for us to talk low. Your spot on here by your women. Lassiter, she whispered in turn, that's hard to believe, my women love me. What of that, he asked, of course they love you, but they're Mormon women. Jane's old rebellious loyalty clashed with her doubt. I won't believe it, she replied stubbornly. Well then, just act natural and talk natural, and pretty soon, give them time to hear this, pretend to go over there to the table, and then quick like make a move for the door and open it. I will, said Jane, with heightened colour. Lassiter was right, he never made mistakes. He would not have told her unless he positively knew. Yet Jane was so tenacious of faith that she had to see with her own eyes, and so constituted that to employ even such small deceit toward her women made her ashamed and angry for her shame as well as theirs. Then a singular thought confronted her that made her hold up this simple ruse, which hurt her, though it was well justified, against the deceit she had wittingly and eagerly used toward Lassiter. The difference was staggering in its suggestion of that blindness of which he had accused her. Fairness and justice and mercy that she had imagined were anchor cables to hold fast her soul to righteousness had not been hers in the strange, biased duty that had so exalted and confounded her. Presently Jane began to act her little part, to laugh and play with fey, to talk of horses and cattle to Lassiter. Then she made deliberate mention of a book in which she kept records of all pertaining to her stock, and she walked slowly toward the table, and when near the door she suddenly whirled and thrust it open. Her sharp action nearly knocked down a woman who had undoubtedly been listening. "'Hester,' said Jane sternly, "'you may go home, and you need not come back.' Jane shut the door and returned to Lassiter. Standing unsteadily she put her hand on his arm. She let him see that doubt had gone, and how this stab of disloyalty pained her. "'Spice, my own women, how miserable!' she cried, with flashing, tearful eyes. "'I hate to tell you,' he replied. By that she knew he had long spared her. It's begun again, that work in the dark. Nay, Lassiter, it never stopped. So bitter certainty claimed her at last, and thrust fled Witherstein House and fled forever. The women who owed much to Jane Witherstein changed not in love for her, nor in devotion to their household work, but they poisoned both by a thousand acts of stealth and cunning and duplicity. Jane broke out once and caught them in strange, stone-faced, unhesitating falsehood. Thereafter she broke out no more. She forgave them because they were driven. Poor, fettered, and sealed haggars, how she pitied them! That terrible thing bound them and locked their lips, when they showed neither consciousness of guilt toward their benefactress, nor distress at the slow-wearing apart of long-established and dear ties. "'The blindness again,' cried Jane Witherstein, "'in my sisters as in me, oh, God!' There came a time when no words passed between Jane and her women. Silently they went about their household duties, and secretly they went about the underhand work to which they had been bitten. The gloom of the house and the gloom of its mistress, which darkened even the bright spirit of little Fay, did not pervade these women. Happiness was not among them, but they were aloof from gloom. They spied and listened, they received and sent secret messengers, and they stole Jane's books and records, and finally the papers that were deeds of her possessions. Through it all they were silent, wrapped in a kind of trance. Then one by one, without leave or explanation or farewell, they left Witherstein house, and never returned. Coincident with this disappearance, Jane's gardeners and workers in the alfalfa fields and stablemen quit her, not even asking for their wages. Of all her Mormon employees about the great ranch, only Jerd remained. He went on with his duty, but talked no more of the change than if it had never occurred. Jerd said, Jane, what stock you can't take care of, turn out in the sage. Let your first thought be for black star and night. Keep them in perfect condition, run them every day, and watch them always. Though Jane Witherstein gave them such liberality, she loved her possessions. She loved the rich green stretches of alfalfa, and the farms, and the grove, and the old stone house, and the beautiful ever-faithful amber spring, and every one of a myriad of horses and colts and burrows and fowls, down to the smallest rabbit that nipped her vegetables. But she loved best her noble Arabian steeds. In common with all riders of the upland sage, Jane cherished two material things, the cold, sweet, brown water that made life possible in the wilderness, and the horses which were a part of that life. When Lasseter asked her what Lasseter would be without his guns, he was assuming that his horse was part of himself. So Jane loved black star and night because it was her nature to love all beautiful creatures, perhaps all living things. And then she loved them because she herself was of the sage, and in her had been born and bred the rider's instinct to rely on his four-footed brother. And when Jane gave Jerd the order to keep her favorites trained down to the day, it was a half-conscious admission that presaged a time when she would need her fleet horses. Jane had now, however, no leisure to brood over the coils that were closing round her. Mrs. Larkin grew weaker as the August days began. She required constant care. There was little faith to look after, and such household work as was imperative. Lasseter put bells in the stable with the other racers, and directed his efforts to a closer attendance upon Jane. He welcomed the change. He was always at hand to help, and it was her fortune to learn that his boast of being awkward around women had its root in humility and was not true. His great brown hands were skilled in a multiplicity of ways which a woman might have envied. He shared Jane's work and was of special help to her in nursing Mrs. Larkin. The woman suffered most at night, and this often broke Jane's rest. So it came about that Lasseter would stay by Mrs. Larkin during the day when she needed care, and Jane would make up the sleep she lost in night watches. Mrs. Larkin at once took kindly to the gentle Lasseter, and, without ever asking who or what he was, praised him to Jane. He's a good man and loves children, she said. How sad to hear this truth spoken of a man whom Jane thought lost beyond all redemption. Yet ever and ever Lasseter towered above her, and behind or through his black sinister figure shone something luminous that strangely affected Jane. Good and evil began to seem incomprehensibly blended in her judgment. It was her belief that evil could not come forth from good. Yet here was a murderer who dwarfed in gentleness, patience, and love any man she had ever known. She had almost lost track of her more outside concerns when early one morning Judkins presented himself before her in the courtyard. Jane, hard, burnt, bearded, with a dust and sage thick on him, with his leather wristband shining from use, and his boots worn through on the stirrup side, he looked the rider of riders. He wore two guns and carried a Winchester. Jane greeted him with surprise and warmth, set meat and bread and drink before him, and called Lasseter out to see him. The men exchanged glances, and the meaning of Lasseter's king inquiry and Judkins' bold reply, both unspoken, was not lost upon Jane. Where's your horse? asked Lasseter, aloud. Left him down the slope, answered Judkins. I footed it in a ways and slept last night in the sage. I went to the place you told me you most always slept but didn't strike you. I moved up some near the spring, and now I go there nights. The white herd? queried Jane hurriedly. Miss Witherstein, I make proud to say I've not lost a steer. For a good while after that stampede Lasseter milled, we had no trouble. Why, even the sage-dogs left us. But it's begun again, that flashing of lights over ridge-tips, and queer puffin' of smoke, and then at night strange whistles and noises. But the herds acted magnificent. And my boys say, Miss Witherstein, they're only kids, but I ask no better riders. I got the laugh in the village for taking them out. They're a wild lot, and you know boys have more nerve than grown men, because they don't know what danger is. I'm not denying there's danger. But they glory in it, and maybe I like it myself. Anyway, we'll stick. We're going to drive the herd on the far side of the first break of deception pass. There's a great round valley over there, and no ridges or piles of rocks to aid these stampeders. The rains are due. We'll have plenty of water for a while, and we can hold that herd from anybody except Old Ring. I come in for supplies. I'll pack a couple of bros and drive out after dark tonight. Judkins, take what you want from the storeroom. Lassiter will help you. I can't thank you enough, but—wait. Jane went to the room that had once been her father's, and from a secret chamber in the thick stone wall she took a bag of gold, and, carrying it back to the court, she gave it to the rider. There, Judkins, and understand that I regard it as little for your loyalty. Give what is fair to your boys, and keep the rest. Hide it. Perhaps that would be wisest. Oh, Miss Witherstein, ejaculated the rider. I couldn't earn so much in ten years. It's not right. I oughtn't take it. Judkins, you know I'm a rich woman. I tell you I have few faithful friends. I've fallen upon evil days. God only knows what will become of me and mine, so take the gold. She smiled in understanding of his speechless gratitude, and left him with Lassiter. Presently she heard him speaking low at first, then in louder accents, emphasized by the thumping of his rifle on the stones. As infernal a job as even you, Lassiter, ever heard of. Why, son, was Lassiter's reply. This breakin' of Miss Witherstein may seem bad to you, but it ain't bad yet. Some of these wall-eyed fellas who looked just as if they were walkin' in the shadow of Christ himself, right down the sunny road, now they can think of things and do things that are really hell-bent. Jane covered her ears and ran to her own room, and there, like a caged lioness, she paced to and fro till the coming of Little Fay reversed her dark thoughts. The following day, a warm and muggy one, threatening rain, a while Jane was resting in the court, a horseman clattered through the grove and up to the hitching rack. He leaped off and approached Jane with the manner of a man determined to execute difficult mission, yet fearful of its reception. In the gaunt, wiry figure and the lean, brown face, Jane recognized one of her Mormon riders, Blake. It was he of whom Judkins had long since spoken. Of all the riders ever in her employ, Blake owed her the most, and as he stepped before her, removing his hat, and making manly efforts to subdue his emotion, he showed that he remembered. Miss Witherstein, mother's dead, he said. Oh, Blake, exclaimed Jane, and she could say no more. She died free from pain in the end, and she's buried, resting at last, thank God. I've come to ride for you again, if you'll have me. Don't think I mentioned mother to get your sympathy. When she was living and your riders quit, I had to also. I was afraid of what might be done, said to her. Miss Witherstein, we can't talk of what's going on now. Blake, do you know? I know a great deal. You understand my lips are shut, but without explanation or excuse, I offer my services. I'm a Mormon, I hope a good one, but there are some things, it's no use, Miss Witherstein, I can't say any more what I'd like to. But will you take me back? Blake, you know what it means. I don't care, I'm sick of—of—I'll show you a Mormon who'll be true to you. But Blake, how terribly you might suffer for that. Maybe aren't you suffering now? God knows, indeed I am. Miss Witherstein, it's a liberty on my part to speak so, but I know you pretty well, know you'll never give in. I wouldn't, if I were you. And I—I must—something makes me tell you the worst is yet to come. That's all. I absolutely can't say more. Will you take me back? Let me ride for you? Show everybody what I mean? Blake, it makes me happy to hear you. How my riders hurt me when they quit? Jane felt the hot tears well to her eyes and splash down upon her hands. I thought so much of them, tried so hard to be good to them, and not one was true. You've made it easy to forgive. Perhaps many of them really feel as you do, but dare not return to me. Still, Blake, I hesitate to take you back. Yet I want you so much. Do it, then. If you're going to make your life a lesson to Mormon women, let me make mine a lesson to the men. Right is right. I believe in you, and here's my life to prove it. You hint it may mean your life. Dead Jane, breathless and low. We won't speak of that. I want to come back. I want to do what every rider aches in his secret heart to do for you. Ms. Witherstein, I hope did not be necessary to tell you that my mother on her deathbed told me to have courage. She knew how the thing galled me. She told me to come back. Will you take me? God bless you, Blake. Yes, I'll take you back. And will you, will you accept gold from me? Ms. Witherstein. I just gave Judkins a bag of gold. I'll give you one. If you will not take it, you must not come back. You might ride for me a few months, weeks, days, till the storm breaks. Then you'd have nothing and be in disgrace with your people. Will forearm you against poverty and me against endless regret. I'll give you gold which you can hide till some future time. Well if it pleases you, replied Blake. But you know I never thought of pay. Now Ms. Witherstein, one thing more. I want to see this man Lasseter. Is he here? Yes, but Blake, what, need you see him? Why? asked Jane, instantly worried. I can speak to him, tell him about you. That won't do. I want to, I've got to tell him myself. Where is he? Lasseter is with Mrs. Larkin. She is ill. I'll call him, answered Jane. And going to the door she softly called for the rider. A faint musical jingle preceded his step. Then his tall form crossed the threshold. Lasseter, here's Blake, an old rider of mine. He has come back to me and he wishes to speak to you. Blake's brown face turned exceedingly pale. Yes, I had to speak to you, he said, swiftly. My name's Blake. I'm a Mormon and a rider. I've come to beg her to take me back. Now I don't know you, but I know what you are. So I've this to say to your face. It would never occur to this woman to imagine, let alone suspect me to be a spy. She couldn't think it might just be a low plot to come here and shoot you in the back. Jane Witherstein hasn't that kind of a mind. Well, I've not come for that. I want to help her to pull a bridle along with Judkins and you. The thing is, do you believe me? I reckon I do, replied Lasseter. How this slow, cool speech contrasted with Blake's hot, impulsive words. You might have saved some of your breath. See here, Blake, cinch this in your mind. Lasseter has met some square Mormons, and maybe— Blake, interrupted Jane, nervously anxious to terminate a colloquy that she perceived was an ordeal for him. Go at once and fetch me a report of my horses. Miss Witherstein, you mean the big drove, down in the sage-cleared fields? Of course, replied Jane. My horses are all there, except the blooded stock I keep here. Haven't you heard, then? Heard? No. What's happened to them? They're gone, Miss Witherstein, gone these ten days past. Dorn told me, and I rowed down to see for myself. Lasseter, did you know? Asked Jane, whirling to him. I reckon so. But what was the use to tell you? It was Lasseter turning away his face and Blake studying the stone flags at his feet that brought Jane to the understanding of what she betrayed. She strove desperately, but she could not rise immediately from such a blow. My horses, my horses, what's become of them? Dorn said the riders report another drive by Uldring, and I trailed the horses miles down the slope toward deception pass. My red herds gone, my horses gone. The white herd will go next. I can stand that. But if I lost black star in night it would be like parting with my own flesh and blood. Lasseter, Blake, am I in danger of losing my racers? A rustler, or anybody stealing hausses of yours, would most of all want the blacks, said Lasseter. His evasive reply was affirmative enough. The other rider nodded gloomy acquiescence. Oh, oh! Jane Withershtine choked with violent utterance. Let me take charge of the blacks, asked Blake. One more rider won't be any great help to Judkins, but I might hold black star in night if you put such store on their value. Value? Blake, I love my racers. Besides, there's another reason why I mustn't lose them. You go to the stables. Go with Judd every day when he runs the horses, and don't let them out of your sight. If you would please me, win my gratitude, guard my black racers. When Blake had mounted and ridden out of the court, Lasseter regarded Jane with the smile that was becoming rarer as the days sped by. Peer to me as Blake says, you do put some store on them hausses. Now I ain't gainsayin' that the Arabians are the handsomest hausses I ever seen. But bells can beat night and run neck and neck with black star. Lasseter, don't tease me now. I'm miserable, sick. Bells is fast, but he can't stay with the blacks, and you know it. Only Wrangel can do that. I'll bet that big, raw-boned brute can mourn show his heels to your black racers. Jane, out there in the sage, on a long chase, Wrangel could kill your favorites. No, no, replied Jane impatiently. Lasseter, why do you say that so often? I know you've teased me at times, and I believe it's only kindness. You're always trying to keep my mind all fo'ry. But you mean more by this repeated mention of my racers. I reckon so. Lasseter paused, and for the thousandth time in her presence moved his black sombrero round and round, as if counting the silver pieces on the band. Well, Jane, I've sort of read a little that's passing in your mind. You think I might fly from my home, from Cottonwoods, from the Utah border? I reckon, and if you ever do and get away with the blacks, I wouldn't like to see Wrangel left here on the sage. Wrangel could catch you. I know Venters had him, but you never can tell. Maybe he hasn't got him now. Besides, things are happening, and something of the same queer nature might have happened to Venters. God knows you're right. Poor Byrne, how long he's gone. In my trouble, I've been forgetting him. But Lasseter, of little fear for him, I've heard my writer say he's keen as a wolf. As to your reading my thoughts, well, your suggestion makes an actual thought of what was only one of my dreams. I believe I'd dreamed of flying from this wild borderland, Lasseter. I've strange dreams. I'm not always practical in thinking of my many duties, as you said once. For instance, if I dared, I'd ask you to settle the blacks and ride away with me, and hide me. Jane. The rider's sunburnt face turned white. A few times Jane had seen Lasseter's cool calm broken when he had met little Faye, when he had learned how and why he had come to love both child and mistress, when he had stood beside Millie Urn's grave. But one and all they could not be considered in the light of his present agitation. Not only did Lasseter turn white, not only did he grow tense, not only did he lose his coolness, but also he suddenly, violently, hungrily, took her into his arms and crushed her to his breast. Lasseter cried Jane, trembling. It was an action for which she took sole blame. Only as if dazed, weakened, he released her. Forgive me, went on Jane. I'm always forgetting your feelings. I thought of you as my faithful friend. I'm always making you out more than human, only let me say I meant that about riding away. I'm wretched, sick of this, this, oh, something bitter and black grows on my heart. Jane, the hell of it, he replied, with deep intake of breath, is you can't ride away, maybe realizing it accounts for my grabbing you that way as much as the crazy boy's rapture your words gave me. I don't understand myself, but the hell of this game is you can't ride away. Lasseter, what on earth do you mean? I'm an absolutely free woman. You ain't absolutely anything of the kind, I reckon I've got to tell you. Tell me all. It's uncertainty that makes me a coward. It's faith and hope, blind love, if you will, that makes me miserable. Every day I awake, believing, still believing. The day grows, and with it doubts, fears, and that black bat-hate that bites hotter and hotter into my heart. Then comes night, I pray. I pray for all and for myself. I sleep, and I awake free once more, trustful, faithful to believe, to hope. Then, oh my God, I grow and live a thousand years till night again. But if you want to see me a woman, tell me why I can't ride away. Tell me what more I'm to lose. Tell me the worst. Jane, you're watched. There ain't no single move of yours, except when you're hid in your house that ain't seen by sharp eyes. The cottonwood groves full of creeping, crawling men, like Indians in the grass. When you rode, which wasn't often lately, the sage was full of sneak and men. At night they crawl under your windows into the court, and I reckon into the house. Jane Witherstein, you know, never locked a door. This here groves a humming beehive of mysterious happenings. Jane, it ain't so much that these souls keep out of my way as me keepin' out of theirs. They're going to try to kill me, that's plain, but maybe I'm as hard to shoot in the back as in the face. So far I've seen fit to watch only. This all means, Jane, that you're a marked woman. You can't get away, not now. Maybe later, when you're broken, you might. But that's sure doubtful. Jane, you're to lose the cattle that's left, your home and ranch, and amber spring. You can't even hide a sack of gold. For it couldn't be slipped out of the house day or night and hid or buried, let alone be rid off with. You may lose all. I'm tellin' ya, Jane, hopin' to prepare you if the worst does come. I told you once before about that strange power I've got to feel things. Lasseter, what can I do? Nothing, I reckon, except know what's comin' and wait and be game. If you let me make a call on tall and a long deferred call on, hush, hush, she whispered. Well, even that wouldn't help you any in the end. What does it mean? Oh, what does it mean? I am my father's daughter, a Mormon, yet I can't see. I've not failed in religion and duty. For years I've given with a free and full heart. When my father died, I was rich. If I'm still rich, it's because I couldn't find enough ways to become poor. What am I? What are my possessions to set in motion such intensity of secret oppression? Jane, the mind behind it all, is an empire builder. But Lasseter, I would give freely all I own to avert this wretched thing. If I gave, that would leave me with faith still. Surely my churchmen think of my soul. If I lose my trust in them. Child, be still, said Lasseter, with a dark dignity that had in it something of pity. You're a woman, fine and big and strong, and your heart matches your size. But in mind, you're a child. I'll say a little more than I'm done. I'll never mention this again. Among many thousands of women, you're one who has bucked against your churchmen. They tried you out, and failed of persuasion, and finally of threats. You meet now the cold steel of a will as far from Christlike as the universe is wide. You're to be broken. Your body's to be held, given to some man, made, if possible, to bring children into the world. But your soul? What do they care for your soul? End of chapter 12.