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vision of life. All tidings the west wind blew from distance and

age he found deep in those dark-blue depths, and found them
mysteries solved. Under their wistful shadow he softened, and in

the softening felt himself grow a sadder, a wiser, and a better
man.

While the west wind blew its tidings, filling his heart full,
teaching him a man's part, the days passed, the purple clouds

changed to white, and the storms were over for that summer.
"I must go now," he said.

"When?" she asked.
"At once--to-night."

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

Late in the afternoon, as the ruddy sun split its last flame in
the ragged notch of the western wall, Bess walked with Venters

along the eastern terrace, up the long, weathered slope, under
the great stone bridge. They entered the narrow gorge to climb

around the fence long before built there by Venters. Farther than
this she had never been. Twilight had already fallen in the

gorge. It brightened to waning shadow in the wider ascent. He
showed her Balancing Rock, of which he had often told her, and

explained its sinister leaning over the outlet. Shuddering, she
looked down the long, pale incline with its closed-in, toppling

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

"I did, surely," replied he.
"It frightens me, somehow. Yet I never was afraid of trails. I'd

ride anywhere a horse could go, and climb where he couldn't. But
there's something fearful here. I feel as--as if the place was

watching me."
"Look at this rock. It's balanced here--balanced perfectly. You

know I told you the cliff-dwellers cut the rock, and why. But
they're gone and the rock waits. Can't you see--feel how it waits

here? I moved it once, and I'll never dare again. A strong heave
would start it. Then it would fall and bang, and smash that crag,

and jar the walls, and close forever the outlet to Deception
Pass!"

"Ah! When you come back I'll steal up here and push and push with
all my might to roll the rock and close forever the outlet to the

Pass!" She said it lightly, but in the undercurrent of her voice
was a heavier note, a ring deeper than any ever given mere play

of words.
"Bess!...You can't dare me! Wait till I come back with supplies--

then roll the stone."
"I--was--in--fun." Her voice now throbbed low. "Always you must

be free to go when you will. Go now...this place presses on
me--stifles me."

"I'm going--but you had something to tell me?"
"Yes....Will you--come back?"

"I'll come if I live."
"But--but you mightn't come?"

"That's possible, of course. It'll take a good deal to kill me. A
man couldn't have a faster horse or keener dog. And, Bess, I've

guns, and I'll use them if I'm pushed. But don't worry."
"I've faith in you. I'll not worry until after four days. Only--

because you mightn't come--I must tell you--"
She lost her voice. Her pale face, her great, glowing, earnest

eyes, seemed to stand alone out of the gloom of the gorge. The
dog whined, breaking the silence.

"I must tell you--because you mightn't come back," she whispered.
"You must know what--what I think of your goodness--of you.

Always I've been tongue-tied. I seemed not to be grateful. It was
deep in my heart. Even now--if I were other than I am--I couldn't

tell you. But I'm nothing--only a rustler's
girl--nameless--infamous. You've saved me-- and I'm--I'm yours to

do with as you like....With all my heart and soul--I love you!"
CHAPTER XV. SHADOWS ON THE SAGE-SLOPE

In the cloudy, threatening, waning summer days shadows lengthened
down the sage-slope, and Jane Withersteen likened them to the

shadows gathering and closing in around her life.
Mrs. Larkin died, and little Fay was left an orphan with no known

relative. Jane's love redoubled. It was the saving brightness of
a darkening hour. Fay turned now to Jane in childishworship. And

Jane at last found full expression for the mother-longing in her
heart. Upon Lassiter, too, Mrs. Larkin's death had some subtle

reaction. Before, he had often, without explanation, advised Jane
to send Fay back to any Gentile family that would take her in.

Passionately and reproachfully and wonderingly Jane had refused
even to entertain such an idea. And now Lassiter never advised it

again, grew sadder and quieter in his contemplation of the child,
and infinitely more gentle and loving. Sometimes Jane had a cold,

inexplicable sensation of dread when she saw Lassiter watching
Fay. What did the rider see in the future? Why did he, day by

day, grow more silent, calmer, cooler, yet sadder in prophetic
assurance of something to be?

No doubt, Jane thought, the rider, in his almost superhuman power
of foresight, saw behind the horizon the dark, lengthening

shadows that were soon to crowd and gloom over him and her and
little Fay. Jane Withersteen awaited the long-deferred breaking

of the storm with a courage and embittered calm that had come to
her in her extremity. Hope had not died. Doubt and fear,

subservient to her will, no longer gave her sleepless nights and
tortured days. Love remained. All that she had loved she now

loved the more. She seemed to feel that she was defiantly
flinging the wealth of her love in the face of misfortune and of

hate. No day passed but she prayed for all--and most fervently
for her enemies. It troubled her that she had lost, or had never

gained, the whole control of her mind. In some measure reason and
wisdom and decision were locked in a chamber of her brain,

awaiting a key. Power to think of some things was taken from her.
Meanwhile, abiding a day of judgment, she fought ceaselessly to

deny the bitter drops in her cup, to tear back the slow, the
intangibly slow growth of a hot, corrosive lichen eating into her

heart.
On the morning of August 10th, Jane, while waiting in the court

for Lassiter, heard a clear, ringing report of a rifle. It came
from the grove, somewhere toward the corrals. Jane glanced out in

alarm. The day was dull, windless, soundless. The leaves of the
cottonwoods drooped, as if they had foretold the doom of

Withersteen House and were now ready to die and drop and decay.
Never had Jane seen such shade. She pondered on the meaning of

the report. Revolver shots had of late cracked from different
parts of the grove--spies taking snap-shots at Lassiter from a

cowardly distance! But a rifle report meant more. Riders seldom
used rifles. Judkins and Venters were the exceptions she called

to mind. Had the men who hounded her hidden in her grove, taken
to the rifle to rid her of Lassiter, her last friend? It was

probable--it was likely. And she did not share his cool
assumption that his death would never come at the hands of a

Mormon. Long had she expected it. His constancy to her, his
singularreluctance to use the fatal skill for which he was

famed-- both now plain to all Mormons--laid him open to
inevitable assassination. Yet what charm against ambush and aim

and enemy he seemed to bear about him! No, Jane reflected, it was
not charm; only a wonderful training of eye and ear, and sense of

impending peril. Nevertheless that could not forever avail
against secret attack.

That moment a rustling of leaves attracted her attention; then
the familiar clinking accompaniment of a slow, soft, measured

step, and Lassiter walked into the court.
"Jane, there's a fellow out there with a long gun," he said, and,

removing his sombrero, showed his head bound in a bloody scarf.
"I heard the shot; I knew it was meant for you. Let me see--you

can't be badly injured?"
"I reckon not. But mebbe it wasn't a close call!...I'll sit here

in this corner where nobody can see me from the grove." He untied
the scarf and removed it to show a long, bleeding furrow above

his left temple.
"It's only a cut," said Jane. "But how it bleeds! Hold your scarf

over it just a moment till I come back."
She ran into the house and returned with bandages; and while she

bathed and dressed the wound Lassiter talked.
"That fellow had a good chance to get me. But he must have

flinched when he pulled the trigger. As I dodged down I saw him
run through the trees. He had a rifle. I've been expectin' that

kind of gun play. I reckon now I'll have to keep a little closer
hid myself. These fellers all seem to get chilly or shaky when

they draw a bead on me, but one of them might jest happen to hit
me."

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

"I reckon I'll stay."
"But, oh, Lassiter--your blood will be on my hands!"

"See here, lady, look at your hands now, right now. Aren't they
fine, firm, white hands? Aren't they bloody now? Lassiter's

blood! That's a queer thing to stain your beautiful hands. But if
you could only see deeper you'd find a redder color of blood.

Heart color, Jane!"
"Oh!...My friend!"

"No, Jane, I'm not one to quit when the game grows hot, no more
than you. This game, though, is new to me, an' I don't know the

moves yet, else I wouldn't have stepped in front of that bullet."
"Have you no desire to hunt the man who fired at you--to find

him--and-- and kill him?"
"Well, I reckon I haven't any great hankerin' for that."

"Oh, the wonder of it!...I knew--I prayed--I trusted. Lassiter, I
almost gave--all myself to soften you to Mormons. Thank God, and

thank you, my friend....But, selfish woman that ] am, this is no
great test. What's the life of one of those sneaking cowards to

such a man as you? I think of your great hate toward him who--I
think of your life's implacable purpose. Can it

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

He rose noiselessly, with his ear to the breeze. Suddenly he
pulled his sombrero down over his bandaged head and, swinging his

gun-sheaths round in front, he stepped into the alcove.
"It s a hoss--comin' fast," he added.

Jane's listening ear soon caught a faint, rapid, rhythmic beat of
hoofs. It came from the sage. It gave her a thrill that she was

at a loss to understand. The sound rose stronger, louder. Then
came a clear, sharp difference when the horse passed from the

sage trail to the hard-packed ground of the grove. It became a
ringing run--swift in its bell-like clatterings, yet singular in

longer pause than usual between the hoofbeats of a horse.
"It's Wrangle!...It's Wrangle!" cried Jane Withersteen. "I'd know

him from a million horses!"
Excitement and thrilling expectancy flooded out all Jane

Withersteen s calm. A tight band closed round her breast as she
saw the giant sorrel flit in reddish-brown flashes across the

openings in the green. Then he was pounding down the
lane--thundering into the court--crashing his great iron-shod

hoofs on the stone flags. Wrangle it was surely, but shaggy and
wild-eyed, and sage-streaked, with dust-caked lather staining his

flanks. He reared and crashed down and plunged. The rider leaped
off, threw the bridle, and held hard on a lasso looped round

Wrangle's head and neck. Janet's heart sank as she tried to
recognize Venters in the rider. Something familiar struck her in

the lofty stature in the sweep of powerful shoulders. But this
bearded, longhaired, unkempt man, who wore ragged clothes patched

with pieces of skin, and boots that showed bare legs and
feet--this dusty, dark, and wild rider could not possibly be



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