Riders of the Purple Sage, Zane Grey [best classic novels TXT] 📗

straight through the middle, where the water spread into a fleecy, thin film like dissolving smoke. Following closely, the rustlers rode into this white mist, showing in bold black relief for an instant, and then they vanished.

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

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

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

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

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

“Who⁠—are⁠—you?” she whispered, haltingly.

“I’m the man who shot you,” he replied.

“You’ll⁠—not⁠—kill me⁠—now?”

“No, no.”

“What⁠—will⁠—you⁠—do⁠—with me?”

“When you get better⁠—strong enough⁠—I’ll take you back to the canyon where the rustlers ride through the waterfall.”

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

“Don’t⁠—take⁠—me⁠—back⁠—there!”

VI The Mill-Wheel of Steers

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

“Judkins, what do you think happened to my riders?”

“I⁠—I d rather not say,” he replied.

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

“Well, Miss Withersteen, I think as Venters thinks⁠—your riders have been called in.”

“Judkins!⁠ ⁠… By whom?”

“You know who handles the reins of your Mormon riders.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In aiding these poor people Jane thought she deceived her keen churchmen, but it was a kind of deceit for which she did not pray to be forgiven. Equally as difficult was the task of deceiving the Gentiles, for they were as proud as they were poor. It had been a great grief to her to discover how these people