Essential Novelists - Zane Grey. Zane Grey

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 he had gone. His footsteps made no sound in the deep grass, and he approached close without her being aware of his presence. Whitie 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. Venters could have sworn and laughed in one breath at the idea of the connection between this girl and Oldring'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. Venters 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 Venters 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 succor her, held him dumb.

      “What a load you had!” she said. “Why, they're pots and crocks! Where did you get them?”

      Venters 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. Rabbits 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—the men say the Pass is full of old houses and ruins.”

      “Why, I should think you'd have run across one in all your riding around,” said Venters. 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—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.”

      Venters tried to subdue a hot tingling.

      “You were shut up, then?” he asked, carelessly.

      “When Oldring 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, and 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 Venters's part to persist in his unconcern and to keep at 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've 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. Oldring 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 Oldring takes long trips,” mused Venters. “Do you know where he goes?”

      “No. Every year he drives cattle north of Sterling—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.”

      Venters 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 Oldring was something besides a rustler. Tell me, what's his purpose here in the Pass? I believe much that 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 drive a few cattle and go into the villages to drink and shoot and kill—to bluff the riders.”

      “Drive a few cattle! But, Bess, the Withersteen herd, the red herd—twenty-five hundred head! That's not a few. And I tracked them into a valley near here.”

      “Oldring never stole the red herd. He made a deal with Mormons. The riders were to be called in, and Oldring 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 Venters.

      “No. But it was a trick of Mormons. They're full of tricks. I've heard Oldring's men tell about Mormons. Maybe the Withersteen 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 Venters.

      “That's it. I remember—it's a name easy to remember—and Jerry Card appeared to be on fair terms with Oldring's men.”

      “I shouldn't wonder,” replied Venters, thoughtfully. Verification of his suspicions in regard to Tull's underhand work—for the deal with Oldring made by Jerry Card assuredly had its inception in the Mormon Elder's brain, and had been accomplished through his orders—revived in Venters 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