Classic Audiobook Collection - Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey ~ Full Audiobook [adventure]

Episode Date: June 3, 2023

Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey audiobook. Genre: adventure The year is 1871, and wealthy ranch owner Jane Withersteen is in trouble. She has incurred the displeasure of her Mormon church leaders by refusing to marry a church elder and by befriending Gentiles (non-Mormons). In rides Lassiter, the quintessential Western hero: mysterious, purposeful, a deadly gunslinger, but with an unexpected streak of gentleness. While Lassiter is assisting Jane at the ranch, her friend and rider Bern Venters is having an adventure of his own in the Utah canyonlands. Riders of the Purple Sage is a story of heroism, love, brave men and strong women, good dogs and fast horses. And who is that Masked Rider? For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:20:53) Chapter 02 (00:43:03) Chapter 03 (01:07:15) Chapter 04 (01:34:15) Chapter 05 (01:59:26) Chapter 06 (02:33:13) Chapter 07 (02:54:01) Chapter 08 (03:23:24) Chapter 09 (03:54:23) Chapter 10 (04:25:40) Chapter 11 (05:00:57) Chapter 12 (05:33:38) Chapter 13 (06:01:57) Chapter 14 (06:22:27) Chapter 15 (07:03:01) Chapter 16 (07:25:26) Chapter 17 (08:00:46) Chapter 18 (08:34:06) Chapter 19 (09:01:35) Chapter 20 (09:26:55) Chapter 21 (10:03:24) Chapter 22 (10:18:48) Chapter 23 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray Chapter 1, Lassiter A sharp clip clop of iron-shod hoofs deadened and died away, and clouds of yellow dust drifted from under the cottonwoods out over the sage. Jane Witherstein gazed down the wide purple slope with dreamy and troubled eyes. A writer had just left her, and it was his message that held her thoughtful and almost sad, awaiting the churchmen who were coming to resent and attack her right to befriend a Gentile. She wondered if the unrest and strife that had lately come to the little village of Cottonwoods was to involve her.

And then she sighed, remembering that her father had founded this remotest border settlement of southern Utah, and that he had left it to her. She owned all the ground and many of the cottages. Witherstein House was hers, and the great ranch, with its thousands of cattle, and the swiftest horses of the sage. To her belonged Amber Spring, the water which gave her. verdure and beauty to the village, and made living possible on that wild purple upland waste. She could not escape being involved by whatever befell Cottonwoods.

That year, 1871, had marked a change which had been gradually coming in the lives of the peace-loving Mormons of the border. Glaze, Stonebridge, Stirling, villages to the north, had risen against the invasion of Gentile settlers and the forays of rustlers. There had been opposition to the one and fighting with the other, and now Cottonwoods had begun to wake and bestir itself and grown hard. Jane prayed that the tranquility and sweetness of her life would not be permanently disrupted. She meant to do so much more for her people than she had done. She wanted the sleepy, quiet, pastoral days to last always. Trouble between the Mormons and Gentiles of the community would make her unhappy. She was Mormon-born, and she was a friend

to poor and unfortunate Gentiles. She wished only to go on doing good and being happy. And she thought of what that great ranch meant to her. She loved it all, the grove of cottonwoods, the old stone house, the amber-tinted water, and the droves of shaggy, dusty horses in Mustangs, the sleek, clean-limbed, blooded racers, and the browsing herds of cattle, and the lean, sun-brown riders of the sage. While she waited there, she forgot the prospect of untoward change. The bray of a lazy burrow broke the afternoon quiet, and it was comfortingly suggestive of the drowsy farmyard and the open corrals and the green alfalfa fields.

Her clear sight intensified the purple sage slope as it rolled before her. Low swells of prairie-like ground sloped up to the west. Dark, lonely cedar trees, few and far between, stood out strikingly, and at long distances ruins of red rocks. Farther on, up the gradual slope, rose of broken. wall, a huge monument looming dark purple, and stretching its solitary, mystic way, a wavering line that faded in the north. Here to the westward was the light and color and beauty. Northward the slope descended to a dim line of canyons from which rose an uphanging of earth, not mountainous, but a vast heave of purple uplands with ribbed and fan-shaped walls,

castle-crowned cliffs and gray escarpments. Over at all crept the lengthening, waning afternoon shadows. The rapid beat of hoofs recalled Jane Witherstein to the question at hand. A group of riders cantered up the lane, dismounted, and threw their bridles. They were seven in number, and Tull, the leader, a tall dark man, was an elder of Jane's church. Did you get my message? he asked, curtly. Yes, replied Jane. I sent word I'd give that rider Vinter's half an hour to come down to the village. He didn't come.

He knows nothing of it. said Jane. I didn't tell him. I've been waiting here for you. Where is Venters? I left him in the courtyard. Here, Jerry, called Tull, turning to his men. Take the gang and fetch Vinters out here if you have to rope him. The dusty-booted and long-spurred riders clanked noisily into the grove of Cottonwoods and disappeared in the shade. Elder Tull, what do you mean by this? demanded Jane.

If you must arrest Venters, you might have the Kurdish. to wait till he leaves my home, and if you do arrest him, it will be adding insult to injury. It's absurd to accuse Vinters of being mixed up in that shooting fray in the village last night. He was with me at the time. Besides, he let me take charge of his guns. You're only using this as a pretext. What do you mean to do to Vinters? I'll tell you presently, replied Tull. But first, tell me why you defend this worthless rider. "'Worthless!' exclaimed Jane, indignantly. "'He's nothing of the kind. He was the best writer I ever had.

There's not a reason why I shouldn't champion him, and every reason why I should. It's no little shame to me, Elder Tull, that through my friendship he has roused the enmity of my people and become an outcast. Besides, I owe him eternal gratitude for saving the life of Little Fay. I've heard of your love for Fay Larkin, and that you intend to adopt her. But Jane Withersstein, the child is a Gentile. Yes, but, elder, I don't love the Mormon children any less because I love a Gentile child. I shall adopt Faye if her mother will give her to me. I'm not so much against that.

You can give the child Mormon teaching, said Tall. But I'm sick of seeing this fellow Vinters hang around you. I'm going to put a stop to it. You've so much love to throw away on those beggars of Gentiles that I've an idea you might love Venters. "'Tull spoke with the arrogance of a Mormon whose power could not be brooked, "'and with the passion of a man in whom jealousy had kindled a consuming fire. "'Maybe I do love him,' said Jane.

"'She felt both fear and anger stir her heart. "'I'd never thought of that. "'Poor fellow, he certainly needs someone to love him.' "'This will be a bad day for Venters unless you deny that,' returned Tull, grimly. "'Tull's men appeared under the Cottonwoods and led a young man out into the lane, His ragged clothes were those of an outcast, but he stood tall and straight, his wide shoulders flung back with the muscles of his bound arms rippling and a blue flame of defiance in the gaze he bent on Tall.

For the first time Jane Witherstein felt Vinter's real spirit. She wondered if she would love this splendid youth. Then her emotion cooled to the sobering sense of the issue at stake. Venters, will you leave Cottonwoods at once and forever? asked Tull, tensely. Why? rejoined the rider. Because I order it. Vinter's laughed in cool disdain. The red leaped to Tull's dark cheek.

If you don't go, it means your ruin, he said sharply. Ruin, exclaimed Venters passionately. Haven't you already ruined me? What do you call ruin? A year ago, I was a rider. I had horses and cattle of my own. I had a good name in Cottonwoods. And now, when I come into the village to see this woman, you set your men on me.

You hound me. You trail me as if I were a rustler. I've no more to lose, except my life. Will you leave Utah? Oh, I know, went on Vinter's tauntingly. It galls you, the idea of beautiful Jane Witherstein being friendly to a poor Gentile. You want her all yourself. You're a wiving Mormon.

You have use for her. and Witherstein House, and Amber Spring, and 7,000 head of cattle. Tull's hard jaw protruded, and rioting blood corded the veins of his neck. Once more, will you go? No. Then I'll have you whipped within an inch of your life, replied Tull harshly. I'll turn you out in the sage, and if you ever come back, you'll get worse. Venter's agitated face grew coldly set, and the bronze changed.

Jane impulsively stepped forward. Oh, Elder Tull, she cried. You won't do that. Toll lifted a shaking finger toward her. That'll do from you. Understand you'll not be allowed to hold this boy to a friendship that's offensive to your bishop. Jane Witherstein, your father left you wealth in power. It has turned your head. You haven't yet come to see the place of Mormon women. We've reasoned with you, born with you. We've patiently waited. We've let you have you have to have. have your fling, which is more than I ever saw granted to a Mormon woman. But you haven't come to your

senses. Now, once for all, you can't have any further friendship with ventures. He's going to be whipped, and he's got to leave Utah. Oh, don't whip him. It would be dastardly, implored Jane, with slow certainty of her failing courage. Tull always blunted her spirit, and she grew conscious that she had feigned a boldness which she did not possess. He loomed up now in different guise, not as a jealous suitor, but embodying the mysterious despotism she had known from childhood, the power of her creed. "'Venters, will you take your whipping here, or would you rather go out in the sage?' asked Tull. He smiled a flinty smile that was more than inhuman, yet seemed to give out of its dark aloofness,

a gleam of righteousness. "'I'll take it here, if I must,' said Venters. "'But, by God, Tull, you'd better kill me outright. That'll be a dear whipping for you and your praying Mormons. You'll make me another Lassiter. The strange glow, the austere light which radiated from Tull's face, might have been a holy joy at the spiritual conception of exalted duty. But there was something more in him, barely hidden,

a something personal and sinister, a deep of himself, an engulfing abyss. As his religious mood was fanatical and inexorable, so would his physical hate be merciless. Elder, I repent my words, Jane faltered. The religion in her, the long habit of obedience, of humility, as well as agony of fear, spoke in her voice. Spare the boy, she whispered. You can't save him now, replied Tull stridently.

Her head was bowing to the inevitable. She was grasping the truth when suddenly there came an inward constriction, a hardening of gentle forces within her breast. Like a steel bar it was stiffening all that had been soft and weak in her. She felt a birth in her of something new and unintelligible. Once more her strained gaze sought the sage slopes. Jane Witherstein loved that wild and purple wilderness. In times of sorrow it had been her strength.

In happiness its beauty was her continual delight. In her extremity she found herself murmuring, "'Winst cometh my help.' It was a prayer, as if forth from those lonely purple reaches and walls of red and clefts of blue might ride a fearless man, neither creed bound nor creed mad, who would hold up a restraining hand in the faces of her ruthless people. The restless movements of Tull's men suddenly quieted down.

Then followed a low whisper, a rustle, a sharp exclamation. Look, said one, pointing to the west. A rider! Jane Witherstein wheeled and saw a horseman, silhouetted against the western sky come riding out of the sage. He had ridden down from the left in the golden glare of the sun, and had been unobserved till close at hand, an answer to her prayer. Do you know him? Does anyone know him? Questioned tall hurriedly. His men looked and looked, and one by one shook their heads.

He's come from far, said one. That's a fine horse, said another. A strange rider. "'Huh, he wears black leather,' added a fourth. With a wave of his hand, in joining silence, Tull stepped forward in such a way that he concealed Vinters. The rider reined in his mount, and with a lithe, forward-slipping action, appeared to reach the ground in one long step.

It was a peculiar movement in its quickness, and inasmuch that, while performing it, the rider did not swerve in the slightest from a square front to the group before him. "'Look,' hoarsely whispered one of Tull's companions. He packs two black-butted guns, low down, they're hard to see. Black again them black chaps. A gunman, whispered another. Fellers, careful now about moving your hands.

The stranger's slow approach might have been a mere leisurely manner of gait, or the cramped short steps of a rider unused to walking. Yet, as well, it could have been the guarded advance of one who took no chances with men. Hello, stranger, called tall. no welcome was in this greeting, only a gruff curiosity. The writer responded with a curt nod. The wide brim of a black sombrero cast a dark shade over his face. For a moment he closely regarded Tull in his comrades,

and then, halting in his slow walk, he seemed to relax. Evening ma'am, he said to Jane, and removed his sombrero with quaint grace. Jane, greeting him, looked up into a face that she trusted instinctively, which riveted her attention. It had all the characteristics of the range-riders, the leanness, the red burn of the sun, and the set changelessness that came from years of silence and solitude. But it was not these which held her, rather the intensity of his gaze, a strained weariness, a piercing wistfulness of keen gray sight, as if the man was forever looking for that which he

never found. Jane's subtle woman's intuition, even in that brief instant, felt a sadness, a hungering, a secret. Jane Witherstein, ma'am, he inquired. Yes, she replied. The water here is yours? Yes. May I water my horse? Certainly, there's the trough.

But maybe if you knew who I was, he hesitated with his glance on the listening men. Maybe you wouldn't let me water him, though I ain't asking none for myself. Stranger, it doesn't matter who you are. What are your horse? horse, and if you're thirsty and hungry, come into my house. Thanks, ma'am. I can't accept for myself, but for my tired horse.

Trampling of hooks interrupted the rider. More restless movements on the part of Tull's men broke up the little circle, exposing the prisoner ventures. Maybe I've kind of hindered something for a few moments, perhaps, inquired the rider. Yes, replied Jane Witherstein with a throb in her voice. She felt the drawing power of his eyes, and then she saw him look at the bound venters, and at the men who held him, and their leader. And this here country, all the rustlers and thieves and cut-throats and gun-throwers, and all-round no-good men just happen to be Gentiles.

Ma'am, which of the no-good class does that young feller belong to? He belongs to none of them. He's an honest boy. You know that, ma'am? Yes, yes. Then what is he done to get tied up that way? His clear and distinct question meant for Tall as well as for Jane Witherstein, stilled the restlessness and brought a momentary silence.

Ask him, replied Jane, her voice rising high. The rider stepped away from her, moving out with the same slow, measured stride in which he had approached, and the fact that his action placed her wholly to one side and him no nearer to Tall in his men had a penetrating significance. Young feller, speak up, he said. deventors. Here, stranger, this is none of your mix, began Toll. Don't try any interference.

You've been asked to drink and eat. That's more than you'd have gotten in any other village of the Utah border. Water your horse, and be on your way. Easy, easy, I ain't interfering yet, replied the rider. The tone of his voice had undergone a change. A different man had spoken, where, in addressing Jane, he had been mild and gentle, now, with his first speech to Toll, he was. was dry, cool, fighting.

I've just stumbled onto a queer deal. Seven Mormons all packin guns and a Gentile tied with rope, and a woman who swears by his honesty. Queer ain't that? Queer or not, it's none of your business, retorted Tull. Where I was raised, a woman's word was law. I ain't quite outgrowed that yet. Tull fumed between a maze and anger.

Meddler, we have a law here, something different from woman's whim. Mormon law. Take care you don't transgress it. To hell with your Mormon law. The deliberate speech marked the writers further change, this time from kindly interest to an awakening menace. It produced a transformation in Tull and his companions. The leader gasped and staggered backward at a blasphemous affront to an institution he held most sacred. The man Jerry, holding the horses, dropped the bridles and froze in his tracks. Like posts, the other men stood watchful eyes.

arms hanging rigid, all waiting. Speak up now, young man. What have you done to be roped that way? It's a damned outrage, burst out venters. I've done no wrong. I've offended this Mormon elder by being a friend to that woman. Ma'am, is it true what he says? asked the writer of Jane, but his quiveringly alert eyes never left the little knot of quiet men. True? Yes, perfectly true, she answered. Well, young man, it seems to me that. that being a friend to such a woman would be what you wouldn't want to help and couldn't help.

What's to be done to you for it? They intend to whip me. You know what that means in Utah. I reckon, replied the rider slowly. With his gray glance cold on the Mormons, with the restive bit-champing of the horses, with Jane failing to repress her mounting agitations, with Venters standing pale and still,

the tension of the moment tightened. Tull broke the spell with a laugh, A laugh without mirth, a laugh that was only a sound betraying fear. Come on, men, he called. Jane Witherstein turned again to the rider. Stranger, can you do nothing to save Venters? Ma'am, you ask me to save him, from your own people? Ask you, I beg of you.

But you don't dream who you're asking. Oh, sir, I pray you, save him. These are Mormons, and I, "'At any cost, save him, for I—I care for him.' "'Tull snarled. You love-sick, fool. Tell your secrets. There'll be a way to teach you what you've never learned. Come in, out of here.' "'Mormon, the young man stays,' said the writer. Like a shot, his voice halted Tull. "'What? Who will keep him? He's my prisoner,' cried Tull hotly. "'Stranger, again I tell you, don't mix here. You've meddled enough.'

Go your way now, or— Listen, he stays. Absolute certainty, beyond any shadow of doubt, breathed in the rider's low voice. Who are you? We are seven here. The rider dropped his sombrero and made a rapid movement, singular in that it left him somewhat crouched, arms bent and stiff, with the big black gun sheaths swung around to the fore. Lassiter! It was Vinter's wondering, thrilling cry that bridged the fateful canal. between the rider's singular position and the dreaded name.

Tull put out a groping hand. The life of his eyes dulled to the gloom with which men of his fear saw the approach of death. But death, while it hovered over him, did not descend, for the rider waited for the twitching fingers, the downward flash of hand that did not come. Tull, gathering himself together, turned to the horses, attended by his pale comrades.

End of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 of Writers of the Purple Sage This is a Libravox recording All Libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org Recorded by Laurie Ann Walden Writer of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray

Chapter 2, Cottonwoods Venters appeared too deeply moved to speak the gratitude his face expressed and Jane turned upon the rescuer and gripped his hands. Her smiles and tears seemingly dazed him. Presently, as something like calmness returned, she went to Lasseter's weary horse. I will water him myself, she said,

and she led the horse to a trough under a huge old cottonwood. With nimble fingers she loosened the bridle and removed the bit. The horse snorted and bent his head. The trough was of solid stone, hollowed out, moss-covered and green, and wet and cool, and the clear brown water that fed it spouted and splashed from a wooden pipe. He has brought you far today? Yes, ma'am, a matter of over sixty miles, maybe seventy. A long ride, a ride that—ah, he is blind.

Yes, ma'am, replied Lassiter. What blinded him? Some men once roped and tied him, and then held white iron close to his eyes. Oh, men, you mean devils. Were they your enemies, Mormons? Yes, ma'am. To take revenge on a horse. Lasseter, the men of my creed are unnaturally cruel. To my everlasting sorrow, I confess it. They have been driven, hated, scourged till their hearts have hardened. But we women hope and pray for the time when our men will soften. Begging your pardon, ma'am, that time will never come. Oh, it will.

Lasseter, do you think Mormon women wicked? Has your hand been against them, too? No, I believe Mormon women are the best and noblest, the most long-suffering, and the blindest, unhappiest women on earth. Ah, she gave him a grave, thoughtful look. Then you will break bread with me? Lassiter had no ready response, and he uneasily shifted his weight from one leg to another,

and turned his sombrero round and round. in his hands. "'Ma'am,' he began presently, "'I reckon your kindness of heart makes you overlook things. Perhaps I ain't well known hereabouts, but back up north there's Mormons who rest uneasy in their graves at the idea of me sitting to table with you.' "'I dare say, but will you do it anyway?' she asked.

"'Maybe you have a brother or a relative who might drop in and be offended, and I wouldn't want to—' "'I've not a relative in Utah that I know of. There's no one with a right to question my actions. She turned smilingly to Vinters. You will come in, Byrne, and Lasseter will come in. We'll eat and be merry while we may. I'm only wondering if Tull and his men will raise a storm down in the village,

said Lassiter in his last weakening stand. Yes, he'll raise the storm after he has prayed, replied Jane. Come. She led the way with the bridle of Lasseter's horse over her arm. They entered a grove and walked down a wide path shaded by great low-branching cotton woods. The last rays of the setting sun sent golden bars through the leaves. The grass was deep and rich, welcome contrast to sage-tired eyes. Twittering quail darted across the path, and from a treetop somewhere a robin sang its evening song,

and on the still air floated the freshness and murmur of flowing water. The home of Jane Witherstein stood in a circle of cottonwoods, and was a flat, long, red stone structure with a covered court in the center, through which flowed a lively stream of amber-colored water. In the massive blocks of stone and heavy timbers and solid doors and shutters, showed the hand of a man who had built it against pillage and time, and in the flowers and mosses lining the stone-bedded stream, in the bright colors of rugs and blankets on the court floor,

and the cozy corner with hammock and books, and the clean linen table, showed the grace of a daughter who lived for happiness and the day at hand. Jane turned Lasseter's horse loose in the thick grass. You will want him to be near you, she said, or I'd have him taken to the alfalfa fields. At her call appeared women who began at once to bustle about, hurrying to and fro setting the table.

Then Jane, excusing herself, went within. She passed through a huge, low-sealed chamber, like the inside of a fort, and into a smaller one where a bright wood fire blazed in an old open fireplace, and from this into her own room. It had the same comfort as was manifested in the home-like outer court. Moreover, it was warm and rich in soft hues. Seldom did Jane Witherstein enter her room without looking into her mirror.

She knew she loved the reflection of that beauty, which since early childhood she had never been allowed to forget. Her relatives and friends, and later a horde of Mormon and Gentile superiors, had fanned the flame of natural vanity in her, so that at twenty-eight she scarcely thought at all of her wonderful influence for good in the little community where her father had left her practically its beneficent landlord, but cared most for the dream and the assurance and the allurement of her beauty. This time, however, she gazed into her glass with more than the usual happy motive, without the usual slight conscious smile, for she was thinking of more

than the desire to be fair in her own eyes, in those of her friend. She wondered if she were to seem fair in the eyes of this Lassiter, this man whose name had crossed the long, wild breaks of stone and plains of sage, this gentle-voiced, sad-faced man who was a hater and a killer of Mormons. It was not now her usual half-conscious vain obsession that actuated her, as she hurriedly changed her riding dress to one of white, and then looked long at the stately form with its gracious contours, at the fair face with its strong chin and full firm lips, at the dark blue, proud, and passionate eyes. If by some means I can keep him here a few days a week,

he will never kill another Mormon, she mused. Lassiter, I shudder when I think of that name, of him. But when I look at the man, I forget who he is. I almost like him. I remember only that he saved Byrne. He has suffered. I wonder what it was. Did he love a Mormon woman once?

How splendidly he championed us poor misunderstood souls. Somehow he knows much. Jane Witherstein joined her guests and bade them to her board. Dismissing her woman, she waited upon them with her own hands. It was a bountiful supper and a strange company. On her right sat the ragged and half-starved venters, and though blind eyes could have seen what he counted for in the sum of her happiness, yet he looked the gloomy outcast his allegiance had made him,

and about him there was the shadow of the ruin presaged by Tull. On her left sat black leather-garbed Lasseter, looking like a man in a dream. Hunger was not with him, nor composure, nor speech, and when he twisted in frequent unquiet movements, the heavy guns that he had not removed knocked against the table legs. If it had been otherwise possible to forget the presence of Lassiter, those telling little jars would have rendered it unlikely. and Jane Witherstein talked and smiled and laughed with all the dazzling play of lips and eyes

that a beautiful, daring woman could summon to her purpose. When the meal ended and the men pushed back their chairs, she leaned closer to Lasseter and looked square into his eyes. Why did you come to Cottonwoods? Her question seemed to break a spell. The writer arose as if he had just remembered himself and had harried longer than his want. "'Ma'am, I have hunted all over the southern Utah and Nevada for something, and through your name I learned where to find it, here in Cottonwoods.

"'My name? Oh, I remember. You did know my name when you spoke first. "'Well, tell me where you heard it, and from whom?' "'At the little village, Glaze, I think it's called, some fifty miles or more west of here. "'And I heard it from a Gentile, a writer who said you'd know where to tell me to find—' "'What?' she demanded, impious. curiously as Lasseter broke off. Millie Earn's grave, he answered low, and the words came with a wrench. Venters wheeled in his chair to regard Lassiter in amazement,

and Jane slowly raised herself in white, still wonder. Millie Earn's grave, she echoed in a whisper. What did you know of Millie Earn, my best-beloved friend who died in my arms? What were you to her? Did I claim to be anything, he asked. I know people, relatives, who have long wanted to know where she's buried. That's all. Relatives?

She never spoke of relatives except a brother who was shot in Texas. Lasseter, Millie Earn's grave is in a secret burying ground on my property. Will you take me there? You'll be offended Mormons worse than by breaking bread with me. Indeed, yes, but I'll do it, only we must go unseen, tomorrow, perhaps. Thank you, Jane Witherstein, replied the writer, and he bowed to you. to her and stepped backward out of the court. Will you not stay, sleep under my roof? she asked.

No, ma'am, and thanks again. I never sleep indoors. And even if I did, there's that gathering storm in the village below. No, no, I'll go to the sage. I hope you won't suffer none for your kindness to me. Lasseter, said Venters, with a half-bitter laugh. My bed, too, is the sage. Perhaps we may meet out there. Maybe so, but the sage is what. and I won't be near. Good night. At Lasseter's low whistle, the black horse whinnied and carefully picked his blind way out of the grove. The rider did not bridle him, but walked beside him,

leading him by touch of hand, and together they passed slowly into the shade of the cottonwoods. "'Jane, I must be off soon,' said Venters. "'Give me my guns. If I'd had my guns—' "'Either my friend or the elder of my church would be lying dead,' she interposed. "'Tull would be, surely. "'Oh, you fierce-spletted savage youth, "'can't I teach you forbearance, mercy? "'Burn, it's divine to forgive your enemies. "'Let not the sun go down upon thy wrath.'

"'Hush, talk to me no more of mercy or religion after to-day. "'Today this strange coming of Lasseter left me still a man, "'and now I'll die a man. "'Give me my guns.' "'Silently she went into the house "'to return with a heavy cartridge-belt "'and gun-filled sheath and a long rifle. These she handed to him, and as he buckled on the belt, she stood before him in silent eloquence.

Jane, he said, in gentler voice, don't look so. I'm not going out to murder your churchman. I'll try to avoid him and all his men. But can't you see I've reached the end of my rope? Jane, you're a wonderful woman. Never was there a woman so unselfish and good. Only you're blind in one way. Listen.

From behind the grove came the clicking sound of horses in a rapid trot. "'Some of your riders,' he continued. "'It's getting time for the night shift. "'Let us go out to the bench in the grove and talk there. "'It was still daylight in the open, "'but under the spreading cottonwoods, shadows were obscuring the lanes. "'Venters drew Jane off from one of these into a shrub-lined trail, "'just wide enough for the two to walk abreast,

"'and in a roundabout way led her far from the house to a knoll on the edge of the grove. "'Here in a secluded nook was a bench from which, through an opening in the treetops, could be seen the sage slope and the wall of rock and the dim lines of canyons. Jane had not spoken since Venters had shocked her with his first harsh speech, but all the way she had clung to his arm, and now, as he stopped and laid his rifle against the bench, she still clung to him. Jane, I'm afraid I must leave you. Burn, she cried. Yes, it looks that way. My position is not a happy one. I can't feel right. I've lost all. I'll give you anything you? Listen, please. When I say loss, I don't mean what you think.

I mean loss of goodwill, good name, that which would have enabled me to stand up in this village without bitterness. Well, it's too late. Now, as to the future, I think you'd do best to give me up. Tull is implacable. You ought to see from his intention today that, but you can't see. Your blindness, your damned religion. Jane, forgive me. I'm sore within, and I'm sore within. And and something rankles. Well, I fear that invisible hand will turn its hidden work to your ruin. Invisible hand, fern. I mean your bishop.

Vinter said it deliberately, and would not release her as she started back. He's the law. The edict went forth to ruin me. Well, look at me. It'll now go forth to compel you to the will of the church. You wrong, Bishop Dyer. Tull is hard, I know, but then he has been in love with me for years. Oh, your faith and your excuses.

You can't see what I know, and if you did see it, you'd not admit it to save your life. That's the Mormon of you. These elders and bishops will do absolutely any deed to go on building up the power and wealth of their church, their empire. Think of what they've done to the Gentiles here, to me. Think of Millie Earn's fate. What do you know of her story? I know enough. All, perhaps, except the name of the Mormon who brought her here.

but I must stop this kind of talk. She pressed his hand in response. He helped her to a seat beside him on the bench, and he respected a silence that he divined was full of woman's deep emotion beyond his understanding. It was the moment when the last ruddy rays of the sunset brightened momentarily before yielding to twilight, and for Venters the outlook before him was in some sense similar to a feeling of his future,

and with searching eyes he studied the beautiful purple, barren waste sage. Here was the unknown and the perilous. The whole scene impressed Vinters as a wild, austere, and mighty manifestation of nature, and as it somehow reminded him of his prospect in life, so it suddenly resembled the woman near him, only in her there were greater beauty and peril, a mystery more unsolvable, and something nameless that numbed his heart and dimmed his eye. "'Look, a writer!' exclaimed Jane, breaking the silence. "'Can that be Lassiter?' "'Venters moved his glance once more to the west.

"'A horseman showed dark on the skyline, "'then merged into the color of the sage. "'It might be, but I think not. "'That fellow was coming in. "'One of your riders more likely. "'Yes, I see him clearly now, and there's another. "'I see them, too. "'Jane, your riders seem as many as the bunches of sage.

"'I ran into five yesterday, way down near the trail to deception past. They were with the white herd. You still go to that canyon? Byrne, I wish you wouldn't. Old Ring and his rustlers live somewhere down there. Well, what of that? Tull has already hinted to your frequent trips into deception pass. I know, Venter's uttered a short laugh.

He'll make a rustler of me next. But Jane, there's no water for fifty miles after I leave here, and the nearest is in the canyon. I must drink and water my horse. There, I see more riders. They're going out. The red herd is on the slope toward the pass. Twilight was fast falling.

A group of horsemen crossed the dark line of low ground to become more distinct as they climbed the slope. The silence broke to a clear call from an incoming rider, and, almost like the peal of a hunting horn, floated back the answer. The outgoing riders moved swiftly, came sharply into sight as they topped a ridge to show wild and black above the river.

horizon, and then passed down, dimming into the purple of the sage. "'I hope they don't meet Lassiter,' said Jane. "'So do I,' replied Venter's. By this time the riders of the night shift know what happened today, but Lasseter will likely keep out of their way. Byrne, who is Lassiter? He's only a name to me, a terrible name. Who is he? I don't know, Jane. Nobody I ever met knows him. He talks a little like a Texan, like Millie Earn. Did you note that?

Yes, how strange of him to know of her. And she lived here ten years and has been dead, too. Fern, what do you know of Lassiter? Tell me what he is done, why you spoke of him to toll, threatening to become another Lassiter yourself. Jane, I only heard things, rumors, stories, most of which I disbelieved. At Glaze, his name was known, but none of the writers or ranchers I knew there ever met him. A stone bridge I never heard him mentioned. But at Sterling and villages north of there he was spoken of often. I've never been in a village which he had been known to visit. There were many conflicting stories about him and his doings. Some said he had shot up this and that Mormon village,

and others denied it. I'm inclined to believe he has, and you know how Mormons hide the truth. But there was one feature about Lassiter upon which all agree that he was what writers in this country call a gunman. He's a man with a marvelous quickness. and accuracy in the use of a cult. And now that I've seen him, I know more. Lasseter was born without fear. I watched him with eyes which saw him, my friend. I'll never forget the moment I recognized him

from what had been told me of his crouch before the draw. It was then I yelled his name. I believe that yell saved Tull's life. At any rate, I know this. Between Tull and death, then, there was not the breadth of the littlest hair. If he or any of his men had moved a finger downward, Vinters left his meaning unspoken, but at the suggestion Jane shuddered.

The pale afterglow in the west darkened with the merging of twilight into night. The sage now spread out black and gloomy. One dim star glimmered in the southwest sky. The sound of trotting horses had ceased, and there was silence broken only by a faint, dry pattering of cottonwood leaves in the soft night wind. Into this peace and calm suddenly broke the high-keyed yelp of a coyote, and from far off in the darkness came the faint answering note of a trailing mate. Hello, the sage dogs are barking, said Venters.

I don't like to hear them, replied Jane. At night, sometimes when I lie awake listening to the long morn or breaking bark or wild howl, I think of you asleep somewhere in the sage, and my heart aches. Jane, you couldn't listen to sweeter music, nor could I have a better bed. Just think, men like Lasseter and you have no home. No comfort, no rest, no place to lay your weary heads. Well, let us be patient. Tall's anger may cool, and time may help us.

You might do some service to the village, who can tell? Suppose you discovered the long, unknown hiding place of Oldring and his band, and told it to my riders. That would disarm Tull's ugly hints and put you in favor. For years my riders have trailed the tracks of stolen cattle. You know as well as I how dearly we've paid for our ranges in this wild country. oldring drives our cattle down into the network of deceiving canyons and somewhere far to the north or east he drives them up and out to utah markets if you will spend time in deception past try to find the trails jane i've thought of that i'll try i must go now and it hurts for now i'll never be sure of seeing you again but to-morrow burn to-morrow surely i'll watch for lassiter and ride in with him good-night then she left him

and moved away, a white, gliding shape that soon vanished in the shadows. Venters waited until the faint slam of the door assured him she had reached the house, and then, taking up his rifle, he noiselessly slipped through the bushes, down the knoll, and owned under the dark trees to the edge of the grove. The sky was now turning from gray to blue. Stars had begun to lighten the earlier blackness, and from the wide, flat sweep before him blew a cool wind, fragrant with the breath of sage. Keeping close to the edge of the cottonwoods, he went swiftly and silently westward.

The grove was long, and he had not reached the end when he heard something that brought him to a halt. Low, padded thuds told him horses were coming this way. He sank down in the gloom, waiting, listening. Much before he had expected, judging from sound, to his amazement he described horsemen near at hand. They were riding along the border of the sage, and instantly he knew the hoofs of the horses were muffled. Then the pale starlight afforded him indistinct sight of the riders. But his eyes were keen and used to the dark, and by peering closely he recognized the huge bulk and black-bearded visage of Oldring,

and the lithe, supple form of the rustler's lieutenant, a masked rider. They passed on, the darkness swallowed them. Then, farther out on the sage, a dark, compact body of horsemen went by, almost without sound, almost like spectres, and they too melted into the night. End of Chapter 2. Chapter 3 of Riders of the Purple Sage. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recorded by Laurie Ann Walden. Writers of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray. Chapter 3. Amber Spring. No unusual circumstance was it for Aldering and some of his men to visit Cottonwoods in the broad light of day, but for him to prowl about in the dark with the hoofs of his horses muffled meant that mischief was brewing. Moreover, to Vinters, the presence of the masked rider with Oldring seemed especially ominous. For about this man there was mystery. He seldom

rode through the village, and when he did ride through, it was swiftly. Writers seldom met by day on the sage, but wherever he rode there always followed deeds as dark and mysterious as the mask he wore. Old Ring's band did not confine themselves. to the rustling of cattle. Vinters lay low in the shade of the cottonwoods, pondering this chance meeting, and not for many moments did he consider it safe to move on. Then, with sudden impulse, he turned the other way and went back along the grove. When he reached the path leading to Jane's home, he decided to go down to the village. So he hurried onward, with quick, soft steps. Once beyond the grove, he entered the one and only street. It was wide,

lined with tall poplars, and under each row of trees, inside the footpath, were ditches where ran the water from Jane Witherstein's spraying. Between the trees twinkled lights of cottage candles, and far down flared bright windows of the village stores. When Venters got closer to these, he saw knots of men standing together in earnest conversation. The usual lounging on the corners and benches and steps was not in evidence. Keeping in the shadow, Venters went closer and closer until he could hear voice. but he could not distinguish what was said. He recognized many Mormons and looked hard for

Tull and his men, but looked in vain. Venters concluded that the rustlers had not passed along the village street. No doubt these earnest men were discussing Lassiter's coming, but Venters felt positive that Tull's intention toward himself that day had not been and would not be revealed. So Venters, seeing there was little for him to learn, began retracing his steps. The church was dark, Bishop Dyer's home next to it was also dark, and likewise Tull's cottage. Upon almost any night at this hour there would be lights here, and Vinters marked the unusual omission. As he was about to pass out of the street to skirt the grove, he once more slunk down at the sound of trotting horses. Presently he described two mounted men

riding toward him. He hugged the shadow of a tree. Again the starlight, brighter now, aided him, and he made out Tull's stalwart figure, and beside him. He, him the short, frog-like shape of the rider, Jerry. They were silent, and they rode on to disappear. Venters went his way with busy, gloomy mind, revolving events of the day, trying to reckon those brooding in the night. His thoughts overwhelmed him. Up in that dark grove dwelt a woman who had been his friend, and he sculpted about her home, gripping a gun stealthily as an Indian, a man without place or people or purpose. Above her hovered the shadow of grim, hidden, secret power.

No queen could have given more royally out of a bounteous store than Jane Witherstein gave her people, and likewise to those unfortunates whom her people hated. She asked only the divine right of all women, freedom, to love and to live as her heart willed, and yet prayer and her hope were vain. For years I've seen a storm-clouding over her and the village of Cottonwoods, muttered Venters, as he strode on. Soon it'll burst. I don't like the prospect.

That night the villagers whispered in the street, and night riding rustlers muffled horses, and Tull was at work in secret, and out there in the sage hid a man who meant something terrible, Lassiter. Venters passed the black cottonwoods, and entering the sage, climbed the gradual slope. He kept his direction in line with a western star. From time to time he stopped to listen, and heard only the usual familiar bark of coyote and sweep of wind in rustle of sage. Presently a low jumble of rocks loomed up darkly somewhat to his right, and turning that way he whistled softly.

Out of the rocks glided a dog that leaped and whined about him. He climbed over rough, broken rock, picking his way carefully, and then went down. Here it was darker and sheltered from the wind. A white object guided him. It was another dog, and this one was asleep, curled up between a saddle and a pack. The animal awoke and thumped his tail. in greeting. Venters placed the saddle for a pillow, rolled in his blankets with his face upward to the stars. The white dog snuggled close to him. The other whined and pattered a few yards to the rise of

ground and there crouched on guard. And in that wild covered, Venters shut his eyes under the great white stars and intense vaulted blue, bitterly comparing their loneliness to his own, and fell asleep. When he awoke, day had dawned, and all about him was bright steel gray. The air had a cold tang. Arising, he greeted the fawning dogs and stretched his cramped body, and then, gathering together bunches of dead sage sticks, he lighted a fire. Strips of dry beef held to the blaze for a moment, served him and the dogs. He drank from a canteen. There was nothing else in his outfit. He had grown used to a scant fire. Then he sat over the fire, palms outspread, and waited. Waiting had been his chief occupation for months, and he scarcely knew what he waited for, unless it was the passing of the

hours. But now he sensed action in the immediate present. The day promised another meeting with Lasseter and Jane, perhaps news of the rustlers. On the morrow he meant to take the trail to deception pass. And while he waited, he talked to his dogs. He called them ring and white, They were sheep dogs, half collie, half deer hound, superb in build, perfectly trained. It seemed that in his fallen fortunes these dogs understood the nature of their value to him, and governed their affection and faithfulness accordingly. Whitey watched him with sombre eyes of love, and Ring, crouched on the little rise of ground above, kept tireless guard.

When the sun rose, the white dog took the place of the other, and Ring went to sleep at his master's feet. By and by, Venters rolled up his blankets and tied them and his meager pack together, then climbed out to look for his horse. He saw him, presently, a little way off in the sage, and went to fetch him. In that country where every rider boasted of a fine mount and was eager for a race, where thoroughbreds dotted the wonderful grazing ranges, Venters rode a horse that was sad proof of his misfortunes. Then with his back against a stone, Venters faced the east, and, stick in hand and eyeing idle blade, he waited. The glorious sunlight filled the valley with purple fire. Before him, to left, to right, waving, rolling, sinking, rising, like low swells of a purple sea, stretched

the sage. Out of the grove of cottonwoods, a green patch on the purple, gleamed the dull red of Jane Witherstein's old stone house, and from there extended the wide green of the village gardens and orchards marked by the graceful poplars, and farther down shone the deep, dark, richness of the alfalfa fields. Numberless red and black and white dots speckled the sage, and these were cattle and horses. So, watching and waiting, ventters let the time wear away. At length he saw a horse rise above a ridge, and he knew it to be Lasseter's black. Climbing to the highest rock, so that he would show against the skyline, he stood and waved his hat. The almost instant turning of Lassiter's horse attested to the quickness of that rider's eye.

Then Venters climbed down, saddled his horse, tied on his pack, and, with a word to his dogs, was about to ride out to meet Lassiter, when he concluded to wait for him there, on higher ground, where the outlook was commanding. It had been long since Venters had experienced friendly greeting from a man. Lasseter's warmed in him something that had grown cold from neglect, and when he had returned it, with a strong grip of the iron hand that held his, and met the gray eyes. He knew that Lassiter and he were to be friends. Venters, let's talk a while before we go down there, said Lassiter, slipping his bridle.

I ain't in no hurry. Them sure find dogs you've got. With a rider's eye he took in the points of Venter's horse, but did not speak his thought. Well, did anything come off after I left you last night? Venters told him about the rustlers. "'I was snug, hid in the sage,' replied Lassiter, "'and didn't see or hear no one. "'Aldring's got a high hand here, I reckon. "'It's no news up in Utah how he holds in canyons and leaves no track.'

"'Lassiter was silent a moment. "'Me and Oldring wasn't exactly strangers some years back when he drove cattle into Bostles Ford "'at the head of the Rio Virgin, but he got harassed there, and now he drives someplace else. "'Lasseter, you knew him? Tell me, is he Mormon or Gentile?' I can't say. I've known Mormons who pretended to be Gentiles. No Mormon ever pretended that unless he was a rustler, declared Venters. Maybe so. It's a hard country for anyone, but hardest for Gentiles.

Did you ever know or hear of a Gentile prospering in a Mormon community? I never did. Well, I want to get out of Utah. I have a mother living in Illinois. I want to go home. It's eight years now. The older man's sympathy moved Vinters to tell his story. He had left Quincy, run off to seek his fortune in the goldfields, had never gotten any farther than Salt Lake City, wandered here and there as helper, teamster, shepherd, and drifted southward over the divide and across the barons and up

the rugged plateau through the passes to the last border settlements. Here he became a rider of the sage, had stock of his own, and for a time prospered until chance threw him in the employ of Jane Witherstein. Lasseter, I needn't tell you the rest. Well, it'd be no news to me. I know Mormons. I've seen their women strange love and patience and sacrifice and silence, and what I call madness for their idea of God.

And over against that, I've seen the tricks of men. They work hand in hand, altogether, and in the dark. No man can hold out against them, unless he takes to packen guns. For Mormons are slow to kill. That's the only good I ever seen in their religion. Venters, take this from me, these Mormons ain't just right in their minds. Else could a Mormon marry one woman when he already has a wife, and call it duty? Lasseter, you think as I think, returned Venters.

How'd it come, then, that you never throwed a gun on toll or some of them? inquired the writer, curiously. Jane pleaded with me, begged me to be patient, to overlook. She even took my guns from me. I lost all before I knew it, replied Vinters, with a red color in his face. But Lasseter, listen. Out of the wreck I saved a Winchester, two colts, and plenty of shells. I packed these down into deception paths. There, almost every day for six months, I have practiced with my rifle till the barrel burnt my hands. Practiced the draw,

the firing of a colt, hour after hour. Now that's interesting to me, said Lassiter, with a quick uplift of his head, and a concentration of his gray gaze on Vinters. Could you throw a gun before you began that practicing? Yes, and now. Vinter's made a lightning-swift movement. Lasseter smiled, and then his bronzed eyelids narrowed till his eyes seemed mere gray slips. You'll kill Tull. He did not question. He affirmed. I promised Jane Witherstein I'd try to avoid Tull. I'll keep my word.

But sooner or later, Tull and though I will meet, as I feel now, if he even looks at me, I'll draw. I reckon so. There'll be hell down there presently. He paused a moment and flicked a sagebrush with his quirt. Venter's, seeing as your considerable worked up, tell me Millie Earn's story. Ventor's agitation stilled to the trace of suppressed eagerness in Lasseter's query. Millie Earn's story?

Well, Lasseter, I'll tell you what I know. Millie Earn had been in Cottonwood's years when I first arrived there, and most of what I tell you happened before my arrival. I got to know her pretty well. She was a slip of a woman, and crazy on religion. I conceived an idea that I never mentioned. I thought she was, at heart, more Gentile than Mormon. But she passed as a Mormon, and certainly she had the Mormon woman's locked lips. You know, in every Mormon village there are women who seem mysterious to us, but about Millie there was more than the ordinary mystery. When she came to Cottonwoods, she had a beautiful little girl whom she loved passionately. Millie was not known openly in Cottonwoods as a Mormon wife. That she

really was a Mormon wife, I have no doubt. Perhaps the Mormon's other wife or wives would not acknowledge Millie. Such things happen in these villages. Mormon wives wear yokes, but they get jealous. Well, whatever had brought Millie to this country, love, or madness of religion, she repented of it. She gave up teaching the village school. She quit the church, and she began to fight Mormon upbringing for her baby girl. Then the Mormons put on the screws, slowly, as is their way. At last the child disappeared. Lost was the report.

The child was stolen, I know that. So do you. That wrecked Millie Earn. But she lived on in hope. She became a slave. She worked her heart and soul and life out to get back her child. She never heard of it again. Then she sank. I can see her now, a frail thing, so transparent you could almost look through her,

white like ashes. And her eyes. Her eyes have always haunted me. She had one real friend, Jane Witherstein. But Jane couldn't mend a broken heart, and Millie died. For moments Lasseter did not speak or turn his head. The man, he exclaimed presently in husky accents. I haven't the slightest idea who the Mormon was, replied Venters, nor has any Gentile in Cottonwoods. Does Jane Witherstein know? Yes, but a red-hot running iron couldn't burn that name out of her. Without further speech, Lasseter started off, walking as horse, and Venters followed with his dogs. Half a mile down the slope they entered a luxuriant growth of willows, and soon came

into an open space, carpeted with grass like deep green velvet. The rushing of water and singing of birds fill their ears. Vinters led his comrade to a shady bower and showed him amber spring. It was a magnificent outburst of clear amber water pouring from a dark, stone-lined hole. Lasseter knelt and drank, lingered there to drink again. He made no comment, but Venters did not need words. Next to his horse, a rider of the sage loved a spring, and this spring was the most beautiful and remarkable known to the upland riders of southern Utah. It was the spring that made Old Witherstein a feudal lord, and now enabled his daughter to return the toll which her father had exacted from the toilers of the sage. The spring gushed forth in a swirling

torrent and leaped down joyously to make its swift way along a willow-skirted channel. Moss and ferns and lilies overhung its green banks. Except for the rough-hewn stones that held and directed the water, this willow thicket and glade had been left as nature had made it. Below were artificial lakes, three in number, one above the other, in banks of raised earth, and round about them rose the lofty, green-follaged shafts of poplar trees. Ducks dotted the glassy surface of the lakes. A blue heron stood motionless on a water gate. Kingfishers darted with shrieking flight along the shady banks. A white hawk sailed above, and from the trees and shrubs came the song of robins and catbirds. It was all in strange contrast to the endless slopes of lonely sage and the wild rock environment.

beyond. Venters thought of the woman who loved the birds and the green of the leaves and the murmur of the water. Next on the slope, just below the third and largest lake were corrals and a wide stone barn and open sheds and coops and pins. Here were clouds of dust and cracking sounds of hoofs and romping colts and he-hawing burrows. Naying horses trampled to the corral fences and on the little windows of the barn projected bobbing heads of bays and blacks and sorrels. When the two men entered the immense barnyard, from all around the den increased. This welcome, however, was not seconded by the several men and boys who vanished on sight. Venters and Lasseter were turning toward the house when Jane appeared in the lane leading a horse.

In riding skirt and blouse, she seemed to have lost some of her statuesque proportions, and looked more like a girl rider than the mistress of Witherstein. She was brightly smiling, and her greeting was warmly cordial. Good news, she announced, I've pulled. been to the village. All is quiet. I expected, I don't know what, but there's no excitement, and Tull has ridden out on his way to glaze. Tull gone, inquired Venters, with surprise. He was wondering what could have taken Tull away. Was it to avoid another meeting with Lassiter that he went? Could it have any connection with the probable nearness of Aldering and his gang?

Gone, yes, thank goodness, replied Jane. Now I have peace for a while. Lassiter, I want you to see my horses. You are a rider, and you must be a judge of horse flesh. Some of mine have Arabian blood. My father got his best strain in Nevada from Indians who claimed their horses were bred down from the original stock left by the Spaniards. "'Well, ma'am, the one you've been riding takes my eye,' said Lasseter, as he walked around the racy, clean-limbed, and fine-pointed rhone. "'Where are the boys?' she asked, looking about. "'Jerd, Paul, where are you? Here, bring out the horses.'

The sound of dropping bars inside the barn was the signal for the horses to jerk their heads in the windows, to snort and stamp. Then they came pounding out of the door, a file of thoroughbreds, to plunge about the barnyard, heads and tails up, mains flying. They halted afar off, squared away to look, came slowly forward with whinnies for their mistress and doubtful snorts for the strangers and their horses. Come, come, come, come, called Jane, holding out her hands. Why, bells, wrangle, where are your manners? Come, Black Star, come, night. Ah, you beauties, my racers of the sage. Only two came up to her, though she called Night and Black Star.

Venters never looked at them without delight. The first was soft, dead black, the other glittering black, and they were perfectly matched in size, both being high and long-bodied, wide through the shoulders, with lithe, powerful legs. That they were a woman's pets showed in the gloss of skin, the fineness of mane. It showed, too, in the light of big eyes and the gentle reach of eagerness. I've never seen their like, was Lasseter's encomium,

and in my day I've seen a sight of horses. Now, ma'am, if you was wanting to make a long and fast ride across the sage, say to elope, Lassiter ended there with dry humor, yet behind that was meaning. Jane blushed and made arch eyes at him. Take care, Lassiter, I might think that a proposal, she replied gaily. It's dangerous to propose elopement to a Mormon woman. Well, I was expecting you. Now will be a good hour to show you Millie Earn's grave.

The day-writers have gone, and the night riders haven't come in. Byrne, what do you make of that? Need I worry? You know I have to be made to worry. Well, it's not usual for the night shift to ride in so late, replied Venters, slowly, and his glance salt lassiders. Cattle are usually quiet after dark. Still, I've known even a coyote to stampede. your white herd.

I refuse to borrow trouble. Come, said Jane. They mounted, and, with Jane in the lead, rode down the lane, and, turning off into a cattle trail, proceeded westward. Ventor's dogs trotted behind them. On this side of the ranch, the outlook was different from that on the other. The immediate foreground was rough, and the sage more rugged and less colorful. There were no dark blue lines of canyons to hold the eye, nor any uprearing rock walls.

It was a long roll and slope into gray obscurity. Soon Jane left the trail and rode into the sage, and presently she dismounted and threw her bridle. The men did likewise. Then on foot they followed her, coming out at length on the rim of a low escarpment. She passed by several little ridges of earth to halt before a faintly defined mound. It lay in the shade of a sweeping sagebrush close to the edge of the promontory, and a rider could have jumped his horse over it without recognizing a grave. Here. She looked sad as she spoke, but she offered no explanation for the neglect of an unmarked,

uncared-for grave. There was a little bunch of pale, sweet lavender daisies, doubtless planted there by Jane. I only come here to remember and to pray, she said, but I leave no trail. A grave in the sage. How lonely this resting place of Millie Earn. The cottonwoods or the alfalfa fields were not in sight, nor was there any rock or ridge or cedar to lend contrast to the monotony. Gray slopes, tinging the purple, barren and wild,

with the wind waving the sage, swept away to the dim horizon. Lasseter looked at the grave and then out into space. At that moment he seemed a figure of bronze. Jane touched Venter's arm and led him back to the horse's. "'Burn,' cried Jane, when they were out of hearing, "'suppose Lassiter were Millie's husband, the father of that little girl, lost so long ago. "'It might be, Jane. Let us ride on. If he wants to see us again, he'll come.' So they mounted and rode out to the cattle trail and began to climb.

From the height of the ridge, where they had started down, Vinters looked back. He did not see Lassiter, but his glance, drawn irresistibly farther out on the gradual slope. caught sight of a moving cloud of dust. Hello, a rider. Yes, I see, said Jane. That fellow's riding hard. Jane, there's something wrong. Oh, yes, there must be.

How he rides. The horse disappeared in the sage, and then puffs of dust marked his course. He's shortcut on us. He's making straight for the corrals. Venters and Jane galloped their steeds and reined in at the turning of the lane. This lane led down to the right of the grove.

Suddenly, into its lower entrance, flashed a bay horse. Then Venters caught the fast, rhythmic beat of pounding hooks. Soon his keen eye recognized the swing of the rider in his saddle. It's Judkins, your Gentile rider, he cried. Jane, when Judkins rides like that, it means hell. End of Chapter 3. Chapter 4 of Riders of the Purple Sage. This is a Librevox recording.

All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recorded by Laurie Ann Walden. Writers of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray. Chapter 4. Deception Pass The writer thundered up and almost threw his foam-flecked horse in the sudden stop. He was a giant form and with fearless eyes. Judkins, you're all bloody, cried Jane in affright.

"'Ho, you've been shot!' "'Nothing much, Miss Witherstein. "'I got a nick in the shoulder. "'I'm some wet, and the hoss has been throwing lather, "'so all this ain't blood.' "'What's up?' queried Venters, sharply. "'Rustlers sloped off with the red herd. "'Where are my riders?' demanded Jane.

"'Miss Witherstein, I was alone all night with the herd. "'At daylight this morning the rustlers rode down. "'They began to shoot at me on sight.' They chased me hard and far, burning powder all the time, but I got away. Jud, they meant to kill you, declared Venters. Now, I wonder, returned Judkins. They wanted me bad, and it ain't regular for rustlers to waste time chasing one rider. Thank heaven you got away, said Jane.

But my riders, where are they? I don't know. The night riders weren't there last night when I rode down, and this morning I met no day-writers. Judkins. Fern, they've been set upon, killed by Old Rings men. I don't think so, replied Venters, decidedly. Jane, your writers haven't gone out in the sage.

Fern, what do you mean? Jane Witherstein turned deathly pale. You remember what I said about the unseen hand? Oh, impossible. I hope so. "'But I fear,' Vinter's finished, with a shake of his head. "'Burn, you're bitter, but that's only natural. "'We'll wait to see what's happened to my riders.

"'Judkins, come to the house with me. "'Your wound must be attended to.' "'Jane, I'll find out where Aldering drives the herd,' vowed Venters. "'No, no. "'Burn, don't risk it now, when the rustlers are in such shooting mood.' "'I'm going. Jud, how many cattle in that red herd?' twenty five hundred head whew what on earth can old ring do with so many cattle why a hundred head is a big steel i've got to find out don't go implored jane byrne you want a hoss that can run miss witherstein if it's not too bold of me to advise make him take a fast hoss or don't let him go yes jenkins he must ride a horse that can't be caught which one black star night

"'Jane, I won't take either,' said Vinters, emphatically. "'I wouldn't risk losing one of your favorites.' "'Rangle, then?' "'That's the horse,' replied Judkins. "'Rangle can outrun Black Star and Knight. "'You'd never believe it, Miss Witherstein, but I know. "'Rangle's the biggest and fastest horse on the sage.' "'Oh, no, Wrangell can't beat Black Star.

"'But, Byrne, take Wrangell if you will go. "'Ask Jerd for anything you need.' Oh, be watchful, careful. Godspeed you. She clasped his hand, turned quickly away, and went down a lane with the rider. Vinter's rode to the barn, and, leaping off, shouted for Jerd. The boy came running. Vinter sent him for meat, bread, and dried fruits to be packed in saddlebags. His own horse, he turned loose into the nearest corral. Then he went for Wrangell. The giant Sorrel had earned his name for a trait the opposite of amiability.

He came readily out of the barn, but once in the yard he broke from Vinter's, and plunged about with ears laid back. Vinters had to rope him, and then he kicked down a section of fence, stood on his hind legs, crashed down, and fault the rope. Jerd returned to lend a hand. Rangel don't get enough work, said Jurd as the big saddle went on. He's unruly when he's corralled and wants to run. Wait till he smells the sage. Jerd, this horse is an iron-jawed devil. I never straddled him but once. Run? Say, he's swift as wind.

When Vinter's boot touched the stirrup, the sorrow bolted, giving him the rider's flying mount. The swing of this fiery horse recalled to Venter's days that were not really long past, when he rode into the sage as the leader of Jane Witherstein's riders. Rangel pulled hard on a tight rain. He galloped out of the lane down the shady border of the grove, and hauled up at the water. trough, where he pranced and champed his bit. Venters got off and filled his canteen while the horse drank. The dogs, Ring and Whitey, came trotting up for their drink. Then Venters remounted and turned Wrangle toward the sage. A wide, white trail wound away down the slope. One keen, sweeping glance

told Venters that there was neither man nor horse nor steer within the limit of his vision, unless they were lying down in the sage. Ring loped in the lead, and, and, and he was neither the lead, and Whitey loped in the rear. Wrangell settled gradually into an easy, swinging canter, and Ventor's thoughts, now that the rush and flurry of the start were passed, and the long miles stretched before him, reverted to a calm reckoning of late singular coincidences. There was the night ride of Tull's,

which, viewed in the light of subsequent events, had a look of his covert machinations, Aldering and his masked rider and his rustlers riding muffled horses, the report that Tull had ridden out that morning with his man Jerry on the trail to glaze, the strange disappearance of Jane Witherstein's riders, the unusually determined attempt to kill the one Gentile still in her employ, an intention frustrated, no doubt, only by Judkin's magnificent writing of a racer. And lastly, the driving of the red herd. These events, Deventer's color of mind, had a dark

relationship. Remembering Jane's accusation of bitterness, he tried hard to put aside his rancor in judging tall. but it was bitter knowledge that made him see the truth he had felt the shadow of an unseen hand he had watched till he saw its dim outline and then he had traced it to a man's hate to the rivalry of a mormon elder to the power of a bishop to the long far-reaching arm of a terrible creed that unseen hand had made its first move against jane witherstein her riders had been called in leaving her without help to drive seven thousand head of cattle But to Venters it seemed extraordinary that the power which had called in these riders had left so many cattle to be driven by rustlers and harried by wolves. For hand and glove with that power was an insatiate greed. They were one and the same. What can Old Ring do with 2,500 head of cattle? muttered Vinter's.

Is he a Mormon? Did he meet Tull last night? It looks like a black plot to me. But Tull and his churchmen wouldn't ruin Jane Witherstein unless the church would be. was to profit by that ruin. Where does Old Ring come in? I'm going to find out about these things. Wrangell did the twenty-five miles in three hours, and walked little of the way. When he had gotten warmed up, he had been allowed to choose his own gate. The afternoon had well advanced when Vinters struck the trail of the red herd and found where it had grazed the night before. Then Vinters rested the horse and used his eyes. Near at hand were a cow and a calf and several yearlings, and farther

out in the sage some straggling steers. He caught a glimpse of coyotes skulking near the cattle. The slow, sweeping gaze of the rider failed to find other living things within the field of sight. The sage about him was breast high to his horse, over-sweet with its warm, fragrant breath, gray where it waved to the light, darker where the wind left it still, and beyond, the wonderful haze purple lent by distance. Far across that wide waste began the slow lift of upland, through which deception pass cut its tortuous, mini-canioned way. Venters raised the bridle of his horse and followed the broad cattle trail. The crushed sage resembled the path of a monster snake.

In a few miles of travel, he passed several cows and calves that had escaped the drive. Then he stood on the last high bench of the slope with the floor of the valley beneath. The opening of the canyon showed in a break of the sage, and the cattle trail paralleled it as far as he could see. That trail led to an undiscovered point where Oldring drove cattle into the pass, and many a rider who had followed it had never returned. Venter satisfied himself that the rustlers had not deviated from the usual course, and then he turned at right angles off the cattle trail and made for the head of the pass.

The sun lost its heat and wore down to the western horizon, where it changed from white to gold and rested like a huge ball about to roll on its golden shadows down the slow. Vinters watched the lengthening of the rays and bars, and marvelled at his own league-long shadow. The sun sank. There was an instant shading of brightness about him, and he saw a kind of cold purple bloom creep ahead of him to cross the canyon, to mount the opposite slope, and chase and darken and bury the last golden flare of sunlight. Venters rode into a trail that he always took to get down into the canyon.

He dismounted and found no tracks but his own. own made days previous. Nevertheless, he sent the dog ring ahead and waited. In a little while, Ring returned, whereupon Venters led his horse onto the break in the ground. The opening into deception pass was one of the remarkable natural phenomena in a country remarkable for vast slopes of sage, uplands insulated by gigantic red walls, and deep canyons of mysterious source and outlet. Here the valley floor was level, and here opened

a narrow chasm, a ragged vent in yellow walls of stone. The trail down the 500 feet of sheer depth always tested Vinter's nerve. It was bad going for even a burrow. But Wrangel, as Venters led him, snorted defiance or disgust, rather than fear, and, like a hobbled horse on the jump, lifted his ponderous iron-shod fore-hoofs and crashed down over the first rough step. Venters warmed to greater admiration of the sorrow, and giving him a loose bridle, he stepped down foot by foot. Oftentimes the stones and shale, started by Wrangell, buried ventures to his knees. Again, he was hard put to it to dodge a rolling boulder. There were times when he could not see Wrangell for dust, and once he and a horse rode a sliding

shelf of yellow weathered cliff. It was a trail on which there could be no stops, and, therefore, if perilous, it was at least one that did not take long in the descent. Venters breathed lighter when that was over, and felt a sudden assurance in the success of his enterprise, for at first it had been a reckless determination to achieve something at any cost, and now it resolved itself into an adventure worthy

of all his reason and cunning, and keenness of eye and ear. Pinyon pines clustered in little clumps along the level floor of the pass. Twilight had gathered under the walls. Vinters rode into the trail and up the canyon. Gradually the trees and caves and objects low down turned black, and this blackness moved up the walls till night enfolded the pass,

while day still lingered above. The sky darkened and stars began to show, at first pale and then bright. Sharp notches of the rim wall, biting like teeth into the blue, were landmarks by which Vinter's knew where his camping site lay. He had to feel his way through a thicket of slender oaks, to a spring where he watered Wrangell and drank himself. Here he unsaddled and turned Wrangell loose, having no fear that the horse would leave the thick, cool grass adjacent to the spring.

Next he satisfied his own hunger, fed Ring and Whitey, and, with them curled beside him, composed himself to await sleep. There had been a time when night in the high altitude of these Utah uplands had been satisfying to Vinters, but that was before the oppression of enemies had made the change in his mind. as a rider guarding the herd he had never thought of the night's wildness and loneliness as an outcast now when the full silence set in and the deep darkness and trains of radiant stars shone cold and calm he lay with an ache in his heart for a year he had lived as a black fox driven from his kind he longed for the sound of a voice the touch of a hand in the daytime there was riding from place to place and the gun practice to which something drove him and other tasks to the same to the time there was riding from place to place to which something drove him and other tasks to the time that at least necessitated action. At night, before he won sleep, there was strife in his soul. He yearned to leave the endless sage slopes, the wilderness of canyons, and it was in the lonely night that this yearning grew unbearable. It was then that he reached forth to feel

ring or whitey, immeasurably grateful for the love and companionship of two dogs. On this night the same old loneliness beset Vinters, the old habit of sad thought and burning unquiet had its way. But from it evolved a conviction that his useless life had undergone a subtle change. He had sensed it first when Rangel swung him up to the high saddle. He knew it now when he lay in the gateway of deception pass. He had no thrill of adventure, rather a gloomy perception of great hazard, perhaps death. He meant to find Old Rings retreat. The rustlers had fast horses, but none that could catch Rangel. Venters knew no rustler could creep upon him at night when Ring and Whitey guarded his hiding place. For the rest, he had eyes and ears, and a long

rifle and an unerring aim, which he meant to use. Strangely, his foreshadowing of change did not hold a thought of the killing of Tull. It related only to what was to happen to him in deception pass, and he could no more lift the veil of that mystery than tell where the trails led to in that unexplored canyon. Moreover, he did not care. And at length, tired out by stress of thought, he fell asleep. When his eyes unclosed, day had come again, and he saw the rim of the opposite wall tipped with the gold of sunrise. A few moments sufficed for the morning's simple camp duties. Near at hand, he found Wrangell, and to his surprise the horse came to him. Rangel was one of the horses that left his viciousness in the home corral. What he wanted was to be free of mules and burrows and steers,

to roll in dust patches, and then to run down the wide, open, windy, sage-plane. and at night browse and sleep in the cool wet grass of a spring hole. Jerd knew the sorrel when he said of him, Wait till he smells the sage. Vinter saddled and led him out of the oak thicket, and leaping astride rode up the canyon with ring and whitey trotting behind. An old grass-grown trail followed the course of a shallow wash where flowed a thin stream of water.

The canyon was a hundred rods wide, its yellow walls were perpendicular. It had abundant sage and a scant growth of oak and peasant. opinion. For five miles it held to a comparatively straight bearing, and then began a heightening of rugged walls and a deepening of the floor. Beyond this point of sudden change in the character of the canyon, Venters had never explored, and here was the real door to the intricacies of deception pass. He reigned wrangle to a walk, halted now and then to listen, and then proceeded cautiously with shifting and alert gaze. The canyon assumed proportions that dwarfed those of its first ten miles. Venters rode on and own, not losing in the interest of his wives' surroundings, any of his caution,

or keen search for tracks or sight of living fang. If there ever had been a trail here, he could not find it. He rode through sage and clumps of pinion trees, and grassy plots where long-petalled purple lilies bloomed. He rode through a dark constriction of the pass no wider than the lane in the grove at Cottonwoods, and he came out into a great amphitheater, into which jutted huge towering corners of a confluence of intersecting canyons. Vinter sat his horse, and with a rider's eye studied this wild cross-cut of huge stone gullies.

Then he went on, guided by the course of running water. If it had not been for the main stream of water flowing north, he would never have been able to tell which of these many openings was a continuation of the pass. In crossing this amphitheater, he went by the mouths of five canyons, fording little streams that flowed into the larger one. Gaining the outlet which he took to be the pass, he rode on again under overhanging walls. One side was dark in shade,

the other light in sun. This narrow passageway turned and twisted and opened into a valley that amazed ventures. Here again was a sweep of purple sage, richer than upon the higher levels. The valley was miles long, several wide, and enclosed by unscalable walls. But it was a sweep of purple sage,

was the background of this valley that so forcibly struck him. Across the sage flat rose a strange upflinging of yellow rocks. He could not tell which were close and which were distant. Scrawled mounds of stone, like mountain waves, seemed to roll up to steep bare slopes and towers. In this plain of sage, ventures flushed birds and rabbits, and when he had proceeded about a mile, he caught sight of the bobbing white tails of a herd of running antelope. He rode along the edge of the stream which wound toward the western end of the slowly looming mounds of stone. The high slope retreated out of sight behind the nearer projection. To Vinters, the valley appeared to have been filled in by a mountain of melted stone that had hardened in strange shapes of rounded outline. He followed the

stream till he lost it in a deep cut. Therefore, Venters quit the dark slit which baffled further search in that direction, and rode out along the curved edge of stone where it met the sage. It was not long before he came to a low place, and here Rangel readily climbed up. All about him was ridgy roll of wind-smooth, rain-washed rock. Not a tuft of grass or a bunch of sage colored the dull rust yellow. He saw where, to the right, this uneven flow of stone ended in a blunt wall. Leftward from the hollow that lay at his feet, mounted a gradual, slow-swelling slope to a great height topped by leaning, cracked, and ruined crags.

Not for some time did he grasp the wonder of that acclivity. It was no less than a mountainside, glistening in the sun like polished granite, with cedar trees springing as if by magic out of the denuded surface. Winds had swept it clear of weathered shale, and rains had washed it free of dust. Far up the curved slope, its beautiful lines broke to meet the vertical rim wall, to lose its grace in a different order and color of rock, a stained yellow cliff of cracks and cave and seamed crags, and straight before Venters was a scene less striking

but more significant to his keen survey. For beyond a mile of the bare hummocky rock began the valley of sage and the mouths of canyons, one of which surely was another gateway into the pass. He got off his horse, and, giving the bridle to ring to hold, he commenced a search for the cleft where the stream ran. He was not successful, and concluded the water, dropped into an underground passage. Then he returned to where he had left Wrangell,

and led him down off the stone to the sage. It was a short ride to the opening canyons. There was no reason for a choice of which one to enter. The one he rode into was a clear, sharp shaft in yellow stone a thousand feet deep, with wonderful, wind-worn caves, low down, and high above buttressed and turreted ramparts. Farther own, Venters came into a region where deep indentations marked the line of canyon walls. These were huge, cove-like blind pockets, extending back to a sharp corner with a dense growth of underbrush and trees. Venters penetrated into one of these offshoots, and as he had hoped, he found abundant grass. He had to bend the oak saplings to get his horse through. Deciding to make this a hiding place, if he could find water,

he worked back to the limit of the shelving walls. In a little cluster of silver spruces he found a spring. This enclosed nook seemed an ideal place to leave his horse and to camp at night, and from which to make stealthy trips on foot. The thick grass hid his trail. The dense growth of oaks in the opening would serve as a barrier to keep wrangle in, if indeed the luxuriant brows would not suffice for that. So Vinters, leaving Whitey with the horse, called Ring to his side, and rifle in hand worked his way out to the open. A careful photographing in mind of the formation of the bold outlines of Rimrock assured him he would be able to return to his retreat, even in the dark.

Bunches of scattered sage covered the center of the canyon, and among these Venters threaded his way with the step of an Indian. At intervals he put his hand on the dog and stopped to listen. There was a drowsy hum of insects, but no other sound disturbed the warm midday stillness. Venters saw ahead a turn, more abrupt than any yet. Warily he rounded this corner, once again, to holly. halt bewildered. The canyon opened fan-shaped into a great oval of green and gray growths. It was the hub of an oblong wheel, and from it, at regular distances, like spokes, ran the outgoing canyons. Here a dull red color predominated over the fading yellow. The corners

of wall bluntly rose, scarred and scrawled, to taper into towers and serrated peaks and pinnacle domes. Venters pushed on more heedfully than ever. Towers, Toward the center of this circle, the sagebrush grew smaller and farther apart. He was about to shear off to the right, where thickets and jumbles of fallen rock would afford him cover, when he ran right upon a broad cattle trail. Like a road it was, more than a trail, and the cattle tracks were fresh. What surprised him more, they were wet. He pondered over this feature.

It had not rained. The only solution to this puzzle was that the cattle had been driven through water, and water deep enough to wet their legs. suddenly ring growled low ventures rose cautiously and looked over the sage a band of straggling horsemen were riding across the oval he sank down startled and trembling rustlers he muttered hurriedly he glanced about for a place to hide near at hand there was nothing but sage brush he dared not risk crossing the open patches to reach the rocks again he peeped over the sage the rustlers four five seven, eight in all, were approaching, but not directly in line with him. That was relief for a cold deadness which seemed to be creeping inward along his veins. He crouched down with bated breath and held the bristling dog.

He heard the click of iron-shot hoofs on stone, the coarse laughter of men, and then voices gradually dying away. Long moments passed. Then he rose. The rustlers were riding into a canyon. Their horses were tired, and they had several packages. animals. Evidently they had traveled far. Venters doubted that they were the rustlers who had driven the red herd. Old Rings' band had split. Venters watched these horsemen disappear under a bold

canyon wall. The rustlers had come from the northwest side of the oval. Venters kept a steady gaze in that direction, hoping, if there were more, to see from what canyon they rode. A quarter of an hour went by. Reward for his vigilance came when he described three more mounted men, far over to the north. But out of what canyon they had ridden, it was too late to tell. He watched the three ride across the oval, and round the jutting red corner where the others had gone. Up that canyon, exclaimed Venters.

Oldring's den. I've found it. A knotty point for Venters was the fact that the cattle tracks all pointed west. The broad trail came from the direction of the canyon into which the rustlers had ridden, and undoubtedly the cattle had been driven out of it across the oval. There were no tracks pointing the other way. It had been in his mind that Old Ring had driven the red herd toward the rendezvous, and not from it. Where did that broad trail come down into the pass, and where did it lead? Venters knew he wasted time in pondering

the question, but it held a fascination not easily dispelled. For many years, Old Ring's mysterious entrance and exit to Deception Pass had been all-absorbing topics to sage-riders. All at once, the dog put an end to Venter's pondering. Ring sniffed the air, turned slowly in his tracks with a whine, and then growled. Venters wheeled. Two horsemen were within a hundred yards, coming straight at him. One, lagging behind the other, was Old Rings masked rider. Vinter's cunningly sank, slowly trying to merge into sagebrush. But guarded as his action was, the first horse detected it. He stopped short, snorted, and shot up his ears. The rustler, bent forward, as if keenly peering ahead. Then, with a swift sweep, he jerked a gun from its sheath

and fired. The bullet zipped through the sagebrush. Flying bits of wood struck venters, and the hot, stinging pain seemed to lift him in one leap. Like a flash, the blue barrel of his rifle gleamed level, and he shot once, twice. The foremost rustler dropped his weapon and toppled from his saddle to fall with his foot catching in a stirrup. The horse snorted wildly and plunged away, dragging the rustler through the sage. The masked rider huddled over his pommel, slowly swaying to one side, and then with a faint, strange cry,

slipped out of the saddle. End of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 of Riders of the Purple Sage. This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visitlibrovox.org. Recorded by Lari Ann Walden.

Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray Chapter 5 The Masked Rider Venters looked quickly from the fallen rustlers to the canyon where the others had disappeared he calculated on the time needed for running horses to return to the open if their riders heard shots he waited breathlessly

but the estimated time dragged by and no riders appeared Venters began presently to believe that the rifle reports had not penetrated into the recesses of the canyon and felt safe for the immediate present. He hurried to the spot where the first rustler had been dragged by his horse. The man lay in deep grass, dead, jaw fallen, eyes protruding, a sight that sickened Vinter's. The first man at whom he had ever aimed a weapon he had shot through the heart.

With the clammy sweat oozing from every pore, Vinters dragged the rustler in among some boulders and covered him with slabs of rock. Then he smoothed out the crushed trail in grass and sade. The rustler's horse had stopped a quarter of a mile off and was grazing. When Venters rapidly strode toward the masked rider, not even the cold nausea that gripped him could wholly banish curiosity, for he had shot Aldering's infamous lieutenant whose face had never been seen. Venters experienced a grim pride in the feat.

What would Tall say to this achievement of the outcast who rode too often to deception pass? Vinter's curious eagerness and expectation had not prepared him for the shock he received when he stood over a slight dark figure. The rustler wore the black mask that had given him his name, but he had no weapons. Venters glanced at the drooping horse. There were no gun sheaths on the saddle. A rustler who didn't pack guns, muttered Venters. He wears no belt. He couldn't pack guns in that rig. Strange. A low, gasping intake of breath and a sussler. sudden twitching of body told Venters the rider still lived. He's alive. I've got to stand here and watch him die, and I shot an unarmed man.

Shrinkingly, Venters removed the rider's wide sombrero and the black cloth mask. This action disclosed bright chestnut hair, inclined to curl, and a white, youthful face. Along the lower line of cheek and jaw was a clear demarcation where the brown of tan skin met the white that had been hidden from the sun. Oh, he's only a boy. What? Can he be Oldring's masked rider? The boy showed signs of returning consciousness. He stirred, his lips moved, a small brown hand clenched in his blouse.

Venters knelt with a gathering horror of his deed. His bullet had entered the rider's right breast, high up to the shoulder. With hands that shook, Venters untied a black scarf and ripped open the blood-wet blouse. First he saw a gaping hole, dark red against a whiteness of skin, from which weld a slender red stream. Then the graceful, beautiful swell of a woman's breast. A woman, he cried. A girl! I've killed a girl! She suddenly opened eyes that transfixed Vinters. They were fathomless blue.

Consciousness of death was there, a blended terror and pain. But no consciousness of sight. She did not see Venters. stared into the unknown. Then came a spasm of vitality. She writhed in a torture of reviving strength, and in her convulsions she almost tore from Vinter's grasp. Slowly she relaxed and sank partly back. The ungloved hand sought the wound and pressed so hard that her wrist half buried itself in her bosom. Blood trickled between her spread fingers, and she looked at Venters with eyes that saw him. He cursed himself and the unerring aim of which he had been.

so proud, he had seen that look in the eyes of a crippled antelope which he was about to finish with his knife. But in her it had infinitely more, a revelation of mortal spirit. The instinctive bringing to life was there, and the divining helplessness, and the terrible accusation of the stricken. "'Forgive me, I didn't know,' burst out ventures. "'You've shot me, you've killed me,' she whispered, in panting gasps. Upon her lips appeared a fluttering, blest. "'Bundered a fluttering, bloody froth. By that, Venters knew the air in her lungs was mixing with blood. Oh, I knew it would come someday. Oh, the burn. Hold me. I'm sinking. It's all dark. Ah, God, mercy. Her rigidity loosened in one long quiver, and she lay back limp, still white as snow

with closed eyes. Venters thought then that she died, but the faint pulsation of her breast assured him that life yet lingered. Death seemed only a matter of moments, for the bullet had gone clear through her. Nevertheless, he tore sage leaves from a bush, and pressing them tightly over her wounds, he bound the black scarf round her shoulder, tying it securely under her arm. Then he closed the blouse, hiding from his sight that blood-stained, accusing breast. What now, he questioned, with flying mind? I must get out of here. She's dying, but I can't leave her.

He rapidly surveyed the sage to the north and made out no animate object. Then he picked up the girl's sombrero and the mask. This time the mask gave him as great a shock as when he first removed it from her face. For in the woman he had forgotten the rustler, and this black strip of felt cloth established the identity of Oldring's masked rider. Venters had solved the mystery. He slipped his rifle under her, and lifting her carefully upon it, he began to retrace his steps.

The dog trailed in his shadow, and the horse that had stood drooping by followed without a call. Venters chose the deepest tufts of grass and clumps of sage on his return. From time to time he glanced over his shoulder. He did not rest. His concern was to avoid jarring the girl and to hide his trail. Gaining the narrow canyon, he turned and held close to the wall till he reached his hiding place. When he entered the dense thicket of oaks, he was hard put to it to force. away through. But he held his burden almost upright, and by slipping sardwise and bending the saplings,

he got in. Through sage and grass, he hurried to the grove of silver spruces. He laid the girl down, almost fearing to look at her. Though marble pale and cold, she was living. Venters then appreciated the tacks that long carry had been to his strength. He sat down to rest. Whitey sniffed at the pale girl and whined and crept to Vinter's feet. Ring lapped the water in the runway of the spring. Presently Venters went out to the opening, caught the horse, and leading him through the thicket, unsettled him, and tied him with a long halter. Rangel left his browsing long enough to whinny and toss his head. Venters felt that he could not rest easily till he had secured the other rustler's horse, so, taking his rifle and calling for Ring, he set out. Swiftly yet watchfully, he

made his way through the canyon to the oval and out to the cattle trail. What few tracks might have betrayed him, he obliterated, so only an expert tracker could have trailed him. Then, with many a wary backward glance across the sage, he started to round up the rustler's horse. This was unexpectedly easy. He led the horse to lower ground, out of sight from the opposite side of the oval, along the shadowy western wall, and so on into his canyon and secluded camp. The girl's eyes were open. A feverish spot burned in her cheeks. She moaned something unintelligible to Venters, but he took the movement of her lips to mean that she wanted water. Lifting her head, he tipped the canteen to her lips. After that, she again lapsed into unconsciousness or a weakness

which was its counterpart. Venters noted, however, that the burning flush had faded into the former pallor. The sun set behind the high canyon rim, and a cool shade darkened the walls. Venters fed the and put a halter on the dead rustler's horse. He allowed wrangle to browse free. This done, he cut spruce boughs and made a lean-to for the girl. Then, gently lifting her upon a blanket, he folded the sides over her. The other blanket he wrapped about his shoulders and found a comfortable seat against a spruce tree that upheld the little shack. Ring and Whitey lay near at hand, one asleep, the other watchful.

Vinters dreaded the night's vigil. At night his mind was active. and this time he had to watch and think and feel beside a dying girl whom he had all but murdered. A thousand excuses he invented for himself, yet not one made any difference in his act or his self-reproach. It seemed to him that when night fell black he could see her white face so much more plainly. She'll go presently, he said, and be out of agony. Thank God. Every little while certainty of her death came to him with a shock, and then he would bend over and lay his ear.

on her breast. Her heart still beat. The early night blackness cleared to the cold starlight. The horses were not moving, and no sound disturbed the deathly silence of the canyon. I'll bury her here, thought Venters, and let her grave be as much a mystery as her life was. For the girl's few words, the look of her eyes, the prayer, had strangely touched Venters. She was only a girl, he soliloquized. What was she to Aldering? Rustlers don't have have wives, nor sisters, nor daughters. She was bad, that's all. But somehow, well, she may not have willingly become the companion of rustlers. That prayer refers to God for mercy. Life is strange and cruel. I wonder if other members of Oldring's gang or women. Likely enough. But what

was his game? Aldring's masked rider, a name to make villagers hide and lock their doors, a name credited with a dozen murders, a hundred forays, and a thousand stealings of cattle. What part did the girl have in this? It may have served Aldering to create mystery. Hours passed. The white stars moved across the narrow strip of dark blue sky above. The silence awoke to the low hum of insects. Vinters watched the immovable white face, and as he watched, hour by hour waiting for death, the infamy of her passed from his mind. He thought, Only of the sadness, the truth of the moment. Whoever she was, whatever she had done, she was young, and she was dying.

The afterpart of the night wore own interminably. The starlight failed, and the gloom blackened to the darkest hour. She'll die at the gray of dawn, muttered Venters, remembering some old woman's fancy. The blackness paled to gray, and the gray lightened, and day peeped over the eastern rim. Venters listened at the breast of the girl. She still lived. Did he only imagine that her heart beat stronger, ever so slightly, but stronger? He pressed his ear closer to her breast, and he rose with his own pulse quickening. If she doesn't die soon, she's got a chance, the barest chance to live, he said.

He wondered if the internal bleeding had ceased. There was no more film of blood upon her lips, but no corpse could have been whiter. Opening her blouse, he untied the scarf and carefully picked away the sage leaves from the wound in her shoulder. It had closed. Lifting her lightly, he ascertained that the same was true of the hole where the bullet had come out. He reflected on the fact that clean wounds closed quickly in the healing upland air. He recalled instances of riders who had been cut and shot apparently to fatal issues, yet the blood had clotted, the wounds closed, and they had recovered. He had no way to tell if internal hemorrhage still went on, but he believed that it had stopped.

Otherwise, she would surely not have lived so long. He marked the entrance of the bullet and concluded that it had just touched the upper lobe of her lung. Perhaps the wound in the lung had also closed. As he began to wash the bloodstains from her breast and carefully re-bandaged the wound, he was vaguely conscious of a strange, grave happiness

in the thought that she might live. Broad daylight and a hint of sunshine high on the cliff rim to the west brought him to consideration of what he had better do. And while busy with his few camp tasks, he resolved the thing in his mind. It would not be wise for him to remain long in his present hiding place. And if he intended to follow the cattle trail and try to find the rustlers,

he had better make a move at once. For he knew that rustlers, being riders, would not make much of a days or night's absence from camp for one or two of their number. But when the missing ones failed to show up in reasonable time, there would be a search. and venters was afraid of that a good tracker could trail me he muttered and i'd be cornered here let's see rustlers are a lazy set when they're not on the ride i'll risk it then i'll change my hiding-place he carefully cleaned and reloaded his guns when he rose to go he bent a long glance down upon the unconscious girl then ordering whitey and ring to keep guard he left the camp the safest cover lay close under the wall of the wall

of the canyon, and here through the dense thickets, Venters made his slow, listening advance toward the oval. Upon gaining the wide opening, he decided to cross it and follow the left wall till he came to the cattle trail. He scanned the oval as keenly as if hunting for antelope. Then, stooping, he stole from one cover to another, taking advantage of rocks and bunches of sage, until he had reached the thickets under the opposite wall. Once there, he exercised extreme caution in his surveys of the ground ahead.

but increased his speed when moving. Dodging from bush to bush, he passed the mouths of two canyons, and in the entrance of a third canyon he crossed a wash of swift, clear water to come abruptly upon the cattle trail. It followed the low bank of the wash, and, keeping it in sight, venters hugged the line of sage and thicket. Like the curves of a serpent, the canyon wound for a mile or more, and then opened into a valley.

Paches of red showed clear against the purple of sage, and farther out on the level dotted strings of red led away to the wall of rock. Ha, the red herd, exclaimed Venters. Then dots of white and black told him there were cattle of other colors in this enclosed valley. Oldring, the rustler, was also a rancher. Venters calculating eye took count of stock that outnumbered the red herd. What a range, went on Venters. Water and grass enough for fifty thousand head, and no riders.

needed. After his first burst of surprise in rapid calculation, Venters lost no time there, but slunk again into the sage on his back trail. With a discovery of Aldering's hidden cattle range had come enlightenment on several problems. Here the rustler kept his stock. Here was Jane Witherstein's red herd. Here were the few cattle that had disappeared from the cottonwood slopes during the last two years. Until Aldring had driven the red herd, his thefts of cattle for that time had not been more than enough to supply meat for his men. Of late, no drives had been reported from Sterling or the villages north. And Vinters knew that the riders had wondered at Old Rings' inactivity in that particular field. He and his band had been active enough in their

visits to glaze in Cottonwoods. They always had gold, but of late the amount gambled away and drunk and thrown away in the villages had given rise to much conjecture. Old Rings's more frequent visits had resulted in new saloons, and where there had formerly been one raid or shooting fray in the Little Hamlets, there were now many. Perhaps Oldring had another range farther on up the pass, and from there drove the cattle to distant Utah towns where he was little known. But Venters came finally to doubt this, and from what he had learned in the last few days, a belief began to form in Ventor's mind that Old Ring's intimidations of the villages and the mystery of the masked rider, with his alleged evil deeds, and the fierce resistance offered any trailing riders,

and the rustling of cattle, these things were only the craft of the rustler chief to conceal his real life and purpose and work in deception pass. And like a scouting Indian, Venters crawled through the sage of the Oval Valley, crossed trail after trail on the north side, and at last entered the canyon out of which headed the cattle trail, and into which he had watched the rustlers disappear. If he had used caution before, now he strained every nerve to force himself to creeping stealth and to sensitiveness of ear. He crawled along so hidden that he could not use his eyes, except to aid himself in the toilsome progress through the breaks and ruins of cliff wall.

Yet from time to time, as he rested, he saw the massive red walls growing higher and wilder, more looming and broken. He made note of the fact that he was turning and climbing. The sage and thickets of oak and breaks of alder gave place to pinion pine growing out of rocky soil. Suddenly a low, dull murmur assailed his ears. At first he thought it was thunder, then the slipping of a weathered slope of rock. But it was incessant, and as he progressed it filled out deeper, and from a murmur changed into a soft roar. Falling water, he said, there's volume to that.

I wonder if it's the stream I lost. The roar bothered him, for he could hear nothing else. Likewise, however, no rustlers could hear him. Emboldened by this, and sure that nothing but a bird could see him, he arose from his hands and knees to hurry on. An opening in the pinions warned him that he was nearing the height of slope. He gained it and dropped low with a burst of astonishment. Before him stretched a short canyon with rounded stone floor,

bare of grass or sage or tree, and with curved shelving walls. A broad, rippling stream flowed toward him, And at the back of the canyon, waterfall burst from a wide rent in the cliff, and bounding down in two green steps spread into a long white sheet. If Vinters had not been indubitably certain that he had entered the right canyon, his astonishment would not have been so great. There had been no breaks in the walls, no side canyons entering this one where the rustler's tracks and the cattle trail had guided him,

and therefore he could not be wrong. But here the canyon ended, and presumably the trails also. "'That cattle trail headed out of here,' Benters kept saying to himself. "'It headed out. Now what I want to know is how on earth did cattle ever get in here?' If he could be sure of anything, it was of the careful scrutiny he had given that cattle track, every hoofmark of which headed straight west. He was now looking east at an immense, round, boxed corner of canyon, down which tumbled a thin, white veil of water, scarcely twenty yards wide. Somehow, somewhere, his calculations had gone.

wrong. For the first time in years, he found himself doubting his rider's skill in finding tracks, and his memory of what he had actually seen. In his anxiety to keep undercover, he must have lost himself in this offshoot of deception pass, and thereby, in some unaccountable manner, missed the canyon with the trails. There was nothing else for him to think. Rustlers could not fly, nor cattle jumped down thousand-foot precipices. He was only proving what the sage-riders had long said of this labyrinthine system of deceitful canyons and valleys. Trails led down into deception pass, but no rider had ever followed them.

On a sudden, he heard above the soft roar of the waterfall, an unusual sound that he could not define. He dropped flat behind a stone and listened. From the direction he had come swelled something that resembled a strange muffled pounding and splashing and ringing. Despite his nerve, the chill sweat began to dampen his forehead. What might not be possible in this stone-walled maze of mystery? The unnatural sound passed beyond him as he lay gripping his rifle and fighting for coolness.

Then from the open came the sound, now distinct and different. Venters recognized a hobble-bell of a horse, and the cracking of iron on submerged stones, and the hollow splash of hoofs in water. Relief surged over him. His mind caught again at realities, and curiosity prompted him to peep from. behind the rock. In the middle of the stream waited a long string of packed burrows, driven by

three superbly mounted men. Had venters met these dark-clothed, dark-visaged, heavily-armed men anywhere in Utah, let alone in this robber's retreat, he would have recognized them as rustlers. The discerning eye of a rider saw the signs of a long, arduous trip. These men were packing in supplies from one of the northern villages. They were tired, and their horses were almost played out, and the burrows plotted on, after the manner of their kind when exhausted, faithful and patient, but as if every weary, splashing, slipping step would be their last. All this venters noted in one glance. After that he watched with a thrilling eagerness. Straight at the waterfall the rustlers drove the burrows, and straight through the middle,

where the water spread into a fleecy, thin film like dissolving smoke. Following closely, the rustlers rode into this white mist, showing in bold black relief for an instant, and then they vanished. Venters drew a full breath that rushed out in brief and sudden utterance. Good heaven! Of all the holes for a rustler! There's a cavern under that waterfall, and a passageway leading out to a canyon beyond. Old Ring hides in there. He needs only to guard a trail leading down from the sage-flat above.

Little danger of this outlet to the past being discovered. I stumbled on it by luck after I had given up. 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 overground 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 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. End of Chapter 5.

Chapter 6 of Riders of the Purple Sage. This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. recorded by Laurie Ann Walden Writers of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray Chapter 6 The Mill Wheel of Steers

Meantime at the Ranch When Judkins News had sent Venters on the trail of the rustlers Jane Witherstein 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'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 Witherstein, 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 insinuating nothing, Miss Witherstein,' 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—' "'No, no, it's unbelievable.' "'Yes, that particular thing's unheard of around Cottonwoods. but beg and pardon, Ms. Witherstein, there never was any other rich Mormon woman here on the border, let alone one that's taken the bit between her teeth. That was a bold thing for the reserve Judkins to say, but it did not anger her. This writer'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, 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 witherstein 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 churchman but it was a kind of deceit for which she did not pray to be forgiven equally as difficult was the task of deceiving the gentiles for they were as proud as they were poor it had been a great grief to her to discover how these people hated her people people, and it had been a source of great joy that through her they had come to soften in hatred. At any time this work called for a clearness of mind that precluded anxiety and worry, but under the present circumstances it required all her vigor and obstinate tenacity to pin her attention upon her task. Sunset came, bringing with the end of her labor a patient calmness and power to wait

that had not been hers earlier in the day. She expected Judkins, but he did not appear. year. Her house was always quiet. Tonight, however, it seemed unusually so. At supper her women served her with a silent assiduity. It spoke what their sealed lips could not utter, the sympathy of Mormon women. Jerd came to her with the key of the great door of the stone stable, and to make his daily report about the horses. One of his daily duties was to give Black Star and Night, and the other racers, a ten-mile run. This day it had been omitted. and the boy grew confused in explanations that she had not asked for.

She did inquire if he would return on the morrow, and jured, and mingled surprise and relief, assured her he would always work for her. Jane missed the rattle and trot, canter and gallop of the incoming riders on the hard trails. Dusk shaded the grove where she walked. The birds ceased singing, the wind sighed through the leaves of the cottonwoods,

and the running water murmured down its stone-bedded channel. The glimmering of the first star was like the peace and beauty of the night. Her faith welled up in her heart and said that all would soon be right in her little world. She pictured Vinters about his lonely campfire sitting between his faithful dogs. She prayed for his safety, for the success of his undertaking. Early the next morning one of Jane's women brought in word that Judkins wished to speak to her. She hurried out, and in her surprise to see him armed with rifle and revolver, she forgot her intention to inquire about his wound.

Judkins, those guns. You never carried guns. It's high time, Miss Witherstein, he replied. Will you come into the grove? It ain't just exactly safe for me to be seen here. She walked with him into the shade of the cottonwoods. What do you mean? Ms. Witherstein, I went to my mother's house last night. While there, someone knocked and a man asked for me. I went to the door. He wore a mask. He said I'd better not ride anymore for Jane Witherstein.

His voice was hoarse and strange, disguised, I reckon, like his face. He said no more and ran off in the dark. Did you know who he was? asked Jane in a low voice. Yes. Jane did not ask to know. She did not want to know. She feared to know. All her calmness fled at a single thought. That's why I'm packing guns, went on Judkins, for I'll never quit riding for you, Miss Witherstein, till you let me go. Judkins, do you want to leave me? Do I look that way?

Give me a hoss, a fast hoss, and send me out on the sage. Oh, thank you, Judkins. You're more faithful than my own people. I ought not accept your loyalty. You might suffer more through it. But what in the world can I do? My head whirls. The wrong to ventures, the stolen herd,

these masks, threats, this coil in the dark. I can't understand. But I feel something dark and terrible closing in around me. Ms. Witherstein is all simple enough, said Judkins earnestly. Now please listen, and begging your pardon, just turn that deaf Mormon ear aside, and let me talk clear and plain in the other. I went around to the saloons and the stores

and the loafing places yesterday. All your riders are in. There's talk of a vigilance band organized to hunt down rustlers. They call themselves the riders. That's the report. That's the reason given for your riders leaving you. Strange that only a few riders of other ranchers

joined the band. And Tull's man, Jerry Card, he's the leader. I seen him and his horse. He ain't been to glaze. I'm not easy to fool on the looks of a horse that's traveled the sage. Tull and Jerry didn't ride to glaze. Well, I met Blake and Dorn, both good friends of mine usually, as far as their Mormon lights will let them go. But these

fellers couldn't fool me, and they didn't try very hard. I asked them, straight out like a man, why they left you like that. I didn't forget to mention how you nursed Blake's poor old mother when she was sick, and how good you was to Dorn's kids. They looked ashamed, Ms. Witherstein, and they just froze up that dark set look that makes them strange and different to me. But I could tell the difference between that first natural twinge of conscience and the later look of some secret thing. And the difference I caught was that they couldn't help themselves. They had no say in the matter.

They looked as if they're being unfaithful to you was being faithful to a higher duty. And there's the secret. Why, it's as plain as sight of my gun here. Plain. My herds to wander in the sage, to be stolen. Jane Witherstein, a poor woman, her head to be brought low and her spirit broken. Why, Judkins, it's plain enough. Miss Witherstein, let me get what boys I can gather and hold the white herd. It's on the slope now, not ten miles out, three thousand head and all steers. They're wild and likely to stampede at the pop of a jackrabbit's ears. We'll camp right with them and try to hold. them. Judkins, I'll reward you someday for your service, unless all is taken from me. Get the boys and tell Jerd to give you pick of my horses, except Black Star and Night. But do not shed blood from my cattle, nor heedlessly risk your lives. Jane Witherstein rushed to the silence and seclusion of her room, and there could not

longer hold back the bursting of her wrath. She went stone-blind in the fury of a passion that had never before showed its power. Lying upon her bed, and, she was, and, she was not in the fury of a passion that had never before showed its power. Lying upon her bed, sightless, voiceless, she was a writhing, living flame. And she tossed there while her fury burned and burned, and finally burned itself out. Then, weak and spent, she lay thinking,

not of the oppression that would break her, but of this new revelation of self. Until the last few days there had been little in her life to rouse passions. Her forefathers had been Vikings, savage chieftains who bore no cross and brooked no hindrance to their will. Her father had inherited that temper,

and at times, like antelope fleeing before fire on the slope, his people fled from his red rages. Jane Witherstein realized that the spirit of wrath and war had lain dormant in her. She shrank from black deaths hitherto unsuspected. The one thing in man or woman that she scorned above all scorn and which she could not forgive was hate. Hate headed a flaming pathway straight,

to hell. On a flash, beyond her control, there had been in her a birth of fiery hate. And the man who had dragged her peaceful and loving spirit to this degradation was a minister of God's word, an elder of her church, the counselor of her beloved bishop. The loss of herds and ranges, even of Amber Spring and the old stonehouse, no longer concerned Jane Witherstein. She faced the foremost thought of her life, what she now considered the mightiest problem, the salvation of her soul. She knelt by her bedside and prayed. She prayed as she had never prayed in all her life.

Prayed to be forgiven to her sin to be immune from that dark, hot hate, to love Tull as her minister, though she could not love him as a man, to do her duty by her church and people and those dependent upon her bounty, to hold reverence of God in womanhood and violet. When Jane Witherstein rose from that storm of wrath and prayer for help, She was serene, calm, sure, a changed woman. She would do her duty as she saw it, live her life as her own truth guided her. She might never be able to marry a man of her choice,

but she certainly never would become the wife of Tall. Her churchmen might take her cattle and horses, ranges and fields, her corrals and stables, the house of Witherstein, and the water that nourished the village of Cottonwoods, but they could not force her to marry Tall. They could not change her decision. or break her spirit. Once resigned to further loss, and sure of herself, Jane Witherstein attained a peace of mind that had not been hers for a year. She forgave Toll, and felt a melancholy regret over what she

knew he considered duty, irrespective of his personal feeling for her. First of all, Tull, as he was a man, wanted her for himself, and secondly he hoped to save her and her riches for his church. She did not believe that Tull had been actuated solely by his minister's zeal to save her soul. She doubted her interpretation of one of his dark sayings, that if she were lost to him, she might as well be lost to heaven. Jane Witherstein's common sense took arms against the binding limits of her religion, and she doubted that her bishop, whom she had been taught, had direct communication with God, would damn her soul for refusing to marry a Mormon. As for Tull and his churchmen, when they had harassed her, perhaps made her poor. They would find her unchangeable, and then she would get back

most of what she had lost. So she reasoned, true at last, to her faith in all men, and in their ultimate goodness. The clank of iron hoofs upon the stone courtyard drew her hurriedly from her retirement. There, beside his horse, stood Lasseter, his dark apparel and the great black gun-shees, contrasting singularly with his gentle smile. Jane's active mind took up her interest in him, and her half-determined desire to use what charm she had to foil his evident design in visiting cottonwoods. If she could mitigate his hatred of Mormons, or at least keep him from killing more of them, not only would she be saving her people, but also be leading back this blood-spiller to some semblance of the human.

"'Morin'am,' he said, black sombrero in hand. "'Lassiter, I'm not an old woman, or even a madam,' she replied, with her bright smile. If you can't say Miss Witherstein, call me Jane. I reckon Jane would be easier. First names are always handy for me. Well, use mine then. Lasseter, I'm glad to see you. I'm in trouble. Then she told him of Judkin's return, of the driving of the Red Herd, a Venter's departure on Wrangle, and the calling in of her riders. Pears to me, you're some smiling and pretty for a woman with so much trouble, he remarked. "'Lasseter, are you paying me compliments?

"'But seriously, I've made up my mind not to be miserable. "'I've lost much, and I'll lose more. "'Nevertheless, I won't be sour, "'and I hope I'll never be unhappy again.' "'Lasseter twisted his hat round and round, as was his way, "'and took his time in replying. "'Women are strange to me. "'I got to back-trailing myself from them long ago,

"'but I'd like a game, woman. "'Might I ask Cianner. is how you take this trouble, if you're going to fight? Fight? How? Even if I would, I haven't a friend, except that boy who doesn't dare stay in the village. I make bold to say, ma'am, Jane, that there's another if you want him. Lasseter, thank you. But how can I accept you as a friend? Think, why, you'd ride down into the village with those terrible guns and kill my enemies, who are also my churchmen. "'I reckon I might be riled up to just about that,' he replied dryly.

She held out both hands to him. Lasseter, I'll accept your friendship, be proud of it, return it, if I may keep you from killing another Mormon. "'I'll tell you one thing,' he said bluntly as the gray lightning formed in his eyes. "'You're too good a woman to be sacrificed as you're going to be. No, I reckon you and me can't be friends on such terms.' In her earnestness she stepped closer to him, repelled, yet fascinated by the sudden transition of his moods. That he would fight for her was at once horrible and wonderful. You came here to kill a man. The man whom Millie Earn—'

The man who dragged Millie Earn to hell, put it that way. Jane Witherstein, yes, that's why I came here. I'd tell so much to no other living soul. There are a thing such a woman as you'd never dream of, so don't mention her again. not till you tell me the name of the man. Tell you, I never. I reckon you will, and I'll never ask you. I'm a man of strange beliefs and ways of thinking,

and I seem to see into the future and feel things hard to explain. The trail I've been following for so many years was twisted and tangled, but it's straightening out now. And Jane Witherstein, you crossed it long ago to ease poor Millie's agony. that, whether you want or not, makes Lassiter your friend. But you cross it now, strangely, to mean something to me. God knows what, unless by your noble blindness to incite me to greater hatred of Mormon men. Jane felt swayed by a strength that far exceeded her own.

In a clash of wills with this man, she would go to the wall. If she were to influence him, it must be wholly through womanly allurement. There was that about Lassiter which commanded her respect. She had abhorred his name. Face to face with him, she found she feared only his deeds. His mystic suggestion, his foreshadowing of something that she was to mean to him, pierced deep into her mind. She believed fate had thrown in her way the lover or husband of Millie Earn.

She believed that through her an evil man might be reclaimed. His allusion to what he called her blindness terrified her. Such a mistaken idea of his might unleash the bitter, fatal mood she had. sensed in him. At any cost, she must placate this man. She knew the dye was cast, and that if Lasseter did not soften to a woman's grace and beauty and wiles, then it would be because she could not make him. I reckon you'll hear no more such talk from me, Lasseter went on presently. Now, Miss Jane, I wrote in to tell you that your herd of white steers is down on the slope behind them big ridges, and I seen something going on that it'd be mighty interest in to you if you could

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

slowly overspread his face. "'If I didn't take you for a boy,' he exclaimed, "'it's powerful queer what difference clothes make. Now I've been some scared of your dignity, like when the other night you was all in white, but in this rig—' Black Star came pounding into the court, dragging Jerd half off his feet, and he whistled at Lasseter's Black. But at sight of Jane, all his defiant lines seemed to soften, and with tosses of his beautiful head, he whipped his bridle. Down, Black Star, down, said Jane. He dropped his head, and, slowly lengthening, he bent one foreleg,

then the other, and sank to his knees. Jane slipped her left foot in the stirrup, swung lightly into the saddle, and Black Star rose with a ringing stamp. It was not easy for Jane to hold him to a canter through the grove, and like the wind he broke when he saw the sage. Jane let him have a couple of miles of free running on the open trail, and then she coaxed him in and waited for her companion. Lasseter was not long in catching up,

and presently they were riding side by side. It reminded her how she used to ride with ventures. Where was he now? She gazed far down the slope to the curved purple lines of deception pass and involuntarily shut her eyes with a trembling stir of nameless fear. "'We'll turn off here,' Lassiter said, "'and take to the sage a mile or so. "'The white herd is behind them big ridges.'

"'What are you going to show me?' asked Jane. "'I'm prepared. Don't be afraid.' He smiled as if he meant that bad news came swiftly enough without being presaged by speech. When they reached the lee of a rolling ridge, Lasseter dismounted, motioning to her to do likewise. They left the horses standing, braddles down. Then Lassiter, carrying the field-glasses, began to lead the way up the slow rise of

ground. Upon nearing the summit, he halted her with a gesture. I reckon we'd see more if we didn't show ourselves against the sky, he said. I was here less than an hour ago. Then the herd was seven or eight miles south, and if they ain't bolted yet, Lassiter, bolted? That's what I said. Now let's see. jane climbed a few more paces behind him and then peeped over the ridge just beyond began a shallow swale that deepened and widened into a valley and then swung to the left following the undulating sweep of sage jane saw the straggling lines and then the great body of the white herd she knew enough about steers even at a distance of four or five miles to realize that something was in the wind bringing her field glass into use she moved it slowly from left to right which at a distance of four or five miles to realize that something was in the wind bringing her field glass into use she moved it slowly from left to right which action swept the whole herd into range. The stragglers were restless. The more compactly masked steers were browsing. Jane brought the glass back to the big sentinels of the herd, and she saw them trot with quick steps, stop short and toss wide horns, look everywhere,

and then trot in another direction. Judkins hasn't been able to get his boys together yet, said Jane, but he'll be there soon. I hope not too late. Lasseter, what's frightening those big leaders. "'Nothing just on the minute,' replied Lassiter. "' Them steers are quiet and down. They've been scared, but not bad yet. I reckon the whole herd has moved a few miles this way since I was here.' "'They didn't browse that distance, not in less than an hour. Cattle aren't sheep.' "'No, they just run it, and that looks bad.' "'Lasseter, what frightened them?' repeated Jane impatiently.

Put down your glass. You'll see it first better with a naked eye. Now look along them ridges on the other side of the herd, the ridges where the sun shines bright on the sage. That's right. Now look, and look hard, and wait. Long-drawn moments of straining sight rewarded Jane with nothing save the low purple rim of ridge

and the shimmering sage. It's begun again, whispered Lasseter, and he gripped her arm. Watch. There, did you see that? No, no, tell me what to look for. A white flash, a kind of pinpoint of quick light, a gleam as from sun shining on something white. Suddenly Jane's concentrated gaze caught a fleeting glint. Quickly she brought her glass to bear on the spot.

Again, the purple sage, magnified in color and size and wave, for long moments irritated her with its monotony. then from out of the sage on the ridge flew up a broad white object, flashed in the sunlight, and vanished. Like magic it was, and bewildered Jane. What on earth is that? I reckon there's someone behind that ridge throwing up a sheet or a white blanket to reflect the sunshine. Why? queried Jane, more bewildered than ever. To stampede the herd, replied Lasseter, and his teeth clicked.

"'Ah!' she made a fierce, passionate movement, clutched the glass tightly, shook as with the passing of a spasm, and then dropped her head. Presently she raised it to greet Lasseter with something like a smile. "'My righteous brethren are at work again,' she said in scorn. She had stifled the leap of her wrath, but for perhaps the first time in her life a bitter derision curled her lips. Lasseter's cool gray eyes seemed to pierce her. I said I was prepared for anything, but that was hardly true. But why would they, anybody, stampede my cattle? That's a Mormon's godly way of bringing a woman to her knees.

Lasseter, I'll die before I ever bend my knees. I might be lead. I won't be driven. Do you expect the herd to bolt? I don't like the looks of them big steers, but you can never tell. Cattle sometimes stampede as easily as buffalo. Any little flash or move will start them. A rider getting down and walking toward them sometimes will make them jump and fly. Then again, nothing seems to scare them.

But I reckon that white flare will do the biz. It's a new one on me, and I've seen some riding and rustling. It just takes one of them God-fearing Mormons to think of devilish tricks. Lasseter might not this trick be done by Old Rings men? asked Jane, ever grasping at straws. "'It might be, but it ain't,' replied Lasseter. "'Old rings an honest thief. "'He don't sculpt behind ridges to scatter your cattle to the four winds.

"'He rides down on you, and if you don't like it, you can throw a gun.' Jane bit her tongue to refrain from championing men who, at the very moment, were proving to her that they were little and mean compared even with rustlers. "'Look, Jane, them leadensteers, have bolted. "'They're draw on the stragglers, and that'll pull the whole herd.' jane was not quick enough to catch the details called out by lacedaure but she saw the line of cattle lengthening then like a stream of white bees pouring from a huge swarm the steers stretched out from the main body in a few moments with astonishing rapidity the whole herd got into motion A faint roar of trampling hoofs came to Jane's ears and gradually swelled. Low, rolling clouds of dust began to rise above the sage.

It's a stampede and a hummer, said Lasseter. Oh, Lasseter, the herds running with the valley. It leads into the canyon. There's a straight jump-off. I reckon they'll run into it, too. But that's a good many miles yet. And Jane, this valley swings round almost north before it goes east. That stampede will pass within a mile of us. The long, white, bobbing line of steers

streaks swiftly through the sage, and a funnel-shaped dust cloud arose at a low angle. A dull rumbling filled Jane's ears. I'm thinking of milling that herd, said Lasseter. His gray glance swept up the slope to the west. There's some specks and dust way off toward the village. Maybe that's Judkins and his boys. It ain't likely he'll get here in time to.

help. You'd better hold Black Star here on this high ridge. He ran to his horse, and throwing off saddlebags and tightening the cinches, he leaped astride and galloped straight down across the valley. Jane went for Blackstar, and leading him to the summit of the ridge, she mounted and faced the valley with excitement and expectancy. She had heard of milling stampeded cattle, and knew it was a feat accomplished by only the most daring riders. The white herd was now strung out, in a line two miles long. The dull rumble of thousands of hooks deepened into continuous low thunder, and as the steers swept swiftly closer, the thunder became a heavy roll. Lasseter crossed in a few moments the level of the valley to the eastern rise of ground, and there waited the coming of the

herd. Presently, as the head of the white line reached a point opposite to where Jane stood, Lasseter spurred his black into a run. Jane saw him take a position on the off-side of the leader's of the stampede, and there he rode. It was like a race. They swept on down the valley, and when the end of the white line near Lasseter's first stand, the head had begun to swing round to the west. It swung slowly and stubbornly, yet surely, and gradually assumed a long, beautiful curve of moving white. To Jane's amaze, she saw the leaders swinging, turning till they headed back toward her and up the valley. Out to the right of these wild plunging steers ran Lassiter's black, and Jane's keen eye appreciated the fleet stride and sure-footedness of the blind horse.

Then it seemed that the herd moved in a great curve, a huge half-moon with the points of head and tail almost opposite, and a mile apart. But Lasseter relentlessly crowded the leaders, shearing them to the left, turning them little by little, and the dust-blinded wild followers plunged on madly in the tracks of their leaders. This ever-moving, ever-changing curve of steers rolled toward Jane, and when below her scarce half a mile, it began to narrow and close into a circle. Lassiter had ridden parallel with her position, turned toward her, then aside,

and now he was riding directly away from her, all the time pushing the head of that bobbing line inward. It was then that Jane, suddenly understanding Lassiter's feet, stared and gasped at the riding of this intrepid man. His horse was fleet and tireless, but blind. He had pushed the leaders around and around till they were about. to turn in on the inner side of the end of that line of steers. The leaders were already running in a circle. The end of the herd was still running almost straight. But soon they would be wheeling. Then, when Lasseter had the circle formed, how would he escape? With Jane Witherstein, prayer was as ready as praise, and she prayed for this man's safety. A circle of dust began to

collect. Dimly, as through a yellow veil, Jane saw Lasseter press the leaders inward to close the gap in the sage. She lost sight of him in the dust. Again she thought she saw the black, riderless now, rear and drag himself, and fall. Lasseter had been thrown, lost. Then he reappeared, running out of the dust into the sage. He had escaped, and she breathed again. Spellbound, Jane Witherstein watched this stupendous mill-wheel of steers. Here was the milling of the herd. The white running circle closed in upon the open-space, of sage, and the dust circles closed above into a pall. The ground quaked, and the incessant thunder of pounding hooks rolled on. Jane felt deafened, yet she thrilled to a new sound.

As the circle of sage lessened, the steers began to bawl, and when it closed entirely, there came a great upheaval in the center, and a terrible thumping of heads and clicking of horns. Balling, climbing, goring, the great mass of steers on the inside wrestled in a crashing den. heaved and groaned under the pressure. Then came a deadlock. The inner strife ceased, and the hideous roar and crash. Movement went on in the outer circle, and that too gradually stilled. The white herd had come to a stop, and the pall of yellow dust began to drift away on the wind.

Jane Witherstein waited on the ridge with full and grateful heart. Lasseter appeared, making his weary way toward her through the sage. And up on the slope, Judkins rode into sight with his troop of boys. For the present, at least, the white herd would be looked after. When Lasseter reached her and laid his hand on Black Star's Maine, Jane could not find speech. "'Killed my horse,' he panted. "'Oh, I'm sorry,' cried Jane. Lassiter, I know you can't replace him, but I'll give you any one of my racers, bells or night, even Black Star. I'll take a fast ho's Jane, but not one of your favorites, he replied.

Only, will you let me have Black Star now, and ride him over there and head off them fellers who stampeded the herd? He pointed to several moving specks of black and puffs of dust in the purple sage. I can head them off with this horse, and then? Then, Lasseter? They'll never stampede no more cattle. Oh, no, no, Lasseter, I won't let you go. But a flush of fire Flamed in her cheeks And her trembling hands shook black stars bridle

And her eyes fell before Alassetres End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of Riders of the Purple Sage This is a Librevox recording All Libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit Libravox.org Recorded by Laurie Ann Walden

Writers of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray Chapter 7 The Daughter of Witherstein Lassiter, will you be my writer? Jane had asked him. I reckon so, he had replied. Few as the words were, Jane knew how infinitely much they implied.

She wanted him to take charge of her cattle and horse and ranges and save them if that were possible. Yet, though she could not have spoken aloud all she meant, She was perfectly honest with herself. Whatever the price to be paid, she must keep Lassiter close to her. She must shield from him the man who had led Millie Earned to Cottonwoods. In her fear, she so controlled her mind that she did not whisper this Mormon's name to her own soul. She did not even think it.

Besides, beyond this thing she regarded as a sacred obligation thrust upon her was the need of a helper, of a friend, of a champion in this critical time. If she could rule this gunman, as Vinters had called him, if she could even keep him from shedding blood, what strategy to play his flame and his presence against the game of oppression her churchmen were waging against her? Never would she forget the effect on Tull and his men when Vinter's shouted Lassiter's name.

If she could not wholly control Lassiter, then what she could do might put off the fatal day. One of her safe racers was a dark bay, and she called him bells because of the way he struck his iron. shoes on the stones. When Jir led out this slender, beautifully built horse, Lasseter suddenly became all eyes. A rider's love of a thoroughbred shone in them. Round and round bells he walked, plainly weakening all the time in his determination not to take one of Jane's favorite racers. Lassiter, you're half-horse and Bell sees it already, said Jane, laughing. Look at his

eyes. He likes you. He'll love you, too. How can you resist him? Oh, Lassiter, but bells can run. It's nip and tuck between him and wrangle, and only Black Star can beat him. He's too spirited a horse for a woman. Take him. He's yours. I just am weak where a horse is concerned, said Lassiter. I'll take him, and I'll take your orders, ma'am. Well, I'm glad, but never mind the ma'am.

Let it still be Jane. From that hour, it seemed, Lassiter was always in the saddle, riding early and late, and, coincident with his part in Jane's affairs, the days assumed their old tranquility. Her intelligence told her this was only the lull before the storm, but her faith would not have it so. She resumed her visits to the village, and upon one of these she encountered Tull. He greeted her as he had before any trouble came between them, and she, responsive to peace, if not quick to forget, met him halfway with manner almost cheerful. He regretted the loss of her cattle. He assured her that the vigilantes which had been organized would soon rout the rustlers.

When that had been accomplished, her riders would likely return to her. You've done a headstrong thing to hire this man Lasseter, Toll went on severely. He came to Cottonwoods with evil intent. I had to have somebody, and perhaps making him my rider may turn out best in the end for the Mormons of Cottonwoods. You mean to stay his hand? I do, if I can. A woman like you can do anything with a man. That would be well and would atone in some measure for the errors you have made.

He bowed and passed on. Jane resumed her walk with conflicting thoughts. She resented Elder Tull's cold, impassive manner that looked down upon her as one who had incurred his just displeasure. Otherwise, he would have been the same calm, dark-browed, impenetrable man she had known for ten years. In fact, except when he had revealed. his passion in the matter of the seizing of Venters, she had never dreamed he could be other than the grave, reproving preacher. He stood out now a strange, secretive man. She would have thought better of him if he had picked up the threads of their quarrel where they had parted. Was Tull

what he appeared to be? The question flung itself involuntarily over Jane Witherstein's inhibitive habit of faith without question, and she refused to answer it. Tull could not fight in the open. Venters had said, Lasseter had said, that her elder shirked fight and worked in the dark. Just now in this meeting, Tull had ignored the fact that he had sued, exhorted, demanded that she marry him. He made no mention of Venters. His manner was that of the minister who had been outraged, but who overlooked the frailties of a woman. Beyond question, he seemed unutterably aloof from all knowledge of pressure being brought to bear upon her, absolutely guiltless of any connection with secret power over riders, with night journeys, with rustlers, and stampedes of cattle.

And that convinced her again of unjust suspicions. But it was convincement through an obstinate faith. She shuddered as she accepted it, and that shudder was the nucleus of a terrible revolt. Jane turned into one of the wide lanes leading from the main street and entered a huge, shady yard. Here were sweet-smelling clover, alfalfa, flowers, and vegetables, all growing in head. happy confusion. And like these fresh green things were the dozens of babies, tots, toddlers, noisy urchins, laughing girls, a whole multitude of children of one family. For Collier-Brant, the father of all this numerous progeny, was a Mormon with four wives. The big house where they lived was old, solid, picturesque, the lower part built of logs, the upper of rough clabbards,

with vines growing up the outside stone chimneys. There were many, wooden shuttered windows, and one pretentious window of glass proudly curtained in white. As this house had four mistresses, it likewise had four separate sections, not one of which communicated with another, and all had to be entered from the outside. In the shade of a wide, low, vine-roofed porch, Jane found Brant's wives entertaining Bishop Dyer. They were motherly women, of comparatively similar ages, and plain-featured, and just at this moment anything but grave. The bishop was rather tall, of stout build, with iron-gray hair and beard, and eyes of light blue. They were merry now, but Jane had seen them when they were not,

and then she feared him as she had feared her father. The women flocked around her in welcome. Daughter of Witherstein, said the bishop gaily as he took her hand, you have not been prodigal of your gracious self of late. A Sabbath without you at service, I shall reprove Elder Tull. Bishop, the guilt is mine. I'll come to you and confess, Jane replied lightly, but she felt the undercurrent of her words.

Mormon love-making, exclaimed the bishop, rubbing his hands. Tull keeps you all to himself. No, he is not courting me. What, the laggard? If he does not make haste, I'll go according myself up to Witherstein House. There was laughter

and further bantering by the bishop. and then mild talk of village affairs, after which he took his leave, and Jane was left with her friend, Mary Brandt. Jane, you're not yourself. Are you sad about the rustling of the cattle? But you have so many, you are so rich. Then Jane confided in her, telling much, yet holding back her doubts of fear. Oh, why don't you marry Tull and be one of us? But Mary, I don't love Tull, said Jane stubbornly. I don't blame you for that. But Jane Witherstein, you've got to choose between the love of man and love of God.

Often we Mormon women have to do that. It's not easy. The kind of happiness you want, I wanted once. I never got it, nor will you unless you throw away your soul. We've all watched your affair with ventures in fear and trembling. Some dreadful thing will come of it. You don't want him hanged or shot, or treated worse as that Gentile boy was treated in glaze for fooling round a Mormon woman.

Mary, Tull, it's your duty as a Mormon. You'll feel no rapture as his wife, but think of heaven. Mormon women don't marry for what they expect on earth. Take up the cross, Jane. Remember your father found Amber Spring, built these old houses, brought Mormons here, and fathered them. You are the daughter of Witherstein. Jane left Mary Brandt and went to call upon other friends.

They received her with the same glad welcome as had Mary, lavished upon her the pent-up affection of Mormon women, and let her go with her ears ringing of tall, ventures, Lasseter, of duty to God, and glory in heaven. Verily, murmured Jane, I don't know myself when, through all this, I remain unchanged, nay, more fixed of purpose. She returned to the main street,

and bent her thoughtful steps toward the center of the village. A string of wagons drawn by oxen was lumbering along. These sage freighters, as they were called, hauled grain and flour and merchandise from sterling, and Jane laughed suddenly in the midst of her humility at the thought that they were her property, as was one of the three stores for which they freighted goods. The water that flowed along the path at her feet, and turned into each cottage-yard to nourish garden and orchard, also was hers, no less her private property because she chose to give it free. Yet in this village of Cottonwoods, which her father had founded, and which she maintained,

she was not her own mistress. She was not able to abide by her own choice of a husband. She was the daughter of Witherstein. Suppose she proved it imperiously. But she quelled that proud temptation at its birth. Nothing could have replaced the affection which the village people had for her. No power could have made her happy as the pleasure her presence gave. As she went on down the street past the stores with their rude platform entrances,

and the saloons where tired horses stood with bridles dragging, she was again assured of what was the bread and wine of life to her, that she was loved. Dirty boys playing in the ditch, clerks, teamsters, riders, loungers on the corners, ranchers on dusty horses, little girls running errands, and women hurrying to the stores, all looked up at her coming with glad eyes. Jane's various calls and wandering steps at length letter to the Gentile quarter of the village. This was at the extreme southern end, and here some 30 Gentile families lived in huts and shacks and log cabins and several dilapidated cottages.

The fortunes of these inhabitants of Cottonwoods could be read in their abodes. Water they had in abundance, and therefore grass and fruit trees and patches of alfalfa and vegetable gardens. Some of the men and boys had a few strange. cattle. Others obtained such intermittent employment as the Mormons reluctantly tendered them. But none of the families was prosperous, many were very poor, and some lived only by Jane Witherstein's beneficence. As it made Jane happy to go among her own people, so it saddened her to come in contact with these Gentiles. Yet that was not because she was unwelcome. Here she was gratefully received by the women, passionately by the children. But poverty and idleness,

their attendant wretchedness and sorrow, always hurt her. That she could alleviate this distress more now than ever before proved the adage that it was an ill wind that blew nobody good. While her Mormon riders were in her employ, she had found few Gentiles who would stay with her, and now she was able to find employment for all the men and boys. No little shock was it to have man after man tell her that he dare not accept her kind offer. It won't do, said one Carson, an intelligent man who had seen better days. We've had our warning, plain and to the point. Now there's Judkins. He packs guns, and he can use them, and so can the daredevil boys he's hired.

But they've little responsibility. Can we risk having our homes burned in our absence? Jane felt the stretching and chilling of the skin of her face as the blood left it. "'Carsen, you and the others rent these houses?' she asked. "'You ought to know, Miss Witherstein. Some of them are yours.' "'I know. Carson, I never in my life took a day's labor for rent, or a yearling calf, or a bunch of grass, let alone gold.' Vivens, your storekeeper, seized to that. "'Look here, Carson,' went on Jane hurriedly, and now her cheeks were burning. "'You and black and willet, pack your goods.

and move your families up to my cabins in the grove. They're far more comfortable than these. Then go to work for me, and if all it happens to you there, I'll give you money, gold enough to leave Utah. The man choked and stammered, and then, as tears welled into his eyes, he found the use of his tongue and cursed.

No gentle speech could ever have equaled that curse in eloquent expression of what he felt for Jane Witherstein. How strangely his look and tone reminded her of Lasseter. "'No, it won't do,' he said, when he had somewhat recovered himself. "'Miss Witherstein, there are things that you don't know, and there's not a soul among us who can tell you.' "'I seem to be learning many things, Carson. "'Well, then, will you let me aid you? Say till better times?' "'Yes, I will,' he replied, with his face lighting up.

"'I see what it means to you, and you know what it means to me. "'Thank you. And if better times ever come, I'll be only two. happy to work for you. Better times will come. I trust God and have faith in man. Good day, Carson. The lane opened out upon the sage-enclosed alfalfa fields, and the last habitation, at the end of that lane of Huffles, was the meanest. Formerly it had been a shed, now it was a home. The broad leaves of a widespread cottonwood sheltered the sunken roof of weathered boards. Like an Indian hut, it had one floor. round about it were a few scanty rows of vegetables, such as the hand of a weak woman had time and strength to cultivate. This little dwelling place was just outside the village limits, and the widow who lived there had to carry her water from the nearest irrigation ditch.

As Jane Witherstein entered the unfenced yard, a child saw her, shrieked with joy, and came tearing toward her with curls flying. This child was a little girl of four called Faye. Her name suited her, for she was an elf, a sprite, a creature so fairy-like and beautiful that she seemed unearthly. "'Mupper, send it for you,' cried Faye, as Jane kissed her. "'And who never tom?' "'I didn't know Faye, but I've come now.' Faye was a child of outdoors, of the garden and ditch and field, and she was dirty and ragged.

But rags and dirt did not hide her beauty. The one thin little bedraggled garment she wore half-covered her fine, slim body, Red as cherries were her cheeks in lips, her eyes were violet blue, and the crown of her childish loveliness was the curling golden hair. All the children of Cottonwoods were Jane Witherstein's friends. She loved them all. But Fay was dearest to her. Faye had few playmates, for among the Gentile children there were none near her age, and the Mormon children were forbidden to play with her. So she was a shy, wild, lonely child. "'Mother's sick,' said Faye, leading Jane, toward the door of the hut. Jane went in.

There was only one room, rather dark and bare, but it was clean and neat. A woman lay upon a bed. "'Miss Larkin, how are you?' asked Jane anxiously. "'I've been pretty bad for a week, but I'm better now.' "'You haven't been here all alone, with no one to wait on you.' "'Oh, no, my women neighbors are concerned. kind. They take turns coming in. Did you send for me?

Yes, several times. But I had no word. No messages ever got to me. I sent the boys, and they left word with your women that I was ill, and would you please come? A sudden deadly sickness seized Jane. She fought the weakness, as she fought to be above suspicious thoughts, and it passed, leaving her conscious of her utter impotence. That too passed, as her spirit rebounded. But she had again caught a glimpse of dark underhand domination, running its secret lines this time into her own household.

Like a spider in the blackness of night, an unseen hand had begun to run these dark lines, to turn and twist them about her life, to plate and weave a web. Jane Witherstein knew it now, and in the realization, further coolness and sureness came to her, and the fighting courage of her ancestors.

"'Mrs. Larkin, you're better, and I'm so glad,' said Jane. "'But may I not do something for you? "'I turn at nursing, or send you things, or take care of Faye.' "'You're so good. "'Since my husband's been gone, what would have become a Faye in me but for you? "'It was about Faye that I wanted to speak to you. "'This time I thought surely I'd die, and I was worried about Faye. "'Well, I'll be around all right shortly, but my strength's gone,

and I won't live long. So I may as well speak now. You remember you've been asking me to let you take Faye and bring her up as your daughter? Indeed, yes, I remember. I'll be happy to have her. But I hope the day... Never mind that. The day'll come sooner or later.

I refused your offer, and now I'll tell you why. I know why, interposed Jane. It's because you don't want her brought up as a Mormon. No, it was a woman. wasn't altogether that. Mrs. Larkin raised her thin hand and laid it appealingly on Jane's. I don't like to tell you, but it's this. I told all my friends what you wanted. They know you, care for you, and they said for me to trust Faye to you. Women will talk, you know. It got to the ears of Mormons, gossip of your love for Faye and your wanting her, and it came straight back to me,

and jealousy, perhaps, that you wouldn't take Faye as much for love of her as because of your religious duty to bring up another girl for some Mormon to marry. That's a damnable lie, cried Jane Witherstein. It was what made me hesitate, went on Mrs. Larkin, but I never believed it at heart. And now I guess I'll let you— Wait, Mrs. Larkin, I may have told little white lies in my life, but never a lie that mattered that hurt anyone. Now believe me, I love Little Fay. If I had her near me, I'd grow to worship her. When I asked for her, I thought only of that love. Let me prove this. You and Fay come to live with me.

I've such a big house, and I'm so lonely. I'll help nurse you, take care of you. When you're better, you can work for me. I'll keep Little Fay and bring her up, without Mormon teaching. When she's grown, if she should want to leave me, I'll send her, and not empty hands. handed, back to Illinois where you came from. I promise you. I knew it was a lie, replied the mother, and she sank back upon her pillow with something of peace in her white, worn face. Jane Witherstein, may heaven bless you, I've been deeply grateful to you. But because you're a Mormon, I never felt close to you till now. I don't know much about religion as religion, but your God and my God are the same. End of Chapter 7.

Chapter 8 of Riders of the Purple Sage This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visitlibrovox.org. Recorded by Laurie Ann Walden. Writers of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray. Chapter 8. Surprise Valley Back in that strange canyon, which Venters had found indeed a valley of surprises,

the wounded girls whispered appeal, almost a prayer. not to take her back to the rustlers, crowned the events of the last few days with a confounding climax, that she should not want to return to them staggered ventures. Presently, as logical thought returned, her appeal confirmed his first impression, that she was more unfortunate than bad, and he experienced a sensation of gladness. If he had known before that Old Rings masked rider was a woman, his opinion would have been formed, and he would have considered her abandoned. But his first knowledge had come when he lifted a white face quivering in a convulsion of agony.

He had heard God's name whispered by blood-stained lips. Through her solemn and awful eyes he had caught a glimpse of her soul. And just now had come the entreaty to him, Don't take me back there. Once for all, Ventor's quick mind formed a permanent conception of this poor girl. He based it not upon what the chances of life had made her, but upon the revelation of dark eyes that pierced the infinite, upon a few pitiful, halting words that betrayed failure and wrong and misery,

yet breathed the truth of a tragic fate rather than a natural leaning to evil. What's your name, he inquired? Bess, she answered. Bess what? That's enough, just Bess. The red that deepened in her cheeks was not all the flush of fever. Vinters marveled anew. and this time at the tent of shame in her face, at the momentary drooping of long lashes. She might be a rustler's girl, but she was still capable of shame.

She might be dying, but she still clung to some little remnant of honor. Very well, Bess, it doesn't matter, he said. But this matters. What shall I do with you? Are you a rider? she whispered. Not now. I was once. I drove the Witherstein herds. But I lost my place, lost all I owned. And now I'm a sort of outcast.

My name's Bern Venter's. You won't take me to cottonwoods or glaze? I'd be hanged. No, indeed. But I must do something with you, for it's not safe for me here. I shot that rustler who was with you. Sooner or later, he'll be found, and then my tracks. I must find a safer hiding place where I can't be trailed.

Leave me here. Alone, to die. Yes. I will not. Venters spoke shortly with a kind of ring in his voice. What do you want to do with me? Her whispering grew difficult, so low and faint that Venters had to stoop to hear her. Why, let's see, he replied slowly. I'd like to take you someplace where I could watch by you, nurse you, till you're all right. And then? Well, it'll be time to think of that when you're cured of your wound. It's a bad one. And Bess, if you don't want to live, if you don't fight for life, you'll never... Oh, I want to live.

I'm afraid to die. But I'd rather die than go back to... To Oldering, asked Venters, interrupting her in turn. Her lips moved in an affirmative. I promise not to... to take you back to him or to cottonwoods or to glaze. The mournful earnestness of her gaze suddenly shone with unutterable gratitude and wonder, and as suddenly Venters found her eyes beautiful as he had never seen or felt beauty.

They were as dark blue as the sky at night. Then the flashing changed to a long, thoughtful look, in which there was a wistful, unconscious searching of his face, a look that trembled on the verge of hope and trust. I'll try to live, she said. The broken whisper just reached his ears. Do what you want with me. Rest then. Don't worry. Sleep, he replied.

Abruptly he arose as if words had been decision for him, and with a sharp command to the dogs, he strode from the camp. Venters was conscious of an indefinite conflict of change within him. It seemed to be a vague passing of old moods, a dim coalescing of new forces, a moment of inexplicable transition. He was both cast down and uplifted. He wanted to think and think of the meaning, but he resolutely dispelled emotion. His imperative need at present was to find a safe retreat, and this called for action. So he sat out. It still wanted several hours before dark. This trip he turned to the left

and winded his skulking way southward a mile or more to the opening of the valley, where lay the strange scrawled rocks. He did not, however, venture boldly out into the open sage, but clung to the right-hand wall and went along that till its perpendicular line broke into the long incline of bare stone. Before proceeding farther, he halted, studying the strange character of this slope, and realizing that a moving black object could be seen far against such background. Before him ascended a gradual swell of smooth stone. It was hard, polished, and full of pockets worn by centuries of eddying rainwater. A hundred yards up began a line of grotesque cedar trees, and they extended along the slope clear to its most southerly end. Beyond that end, Venters wanted to

get, and he concluded the cedars, few as they were, would afford some cover. Therefore he climbed swiftly. The trees were farther up than he had estimated, though he had, from long habit, made allowance for the deceiving nature of distances in that country. When he gained the cover of cedars, he paused to rest and look, and it was then he saw how the trees sprang from holes in the bare rock. Ages of rain had run down the slope, circling, eddying, and depressions, wearing deep ground holes. There had been dry seasons, accumulations of dust, wind-blown seeds, and cedars rose wonderfully out of solid rock. But these were not beautiful, cedars. They were gnarled, twisted into weird contortions as if growth were torture, dead at the

tops, shrunken, gray, and old. Theirs had been a bitter fight, and Vinters felt a strange sympathy for them. This country was hard on trees, and men. He slipped from cedar to cedar, keeping them between him and the open valley. As he progressed, the belt of trees widened, and he kept to its upper margin. He passed shady pockets half full of water, and, as he marked the location for possible future need, he reflected that there had been no rain, since the winter snows. From one of these shady holes, a rabbit hopped out and squatted down, laying its ears flat. Vinters wanted fresh meat now more than when he had only himself to think of, but it would not do to fire his rifle there. So he broke off a cedar branch and threw it. He

crippled the rabbit, which started to flounder up the slope. Venters did not wish to lose the meat, and he never allowed crippled game to escape, to die lingeringly in some covert. so after a careful glance below and back toward the canyon he began to chase the rabbit the fact that rabbits generally ran uphill was not new to him but it presently seemed singular why this rabbit that might have escaped downward chose to ascend the slope Venters knew then that it had a burrow higher up. More than once he jerked over to seize it, only in vain, for the rabbit by renewed effort eluded his grasp. Thus the chase continued on up the bare slope. The farther Venters climbed, the more determined he grew to catch his quarry.

At last, panting and sweating, he captured the rabbit at the foot of a steeper grade. Laying his rifle on the bulge of rising stone, he killed the animal and slung it from his belt. Before starting down, he waited to catch his breath. He had climbed far up that wonderful smooth slope, and had almost reached the base of Yellow Cliff that rose scoured, a huge scarred and cracked bulk. It frowned down upon him, as if to forbid further ascent. Venters bent over for his rifle,

and as he picked it up from where it leaned against the steeper grade, he saw several little nicks cut in the solid stone. They were only a few inches deep and about a foot apart. Vinters began to count them One, two, three, four, on up to sixteen. That number carried his glance to the top of his first bulging bench of cliff base. Above, after a more level offset,

was still steeper slope, and the line of Nix kept on to wind round a projecting corner of wall. A casual glance would have passed by these little dents. If Venters had not known what they signified, he would never have bestowed upon them the second glance. lance. But he knew they had been cut there by hand, and, though age-worn, he recognized them as steps cut in the rock by the cliff-dwellers. With a pulse beginning to beat and hammer away his

calmness, he eyed that indistinct line of steps, up to where the buttress of wall hid further sight of them. He knew that behind the corner of stone would be a cave or a crack which could never be suspected from below. Chance, that had sported with him of late, now directed him to a probable hiding place. Again he laid aside his rifle, and, removing boots and belt, he began to walk up the steps. Like a mountain goat, he was agile, sure-footed, and he mounted the first bench without bending to use his hands. The next ascent took grip of fingers as well as toes, but he climbed steadily, swiftly, to reach the projecting corner and slipped around it. Here he faced a notch in the cliff. At the apex he turned abruptly into a ragged vent that split the ponderous

wall clear to the top, showing a narrow streak of blue sky. At the base, this vent was dark, cool, and smelled of dry, musty dust. It zigzagged so that he could not see ahead more than a few yards at a time. He noticed tracks of wildcats and rabbits in the dusty floor. At every turn, he expected to come upon a huge cavern full of little square stone houses. each with a small aperture like a staring dark eye. The passage lightened and widened and opened at the foot of a narrow, steep, ascending chute. Vinders had a moment's notice of the rock,

which was of the same smoothness and hardness as the slope below, before his gaze went irresistibly upward to the precipitous walls of this wide ladder of granite. These were ruined walls of yellow sandstone, and so split and splintered, so overhanging with great sections of the granite. balancing rim, so impending with tremendous crumbling crags, that Venters caught his breath sharply, and, appalled, he instinctively recoiled as if a step upward might jar the ponderous

cliffs from their foundation. Indeed, it seemed that these ruined cliffs were but awaiting a breath of wind to collapse and come tumbling down. Venters hesitated. It would be a full, hearty man who risked his life under the leaning, wading avalanches of rock in that gigantic split. yet how many years had they leaned there without falling? At the bottom of the incline was an immense heap of weathered sandstone, all crumbling to dust, but there were no huge rocks as large as houses such as rested so lightly and frightfully above, waiting patiently and inevitably to crash down. Slowly split from the parent rock by the weathering process,

and carved and sculptured by ages of wind and rain, they waited their moment. Venters felt how foolish it was for him. to fear these broken walls, to fear that, after they had endured for thousands of years, the moment of his passing should be the one for them to slip. Yet, he feared it. What a place to hide, muttered Venters. I'll climb, I'll see where this thing goes. If only I can find water.

With teeth tight shut he essayed the incline, and as he climbed he bent his eyes downward. This, however, after a little grew impossible. He had to look to obey his eager, curious mind. He raised his glance and saw light between row on row of shafts and pinnacles and crags that stood out from the main wall. Some leaned against the cliff, others against each other. Many stood sheer and alone. All were crumbling, cracked, rotten.

It was a place of yellow, ragged ruin. The passage narrowed as he went up. It became a slant, hard for him to stick on. It was smooth as marble. Finally, he surmounted it, surprised to find the walls still several hundred feet high, and a narrow gorge leading down on the other side. This was a divide between two inclines, about twenty yards wide. At one side stood an enormous rock.

Vinters gave it a second glance, because it rested on a pedestal. It attracted closer attention. It was like a colossal pair of stone standing on its stem. Around the bottom were thousands of little Nix just did. distinguishable to the eye. They were marks of stone hatchets. The cliff dwellers had chipped and chipped away at this boulder till it rested its tremendous bulk upon a mere pinpoint of its surface. Venters pondered, why had the little stone men hacked away at that big boulder? It bore no semblance to a statue or an idol, or a godhead, or a sphinx. Instinctively he put his hands on it and pushed.

Then his shoulder and heaved. The stone seemed to be a godhead, or a sphinx. The stone seemed to be a godhead, to groan, to stir, to grate, and then to move. It tipped a little downward and hung balancing for a long instant, slowly returned, rocked slightly, groaned, and settled back to its former position. Venters divined its significance. It had been meant for defense. The cliff-dwellers, driven by dreaded enemies to this last stand, had cunningly cut the rock until it balanced perfectly, ready to be dislodged by strong hands. Just below it leaned a tottering crag that would have toppled, starting an avalanche on an acclivity where no sliding mass could stop.

Crags and pinnacles, splintered cliffs, and leaning shafts and monuments would have thundered down to block forever the outlet to deception pass. That was a narrow shave for me, said Venter soberly. A balancing rock. The cliff-dwellers never had to roll it. They died. vanished, and here the rock stands, probably little changed, but it might serve another lonely

dweller of the cliffs. I'll hide up here somewhere, if I can only find water. He descended the gorge on the other side. The slope was gradual, the space narrow, the course straight for many rods. A gloom hung between the upsweeping walls. In a turn, the passage narrowed to scarce a dozen feet, and here was darkness of night. But light shone ahead, another abrupt turn brought day again, and then wide-open space. Above ventures loomed a wonderful arch of stone, bridging the canyon rims, and through the enormous round portal gleamed and glistened a beautiful valley, shining under sunset gold reflected by surrounding cliffs. He gave a start of surprise. The valley was a cove, a mile long, half that wide, and its enclosing walls were smooth and stained, and curved

inward, forming great caves. He decided that its floor was far higher than the level of deception pass and the intersecting canyons. No purple sage colored this valley floor. Instead, there were the white of aspens, streaks of branch and slender trunk glistening from the green of leaves, and the darker green of oaks, and through the middle of this forest, from wall to wall, ran a winding line of brilliant green which marked the course of cottonwoods and willows. There's water here, and this is the place for me, said Venters. Only birds can peep over those walls. I've gone oldering one better. Vinders waited no longer and turned swiftly to retrace his steps. He named the canyon Surprise Valley and the huge boulder that guarded the outlet,

balancing rock. Going down, he did not find himself attended by such fears as had beset him in the climb. Still, he was not easy in mind and could not occupy himself with plans of moving the girl and his outfit until he had descended to the notch. There he rested a moment and looked about him. The pass was darkening with the approach of night. At the corner of the wall, where the stone steps turned, he saw a spur of rock that would serve to hold the noose of a lasso. He needed no more aid to scale that place. As he intended to make the move under cover of darkness, he wanted most to be able to tell where to climb up. So, taking several small stones with him, he stepped and slid down to the edge of the slope where he had left his rifle and boots. He placed the stone

some yards apart. He left the rabbit lying upon the bench where the steps began. Then he addressed a keen-sighted, remembering gaze to the rim wall above. It was serrated, and between two spears of rock, directly in line with his position, showed a zigzag crack that at night would let through the gleam of sky. This settled he put on his belt and boots and prepared to descend. Some consideration was necessary to decide whether or not to leave his rifle there. On the return, carrying the girl and a pack, it would be added encumbrance, and after debating the matter, he left the rifle leaning against the bench. As he went straight down the slope, he halted every few rods to look up at his mark on the rim. It changed, but he fixed each change in his memory. When he reached the first

cedar tree, he tied his scarf upon a dead branch, and then hurried toward camp, having no more concern about finding his trail upon the return trip. Darkness soon emboldened and lent him greater speed. It occurred to him as he glided into the grassy glade near camp, and heard the whinny of a horse that he had forgotten wrangle. The big sorrow could not be gotten into surprise Valley. He would have to be left here. Venters determined at once to lead the other horses out through the thicket and turn them loose. The farther they wandered from this canyon, the better it would suit him. He easily described Wrangell through the gloom, but the others were not in sight. Venters whistled low for the dogs, and when they came trotting to him, he sent them out to search

for the horses, and followed. It soon developed that they were not in the glade nor the thicket. Vinters grew cold and rigid at the thought of rustlers having entered his retreat. But the thought passed, for the demeanor of Ring and Whitey, reassured him. The horses had wandered away. Under the clump of silver spruces was a denser mantle of darkness, yet not so thick that Vinter's night-practiced eyes could not catch the white oval of a still face. He bent over it with a slight suspension of breath that was both caution, lest he frighten her, and chill uncertainty of feeling lest he find her dead.

But she slept, and he arose to renewed activity. He packed his saddlebags. The dogs were hungry. They whined about him and nosed his busy hands, but he took no time to feed them, nor to satisfy his own hunger. He slung the saddlebags over his shoulders, and made them secure with his lasso. Then he wrapped the blankets closer about the girl,

and lifted her in his arms. Rangel whinied and thumped the grass. as Venters passed him with the dogs. The Sorrel knew he was being left behind and was not sure whether he liked it or not. Venters went on and entered the thicket. Here he had to feel his way in pitch blackness and to wedge his progress between the close saplings. Time meant little to him now that he had started, and he edged along with slow side movement till he got clear of the thicket.

Ring and Whitey stood waiting for him. Taking to the open aisles and patches of the sage, he walked guard. "'careful not to stumble or step in dust "'or strike against spreading sage branches. "'If he were burdened, he did not feel it. "'From time to time, when he passed out of the black lines of shade "'into the wan starlight, he glanced at the white face of the girl "'lying in his arms.

"'She had not awakened from her sleep or stupor. "'He did not rest until he cleared the black gate of the canyon. "'Then he leaned against a stone, breast high to him, "'and gently released the girl from his hold. His brow and hair and the palms of his hands were wet, and there was a kind of nervous contraction of his muscles. They seemed to ripple and string tense. He had a desire to hurry and no sense of fatigue. A wind blew the scent of sage in his face.

The first early blackness of night passed with the brightening of the stars. Somewhere back on his trail a coyote yelped, splitting the dead silence. Ventor's faculties seemed singularly acute. He lifted the girl again and pressed on. The valley was better traveling than the canyon. It was lighter, freer of sage, and there were no rocks. Soon, out of the pale gloom shone a still paler thing, and that was the low swell of slope.

Venters mounted it, and his dogs walked beside him. Once upon the stone he slowed to snail pace, straining his sight to avoid the pockets and holes. Foot by foot he went up. The weird cedars, like great demons and witches, chained to the rock and writhing in silent anguish, loomed up with wide and twisting naked arms. Venters crossed this belt of cedars,

skirted the upper border, and recognized the tree he had marked even before he saw his waving scarf. Here he knelt and deposited the girl gently, feet first, and slowly laid her out full length. What he feared was to reopen one of her wounds. If he gave her a violent jar, or slipped and fell,

but the supreme confidence so strangely felt that night admitted no such blunders. The slope before him seemed to swell into obscurity to lose its definite outline in a misty, opaque cloud that shaded into the overshadowing wall. He scanned the rim where the serrated points speared the sky, and he found the zigzag crack. It was dim, only a shade lighter than the dark ramparts, but he distinguished it, and that served. lifting the girl he stepped upward, closely attending to the nature of the path under his feet. After a few steps he stopped to mark his line with the crack in the rim. The dogs clung closer to him.

While chasing the rabbit, this slope had appeared interminable to him. Now, burdened as he was, he did not think of length or height or toil. He remembered only to avoid a misstep and to keep his direction. He climbed on with frequent stops to watch the, the rim, and before he dreamed of gaining the bench, he bumped his knees into it, and saw, in the dim gray light, his rifle and the rabbit. He had come straight up without mishap or swerving off his course, and his shut teeth unlocked. As he laid the girl down in the shallow hollow of the little ridge with her white face upturned, she opened her eyes. Wide, staring black,

at once like both the night and the stars, they made her face seem still whiter. Is it a you? she asked faintly. Yes, replied Venters. Oh, where are we? I'm taking you to a safe place where no one will ever find you. I must climb a little here and call the dogs. Don't be afraid. I'll soon come for you.

She said no more. Her eyes watched him steadily for a moment and then closed. Venters pulled off his boots and then felt for the little steps in the rock. The shade of the cliff above obscured the point he wanted to gain, but he could see dimly a few feet before him. What he had attempted with care he now went at with surpassing lightness. Boyant, rapid, sure, he attained the corner of wall and slipped around it. Here he could not see a hand before his face, so he groped along, found a little flat space, and there removed the saddlebags. The lasso he took back with him to the corner and looped the noose over the spur of rock.

Ring, Whitey, come, he called, softly. Low whines came up from below. Here, come, Whitey, ring, he repeated, this time sharply. Then followed scraping of claws and pattering of feet, and out of the gray gloom below him, swiftly climbed the dogs to reach his side and pass beyond. Venters descended, holding to the lasso. He tested its strength by three. throwing all his weight upon it. Then he gathered the girl up, and holding her securely in his left

arm, he began to climb, at every few steps jerking his right hand upward along the lasso. It sagged at each forward movement he made, but he balanced himself lightly during the interval when he lacked the support of a taut rope. He climbed as if he had wings, the strength of the giant, and knew not the sense of fear. The sharp corner of cliff seemed to cut out of the darkness. He reached it and the protruding shelf, and then, entering the black shade of the notch, he moved blindly but surely to the place where he had left the saddlebags. He heard the dogs, though he could not see them. Once more he carefully placed the girl at his feet.

Then, on hands and knees, he went over the little flat space, feeling for stones. He removed a number, and, scraping the deep dust into a heap, he unfolded the outer blanket from around the girl, and later upon this, bed. Then he went down the slope again for his boots, rifle, and the rabbit, and bringing also his lasso with him, he made short work of that trip. Are you there? The girl's voice came low from the blackness. Yes, he replied, and was conscious that his laboring breast made speech difficult. Are we in a cave? Yes. Oh, listen. The waterfall. I hear it. You've brought me back.

Venters heard a murmuring moan that one moment swelled to a pitch almost softly shrill, and the next lulled to a low, almost inaudible sigh. That's wind-blowing in the cliffs, he panted. You're far from Old Rings Canyon. The effort it cost him to speak made him conscious of extreme lassitude following upon great exertion. It seemed that when he lay down and drew his blanket over him, the action was the last before utter prostration. He stretched inert, wet, hot, his body one great strife of throbbing, stinging nerves, and bursting veins. And there he lay for a long while before he

felt that he had begun to rest. Rest came to him that night, but no sleep. Sleep he did not want. The hours of strained effort were now as if they had never been, and he wanted to think. Earlier in the day he had dismissed an inexplicable feeling of change. But now, when there was no longer demand on his cunning and strength, and he had time to think, he could not catch the elusive thing that had sadly perplexed as well as elevated his spirit. Above him, through a V-shaped cleft, in the dark rim of the cliff, shone the lustrous stars that had been his lonely accusers for a long, long year. Tonight they were different.

He studied them. larger, wider, more radiant they seemed, but that was not the difference he meant. Gradually it came to him that the distinction was not one he saw but one he felt. And this he divined as much of the baffling change as he thought would be revealed to him then. And as he lay there, with the singing of the cliff winds in his ears, the white stars above the dark, bold vent, the difference which he felt was that he was no longer alone. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of Writers of the Purple Sage

This is a Libravox recording All Libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit Libravox.org Recorded by Lorry Ann Walden Writer of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray Chapter 9 Silver Spruce and Aspins

The rest of that night seemed to Venters only a few moments of starlight, a dark overcasting of sky, an hour or so of gray gloom, and then the lighting of dawn. When he had bestirred himself, feeding the hungry dogs and breaking his long fast, and had repacked his saddlebags, it was clear daylight, though the sun had not tipped the yellow wall in the east. He concluded to make the climb and descent into surprise valley in one trip. To that end, he tied his blanket upon ring, and gave Whitey the extra lasso and the rabbit to carry. Then, with the rifle and saddle-bags slung upon his back, he took up the girl. She did not awaken from heavy slumber. That climb up under the rugged, menacing brows of the

broken cliffs, in the face of a grim, leaning boulder that seemed to be weary of its age-long wavering, was attacks on strength and nerve that ventures felt equally with something sweet and strangely exulting in its accomplishment. He did not pause until he gained the narrow divide, and there he rested. Balancing rock loomed huge, cold in the gray light of dawn, a thing without life, yet it spoke silently to Vinters.

I am waiting to plunge down, to shatter and crash, roar and boom, to bury your trail, and close forever the outlet to deception pass. On the descent of the other side, venters had easygoing, but was somewhat concerned

because Whitey appeared to have succumbed to temptation, and while carrying the rabbit, was also chewing on it. and Ring evidently regarded this as an injury to himself, especially as he had carried the heavier load. Presently he snapped at one end of the rabbit and refused to let go, but his action prevented Whitey from further misdoing, and then the two dogs pattered down, carrying the rabbit between them. Venters turned out of the gorge and suddenly paused, stock still, astounded at the scene before him. The curve of the Great Stone Bridge had caught the sunrise, and through the magnificent arch burst a glorious stream of gold that shone with a long slant down into the center of Surprise Valley.

Only through the arch did any sunlight pass so that all the rest of the valley lay still asleep, dark green, mysterious, shadowy, merging its level into walls as misty and soft as morning clouds. Venters then descended, passing through the arch, looking up. at its tremendous height and sweep. It spanned the opening to surprise valley, stretching an almost perfect curve from rim to rim. Even in his hurry and concern, Venters could not but feel its majesty, and the thought came to him that the cliff-dwellers must have regarded it as an object of worship. Down, down, down, Venters strode, more and more feeling the weight of his burden as he descended, and still the valley lay below him. As all other canyons and coves and valleys had deceived him, so had this deep nestling oval. At length he passed beyond the slope of

weathered stone that spread fan-shaped from the arch, and encountered a grassy terrace running to the right and about on a level with the tips of the oaks and cottonwoods below. Scattered here and there upon this shelf were clumps of aspens, and he walked through them into a glade that surpassed, in beauty and adaptability for a wild home any place he had ever seen. Silver spruces bordered the base of a precipitous wall that rose loftily. Caves indented its surface, and there were no detached ledges or weathered sections that might dislodge a stone. The level ground beyond the spruces dropped down into a little ravine. This was one dense line of slender aspens from which came the low splashing of water, and the terrace, lying open to the west, afforded, unforeseen.

constructed view of the valley of green tree-tops. For his camp, Venters chose a shady, grassy plot between the silver spruces in the cliff. Here, in the stone wall, had been wonderfully carved by wind or washed by water, several deep caves above the level of the terrace. They were clean, dry, roomy. He cut spruce boughs and made a bed in the largest cave, and laid the girl there. The first intimation that he had of her being aroused from sleep or lethargy was a low call for water. He hurried down into the ravine with his canteen. It was a shallow, grass-green place with aspens growing up everywhere. To his delight he found a tiny brook of swift-running water. Its faint tinge of amber reminded him of the spring at Cottonwoods, and the thought gave him

a little shock. The water was so cold it made his fingers tingle as he dipped the canteen. Having returned to the cave, he was glad to see the girl drink thirstily. This time he noted that she could raise her head slightly without his help. You were thirsty, he said. It's good water. I found a fine place. Tell me, how do you feel? There's a pain here, she replied, and moved her hand to her left side. Why, that's strange, your wounds are on your right side.

I believe you're hungry. Is the pain a kind of dull ache, a gnawing? It's like that. "'Then it's hunger,' Venters laughed, and suddenly caught himself with a quick breath and felt again the little shock. "'When had he laughed?' "'It's hunger,' he went on. "'I've had that gnaw many a time. "'I've got it now.

"'But you mustn't eat. "'You can have all the water you want, but no food just yet.' "'Won't I starve?' "'No, people don't starve easily. "'I've discovered that. "'You must lie perfectly still and rest and rest in the rest. sleep for days. My hands are dirty. My face feels so hot and sticky. My boots hurt.

It was her longest speech as yet, and it trailed off in a whisper. Well, I'm a fine nurse. It annoyed him that he had never thought of these things. But then, awaiting her death and thinking of her comfort were vastly different matters. He unwrapped the blanket which covered her. What a slender girl she was. No wonder he had been able to carry her miles and pack her up that slippery ladder of stone. Her boots were of soft, fine leather, reaching clear to her knees. He recognized the make as one of a bootmaker in Sterling. Her spurs, that he had stupidly neglected to remove, consisted of silver frames and gold chains,

and the rowels, large as silver dollars, were fancifully engraved. The boots slipped off rather hard. She wore heavy woolen rider's stockings, half-fing. length, and these were pulled up over the ends of her short trousers. Venters took off the stockings to note her little feet were red and swollen. He bathed them. Then he removed his scarf and bathed her face and hands. I must see your wounds now, he said gently.

She made no reply, but watched him steadily as he opened her blouse and untied the bandage. His strong fingers trembled a little as he removed it. if the wounds had reopened. A chill struck him as he saw the angry red bullet mark and a tiny stream of blood winding from it down her white breast. Very carefully he lifted her to see that the wound in her back had closed perfectly. Then he washed the blood from her breast,

bathed the wound, and left it unbandaged, opened to the air. Her eyes thanked him. Listen, he said earnestly, I've had some wounds, and I've seen many. I know a little about them. The hole in your back has closed. If you lie still three days, the one in your breast will close, and you'll be safe. The danger from hemorrhage will be over.

He had spoken with earnest sincerity, almost eagerness. Why do you want me to get well? She asked, wonderingly. The simple question seemed unanswerable, except on grounds of humanity. But the circumstances under which he had shot this strange girl, the shock and realization, the waiting for death, the hope, had resulted in a condition of mind where inventors wanted her to live more than he had ever wanted anything. Yet he could not tell why. He believed the killing of the rustler and the subsequent excitement had disturbed him.

For how else could he explain the throbbing of his brain, the heat of his blood, the undefined sense of full hours, charged, vibrant with pulsating mystery, for once they had dragged in loneliness. I shot you, he said slowly, and I want you to get well so I shall not have killed a woman, but for your own sake, too. A terrible bitterness darkened her eyes, and her lips quivered. Hush, said Venters, you've talked too much already. In her unutterable bitterness, he saw a darkness of mood that could not have been caused by her present weak and feverish state. She hated the life she had led.

that she probably had been compelled to lead. She had suffered some unforgivable wrong at the hands of Aldring. With that conviction, Venters felt a shame throughout his body, and it marked the rekindling of fierce anger and ruthlessness. In the past long year he had nursed resentment. He had hated the wilderness, the loneliness of the uplands. He had waited for something to come to pass. It had come.

Like an Indian stealing horses, he had sculpted into the recesses of the canyons. He had found Old Rings retreat. He had killed a rustler. He had shot an unfortunate girl, then had saved her from this unwitting act, and he meant to save her from the consequent wasting of blood from fever and weakness.

Starvation he had to fight for her and for himself. Where he had been sick at the letting of blood, now he remembered it in grim, cold, calm, and as he lost that softness of nature, so he lost his fear of men. He would watch for Oldring, biting his time, and he would kill this great black-bearded rustler who had held a girl in bondage, who had used her to his infamous ends. Venter surmised this much of the change in him.

Idleness had passed. Keen, fierce vigor flooded his mind and body. All that had happened to him at Cottonwoods seemed remote and hard to recall. The difficulties and perils of the present absorbed him, held him in a kind of spell. First then he fitted up the little cave adjoining the girls' room for his own comfort and use. His next work was to build a fireplace of stones and to gather a store of wood. That done, he spilled the contents of his saddlebags upon the grass and took stock. His outfit consisted of a small-handled axe, a hunting knife, a large number of cartridges for

rifle or revolver, a tin plate, a cup, and a fork and spoon, a quantity of dried beef and dried fruits, and small canvas bags containing tea, sugar, salt, and pepper. For him alone, this supply would have been bountiful to begin a sojourn in the wilderness, but he was no longer alone. Starvation in the uplands was not an unheard-of thing. He did not, however, worry at all on that score, and feared only his possible inability to supply the needs of a woman in a weakened and extremely delicate condition.

If there was no game in the valley, a contingency he doubted, it would not be a great task for him to go by night to old rings herd and pack out a calf the exigency of the moment was to ascertain if there were game in surprise valley whitey still guarded the dilapidated rabbit and ring slept near by under a spruce venters called ring and went to the edge of the terrace and there halted to survey the valley he was prepared to find it larger than his unstudied glances had made it appear for more than a casual idea of dimensions and a hasty concept of oval shape and singular beauty, he had not had time. Again, the felicity of the name he had given the valley struck him forcibly. Around the red perpendicular walls, except under the great arc of stone, ran a terrace fringed at the cliff base by silver spruces. Below that first terrace sloped another wider one, densely overgrown with aspens, and the center of the valley was a level circle of oaks and alders, with the glittering green line of willows and cottonwood dividing it in half.

Venter saw a number and variety of birds flitting among the trees. To his left, facing the stone bridge, an enormous cavern opened in the wall, and low down, just above the treetops, he made out a long shelf of cliff dwellings with little black staring windows or doors. Like eyes they were, and seemed to watch him. The few cliff dwellings he had seen, all ruins, had left him with haunting memory of age and solitude and of something past. He had come, in a way, to be a cliff-dweller himself, and those silent eyes would look down upon him, as if in surprise that after thousands of years a man had invaded the valley. Venters felt sure that he was the only white man who had ever walked under the shadow of the wonderful stone bridge, down into that wonderful valley with its circle of caves, and its terraced rings of silver spruce and aspens. The doll growled below and rushed into the forest. Venters ran down the declivity to enter a zone of light shade streaked with sunshine.

The oak trees were slender, none more than half a foot thick, and they grew close together, intermingling their branches. Ring came running back with a rabbit in his mouth. Venters took the rabbit, and, holding the dog near him, stole softly o'en. There were fluttering of wings among the branches, and quick bird notes, and rustling of dead leaves and rapid patterings. Vinters crossed well-worn trails marked with fresh tracks, and when he had stolen on a little farther,

he saw many birds and running quail, and more rabbits than he could count. He had not penetrated the forest of oaks for a hundred yards, had not approached anywhere near the line of willows and cottonwoods, which he knew grew along a stream. But he had seen enough to know that Surprise Valley was the home of many wild creatures. Venters returned to camp.

He skinned the rabbits, and gave the dogs the one they had quarreled over, and the skin of this he dressed and hung up to dry, feeling that he would like to keep it. It was a particularly rich, furry pelt with a beautiful white tail. Venters remembered that but for the bobbing of that white tail catching his eye, he would not have espied the rabbit, and he would never have discovered Surprise Valley.

Little incidents of chance like this had turned him here and there in deception pass, and now they had assumed to him the significance and direction of destiny. his good fortune in the matter of game at hand brought to his mind the necessity of keeping it in the valley therefore he took the axe and cut bundles of aspens and willows and packed them up under the bridge to the narrow outlet of the gorge here he began fashioning a fence by driving aspens into the ground and lacing them fast with willows trip after trip he made down for more building material and the afternoon had passed when he finished the work to his satisfaction wildcats might scale the fence but no coyote could come in to search for prey and no rabbits or other small game could escape from the valley upon returning to camp he set about getting his supper at ease around a fine fire without hurry or fear of discovery after hard work that had definite purpose this freedom in comfort gave him peculiar satisfaction he caught himself often as he kept busy round the camp-fire stopping to glance at the quiet form in the cave, and at the dog stretched cozily near him, and then out across the beautiful valley. The present was not yet real to him.

While he ate, the sun set beyond a dip in the rim of the curved wall. As the morning sun burst wondrously through a grand arch into this valley in a golden slanting shaft, so the evening sun, at the moment of setting, shone through a gap of cliffs, sending down a broad red burst to brighten the oval with a blaze of fire. To Venters, both sunrise and sunset were unreal. A cool wind blew across the oval, waving the tips of oaks, and while the light lasted, fluttering the aspen leaves into millions of facets of red, and sweeping the graceful spruces.

Then with the wind soon came a shade and a darkening, and suddenly the valley was gray. Night came there quickly after the sinking of the sun. Venters went softly to look at the girl. She slept, and her breathing was quiet and slow. He lifted ring into the cave, with stern whisper for him to stay there on guard. Then he drew the blanket carefully over her, and returned to the campfire. Though exceedingly tired, he was yet loath to yield to lassitude, but this night it was not from listening watchful vigilance.

It was from a desire to realize his position. The details of his wild environment seemed the only substance of a strange dream. He saw the darkening rims, the gray oval turning black, the undulating surface of forest like a rippling lake, and the spear-pointed spruces. He heard the flutter of aspen leaves and the soft continuous splash of falling water. The melancholy note of a canyon bird broke clear and lonely from the high cliffs. Venters had no name for this night singer, and he had never seen one, but the few notes, always peeling out just at darkness, were as familiar to him as the canyon silence. Then they ceased, and the rustle of leaves and the murmur of water hushed in a growing sound that Venters fancied was not of earth.

Neither had he a name for this, only it was inexpressibly wild and sweet. The thought came that it might be a moan of the girl in her last outcry of life, and he felt a tremor shake him. But no, this sound was not human, though it was like despair. He began to doubt his sensitive perceptions, to believe that he half-dreamed what he thought, he heard. Then the sound swelled with the strengthening of the breeze, and he realized it was the singing of the wind in the cliffs. By and by a drowsiness overcame him, and Vinters began to nod, half asleep, with his back against a spruce. Rousing himself and calling Whitey, he went to the cave.

The girl lay barely visible in the dimness. Ring crouched beside her, and the padding of his tail on the stone assured Venters that the dog was awake and faithful. to his duty. Vinter sought his own bed of fragrant boughs, and as he lay back, somehow grateful for the comfort and safety, the night seemed to steal away from him, and he sank softly into intangible space and rest and slumber. Vinter's awakened to the sound of melody that he imagined was only the haunting echo of dream music. He opened his eyes to another surprise of this valley of beautiful surprises. Out of his cave he saw the exquisitely fine foliage of the silver spruces crossing a round space of blue morning sky, and in this lacy leafage fluttered a number of gray birds with black and white

stripes and long tails. They were mockingbirds, and they were singing as if they wanted to burst their throats. Venters listened. One long, silver-tipped branch dropped almost to his cave, and upon it, within a few yards of him, sat one of the graceful birds. venter saw the swelling and quivering of its throat and song he arose and when he slid down out of his cave the birds fluttered and flew farther away venters stepped before the opening of the other cave and looked in the girl was awake with wide eyes and listening look and she had a hand on ring's neck mocking birds she said yes replied venters and i believe they like our company where are we never mind now after a little i'll tell you the birds woke me when i heard them and saw the shiny trees and the blue sky and then a blaze of gold dropping down i wondered she did not complete her fancy but venters imagined he understood her meaning she appeared she appeared she appeared she appeared appeared to be wandering in mind. Vinter's felt her face in hands and found them burning with fever. He went for water and was glad to find it almost as cold as if flowing from ice.

That water was the only medicine he had, and he put faith in it. She did not want to drink, but he made her swallow, and then he bathed her face and head and cooled her wrists. The day began with the heightening of the fever. Venters spent the time reducing her temperature, cooling her hot cheeks and temples. He kept close watch over her, and at the least indication of restlessness that he knew led to tossing and rolling of the body, he held her tightly, so no violent move could reopen her wounds. Hour after hour she babbled and laughed, and cried and moaned in delirium, but whatever her secret was, she did not reveal it. Attended by something sombre for ventures, the day passed. At night in the cool winds, the fever abated,

and she slept. The second day was a repetition of the first. On the third, he seemed to see her wither and waste away before his eyes. That day he scarcely went from her side for a moment, except to run for fresh, cool water, and he did not eat. The fever broke on the fourth day and left her spent and shrunken, a slip of a girl with life only in her eyes. They hung upon ventures with a mute observance, and he found hope in that.

To rekindle the spark that had nearly flickered out, to nourish the little life and vitality that remained in her was Vinter's problem. But he had little resource other than the meat of the rabbits and quail, and from these he made broths and soups as best he could and fed her with a spoon. It came to him that the human body, like the human soul, was a strange thing, incapable of recovering from terrible shocks. For almost immediately she showed faint signs of gathering strength. There was one more waiting day, in which he doubted, and spent long hours by her side as she slept, and watched the gentle swell of her breast rise and fall in breathing, and the wind stir the tangled chestnut curls. On the next day he knew that she would live.

Upon realizing it, he abruptly left the cave and sought his accustomed seat against the trunk of a big spruce, where once more he let his glance stray along the sloping terraces. She would live, and the somber gloom lifted out of the room. the valley, and he felt relief that was pain. Then he roused to the call of action, to the many things he needed to do in the way of making camp fixtures and utensils, to the necessity of hunting food, and the desire to explore the valley. But he decided to wait a few more days before going far from camp, because he fancied that the girl rested easier when she could see him near at hand. And on the first day her languor appeared to leave her in a renewed grip of life. She awoke

stronger from each short slumber. She ate greedily, and she moved about in her bed of boughs. And always, it seemed to Venter's, her eyes followed him. He knew now that her recovery would be rapid. She talked about the dogs, about the caves, the valley, about how hungry she was, till Vinter silenced her, asking her to put off further talk till another time. She obeyed, but she sat up in her bed, and her eyes roved to and fro, and always back to him. Upon the second morning, she sat up when he awakened her, and would not permit him to bathe her face and feed her, which actions she performed for herself. She spoke little, however, and Vinters was quick to catch in her the first intimations of thoughtfulness and curiosity and appreciation of her situation. He left camp and took Whitey out to hunt for rabbits.

Upon his return, he was amazed and somewhat anxiously concerned to see his invalid sitting with her back to a corner of the cave and her bare feet swinging out. hurriedly he approached, intending to advise her to lie down again, to tell her that perhaps she might overtax her strength. The sun shone upon her, glinting on the little head with its tangle of bright hair and the small oval face with its pallor, and dark blue eyes underlined by dark blue circles. She looked at him, and he looked at her. And that exchange of glances he imagined each saw the other in some different guise. It seemed impossible to Vinders that this frail girl could be Aldering's masked rider. It flashed over him that he had made a mistake, which presently she would explain. "'Help me down,' she said. "'But are you well enough?'

he protested. "'Wait, a little longer.' "'I'm weak, dizzy, but I want to get down.' He lifted her, what a light burden now, and stood her upright beside him, and supported her as she essayed to walk with halting steps. She was like a stripling of a boy. The bright, small head scarcely reached his shoulder. But now, as she clung to his arm, the writer's costume she wore did not contradict, as it had done at first, his feeling of her femininity. She might be the famous masked writer of the uplands. She might resemble a boy. But her outline, her little hands and feet, her hair, her big eyes and tremulous lips, and especially a something that Venters felt as a subtle essence, rather than what he saw, proclaimed her sex.

She soon tired. He arranged a comfortable seat for her under the spruce that overspread the campfire. "'Now tell me everything,' she said. He recounted all that had happened from the time of his discovery of the rustlers in the canyon up to the present moment. "'You shot me, and now you saved my life?' "'Yes. After almost killing you, I've pulled you through.' "'Are you glad?' "'I should say so.'

Her eyes were unusually expressive, and they regarded him steadily. She was unconscious of that mirroring of her emotions, and they shone with gratefulness and interest and wonder and sadness. "'Tell me about yourself?' she asked. "'He made this a briefer story, telling of his coming to Utah, "'his various occupations till he became a writer, "'and then how the Mormons had practically driven him out of cottonwoods, an outcast.

Then, no longer able to withstand his own burning curiosity, he questioned her in turn. Are you Aldering's masked rider? Yes, she replied, and dropped her eyes. I knew it. I recognized your figure and mask, for I saw you once. Yet I can't believe it. But you never were really that rustler, as we riders knew him? A thief, a marauder, a kidnapper of women, a murderer of sleeping riders.

no i never stole or harmed anyone in all my life i only rode and rode but why why he burst out why the name i understand oldring made you ride but the black mask the mystery the things laid to your hands the threats in your infamous name the night riding credited to you the evil deeds deliberately blamed on you and acknowledged by rustlers even oldring himself why tell me why "'I never knew that,' she answered low. Her drooping head straightened, and the large eyes, larger now and darker, met Venters with a clear, steadfast gaze in which he read truth. It verified his own conviction. "'Never knew? That's strange. Are you a Mormon?' "'No.'

"'Is Old Ring a Mormon?' "'No. Do you care for him?' "'Yes. I hate his men, his life. Sometimes I almost take him.' him? Venters paused in his rapid-fire questioning, as if to brace himself to ask for a truth that would be abhorrent for him to confirm, but which he seemed driven to hear. What are, what were you to old ring? Like some delicate thing suddenly exposed to blasting heat, the girl wilted, her head dropped, and into her white, wasted cheeks crept the red of shame. Venters would have given anything to recall that question. It seemed so different, his thought,

when spoken. Yet her shame established in his mind something akin to their respect he had strangely been hungering to feel for her. Damn that question, forget it, he cried, in a passion of pain for her and anger at himself. But once and for all, tell me, I know it, yet I want to hear you say so. You couldn't help yourself? Oh, no. Well, that makes it all right with me, he went on, honestly. I want you to feel that, you see, we've been thrown together. and I want to help you, not hurt you. I thought life had been cruel to me, but when I think of yours, I feel mean and little for my complaining. Anyway, I was a lonely outcast. And now, I don't see very clearly what it all means, only we are here together. We've got to stay here for long,

surely till you are well, but you'll never go back to Aldering. And I'm sure helping you will help me, for I was sick in mind. There's something now for me to do. And if I can win back your strength, then get you away, out of this wild country, help you somehow to a happier life. Just think how good that'll be for me. End of Chapter 9. Chapter 10 of Riders of the Purple Sage. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

For more information or to volunteer, please visitlibrovox.org. Recorded by Lari Ann Walden. Writers of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray. chapter x love during all these waiting days ventures 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, Vinter's 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 him. 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 fleetly 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. Vinters 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, 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 wonder, 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. Venters 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. Venters 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 smoke-blackened stains of fires, the pieces of pottery scattered about cold hearths, the stone hatchets, and stone pebbles and mealing 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. Vinter's felt the sublimity of that marvelous 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. Venters 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. Venter's, 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. 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 a while. 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. "'Quite a load you had,' she said. "'Why, there were a load you had.' pots and crocks. Where did you get them? Vinters laid down his rifle, and filling one of the pots from his canteen, he placed it on the smouldering 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 ten 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, fox, "'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 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 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. Vinters tried to say, 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, 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 Ventor'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 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 Venters. 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. Venters dropped his apparent task and looked up with an eagerness he no longer strove to hide. Bess, he was. 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 past? 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 Witherstein herd, the red herd, 2,500 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? Quaried Vinters.

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 as hoarse. well. I heard one of our men say afterward there was no better writer on the sage than this fellow.

What was the name? I forget. Jerry Card? suggested Vintors. 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 Carlin. card assuredly had its inception in the Mormon elder's brain and had been accomplished through his orders, revived inventors 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 appear 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 Deventors 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 things she had yet said to Vinters. 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. Aldring'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, Venters 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 lived solely from moment to moment she was utterly absorbed in the present. Day by day, Venters watched the white of her face

slowly changed 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 Oldring's masked rider. The suggestion of the mask always

made ventures 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 hole. 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 Venters 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 Venters 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 besson 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 ventures 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 considered 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 cottonwoods for a supply of food it occurred again to venters that he could go to the canyon where oldring 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 hit 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 venters 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 venters that he was all but drifting on a current which he had not power nor wish to stem. Vinters exercised his usual care in the matter of hiding tracks from the outlet, yet it took him scarcely an hour to reach Old Rings 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 Vinters 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 on 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 Rings' 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 Venters got back to the valley with another calf. It was close upon daybreak. He crawled into his cave and slept late. Bess 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, Venters built a gate across a small ravine near camp, and here corralled the calves,

and he succeeded in completing his task without Bess being any the wiser. That night he made two more trips to Old Rings 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 Rings cattle, he said, and laughed. He noted then that all the cabs were red. Red, he exclaimed, from the red herd, I've stolen Jane Withersstein's cattle. That's about the strangest thing yet. One more trip he under took to Old Rings 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 Bess. 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. Bess, didn't you say you were tired of rabbit? inquired Venters, 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? Venters 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 Bess slowly. I stole that from Oldring. 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 sometime, 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, and the latter she looked inward, and her gaze was the reflection of a troubled mind. For long, Venters 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 corralled near a ravine. Eight calves, all alive and doing fine. You went five nights. All the 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. Thus, 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. Venters gently put her from him and steadied her upon her feet, and all the while his blood raced wild, and a thrilling tingle unsteadyed 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, Vinter's strove for calmness and thought, in judgment unbiased by pity, and reality unsuade by sentiment. Bess'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 Bess's eyes a slow dawning consciousness that seemed about to break out in glorious radiance. Bess, 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. Venters 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. End of Chapter X. Chapter 11 of Writers of the Purple Sage. This is a Libravox recording. recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librovocs.org. Recorded by Lari Ann Walden. Writer's of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray. Chapter 11. Faith and Unfaith. At Jane Witherstein's home, the promise made to Mrs. Larkin to care for Little Fay 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. Fay littered the court with Jane's books and papers and other toys her fancy improvised, and many of strange craft went floating down the little brook. And it was owing to Fay's presence that Jane Witherstein came to see more of Lasseter.

The writer had, for the most part, kept to the sage. He rode 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 rider 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 and 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 Lassiter, 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 rider gave Jane a favorable 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 rider'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 Lassiter 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 Lassiter 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 rider. 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 Lassiter, 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 Earns' 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've 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 burn Vinters.' "'Peers 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 who 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 didn't 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 quirt, 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 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 writer, 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, I like you. sight 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 in the first day. played absent-mindedly with Fay. Jane had contended herself with silence.

Soon, Little Fay substituted for the expression of regard, I like you, a warmer and more generous one. I love you. Thereafter, Lasseter came oftener to see Jane and her little protege. Daily he grew more gentle and kind, and gradually developed a quaintly merry mood. In the morning he lifted Fay upon his horse, and let her ride as he walked beside her to the edge of the sea.

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, Lassiter 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 Fay kissed them and went in to her mother. Lassiter 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 Lassiter'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 the, them that Lasseter 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 Faye completely filled a long, aching void in her heart. In fettering the hands of this Lasseter, 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. So 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 Vinters, but in a dreamy, abstract way. She spent hours teaching and playing with Little Faye, and the activity of her mind centered around Lasseter. 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 Lasseter and leaned close to him, so that she touched him and her eyes looked up to his. Lasseter, 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 finger, 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 wholly 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... 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... Lasseter, 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. 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 Lasseter had passed, Jane took his cold, silent condemnation and 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 Lasseter 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 Withersstein, in fear and sorrow and doubt, came finally to believe that if she must

throw herself into Lasseter's arms to make him abide by, Thou shalt not kill, she would yet do well. In the morning she expected Lasseter at the usual hour, but she was not able to go at once to the court, so she sent Little Faye. 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 Bells made when Lasseter 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. "'Is 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 counsellor, 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 and 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 tramped 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 Venters? No. But you'll do as I order, he thundered, why Jane Witherstein, you are in. 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 Withersstein. What would your father have said to these going zone 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, damn 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 riders 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 and the village is north, where there's universal gun-packing and fights every day, where there are more men like him, it seems to me they would attract him most. We'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.' "'Fishop 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, Lasseter said he came here to find Millie Earn's 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 Earned 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 jerked to his hip. She saw a gleam of blue and spout of red. 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 flag. with her head on Lassiter'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, Lassiter.

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's seen me, and very impolite, goes 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 running 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 shooting. So I winged him, put a bullet through his own. arm as he was pulling at his gun, and he dropped the gun there, and a little blood. I told him me to introduce 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, Lassiter? That's about the size of it. Jane kissed his hand. All that was calm and cool about Lassiter 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 was. He was a gun, he 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, Lester 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 seemed so natural, "'and you're throwing little Fay and me so much together "'to make me love the child, "'all that was for the same reason?' "'Yes.' "'Lasseter flung his arm.

a strange gesture for him. Maybe it wasn't much in your Mormon thinking for you to play that game. But to bring the child in, that was hellish. Jane's passionate, unheeding zeal began to loom darkly. Lasseter, whatever my intention in the beginning, Faye loves you dearly, and I've grown 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, Lassiter. I told you I'd try to change you. Do you mind telling 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 Fay, 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 backtrailed 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, 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 of you. 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, Lassiter, no, no, you don't love me that way, Jane cased. 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 Earn's 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 playing 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 save in 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-and to preserve that life-and 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. Gun packing in the West since the Civil War has growed 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 you're taking Ventor's guns from him all but made him. Why, your churchmen carry guns.

Tull has killed a man and drawn 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, Lassiter, more than ever.' "'Well, I didn't say nothing about going back on you, did I?' "'End of Chapter 11. "'Chapter 12 of Riders of the Purple Sage. "'This is a Libravox recording. "'All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. "'For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. recorded by Laurie Ann Walden

Writers of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray Chapter 12 The Invisible Hand 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 untrue,

toward 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. Though leaving 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, in the way, and she had transgressed, 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, Christian 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 thought 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 Fay 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. Lasseter never rode bells into the court anymore,

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. And Jane, he went on, almost in a whisper, I reckon it'd be a good idea for us to talk low. you're spot on here by your women. Lasseter, 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 us, 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 color. Lasseter 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 Lasseter. 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 Faye, to talk of horses and cattle to Lasseter. 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 Lasseter. 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, oh 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 begone again that work in the dark. Nay, Lasseter, it never stopped. So bitter certainty claimed her at last, and trust 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, face, unhesitating falsehood. Thereafter she broke out no more. She forgave them, because they were driven. Poor, fettered, and sealed Hagar's, how she pitied them. What 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 bidden

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 cults 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 Lassiter 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 fay 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 she 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 especial 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 wanted to her 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 shown 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. Thin, 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. her. Jane greeted him with surprise and warmth, set meat and bread and drink before him, and called Lassiter out to see him. The men exchanged glances, and the meaning of Lassiter's keen inquiry and Judkins' bold reply, both unspoken, was not lost upon Jane. "'Where's your horse?' asked Lassiter 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. Judkins, the white herd? Queryed 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, same as 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 stampeters. The rains are due. We'll have plenty of water for a while, and we can hold that herd from anybody except Aldering. I come in for supplies. I'll pack a couple of burrows and drive out after dark tonight. Judkins, take what you want from the storeroom. Lasseter 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've 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 break-in of Miss Witherstein may seem bad to you, but it ain't bad yet. Some of these wall-eyed fellers who looked just as if they were walking 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 then, There, like a caged lioness, she paced to and fro, till the coming of Little Faye reversed her dark thoughts. The following day, a warm and muggy one, threatening rain, 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, wiery 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... 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.

No, you'll never give in. I wouldn't, if I were you. And 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 splashed 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, said Jane, breathless and low. We won't speak of that. I want to come back. I want to do what every writer 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? Take me?

God bless you, Blake. Yes, I'll take you back. And will you, will you accept a gold from me? Miss 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 forarm 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, Miss 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? Lassiter 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. Lassiter, here's Blake, an old writer 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. Lately, I quit Miss Witherstein. 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 Judd and you. The thing is, do you believe me? I reckon I do, replied Lassiter. 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. Lassiter 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 passed. Dorn told me, and I rode down to see for myself. Lasseter, did it. 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 Aldring. and I trailed the horses miles down the slope toward deception pass. My red herds gone. My horse's 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 hosses of yours would most of all want the blacks, said Lassiter. his evasive reply was affirmative enough.

The other writer nodded gloomy acquiescence. Oh, oh, Jane Witherstein 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 must have.

lose them. You go to the stables. Go with Jurd 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. Pears to me, as Blake says, you do put some store on them hosses. Now I ain't Gain saying that the Arabians are the handsomest hosses I ever seen. But Bells can beat Knight 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 Wrangell can do that. I'll bet that big, raw-bone brute can mourn show his heels to your black racers. Jane, out there in the sage, on a long chase, Rangel 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 off worry. "'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 Rangel

left here on the sage. Rangel could catch you. I know Venter's 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 Deventers. God knows you're right. Poor Byrne, how long he's gone. In my trouble I've been forgetting him. But, Lasseter, I've 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 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, if I dared, I'd ask you to

saddle the blacks and ride away with me, and hide me. Jane! The writer'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 Earn'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. Lassiter, cried Jane, trembling. It was an action for which she took sole blame. Instantly, 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. You may be 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 my 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 sneaking 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 hummin beehive of mysterious happenings Jane, it ain't so much that these souls keep out of my way as me keeping 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 telling you jane hoping 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 coming, and wait, and be game. If you'd let me make a call on Tull, 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 Lassiter, "'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 churchman. They tried you out and failed of persuasion and finally of threats. You meet now the cold steel of a will as far from Christ-like as the universe is wide.

You're to be broken. Your bodies 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. Chapter 13 of Writers of the Purple Sage. This is a Liberbox recording. for box recordings are in the public domain.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit librivox.org. Recorded by Laurie Ann Walden. Writers of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray. Chapter 13. Solitude and Storm. In his hidden valley, Venters awakened from sleep, and his ears rang with innumerable melodies from full-throated mockingbirds, and his eyes opened wide upon the glorious golden shaft of sunlight shining through the great stone bridge. The circle of cliffs surrounding Surprise Valley lay shrouded

in morning mist, a dim blue low down along the terraces, a creamy, moving cloud along the ramparts. The oak forest in the center was a plumed and tufted oval of gold. He saw Bess under the spruces. Upon her complete recovery of strength, she always rose with the dawn. At the moment she was feeding the quail she had tamed, and she had begun to tame the mockingbirds. They fluttered among the branches overhead, and some left off their songs to flit down and shyly hop near the twittering quail. Little gray and white rabbits crouched in the grass, now nibbling, now laying long ears flat, and watching the dogs. Vinter's swift glance took in the brightening valley, and Bess and her pets, and ring and whitey. It swept over all to return again and rest upon the girl.

She had changed. To the dark trousers and blouse she had added moccasins of her own make. but she no longer resembled a boy. No eye could have failed to mark the rounded contours of a woman. The change had been to grace and beauty. A glint of warm gold gleamed from her hair, and a tint of red shone in the clear dark brown of cheeks. The haunting sweetness of her lips and eyes, that earlier had been elusive, a promise, had become a living fact. She fitted harmoniously into that wonderful setting. She was like Surprise Valley, wild and beautiful. venters leaped out of his cave to begin the day he had postponed his journey to cottonwoods until after the passing of the summer rains the rains were due soon but until their arrival and the necessity for his trip to the village

he sequestered in a far corner of mind all thought of peril of his past life and almost that of the present it was enough to live he did not want to know what lay hidden in the dim and distant future surprise valley had enchanted him in this home of the cliff-dwellers there were peace and quiet and solitude and another thing wondrous as the golden morning shaft of sunlight that he dared not ponder over long enough to understand the solitude he had hated when alone he had now come to love he was assimilating something from this valley of gleams and shadows from this strange girl he was assimilating more the day at hand resembled many days gone before as venters had no tools with which to build or to till the terraces he remained idle beyond the cooking of the simple fare there were no tasks and as there were no tasks there was no system he and bess began one thing to leave it to begin another to leave that and then do nothing but lie under the spruces and watch the great cloud sails majestically move along the ramparts and dream and dream The valley was a golden sunlit world. It was silent. The sighing wind and the twittering quail and the singing birds, even the rare and seldom occurring hollow crack of a sliding weathered stone, only thickened and deepened that insulated silence. Vinters and Bess had vagrant minds. Bess, did I tell you about my horse wrangle? inquired Vinters. A hundred times, she replied.

Oh, have I? I'd forgotten. I want you to see him. He'll carry us both. I'd like to ride him. Can he run? Run? He's a demon, swift as horse on the sage. I hope he'll stay in that canyon. He'll stay. They left camp to wander along the terraces into the Aspen ravines under the gleaming walls. Ring and Whitey wandered in the fore, often turning, often trotting back, open-mouthed and solemn-eyed and happy. ventures lifted his gaze to the grand archway over the entrance to the valley and bess lifted hers to follow his and both were silent sometimes the bridge held their attention for a long time today a soaring eagle attracted them how he sails exclaimed bess i wonder where his mate is she's at the nest it's on the bridge in a crack near the top i see her often she's almost white They wandered on down the terrace into the shady, sun-flecked forest.

A brown bird fluttered crying from a bush. Bess peeped into the leaves. Look, a nest in four little birds. They're not afraid of us. See how they open their mouths. They're hungry. Rabbits rustled the dead brush and pattered away. The forest was full of a drowsy hum of insects.

Little darts of purple that were running quail crossed the glades, and a plaintive sweet peeping came from the coverts. Bess's soft step disturbed a sleeping lizard that scampered away over the leaves. She gave chase and caught it, a slim creature of nameless color, but of exquisite beauty. Jewel eyes, she said. It's like a rabbit, afraid. We won't eat you. There, go.

Murmuring water drew their steps down into a shallow, shaded ravine where a brown brook brawled softly over mossy stones. Multitudes of strange gray frogs with white spots and black eyes lined the rocky bank and leaped only at close approach. Then Venter's eye described a very thin, very long, green snake coiled round a sapling. They drew closer and closer till they could have touched it. The snake had no fear and watched them with scintillating eyes. "'It's pretty,' said Bess. "'How tame! I thought snakes always ran.' "'No, even the rabbits didn't run.

here till the dogs chased them. On and on they wandered to the wild jumble of mast and broken fragments of cliff at the west end of the valley. The roar of the disappearing stream dinned in their ears. Into this maze of rocks they threaded a tortuous way, climbing, descending, halting, to gather wild plums and great lavender lilies, and going on at the will of fancy. Idle and keen perceptions guided them equally. Oh, let us climb there, cried Beth.

pointing upward to a small space of terrace left green and shady between huge abutments of broken cliff. And they climbed to the nook and rested, and looked out across the valley to the curling column of blue smoke from their campfire. But the cool shade and the rich grass and the fine view were not what they had climbed for. They could not have told, although whatever had drawn them was well satisfying. Light, sure-footed as a mountain goat, best pattered down at Ventor's heels, and they went on, calling their dogs, eyes dreamy and wide, listening to the wind and the bees and the crickets and the birds. Part of the time Ring and Whitey led the way, then Vinters, then Bess, and the direction was not an object. They left the sun-streaked shade of the oaks, brushed the long grass of the meadows,

entered the green and fragrant swaying willows to stop at length under the huge old cottonwoods where the beavers were busy. Here they rested and watched. A dam of brush and and logs and mud and stones back the stream into a little lake. The round, rough beaver houses projected from the water. Like the rabbits, the beavers had become shy. Gradually, however, as venters and best knelt low, holding the dogs, the beavers emerged to swim with logs and gnaw at cottonwoods, and pat-mudd walls with their paddle-like tails,

and glossy and shiny in the sun to go on with their strange, persistent industry. They were the builders. The lake was a mud hole and the immediate environment, a scarred and dead region, but it was a wonderful home of wonderful animals. Look at that one. He paddles in the mud, said Bess. And there, see him dive, hear them gnawing. I'd think they'd break their teeth. How's it they can stay out of the water and under the water?

And she laughed. Then Vinter's and Bess wandered farther, and perhaps not all unconsciously this time, winded their slow steps to the cave of the cliff-dwellers where she liked best to go. The tangled thicket and the long slant of dust and little chips of weathered rock and the steep bench of stone and the worn steps all were arduous work for Bess in the climbing. But she gained the shelf, gasping, hot of cheek, glad of eye, with her hand in ventures. Here they rested.

The beautiful valley glittered below with its millions of wind-turned leaves, bright-faced in the sun, and the mighty bridge towered heavenward, crowned with blue sky. Bess, however, never rested for long. Soon she was exploring, and ventures followed. She dragged forth from corners and shelves a multitude of crudely fashioned and painted pieces of pottery, and he carried them. They peeped down into dark holes of the kivas, and Bess gleefully dropped a stone and waited for the long-coming, hollow sound to rise.

They peeped into the little globular houses, like mud-wasp nests, and wondered if these had been storeplaces for grain, or baby cribs, or what. And they crawled into the larger houses, and laughed when they bumped their heads on the low roofs, and they dug in the dust of the floors. And they brought from dust and darkness armloads of treasure, which they carried to the light. Flints and stones and strange curved sticks and pottery they found, and twisted grass rope that crumbled in their hands, and bits of whitish stone which crushed to powder at a touch,

and seemed to vanish in the air. That white stuff was bone, said Venters slowly. Bones of a cliff-dweller. No, exclaimed Bess. Here's another piece. Look. Dry, powdery smoke, that's bone. Then it was that Vinter's primitive, childlike mood, like a savages, seeing, yet unthinking, gave way to the encroachment of civilized thought.

The world had not been made for a single day's play, or fancy, or idle watching. The world was old. Nowhere could be gotten a better idea of its age than in this gigantic, silent tomb. The gray ashes in Venter's hand had once been bone of a human being like himself. The pale gloom of the cave had shadowed people long ago. He saw that Bess had received the same shock, could not in moments such as this escape her feeling, living, thinking destiny. Byrne, people have lived here, she said, with wide, thoughtful eyes. Yes, he replied.

How long ago? A thousand years and more. What were they? Cliff-dwellers, men who had enemies and made their homes high out of reach. They had to fight? Yes. They fought for what? For life, for their homes, food, children, parents,

for their women. Has the world changed any in a thousand years? I don't know, perhaps a little. Have men? I hope so. I think so. Things crowd into my mind, she went on, and the wistful light in her eyes told Venters the truth of her thoughts. I've ridden the border of Utah.

I've seen people, know how they live. But they must be few of all who are living. I had my books, and I studied them. But all that doesn't help me anymore. I want to go out into the big world and see it. Yet I want to stay here more. What's to become of us? Are we cliff dwellers?

We're alone here. I'm happy when I don't think. These bones that fly into dust, they make me sick and a little afraid. Did the people who lived here once have the same feelings as we have? What was the good of their living at all? They're gone. What's the meaning of it all?

of us. Bess, you ask more than I can tell. It's beyond me. Only there was laughter here once, and now there's silence. There was life, and now there's death. Men cut these little steps, made these arrowheads and mealing stones,

plated the ropes we found, and left their bones to crumble in our fingers. As far as time is concerned, it might all have been yesterday. We're here today. Maybe we're higher in the scale of human beings, in intelligence. But who knows?

We can't be any higher in the things for which life is lived at all. What are they? Why, I suppose, relationship, friendship, love. Love. Yes, love of man for woman, love of woman for man. That's the nature, the meaning, the best of life itself. She said no more. Wistfulness of glance deepened into sadness.

Come, let us go, said Venters. Action brightened her. Beside him, holding his hand, she slipped down the shelf, ran down the long, steep slant of sliding stones, out of the cloud of dust, and likewise out of the pale gloom. We beat the slide, she cried. The miniature avalanche cracked and roared and rattled itself into an inert mass at the base of the incline. Yellow dust, like the gloom of the cave, but not so. so changeless, drifted away on the wind. The roar clapped in echo from the cliff, returned, went back, and came again to die in the holliness. Down on the sunny terrace there was a different atmosphere. Ring and Whitey leaped around Bess. Once more she was smiling,

gay and thoughtless, with the dream mood in the shadow of her eyes. Bess, I haven't seen that since last summer. Look, said Vinters, pointing to the scalloped edge of rolling purple clouds that peeped over the western wall. We're in for a storm. Oh, I hope not. I'm afraid of storms. Are you? Why? Have you ever been down in one of those walled-up pockets in a bad storm? No, now I think of it and I haven't.

Well, it's terrible. Every summer I get scared to death and hide somewhere in the dark. Storms up on the sage are bad, but nothing to what they are down here in the canyons. And in this little valley, why echoes can wrap back and forth so quick they'll split our ears. We're perfectly safe here, Bess. I know, but that hasn't anything to do with it. The truth is, I'm afraid of lightning and thunder, and thunderclaps hurt my head. If we have a bad storm, will you stay close to me? Yes. When they got back to camp, the afternoon was closing, and it was exceedingly sultry. Not a breath of air stirred the aspen. leaves, and when these did not quiver, the air was indeed still. The dark purple clouds moved

almost imperceptibly out of the west. "'What have we for supper?' asked Bess. "'Rabbit.' "'Burn, can't you think of another new way to cook rabbit?' went on Bess with earnestness. "'What do you think I am, a magician?' retorted Venters. "'I wouldn't dare tell you. But, Byrne, do you want me to turn into a rabbit?' there was a dark blue merry flashing of eyes and a parting of lips then she laughed in that moment she was naive and wholesome rabbit seems to agree with you replied ventures you are well and strong and growing very pretty anything in the nature of compliment he had never before said to her and just now he responded to a sudden curiosity to see its effect bess stared as if she had not heard aright slowly blushed and completely lost her poise in happy confusion.

I'd better go right away, he continued, and fetch supplies from cottonwoods. A startlingly swift change in the nature of her agitation made him reproach himself for his abruptness. No, no, don't go, she said. I didn't mean that about the rabbit. I was only trying to be funny. Don't leave me all alone.

Bess, I must go sometime. wait then wait till after the storms the purple cloud bank darkened the lower edge of the setting sun crept up and up obscuring its fiery red heart and finally passed over the last ruddy crescent of its upper rim the intense dead silence awakened to a long low rumbling roll of thunder oh cried bess nervously we've had big black clouds before this without rain said ventures But there's no doubt about that thunder. The storms are coming. I'm glad. Every rider on the sage will hear that thunder with glad ears. Vendors and Best finished their simple meal and the few tasks around the camp, then faced the open terrace, the valley, and the west, to watch and await the approaching storm. It required keen vision to see any movement whatever in the purple clouds. By infinitesimal degrees, the dark cloud line merged upward into the golden, red haze of the afterglow of sunset. A shadow lengthened from under the western wall across the valley. As straight and rigid as steel rose the delicate spear-pointed silver spruces. The as

aspen leaves, by nature, pendant and quivering, hung limp and heavy. No slender blade of grass moved. A gentle splashing of water came from the ravine. Then again from out of the west sounded the low, dull, and rumbling roll of thunder. A wave, a ripple of light, a trembling and turning of the aspen leaves, like the approach of a breeze on the water, crossed the valley from the west, and the lull and the deadly stillness and the sultry air passed away on a cool wind. The nightbird of the canyon, with clear and melancholy notes, announced the twilight, and from all along the cliffs rose the faint murmur and moan of the wind singing in the caves. The bank of clouds now swept hugely out of the western sky. Its front was purple and black,

with gray between, a bulging, mushrooming, vast thing instinct with storm. It had a dark, angry, threatening aspect. As if all the power of the winds were pushing and piling behind, it rolled ponderously across the sky. A red flare burned out instantaneously, flashed from the west to east, and died. Then from the deepest black of the purple cloud burst a boom. It was like the bowling of a huge boulder along the crags and ramparts, and seem to roll on and fall into the valley to bound and bang and boom from cliff to cliff. Oh, cried Bess, with her hands over her ears. What did I tell you? Why, Bess, be reasonable, said Venters. I'm a coward. Not quite that, I hope. It's strange you're afraid.

I love a storm. I tell you, a storm down in these canyons is an awful thing. I know Aldring hated storms. His men were afraid of them. There was one who went deaf in a bad storm and never could hear again. Maybe I've lots to learn, Bess. I'll lose my guess if this storm isn't bad enough. We're going to have heavy wind first, then lightning and thunder, then the rain.

Let's stay out as long as we can. The tips of the cottonwoods and the oaks weigh to the east, and the rings of aspens along the terraces twinkled their myriad of bright faces in fleet and glancing gleam. A low roar rose from the leaves of the forest, and the spruces swished in the rising wind. It came in gusts, with light breezes between. As it increased in strength, the lull shortened in length till there was a strong and steady blow all the time, and violent puffs at intervals, and sudden whirling currents. The clouds spread over the valley, rolling swiftly and low, and twilight faded into a sweeping darkness.

Then the singing of the wind in the caves drowned the swift roar of rustling leaves. Then the song swelled to a morning, moaning wail. Then, with the gathering power of the wind, the wail changed to a shriek. Steadily the wind strengthened, and constantly the strange sound changed. The last bit of blue sky yielded to the own sweep of clouds. Like angry surf, the pale gleams of clouds. gray, amid the purple of that scudding front, swept beyond the eastern rampart of the valley. The purple deepened to black.

Broad sheets of lightning flared over the western wall. There were not yet any ropes or zigzag streaks darting down through the gathering darkness. The storm center was still beyond Surprise Valley. Listen, listen, cried Bess, with her lips close to Venter's ear. You'll hear Old Rings knell. What's that? Old rings Nell. When the wind blows a gale in the caves,

it makes what the rustlers call Old rings Nell. They believe it bodes his death. I think he believes so, too. It's not like any sound on earth. It's beginning. Listen. The gale swooped down with a hollow,

unearthly howl. It yelled and peeled and shrilled and shrieked. It was made up of a thousand piercing cries. It was a rising and a moving sound. Beginning at the western break of the valley, it rushed along each gigantic cliff, whistling into the caves and cracks, to mount in power,

to bellow a blast through the great stone bridge. Gone as into an engulfing roar of surging waters, it seemed to shoot back and begin all over again. It was only wind, thought venters. Here sped and shrieked the sculptor that carved out the wonderful caves in the cliffs. it was only a gale but as ventures listened as his ears became accustomed to the fury and strife out of it all or through it or above it peeled low and perfectly clear and persistently uniform a strange sound that had no counterpart in all the sounds of the elements It was not of earth or of life.

It was the grief and agony of the gale, a knell of all upon which it blew. Black night enfolded the valley. Venters could not see his companion, and knew of her presence only through the tightening hold of her hand on his arm. He felt the dogs huddled closer to him. Suddenly the dense black vault overhead split asunder to a blue-white, dazzling streak of lightning. The whole valley lay vividly clear and luminously bright in his head. his sight. Upreared, vast and magnificent, the stone bridge glimmered like some grand god of storm

in the lightning's fire. Then all flashed black again, blacker than pitch, a thick, impenetrable, coal blackness. And there came a ripping, crashing report. Instantly an echo resounded with clapping crash. The initial report was nothing to the echo. It was a terrible, living, reverberating, detonating crash. The wall threw the sound across and could have made no greater roar if it had slipped in avalanche. From cliff to cliff, the echo went in crashing retort and banged in lessening power, and boomed in thinner volume, and clapped weaker and weaker till a final clap could not reach across the wading cliff. In the pitchy darkness, Vinter's led Bess, and, groping his way, by feel of hand, found the entrance to her cave and lifted her up. On the instant,

A blinding flash of lightning illumined the cave and all about him. He saw Bess's face, white now, with dark, frightened eyes. He saw the dogs leap up, and he followed suit. The golden glare vanished, all was black, and then came the splitting crack and the infernal den of echoes. Beth shrank closer to him and closer, found his hands, and pressed them tightly over her ears, and dropped her face upon his shoulder, and hid her eyes.

Then the storm burst with a succession of ropes and streaks and shafts of lightning, playing continuously, filling the valley with a broken radiance, and the cracking shots followed each other swiftly till the echoes blended in one fearful, deafening crash. Vinters looked out upon the beautiful valley, beautiful now as never before, mystic in its transparent, luminous gloom, weird in the quivering golden haze of lightning. The dark spruces were tipped with glimmering lights. The aspens bent low in the winds, as waves in a tempest at sea. The forest of oaks tossed wildly and shone with gleams of fire.

Across the valley, the huge cavern of the cliff dwellers yawned in the glare. Every little black window is clear as at noonday, but the night and the storm added to their tragedy. Flung arching to the black clouds, the great stone bridge seemed to bear the brunt of the storm. It caught the full fury of the rushing wind. It lifted its noble crown to meet the lightnings. Venters thought of the eagles and their lofty nest in a niche under the arch.

A driving pall of rain, black as the clouds, came sweeping on to obscure the bridge and the gleaming walls and the shining valley. The lightning played incessantly, streaking down through opaque darkness of rain. The roar of the wind,

with its strange knell and the recrashing echoes, mingled with the roar of the flooding rain, and all seemingly were deadened and drowned in a world of sound. In the dimming pale light, Venters looked down upon the girl. She had sunk into his arms, upon his breast, burying her face. She clung to him. He felt the softness of her, and the warmth, and the quick heave of her breast. He saw the dark, slender, graceful outline of her form.

A woman lay in his arms, and he held her closer. He who had been alone in the sad, silent watches of the night was not now and never must be again alone. He who had yearned for the touch of a hand, felt the long tremble and the heartbeat of a woman. By what strange chance had she come to love him? By what change, by what marvel had she grown into a treasure? No more did he listen to the rush and roar of the thunderstorm, for with the touch of clinging hands and the throbbing bosom he grew conscious of a an inward storm, the tingling of new chords of thought, strange music of unheard, joyous bells,

sad dreams dawning to wakeful delight, dissolving doubt, resurging hope, force, fire, and freedom, unutterable sweetness of desire, a storm in his breast, a storm of real love. End of Chapter 13 Chapter 14 of Riders of the Purple Sage This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recorded by Lari Ann Walden.

Writers of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray. Chapter 14. West Wind When the storm abated, Venters sought his own cave, and late in the night, as his blood cooled and the stir and throb and throb and thursday, drill subsided. He fell asleep. With the breaking of dawn his eyes unclosed. The valley lay drenched and bathed, a burnished oval of glittering green. The rain-washed walls glistened in the morning light. Waterfalls of many forms poured over the rims. One, a broad, lacy sheet, thin as smoke, slid over the western notch and struck a ledge in its downward fall, to bound into a broader leap,

to burst far below into white and gold and rosy mist. Venters prepared for the day, knowing himself a different man. It's a glorious morning, said Bess in greeting. Yes, after the storm, the west wind, he replied. Last night was I very much of a baby? she asked, watching him. Pretty much. Oh, I couldn't help it. I'm glad you were a friend.

"'Why?' she asked in slow surprise. "'I'll tell you some day,' he answered soberly. Then around the campfire and through the morning meal he was silent. Afterward he strolled thoughtfully, off alone along the terrace. He climbed a great yellow rock, raising its crest among the spruces, and there he sat down to face the valley in the west. "'I love her.' "'A loud, he spoke, unburdened his heart,

confessed his secret for an instant the golden valley swam before his eyes and the walls waved and all about him whirled with tumult within i love her i understand now reviving memory of jane witherstein and thought of the complications of the present amazed him with proof of how far he had drifted from his old life he discovered that he hated to take up the broken threads to delve into dark problems and difficulties in this beautiful valley he had been living a beautiful dream tranquillity had come to him and the joy of solitude and interest in all the wild creatures in crannies of this incomparable valley and love under the shadow of the ground great stone bridge, God had revealed himself to Vinters. The world seems very far away, he muttered. But it's there, and I'm not yet done with it. Perhaps I never shall be. Only how glorious it would be to live here always and never think again.

Whereupon the resurging reality of the present, as if in irony of his wish, steeped him instantly in contending thought. Out of it all, he presently evolved these things. He must go to cottonwoods. He must bring supplies back to Surprise Valley. He must cultivate the soil and raise corn in stock. And most imperative of all, he must decide the future of the girl who loved him and whom he loved. The first of these things required tremendous effort. The last one, concerning Bess, seemed simply and naturally easy of accomplishment. He would marry her. Suddenly, as from roots of poisonous fire, flamed up the forgotten truth concerning her. it seemed to wither and shrivel up all his joy on its hot, tearing way to his heart. She had been Oldring's masked rider. To Vinter's question, What were you to Oldring? She had answered with scarlet shame and drooping head.

What do I care who she is or what she was? He cried passionately. And he knew it was not his old self-speaking. It was this softer, gentler man who had awakened to new thoughts in the quiet valley. Tenderness, masterful in him now, matched the absence of joy and blunted the knife edge of entering jealousy. Strong and passionate effort of will, surprising to him, held back the poison from piercing his soul. Wait, wait, he cried, as if calling. His hand pressed his breast, and he might have called to the pang there.

Wait, it's all so strange, so wonderful, anything can happen. Who am I to judge her? I'll glory in my love for her. But I can't tell it, can't give up to it. Certainly he could not then decide her future. Marrying her was impossible in Surprise Valley, and in any village south of Stirling. Even without the masks she had once worn,

she would easily have been recognized as Old Rings rider. No man who had ever seen her would forget her, regardless of his ignorance as to her sex. Then more poignant than all other argument was the fact that he did not want to take her away from Surprise Valley. He resisted all thought of that. He had brought her to the most beautiful and wildest place of the uplands. He had saved her, nursed her back to strength,

watched her bloom as one of the valley lilies. He knew her life there to be pure and sweet. She belonged to him, and he loved her. Still, these were not all the reasons why he did not want to take her away. Where could they go? He feared the rustlers. He feared the writers. He feared the Mormons.

And if he should ever succeed in getting best safely away from these immediate perils, he feared the sharp eyes of women in their tongues, the big outside world with its problems of existence. He must wait to decide her future, which, after all, was deciding his own. But between her future and his, something hung impending. Like balancing rock, which waited darkly over the steep gorge, ready to close forever the outlet to deception pass, that nameless thing, as certain yet intangible as fate,

must fall and close forever all doubts and fears of the future. I've dreamed, muttered Venters as he rose. Well, why not? To dream is happiness. But let me just once see this clearly, wholly. Then I can go on dreaming till the thing falls. I've got to tell Jane Witherstein. I've dangerous trips to take. I've worked here to make comfort for this girl.

She's mine. I'll fight to keep her safe from that old life. I've already seen her forget it. I love her. And if a beast ever rises in me, I'll burn my hand off before I lay it on her with shameful intent. And by God, sooner or later, I'll kill the man who hit her and kept her in deception pass.

As he spoke, the west wind softly blew in his face. It seemed to soothe his passion. That west wind was for, fresh, cool, fragrant, and it carried a sweet, strange burden of far-off things, tidings of life and other climes, of sunshine asleep on other walls, of other places where reigned peace. It carried, too, sad truth of human hearts and mystery, of promise and hope unquenchable. Surprise Valley was only a little niche in the wide world whence blew that burdened wind. Bess was only one of millions at the mercy of unknown motive in nature and life.

content had come to venters in the valley happiness had breathed in the slow warm air love as bright as light had hovered over the walls and descended to him and now on the west wind came a whisper of the eternal triumph of faith over doubt "'How much better I am for what has come to me,' he exclaimed. "'I'll let the future take care of itself. "'Whatever falls, I'll be ready.' Venters retraced his steps along the terrace back to camp, and found Bess in the old familiar seat, waiting and watching for his return. "'I went off by myself to think a little,' he explained.

"'You never looked that way before. "'What is it? Won't you tell me?' "'Well, Bess, the fact is I've been dreaming. a lot. This valley makes a fellow dream. So I forced myself to think. We can't live this way much longer. Soon I'll simply have to go to Cottonwoods. We need a whole pack train of supplies. I can get—can you go safely? she interrupted. Why, I'm sure of it. I'll ride through the pass at night. I haven't any fear that Wrangel isn't where I left him. And once on him, best just wait till you see that horse. Oh, I want to.

to see him, to ride him. But, but, burn, this is what troubles me, she said. Will, will you come back? Give me four days. If I'm not back in four days, you'll know I'm dead, for that only shall keep me. Oh. Bess, I'll come back. There's danger, I wouldn't lie to you, but I can take care of myself. Byrne, I'm sure, oh, I'm sure of it. All my life I've watched hunted men. I can tell what's in them, and I believe you can ride and shoot and see with any rider of the sage. It's not, not that, I fear. Well, what is it then? Why, why, why should you come back at all? I couldn't leave you here alone. You might change your mind when you get to the village among old friends. I won't change my mind. As for old friends, he uttered a short, expressive laugh.

Then there must be a woman. Dark red mantled the clear tan of temple and cheek and neck. Her eyes were eyes of shame, upheld a long moment by intense straining search for the verification of her fear. Suddenly they drooped, her head fell to her knees, her hands flew to her hot cheeks. Bess, look here, said Venters, with a sharpness due to the violence with which he checked his quick, surging emotion. As if compelled against her will, answering to an irresistible voice, Bess raised her head, looked at him with sad, dark eyes, and tried to whisper with tremulous lips.

There's no woman, went on Vinters, deliberately holding her glance with his. Nothing on earth, barring the chances of life, can keep me away. Her face flashed and flushed with a glow of a leaping joy, but like the vanishing of a gleam it disappeared to leave her as he had never beheld. her. I am nothing. I am lost. I am nameless. Do you want me to come back? he asked, with sudden, stern coldness. Maybe you want to go back to Old Ring. That brought her erect, trembling and ashy pale,

with dark, proud eyes and mute lips refuting his insinuation. Bess, I beg your pardon, I shouldn't have said that, but you angered me. I intend to work, to make a home for you here, to be a brother to you as long as ever you need me. And you must forget what you are, were, I mean, and be happy. When you remember that old life, you're bitter, and it hurts me. I was happy. I shall be very happy. Oh, you're so good that it kills me, if I think I can't believe it. I grow sick with wondering why.

I'm only a, let me say it, only a lost, nameless girl of the rustlers. Aldring's girl, they called me. That you should save me, be so good and kind, want to make me happy. Why, it's beyond belief. No wonder I'm wretched at the thought of your leaving me. But I'll be wretched and bitter no more. I promise you. If only I could repay you even a little.

You've repaid me a hundredfold. Will you believe me? Believe you? I couldn't do else. Then listen. Saving you, I saved myself. Living here in the world. this valley with you, I've found myself. I've learned to think while I was dreaming. I never troubled

myself about God. But God, or some wonderful spirit, has whispered to me here. I absolutely deny the truth of what you say about yourself. I can't explain it. There are things too deep to tell. Whatever the terrible wrongs you've suffered, God holds you blameless. I see that, feel that in you every moment you are near me. I have a mother and a sister way back in Illinois. If I could, I'd take you to them tomorrow. If it were true, oh, I might, I might lift my head, she cried. Lift it then, you child, for I swear it's true. She did lift her head, with a singular wild grace, always a part of her actions,

with that old unconscious intimation of innocence which always tortured ventures, but now with something more, a spirit rising from the depths that linked itself to his brave words. "'I've been thinking, too,' she cried, with quivering smile and swelling breast. "'I've discovered myself, too. "'I'm young, I'm alive, I'm so full. "'Oh, I'm a woman.' "'Dass, I believe I can claim credit of that last discovery before you,' Venters said, and laughed. "'Oh, there's more. There's something I must tell you.'

"'Tell it, then. When will you go to Cottonwoods?' as soon as the storms are passed or the worst of them i'll tell you before you go i can't now i don't know how i shall then but it must be told i'd never let you leave me without knowing for in spite of what you say there's a chance you mightn't come back day after day the west wind blew across the valley day after day the clouds clustered gray and purple and black the cliffs sang and the caves rang with old rings knell and the lightning flashed the thunder rolled the echoes crashed and the rains flooded the valley Wildflowers sprang up everywhere, swaying with the lengthening grass on the terraces, smiling wanly from shady nooks, peeping wondrously from year-dry crevices of the walls. The valley bloomed into a paradise. Every single moment, from the breaking of the gold bar through the bridge at dawn, onto the reddening of rays over the western wall, was one of colorful change.

The valley swam in thick, transparent haze, golden at dawn, warm and white at noon, purple in the twilight. At the end of every storm a rainbow curved down into the leaf-bright forest to shine and fade and leave lingeringly some faint essence of its rosy iris in the air. Vinters walked with Bess, once more in a dream, and watched the lights change on the walls and faced the wind from out of the west. Always it brought softly to him strange, sweet tidings of far-off things. It blew from a place that was old and whispered of youth. It throes. It thwarted. It blew down the grooves of time. It brought a story of the passing hours. It breathed low of fighting men and praying women. It sang clearly the song of love. That ever was the burden of its tidings,

youth in the shady woods, waders through the wet meadows, boy and girl at the hedgerow style, bathers in the booming surf, sweet idle hours on grassy, windy hills, long strolls down moonlit lanes. Everywhere in far-off lands, fingers locked and bursting hearts and longing lips from all the world tidings of unquenchable love. Often in these hours of dreams, he watched the girl and asked himself of what was she dreaming. For the changing light of the valley reflected its gleam and its color and its meaning in the changing light of her eyes. He saw in them infinitely more than he saw in his dreams. He saw thought and soul and nature. strong 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 narragoreau 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 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 saved me, and I'm yours to do with as you like. With all my heart and soul, I love you. End of Chapter 14. Chapter 15 of Writers of the Purple Sage. This is a Librevox recording. All Libervox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit

Libravox.org. Recorded by Laurie Ann Walden. Writers of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray Chapter 15. Shadows on the Sage Slope In the cloudy, threatening, waning summer days, shadows lengthen down the sage slope, and Jane Witherstein likened them to the shadows gathering and closing in around her life.

Mrs. Larkin died, and little Faye was left an orphan with no known relative. Jane's love redoubled. It was the saving brightness of a darkening hour. Faye turned now to Jane in childish worship, and Jane at last found full expression for the mother longing in her heart. Upon Lasseter, too, Mrs. Larkin's death had some subtle reaction. Before, he had often, without explanation, advised Jane to send Faye back to any Gentile family that would take her in. Passionately and reproachens, and wonderingly, Jane had refused even to entertain such an idea. And now Lasseter 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 Faye. What did the writer 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 and 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 witherstein 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 Lasseter, 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 Witherstein 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 snapshots at Lasseter from a cowardly distance.

But a rifle report meant more. Writers seldom used rifles. Judkin's inventors 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 Lasseter, 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 singular reluctance 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 soft, slow, measured step, and Lasseter walked into the court. Jane, there's a fellow out there with a long gun, he said, and removing his somervoir. umbrero 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 maybe 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, Lasseter talked. That fella 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 expecting that kind of gunplay. I reckon now I'll have to keep a little closer hid myself. These fellas all seem to get chilly or shaky when they draw a bead on me, but one of them might just happened to hit me. Won't you go away? Leave Cottonwoods as I've begged you to, before someone 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, and 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 kill him? Well, I reckon I haven't any great hankering for that. "'Oh, the wonder of it! I knew, I prayed, I trusted. Lasseter, I almost gave all myself to soften you to Mormons. Thank God, and thank you, my friend. But selfish woman that I 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 sheathed round in front, he stepped into the alcove. It's a hoarse, coming 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 and longer pause than usual between the hoof-beats of a horse. It's wrangle, it's wrangle! cried Jane Witherstein. I'd know him from a million horses. Excitement and thrilling expectancy flooded out all Jane Witherstein'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. Rangel it was, surely, but shaggy and wild-eyed, and sage-streaked, with dust-caged lather staining his flanks. He reared and crashed down and plunged. The rider leaped off, through the bridle, and held hard on a lasso, looped round Rangel's head and neck. Jane's heart sank as she tried to recognize ventures in the rider. Something familiar struck her in the lofty stature, in the sweep of powerful shoulders. But this bearded, long-haired, 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 venters. Whoa, wrangle old boy. Come down. Easy now.

So, so, so. You're home, old boy. Presently, you can have a drink of water you'll remember. In the voice, Jane knew the writer to be Vinters. He tied wrangled to the hitching rack and turned to the court. Oh, burn! You wild man! she exclaimed. Jane! Jane, it's good to see you. Hello, Lassiter. Yes, it's Vinters.

Like rough iron his hard hand crushed Jan's. In it, she felt the difference she saw in him. wild, rugged, unshorn, yet house splendid. He had gone away a boy, he had returned a man. He appeared taller, wider of shoulder, deeper chested, more powerfully built. But was that only her fancy, had he always been a young giant? Was the change one of spirit? He might have been absent for years, proven by fire and steel, grown like Lasseter, strong and cool and sure. His eyes, were they keener, more flashing than before, met hers with clear, frank, warm regard, in which perplexity was not, nor discontent, nor pain.

Look at me long as you like, he said with a laugh. I'm not much to look at. And Jane, neither you nor Lassiter can brag. You're paler than I ever saw you. Lasseter here, he wears a bloody bandage under his hat. That reminds me. Someone took a flying shot at me down in the sage. It made Rangel run some. Well, pretty. Perhaps you've more to tell me than I've got to tell you." Briefly, in a few words, Jane outlined the circumstances of her undoing in the weeks of his absence. Under his beard and bronze, she saw his face whiten in terrible wrath.

Lassiter, what held you back? No time in the long period of fiery moments in sudden shocks had Jane Witherstein ever beheld Lasseter as calm and serene and cool as then. had gloom enough, without my adding to it, by shooting up the village, he said. As strange as Alacetre's coolness was Vinter's curious, intense scrutiny of them both, and under it Jane felt a flaming tide wave from bosom to temples. Well, you're right, he said, with slow pause. It surprises me a little, that's all.

Jane sensed then a slight alteration in Venters, and what it was, in her own confusion, she could not tell. It had always been her intention to acquaint him with the deceit she had fallen to, in her zeal to move Lasseter. She did not mean to spare herself. Yet now, at the moment, before these riders, it was an impossibility to explain. Vinters was speaking somewhat haltingly, without his former frankness. I found Oldring's hiding-place, and your red herd.

I learned, I know, I'm sure there was a deal between Tall and Oldring. He paused and shifted his position. and his gaze. He looked as if he wanted to say something that he found beyond him. Sorrow and pity and shame seemed to contend for mastery over him. Then he raised himself and spoke with effort. Jane, I've cost you too much. You've almost ruined yourself for me. It was wrong, for I'm not worth it. I never deserved such friendship. Well, maybe it's not too late. You must give me up. Mind, I haven't changed. I'm just the same as ever. I'll see tall while I'm here. and tell him to his face.

Burn, it's too late, said Jane. I'll make him believe, cried Venters violently. You ask me to break our friendship? Yes, if you don't, I shall. Forever? Forever. Jane sighed. Another shadow had lengthened down the sage slope

to cast further darkness upon her. A melancholy sweetness pervaded her resignation. The boy who had left her had returned a man. man, nobler, stronger, one in whom she divined something unbending is steel. There might come a moment later when she would wonder why she had not fought against his will, but just now she yielded to it. She liked him as well, nay, more, she thought, only her emotions were deadened by the long, menacing weight for the bursting storm. Once before, she had held out her hand to him, when she gave it. Now she stretched it tremblingly forth in acceptance of the decree circumstance had laid upon them.

ventures bowed over it kissed it pressed it hard and half stifled a sound very like a sob certain it was that when he raised his head tears glistened in his eyes some women have a hard lot he said huskily then he shook his powerful form and his rags lashed about him i'll say a few things to tull when i meet him burn you'll not draw on tull oh that must not be promise me "'I promise you this,' he interrupted, in stern passion that thrilled while it terrorized her. "'If you say one more word for that plodder, I'll kill him as I would a mad coyote.' Jane clasped her hands. "'Was this fire-eyed man the one whom she had once made as wax to her touch? "'Had Vinters become Lassiter, and Lassiter Venters?' "'I'll say no more,' she faltered.

"'Jane, Lasseter once called you blind,' said Venters. It must be true, but I won't upbraid you. Only don't rouse the devil in me by praying for tall. I'll try to keep cool when I meet him. That's all. Now there's one more thing I want to ask of you, the last. I found a valley down in the pass. It's a wonderful place.

I intend to stay there. It's so hidden I believe no one can find it. There's good water and browse and game. I want to raise corn and stock. I need to take in supplies. Will you give them to me? "'Assuredly, the more you take, the better you'll please me, and perhaps the less my enemies will get.' "'Venters, I reckon you'll have trouble packing anything away,' put in Lasseter.

"'I'll go at night.' "'Maybe that wouldn't be best. You'd sure be stopped. You'd better go early in the morning, say, just after dawn. That's the safest time to move round here.' "'Lasseter, I'll be hard to stop,' returned Venters, darkly. I reckon so. Burn, said Jane. Go first to the rider's quarters and get yourself a complete outfit.

You're a sight. Then help yourself to whatever else you need, burrows, packs, grain, dried fruits, and meat. You must take coffee and sugar and flour, all kinds of supplies. Don't forget corn and seeds. I remember how you used to starve. Please, please take all you can pack away from here. I'll make a bundle for you, which you mustn't open till you're in your valley. "'How I'd like to see it. To judge by you and Wrangell, how wild it must be!'

Jane walked down into the outer court and approached the sorrel. Up-starting, he laid back his ears, and eyed her. "'Rangle, dear old Wrangell,' she said, and put a caressing hand on his matted mane. "'Oh, he's wild, but he knows me. Burn, can he run as fast as ever?' "'Run. Jane, he's done sixty miles since last night at dark.' and I could make him kill Black Star right now in a ten-mile race. He never could, protested Jane. He couldn't even if he was fresh. I reckon maybe the best hoss will prove himself yet, said Lasseter. And, Jane, if it ever comes to that race, I'd like you to be on Wrangell.

I'd like that, too, rejoined Venters. But Jane, maybe Lasseter's hint is extreme. Bad as your prospects are, you'll surely never come to the running point. "'Who knows?' she replied, with mournful smile. "'No, no, Jane, it can't be so bad as all that. "'Soon as I see tall, there'll be a change in your fortunes. "'I'll hurry down to the village. "'Now, don't worry.' Jane retired to the seclusion of her room.

Lasseter's subtle forecasting of disaster, Venter's forced optimism, neither remained in mind. Material loss weighed nothing in the balance with other losses she was sustaining. She wondered dully at her sitting there, hands folded listlessly, with a kind of numb deadness to the passing of time and the passing of her riches. She thought of Venter's friendship. She had not lost that, but she had lost him. Lasseter's friendship, that was more than love. It would endure, but soon he, too, would be gone. Little Faye slept dreamlessly upon the bed, her golden curls streaming over the pillow. Jane had the child's worship, which she lose. that, too? And if she did, what then would be left? Conscience thundered at her that there was left her religion. Conscience thundered that she should be grateful on her knees for this baptism of

fire, that through misfortune, sacrifice, and suffering, her soul might be fused, pure gold. But the old, spontaneous, rapturous spirit no more exalted her. She wanted to be a woman, not a martyr. Like the saint of old who mortified his flesh, Jane Witherstein had in her the temper for heroic martyrdom, if by sacrificing herself she could save the souls of others. But here the damnable verdict blistered her that the more she sacrificed herself, the blacker grew the souls of her churchmen. There was something terribly wrong with her soul, something terribly wrong with her churchmen, and her religion. In the whirling gulf of her thought, there was yet one shining light to guide her to sustain her in her hope, and it was that,

despite her errors and her frailties and her blindness, she had one absolute, and unfaltering hold on ultimate and supreme justice. That was love. Love your enemies as yourself was a divine word, entirely free from any church or creed. Jane's meditations were disturbed by Lasseter's soft, tinkling step in the court. Always he wore the clinking spurs. Always he was in readiness to ride. She passed out and called him into the huge dim hall. I think you'll be safer here. she said. I reckon, replied Lassiter, and it's cooler here. The day's sure muggy.

Well, I went down to the village with Vinter's. Already, where is he? queried Jane, in quick amaze. He's at the corrals. Blake's helping him get the burrows and packs ready. That Blake is a good fellow. Did burn meat tall? I guess he did, answered Lassiter, and he laughed dry. Tell me. Oh, you exasperate me. You're so cool, so calm. For heaven's sake, tell me what happened.

First time I've been in the village for weeks, went on Lasseter, mildly. I reckon there ain't been more of a show for a long time, me Inventors walking down the road. It was funny. I ain't saying anybody was particularly glad to see us. I'm not much thought of hereabouts. Inventors, he sure looks like what you called him, a wild man. Well, there was some running a folks before we got to the stores. Then everybody Vamoosed except some surprised rustlers in front of a saloon. Vinter's went right in the stores and saloons, and of course I went along. I don't know which tickled me the most, the actions of many fellers we met, or Vinter's nerve.

Jane, I was downright glad to be along. You see, that sort of thing is my element, and I've been away from it for a spell. But we didn't find tall in one of them places. Some Gentile feller at last told Venters he'd find Tull in that long building next to Parsons store. It's a kind of meeting room, and sure enough, when we peeped in, it was half full of men. Venters yelled, Don't anybody pull guns, we ain't come for that. Then he trapped in, and I was some put to keep alongside him. There was a hard, scraping sound of feet, a loud cry, and then some whispering,

and after that, stillness you could cut with a knife. "'Tull was there, and that fat party, who once tried to throw a gun on me, "'and other important-looking men, "'and that little frog-legged feller who was with Tull the day I rode in here. "'I wish you could have seen their faces, especially Tulls and the fat parties. "'But there ain't no use of me trying to tell you how they looked. "'Well, Venters and I stood there in the middle of the room "'with that batch of men all in front of us,

"'and not a blamed one of them winked an eyelash or moved a finger. "'It was natural, of course, for me to notice many of them packed guns. That's a way of mine, first noticing them things. Vinter's spoke up, and his voice sort of chilled and cut, and he told Tull he had a few things to say. Here Lasseter paused while he turned his sombrero round and round in his familiar habit, and his eyes had the look of a man seeing over again some thrilling spectacle, and under his red bronze there was strange animation. Like a shot, then, Venters told Tull that the friendship between you and him was all over, and he was leaving your place. He said you'd both of you broken off in the hope of

propitiating your people, but you hadn't changed your mind otherwise, and never would. Next, he spoke up for you. I ain't going to tell you what he said. Only no other woman who ever lived had such tribute. You had a champion, Jane, and never fear that those thick-skulled men don't know you now. It couldn't be otherwise. He spoke the ringing, lightning truth. Then he accused Tull of the underhand miserable robbery of a helpless woman. He told Tull where the red herd was, of a deal made with Aldring, that Jerry Card had made the deal. I thought Tull was going to drop, and that little frog-legged cuss, he looked some limp and white. But Vinter's voice would have kept anybody's legs from Buckland.

I was stiff myself. He went on and called Tull, called him every bad name ever known to a rider, and then some. He cursed Tull. I never hear a man get such a cursing. He laughed in scorn at the idea of Tull being a minister. He said Tull, and a few more dogs of hell, built their empire out of the hearts of such innocent and God-fearing women as Jane Witherstein. He called Tull a binder of women, a callous beast,

who hid behind a mock mantle of righteousness, and the last and lowest coward on the face of the earth. To prey on weak women through their religion, that was the last unspeakable crime. Then he finished, and by this time he'd almost lost his voice. But his whisper was enough. Tull, he said, She begged me not to draw on you today. She would pray for you if you burned her at the stake.

But listen, I swear, if you and I ever come face to face again, I'll kill you. We backed out of the door then and up the road. But nobody followed us. Jane found herself weeping passionately. She had not been conscious of it till last night. Lasseter ended his story, and she experienced exquisite pain and relief in shedding tears. Long had her eyes been dry, her grief deep. Long had her emotions been dumb.

Lassiter's story put her back on the rack. The appalling nature of Vinter's act and speech had no parallel as an outrage. It was worse than bloodshed. Men like Tull had been shot, but had one ever been so terribly denounced in public? Overmounting her horror, an uncontrollable, quivering passion should. her very soul. It was sheer human glory in the deed of a fearless man. It was hot, primitive instinct to live, to fight. It was a kind of mad joy inventor's chivalry. It was close to the wrath that had first shaken her in the beginning of this war waged upon her.

"'Well, well, Jane, don't take it that way,' said Lasseter in evident distress. "'I had to tell you. There's some things a feller just can't keep. It's strange you give up on hearing that, when all this long time you've been the gamest woman I ever seen. But I don't know women. Maybe there's reason for you to cry. I know this. Nothing ever rang in my soul and so filled it as what Venters did. I'd like to have done it, but I'm only good for throwing a gun, and it seems you hate that. Well, I'll be going now. Where? Venters took Wrangell to the stable. The sorrel shy a shoe, and I've got to help hold the big devil and put on another. Tell Byrne to come for the pack I want to give him, and to say goodbye, called Jane, as

Lasseter went out. Jane passed the rest of that day in a vain endeavor to decide what and what not to put in the pack for Vinters. This task was the last she would ever perform for him, and the gifts were the last she would ever make him. So she picked and chose and rejected, and chose again, and often paused in sad reverie, and began again, till at length she filled the pack. It was about sunset, and she and Faye had finished supper and were sitting in the court when Vinter's quick steps rang on the stones. She scarcely knew him, for he had changed the tattered garments, and she missed the dark beard and long hair. Still, he was not the Vinters of old. As he came up the steps, she felt herself pointing to the pack, and heard herself speaking

words that were meaningless to her. He said goodbye, he kissed her, released her, and turned away. His tall figure blurred in her sight, grew dim through dark, streaked vision, and then he vanished. Twilight fell around Witherstein House, and dusk and night. Little Faye slept, but Jane lay with strained, aching eyes. She heard the wind moaning in the cottonwoods, and mice squeaking in the walls. The night was interminably long, yet she prayed to hold back the dawn. What would another day bring forth? The blackness of her room seemed to pull.

blacker for the sad, entering gray of morning light. She heard the chirp of awakening birds, and fancied she caught a faint clatter of hoofs. Then low, dull, distant, throbbed a heavy gunshot. She had expected it, was waiting for it. Nevertheless, an electric shock checked her heart, froze the very living fiber of her bones. That vice-like hold on her faculties apparently did not relax for a long time, and it was a voice under her window that released her. "'Jane, Jane,' softly called Lasseter. She answered somehow. "'It's all right. Venters got away.

I thought maybe you'd heard that shot, and I was worried some. What was it? Who fired?' "'Well, some fool feller tried to stop Venters out there in the sage, and he only stopped lead. I think it'll be all right. I haven't seen or heard of any other fellas round. Vinter's will go through safe. And Jane, I've got Bells saddled, and I'm going to trail Vinter's. Mind, I won't show myself unless he falls foul of somebody and needs me. I want to see if this place where he's going is safe for him.

He says nobody can track him there. I never seen the place yet. I couldn't track a man to. Now, Jane, you stay indoors while I'm gone and keep close watch on Faye. Will you? Yes. Oh, yes. And another thing, Jane. he continued, then paused for long. Another thing, if you ain't here when I come back, if you're gone,

don't fear, I'll trail you, I'll find you out. My dear Lasseter, where could I be gone, as you put it? asked Jane, in curious surprise. I reckon you might be somewhere, maybe tied in an old barn or corralled in some gulch, or chained in a cave. Millie Earn was, till she give in. Maybe that's news to you. "'Well, if you're gone, I'll hunt for you.' "'No, Lasseter,' she replied, sadly and low. "'If I'm gone, just forget the unhappy woman

"'whose blinded selfish deceit you repaid with kindness and love.' She heard a deep, muttering curse under his breath, and then the silvery tinkling of his spurs as he moved away. Jane entered upon the duties of that day with a settled, gloomy calm. Disaster hung in the dark clouds, in the shade, in the humid west wind. Blake, when he reported,

appeared without his usual cheer, and Jerd wore a harassed look of a worn and worried man. And when Judkins put in appearance, riding a lame horse, and dismounted with the cramp of a rider, his dust-covered figure and his darkly grim,

almost dazed expression, told Jane of dire calamity. She had no need of words. Miss Witherstein, I have to report, loss of the white herd. said Judkins, hoarsely. "'Come, sit down. You look played out,' replied Jane, solicitously.

She brought him brandy and food, and while he partook of refreshments, of which he appeared badly in need, she asked no questions. No one rider could have done more, Miss Witherstein, he went on presently. Judkins, don't be distressed. You've done more than any other rider. I've long expected to lose the white herd. It's no surprise. It's in line with other things that are happening. I'm grateful for your service. Miss Witherstein, I knew how you'd take it.

But if anything, that makes it harder to tell. You see, a feller wants to do so much for you, and I'd got fond of my job. We led the herd a ways off to the north of the break in the valley. There was a big level and pools of water and tip-top brows. But the cattle was in a high, nervous condition. Wild, as wild as antelope. You see, they'd been so scared they never slept.

I ain't a going to tell you of the many tricks that were pulled off out there in the sage. But there wasn't a day for weeks that the herd didn't get started to run. We always managed to ride them close and drive them back and keep them bunched. Honest, Miss Witherstein, them steers'ers'er's thin. They was thin when water and grass was everywhere. Thin at this season, that'll tell you how your steers was pestered. For instance, one night a strange running streak of fire running. right through the herd. That streak was a coyote with an oiled and blazoned tail, for I shot it and

found out. We had hell with the herd that night, and if the sage and grass hadn't been wet, we, hosses, steers, and all would have burned up. But I said I wasn't going to tell you any of the tricks. Strange now, Miss Witherstein, when the stampede did come, it was from natural cause, just a whirling devil of dust. You've seen the like often, and this wasn't no big whirl, for the dust was mostly settled. It had dried out in a little swale, and ordinarily no steer would ever have run for it. But the herd was nervous and wild. And just as Lasseter said, when that bunch of white steers got to move in, they was as bad as Buffalo. I've seen some buffalo stampedes back in Nebraska, and this bolt of the steers was the same kind.

I tried to mill the herd just as Lassiter did, but I wasn't equal to it, Miss Wetherstein. I don't believe the rider lives who could have turned that herd. We kept along of the herd, for my herd. and more than one of my boys tried to get the steers a milling. It wasn't no use. We got off level ground, going down, and then the steers ran something fierce. We left the little gullies and washes level full of dead steers. Finally, I saw the herd was making to pass a kind of low pocket between ridges. There was a hog back, as we used to call them, a pile of rocks sticking up,

and I saw the herd was going to split round it, or swing out to the left. and I wanted them to go to the right, so maybe we'd be able to drive them into the pocket. So, with all my boys except three, I rode hard to turn the herd a little to the right. We couldn't budge them. They went on and split round the rocks, and the most of them was turned sharp to the left by a deep wash we hadn't seen, had no chance to see. The other three boys, Jimmy Vale, Joe Willis, and that little Cairns boy, a nervy kid, they, with Cairns Leiden, tried to buck that herd round to the park.

pocket. It was a wild, full idea. I couldn't do nothing. The boys got hemmed in between the steers and the wash that they hadn't no chance to see either. Vail and Willis was run down right before our eyes. And Cairns, who wrote a fine horse, he did some riding I never seen equaled, and would have beat the steers if there had been any room to run in. I was high up and could see how the steers kept spilling by twos and threes over into the wash. Cairns put his hoss to a place that was too wide for any hoss, and broke his neck and the hosses too. We found that out after, and as for Vale and Willis, 2,000 steers ran over the poor boys.

There wasn't much left to pack home for Beryn. And Miss Witherstein, that all happened yesterday, and I believe if the white herd didn't run over the wall of the pass, it's running yet. On the morning of the second day, after Judkin's recital, during which time Jane remained indoors, a prey to regret and sorrow for the boy, writers, and a new and now strangely insistent fear for her own person, she again heard what

she had missed more than she dared honestly confess, the soft, jingling step of Lassiter. Almost overwhelming relief surged through her, a feeling as akin to joy as any she could have been capable of in those gloomy hours of shadow, and one that suddenly stunned her with the significance of what Lassiter had come to mean to her. She had begged him for his own sake to leave Cottonwoods. She might yet beg that, if her weakening courage permitted her to dare absolute loneliness and helplessness, but she realized now that if she were left alone, her life would become one long, hideous nightmare.

When his soft steps clinked into the hall, an answer to her greeting, and his tall, black-garbed form filled the door, she felt an inexpressible sense of immediate safety. In his presence she lost her fear of the dim passageways of Witherstein House, and of every sound. always it had been that when he entered the court or the hall she had experienced a distinctly sickening but gradually lessening shock at sight of the huge black gun swinging at his sides this time the sickening shock again visited her it was however because a revealing flash of thought told her that it was not alone lasseter who was thrillingly welcome but also his fatal weapons they meant so much how she had fallen how broken and spiritless must she be to have still the same old horror of Lasseter's guns and his name, yet feel somehow a cold, shrinking protection in their law and might and use. Did you trail Vinter's, find his wonderful valley? she asked eagerly. Yes, and I reckon it's sure a wonderful place.

Is he safe there? That's been bothering me some. I tracked him, and part of the trail was the hardest I ever tackled. Maybe there's a rustler or somebody in this country who, as good at tracking as I am. If that's so, Venters ain't safe. Well, tell me all about Byrne in his valley. To Jane's surprise, Lasseter showed disinclination for further talk about his trip. He appeared to be extremely fatigued. Jane reflected that 120 miles, with probably a great deal of climbing on foot, all in three days, was enough to tire any rider. Moreover, it presently developed that Lassiter had returned in a mood of singular sadness.

and preoccupation. She put it down to a moodiness over the loss of her white herd and a now precarious condition of her fortune. Several days passed, and as nothing happened, Jane's spirits began to brighten. Once in her musings, she thought that this tendency of hers to rebound was as sad as it was futile. Meanwhile, she had resumed her walks through the grove with Little Fay. One morning she went as far as the sage.

She had not seen the slope since the beginning of the river. rains, and now it bloomed a rich, deep purple. There was a high wind blowing, and the sage tossed and waved and colored beautifully from light to dark. Clouds scuddered across the sky, and their shadows sailed darkly down the sunny slope. Upon her return toward the house, she went by the lane to the stables, and she had scarcely entered the great open space with its corrals and sheds when she saw Lasseter hurriedly approaching. Faye broke from her, and, running to a corral fence, began to pat and pull of the long, hanging ears of a drowsy burrow. One look at Lasseter armed her for a blow.

Without a word, he led her across the wide yard to the rise of the ground, upon which the stable stood. Jane, look, he said, and pointed to the ground. Jane glanced down, and again, and upon steadier vision made out splotches of blood on the stones, and broad, smooth marks in the dust, leading out toward the sage. "'What made these?' she asked. "'I reckon somebody has dragged dead or wounded men out "'to where there was hosses in the sage.'

"'Dead or wounded men?' "'I reckon. Jane, are you strong? Can you bear up?' His hands were gently holding hers, and his eyes. Suddenly she could no longer look into them. "'Strong?' she echoed, trembling. "'I—I will be.' Up on the stone flag drive, Nicked with the marks made by the iron-shod hoofs of her racers,

Lassiter led her, his grasp, ever-growing firmer. Where's Blake? And Jerd! she asked, haltingly. I don't know where a jerd is, bolted most likely, replied Lasseter, as he took her through the stone door. But Blake, poor Blake, he's gone forever. Be prepared, Jane. With a cold prickling of her skin, with a queer thrumming in her ears, with fixed and staring eyes,

Jane saw a gun lying at her feet, with chamber swung and empty, and discharged shells scattered near. Outstretched upon the stable floor lay Blake, ghastly white, dead, one hand clutching a gun, and the other twisted in his bloody blouse. Whoever the thieves were, whether your people are rustlers, Blake killed some of them, said Lasseter. Thieves? whispered Jane. I reckon, Hoss Thieves. Look. Lasseter waved his hand toward the stalls.

The first stall, Bell's stall, was empty. All the stalls were empty. No racer whinnied and stamped greeting to her. Night was gone. Black Star was gone. End of Chapter 15. Chapter 16 of Riders of the Purple Sage. This is the Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recorded by Laurie Ann Walden. Writers of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray.

Chapter 16. Gold. As Lasseter had reported to Jane, Venters went through safely, and after a toilsome journey, reached the peaceful shelter of Surprise Valley. When finally he lay wearily down under the silver spruces, resting from the strain of dragging packs and burrows up the slope and through the entrance to Surprise Valley, he had leisure to think, and a great deal of the time went in regretting that he had not been frank with his loyal friend, Jane Witherstein. But, he kept continually recalling, when he had stood once more face to face with her, and had been shocked at the

change in her and had heard the details of her adversity, he had not had the heart to tell her of the closer interest which had entered his life. He had not lied, yet he had kept silence. Bess was in transports over the stores of supplies and the outfit he had packed from cottonwoods. He had certainly brought a hundred times more than he had gone for, enough surely for years, perhaps to make permanent home in the valley. He saw no reason why he need ever leave there again. After a day of rest, he recovered his strength and shared Bess's pleasure in rummaging over the endless packs, and began to plan for the future. And in this planning, his trip to Cottonwoods, with its revived hate of tall and consequent unleashing of fierce passions, soon faded out of mind.

By slower degrees, his friendship for Jane Witherstein and his contrition drifted from the active preoccupation of his present thought to a place in memory, with more and more infrequent recalls. And as far as the state of his mind was concerned, upon the second day after his return, the valley, with its golden hues and purple shades, the speaking west wind, and the cool silent night, and Bess's watching eyes with their wonderful light, so wrought upon ventures that he might never have left them at all. That very afternoon he set to work. Only one thing hindered him upon beginning, though it in no wise checked his delight, and that in the multiplicity of tasks planned to make a paradise out of the valley, he could not choose the one with which

to begin. He had to grow into the habit of passing from one dreamy pleasure to another, like a bee going from flower to flower in the valley, and he found this wandering habit likely to extend to his labors. Nevertheless, he made a start. At the outset, he discovered best to be both a considerable help in some ways, and a very great hindrance in others. Her excitement and joy were spurs, inspirations, but she was utterly impracticable in her ideas, and she flitted from one plan to another with bewildering vacillation. Moreover, he fancied that she grew more eager, youthful, and sweet, and he marked that it was far easier to watch her and listen to her than it was to work. Therefore, he gave her tasks that necessitated her going often to the cave where he had stored his packs. Upon the last of

these trips, when he was some distance down the terrace and out of sight of camp, he heard a scream, and then the sharp barking of the dogs. For an instant he straightened up, amazed. Danger for her had been absolutely out of his mind. She had seen a rattlesnake or a wildcat. Still, she would not have been likely to scream at sight of either, and the barking of the dogs was ominous. Dropping his work, he dashed back along the terrace.

Upon breaking through a clump of aspens, he saw the dark form of a man in the camp. Cold, then hot, venters. burst into frenzied speed to reach his guns. He was cursing himself for a thoughtless fool when the man's tall form became familiar, and he recognized Lassiter. Then the reversal of emotions changed his run to a walk. He tried to call out, but his voice refused to carry. When he reached camp, there was Lassiter, staring at the white-faced girl. By that time, Ring and Whitey had recognized him. "'Hello, Venters, I'm making you a visit,' said Lassiter slowly.

and I'm some surprise to see you've a young feller for company. One glance had sufficed for the keen writer to read Bess's real sex, and for once his cool calm had deserted him. He stared till the white of Bess's cheeks flared into crimson. That, if it were needed, was the concluding evidence of her femininity, for it went fittingly with her sun-tinted hair and darkened, dilated eyes, the sweetness of her mouth, and the striking symmetry of her slender shape. "'Heavens! Lasseter!' panted Vinters, when he called his breath.

"'What relief! It's only you! How in the name of all that's wonderful did you ever get here!' "'I trailed you. We, I, wanted to know where you was, if you had a safe place. So I trailed you.' "'Trailed me,' cried Venters, bluntly. "'I reckon, it was some of a job after I got to them smooth rocks. I was all day tracking you up to them little cut steps in the rock. The rest was easy. Where's your horse? I hope you hit him. I tied him in them queer cedars down on the slope. He can't be seen from the valley.

That's good. Well, well, I'm completely dumbfounded. It was my idea that no man could track me in here. I reckon, but if there's a tracker in these uplands as good as me, he can find you. That's bad. That'll worry me. But, Lasseter, now you're here. I'm glad to see you. And, and my companion here is not a young fellow.

Bess, this is a friend of mine. He saved my life once. The embarrassment of the moment did not extend to Lassiter. Almost at once, his manner, as he shook hands with Bess, relieved Vinter's, and put the girl at ease. After Venter's words, in one quick look at Lasseter, her agitation stilled. And, though she was shy, if she were conscious of anything out of the ordinary in the situation, certainly she did not show it. "'I reckon I'll only stay a little while,' Lassiter was saying.

"'And if you don't mind troubling, I'm hungry. "'I fetch some biscuits along, but they're gone. "'Venters, this place is sure the wonderfulest ever seen. "'Them cut steps on the slope, that outlet into the gorge, "'and it's like climbing up through hell into heaven "'to climb through that gorge into this valley. "'There's a queer-looking rock at the top of the passage. "'I didn't have time to stop.

"'I'm wondering how you ever found this place. "'It's sure interesting. During the preparation and eating of dinner, Lasseter listened mostly, as was his wont, and occasionally he spoke in his quaint and dry way. Venters noted, however, that the rider showed an increasing interest in Bess. He asked her no questions, and only directed his attention to her while she was occupied and had no opportunity to observe his scrutiny. It seemed to Venters that Lassiter grew more and more absorbed in his study of Bess,

and that he lost his coolness in some strange, softening sympathy. Then, quite abruptly, he arose and announced the necessity for his early departure. He said goodbye to Bess in a voice gentle and somewhat broken, and turned hurriedly away. Venters accompanied him, and they had traversed the terrace, climbed the weathered slope, and passed under the stone bridge before either spoke again. Then Lasseter put a great hand on Vinter's shoulder, and wheeled him to meet a smoldering fire of gray eyes. Lasseter, I couldn't tell Jane. I couldn't, burst out Venters, reading his friend's mind.

I tried, but I couldn't. She wouldn't understand, and she has troubles enough. And I love the girl. Venters, I reckon this beats me. I've seen some queer things in my time, too. This girl, who is she? I don't know. Don't know.

What is she then? I don't know that. That either. Oh, it's the strangest story you ever heard. I must tell you, but you'll never believe. Vinter's, women were always puzzles to me. But for all that, if this girl ain't a child, and as innocent, I'm no fit person to think of virtue and goodness in anybody. Are you going to be square with her? I am, so help me God. I reckoned so. Maybe my temper oughtn't led me to make sure. But man, she's a woman in all the years. She's sweeter than the sage. Lasseter, I know, I know, and the hell of it is that in spite of her innocence and charm, she's not what she seems.

I wouldn't want to, of course I couldn't call you a liar, Venters, said the older man. What's more, she was Oldring's masked rider. Vinter's expected to floor his friend with that statement, but he was not in any way prepared for the shock his words gave. For an instant he was astounded to see Lassiter stunned. Then his own passionate eagerness to unbosom himself, to tell the wonderful story, precluded any other thought. "'Son, tell me all about this,' presently said Lassiter, as he seated himself on a stone and wiped his moist brow. Thereupon Vinters began his narrative at the point where he had shot the Rustler, an old ring's masked rider, and he rushed through it, telling all, not holding back even Bess's unreserved avowal of her love, or his deepest emotions.

That's the story, he said, concluding. I love her, though I've never told her. If I did tell her, I'd be ready to marry her, and that seems impossible in this country. I'd be afraid to risk taking her anywhere. So I intend to do the best I can for her here. The longer I live, the stranger life is, mused Lasseter, with downcast eyes. I'm reminded of something you once said to Jane about hands in her game of life. There's that unseen hand of power, and Tull's black hand, in my red one, and your indifferent one, and the girl's little brown helpless one.

And Vinters, there's another one that's all wise and all wonderful. That's the hand-guided Jane Witherstein's game of life. Your story is won to days a far clearer head than mine. I can't offer no advice, even if you asked for it. Maybe I can help you. Anyway, I'll hold Oldring up when he comes to the village, and find out about this girl. I knew the rustler years ago.

He'll remember me. Lasseter, if I ever meet Oldring, I'll kill him, cried Venters, with sudden intensity. I reckon that'd be perfectly natural, replied the writer. Make him think Bess is dead, as she is to him and that old life. Sure, sure, son. Cool down now. If you're going to begin pulling guns on toll and aldrin, you want to be cool.

I reckon, though, you'd better keep hid here. Well, I must be leaving. One thing, Lasseter, you'll not tell Jane about Bess? Please don't. I reckon not, but I wouldn't be afraid to bet that after she'd got over anger at your secrecy, Vinter, she'd be furious once in her life. She'd think more of you. I don't mind saying for myself that I think you're a good deal of a man.

In the further ascent, Vinter's halted several times with the intention of saying goodbye, yet he changed his mind and kept on climbing till they reached balancing rock. Lasseter examined the huge rock, listened to Vinter's idea of its position and suggestion, and curiously placed a strong hand upon it. "'Hold on!' cried Venters. I heaved at it once and have never gotten over my scare. "'Well, you do seem uncommon nervous,' replied Lassiter, much amused. Now, as for me, why, I always had the funniest notion to roll stones.

When I was a kid, I did it, and the bigger I got, the bigger stones I'd roll. Ain't that funny? Honest, even now I often get off my horse just to tumble a big stone over a precipice, and watch it drop, and listen to it bang and boom. I've started some slides in my time, and don't you forget it. I never seen a rock I wanted to roll as bad as this one. Wouldn't there just be roaring, crashing hell down that trail? You'd close the outlet forever, exclaimed Venters.

Well, goodbye, Lasseter. Keep my secret and don't forget me. And be mighty careful how you get out of the valley below. The Ruther's Canyon isn't more than three miles up the pass. Now you've tracked me here, I'll never feel safe again. In his descent to the valley, Venter's emotion, roused to stirring pitch by the recital of his love story, quieted gradually, and in its place came a sober, thoughtful mood. All at once he saw that he was serious because he would never more regain his sense of security while in the valley. What Lasseter could do, another skillful tracker might duplicate.

Among the many riders with whom Vinters had ridden, he recalled no one who could have taken his trail at Cottonwoods and have followed it to the edge of the bare slope in the pass, let alone up that glistening smooth stone. Lasseter, however, was not an ordinary rider. Instead of hunting cattle tracks, he had likely spent a goodly portion of his life, tracking men. It was not improbable that among Old Rings rustlers there was one who shared Lasseter's gift for trailing, and the more Vinter's dwelt on this possibility, the more perturbed he grew. Lasseter's visit, moreover, had a disquieting effect upon Bess, and Venters fancied that she entertained the same thought as to future seclusion.

The breaking of their solitude, though by a well-meaning friend, had not only dispelled all its dream and much of its charm, but had instilled a canker of fear. Both had seen the footprint in the sand. Venters did no more work that day. Sunset and twilight gave way to night, and the canyon bird whistled its melancholy notes, and the wind sang softly in the cliffs, and the campfire blazed and burned down to red embers. To Venters, a subtle difference was apparent in all of these, or else the shadowy change had been in him. hoped that on the morrow this slight depression would have passed away. In that measure,

however, he was doomed to disappointment. Furthermore, Bess reverted to a wistful sadness that he had not observed in her since her recovery. His attempt to cheer her out of it resulted in dismal failure, and consequently in a darkening of his own mood. Hard work relieved him. Still, when the day had passed, his unrest returned. Then he set to deliberate thinking, and there came to him the startling conviction that he must leave Surprise Valley and take Bess with him. As a writer, he had taken many chances, and as an adventurer and deception pass, he had unhesitatingly risked his life, but now he would run no preventable hazard of Bess's safety and happiness, and he was too keen not to see that hazard. It gave him a pang to think of

leaving the beautiful valley, just when he had the means to establish a permanent and delightful home there. One flashing thought tore in hot temptation through his mind. Why not climb up into the gorge, roll balancing rock down the trail, and close forever the outlet to Deception Pass? That was the beast in me showing his teeth, muttered Venter, scornfully. I'll just kill him good and quick. I'll be fair to this girl if it's the last thing I do on earth. Another day went by, in which he worked less and pondered more, and all the time covertly watched Bess. Her wistfulness had deepened into downright unhappiness, and that made his

task to tell her all the harder. He kept the secret another day, hoping by some chance she might grow less moody, and to his exceeding anxiety, she fell into far deeper gloom. Out of his own secret, and the torment of it, he divined that she, too, had a secret, and the keeping of it was torturing her. As yet he had no plan thought out in regard to how or when to leave the valley, but he He decided to tell her the necessity of it, and to persuade her to go. Furthermore, he hoped his speaking out would induce her to unburden her own mind. "'Fess, what's wrong with you?' he asked. "'Nothing,' she answered, with averted face.

Venters took hold of her gently, though masterfully, forced her to meet his eyes. "'You can't look at me and lie,' he said. "'Now, what's wrong with you? You're keeping something from me.' Well, I've got a secret, too, and I intend to tell it presently. Oh, I have a secret. I was crazy to tell you when you came back. That's why I was so silly about everything. I kept holding my secret back, gloating over it. But when Lasseter came, I got an idea.

That changed my mind. Then I hated to tell you. Are you going to now? Yes, yes, I was coming to it. I tried yesterday, but you were so cold. I was afraid. I couldn't keep it much longer. Very well, most mysterious lady, tell your wonderful secret. You needn't laugh, she retorted, with a first glimpse of reviving spirit.

I can take the laugh out of you in one second. It's a go. She ran through the spruces to the cave, and returned carrying something which was manifestly heavy. Upon nearer view, he saw that whatever she held with such evident importance had been bound up in a black scarf he well remembered. That alone was sufficient to make him tingle with curiosity. Have you any idea what I did in your absence? she asked. I imagine you lounged about, waiting and watching for me, he replied, smiling. I've my share of conceit, you know. You're wrong. I worked. Look at my hands. She dropped on her knees

close to where he sat, and carefully depositing the black bundle, she held out her hands. The palms and inside of her fingers were white, puckered, and worn. Why, Bess, you've been fooling in the water, he said. Fooling, look here. With deft fingers she spread open the black scarf, and the bright sun shone upon a dull, glittering heap of gold. Gold, he ejaculated. Yes, gold. See, pounds of gold.

I found it, washed it out of the stream, picked it out grain by grain. Nugget by nugget. Gold, he cried. Yes, now, now laugh at my secret. For a long minute, Vinters gazed. Then he stretched forth a hand to feel if the gold was real. Gold, he almost shouted. Best, there are hundreds, thousands of dollars worth here.

He leaned over to her and put his hand, strong and clenching now, on hers. Is there more where this came from? he whispered. Plenty of it, all the way up the stream to the cliff. You know I've often washed for gold. Then I've heard the men talk. I think there's no great quantity of gold here,

but enough for a fortune for you. That was your secret. Yes, I hate gold, for it makes men mad. I've seen them drunk with joy and dance and fling themselves around. I've seen them curse and rave. I've seen them fight like dogs and roll in the dust. I've seen them kill each other for gold. Is that why you hated to tell me?

Not altogether. Best lowered her head. It was because I knew you'd never stay here long after you found gold. You were afraid I'd leave you? Yes. Listen, you great, simple child, listen. You sweet, wonderful, wild, blue-eyed girl, I was tortured by my secret.

It was that I knew we must leave the very thing. valley. We can't stay here much longer. I couldn't think how we'd get away out of the country, or how we'd live, if we ever got out. I'm a beggar. That's why I kept my secret. I'm poor. It takes money to make way beyond Sterling. We couldn't ride horses or burrows or walk forever. So while I knew we must go, I was distracted over how to go and what to do. Now we've gold. Once beyond Sterling, we'll be safe from rustlers. We've no others to fear. "'Oh, listen, Bess!' Venters now heard his voice, ringing high and sweet, and he felt Bess's cold hands in his crushing grasp as she leaned toward him, pale, breathless.

"'This is how much I leave you. You made me live again. I'll take you away, far away from this wild country. You'll begin a new life. You'll be happy. You shall see cities, ships, people. You shall have anything your heart craves. All the shame and sorrow of your life shall be forgotten as if they had never been. This is how much I leave you here alone, you sad-eyed girl. I love you. Didn't you know it? How could you fail to know it? I love you. I'm free. I'm a man, a man you've made. No more a beggar. Kiss me. This is how much I leave you here alone, you beautiful, strange, unhappy girl. But I'll make you happy. What do I care for your past? I love you. I'll take you home to Illinois, to my mother. Then I'll take you to far places. I'll make up all you've lost. Oh, I know you love me.

Knew it before you told me. And it changed my life. And you'll go with me, not as my companion as you are here, nor my sister, but best, darling, as my wife. End of Chapter 16. Chapter 17 of Writers of the Purple Sage. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer. here, please visit Libravox.org. Recorded by Lorry Ann Walden.

Writers of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray. Chapter 17. Wrangles Race Run. The plan eventually decided upon by the lovers was for ventures to go to the village, secure a horse and some kind of a disguise for Bess, or at least less striking apparel than her present garb, and to return post-haste to the valley.

Meanwhile, she would add to their store of gold. then they would strike the long and perilous trail to ride out of Utah. In the event of his inability to fetch back a horse for her, they intended to make the giant sorrel carry double. The gold, a little food, saddle blankets, and Venter's guns were to compose the light outfit with which they would make the start. I love this beautiful place, said Bess. It's hard to think of leaving it.

Hard? Well, I should think so, replied Venters. Maybe in years, but he did not complete in words his thought that might be possible to return after many years of absence and change. Once again, Bess bade Vinter's farewell under the shadow of balancing rock, and this time it was with whispered hope and tenderness and passionate trust. Long after he had left her, all down through the outlet to the pass, the clinging clasp of her arms, the sweetness of her lips, and the sense of a new and exquisite birth of character in her, remained hauntingly and thrillingly in his mind.

The girl who had sadly called herself nameless and nothing had been marvelously transformed in the moment of his avowal of love. It was something to think over, something to warm his heart, but for the present it had absolutely to be forgotten so that all his mind could be addressed

to the trip so fraught with danger. He carried only his rifle, revolver, and a small quantity of bread and meat, and thus lightly burdened, he made swift progress down the slid. and out into the valley. Darkness was coming on, and he welcomed it. Stars were blinking when he reached his old hiding place in the split of canyon wall, and by their aid he slipped through the dense thickets to the grassy enclosure. Rangel stood in the center of it with his head up,

and he appeared black and of gigantic proportions in the dim light. Venters whistled softly, began a slow approach, and then called. The horse snorted, and plunging away with dull, heavy of hoofs, he disappeared in the gloom. Wilder than ever, muttered Venters. He followed the sorrel into the narrowing split between the walls, and presently had to desist because he could not see a foot in advance. As he went back toward the open, Wrangel jumped out of an ebony shadow of cliff,

and like a thunderbolt shot huge and black past him, down into the starlit glade. Deciding that all attempts to catch Wrangell at night would be useless, ventures repaired to the shelving rock where he had hidden saddle and blanket, and there went to sleep. The first peep of day found him stirring, and as soon as it was light enough to distinguish objects, he took his lasso off his saddle and went out to rope the sorrel. He espied Rangel at the lower end of the cove and approached him in a perfectly natural manner. When he got near enough, Rangel evidently recognized him, but was too wild to stand.

He ran up the glade and on into the narrow lane between the wall. walls. This favored Vinter's speedy capture of the horse, so, coiling his noose, ready to throw, he hurried on. Rangel let Vinter's get to within a hundred feet, and then he broke. But as he plunged by, rapidly getting into his stride, Venters made a perfect throw with the rope. He had time to brace himself for the shock. Nevertheless, Rangel threw him and dragged him several yards before halting. "'You wild devil,' said Vinters, as he slowly pulled Rangel up. you know me? Come now, old fellow. So, so. Rangel yielded to the lasso, and then to Venter's strong

hand. He was as straggly and wild-looking as a horse left to roam free in the sage. He dropped his long ears and stood readily to be saddled and bridled. But he was exceedingly sensitive and quivered at every touch and sound. Venters led him to the thicket, and bending the close saplings to let him squeeze through, at length reached the open. Sharp survey in each direction assured him of the usual lonely nature of the canyon. Then he was in the saddle, riding south. Wrangle's long, swinging canter was a wonderful ground gainer. His stride was almost twice that of an ordinary horse,

and his endurance was equally remarkable. Venters pulled him in occasionally, and walked him up the stretches of rising ground and along the soft washes. Rangel had never yet shown any indication of distress while Venters rode him. Nevertheless, there was now reason to save the horse. Therefore, Venters did not resort to the hurry that had characterized his former trip. He camped at the last water in the pass. What distance that was to Cottonwoods, he did not know.

He calculated, however, that it was in the neighborhood of fifty miles. Early in the morning he proceeded on his way, and about the middle of the forenoon reached the constricted gap that marked the southerly end of the pass, and through which led the trail up to the sage level. He spied out Lasseter's tracks in the dust, but no others. And, dismounting, he straightened out Rangel's bridle and began to lead him up the trail. The short climb, more severe on beast than on man, necessitated a rest on the level above, and during this he scanned the wide purple reaches of slope.

Wrangel whistled his pleasure at the smell of the sage. Remounting, Venters headed up the white trail with the fragrant wind in his face. He had proceeded for perhaps a couple of miles, when Rangel stopped with a suddenness that threw Vinter's heavily against the pommel. What's wrong, old boy? Called Venters, looking down for a loose shoe or a snake, or a foot lamed by a picked-up stone. Unrewarded, he raised himself from his scrutiny. Rangel stood stiff head high, with his long ears erect. Thus guided, Vinter swiftly gazed ahead to make out a dust-clouded, dark group of horsemen riding down the slope.

If they had seen him, it apparently made no difference in their speed or direction. Wonder who they are, exclaimed Venters. He was not disposed to run. His cool mood tightened under grip of excitement as he reflected that, whoever the approaching riders were, they could not be friends. He slipped out of the saddle and lead wrangle behind the tallest sagebrush. It might serve to conceal them until the riders were close enough for him to see who they were. after that he would be indifferent to how soon they discovered him.

After looking to his rifle and ascertaining that it was in working order, he watched, and as he watched, slowly the force of a bitter fierceness, long dormant, gathered ready to flame into life. If those riders were not rustlers, he had forgotten how rustlers looked and rode. On they came, a small group, so compact and dark that he could not tell their number. How unusual that their horses did not see wrangle! but such failure venters decided was owing to the speed with which they were traveling they moved at a swift canter affected more by rustlers than by riders venters grew concerned over the possibility that these horsemen would actually ride down on him before he had a chance to tell what to expect when they were within three hundred yards he deliberately led wrangle out into the trail then he heard shouts and the hard scrape of sliding hooks and saw horses rear and plunge back with upflung heads and and flying manes. Several little white puffs of smoke appeared sharply against the black background

of riders and horses, and shots rang out. Bullets struck far in front of Vinter's and whipped up the dust, and then hummed low into the sage. The range was great for revolvers, but whether the shots were meant to kill or merely to check advance, they were enough to fire that waiting ferocity in Venters. Slipping his arm through the bridle so that Rangel could not get away, Venters lifted his rifle and pulled the trigger twice. He saw the first horseman leaned sideways and fall. He saw another lurch in his saddle and heard a cry of pain. Then Rangel, plunging in fright, lifted Venters and nearly threw him. He jerked the horse down with a powerful hand and leaped into the saddle. Rangel plunged again, dragging his bridle that Venters had not had time to throw in place. Bending over with a swift

movement, he secured it and dropped the loop over the pommel. Then, with grinding teeth, he looked to see what the issue would be. The band had scattered so as not to afford such a broad mark for bullets. The riders faced venters, some with red belching guns. He heard a sharper report, and just as Wrangell plunged again, he caught the whim of a leaden missile that would have hit him but for Wrangell's sudden jump. A swift, hot wave, turning cold, passed over Vinter's. Deliberately he picked out the one rider with a carbine and killed him.

Wrangell snorted shrilly and bolted into the sage. Vinters let him run a few rods, then with iron arm, checked him. Five riders, surely rustlers, were left. One leaped out of the saddle to secure his fallen comrade's carbine. A shot from Vinters, which missed the man but sent the dust flying over him, made him run back to his horse. Then they separated. The crippled rider went one way, the one frustrated in his attempt to get the carbine,

wrote another. Venters thought he made out a third rider, carrying a strange-appearing bundle and disappearing in the sage. But in the rapidity of action and vision, he could not discern what it was. Two riders with three horses swung out to the right. Afraid of the long rifle, a burdensome weapon seldom carried by rustlers or riders. They had been put to route. Suddenly Venters discovered that one of the two men last noted was riding Jane Witherstein's horse bells. the beautiful bay racer she had given to Lasseter. Venters uttered a savage outcry. Then the small, wiry, frog-like shape of the second rider,

and the ease and grace of his seed in the saddle, things so strikingly incongruous, grew more and more familiar in Vinter's sight. Jerry Card, cried Venters. It was indeed Tull's right-hand man, such a white-hot wrath inflamed Vinters that he fought himself to see with clearer gaze. it's jerry card he exclaimed instantly and he's riding black star and leading night the long kindling stormy fire in venter's heart burst into flames he spurred wrangle and as the horse lengthened his stride venter slipped cartridges into the magazine of his rifle till it was once again full card and his companion were now half a mile or more in advance riding easily down the slope venters marked the smooth gate and understood it when wrangle galloped out of the sage into the broad cattle trail down which venters had once tracked jane witherstein's red herd

this hard-packed trail from years of use was as clean and smooth as a road venters saw jerry carr look back over his shoulder the other rider did likewise then the three racers lengthened their stride to the point where the swinging canter was ready to break into a gallop wrangle the race is on said venters grimly we'll canter with them and gallop with them and run with them we'll let them set the pace venters knew he bestrode the strongest swiftest most tireless horse ever ridden by any rider across the Utah uplands. Recalling Jane Witherstein's devoted assurance that Knight could run neck and neck with Wrangell, and Black Star could show his heels to him, Vinters wished that Jane were there to see the race to recover her blacks and in the unqualified superiority of the giant sorrow. Then Venters found himself thankful that she was absent, for he meant that race to end in Jerry Card's death. The first flush, the raging of Venter's wrath, passed, to leave him in sullen, almost cold possession of his will.

It was a deadly mood, utterly foreign to his nature, engendered, fostered, and released by the wild passions of wild men in a wild country. The strength in him then, the thing rife in him that was not hate, but something as remorseless, might have been the fiery fruition of a whole lifetime of vengeful quest. Nothing could have stopped him. Venters thought out the race shrewdly. The rider-owned bells would probably drop behind and take to the sage. What he did was of little moment to Venters. To stop Jerry Card, his evil hidden career, as well as his present flight, and then to catch the blacks, that was all that concerned Venters.

The cattle trail wound from miles and miles down the slope. Venters saw, with a rider's keen vision, 10, 15, 20 miles of clear purple sage. There were no oncoming riders or rustlers to aid Card. His only chance to escape lay in abandoning the stolen horses and creeping away in the sage to hide. In 10 miles, Wrangel could run Black Star and night off their feet, and in 15 he could kill them outright. So Venters held the Sorrel in, letting Card make the running. It was a long race that would save the blacks. In a few miles of that swinging canter, Rangel had crept appreciably closer to the three horses.

Jerry Card turned again, and when he saw how the Sarl had gained, he put Black Star to a gallop. Night and bells, on either side of him, swept into his stride. Venters loosened the rain on Rangel and let him break into a gallop. The Sarl saw the horses ahead and wanted to run, but Venters restrained him, and in the gallop he gained more than in the canter. Bells was fast in that gate, but Black Star and Night had been trained to run. Slowly, Rangel closed the gap down to a quarter of a mile, and crept closer and closer. Jerry Carde wheeled once more. Vinters distinctly saw the red flash of his red face.

This time he looked long. Venters laughed. He knew what passed in Cards' mind. The rider was trying to make out what horse it happened to be that thus gained on Jane Witherstein's peerless racers. Rangel had so long been away from the village that not improbably Jerry had forgotten. Besides, whatever Jerry's qualifications for his fame as the greatest writer of the sage, certain it was that his best point was not far-sightedness. He had not recognized Rangel. After what must have been a searching gaze, he got his comrade to face about.

This action gave Venter's amusement. It spoke so surely of the facts that neither card nor the rustler actually knew their danger. Yet if they kept to the trail, and the last thing such men would do would be to leave it, they were both doomed. This comrade of cards whirled far around in his saddle, and he even shaded his eyes from the sun. He, too, looked long. Then, all at once, he faced ahead again, and, bending lower in the saddle, began to fling his right arm up and down. That flinging venters knew to be the lashing of bells.

Jerry also became active, and the three racers lengthened out in the same. to a run. Now, Wrangel, cried Vinters. Run, you big devil, run! Venters laid the reins on Rangel's neck and dropped the loop over the pommel. The sorrel needed no guiding on that smooth trail. He was surer-footed in a run than at any other fast gate, and his running gave the impression of something devilish.

He might now have been actuated by Vinter's spirit. Undoubtedly, his savage running fitted the mood of his rider. Vinters bent forward swinging with him. the horse and gripped his rifle. His eye measured the distance between him and Jerry card. In less than two miles of running, Bells began to drop behind the blacks, and Rangel began to overhaul him. Vinters anticipated that the rustler was soon taken to the sage, yet he did not. Not improbably he reasoned that the powerful Sorrel could more easily overtake bells in the heavier going outside of the trail. Soon only a few hundred yards lay between

Bells and Wrangel. Turning in his saddle, the rustler began to shoot, and the bullets beat up little whiffs of dust. Venters raised his rifle, ready to take snapshots, and waited for favorable opportunity when Bells was out of line with the forward horses. Venters had it in him to kill these men as if they were skunk-bitten coyotes, but also he had restraint enough to keep from shooting one of Jane's beloved Arabians. No great distance was covered, however, before Bells swerved to the left. out of line with Black Star and Night. Then Venters, aiming high and waiting for the pause between Rangel's great strides, began to take snapshots at the rustler.

The fleeing rider presented a broad target for a rifle, but he was moving swiftly forward and bobbing up and down. Moreover, shooting from Rangel's back was shooting from a thunderbolt, and added to that was the danger of a low-placed bullet taking effect on bells. Yet, despite these considerations, making the shot exceedingly, difficult, Ventor's confidence, like his implacability, saw a speedy and fatal termination of that rustler's race. On the sixth shot, the rustler threw up his arms and took a flying tumble off his horse. He rolled over and over, hunched himself to a half-erected position, fell, and then

dragged himself into the sage. As Venters went thundering by, he peered keenly into the sage, but caught no sight of the man. Bells ran a few hundred yards, slowed. up and had stopped when Rangel passed him. Again, Venters began slipping fresh cartridges into the magazine of his rifle, and his hand was so sure and steady that he did not drop a single cartridge. With the eye of a rider, in the judgment of a marksman, he had once more measured the distance between him and Jerry Card. Rangel had gained, bringing him into rifle range. Venters was hard put to it now not to shoot, but thought it better to withhold his fire. Jerry, who, in

anticipation of a running fusillade had huddled himself into a little twisted ball on Black Star's neck, now surmising that this pursuer would make sure of not wounding one of the blacks, rose to his natural seat in the saddle. In his mind, perhaps, as certainly as in Venters, this moment was the beginning of the real race. Venters leaned forward to put his hand on Wrangell's neck, then backwards to put it on his flank. Under the shaggy, dusty hair, trembled and vibrated, a wonderful muscular activity. But Wrangell's flesh was still cold. What a cold-blooded brute, thought Venters, and felt in him a love for the horse he had never given to any other. It would not have been humanly possible for any rider, even though clutched

by hate or revenge, or a passion to save a loved one, or fear of his own life, to be astride the sorrel, to swing with his swing, to see his magnificent stride and hear the rapid thunder of his hoofs, to ride him in that race and not glory in the ride. So, with his passion to kill, still keen and unabated, Venters lived out that ride, and drank a rider's sage-sweet cup of wildness to the dregs. When Wrangell's long mane, lashing in the wind, stung Venters in the cheek, the sting added a beat to his flying pulse. He bent a downward glance to try to see Rangel's actual stride, and saw only twinkling, darting

streaks and the white rush of the trail. He watched the sorrel's savage head, pointed level. His mouth still closed and dry, but his nostrils distended as if he were snorting unseen fire. Rangel was the horse for a race with death. Upon each side, Venters saw the sage merged into a sailing, colorless wall. In front sloped the lay of ground, with its purple breadth split by the white trail. The wind, blowing with heavy, steady blast into his face, sickened him with enduring, sweet odor, and filled his ears with a hollow, rushing roar. Then, for the hundredth time, he measured the width of space, separating him from Jerry Card. Rangel had ceased to gain. The blacks were proving their fleetness.

Venters watched Jerry Card, admiring the little rider's horsemanship. He had the incomparable seat of the upland rider, born in the saddle. It struck Venters that Card had changed his position, or the position of the horses. Presently, Venters remembered positively that Jerry had been leading Knight on the right-hand side of the trail. The racer was now on the side to the left. No, it was Black Star. But, Venters argued in a maze, Jerry had been mounted on Black Star. Another clearer, keener gaze, assured Venters that Black Star was really riderless.

Knight now carried Jerry Card. He's changed from one to the other, ejaculated Venters, realizing the astounding feat with unstinted admiration. Changed at full speed. Jerry Card, that's what you've done, unless I'm drunk on the smell of sage. But I've got to see the trick before I believe it. Thenceforth, while Wrangell sped on, Venters glued his eyes to the little rider. Jerry Card rode as only he could ride. Of all the daring horsemen of the uplands, Jerry was the one rider fitted to bring out the greatness of the blacks in that long race. He had them on a dead run, but, not yet at the last strained in killing pace. From time to time he glanced backward as a wise

general in retreat, calculating his chances and the power and speed of pursuers, and the moment for the last desperate burst. No doubt, card, with his life at stake, gloried in that race, perhaps more wildly than ventures, for he had been born to the sage and the saddle and the wild. He was more than half-horse. Not until the last call, the sudden up-flashing instinct of self-preservation, would he lose his skill and judgment and nerve and the spirit of that race? Venters seemed to read Jerry's mind. That little crime-stained rider was actually thinking of his horses, husbanding their speed, handling them with knowledge of years, glorying in their beautiful, swift, racing stride, and wanting them to win the race when his own life hung suspended in quivering

balance. Again, Jerry whirled in his saddle, and the sun flashed red on his face. Turning, he drew Black Star closer and closer toward night, till they ran side by side as one horse. Then Carde raised himself in the saddle, slipped out of the stirrups, and, somehow twisting himself, leaped upon Black Star. He did not even lose the swing of the horse. Like a leech, he was there in the other saddle, and as the horses separated, his right foot, that had been apparently doubled under him, shot down to catch the stirrup. The grace and dexterity and daring of that writer's act won something more than admiration from Vinter's. For the distance of a mile, Jerry rode Black Star,

and then changed back to night. But all Jerry's skill and the running of the blacks could avail little more against the sorrow. Venters peered far ahead, studying the lay of the land. Straight away for five miles the trail stretched, and then it disappeared in hummocky ground. To the right, so the way, some few rods, Vinter saw a break in the sage, and this was the rim of Deception Pass.

Across the dark cleft gleamed the red of the opposite wall. Vinter's imagined that the trail went down into the pass somewhere north of those ridges, and he realized that he must and would overtake Jerry Card in this straight course of five miles. Cruely, he struck his spurs into Wrangle's flanks. A light touch of spur was sufficient to make wrangle plunge, and now with a ringing wild snort, he seemed to double up in muscular convulsions, and to shoot forward with an impetus that almost unseated Vinters. The sage blurred by, the trail flashed by, and the wind robbed him of breath and hearing. Jerry Card turned once more, and the way he shifted to Black Star showed he he had to make his last desperate running. Venters aimed to the side of the trail and sent a bullet

puffing the dust beyond Jerry. Venters hoped to frighten the rider and get him to take to the sage. But Jerry returned the shot, and his ball struck dangerously close in the dust at Rangel's flying feet. Vinters held his fire then, while the rider emptied his revolver. For a mile, with Black Star leaving night behind and doing his utmost, Rangel did not gain. For another mile he gained little, if at all. In the third, he caught up with the now galloping night, and began to gain rapidly on the other black. Only a hundred yards now stretched between black, star and Wrangel. The giant sorrel thundered on and own and own. In every yard he gained a foot. He was whistling through his nostrils, ringing wet, flying lather, and as hot as fire.

Savage as ever, strong as ever, fast as ever, but each tremendous stride jarred venters out of the saddle. Rangel's power and spirit and momentum had begun to run him off his legs. Rangel's great race was nearly one, and run. Venter seemed to see the expanse before him as a vast, sheeted, purple plane sliding under him. Black star moved in it as a blur. The writer, Jerry Card, appeared a mere dot bobbing dimly. Rangel thundered own, own, own. Venters felt the increase in quivering, straining shock after every leap.

Flex of foam flew into Vinter's eyes, burning him, making him see all the sage as red. But in that red haze he saw, or seemed to see, Black Star suddenly rotterless and with broken gait. Rangel thundered on to change his pace with a violent break. Then Venters pulled him hard. From run to gallop, gallop to canter, canter to trot, trot to walk and walk to stop, the great sorrow ended his race. Venters looked back. Black Star stood rotterless in the trail. Jerry Card had taken to the sage. Far up the white trail, night came trotting faithfully down. Venters leaped off, still half blind, reeling dizzily.

In a moment he had recovered sufficiently to have a care for wrangle. Rapidly he took off the saddle and bridle. The sorrel was reeking, heaving, whistling, shaking. But he had still the strength to stand, and for him Venters had no fears. As Venters ran back to Black Star, he saw the horse stagger on shaking legs into the sage and go down in a heap. Upon reaching him, Vinter's removed the saddle and bridle. Black Star had been killed on his legs, Vinter's thought. He had no hope for the stricken horse. Black Star lay flat, covered with bloody froth, mouth-wide, tongue-hanging, eyes glaring, and all his

beautiful body in convulsions. Unable to stay there to see Jane's favorite racer die, Vinters hurried up the trail to meet the other black. on the way he kept a sharp lookout for jerry card venters imagined the rider would keep well out of range of the rifle but as he would be lost on the sage without a horse not improbably he would linger in the vicinity on the chance of getting back one of the blacks night soon came trotting up hot and wet and run out venters led him down near the others and unsaddling him let him loose to rest night wearily lay down in the dust and rolled proving himself not yet spent then ventures sat down to rest and think whatever the risk he was compelled to stay where he was or comparatively near for the night the horses must rest and drink he must find water he was now seventy miles from cottonwoods and he believed close to the canyon where the cattle trail must surely turn off and go down into the pass after a while he rose to survey the valley He was very near to the ragged edge of a deep canyon into which the trail turned. The ground lay in uneven ridges divided by washes, and these sloped into the canyon.

Following the canyon line, he saw where its rim was broken by other intersecting canyons, and farther down, red walls and yellow cliffs, leading toward a deep blue cleft that he made sure was deception pass. Walking out a few rods to a promontory, he found where the trail went down. The descent was gradual, along a stone-walled trail, and Vinters felt sure that this was the place where Oldring drove cattle into the pass. There was, however, no indication at all that he ever had driven cattle out at this point. Aldering had many holes to his burrow. In searching round in the little hollows, Venters, much to his relief, found water. He composed himself to rest and eat some bread and meat, while he waited for a sufficient time to elapse, so that he could safely give the wharf.

horses a drink. He judged the hour to be somewhere around noon. Rangel lay down to rest, and night followed suit. So long as they were down, Venters intended to make no move. The longer they rested, the better, and the safer it would be to give them water. By and by, he forced himself to go over to where a black star lay, expecting to find him dead. Instead, he found the racer partially, if not wholly, recovered. There was recognition, even fire in his big black eyes. Vinters was overjoyed. He sat by the black for a long time. Black Star presently labored to his feet with a heave and a groan, shook himself, and snorted for water. Venters repaired to the little pool he had found, filled his sombrero, and gave the racer a drink. Black Star gulped it at one draft,

as if it were but a drop, and pushed his nose into the hat and snorted for more. Venters now led night down to drink, and after a further time, Black Star also. then the blacks began to graze. The sorrel had wandered off down the sage between the trail and the canyon. Once or twice he disappeared in little swales. Finally, Vinter's concluded, Rangel had grazed far enough,

and taking his lasso, he went to fetch him back. In crossing from one ridge to another, he saw where the horse had made muddy a pool of water. It occurred to Venters then that Rangel had drunk his fill and did not seem the worse for it, and might be anything but easy to catch. and true enough he could not come within roping reach of the sorrow. He tried for an hour and gave up in disgust.

Wrangell did not seem so wild as simply perverse. In a quandary, Vinter's return to the other horses, hoping much, yet doubting more, that when Rangel had grazed to suit himself, he might be caught. As the afternoon wore away, Vinter's concern diminished, yet he kept close watch on the blacks and the trail and the sage. There was no telling of what Jerry Card might be. capable. Venters suddenly acquiesced to the idea that the rider had been too quick and too shrewd for

him. Strangely and doggedly, however, Venters clung to his foreboding of Cards downfall. The wind died away. The red sun topped the far distant western rise of slope, and the long, creeping purple shadows lengthened. The rims of the canyons gleamed crimson and the deep clefts appeared to belch forth blue smoke. Silence enfolded the scene. It was broken by a horrid, long-drawn scream of a horse and the thudding of heavy hoofs.

Vinter's sprang erect and wheeled south. Along the canyon rim, near the edge, came wrangle, once more in thundering flight. Venters gassed in amazement. Had the wild sorrel gone mad? His head was high and twisted, in a most singular position for a running horse. Suddenly, Venters described a frog-like shape clinging to Wrangell's neck.

Jerry Card. Somehow he had straddled Rangel and now stuck like a huge burr. But it was his strange position and the Sorrel's wild scream that shook Vinter's nerves. Rangel was pounding toward the turn where the trail went down. He plunged onward like a blind horse. More than one of his leaps took him to the very edge of the precipice. Jerry Card was bent forward with his teeth. fast in the front of Wrangell's nose. Ventor saw it, and there flashed over him a memory of this trick of a few

desperate riders. He even thought of one rider who had worn off his teeth in this terrible hold to break or control desperate horses. Rangel had indeed gone mad. The marble was what guided him. Was it the half-brute, the more than half-horse instinct of Jerry Card? Whatever the mystery, it was true, and in a few more rods Jerry would have the sorrel turning into the trail leading down into the canyon. No, Jerry, whispered Venters, stepping forward and throwing up the rifle. He tried to catch the little humped, frog-like shape over the sights. It was moving too fast, it was too small. Yet Venters shot once, twice, the third time, four times, five, all wasted shots and precious seconds.

With a deep muttered curse, Venters caught Rangel through the sights and pulled the trigger. Plainly he heard the bullet thud. Wrangell uttered a horrible, strangling sound. In swift death action, he whirled, and with one last splendid leap, he cleared the canyon rim. And he whirled downward with a little frog-like shape clinging to his neck. There was a pause which seemed never ending, a shock and an instant silence. then uprolled a heavy crash, a long roar of sliding rocks dying away in distant echo, then silence unbroken.

Wrangell's race was run. End of Chapter 17. Chapter 18 of Riders of the Purple Sage. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recorded by Laurie Ann Wall. Alden. Writers of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray. Chapter 18. Old Rings Nell

Some forty hours or more later, Venters created a commotion in Cottonwoods by riding down the main street on Black Star and leading Bells and Night. He had come upon Bells grazing near the body of a dead rustler, the only incident of his quick ride into the village. Nothing was farther from Ventor's mind than bravado. No thought came to him of the defiance and boldness of riding Jane Witherstein's racers straight into the archplotter's stronghold. He wanted men to see the famous Arabians. He wanted men to see them dirty and dusty,

bearing all the signs of having been driven to their limit. He wanted men to see and to know that the thieves who had ridden them out into the sage had not ridden them back. Vinters had come for that, and for more. He wanted to meet tall face to face. If not tall, then dire. If not dire, then anyone in the secret of these masters

conspirators. Such was Vinter's passion. The meeting with the rustlers, the unprovoked attack upon him, the spilling of blood, the recognition of Jerry Card, and the horses, the race, and that last plunge of mad wrangle, all these things, fuel-on-fuel to the smouldering fire, had kindled and swelled and leaped into living flame. He could have shot Dyer in the midst of his religious services at the altar. He could have killed Tull in front of wives and babes. He was walked the three racers down the broad, green-bordered village road. He heard the murmur of running water from Amber Spring. Bitter waters for Jane Witherstein. Men and women stopped to gaze at him and the horses. All knew him. All knew the blacks and the bay. As well as if it had been spoken, Venters read in the

faces of men the intelligence that Jane Withersdine's Arabians had been known to have been stolen. Venters reined in and halted before Dyer's residence. It was a low, long, stone, structure resembling Witherstein House. The spacious front yard was green and luxuriant with grass and flowers. Gravel walks led to the huge porch. A well-trimmed hedge of purple sage separated the yard from the church grounds. Birds sang in the trees. Water flowed musically along the walks, and there were glad, careless shouts of children. For Venters, the beauty of this home, and the serenity and its apparent happiness, all turn red and black. For venters, a shade overspread the lawn, the flowers, the old vine-clad stone house. In the music of the singing birds,

in the murmur of the running water, he heard an ominous sound. Quiet beauty, sweet music, innocent laughter. By what monstrous abortion of fate did these abide in the shadow of dire? Vinters rode on and stopped before Tull's cottage. Women stared at him with white faces, and then flew from the porch. Tull himself appeared at the door, bent low, craning his neck. His dark face flashed out of sight. The door banged. A heavy bar dropped with a hollow sound. Then Vinter's shook Black Star's bridle, and, sharply trotting, led the other horses to the center of the village. Here at the intersecting streets and in front of the stores, he halted once more. The usual lounging atmosphere of that prominent corner was not now in evidence.

Riders and ranchers and villagers broke up what must have been absorbing conversation. There was a rush of many feet, and then the walk was lined with faces. Ventor's glance swept down the line of silent, stone-faced men. He recognized many riders and villagers, but none of those he had hoped to meet. There was no expression in the faces turned toward him. All of them knew him. Most were inimical, but there were few who were not burning with curiosity and wonder in regard to the return of Jane Witherstein's racers.

Yet all were silent. Here were the familiar character. characteristics, masked feeling, strange secretiveness, expressionless expression of mystery, and hidden power. Has anybody here seen Jerry Card? Query, venters, in a loud voice. In reply, there came not one word, not a nod or shake of head, not so much as dropping eye or twitching lip, nothing but a quiet, stony stare.

Been under the knife? You've a fine knife-wielder here, one tall, I believe. Maybe you've all had your tongues cut out? This passionate sarcasm of Vinters brought no response, and the stony calm was as oil on the fire within him. I see some of you pack guns, too, he added in biting scorn. In the long, tense paws, strung keenly as a tight wire, he sat motionless on Black Star.

All right, he went on. Then let some of you take this message to Tull. Tell him, I've seen Jerry Card. Tell him, very card will never return. Thereupon, in the same dead calm, Venters backed Black Star away from the curb, into the street, and out of range. He was ready now to ride up to Witherstein House, and turn the racers over to Jane. Hello, Venters, a familiar voice cried, hoarsely, and he saw a man running toward him. It was the rider Judkins who came up and gripped Ventor's hand.

Venters, I could have dropped when I seen them hosses, but that sight ain't a marker to the looks of You. What's wrong? Have you gone crazy? You must be crazy to ride in here this way, with them hosses, talking that way about Tull and Jerry Card. Judd, I'm not crazy, only Mad, clean through, replied Venters. Mad, now burn, I'm glad to hear some of your old self in your voice, for when you come up, you look like the corpse of a dead rider with fire for eyes. You had that crowd too stiff for throwing guns. Come, we've got to have a talk. Let's go up the lane. We ain't much safe here. Judkins mounted bells and rode with venters up to the Cottonwood Grove. Here they dismounted and went among the trees. Let's hear from you first, said Judkins. You fetched back them hosses. That is the trick. And of course you got Jerry the same as you got Horn.

Horn? Sure, he was found dead yesterday, all chewed by coyotes, and he'd been shot Plum Center. Where was he found? At the split down the trail? You know where Old Rings cattle trail runs off north from the trail to the pass. That's where I met Jerry and the rustlers. What was Horn doing with them? I thought Horn was an honest cattle man. Lord Byrne, don't ask me that.

I'm all muddled now trying to figure things. Vinter's told of the fight and the race with Jerry Card and its tragic conclusion. I note it, I note all along that Wrangell was the best hawth, exclaimed Judkins, with his lean face working and his eyes lighting. "'That was a race. Lord, I'd like to have seen Wrangell jump the cliff with Jerry. And that was goodbye to the grandest horse and rider ever on the sage. But, Fern, after you got the hosses, why'd you want to bolt right in Toll's face?' "'I want him to know, and if I can get to him I'll—'

"'You can't get near Toll,' interrupted Judkins. That vigilante bunch of taken to be in bodyguard for Tull and dire, too. Hasn't Lassiter made a break yet? inquired Venters, curiously. No, replied Judkins scornfully. Jane turned his head. He's mad in love over her. Follers are like a dog.

He ain't no more Lasseter. He's lost his nerve. He doesn't look like the same feller. It's village talk. Everybody knows it. He hasn't thrown a gun, and he won't. "'Jud, I'll bet he does,' replied Venters earnestly. "'Remember what I say.

"'This Lassiter is something more than a gunman. "'Jud, he's big, he's great. "'I feel that in him. "'God help, tull, and dire, when Lassiter does go after them, "'for horses and riders and stone walls won't save them.' "'Well, have it your way, Byrne. "'I hope you're right. "'Naturally I've been some sore on Lassiter for getting soft,

"'but I ain't denying his nerve, or whatever. is great in him that sort of paralyzes people. No later than this morning I seen him sauntering down the lane, quiet and slow, and like his guns, he comes black. Black, that's Lasseter. Well, the crowd on the corner never batted an eye, and I'll gamble my hoss that there wasn't one who had a heartbeat till Lassiter got by. He went in Snell's saloon, and as there wasn't no gunplay, I had to go in, too. And there, darned my pictures, if Lasseter wasn't standing to the bar, drinking and talking with Aldrin. Aldering,

whispered Venters. His voice, as all fire and pulse within him, seemed to freeze. Let go my arm, exclaimed Judkins. That's my bad arm. Sure it was Aldrin. What the hell's wrong with you anyway? Venters, I tell you something's wrong.

You're whiter in a sheet. You can't be scared of the rustler. I don't believe you've got a scare in you. Well, now, just let me talk. You know I like to talk. and if I'm slow, I'll always get there sometime. As I said, Lasseter was talking chummy with Aldrin. There wasn't no hard feelings, and the gang wasn't paying no particular attention.

But like a cat watching a mouse, I had my eyes on them two fellers. It was strange to me, that confab. I'm getting to think a lot for a feller who doesn't know much. There's been some queer deals lately, and this seemed to me the queerest. These men stood to the bar alone, and so close their big gun-hiltz butted together. I seen Oldren was some surprised at first, and Lasseter was cool as ice. They talked, and presently at something Lasseter said, the rustler bawled out a curse, and then he just fell up against the bar and sagged there.

The gang in the saloon looked around and laughed, and that's about all. Finally, Oldron turned, and it was easy to see something had shook him. Yes, sir, that big rustler, you know he's as broad as he is long, and the powerfullest build of a man. Yes, sir, the nerve had been taken out of him. Then, after a little, he began to talk, and said a lot to Lassiger. And by and by, it didn't take much of an eye to see that Lassiger was getting hit hard. I'd never seen him any way, but cooler in ice, till then.

He seemed to be hit harder than Aldrin, only he didn't roar out that way. He just kind of sunk in and looked and looked, and he didn't see a living soul in that saloon. Then he sort of come, too, and shake him hand. mind you, shaking hands with Aldrin. He went out. Couldn't help thinking how easy even a boy could have dropped the great gunman then. Well, the rustler stood at the bar for a long time, and he was seeing things far off, too.

Then he come to and roared for whiskey, engulfed a drink that was big enough to drown me. Is Oldring here now? Whispered Venters. He could not speak above a whisper. Judkin's story had been meaningless to him. He's at Snell's yet. Byrne, I haven't told you that the rustlers have been raised in hell.

They shot up Stone Bridge and Glaze, and for three days they've been here drinking and gambling and throwing of gold. These rustlers have a pile of gold. If it was gold dust or nugget gold, I'd have reason to think. But it's new coin gold, as if it had just come from the United States Treasury. And the coins genuine. That's all been proved. The truth is, Aldrin's on a rampage.

A while back he lost his masked rider, and they say he's He's wild about that. I'm wondering if Lasseter could have told the rustler anything about that little masked, hard-riding devil. Ride, he was most as good as Jerry Card. And, Byrne, I've been wondering if you know... Judkins, you're a good fellow, interrupted Venters. Someday I'll tell you a story.

Of no time now. Take the horses to Jane. Judkin stared, and then, muttering to himself, he mounted bells and stared again at Venters, and then, leading the other horses, he rode into the grove and disappeared. Once, long before, on the night Venters had carried Bess through the canyon and up into Surprise Valley, he had experienced the strangeness of faculties singularly, tinglingly acute, and now the same sensation recurred.

But it was different in that he felt cold, frozen, mechanical, incapable of free thought, and all about him seemed unreal, aloof, remote. He hid his rifle in the sage, marking its exact, location with extreme care. Then he faced down the lane and strode toward the center of the village. Perceptions flashed upon him, the faint, cold touch of the breeze, a cold, silvery tinkle of flowing water, a cold sun shining out of a cold sky, song of birds and laugh of children, coldly distant. Cold and intangible were all things in earth and heaven. Colder and tighter stretched the skin over his face. Colder and harder grew the polish.

butts of his guns. Colder and steadier became his hands as he wiped the clammy sweat from his face, or reached low to his gun-cheaths. Men meeting him in the walk gave him wide berth. In front of Bevan's store a crowd melted apart for his passage, and their faces and whispers were faces and whispers of a dream. He turned a corner to meet tall, face to face, eye to eye. As once before he had seen this man pale to a ghastly, livid white, so again he said, saw the change. Tull stopped in his tracks, with right hand raised and shaking. Suddenly it dropped, and he seemed to glide aside, to pass out of Venter's sight. Next, he saw many horses with bridles down, all clean-limbed, dark bays or blacks, rustler's horses. Loud voices and boisterous laughter,

rattle of dice and scrape of chair and clink of gold, burst in mingled den from an open doorway. He stepped inside. With the sight of smoke-hased room in drinking, cursing, gambling, dark-visaged men, reality once more dawned upon Venters. His entrance had been unnoticed, and he bent his gaze upon the drinkers at the bar. Dark-clothed, dark-faced men they all were, burned by the sun, bow-legged, as were most riders of the sage, but neither lean nor gaunt. Then Ventor's gaze passed to the tables, and swiftly it swept over the hard-featured game-stained.

to alight upon the huge, shaggy, black head of the rustler chief. Oldring! he cried, and to him his voice seemed to split a bell in his ears. It stilled the den. That silence suddenly broke to the scrape and crash of Oldring's chair as he rose, and then, while he passed, a great gloomy figure, again the thronged room stilled in silence yet deeper. Aldring, a word with you, continued Venters. "'Ho, what's this?' boomed Oldring and frowning scrutiny. "'Come outside alone. A word for you, from your masked rider.'

Aldering kicked a chair out of his way and lunged forward with a stamp of heavy boot that jarred the floor. He waved down his muttering, rising men. Vinter's backed out of the door and waited, hearing, as no sound had ever before struck into his soul, the rapid, heavy steps of the rustler. Oldring appeared, and Venters had one glimpse of his great breadth and bulk, his gold-buckled belt with hanging guns, his high-top boots with gold spurs. In that moment, Venters had a strange, unintelligible curiosity to see Oldring alive. The rustler's broad brow, his large black eyes, his sweeping beard, as dark as the wing of a raven, his enormous width of shoulder and depth of chest, his whole splendid presence so wonderfully charged with vitality and force and strength, seem to afford Venters an unutterable fiendish joy, because for that magnificent manhood in life he meant cold and sudden death. Aldring, Bess, is alive, but she's dead to you, dead to the life you made her lead, dead as

you will be in one second. Swift as lightning, Venter's glance dropped from Oldring's rolling eyes to his hands. One of them, the right, swept out, then toward his gun, and Venter's Venter shot him through the heart. Slowly, Aldering sank to his knees, and the hand, dragging at the gun, fell away. Venter's strangely acute faculties grasped the meaning of that limp arm, of the swaying hulk, of the gasp and heave, of the quivering beard. But was that awful spirit in the black eyes only one of vitality? Man, why didn't you wait?

Thess was— Aldering's whisper died under his beard. beard, and with a heavy lurch he fell forward. Bounding swiftly away, Venters fled around the corner, across the street, and leaping a hedge, he ran through yard, orchard, and garden to the sage. Here, under cover of the tall brush, he turned west and ran on to the place where he had hidden his rifle. Securing that, he again set out into a run, and circling through the sage, came up behind

Jane Witherstein's stable and corrals. With laboring, dripping chest, and pain, as of a knife thrust in his side, he stopped to regain his breath, and while resting his eyes roved around in search of a horse. Doors and windows of the stable were open wide and had a deserted look. One dejected, lonely burrow stood in the near corral. Strange indeed was the silence brooding over the once happy, noisy home of Jane Witherstein's pets. He went into the corral, exercising care to leave no tracks, and led the burrow to the watering trough. venters though not thirsty drank till he could drink no more then leading the burrow over hard ground he struck into the sage and down the slope he strode swiftly turning from time to time to scan the slope for riders

his head just topped the level of sagebrush and the burrow could not have been seen at all slowly the green of cottonwoods sank behind the slope and at last a wavering line of purple sage met the blue of sky to avoid being seen to get away to hide his trail these were the sole ideas in his mind as he headed for deception pass and he directed all his acuteness of eye and ear and the keenness of a rider's judgment for distance and ground to stern accomplishment of the task he kept to the sage far to the left of the trail leading into the pass he walked ten miles and looked back a thousand times always the graceful purple wave of sage remained wide and lonely a clear undotted waste. Coming to a stretch of rocky ground, he took advantage of it to cross the trail, and then continued down on the right. At length he persuaded himself that he would be able to see riders mounted on horses before they could see him on the little burrow, and he rode bareback. Hour by hour the tireless burrow kept to his faithful, steady trot. The sun sank, and the long shadows lengthened down the slope. Moving veils of purple twilight crept out of the

hollows, and mustering and forming on the levels, soon merged and shaded into night. Venters guided the burrow nearer to the trail so that he could see its white line from the ridges, and rode on through the hours. Once down in the pass without leaving a trail, he would hold himself safe for the time being. When late in the night he reached the break in the sage, he sent the burrow down ahead of him, and started an avalanche that all but buried the animal at the bottom of the trail. Bruised and battered as he walked. he had a moment's elation, for he had hidden his tracks. Once more he mounted the burrow and rode on.

The hour was the blackest of the night when he made the thicket which enclosed his old camp. Here he turned the burrow loose in the grass near the spring, and then lay down on his old bed of leaves. He felt only vaguely, as outside things, the ache and burn and throb of the muscles of his body, but a damned up torrent of emotion at last burst its bounds. and the hour that saw his release from immediate action was one that confounded him in the reaction of his spirit. He suffered without understanding why. He caught glimpses into himself, into unlit darkness of soul. The fire that had blistered him and the cold which had frozen him,

now united in one torturing possession of his mind and heart, and, like a fiery steed with ice-shod feet, ranged his being, ran rioting through his blood, trampling the resurging good, dragging ever at the evil. Out of this subsiding chaos came a clear question. What had happened? He had left the valley to go to Cottonwoods. Why?

It seemed that he had gone to kill a man, Aldering. The name riveted his consciousness upon the one man of all men upon earth whom he had wanted to meet. He had met the rustler. Venters recalled the smoky haze of the saloon, the dark-visaged men, the huge Aldering. He saw him so.

step out of the door, a splendid specimen of manhood, a handsome giant with purple black and sweeping beard. He remembered inquisitive gaze of falcon eyes. He heard himself repeating, Aldering, Bess is alive, but she's dead to you, and he felt himself jerk, and his ears throbbed to the thunder of a gun, and he saw the giant sink slowly to his knees. Was that only the vitality of him, that awful light in his eyes? Only the hard-dying life of a tremendously powerful brute. A broken whisper strange as death. Man, why didn't you wait? Best was, an oldering plunged face forward, dead. I killed him, cried Venters, in remembering shock. But it wasn't that. Ah, the look in his eyes and his whisper. Herein lay the secret that had clambered

to him through all the tumult and stress of his emotions. What a look in the eyes of a man shot through the heart. It had been neither hate nor ferocity, nor fear of men, nor fear of death. It had been no passionate, glinting spirit of a fearless foe, willing shot for shot, life for life, but lacking physical power. Distinctly recalled now, never to be forgotten, Vinter saw an old ring's magnificent eyes the rolling of great, glad, surprise, softness, love. Then came a shadow and the terrible superhuman striving of his spirit to speak. Oldring, shot through the heart, had fault and forced back death, not for a moment in which to shoot or curse, but to whisper strange words.

What words for a dying man to whisper? Why had not Venters waited? For what? That was no plea for life. It was regret that there was not a moment of life left in which to speak. Bess was— Herein lay renewed torture for Vinter's. What had best been to Oldring?

The old question, like a spectre, stalked from its grave to haunt him. He had overlooked, he had forgiven, he had loved, and he had forgotten, and now, out of the mystery of a dying man's whisper, rose again that perverse, unsatisfied, jealous uncertainty. Bess had loved that splendid, black-crowned giant. By her own confession she had loved him. An inventor's soul again flamed up the jealous hell. Then into the clamoring hell burst the shot that he was a man. had killed Oldring, and it rang in a wild, fiendish gladness, a hateful, vengeful joy. That passed to the memory of the love and light in Aldering's eyes and the mystery in his whisper,

so the changing, swaying emotions fluctuated in Ventor's heart. This was the climax of his year of suffering and the crucial struggle of his life, and when the gray dawn came he rose, a gloomy, almost heartbroken man, but victor over evil passions. He could not change the past, and even if he had not loved Bess with all his soul, he had grown into a man who would not change the future he had planned for her. Only, and once for all, he must know the truth, know the worst, stifle all these insistent doubts and subtle hopes and jealous fancies, and kill the past by knowing truly what Bess had been to Oldring. For that matter he knew, he had always known, but he must hear it spoken. Then, when they had

had safely gotten out of that wild country to take up a new and an absorbing life, she would forget, she would be happy, and through that, in the years to come, he could not but find life worth living. All day he rode slowly and cautiously up the pass, taking time to peer around corners, to pick out hard ground in grassy patches, and to make sure there was no one in pursuit. In the night sometime he came to the smooth, scrawled rocks dividing the valley, and here set the burrow at liberty. He walked beyond, climbed the slope in the dim, starlit gorge. Then, weary to the point of exhaustion, he crept into a shallow cave and fell asleep.

In the morning, when he descended the trail, he found the sun was pouring a golden stream of light through the arch of the great stone bridge. Surprise Valley, like a valley of dreams, lay mystically soft and beautiful, awakening to the golden flood which was rolling away its slumberous bands of mist, brightening its walled faces. While yet far off he discerned Bess moving under the silver spruces, and soon the barking of the dogs told him that they had seen him. He heard the mockingbirds singing in the trees, and then the twittering of the quail. Ring and Whitey came bounding toward him, and behind them ran Bess, her hands outstretched.

"'Burn, you're back, you're back!' she cried, in joy that rang of her loneliness. "'Yes, I'm back,' he said, as she rushed to meet him. She had reached out for him when suddenly, as she saw him closely, something checked her, and as quickly all her joy fled, and with it her color, leaving her pale and trembling. Oh, what's happened? A good deal has happened, Bess. I don't need to tell you what, and I'm played out, worn out in mind more than body. Dear, you look strange to me, faltered Bess.

Never mind that. I'm all right. There's nothing for you to be scared about. things are going to turn out just as we have planned as soon as i'm rested we'll make a break to get out of the country only now right now i must know the truth about you truth about me echoed bess shrinkingly she seemed to be casting back into her mind for a forgotten key ventures himself as he saw her received a pang yes the truth bess don't misunderstand i haven't changed that way i love you still i'll love you more afterward. Life will be just as sweet sweeter to us. We'll be married as soon as ever we can. We'll be happy, but there's a devil in me. A perverse, jealous devil. Then I've queer fancies. I forgot for a long time. Now all those fiendish little whispers of doubt and faith and fear and hope come torturing me again. I've got to kill them with the truth. I'll tell you anything you want

to know, she replied, frankly. Then by heaven we'll have it over and done with. Bess, did Aldering love you? Certainly he did. Did you love him? Of course, I told you so. How can you tell it so lightly? cried Venters passionately.

Haven't you any sense of? He choked back speech. He felt the rush of pain and passion. He seized her in rude, strong hands and drew her close. He looked straight into her. dark blue eyes. They were shadowing with the old wistful light, but they were as clear as the limpid water of the spring. They were earnest, solemn in unutterable love and faith and abnegation. Vinter shivered. He knew he was looking into her soul. He knew she could not

lie in that moment, but that she might tell the truth, looking at him with those eyes, almost killed his belief in purity. What are, what were you to, to oldering? He panted, I am his daughter, she replied instantly. Vinter slowly let go of her. There was a violent break in the force of his feeling, then creeping blankness. What was it, you said? he asked in a kind of dull wonder. I am his daughter. Oldring's daughter? queried Venters, with life gathering in his voice. Yes.

With a passionately awakening start, he grasped her hand and drew her close. All the time you've been Aldring's daughter? Yes, of course all the time, always. But, Bess, you told me, you let me think, I made out you are a, so, so ashamed. It is my shame, she said, with voice deep and full, and now the scarlet fired her cheek. I told you, I'm nothing, nameless, just Bess,

old rings girl. I know, I remember, but I never thought, he went on, hurriedly, huskily. That time, when you lay dying, you prayed, you, somehow I got the idea you were bad. Bad, she asked with a little laugh. She looked up with a faint smile of bewilderment and the absolute unconsciousness of a child. Vinter's gasped in the gathering might of the truth. She did not understand his meaning. "'Bess! Bess!' he clasped her in his arms, hiding her eyes against his breast. She must not see his face in that moment. And he held her while he looked out across the valley. In his dim and blinded sight, in the blur of golden light and moving mist, he saw Aldring. She was the rustler's nameless daughter. Oldring had loved her. He had so guarded her, so kept her from women and men and knowledge of life, that her mind was as a child's.

That was part of the secret, part of the mystery. That was the wonderful truth. Not only was she not bad, but good, pure, innocent above all innocents in the world, the innocence of lonely girlhood. He saw Oldring's magnificent eyes, inquisitive, searching, softening. He saw them flare in amaze, in gladness, with love, then suddenly strain in terrible effort of will. He heard Oldring whisper and saw him sway like a log.

and fall. Then a million bellowing, thundering voices, gunshots of conscience, thunderbolts of remorse, dinned horribly in his ears. He had killed Bess's father. Then a rushing wind filled his ears like a moan of wind in the cliffs, a knell indeed, Aldering's knell. He dropped to his knees and hid his face against Bess and grasped her with the hands of a drowning man. My God, my God, oh Bess, forget her. me. Never mind what I've done, what I've thought. But forgive me. I'll give you my life. I'll live for you. I'll love you. Oh, I do love you as no man ever loved a woman. I want you to know, to remember that I fought a fight for you, however blind I was. I thought, I thought, never mind what I thought, but I loved you. I asked you

to marry me. Let that, let me have that to hug to my heart. Oh, Bess, I was driven, and I might have known. I could not rest nor sleep till I had this mystery solved. God, how things work out. Burn, you're weak, trembling. You talk wildly, cried Bess. You've overdone your strength. There's nothing to forgive. There's no mystery except your love for me. You have come back to me. And she clasped his head tenderly in her arms and pressed it closely to her throbbing breast. End of Chapter 18. 19 of Riders of the Purple Sage. This is a Libravox recording.

All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recorded by Laurie Ann Walden. Writers of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray. Chapter 19. Faye. At the home of Jane Witherstein, little Faye was climbing Lassiter's knee. Does it love me?

She asked. Lasseter, who was as serious with Faye as he was gentle and loving, assured her in earnest and elaborate speech that he was her devoted subject. Faye looked thoughtful and appeared to be debating the duplicity of men, or searching for a supreme test to prove this cavalier. "'Does oo love my new mother?' she asked, with bewildering suddenness. Jane Witherstein laughed, and for the first time in many a day she felt a stir of her pulse and warmth in her cheek.

It was a still, drowsy summer of afternoon, and the three were sitting in the shade of the wooded knoll that faced the sage slope. Little Fay's brief spell of unhappy longing for her mother, the childish mystic gloom, had passed, and now where Fay was there were prattle and laughter and glee. She had emerged from sorrow to be the incarnation of joy and loveliness. She had grown supernaturally sweet and beautiful. for jane witherstein the child was an answer to prayer a blessing a possession infinitely more precious than all she had lost for lacer jane divined that little fay had become a religion

does he love my new mother repeated fay lasseter's answer to this was a modest and sincere affirmative why don't you marry my new mother and be my father of the thousands of questions put by little fay to lasseter this was a modest and sincere affirmative why don't you marry my new mother and be my father of the thousands of questions put by little fay to lasseter this was a the first he had been unable to answer. Faye, Faye, don't ask questions like that, said Jane. Why? Because, replied Jane, and she found it strangely embarrassing to meet the child's gaze. It seemed to her that Faye's violet eyes looked through her with piercing wisdom. Who love him, don't who? Dear child, run and play, said Jane.

But don't go too far. Don't go from this little hill. Faye pranced off wildly, joyous over freedom that had not been granted her for weeks. Jane, why are children more sincere than grown-up persons? asked Lassiter. Are they? I reckon so. Little Faye there, she sees things as they appear on the face. An Indian does that. So does a dog. And an Indian and a dog are most of the time right in what they see. Maybe a child is always right.

"'Well, what does Faye see?' asked Jane. "'I reckon you know. "'I wonder what goes on in Faye's mind "'when she sees part of the truth with the wise eyes of a child "'and wanting to know more meets with strange falseness from you. "'Wait, you are false in a way, "'though you're the best woman I ever knew. "'What I want to say is this.

"'Fay has taken your pretending to care for me "'for the thing it looks on the face, "'and her little form in mind asks questions. and the answers she gets are different from the looks of things. So she'll grow up gradually taking on that falseness, and be like the rest of the women, and men too. And the truth of this falseness to life is proved by your appearing to love me when you don't.

Things aren't what they seem. Lasseter, you're right. A child should be told the absolute truth. But is that possible? I haven't been able to do it, and all my life I've loved the truth, and I've prided myself upon being truthful. Maybe that was only egotism.

I'm learning much, my friend. Some of those blinding scales have fallen from my eyes. And as to caring for you, I think I care a great deal. How much, how little I couldn't say. My heart is almost broken, Lasseter. So now is not a good time to judge of affection. I can still play and be merry with Faye. I can still dream.

But when I attempt serious thought, I'm dazed. I don't think. I don't care anymore. I don't pray. Think of that, my friend. But in spite of my numb feeling, I believe I'll rise out of all this dark agony, a better woman, with greater love of man and God. I'm on the rack now. I'm senseless to all but pain and growing dead to that. Sooner or later, I shall rise out of this stupor. I'm waiting the hour. It'll soon come, Jane, replied Lasseter, soberly. Then I'm afraid for you. Years are terrible.

things, and for years you've been bound. Habit of years as strong as life itself. Somehow, though, I believe as you, that you'll come out of it all a finer woman. I'm waiting, too, and I'm wondering, I reckon, Jane, that marriage between us is out of all human reason. Lassiter, my dear friend, it's impossible for us to marry. Why, as Faye says, inquired Lassiter, with gentle persistence. Why? I never thought why. But it's not possible. I am Jane, daughter of Witherstein. My father would rise out of his grave. I'm of Mormon birth. I'm being broken, but I'm still a Mormon woman. And you, you are Lassiter. Maybe I'm not so much Lassiter as I used to be.

What was it, you said? Habit of years as strong as life itself. You can't change the one habit, the purpose of your life. For you still pack a little bit. those black guns. You still nurse your passion for blood. A smile, like a shadow, flickered across his face. No. Lasseter, I lied to you, but I beg of you, don't you lie to me. I've great respect for you. I believe you're softened toward most, perhaps all my people except—

But when I speak of your purpose, your hate, your guns, I have only him in mind. I don't believe you've changed. For answer, he unbuckled the heavy cartridge. belt and laid it with a heavy swing gun sheathes in her lap. Lasseter, Jane whispered, as she gazed from him to the black, cold guns. Without them he appeared shorn of strength, defenseless, a smaller man. Was she Delilah? Swiftly, conscious of only one motive, refusal to see this man called Craven by his enemies,

she rose, and with blundering fingers, buckled the belt round his waist where it belonged. Lasseter, I am a coward. Come with me out of Utah, where I can put away my guns and be a man, he said. I reckon I'll prove it to you then. Come, you've got black starback, and night and bells. Let's take the racers and little Faye and race out of Utah. The hosses and the child are all you have left. Come.

No, no, Lasseter, I'll never leave Utah. What would I do in the world with my broken fortunes and my broken heart? I'll never leave these purple slopes I love so well. I reckon I ought to have known that. Presently you'll be living down here in a hovel, and presently Jane Witherstein will be a memory. I only wanted to have a chance to show you how a man, any man, can be better than he was. If we left Utah, I could prove, I reckon I could prove this thing you call love.

It's strange and hell and heaven at once, Jane Witherstein. It appears to me that you've thrown away your big heart on love. Love of religion and duty and churchmen, and writers, and poor families, and poor children. Yet you can't see what love is, how it changes a person. Listen, and in telling you Millie Earned story, I'll show you how love changed her. Millie and me was children when our family moved from Missouri to Texas, and we grew up in Texas ways, same as if we'd been born there. We had been poor, and there we prospered.

In time, the little village where we went became a town, and strangers and new families kept moving in. Millie was the bell them days. I can see her now, a little girl no bigger nor bird, and is pretty. She had the finest eyes, dark, blue, black when she was excited, and beautiful all the time. You remember Millie's eyes.

And she had light brown hair with streaks of gold, and a mouth that every feller wanted to kiss. And about the time Millie was the prettiest and the sweetest, along came a young minister who began to ride some of a race, with the other fellers for Millie, and he won. Millie had always been strong on religion, and when she met Frank Earn, she went in heart and soul for the salvation of souls. Fact was, Millie, through study of the Bible, and attending church and revivals,

went a little out of her head. It didn't worry the old folks none, and the only worry to me was Millie's everlasting praying and working to save my soul. She never converted me, but we was the best of comrades, and I reckon no brother and sister ever ever. loved each other better. Well, Frank Gern and me hit up a great friendship. He was a strappingfeller, good to look at, and had the most pleasing ways. His religion never bothered me, for he could hunt and fish and ride and be a good feller. After Buffalo once, he came pretty near to

saving my life. We got to be thick as brothers, and he was the only man I ever seen who I thought was good enough for Millie. And the day they were married, I got drunk for the only time in my life. After that I left home. It seems Millie was the only one who could keep me home, and I went to the bad. As to Prosperin, I saw some pretty hard life in the Panhandle, and then I went north. In them days, Kansas and Nebraska was as bad, come to think of it, as these days right here on the border of Utah. I got to be pretty handy with guns, and there wasn't many riders as could beat me riding. And I can say all modest-like that I'd never seen the white man who could track a horse or a steer or a man with me. afore I noted two years slipped by, and all at once I got homesick, and purled a bridle south.

Things at home had changed. I never got over that homecoming. Mother was dead and in her grave. Father was a silent, broken man, killed already on his feet. Frank Earn was a ghost of his old self, through with working, through with preaching, almost through with living, and Millie was gone. It was a long time before I got the story. Father had no mind left, and Frank Earn was afraid to talk, so I had to pick up what had happened from different people. It appears that soon after I left home, another preacher come to the little town,

and he and Frank become rivals. This feller was different from Frank. He preached some other kind of religion, and he was quick and passionate, where Frank was slow and mild. He went after people, women especially. In looks he couldn't compare to Frank Earn, but he had power over women.

He had a voice, and he talked and talked and preached and preached. Millie fell under his influence. She became mightily interested in his religion. Frank had patience with her, as was his way, and let her be as interested as she liked. All religions were devoted to one God, he said, and it wouldn't hurt Millie none to study a different point of view. So the new preacher often called on Millie,

and sometimes in Frank's absence. Frank was a cattleman between Sundays. Along about this time an incident come off that I couldn't get much light on. A stranger come to town and was seen with the preacher. This stranger was a big man with an eye like blue ice and a beard of gold. He had money and he peered a man of mystery, and the town went to Buzzin when he disappeared about the same time as a young woman known to be mightily interested in the new preacher's religion.

Then presently along comes a man from somewhere in Illinois, and he up and spots this preacher as a child. famous Mormon proselyder. That riled Frank Earned as nothing ever before, and from rivals they come to be bitter enemies. And it ended in Frank going to the meeting house where Millie was listening, and before her and everybody else, he called that preacher, called him, well, almost as as Venters called Toll here sometime back. And Frank followed up that call with a hawsewippin, and he drove the proselyter out of town. People noticed, so twas said, that Millie's sweet disposition changed. Some said it was because she would soon become a mother, and others said she was pining after

the new religion. And there was women who said right out that she was pining after the Mormon. Anyway, one morning Frank rode in from one of his trips to find Millie gone. He had no real near neighbors, living a little out of town, but those who was nearest said a wagon had gone by in the night, and they thought it stopped at her door. Well, tracks always tell, and there was the wagon tracks and hauls tracks and man tracks. The news spread like wildfire that Millie had run off from her husband. Everybody but Frank believed it and wasn't slow in telling why she run off. Mother had always hated that strange streak of Millie's, taken up with the new religion

as she had, and she believed Millie ran off with the Mormon. That hastened Mother's death, and she died unforgiven. Father wasn't the kind to bow down under disgrace or misfortune, but he had surpassing love for Millie, and the loss of her broke him. From the minute I heard of Millie's disappearance, I never believed she went off of her own free will. I knew Millie, and I knew she couldn't have done that. I stayed at home a while, trying to make Frank Earn talk. But if he knowed anything, then he wouldn't tell it.

So I set out to find Millie, and I tried to get on the trail of that proselyter. I knew if I ever struck a town he'd visited that I'd get a trail. I knew, too, that nothing short of hell would stop his proselytting. And I rode from town to town. I had a blind faith that something was guiding me. And as the weeks and months went by, I grod into a strange sort of a man, I guess. Anyway, people were afraid of me. Two years after that, way over in a corner of Texas, I struck a town where my man had been.

He'd just left. People said he came to that town without a woman. I back-trailed my man through Arkansas and Mississippi, and the old trail got hot again in Texas. I found the town where he first went after leaving home. And here I got track of Millie. I found a cabin where she had given birth to her baby. There was no way to tell whether she'd been kept a prisoner or not. The fellow her own the place was a mean, silent sort of a skunk,

and as I was leaving, I just took a chance and left my mark on him. Then I went home again. It was to find I hadn't any home no more. Father had been dead a year. Frank Earned still lived in the house where Millie, had left him. I stayed with him a while, and I grew old watching him. His farm had gone to weed. His cattle had strayed or been rustled. His house weathered till it wouldn't keep out rain nor wind. And Frank sat on the porch and whittled sticks, and day by day wasted away. There was times when he

ranted about like a crazy man, but mostly he was always sitting and staring with eyes that made a man curse. I figured Frank had a secret fear that I needed to know. And when I told him I'd trailed Millie for near three years and had got trace of her and saw where she'd had her baby. I thought he would drop dead at my feet. And when he'd come round more natural-like, he begged me to give up the trail, but he wouldn't explain. So I let him alone and watched him day and night. And I found there was one thing still precious to him,

and it was a little drawer where he kept his papers. This was in the room where he slept. And it peered he seldom slept. But after being patient, I got the contents of that drawer and found two letters from Millie. One was a long letter written a few months after her disappearance. She had been bound and gagged and dragged away from her home by three men, and she named them, Herd, Metzker, Slack.

They were strangers to her. She was taken to the little town where I found trace of her two years after. But she didn't send the letter from that town. There she was pinned in. Appeared that the proselytes, who had, of course, come on the scene, was not running any risks of losing her. She went on to say that for a time she was out of her head, and when she got right again, all that kept her alive was the baby.

It was a beautiful baby, she said, and all she thought and dreamed of was somehow to get baby back to its father, and then she'd thankfully lay down and die. And the letter ended abrupt, in the middle of a sentence, and it wasn't signed. The second letter was written more than two years after the first. It was from Salt Lake City. It simply said that Millie had heard her brother was on her trail. She asked Frank to tell her brother to give up the search, because if he didn't, she would suffer in a way too horrible to tell. She didn't beg. She just stated a fact and made the

simple request. And she ended that letter by saying she would soon leave Salt Lake City with the man she had come to love and would never be heard of again. I recognized Millie's handwriting, and I recognized her way of putting things. But that second letter told me of some great change in her. pondering over it, I felt at last she'd either come to love that feller and his religion, or some terrible fear made her lie and say so. I couldn't be sure which. But of course I meant to find out. I'll say here, if I'd known Mormons then as I do now,

I'd left Millie to her fate, for maybe she was right about what she'd suffer if I kept on her trail. But I was young and wild, them days. First I went to the town where she'd first been taken, and I went to the place where she'd been kept. I got that skunk who owned the place, and took him out in the woods, and made him tell all he knowed. There wasn't much as to length, but it was pure hell's fire and substance.

This time I left him some incapacitated for any more skunk work, short of hell. Then I hit the trail for Utah. That was fourteen years ago. I saw the incoming of most of the Mormons. It was a wild country and a wild time. I rode from town to town, village to village, ranch to ranch, camp to camp. I never stayed long in one place. I never had but one idea. I never rested. Four years went by, and I knowed every trail in northern Utah. I kept on, and as time went by,

and I'd begun to grow old in my search, I had firmer, blinder faith in whatever was guiding me. Once I read about a feller who sailed the seven seas and traveled the world, and he had a story to tell, and whenever he seen the man to whom he must tell that story, he knowed him on sight. I was like that, only I had a question to ask. And always I knew the man of whom I must ask. So I never really lost the trail, though for many years it was the dimmest trail ever followed by any man. Then come a change in my luck.

Along in central Utah, I rounded up, heard, and I whispered something in his ear, and watched his face, and then throwed a gun against his bowels. And he died with his teeth so tight shut I couldn't have pried them open with a knife. Slack and Metzger that same year both heard me whispered the same question, and neither would they speak a word when they lay dying. Long before, I'd learned no man of this breed or class, or God knows what, would give up any secrets. I had to see in a man's fear of death the connections with Millie Earn's fate, and as the years passed at long intervals I would find such a man.

So as I drifted on the long trail down into southern Utah, my name preceded me, and I had to meet a people prepared for me and ready with guns. They made me a gunman, and that suited me. And all this time, signs of the proselyter and the giant with the blue ice eyes and the gold beard seemed to fade dimmer out of the trail. Only twice in ten years did I find a trace of that mysterious man who had visited the proselyte at my home village. What he had to do with Millie's fate was beyond all hope for me to learn, unless my God and spirit led me to him. As for the other man, I knew, as sure as I breathed and the stars shone and the wind blew that I'd meet him someday. Eighteen years I've been on the trail, and it led me to the last lonely villages of the Utah border.

Eighteen years. I feel pretty old now. I was only twenty when I hit that trail. Well, as I told you, back hereaways, a Gentile said Jane Witherstein could tell me about Millie Earn and show me her grave. The low voice ceased, and Lasseter slowly turned his sombrero round and round. and appeared to be counting the silver ornaments on the band. Jane, leaning toward him, sat as if petrified, listening intently, waiting to hear more.

She could have shrieked, but power of tongue and lips were denied her. She saw only this sad, gray, passion-worn man, and she heard only the faint rustling of the leaves. Well, I came to Cottonwoods, went on, Lasseter, and you showed me Millie's grave. And though your teeth have been shut, tighter than them of all the dead men, back along that trail. Just the same, you told me the secret I've lived these 18 years to hear. Jane, I said you'd tell me without ever me asking. I didn't need to ask my question here. The day you remember when that fat party throwed a gun on me in your court and—' Oh, hush! whispered Jane, blindly holding up her hands.

I've seen in your face that Dyer, now a bishop, was the proselyter who ruined Millie Earn. For an instant Jane Witherstein's brain was a whirling chaos, and she recovered to find herself grasping at Lasseter like one drowning. And as if by a lightning stroke, she sprang from her dull apathy into exquisite torture. It's a lie, Lassiter. No, no, she moaned. I swear you're wrong. Stop, you'd perjure yourself, but I'll spare you that. You poor woman, still blind, still faithful.

"'Listen, I know. Let that settle it. And I give up my purpose.' "'What is it, you say?' "'I give up my purpose. I've come to see and feel differently. I can't help poor Millie, and I've outgrown revenge. I've come to see I can be no judge for men. I can't kill a man just for hate. Hate ain't the same with me since I loved you and Little Fay.' "'Lasseter, you mean you won't kill him?' Jane whispered. No.

For my sake? I reckon. I can't understand, but I'll respect your feelings. Because you... Oh, because you love me? Eighteen years. You were that terrible Lassiter. And now, because you love me?

That's it, Jane. Oh, you'll make me love you. How can I help but love you? My heart must be stone. But, oh, Lasseter, wait, wait, give me time. I'm not what I was. Once it was so easy to love, now it's easy to hate. Wait.

My faith in God, some God, still lives. By it I see happier times for you, poor passion swayed wanderer. For me, a miserable, broken woman. I loved your sister, Millie. I will love you. I can't have fallen so low. I can't be so abandoned by God that I've no love. left to give you. Wait, let us forget Millie's sad life. Ah, I knew it as no one else on earth.

There's one thing I shall tell you, if you're at my deathbed, but I can't speak now. I reckon I don't want to hear no more, said Lasseter. Jane leaned against him, as if some pent-up force had rent its way out. She fell into a paroxysm of weeping. Lasseter held her in silent sympathy. By degrees she regained composure, and she, she regained composure, and she she was rising, sensible of being relieved of a weighty burden, when a sudden start on Lasseter's part alarmed her. I heard hosses, hosses with muffled hoofs, he said, and he got up guardedly. Where's Faye? asked Jane, hurriedly glancing round the shady gnaw. The bright-haired child,

who had appeared to be close all the time, was not in sight. Faye, called Jane. No answering shout of glee, no patter of furs. flying feet. Jane saw Lasseter stiffen. Faye! Oh, Faye! Jane almost screamed. The leaves quivered and rustled. A lonesome cricket chirped in the grass. A bee hummed by. The silence of the waning afternoon breathed hateful portent. It terrified Jane. When had silence been so infernal? She's only straight out of earshot, faltered Jane, looking at Lasseter. Pail rigid as a statue the rider stood, not in listening, searching posture, but in one of doomed

certainty. Suddenly he grasped Jane with an iron hand, and, turning his face from her gaze, he strode with her from the knoll. See, Fay played here last, a house of stones and sticks, and here's a corral of pebbles with leaves for hosses, said Lasseter stridently, and pointed to the ground. Back and forth she trailed here. See, she's buried something, a dead grasshopper. There's a tombstone. Here she went, chasing a lizard. See the tiny streaked trail? She pulled bark off this cottonwood. Look in the dust of the path, the letters you taught her. She's drawn pictures of birds and hosses and people. Look a cross. Oh, Jane, your cross. Lasseter dragged Jane on, and as if from a book read the meaning of Little Faye's Trail. All the way down the knoll,

through the shrubbery, round and round to cottonwood, Faye's vagrant fancy left records of her sweet musings and innocent play. Long had she lingered round a bird nest to leave therein the gaudy wing of a butterfly. Long had she played beside the running stream, sending adrift vessels freighted with pebbly cargo. Then she had wandered through the deep grass, her tiny feet scarcely turning a fragile blade, and she had dreamed beside some old faded flowers. Thus her steps led her into the broad lane.

The little dimpled imprints of her bare feet showed clean cut in the dust. They went a little way down the lane, and then, at a point where they stopped, the great tracks of a man led out from the shrubbery and returned. End of Chapter 19 Chapter 20 of Riders of the Purple Sage This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visitlibrovox.org. Recorded by Laurie Ann Walden. Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray.

Chapter 20 Lassiter's Way Footprints told the story of Little Faye's abduction. In anguish, Jane Withersstein turned speechlessly to Lassiter, and, confirming her fears, she saw him gray-faced, aged all in a moment, stricken as if by a mortal blow. Then all her life seemed to fall about her in wreck and ruin. It's all over, she heard her voice whisper. It's ended.

I'm going, I'm going. "'Where?' demanded Lassiter, suddenly looming darkly over her. "'To—to those cruel men—' "'Speak names,' thundered Lassiter. "'To Bishop Dyer, to Tull,' went on Jane, shocked into obedience. "'Well, what for?' "'I want Little Faye. I can't live without her. "'They've stolen her as they stole Millie Earnschild.

"'I must have Little Faye.' I won't only her. I give up. I'll go and tell Bishop Dyer, I'm broken. I'll tell him I'm ready for the yoke. Only give me back Faye, and I'll marry tall. Never, hissed Lasseter. His long arm leaped at her.

Almost running, he dragged her under the cottonwoods, across the court, into the huge hall of Witherstein house, and he shut the door with a force that jarred the heavy walls. Black Star and Knight and Bells, since their return, had been locked. in this hall, and now they stamped on the stone floor. Lasseter released Jane, and like a dizzy man, swayed from her with a hoarse cry and leaned shaking against a table where he kept his rider's accoutrements.

He began to fumble in his saddlebags. His action brought a clinking metallic sound, the rattling of gun cartridges. His fingers trembled as he slipped cartridges into an extra belt, but as he buckled it over the one he habitually wore, his hands became steady. This second belt contained two guns, smaller than the black one swinging low, and he slipped them round so that his coat hid them. Then he fell to swift action. Jane Witherstein watched him, fascinated but uncomprehending,

and she saw him rapidly saddle Black Star and Night. Then he drew her into the light of the huge windows, standing over her, gripping her arm with fingers like cold steel. Yes, Jane, it's ended, but you're not going to dire. I'm going instead. Looking at him, he was so terrible of aspect. She could not comprehend his words. Who was this man with the face gray as death,

with eyes that would have made her shriek, had she the strength, with the strange, ruthlessly bitter lips? Where was the gentle Lasseter? What was this presence in the hall, about him, about her, this cold, invisible presence? Yes, it's ended, Jane, he was saying, so awfully quiet and cool and implacable, and I'm going to make a little call.

I'll lock you in here, and when I get back, half the saddlebags full of meat and bread, and be ready to ride. Lassiter, cried Jane. Desperately she tried to meet his gray eyes, in vain. Desperately she tried again, fought herself as feeling and thought resurged in torment,

and she succeeded, and then she knew. No. "'No, no,' she wailed. "'You said you'd foregone your vengeance. "'You promised not to kill Bishop Dyer.' "'If you want to talk to me about him, leave off the bishop. "'I don't understand that name, or its use.'

"'Oh, hadn't you foregone your vengeance on Dyer?' "'Yes.' "'But your actions, your words, your guns, your terrible looks. "'They don't seem foregoing vengeance.' "'Jane, now it's justice.' You'll kill him? If God lets me live another hour. If not God, then the devil who drives me.

You'll kill him for yourself, for your vengeful hate? No. For Millie Earn's sake? No. For little phase? No. Oh, for whose? For yours.

His blood on my soul. whispered Jane, and she fell to her knees. This was the long-pending hour of fruition, and the habit of years, the religious passion of her life, leaped from lethargy, and the long months of gradual drifting to doubt were as if they had never been. If you spill his blood, it'll be on my soul, and on my father's. Listen, and she clasped his knees, and clung there as he tried to raise her.

Listen, am I nothing to you? Woman, don't trifle it, words, I love you, and I'll soon prove it. I'll give myself to you. I'll ride away with you. Marry you. If only you'll spare him. His answer was a cold, ringing, terrible laugh. Lassiter, I'll love you. Spare him. No.

She sprang up in despairing, breaking spirit, and encircled his neck with her arms, and held him in an embrace that he strove vainly to loosen. Lasseter, would you kill me? I'm fighting my last fight for the principles of my youth, love of religion, love of father. You don't know, you can't guess the truth, and I can't speak ill. I'm losing all, I'm changing.

All I've gone through is nothing to this hour. Pity me, help me in my weakness. You are strong again. Oh, so cruelly, coldly strong. You're killing me. I see you, feel you as some other Lasseter. "'My master, be merciful. Spare him.' His answer was a ruthless smile.

She clung the closer to him and leaned her panting breast on him, and lifted her face to his. "'Lasseter, I do love you. It's leaped out of my agony. It comes suddenly with a terrible blow of truth. You are a man. I never knew it till now. Some wonderful change came to me when you buckled on these guns and showed that gray, awful face. I loved you then. All my life I've loved, but never is now. No woman can love like a broken woman. If it were not for one thing, just one thing. And yet, I can't speak it. I'd glory in your manhood, the lion in you that means to slay for me. Believe me, and spare dire. Be merciful, great, as it's in you to be great. Oh, listen and believe. I have nothing, but I'm a woman, a beautiful woman,

Lasseter, a passionate, loving woman, and I love you. Take me, hide me in some wild place, and love me, and mend my broken heart. Spare him and take me away. She lifted her face closer and closer to his, until their lips nearly touched, and she hung upon his neck, and with strength almost spent, pressed and still pressed her palpitating body to his. "'Kiss me,' she whispered blindly. "'No, not at your price,' he answered. His voice had changed, or she had lost clearness of hearing. "'Kiss me! Are you a man? Kiss me and save me.'

Jane, you never played fair with me, but now you're blistering your lips, blacken in your soul with lies. By the memory of my mother, by my Bible, no. No, I have no Bible. But by my hope of heaven, I swear I love you. Lassiter's gray lips formed soundless words that meant even her love could not avail to bend his will. As if the hold of her arms was that of a child's, he loosened it and stepped away. Wait, don't go. Oh, hear a last word. May a more just and merciful God than the God I was taught to worship, judge me, forgive me, save me,

for I can no longer keep silent. Lasseter, in pleading for Dyer, I've been pleading more for my father. My father was a Mormon master, close to the leaders of the church. It was my father who sent Dyer out to proselyte. It was my father who had the blue ice eye and the beard of gold. It was my father you got Trace of in the past years. Truly, Dyer ruined Millie Earn, dragged her from her home to Utah, to Cottonwoods. But it was for my father.

If Millie Earn was ever wife of a Mormon, that Mormon was my father. I never knew, never will know whether or not she was a wife. Blind I may be, Lasseter, fanatically faithful to a false religion I may have been, but I know justice, and my father is beyond human justice. Surely he is meeting just punishment somewhere. Always it has appalled me, the thought of your killing Dyer for my father's sins. So I have prayed. "'Jane, the past is dead. In my love for you I forgot the past. This thing I'm about to do ain't for myself, or Millie, or Fay. It's not because of anything that's happened in the past, but for what is happening right now. It's for you. And listen, since I was a boy, I've never thanked God for anything. If there is a God, and I've come to believe it, I thank him now for the years that made me Lasseter. I can reach down and feel these big guns and know what I can do with them.

And Jane, only one of the miracles dire professes to believe in, can save him. Again for Jane Witherstein came the spinning of her brain and darkness, and as she whirled in endless chaos, she seemed to be falling at the feet of a luminous figure, a man, Lasseter, who had saved her from herself, who could not be changed, who would slay rightfully. Then she slipped into utter blackness. When she recovered from her faint,

she became aware that she was lying on a couch near the window in her sitting room. Her brow felt damp and cold and wet. Someone was chafing her hands. She recognized Judkins, and then saw that his lean, hard face wore the hue and look of excessive agitation. Judkins! Her voice broke weakly. "'Ah, Miss Witherstein, you're coming round fine. Now just lay still a little.

You're all right. Everything's all right.' "'Where is he?' "'Who? Lasseter. "'You needn't worry none about him. "'Where is he? Tell me, instantly.' "'Well, he's in the other room, patching up a few trifling bullet holes.'

"'Ah, Bishop Dyer?' "'When I seen him last, a matter of half an hour ago, he was on his knees. "'He was some busy, but he wasn't praying.' "'How strangely you. you talk. I'll sit up. I'm well, strong again. Tell me, Dyer on his knees? What was he doing? Well, begging your pardon for blunt talk, Miss Witherstein, Dyer was on his knees and not praying. You remember his big, broad hands? You've seen him raised in blessing over old gray men, and little curly-headed children like Faye Larkin. Come to think of that, I'd disremember

ever hearin of his lifting his big hands in blessing over a woman. Well, when I seen him last, A little while ago, he was on his knees, not praying, as I remarked, and he was pressing his big hands over some bigger wounds. Man, you drive me mad. Did Lasseter kill Dyer? Yes. Did he kill Tull? No.

Tull's out of the village with most of his riders. He's expected back before evening. Lassiter will have to get away before Tull and his riders come in. It's sure death for him here. And wuss for you, too, Miss Wetherstein. there'll be some of an uprising when Tal gets back. I shall ride away with Lasseter. Judkins, tell me all you saw, all you know about this killing.

She realized, without wonder or amaze, how Judkins' one word, affirming the death of dire, that the catastrophe had fallen, had completed the change whereby she had been molded or beaten or broken into another woman. She felt calm, slightly cold, strong as she had not been strong since the first shadow fell upon her. i just saw about all of it miss witherstein and i'll be glad to tell you if you'll only have patience with me said judkins earnestly you see i've been peculiarly interested and naturally i'm some excited and i talk a lot that maybe ain't necessary but i can't help that

i was at the meeting-house where dyer was hold in court you know he allis acts as magistrate and judge when tulls away and the trial was for trying what's left of my boy riders that helped me hold your cattle for a lot of hatched-up things the boys never did we're used to that and the boys wouldn't have minded being locked up for a while or having to dig ditches or whatever the judge laid down you see i divided the gold you give me among all my boys and they all hid it and they all feel rich howsome ever court was adjourned before the judge passed sentence. Yes, ma'am, court was adjourned, some strange and quick, much as if lightning had struck the meeting-house. I had trouble attending the trial, but I got in. There was a good many people there, all my boys, and Judge Dyer with his several clerks. Also, he had with him the five riders who've been guarding him pretty close of late.

They was Carter, Wright, Jengison, and two new riders from Stonebridge. I didn't hear their names, but I heard they was handy men with guns. and they looked more like rustlers than writers. Anyway, there they was, the five all in a row. Judge Dyer was telling Willie Kern, one of my best and steadiest boys, Dyer was telling him how there was a ditch opened near Willie's home, letting water through his lot, where it hadn't ought to go, and Willie was trying to get a word in to prove he wasn't at home all the day it happened,

which was true, as I know, but Willie couldn't get a word in, and then Judge Dyer went on laying down the law, and all to once he happened to look down the long room, and if ever any man turned to stone, he was that man. Naturally, I looked back to see what it acted so powerful strange on the judge. And there, halfway up the room, in the middle of the wide aisle, stood Lasseter, all white and black he looked, and I can't think of anything he resembled, unless it's death. Venters made that same room some still in Chile when he called Tull,

but this was different. I give my word, Miss Witherstein, that I went cold to my very marrow. I don't know why. But Lasseter had a way about him that's awful. He spoke a word, a name. I couldn't understand it, though he spoke clear as a bell. I was too excited, maybe. Judge Dyer must have understood it, and a lot more that was mystery to me,

for he pitched forward out of his chair right onto the platform. Then them five riders, Dyer's bodyguards, they jumped up, and two of them, them that I found out afterwards were the strangers from Stone Bridge, they piled right out of a winder, so quick you couldn't catch your breath. It was plain they wasn't Mormons. Jingeson, Carter, and Wright, eyed Lasseter, for what must have been a second, and seemed like an hour, and they went white and strung, but they didn't weaken nor lose their nerve. I had a good look at Lassiter. He stood sort of stiff, bending a little, and both his arms were

cooked, and his hands looked like a hawk's claws. But there ain't no telling how his eyes looked. I know this, though, and that is his eyes could read the mind of any man about to throw a gun. And in watching him, of course, I couldn't see the three men go for their guns. And though I was looking right at Lasseter, looking hard, I couldn't see how he drawled. He was quicker than eyesight, that's all. But I seen the red spurtain of his guns and heard his shots just the very littlest instant before I heard the shots of the riders. And when I turned, Wright and Carter was down, and Jingison, whose tough like a steer,

was pulling the trigger of a wobbling gun. But it was plain he was shot through Plum Center, and sudden he fell with a crash, and his gun clattered on the floor. Then there was a hell of a silence. Nobody breathed. Certain I didn't, anyway. I saw Lassiger slip a smoking gun back in a belt. But he hadn't throwed either of the big black guns, and I thought that strange.

And all this was happening quick. You can't imagine how quick. There came a scraping on the floor, and Dyer got up, his face like lead. I wanted to watch Lasseter, but Dyer's face, once I seen it like that, glued my eyes. I seen him go for his gun. Why, I could have done better, quicker. And then there was a thundering shot from Lassiter, and it hit Dyer's right arm, and his gun went off as it dropped.

He looked at Lasseter like a cornered sage wolf, and sort of howled, and reached down for his gun. He'd just picked it off the floor and was raising it when another thunder and shot almost tore that arm off, so it seemed to me. The gun dropped again, and he went down on his knees, kind of floundering after it. It was some strange and terrible to see his awful earnestness.

Why would such a man cling so to life? Anyway, he got the gun with left hand and was raising it, pulling trigger in his madness, when the third thundering shot hit his left arm, and he dropped the gun again. But that left arm wasn't useless yet, for he grabbed up the gun, and with a shaken aim that would have been pitiful to me in any other man, he began to shoot. One wild bullet struck a man twenty feet from Lasseter, and it killed that man as I've seen afterwards. Then came a bunch of thunderin shots. Nine I calculated after, but they come so quick I couldn't count them, and I knew Lasseter had turned the black guns loose on dire.

I'm telling you straight, Miss Witherstein, for I want you to know, afterward you'll get over it. I've seen some soul-wracking scenes on this Utah border, but this was the awfulest. I remember I closed my eyes, and for a minute I thought of the strangest things, out of place there, such as you'd never dream would come to mind. I saw the sage and running hosses, and that's the beautifulest sight to me. And I saw dim things in the dark, and there was a kind of humming in my ears. And I remember distinctly, for it was what made all these things whirl out of my mind and open my eyes. I remember distinctly it was the smell of gunpowder. The court had about adjourned for that judge.

He was on his knees, and he wasn't praying. He was gasping and trying to press his big, flopping, crippled hands over his body. lasseter had sent all those last thundering shots through his body that was lasseter's way and lasseter spoke and if i ever forget his words i'll never forget the sound of his voice proselyder i reckon you'd better call quick on that god who reveals his self to you on earth because he won't be visiting the place you're going to and then i seen dyer look at his big hanging hands that wasn't big enough for the last work he set them to and he looked up at lasseter and then he stared horrible at something that wasn't Lassiter nor anyone there, nor the room, nor the branches of purple sage peeping into the winder. Whatever he's seen, it was with the look of a man who discovers something too late. That's a terrible look.

And with a horrible understanding cry, he slid forward on his face. Judkins paused in his narrative, breathing heavily while he wiped his perspiring brow. That's about all, he concluded. Lasseter left the meeting house, and I hurried to catch up with him. He was bleeding from three gunshots, none of them much to bother him, and we come right up here. I found you laying in the hall, and I had to work some over you. Jane Witherstein offered up no prayer for Dyer's soul.

Lasseter's step sounded in the hall, the familiar soft, silver-clinking step, and she heard it with thrilling new emotions in which was a vague joy in her very fear of him. The door opened, and she saw him. The old Lasseter, slow, easy, gentle, cool, yet not exactly the same Lassiter. She rose, and for a moment her eyes blurred and swam in tears. Are you all right? she asked tremulously. I reckon. Lasseter, I'll ride away with you.

Hide me till danger is passed, till we are forgotten. Then take me where you will. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. He kissed her hand with the quaint grace in courtesy that came to him in rare moments. Black Star and night are ready, he said simply. His quiet mention of the Black Racers spurred Jane to action. Hurrying to her room, she changed to her rider's suit, packed her jewelry and the gold that was left,

and all the woman's apparel for which there was space in the saddlebags, and then returned to the hall. Black Star stamped his iron-shod hoofs and tossed his beautiful head, and eyed her with knowing eyes. Judkins, I give bells to you, said Jane. I hope you will always keep him and be good to him. Judkins mumbled thanks that he could not speak fluently, and his eyes flashed.

Lasseter strapped Jane's saddlebags upon Black Star and led the racers out into the court. Judkins, you ride with Jane out into the sage. If you see any riders coming, shout quick twice. And Jane, don't look. back. I'll catch up soon. We'll get to the break into the pass before midnight, and then wait until morning to go down. Black Star bent his graceful neck and bowed his noble head, and his broad shoulders yielded as he knelt for Jane to mount. She rode out of the court beside Judkins, through the

grove, across the wide lane into the sage, and she realized that she was leaving Witherstein house forever, and she did not look back. A strange, dreamy, calm peace pervaded her. her soul. Her doom had fallen upon her. But instead of finding life no longer worth living, she found it doubly significant, full of sweetness as the western breeze, beautiful and unknown as the sage slope, stretching its purple sunset shadows before her. She became aware of Judkin's hand touching hers. She heard him speak a husky goodbye. Then into the place of bells shot the dead black, keen, racy nose of night, and she knew Lasseter rode beside her. don't look back he said and his voice too was not clear facing straight ahead seeing only the waving shadowy sage jane held out her gauntleted hand to feel it enclosed in strong clasp

so she rode on without a backward glance at the beautiful grove of cottonwoods she did not seem to think of the past of what she left forever but of the color and mystery and wildness of the sage slope leading down to deception past and of the future she watched her the shadows lengthened down the slope. She felt the cool west wind sweeping by from the rear, and she wondered at low yellow clouds, sailing swiftly over her and beyond. Don't look back, said Lasseter. Thick driving belts of smoke traveled by on the wind, and with it came a strong, pungent odor of burning wood. Lassiter had fired Witherstein House, but Jane did not look back. A misty veil obscured the clear, searching gaze she had kept steadfastly upon the purple slope and the dim lines of canyons. It passed, as passed, the rolling clouds of smoke, and she saw

the valley deepening into the shades of twilight. Night came on, swift as the fleet racers, and stars peeped out to brighten and grow, and the huge, windy, eastern heave of sage level paled under a rising moon and turned to silver. Blanched in moonlight, the sage yet seemed to hold its hue of purple and was infinitely more wild and lonely. So the night hours wore own, and Jane Witherstein never once looked back. End of Chapter 20. Chapter 21 of Riders of the Purple Sage. This is a Libravox recording.

All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recorded by Laurie Ann Walden. Writers of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray. The time had come for Venters and Bess to leave their retreat. They were at great pains to choose the few things they would be able to carry with them on the journey out of Utah. "'Burn, whatever kind of a packs this anyhow?' questioned Bess, rising from her work with reddened face. Venters, absorbed in his own task, did not look up at all, and in reply said he had brought so much from Cottonwoods that he did not recollect the half of it.

a woman packed this bess exclaimed he scarcely caught her meaning but the peculiar tone of her voice caused him instantly to rise and he saw bess on her knees before an open pack which he recognized as the one given him by jane by george he ejaculated guiltily and then at sight of bess's face he laughed outright a woman packed this she repeated fixing woeful tragic eyes on him "'Well, is that a crime?' "'There is a woman, after all.' "'Now, Bess, "'you've lied to me!' "'Then and there, Vinters found it imperative "'to postpone work for the present.

"'All her life Bess had been isolated, "'but she had inherited certain elements "'of the eternal feminine. "'But there was a woman, and you did lie to me,' "'she kept repeating, after he had explained. "'What of that? "'Bess, I'll get angry at you in a moment. "'Remember you've been pent up all your life.

"'I venture to say that if you'd been out in the world, "'you'd have had a dozen sweethearts and have told many a lie before this.' "'I wouldn't anything of the kind,' declared Bess indignantly. "'Well, perhaps not lie, but you'd have had the sweethearts. "'You couldn't have helped that, being so pretty.' "'This remark appeared to be a very clever and fortunate one, "'and the work of selecting and then of stowing all the packs in the cave, went on without further interruption.

Venters closed up the opening of the cave with a thatch of willows and aspens, so that not even a bird or a rat could get into the sacks of grain. And this work was in order with a precaution habitually observed by him. He might not be able to get out of Utah and have to return to the valley. But he owed it to best to make the attempt,

and in case they were compelled to turn back, he wanted to find that fine store of food and grain intact. The outfit of implements and utensils, he packed away in another cave. Beth, we have enough to live here all our lives, he said once, dreamily. Shall I go roll balancing rock? She asked, in light speech,

but with deep blue fire in her eyes. No, no. Ah, you don't forget the gold in the world, she sighed. Child, you forget the beautiful dresses and the travel and everything. Oh, I want to go. But I want to stay. I feel the same way. They let the eight calves out of the corral

and kept only two of the burrows Vinters had brought from Cottonwoods. These they intended to ride. Bess freed all her pets, the quail and rabbits and foxes. The last sunset in twilight and night were both the sweetest and saddest they had ever spent in Surprise Valley. Morning brought keen exhilaration and excitement. When Venters had saddled the two burrows, strapped on the light packs in the two canteens, the sunlight was dispersing the lazy shadows from the valley.

Taking a last look at the caves and the silver spruces, Venters and Bess made a reluctant start, leading the burrows. Ring and Whitey looked keen and knowing. Something seemed to drag at Vinter's feet, and he noticed Bess lagged behind. Never had the climb from Terrace to Bridge appeared so long. Not till they reached the opening of the gorge did they stop to rest and take one last look. look at the valley. The tremendous arch of stone curved clear and sharp in outline against the morning sky, and through it streaked the golden shaft. The valley seemed an enchanted circle of glorious veils of gold and wraiths of white and silver haze, and dim, blue moving shade, beautiful and wild and unreal as a dream. We can think of it. Always remember,

sobbed Bess. Hush, don't cry. Our valley has only fitted us for a better life somewhere. Come. They entered the gorge, and he closed the willow gate. From rosy, golden morning light, they passed into cool, dense gloom. The burrows pattered up the trail with little hollow-cracking steps, and the gorge widened to narrow outlet, and the gloom lightened to gray.

At the divide they halted for another rest. Vinter's keen, remembering gaze searched balancing rock, and the long incline, and the cracked, toppling walls. but failed to note the slightest change. The dogs led the descent, then came Bess leading her burrow, then Vinter's leading his. Bess kept her eyes bent downward.

Vinters, however, had an irresistible desire to look upward at balancing rock. It had always haunted him, and now he wondered if he were really to get through the outlet before the huge stone thundered down. He fancied that would be a miracle. Every few steps he answered to the strange, nervous fear and turned to make sure the rock still stood like a giant statue.

And as he descended, it grew dimmer in his sight. It changed form, it swayed, it nodded darkly. And at last, in his heightened fancy, he saw it heave and roll. As in a dream when he felt himself falling, yet knew he would never fall, so he saw this long-standing thunderbolt of the little stone men plunged down to close forever the outlet to deception pass. And while he was giving way to unaccountable dreads, imaginations, the descent was accomplished without mishap.

I'm glad that's over, he said, breathing more freely. I hope I'm by that hanging rock for good and all. Since almost the moment I first saw it, I've had an idea that it was waiting for me. Now, when it does fall, if I'm thousands of miles away, I'll hear it. With the first glimpses of the smooth slope leading down to the grotesque cedars and out to the past, Vinter's cool nerve returned. One long survey to the left, then one to the right, satisfied his caution. Leading the burrows down to the spur of rock, he halted at the steep incline.

Bess, here's the bad place, the place I told you about with the cut steps. You start down leading your burrow. Take your time and hold on to him if you slip. I've got a rope on him and a half hitch on this point of rock, so I can let him down safely. Coming up here was a killing job, but it'll be easy going down. both burrows passed down the difficult stairs cut by the cliff-dwellers and did it without a misstep after that the descent down the slope and over the mile of scrawled ripped and ridged rock required only careful guidance and venters got the burrows to level ground in a condition that caused him to congratulate himself oh if we only had wrangle exclaimed venters but we're lucky that's the worst of our trail passed we've only meant to fear now if we get up in the sage we can hide and slip along like coyotes. They mounted and rode west through the valley and entered the canyon.

From time to time, Venters walked, leading his burrow. When they got by all the canyons and gullies opening into the pass, they went faster and with fewer halts. Venters did not confide in best the alarming fact that he had seen horses and smoke less than a mile up one of the intersecting canyons. He did not talk at all. And long after he had passed this canyon and felt secure once more in the certainty that they had been unobserved, he never relaxed his watchfulness.

But he did not walk anymore, and he kept the burrows at a steady trot. Night fell before they reached the last water in the pass, and they made camp by starlight. Venters did not want the burrows to stray, so he tied them with long halters in the grass near the spring. Bess, tired out and silent, laid her head in a saddle, and went to sleep between the two dogs. Venters did not close his eyes. The canyon silence appeared full of the low, continuous hum of insects. He listened until the hum grew into a roar, and then, breaking the spell, once more he heard it low and clear.

He watched the stars in the moving shadows, and always his glance returned to the girl's dimly pale face, and he remembered how white and still it had once looked in the starlight. And again, stern thought fought his strange fancies. Would all his labor and his love be for knowledge? would he lose her after all? What did the dark shadow around her portend? Did calamity lurk on that long upland trail through this age? Why should his heart swell and throb with nameless fear? He listened to the silence and told himself that in the broad light of day he could dispel this leaden-weighted dread. At the first hint of gray over the eastern rim, he awoke bess, saddled the burrows, and began the

day's travel. He wanted to get out of the pass before there was any chance of riders' coming down. They gained the break as the first red rays of the rising sun colored the rim. For once, so eager was he to get up to level ground, he did not send ring or whitey in advance. Encouraging Bess to hurry, pulling at his patient plotting burrow, he climbed the soft, steep trail. Brighter and brighter grew the light. He mounted the last broken edge of rim to have the sun-fired, purple sage-slope burst upon him as of glory. Bess panted up to his side, tugging on the halter of her burrow. We're up, he cried joyously.

There's not a dot on the sage. We're safe. We'll not be seen. Oh, Bess? Ring growled and sniffed the keen air and bristled. Vinters clutched at his rifle. Whidey sometimes made a mistake, but Ring never. The dull thud of hoofs almost deprived Vinters of power to turn

and see from where disaster threatened. He felt his eyes dilate as he stared at Lasseter, leading Black Star and Night out of the Sage, with Jane Witherstein and Rodder's costume close beside them. For an instant, Venters felt himself whirled dizzily in the center of vast circles of sage. He recovered partially, enough to see Lasseter standing with a glad smile, and Jane riveted in astonishment. "'Why, burn!' she exclaimed. "'How good it is to see you!

We're riding away, you see. The storm burst, and I'm a ruined woman. I thought you were alone. Fenters, unable to speak for consternation, and bewildered out of all sense of what he ought or ought not to do, simply stared at Jane. "'Son, where are you bound for?' asked Lassiter. "'Not safe where I was.

I'm—we're going out of Utah. Back east,' he found tongue to say. "'I reckon this meeting's the luckiest thing "'that ever happened to you and to me, "'and to Jane, and to Bess,' said Lassett. her coolly. Bess, cried Jane, with a sudden leap of blood to her pale cheek. It was entirely beyond Vinter's to see any luck in that meeting.

Jane Witherstein took one flashing woman's glance at Bess's scarlet face at her slender, shapely form. Venters, is this a girl, a woman? she questioned, in a voice that stung. Yes. Did you have her in that wonderful valley? Yes, but Jane, all the time you were gone? Yes, but I couldn't tell. Was it for her you asked me to give you supplies?

Was it for her that you wanted to make your valley a paradise? Oh, Jane. Answer me. Yes. Oh, you liar! And with these passionate words, Jane Witherstein succumbed to fury. For the second time in her life, she fell into the ungovernable rage that had been her father. weakness. And it was worse than his, for she was a jealous woman, jealous even of her friends.

As best he could, he bore the brunt of her anger. It was not only his deceit to her that she visited upon him, but her betrayal by religion, by life itself. Her passion, like fire at white heat, consumed itself in little time. Her physical strength failed, and still her spirit attempted to go on in magnificent denunciation of those who had wronged her. Like a tree cut deep into a its roots, she began to quiver and shake, and her anger weakened into despair, and her ringing voice sank into a broken, husky whisper. Then, spent and pitiable, upheld by Lasseter's arm, she turned and hid her face in Black Star's mane. Numb as Venters was, when at length Jane Witherstein lifted her head and looked at him, he yet suffered a pang. Jane, the girl is

innocent, he cried. Can you expect me to believe that? she asked, with weary, bitter eyes. I'm not that kind of a liar, and you know it. If I lied, if I kept silent when honor should have made me speak, it was to spare you. I came to Cottonwoods to tell you, but I couldn't add to your pain. I intended to tell you I had come to love this girl. But, Jane, I hadn't forgotten how good you were to me.

I haven't changed at all towards you. I prize your friendship, as I always have. But, however it may look to you, don't be unjust. the girl is innocent. Ask Lassiter. Jane, she's just as sweet and innocent as little Faye, said Lassiter. There was a faint smile upon his face and a beautiful light. Vinter saw, and knew that Lassiter saw how Jane Witherstein's tortured soul wrestled with hate and threw it, with scorn, doubt, suspicion, and overcame all.

Byrne, if in my misery I accused you unjustly, I crave forgiveness, she said. "'I'm not what I once was. "'Tell me, who is this girl?' "'Jane, she is Oldring's daughter, and his masked rider. "'Lasseter will tell you how I shot her for a rustler. "'Saved her life. All the story. "'It's a strange story, Jane, as wild as the sage. "'But it's true, true as her innocence, that you must believe.'

"'Oldring's masked rider! "'Oldring's daughter!' exclaimed Jane. "'And she's innocent. You ask me to believe much. If this girl is what you say, how could she be going away with the man who killed her father? Why did you tell that? cried Vinter's passionately. Jane's question had roused Bess out of stupefaction.

Her eyes suddenly darkened and dilated. She stepped toward Vinters and held up both hands as if to ward off a blow. Did you kill Aldring? I did, Bess, and I have. I hate myself for it. But you know, I never dreamed he was your father. I thought he'd wronged you. I killed him when I was madly jealous.

For a moment, Bess was shocked into silence. But he was my father, she broke out at last. And now I must go back. I can't go with you. It's all over, that beautiful dream. Oh, I knew it couldn't come true. You can't take me now. If you forgive me, Bess, it'll all.

I'll come right in the end, implored Venters. It can't be right. I'll go back. After all, I loved him. He was good to me. I can't forget that. If you go back to Old Rings men, I'll follow you, and then they'll kill me, said Venters, hoarsely.

Oh, No, Byrne, you'll not come. Let me go. It's best for you to forget me. I've brought you only pain and dishonor. She did not weep, but the sweet bloom and life died out of her face. She looked haggard and sad, all at once stunted, and her hands dropped listlessly, and her head drooped in a slow, final acceptance of a hopeless fate.

Jane, look there, cried Vinters, in despairing grief. Need you have told her? Where was all your kindness of heart? This girl has had a wretched, lonely life, and I'd found a way to make her happy. You've killed it. You've killed something sweet and pure and hopeful, just as sure as you breathe. "'Oh, Byrne, it was a slip. I never thought—I never thought,' replied Jane. How could I tell she didn't know? Lasseter suddenly moved forward, and with the beautiful light on his face, now strangely luminous, he looked at Jane and Vinters, and then let his soft, bright gaze rest on Bess. Well, I reckon you've all had your say, and now it's Lasseter's turn.

Why, I was just praying for this meeting. Bess, just look here. Gently he touched her arm and turned her to face the others, and then outspread his great hand to disclose a shiny, battered gold locket. Open it, he said, with a singularly rich voice. Best complied but listlessly. Jane, venters, come closer, went on Lassiter. Take a look at the picture. Don't you know the woman?

Jane, after one glance, drew back. Millie Earn, she cried, wonderingly. Vinters with tingling pulse, with something growing on him, recognized in the faded miniature portrait the eyes of Millie Urn. Yes, that's Millie, said Lassiter softly. Bess, did you ever see her face? Look hard, with all your heart and soul. The eyes seemed to haunt me, whispered Bess. Oh, but I can't remember. They're eyes of my dreams, but... But...

Lasseter's strong arm went wrong. round her, and he bent his head. Child, I thought you'd remember her eyes. They're the same beautiful eyes you'd see if you looked in a mirror or a clear spring. They're your mother's eyes. You are Millie Earn's child. Your name is Elizabeth Earn. You're not Old Rings' daughter.

You're the daughter of Frank Earn, a man wants my best friend. Look, here's his picture beside Millie's. He was handsome and as fine and gallant a southern gentleman as I ever seen. Frank came of an old family. You come of the best of blood, lass, and blood tells. Beth slipped through his arm to her knees and hugged the locket to her bosom, and lifted wonderful, yearning eyes. It can't be true.

Thank God, lass, it is true, replied Lasseter. Jane and Byrne here, they both recognize Millie. They see Millie in you. They're so knocked out they can't tell you, that's all. "'Who are you?' whispered Bess. "'I reckon I'm Millie's brother, and your uncle. "'Uncle Jim, ain't that fine.' "'Oh, I can't believe. Don't raise me.

"'Burn, let me kneel. "'I see truth in your face and Miss Withersteen's. "'But let me hear it all, all on my knees. "'Tell me how it's true.' "'Well, Elizabeth, listen,' said Lasseter. "'Before you was born, your father made a mortal enemy of a Mormon named Dyer. They was both ministers and come to be rivals. Dyer stole your mother away from her home. She gave birth to you in Texas 18 years ago. Then she was taken to Utah, from place to place,

and finally to the last border settlement, Cottonwoods. He was about three years old when you was taken away from Millie. She never knew what had become of you, but she lived a good while hoping and praying to have you again. Then she gave up and died, and I may as well put in here, your father died ten years ago. Well, I spent my time tracing Millie, and some months back I landed in Cottonwoods. And just lately I learned all about you. I had to talk with Aldrin and told him you was dead, and he told me what I had so long been wanting to know. It was dire, of course, who stole you from Millie. Part reason he was sore because Millie refused to give you Mormon teaching, but mostly he still hated Frank Earned so infernally that he made a deal with Aldrin

to take you and bring you up as an infamous rustler and rustler's girl. The idea was to break Frank Earn's heart if he ever came to Utah, to show him his daughter with a band of low rustlers. Well, Aldrin took you, brought you up from childhood, and then made you his masked rider. He made you infamous. He kept that part of the contract, but he learned to love you as a daughter,

and never let any but his own men know you was a girl. I heard him say that with my own ears, and I saw his big eyes grow dim. He told me how he had guarded you always, kept you locked up in his absence, was always at your side or near you on those rides that made you famous on the sage. He said he and an old rustler whom he trusted had taught you how to read and write. They selected the books for you. Dyer had wanted you brought up the vilest of the vile, and Aldrin brought you up the innocentist of the innocent. He said you didn't know what vileness was.

I can hear his big voice tremble now as he said it. He told me how the men, rustlers and outlaws, who from time to time tried to approach you familiarly, he told me how he shot them dead. I'm telling you this, especially because you showed such shame, saying you was nameless and all that. Nothing on earth can be wronger than that idea of yours, and the truth of it is here. Aldrin swore to me that if die or died, releasing the contract, he intended to hunt up your father and give you back to him.

It seems Aldrin wasn't all bad, and he sure loved you. Venters leaned forward in passionate remorse. Oh, Bess, I know Lasseter speaks the truth, for when I shot Oldring, he dropped to his knees and fought with unearthly power to speak. And he said, Man, why didn't you wait? Bess was. Then he fell dead. And I've been haunted by his look and words.

Oh, Bess, what a strange, splendid thing for Oldring to do. It all seems impossible. But, dear, you really are not what you thought. thought. Elizabeth Earn, cried Jane Witherstein. I loved your mother, and I see her in you. What had been incredible from the lips of men became, in the tone, look, and gesture of a woman, a wonderful truth for Bess. With little tremblings of all her slender body she wrought to and fro on her knees.

The yearning wistfulness of her eyes changed to solemn splendor of joy. She believed. She was realizing happiness. And as the process of thought was slow, so were the variations of her expression. Her eyes reflected the transformation of her soul. Dark, brooding, hopeless belief, clouds of gloom, drifted, paled, vanished in glorious light. An exquisite rose flush, a glow, shone from her face as she slowly began to rise from her knees. A spirit uplifted her.

All that she had held as base dropped from her. Venters watched her in joy too deep for words. By it he divined something of what Lasseter's revelation meant to Bess, but he knew he could only faintly understand. That moment when she seemed to be lifted by some spiritual transfiguration was the most beautiful moment of his life. She stood with parted, quivering lips, with hands tightly clasping the locket to her heaving breast.

A new conscious pride of worth dignified, the old wild, free grace and poise. Uncle Jim, she said, tremulously, with a different smile from any Venters had ever seen on her face. Lasseter took her into his arms. I reckon, it's powerful fine to hear that, replied Lassiter, unsteadily. Venters, feeling his eyes grow hot and wet, turned away, and found himself looking at Jane Witherstein. He had almost forgotten her presence.

tenderness and sympathy were fast hiding traces of her agitation ventures read her mind felt the reaction of her noble heart saw the joy she was beginning to feel at the happiness of others and suddenly blinded choked by his emotions he turned from her also he knew what she would do presently she would make some magnificent amend for her anger she would give some manifestation of her love probably all in a moment if she had loved millie urn so would she love elizabeth urn "'Pear's to me, folks, that we'd better talk a little serious now,' remarked Lassiter, at length. "'Time flies.' "'You're right,' replied Venters, instantly. "'I'd forgotten time, place, danger. "'Lassiter, you're riding away.

"'James leaving Witherstein house?' "'Forever,' replied Jane. "'I fired Witherstain House,' said Lassiter. "'Dire?' "'Question Ventors sharply. "'I reckon where Dyer's gone, there won't be any kidnapping of girls.' "'Ah, I knew it. I told Judkins. And Tull?' went on Venters, passionately. "'Tull wasn't around when I broke loose. By now he's likely on our trail with his riders.

"'Lasseter, you're going into the past to hide till all this storm blows over?' "'I reckon that's Jane's idea. I'm thinking the storm might will be a powerful long time blowing over. I was coming to join you in Surprise Valley. You'll go back now with me? No, I want to take Bess out of Utah. Lasseter best found gold in the valley. We've a saddlebag full of gold.

If we can reach Sterling... Man, how are you ever going to do that? Sterling is a hundred miles. My plan is to ride on, keeping sharp lookout. Somewhere up the trail we'll take to the sage and go round Cottonwoods and then hit the trail again. It's a bad plan. You'll kill the burrows in two days. Then we'll walk.

That's more bad and worse. Better go back down the pass with me. Lasseter, this girl has been hidden all her life in that lonely place, went on Venters. Aldering's men are hunting me. We'd not be safe there any longer. Even if we would be, I'd take this chance to get her out. I want to marry her. She shall have some of the pleasures of life. see cities and people. We've gold. We'll be rich. Why, life opens sweet for both of us. And by heaven, I'll get her out or lose my life in the attempt. I reckon if you go on with them burrows, you'll lose your life all right.

Toll will have riders all over this sage. You can't get out on them, burrows. It's a full idea. That's not doing best by the girl. Come with me and take chances on the rustlers. Lasseter's cool argument made Venter's waiver, not in determination to go, but in hope of success. Bess, I want you to know. Lasseter says the trip's almost useless now. I'm afraid he's right. We've got about one chance in a hundred to go through. Shall we take it? Shall we go on? We'll go on, replied Bess. That settles it, Lasseter. Lasseter spread wide his hands as if to signal to signal. He could do no more, and his face clouded.

Venters felt a touch on his elbow. Jane stood beside him with a hand on his arm. She was smiling. Something radiated from her, and like an electric current accelerated the motion of his blood. Burn, you'd be right to die rather than not take Elizabeth out of Utah, out of this wild country. You must do it.

You'll show her the great world with all its wonders. Think how little she has seen. Think what delight is in store for her. You have gold. You will be free. You will make her happy. What a glorious prospect. I share it with you. I'll think of you, dream of you, pray for you. Thank you, Jane, replied Vinters, trying to steady his voice. It does look bright. Oh, if we were only across that wide, open waste of sage. Burn, the trips as good as made. It'll be safe, easy. It'll be a glorious ride. It'll be a glorious ride. she said softly. Ventor stared. Had Jane's troubles made her insane? Lasseter, too, acted queerly, all at once beginning

to turn his sombrero round in hands that actually shook. You are a rider. She is a rider. This will be the ride of your lives, added Jane in that same soft undertone, almost as if she were musing to herself. Jane, he cried. I give you Black Star and Night. Black Star and Night, he echoed. It's done. Lasseter put our saddlebags on the burrows.

Only when Lasseter moved swiftly to execute her bidding did Venter's clogged brain grasp at literal meanings. He leaped to catch Lassiter's busy hands. No, no, what are you doing? he demanded, in a kind of fury. I won't take her racers. What do you think? I am. It'd be monstrous. Lasseter, stop it, I say. You've got her to save. You've miles and miles to go. Tull is trailing you. There are rustlers in the pass. Give me back that saddlebag.

Son, cool down, returned Lassiter, in a voice he might have used to a child. But the grip with which he tore away Venter's grasping hands was that of a giant. Listen, you fool, boy. Jane sized up the situation. The burrows will do for us. We'll sneak along and hide. I'll take your dogs and your rifle. Why, it's the trick. The blacks are yours, and sure as I can throw a gun, you're going to ride safe out of the sage.

Jane, stop him. Please stop him, gasped Venters. I've lost my strength. I can't do anything. This is hell for me. Can't you see that? I've ruined you. It was through me you lost all.

You've only black star and night left. You love these horses. Oh, I know how you must love them now. And you're trying to give them to me, to help me out of Utah, to save the girl I love. That will be my glory. Then, in the white, wrapped face, in the unfathomable eyes,

Vinter saw Jane Witherstein in a supreme moment. This moment was one wherein she reached up to the height for which her noble soul had ever yearned. He, after disrupting the calm tenor of her peace, after bringing down on her head the implacable hostility of her churchmen. After teaching her a bitter lesson of life, he was to be her salvation. And he turned away again, this time shaken to the core of his soul. Jane Witherstein was the incarnation of selflessness. He experienced wonder and terror, exquisite pain, and rapture.

What were all the shocks life had dealt him compared to the thought of such loyal and generous friendship? And instantly, as if by some divine insight, he knew himself in the remaking, tried, found wanting, but stronger, better, surer. And he wheeled to Jane Witherstein, eager, joyous, passionate, wild, exalted. He bent to her. He left tears and kisses on her hands. Jane, I can't find words now, he said. I'm beyond words. Only, I understand, and I'll take the blacks. "'Don't be losing no more time,' cut in Lasseter. "'I ain't certain, but I think I seen a speck up the sage slope.

Maybe I was mistaken. But anyway, we must all be moving. I've shortened the stirrups on Black Star. Put Bess on him.' Jane Witherstein held out her arms. Elizabeth Earn, she cried, and Bess flew to her. How inconceivably strange and beautiful it was for Venters to see Bess clasped to Jane Withersteen. breast. Then he leaped a stride night. Fenters ride straight on up the slope, Lasseter was saying,

and if you don't meet any riders, keep on till you're a few miles from the village, then cut off in the sage and go round to the trail. But you'll most likely meet riders with tall. Just keep right on till you're just out of gunshot, and then make your cut off into the sage. They'll ride after you, but it won't be no use. You can ride, and Bess can ride. When you're out of reach, turn on round to the west and hit the trail somewhere. Save the horses all you can, but don't be afraid. Black Star and night are good for a hundred miles before sundown, if you have to push them. You can get to Sterland by night if you won't, but better make it along about tomorrow morning. When you get through the notch on the Glaze Trail, swing to the right. You'll be able to see both Glaze and

Stone Bridge. Keep away from them villages. You won't run no risk of meeting any of Oldren's rustlers from Sterlin own. You'll find water in them deep hollows north of the notch. There's an old trail there, not much used, and it leads to Sterlin. That's your trail. And one thing more, if Toll pushes you, or keeps on persistent-like for a few miles, just let the blacks out and lose him and his riders. Lassiter, may we meet again, said Venters, in a deep voice. Son, it ain't likely, it ain't likely. Well, Bess Aldrin, masked rider, Elizabeth Earn, Now you climb on Black Star.

I've heard you could ride. Well, every rider loves a good horse. And last, there never was but one that could beat Black Star. Ah, Lassiter, there never was any horse that could beat Black Star, said Jane, with the old pride. I often wondered, maybe Venters rode out that race when he brought back the Blacks. Sun was Wrangell the best horse? No, Lassiter, replied Venters. for this lie he had his reward in Jane's quick smile.

Well, well, my haulsents ain't always right. And here I'm talking a lot wasting time. It ain't so easy to find and lose a pretty niece all in one hour. Elizabeth, goodbye. Oh, Uncle Jim, goodbye. Elizabeth Earn, be happy. Goodbye, said Jane. Goodbye, oh, goodbye. In lithe, supple action, Bess swung up to Black Star's saddle.

Jane Witherstein, goodbye, called Venters hoarsely. Burn, Bess, Riders of the Purple Sage, goodbye. End of Chapter 22 of Riders of the Purple Sage. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recorded by Lari Ann Walden Writers of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray

Chapter 22 Writers of the Purple Sage Black Star and Night answering to spur swept swiftly westward along the white, slow-rising, sage-bordered trail. Vinters heard a mournful howl from ring, but Whitey was silent. The black settled into their fleet,

long-striding gallop. The wind sweetly fanned Vinter's hot face. From the summit of the front first low-swelling ridge he looked back. Lassiter waved his hand. Jane waved her scarf. Venters replied by standing in his stirrups and holding high his sombrero. Then the dip of the ridge hid them. From the height of the next, he turned once more. Lasseter, Jane, and the burrows had disappeared. They had gone down into the pass. Venters felt a sensation of irreparable loss. Byrne, look, called Bess, pointing up the long slope.

A small, dark, moving dot split the line where Purple Sage met blue sky. That dot was a band of riders. Pull the black, Bess. They slowed from Gallup to canter, then to trot. The fresh and eager horses did not like the check. Burn, Black Star has great eyesight. I wonder if they're told. writers, they might be rustlers, but it's all the same to us. The black dot grew to a dark patch

moving under low dust clouds. It grew all the time, though very slowly. There were long periods when it was in plain sight, and intervals when it dropped behind the sage. The blacks trotted for half an hour, for another half hour, and still the moving patch appeared to stay on the horizon line. gradually, however, as time passed, it began to enlarge, to creep down the slope, to encroach upon the intervening distance. Bess, what do you make them out? asked Vinters. I don't think they're rustlers. They're sage riders, replied Bess. I see a white horse in several grays. Ruslars seldom ride any horses but bays and blacks. That white horse is tulls. Pull the black, Bess. I'll get down and see. cinch up. We're in for some riding. Are you afraid? Not now, answered the girl, smiling.

You needn't be. Best, you don't weigh enough to make Black Star know your own him. I won't be able to stay with you. You'll leave Tall and his riders as if they were standing still. How about you? Never fear. If I can't stay with you, I can still laugh at Tall. Look, Byrne, they've stopped on that ridge. They see us. Yes, but we're too far yet for them to make out who we are. They'll recognize the blacks first. We've passed most of the ridges and the thickest sage. Now when I give the word, let Black Star go and ride.

Venters calculated that a mile or more still intervened between them and the riders. They were approaching at a swift canter. Soon Venters recognized Tull's white horse, and concluded that the riders had likewise recognized Black Star and night. but it would be impossible for Tull yet to see that the blacks were not ridden by Lassiter and Jane. Venters noted that Tull and the line of horsemen, perhaps ten or twelve in number, stopped several times and evidently looked hard down the slope. It must have been a puzzling circumstance for Tull.

Venters laughed grimly at the thought of what Tull's rage would be when he finally discovered the trick. Venters meant to shear out into the sage before Tull could possibly be sure who rode the blacks. The gap closed to a distance of half a mile. Tull halted. His riders came up and formed a dark group around him. Venters thought he saw him wave his arms, and was certain of it when the riders dashed into the sage,

to right and left of the trail. Tull had anticipated just the move held in mind by Venters. "'Now, Bess,' shouted Venters, "'strike north. Go round those riders and turn west.' Black Star sailed, over the low sage, and in a few leaps, got into his stride and was running. Venters spurred night after him. It was hard going in the sage. The horses could run as well there, but keen eyesight and judgment must constantly be used by the riders in choosing ground.

And continuous swerving from aisle to aisle between the brush, and leaping little washes and mounds of the packrats, and breaking through sage, made rough riding. When Venters had turned into a long aisle, he had time to look up at Tull's riders. They were now strung out into an extended line riding northeast. And as Venters and Bess were holding due north, this meant if the horses of Tull and his riders had the speed and the staying power, they would head the blacks and turn them back down the slope. Tull's men were not saving their mounts. They were driving them desperately. Venters feared only an accident to Black Star or night, and skillful riding would mitigate possibility of that. One glance ahead served to show him that Bess could pick a course through the sage

as well as he. She looked neither back nor at the running riders and bent forward over Blackstar's neck and studied the ground ahead. It struck Venter's presently, after he had glanced up from time to time, that Bess was drawing away from him as he had expected. He had, however, only thought of the lightweight Black Star was carrying and of his superior speed. He saw now, that the black was being ridden as never before, except when Jerry Card lost the race to wrangle. How easily, gracefully, naturally, Bess sat her saddle. She could ride. Suddenly Vinters remembered she had said she could ride, but he had not dreamed she was capable of such superb horsemanship. Then all at once, flashing over him, thrilling him, came the recollection that Bess

was Aldring's masked rider. He forgot. tall, the running riders, the race. He let Knight have a free reign and felt him lengthen out to suit himself, knowing he would keep to Black Star's course, knowing that he had been chosen by the best rider now on the Upland Sage, for Jerry Card was dead, and fame had roveled him with only one rider, and that was the slender girl who now swung so easily with Black Star's stride. Vinters had abhorred her notoriety, but now he took passionate pride in her skill, her d'clock. Her daring for power over a horse, and he delved into his memory, recalling famous rides which he had heard related in the villages and round the campfires. Oldring's masked rider. Many times this

strange rider, at once well-known and unknown, had escaped pursuers by matchless riding. He had to run the gauntlet of vigilantes down the main street of Stone Bridge, leaving dead horses and dead rustlers behind. He had jumped his horse over the Gerber Wash, a deep, wide ravine separating the fields of glaze from the wild sage. He had been surrounded north of Sterling, and he had broken through the line. How often had been told the story of day stampedes, of night raids, of pursuit, and then how the masked rider, swift as the wind, was gone in the sage. A fleet dark horse, a slender dark form, a black mask, a driving, a driving, running run down the slope, a dot on the purple sage, a shadowy, muffled steed disappearing in the

night. And this masked rider of the uplands had been Elizabeth Earn. The sweet sage wind rushed in Ventra's face and sang a song in his ears. He heard the dull, rapid beat of night's hooks. He saw a black star drawing away, farther and farther. He realized both horses were swinging to the west. Then gunshots in the rear reminded him of tall. Venters looked back. Far to the side, dropping behind, trooped the riders. They were shooting. Venters saw no puffs of dust, heard no whistling bullets.

He was out of range. When he looked back again, Tull's riders had given up pursuit. The best they could do, no doubt, had been to get near enough to recognize who really rode the blacks. Venters saw Tull, drooping in his saddle. Then Venters pulled night out of his running stride. Those few miles had scarcely warm to the black, but Venters wished to save him. Bess turned, and though she was far away, Venters caught the white glint of her waving hand.

He held night to a trot, and rode on, seeing Bess and Black Star, and the sloping upward stretch of sage, and from time to time the receding black rider is behind. Soon they disappeared behind a ridge, and he turned no more. They would go back to Lasseter's Trail and follow it, and follow in vain. So Venters rode on with the wind growing sweeter to taste and smell, and the purple sage richer, and the sky bluer in his sight, and the song in his ears ringing. By and by, Bess halted to wait for him,

and he knew she had come to the trail. When he reached her, it was to smile at sight of her standing with arms round black star's neck. Oh, burn, I love him, she cried. He's beautiful. He knows, and how he can run. I've had fast horses, but black star. Rangel never beat him. I'm wondering if I didn't dream that.

Best, the blacks are grand. What it must have cost Jane. Ah. Well, when we get out of this wild country with star and night, back to my old home in Illinois, we'll buy a beautiful farm with meadows and springs and cool shade. There we'll turn the horses free, free to roam and browse and drink,

never to feel a spur again, never to be ridden. I would like that, said Bess. They rested. Then, mounting, they rode side by side up the white trail. The sun rose higher behind them. Far to the left, a low line of green marked the side of cottonwoods. Venters looked once and looked no more. Bess gazed only straight ahead.

They put the blacks to the long, swinging rider's canter, and at times pulled them to a trot, and occasionally to a walk. The hours passed, the miles slipped behind, and the wall of rock loomed in the fore. The notch opened wide. It was a rugged, stony pass, but with level and open trail, and Vinters and Bess ran the blacks through it. An old trail led off to the right, taking the line of the wall, and this Venters knew to be the trail mentioned by Lasseter. The little hamlet, glaze, a white and green patch in the vast waste of purple, lay miles down a slope, much like the cottonwood slope, only this descended to the west,

and miles farther west, a faint green spot marked the location of Stone Bridge. All the rest of that world was seemingly smooth, undulating sage, with no ragged lines of canyons to accentuate its wildness. Bess, we're safe, were free, said Venters, we're alone on the sage, we're halfway to Sterling. Ah, I wonder how it is with Lasseter and Miss Witherstein. "'Never fear, Bess. He'll outwit tall. He'll get away and hide her safely. He might climb into Surprise Valley, but I don't think he'll go so far. "'Burn, will we ever find any place like our beautiful valley?'

"'No, but, dear, listen, we'll go back someday, after years, ten years. Then we'll be forgotten, and our valley will be just as we left it.' "'What if balancing rock falls and closes the outlet to the past?' I've thought of that. I'll pack in ropes and ropes, and if the outlets closed, we'll climb up the cliffs and over them to the valley and go down on rope ladders. It could be done. I know just where to make the climb, and I'll never forget. Oh, yes, let us go back. It's something sweet to look forward to. Bess, it's like all the future looks to me. Call me Elizabeth, she said, shyly.

Elizabeth Earn. It's a beautiful. beautiful name, but I'll never forget Bess. Do you know, have you thought that very soon, by this time tomorrow, you will be Elizabeth Venter's? So they rode on down the old trail, and the sun sloped to the west, and a golden sheen lay on the sage. The hours sped now, the afternoon waned. Often they rested the horses. The glisten of a pool of water in a hollow caught Venter's eye, and here he unsaddled the blacks and let them roll and drink and browse. when he and bess rode up out of the hollow the sun was low a crimson ball and the valley seemed veiled in purple fire and smoke it was that short time when the sun appeared to rest before setting and silence like a cloak of invisible life lay heavy on all that shimmering world of sage they watched the sun begin to bury its red curve under the dark horizon well ride on till late he said then you can sleep a little while i'll walk you'll sleep a little while i'll watch

and graze the horses, and we'll ride into Sterling early tomorrow. We'll be married. We'll be in time to catch the stage. We'll tie Black Star and Night behind, and then, for a country not wild and terrible like this. Oh, burn! But look, the sun is setting on the sage, the last time for us till we dare come again to the Utah border. Ten years. Oh, burn, look, so you will never forget. fading purple fire burned over the undulating sage ridges. Long streaks and bars and shafts and spears fringed the far western slope, drifting golden veils mingled with low purple shadows. Colors and shades changed in slow, wondrous transformation. Suddenly Venters was startled by a low,

rumbling roar, so low that it was like the roar in a seashell. Bess, did you hear anything? he whispered. no listen maybe i only imagined ah out of the east or north from remote distance breathed an infinitely low continuously long sound deep weird detonating thundering deadening dying End of Chapter 22. Chapter 23 of Riders of the Purple Sage. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Recorded by Laurie Ann Walden. Writers of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray. Chapter 23. The Fall of Balancing Rock. Through tear-blurred sight, Jane Witherstein watched Venters and Elizabeth Earn and the black racers disappear over the ridge of sage. They're gone, said Lassiter, and they're safe now, and they'll never be a day of their coming happy lives

but what they'll remember Jane Witherstein and Uncle Jim. I reckon, Jane, we'd better be on our way. The burrows obediently wheeled and started down the break with little cautious steps, but Lasseter had to leash the whining dogs and lead them. Jane felt herself bound in a feeling that was neither listlessness nor indifference, yet which rendered her incapable of interest. She was still strong in body, but emotionally tired. That hour at the entrance to deception pass had been the climax of her suffering,

the flood of her wrath, the last of her sacrifice, the supremacy of her love, and the attainment of peace. She thought that if she had little Faye, she would not ask any more of life. Like an automaton, she followed Lasseter down the stage, deep trail of dust and bits of weathered stone, and when the little slides moved with her or piled around her knees, she experienced no alarm. Vague relief came to her in the sense of being enclosed between dark stone walls, deep hidden from the glare of sun, from the glistening sage. Lasseter lengthened the stirrup straps on one of the burrows, and bade her mount and ride close to him. She was to keep the burrow from cracking his little hard hoofs on stones. Then she was

riding on between dark, gleaming walls. There were quiet and rest and coolness in this canyon. She noted indifferently that they passed close under shady, bulging shelves of cliff, through patches of grass and sage and thicket and groves of slender trees, and over white pebbly washes, and around masses of broken rock. The burrows trotted tirelessly, the dogs, once more free, pattered tirelessly, and Lasseter led on with never a stop, and at every open, in place he looked back. The shade under the walls gave place to sunlight, and presently they came to a dense thicket of slender trees, through which they passed to rich green grass and water. Here Lasseter rested the burrows for a little while, but he was restless, uneasy, silent, always listening,

peering under the trees. She dully reflected that enemies were behind them, before them. Still, the thought awakened no dread or concern or interest. At his bidding she mounted and rode on close to the heels of his burrow. The canyon narrowed, the walls lifted their rugged rims higher, and the sun shone down hot from the center of the blue stream of sky above. Lasseter traveled slower, with more exceeding care as to the ground he chose, and he kept speaking low to the dogs. They were now hunting dogs, keen, alert, suspicious, sniffing the warm breeze.

The monotony of the yellow walls broke in, change of color and smooth surface, and the rugged outline of rims grew craggy. Splits appeared in deep breaks and gorges running at right angles, and then the pass opened wide at a junction of intersecting canyons. Lasseter dismounted, led his burrow, called the dogs close, and proceeded at snail pace through dark masses of rock and dense thickets under the left wall. Long he watched and listened before venturing to cross the mouths of side canyons. At length he halted, fled his burrow, lifted a warning hand to Jane, and then slipped away among the boulders, and followed by the stealthy dogs, disappeared from sight. The time he remained absent was neither short nor along to Jane Witherstein. When he reached her sight again he was pale, and his lips were set in a hard line, and his grey eyes glittered coldly. Bidding her dismount, he led the burrows into a cupboard of stones and ceders, and tied them. "'Jane, I've run into the fellers I've been looking for, and I'm going after them,' he said.

"'Why?' she asked. "'I reckon I won't take time to tell you.' "'Couldn't we slip by without being seen?' "'Likely enough, but that ain't my game, and I'd like to know in case I don't come back what you'll do. "'What can I do?' "'I reckon you can go back to Tull, or stay in the pass, and be taken off by rustlers. Which will you do? I don't know.

I can't think very well, but I believe I'd rather be taken off by rustlers. Lasseter sat down, put his head in his hand, and remained for a few moments in what appeared to be deep and painful thought. When he lifted his face, it was haggard, lined, cold as sculptured marble. I'll go. I only mention that chance of my not coming back. I'm pretty sure to come. Need you risk so much?

Must you fight more? Haven't you shed enough blood? I'd like to tell you why I'm going, he continued, in coldness he had seldom mused to her. She remarked it, but it was the same to her as if he had spoken with his old gentle warmth. But I reckon I won't. Only I'll say that mercy and goodness, such as in you, though they're the grand things in human nature, can't be lived up to on this Utah border. Life's hell out here. You think, or you used to think, that your religion made this life heaven. Maybe them scales on your eyes has dropped now.

Jane, I wouldn't have you no different, and that's why I'm going to try to hide you somewhere in this pass. I'd like to hide many more women, for I've come to see there are more like you among your people. And I'd like you to see just how hard and cruel this border life is. It's bloody. You'd think churches and churchmen would make it better. They make it worse.

You give names to things, bishops, elders, ministers, Mormonism, duty, faith, glory. You dream, or you're driven mad. I'm a man, and I know. I name fanatics, followers, blind women, oppressors, thieves, ranchers, rustlers, riders. And we have what you've lived through these last months. It can't be helped, but it can't last always. And remember this. Someday the border will be better, cleaner, for the ways of tin like Lasseter. She saw him shake his tall form erect, look at her strangely and steadfastly, and then, noiselessly, stealthily,

slip away amid the rocks and trees. Ring and Whitey, not being bidden to follow, remained with Jane. She felt extreme weariness, yet somehow it did not seem to be of her body. And she sat down in the shade and tried to think. She saw a creeping lizard, cactus flowers, the drooping burrows, the resting dogs,

an eagle high over a yellow crag. Once the meanest flower, a color, the flight of the bee, or any living thing had given her deepest joy. Lasseter had gone off, yielding to his incurable bloodlust, probably to his own death, and she was sorry, but there was no feeling in her sorrow. Suddenly from the mouth of the canyon just beyond her rang out a clear, sharp report of a rifle. Echoes clapped. Then followed a piercingly high yell of anguish. anguish, quickly breaking. Again echoes clapped in grim imitation. Dull revolver shots,

horse yells, pound of hoofs, shrill nays of horses, commingling of echoes, and again, silence. Lasseter must be busily engaged, thought Jane, and no chill trembled over her. No blanching tightened her skin. Yes, the border was a bloody place, but life had always been bloody. Men were blood-spillers. Phases of the history of the world flashed through her mind, Greek and Roman wars, dark medieval times, the crimes in the name of religion. On sea, on land, everywhere, shooting, stabbing, cursing, clashing, fighting men. Greed, power, oppression, fanaticism, love, hate, revenge, justice, freedom. For these men killed one another. She lay there under the cedars, gazing up through the delicate, lace-like foliage at the blue sky,

and she thought and wondered and did not care. More rattling shots disturbed the noonday quiet. She heard a sliding of weathered rock, a hoarse shout of warning, a yell of alarm, again the clear, sharp crack of the rifle, and another cry that was a cry of death. Then rifle reports pierced a dull volley of revolver shots. bullets swizzed over Jane's hiding place. One struck a stone and whined away in the air. After that, for a time, succeeded desultory shots,

and then they ceased under long, thundering fire from heavier guns. Sooner or later, then, Jane heard the cracking of horse's hoofs on the stones, and the sound came nearer and nearer. Silence intervened until Lasseter's soft, jing step assured her of his approach. When he appeared, he was covered with blood. "'All right, Jane,' he said. "'I come back, and don't worry.' With water from a canteen he washed the blood from his face and hands.

Jane, hurry now. tear my scarf in two and tie up these places. That hole through my hand is some inconvenient. Worse than this at over my ear. "'There, you're doing fine. Not a bit nervous, no trembling. I reckon I ain't done your courage justice. I'm glad you're brave just now. You'll need to be. Well, I was hid pretty good, enough to keep them from shooting me deep, but they were slinging lead close all the time.

I used up all the rifle shells, and then I went after them. Maybe you heard. It was then I got hit. Had to use up every shell in my own gun, and they did, too, as I've seen. Ruslers and Mormons, Jane. And now I'm packing five bullet holes in my carcass, and guns without shells. Hurry now. He unstrapped the saddlebags from the burrows, slipped the saddles and let them lie, turned the burrows loose, and calling the dogs, led the way through stones and cedars to an open

where two horses stood. Jane, are you strong? he asked. I think so. I'm not tired. Jane replied. I don't mean that way. Can you bear up? I think I can bear anything. I reckon you look a little cold and thick, so I'm preparing you. For what? I didn't tell you why I just had to go after them, fellas.

I couldn't tell you. I believe you'd have died. But I can tell you now, if you'll bear up under a shock. Go on, my friend. I've got little Faye. Alive, bad hurt, but she'll live. Jane Witherstein's deadlocked feeling, rent by Lasseter's deep, quivering voice,

leaped into an agony of sensitive life. Here, he added, and showed her where little Faye lay on the grass. Unable to speak, unable to stand, Jane dropped on her knees. By that long, beautiful golden hair, Jane recognized the beloved Faye. But Faye's loveliness was gone. Her face was drawn and looked old with grief. But she was not dead, her heart beat, and Jane Witherstein gathered strength and lived again.

You see, I just had to go after Faye, Lasseter was saying, as he knelt to bathe her little pale face. But I reckon I don't want no more choices like the one I had to make. There was a crippled fella in that bunch, Jane. Maybe Vinter's crippled him. Anyway, that's why they were holding up here. I seen Little Faye first thing, and was hard put to it to figure out a way to get her. And I wanted Hosses, too.

I had to take chances. So I crawled close to their camp. One feller jumped to hauls with little Faye, and when I shot him, of course, she dropped. She's stunned and bruised. She fell right on her head. Jane, she's coming too. She ain't bad hurt.

Faye's long lashes fluttered. Her eyes opened. At first they seemed glazed over. They looked dazed by pain. Then they quickened, darkened, to shine with intelligence, bewilderment, memory, and sudden, wonderful joy. Mother, Jane, she whispered.

Oh, little Faye, little Faye, cried Jane, lifting, clasping the child to her. Now we've got to Russell, said Lasseter, in grim coolness. Jane looked down the pass. Across the mounds of rock and sage, Jane caught sight of a band of riders, filing out of the narrow neck of the pass, and in the lead was a white horse, which, even at a distance of a mile or more, she knew. Tall, she almost screamed.

I reckon. But Jane, we've still got the game in our hands. They're riding tired hosses. Venters likely gave them a chase. He wouldn't forget that. And weave fresh hosses. Hurriedly, he strapped on the saddlebags, gave quick glance to girths and cinches and stirrups,

then leaped astride. Lift little Faye up, he said. With shaking arms, Jane complied. Get back your nerve, woman. This is life or death now. Mind that. Climb up. Keep your wits. Stick close to me. Watch where your horse is going, and ride. Somehow Jane mounted. Somehow found strength to hold the reins, to spur, to cling on, to ride. A horrible quaking, craven fear possessed her soul. Lasseter led the swift flight across the wide space,

overwashes, through sage, into a narrow canyon where the rapid clatter of hoofs wrapped sharply from the walls. The wind roared in her ears. The gleaming cliffs swept by. Trail and sage in grass moved under her. Lasseter's bandaged, blood-stained face turned to her. He shouted encouragement. He looked back down the pass. He spurred his horse. Jane clung on, spurring likewise. and the horses settled from hard, furious gallop into a long striding, driving run. She had never ridden at anything like that pace. Desperately she tried to get in the swing of the horse to be of some help to him in that race, to see the best of the ground and guide him into it.

But she failed of everything except to keep her seat the saddle, and to spur and spur. At time she closed her eyes unable to bear sight of Faye's golden curls streaming in the wind. She could not pray, she could not rail, she no longer cared for herself. All of life, of good, of use in the world, of hope in heaven, entered in Lasseter's ride with little Faye to safety. She would have tried to turn the iron-jawed brute she rode. She would have given herself to that relentless, dark-browed tull. But she knew Lasseter would turn with her, so she rode on and on.

Whether that run was of moments or hours, Jane Witherstein could not tell. Lasseter's horse covered her with froth that blew back in white streams. Both horses ran their limit, were allowed to slow down in time to save them, and went on dripping, heaving, staggering. Oh, Lasseter, we must run, we must run. He looked back saying nothing. The bandage had blown from his head, and blood trickled down his face. He was bowing under the strain of injuries, of the ride of his burden. Yet how cool and gay he looked, how intrepid. The horses walked, trotted, galloped, ran, to fall again to walk. Hours sped or dragged. Time was an instant and eternity. Jane Witherstein felt hell pursuing her

and dared not look back for fear she would fall from her horse. Oh, Lasseter, is he coming? The grim rider looked over his shoulder, but said no word. Faye's golden hair floated on the breeze. The sun shone, the walls gleamed, the sage glistened. And then it seemed the sun vanished, the wall shaded, the sage paled. The horses walked, trotted, galloped, ran, to fall again to walk. Shadows gathered under shelving cliffs. The canyon turned, brightened, opened into a long, wide, wall-enclosed valley.

Again the sun, lowering in the west, reddened the sage. far ahead round scrawled stone appeared to block the pass bear up jane bear up called lassiter it's our game if you don't weaken lasseter go on alone save little fay only with you oh i'm a coward a miserable coward i can't fight or think or hope or pray i'm lost oh lassiter look back is he coming i'll not hold out? Keep your breath, woman, and ride not for yourself or for me, but for Faye. A last breaking run across the sage brought Lasseter's horse to a walk. He's done, said the rider. Oh, no, no, moaned Jane. Look back, Jane, look back. Three, four miles we've come across this valley, and no tall yet in sight.

Only a few more miles. Jane looked back over the long stretch of sage and found the narrow gap in the wall, out of which came a file of dark horses with a white horse in the lead. Sight of the riders acted upon Jane as a stimulant. The weight of cold, horrible terror, lessened, and gazing forward at the dogs, at Lasseter's limping horse, at the blood on his face, at the rocks growing nearer, last at Faye's golden hair, the ice left her veins, and slowly, strangely,

she gained hold of strength that she believed would see her to the safety Lassiter promised. And as she gazed, Lasseter's horse stumbled and fell. He swung his leg and slipped from the saddle. Jane, take the child, he said, and lifted Faye up. Jane clasped her, arms suddenly strong. Their Gannon, went on Lasseter, as he watched the pursuing riders. But we'll beat him yet. Turning with Jane's brothel in his hand,

was about to start when he saw the saddle bag on the fallen horse. I've just about got time, he muttered, and with swift fingers that did not blunder or fumble, he loosened the bag and threw it over his shoulder. Then he started to run, leading Jane's horse, and he ran and trotted and walked and ran again. Close ahead now Jane saw a rise of bare rock. Lasseter reached it, searched along the base, and finding a low place, dragged the weary horse up and over round, smooth stone. Looking backward, Jane saw Toll's white horse, not a mile distant, with riders strung out in a long line behind him.

Looking forward, she saw more valley to the right, and to the left a towering cliff. Lasseter pulled the horse and kept on. Little Fay lay in her arms with wide-open eyes, eyes which were still shadowed by pain, but no longer fixed, glazed in terror. The golden curls blew across Jane's lulls. lips. The little hands feebly clasped her arm. A ghost of a troubled, trustful smile hovered

round the sweet lips. And Jane Witherstein awoke to the spirit of a lioness. Lasseter was leading the horse up a smooth slope towards cedar trees of twisted and bleached appearance. Among these he halted. Jane, give me the girl and get down, he said. As if it wrenched him, he unbuckled the empty black guns with a strange air of finality. He then received Faye in his arms and stood a moment looking backward. Tull's white horse mounted the ridge of round stone, and several bays or blacks followed. I wonder what he'll think when he sees them empty guns. Jane, bring your saddlebag and climb after me. A glistening, wonderful, bare slope with little holes swelled up and up to lose itself in a frowning Yellow Cliff. Jane closely watched her steps and climbed behind Lasseter. He moved slowly.

Perhaps he was only husbanding his strength. But she saw a drops of blood on the stone, and then she knew. They climbed and climbed without looking back. Her breast labored. She began to feel as if little points of fiery steel were penetrating her side into her lungs. She heard the panting of Lassiter and the quicker panting of the dogs. here, he said. Before her rose a bulge of stone, nicked with little cut steps, and above that a corner of yellow wall,

and overhanging that, a vast, ponderous cliff. The dogs pattered up, disappeared round the corner. Lasseter mounted the steps with Faye, and he swayed like a drunken man, and he too disappeared. But instantly he returned alone,

and half ran, half slipped down to her. Then from below peeled up hoarse shouts of angry men. Tall and several of his riders had reached the spot where Lassiter had parted with his guns. "'You'll need that breath, maybe,' said Lassiter, facing downward with glittering eyes. "'Now, Jane, the last pull,' he went on. "'Walk up them little steps. I'll follow and steady you.

Don't think. Just go. Little phase above. Her eyes are open. She just said to me, where's mother Jane? Without a fear or a tremor or a slip or a touch of Lassiter's hand, Jane Witherstein walked up that ladder of cut steps.

He pushed her round the corner of the wall. Faye lay with wide staring eyes in the shade of a gloomy wall. The dogs waited. Lasseter picked up the child and turned into a dark cleft. It zigzagged. It widened. It opened. Jane was amazed at a wonderfully-south.

smooth and steep incline leading up between ruined, splintered, toppling walls. A red haze from the setting sun filled this passage. Lasseter climbed with slow, measured steps, and blood dripped from him to make splotches on the white stone. Jane tried not to step in his blood, but was compelled, for she found no other footing. The saddlebag began to drag her down. She gasped for breath. She thought her heart was bursting.

Slower, slower yet, the rider climbed, whistling. as he breathed. The incline widened. Huge pinnacles and monuments of stone stood alone, leaning fearfully. Red sunset haze shone through cracks where the wall had split. Jane did not look high, but she felt the overshadowing of broken rims above. She felt that it was a fearful, menacing place, and she climbed on in heart-rending effort, and she fell beside Lasseter and Faye at the top of the incline in a narrow, smooth divide. He staggered to his feet, staggered to a huge, leaning rock that rested on a small pedestal. He put his hand on it, the hand that had been shot through, and Jane saw blood drip from the ragged hole.

Then he fell. Jane, I can't do it, he whispered. What? Roll the stone. All my life I've loved to roll stones, and now I can't. what of it you talk strangely why roll that stone i plan to fetch you here to roll this stone see it'll smash the crags loosen the walls close the outlet as jane witherstein gazed down that long incline walled in by crumbling cliffs awaiting only the slightest jar to make them fall asunder she saw tall appear at the bottom and begin to climb a rider followed him another and another.

See, tall, the riders. Yes, they'll get us now. Why, haven't you strength left to roll the stone? Jane, it ain't that. I've lost my nerve. You, Lasseter. I wanted to roll it, meant to, but I can't. Venters Valley is down behind here.

We could live there. But if I roll the stone, we're shut in for always. I don't dare. I'm thinking of you. Lassiter, roll the stone, she cried. He arose tottering, but with set face, and again he placed the bloody hand on the balancing rock. Jane Witherstein gazed from him down the passageway. Tull was climbing.

Almost, she thought, she saw his dark, relentless face. Behind him more riders climbed. What did they mean for Faye, for Lassiter, for her stature, for herself. Roll the stone. Lasseter, I love you. Under all his deathly pallor, and the blood and the iron of seared cheek and lined brow

worked a great change. He placed both hands on the rock, and then leaned his shoulder there and braced his powerful body. Roll the stone! It stirred, it groaned, it grated, it moved, and with a slow grinding as a furrowing as of wrathful relief began to lean. It had waited ages to fall, and now was slow in starting. Then, as if suddenly instinct with life, it leaped hurtingly down to alight on the steep incline,

to bound more swiftly into the air, to gather momentum, to plunge into the lofty, leaning crag below. The crag thundered into atoms. A wave of air, a splitting shock. Dust shrouded the sunset red of shaking rims. Dust shrouded tall as he fell on his knees with uplifted arms. Shaffes and monuments and sections of wall fell majestically. From the depths there rose a long-drawn, rumbling roar. The outlet to Deception Pass closed forever. End of Chapter 23.

This concludes Writers of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray.