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"Only birds can peep over those walls, I've gone Oldring one better." Venters 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.
Of all the holes for a rustler!... There's a cavern under that waterfall, and a passageway leading out to a canyon beyond. Oldring hides in there. He needs only to guard a trail leading down from the sage-flat above. Little danger of this outlet to the pass being discovered. I stumbled on it by luck, after I had given up.
"Why did you tell that?" cried Venters, passionately. Jane's question had roused Bess out of stupefaction. Her eyes suddenly darkened and dilated. She stepped toward Venters and held up both hands as if to ward off a blow. "Did did you kill Oldring?" "I did, Bess, and I hate myself for it. But you know I never dreamed he was your father. I thought he'd wronged you.
The descent was gradual, along a stone-walled trail, and Venters 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. Oldring had many holes to his burrow. In searching round in the little hollows Venters, much to his relief, found water.
Bess had loved that splendid, black-crowned giant by her own confession she had loved him; and in Venters's soul again flamed up the jealous hell. Then into the clamoring hell burst the shot that 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 Oldring's eyes and the mystery in his whisper.
Oldring 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. Venters 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.
Suddenly she stepped swiftly to him, with a look and touch that drove from him any doubt of her quick intelligence or feeling. "Oldring 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 Venters. "Bess, I'll not go again," he said, catching her.
A broken whisper, strange as death: "MAN WHY DIDN'T YOU WAIT! BESS WAS " And Oldring 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 clamored to him through all the tumult and stress of his emotions. What a look in the eyes of a man shot through the heart!
Tull'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.
Sometimes not for months, when I was shut up in the cabin." Venters tried to subdue a hot tingling. "You were shut up, then?" he asked, carelessly. "When Oldring went away on his long trips he was gone for months sometimes he shut me up in the cabin." "What for?" "Perhaps to keep me from running away. I always threatened that. Mostly, though, because the men got drunk at the villages.
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