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Venters saw, and knew that Lassiter saw, how Jane Withersteen's tortured soul wrestled with hate and threw it with scorn doubt, suspicion, and overcame all. "Bern, 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.
Venters exercised his usual care in the matter of hiding tracks from the outlet, yet it took him scarcely an hour to reach Oldring's 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.
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.
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 innocence 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.
After all, I loved him. He was good to me. I can't forget that." "If you go back to Oldring's men I'll follow you, and then they'll kill me," said Venters, hoarsely. "Oh no, Bern, you'll not come. Let me go. It's best for you to forget mot I've brought you only pain and dishonor." She did not weep. But the sweet bloom and life died out of her face.
He and his band had been active enough in their visits to Glaze and 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. Oldring'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.
I wonder if other members of Oldring's gang are women? Likely enough. But what was his game? Oldring's Mask 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 Oldring to create mystery." Hours passed.
I've stolen Jane Withersteen's cattle!... That's about the strangest thing yet." One more trip he undertook to Oldring's 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.
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. In that exchange of glances he imagined each saw the other in some different guise. It seemed impossible to Venters that this frail girl could be Oldring's Masked Rider.
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.
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