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Updated: May 5, 2025
"So Oldring takes long trips," mused Venters. "Do you know where he goes?" "No. Every year he drives cattle north of Sterling then does not return for months. I heard him accused once of living two lives and he killed the man. That was at Stone Bridge." Venters dropped his apparent task and looked up with an eagerness he no longer strove to hide.
Then Venters's gaze passed to the tables, and swiftly it swept over the hard-featured gamesters, 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 din.
"To Oldring?" asked Venters, interrupting her in turn. Her lips moved in an affirmative. "I promise not 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.
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 Oldring. And I'm sure helping you will help me, for I was sick in mind. There's something now for me to do.
Then dots of white and black told him there were cattle of other colors in this inclosed valley. Oldring, the rustler, was also a rancher. Venters's 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!"
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 Oldring? Rustlers don't 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 of hers to God for mercy!... Life is strange and cruel.
Bess was Herein lay renewed torture for Venters. What had Bess been to Oldring? The old question, like a specter, 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.
"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."
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 Oldring. 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.
I ran into five yesterday 'way down near the trail to Deception Pass. They were with the white herd." "You still go to that canyon? Bern, I wish you wouldn't. Oldring and his rustlers live somewhere down there." "Well, what of that?" "Tull has already hinted to your frequent trips into Deception Pass." "I know." Venters uttered a short laugh. "He'll make a rustler of me next.
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