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Updated: May 5, 2025
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, seemed to afford Venters an unutterable fiendish joy because for that magnificent manhood and life he meant cold and sudden death. "Oldring, Bess is alive!
"Haven't you known any women any young people?" "Sometimes there were women with the men; but Oldring 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 thing she had yet said to Venters.
"Nothing on earth, barring the chances of life, can keep me away." Her face flashed and flushed with the 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 Oldring!"
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.
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 Oldring, she seemed to have forgotten it; that, like an Indian who lives solely from moment to moment, she was utterly absorbed in the present.
Then came a shadow and the terrible superhuman striving of his spirit to speak. Oldring shot through the heart, had fought 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.
It was Lassiter 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 Oldring.... And I trailed the horses miles down the slope toward Deception Pass."
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. "Oldring, a word with you!" continued Venters. "Ho! What's this?" boomed Oldring, in frowning scrutiny. "Come outside, alone. A word for you from your Masked Rider!"
An' the truth of it is here. Oldrin' swore to me that if Dyer died, releasin' the contract, he intended to hunt up your father an' give you back to him. It seems Oldrin' wasn't all bad, en' he sure loved you." Venters leaned forward in passionate remorse. "Oh, Bess! I know Lassiter speaks the truth. For when I shot Oldring he dropped to his knees and fought with unearthly power to speak.
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 Bess know of it till after he had made the trip.
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