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Updated: May 5, 2025
I couldn't help thinkin' how easy even a boy could hev dropped the great gun-man then!... Wal, the rustler stood at the bar fer a long time, en' he was seein' things far off, too; then he come to an' roared fer whisky, an' gulped a drink thet was big enough to drown me." "Is Oldring here now?" whispered Venters. He could not speak above a whisper. Judkins's story had been meaningless to him.
"You remember what I said about the unseen hand?" "Oh!... Impossible!" "I hope so. But I fear " Venters finished, with a shake of his head. "Bern, 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 Oldring drives the herd," vowed Venters. "No, no!
Venters paused in his rapid-fire questioning, as if to brace him self 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 Oldring?" 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.
"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 any one in all my life. I only rode and rode " "But why why?" he burst out. "Why the name? I understand Oldring made you ride.
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.
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, biding 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.
Yet now, at the moment, before these riders, it was an impossibility to explain. Venters 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 Tull 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.
He remembered inquisitive gaze of falcon eyes. He heard himself repeating: "OLDRING, 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 the eyes only the hard-dying life of a tremendously powerful brute?
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.
They were earnest, solemn in unutterable love and faith and abnegation. Venters 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 Oldring?" he panted, fiercely. "I am his daughter," she replied, instantly.
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