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Updated: June 10, 2025
In his mind perhaps, as certainly as in Venters's, this moment was the beginning of the real race. Venters leaned forward to put his hand on Wrangle's neck, then backward to put it on his flank. Under the shaggy, dusty hair trembled and vibrated and rippled a wonderful muscular activity. But Wrangle's flesh was still cold.
Some forty hours or more later Venters created a commotion in Cottonwoods by riding down the main street on Black Star and leading Bells and Night. He had come upon Bells grazing near the body of a dead rustler, the only incident of his quick ride into the village. Nothing was farther from Venters's mind than bravado.
So she picked and chose and rejected, and chose again, and often paused in sad revery, and began again, till at length she filled the pack. It was about sunset, and she and Fay had finished supper and were sitting in the court, when Venters's quick steps rang on the stones. She scarcely knew him, for he had changed the tattered garments, and she missed the dark beard and long hair.
Wait till he smells the sage!" "Jerd, this horse is an iron-jawed devil. I never straddled him but once. Run? Say, he's swift as wind!" When Venters's boot touched the stirrup the sorrel bolted, giving him the rider's flying mount. The swing of this fiery horse recalled to Venters days that were not really long past, when he rode into the sage as the leader of Jane Withersteen's riders.
An' out here on this border it's the difference between a man an' somethin' not a man. Look what your takin' Venters's guns from him all but made him! Why, your churchmen carry guns. Tull has killed a man an' drawed on others. Your Bishop has shot a half dozen men, an' it wasn't through prayers of his that they recovered. An' to-day he'd have shot me if he'd been quick enough on the draw.
Venters's agitation stilled to the trace of suppressed eagerness in Lassiter's query. "Milly Erne's story? Well, Lassiter, I'll tell you what I know. Milly Erne had been in Cottonwoods years when I first arrived there, and most of what I tell you happened before my arrival. I got to know her pretty well. She was a slip of a woman, and crazy on religion.
She wondered dully at her sitting there, hands folded listlessly, with a kind of numb deadness to the passing of time and the passing of her riches. She thought of Venters's friendship. She had not lost that, but she had lost him. Lassiter's friendship that was more than love it would endure, but soon he, too, would be gone.
Venters's strangely acute faculties grasped the meaning of that limp arm, of the swaying hulk, of the gasp and heave, of the quivering beard. But was that awful spirit in the black eyes only one of vitality? "Man why didn't you wait? Bess was " Oldring's whisper died under his beard, and with a heavy lurch he fell forward.
Well, there was some runnin' of folks before we got to the stores. Then everybody vamoosed except some surprised rustlers in front of a saloon. Venters went right in the stores an' saloons, an' of course I went along. I don't know which tickled me the most the actions of many fellers we met, or Venters's nerve. Jane, I was downright glad to be along.
"Listen!... Listen!" cried Bess, with her lips close to Venters's ear. "You'll hear Oldring's knell!" "What's that?" "Oldring's knell. When the wind blows a gale in the caves it makes what the rustlers call Oldring's knell. They believe it bodes his death. I think he believes so, too. It's not like any sound on earth.... It's beginning. Listen!" The gale swooped down with a hollow unearthly howl.
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