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She rode out of the court beside Judkins, through the grove, across the wide lane into the sage, and she realized that she was leaving Withersteen House forever, and she did not look back. A strange, dreamy, calm peace pervaded her soul.
Could I walk or ride down into Cottonwoods without my guns? This is a wild time, Jane Withersteen, this year of our Lord eighteen seventy-one." "No time for a woman!" exclaimed Jane, brokenly. "Oh, Lassiter, I feel helpless lost and don't know where to turn. If I am blind then I need some one a friend you, Lassiter more than ever!" "Well, I didn't say nothin' about goin' back on you, did I?"
The reading of the letter acquainted Jane Withersteen with the fact that something within her had all but changed. She sent no reply to Bishop Dyer nor did she go to see him.
Whether that run was of moments or hours Jane Withersteen could not tell. Lassiter's horse covered her with froth that blew back in white streams. Both horses ran their limit, were allowed slow down in time to save them, and went on dripping, heaving, staggering. "Oh, Lassiter, we must run we must run!" He looked back, saying nothing.
I'm beginning to worry about more than the loss of a herd of cattle. Venters hinted of but tell me, Judkins." "Well, Miss Withersteen, I think as Venters thinks your riders have been called in." "Judkins!... By whom?" "You know who handles the reins of your Mormon riders." "Do you dare insinuate that my churchmen have ordered in my riders?"
His clear and distinct question, meant for Tull as well as for Jane Withersteen, stilled the restlessness and brought a momentary silence. "Ask him," replied Jane, her voice rising high.
Meantime, at the ranch, when Judkins's news had sent Venters on the trail of the rustlers, Jane Withersteen led the injured man to her house and with skilled fingers dressed the gunshot wound in his arm. "Judkins, what do you think happened to my riders?" "I I d rather not say," he replied. "Tell me. Whatever you'll tell me I'll keep to myself.
"Plain!... My herds to wander in the sage to be stolen! Jane Withersteen a poor woman! Her head to be brought low and her spirit broken!... Why, Judkins, it's plain enough." "Miss Withersteen, let me get what boys I can gather, an' hold the white herd. It's on the slope now, not ten miles out three thousand head, an' all steers.
An' it killed thet man, as I seen afterward. Then come a bunch of thunderin' shots nine I calkilated after, fer they come so quick I couldn't count them an' I knew Lassiter hed turned the black guns loose on Dyer. "I'm tellin' you straight, Miss Withersteen, fer I want you to know. Afterward you'll git over it. I've seen some soul-rackin' scenes on this Utah border, but this was the awfulest.
We had hell with the herd that night, an' if the sage an' grass hadn't been wet we, hosses, steers, an' all would hev burned up. But I said I wasn't goin' to tell you any of the tricks.... Strange now, Miss Withersteen, when the stampede did come it was from natural cause jest a whirlin' devil of dust. You've seen the like often. An' this wasn't no big whirl, fer the dust was mostly settled.
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