Riders of the Purple Sage

ng. His desire to explore Surprise Valley was keen, and on the morning after his long talk with the girl he took his rifle and, calling Ring, made a move to start. The girl lay

to look over the

u be gon

r her recovery from fever, she did not seem at ease unless he was close at hand. It was fear of bein

t of his former excursions and entered new territory. Here the woods began to show open glades and brooks running down from the slope, and presently he emerged from shade into the sunshine of a meadow. The shaking of the high grass told him of the running of animals, what species he could not tell, but from Ring's manifest desire to have a c

at's lucky! The meadow's full of b

entered the oak forest again, and passed through to find himself before massed and jumbled ruins of cliff wall. There were tangled thickets of wild plum-trees and other thorny growths that made passage extremely laborsome. He found innumerable tracks of wildcats and foxes. Rustlings in the thick undergrowth told him of stealthy movements of

outhern wall. Once out of the oaks he found again the low terrace of aspens, and above that the wide, open terrace fringed by silver spruces. This side of the valley contained the wind or water worn caves. As he

for attention to anything else. At length he entered a zone of shade, and looked up. He stood just within the hollow of a cavern so immense that he had no conception of its real dimensions. The curved roof, stained by ages of leakage, with buff and black and

dwellings rested, a long half-circle of connected stone house, with little dark holes that he had fancied were eyes. At length he gained the base of the shelf, and here found steps cut in the rock. These facili

rumbled by the hand of time. It was a stupendous tomb. It had been a city. It was just as it had been left by its builders. The little houses were there, the smoke-blackened stains of fires, the pieces of pottery scattered abo

those polished holes? What time had rolled by since men of an unknown race lived, loved, fought, and died there? Had an enemy destroyed them? Had disease destroyed them, or only that greatest destroyer-time? Venters saw a long line of blood-red hands painted low down upon the yellow roof of stone. Here was strange portent, if not an answer to his queries. The place oppressed him. It was

th her sunny hair contrasting so markedly with her white, wasted cheeks and her hands listlessly clasped and her little bare feet propped in the framework of the rude seat. Venters could have sworn and laughed in one breath at the idea of the connection between this girl and Oldring's Masked Rider. She was the victim of more than accident of fate-a victim to some deep plot the mystery of which burned him. As he stepped forward with a half-formed thought that she was absorbed in watching for his return, she turned her head and saw him. A swift start, a change rather than rush of blood under her white cheeks

ongs to me!" The thought was startlingly new. Like a blow it was in an unprepared moment. The cheery salutation he had ready for her died unborn and he tumbled th

id. "Why, they're pots and cr

ing one of the pots from his canteen,

welling just across here. I got the pottery there. Don't you think we needed s

adn't a great d

laugh, and though he was tempted to look at her, h

d all around in the valley-prett

step without kicking one out. And quail, beaver, foxes, wildcats.

ugh. The-the men say the Pass i

refully, and he essayed a perfectly casual manner, and pretended to be busy assorting pieces of pottery. She must have no cause

ind," she replied, "and never

Pass-how dusty you were, how tired you

for months, when I wa

to subdue a

up, then?" he a

g trips-he was gone for months som

at

that. Mostly, though, because the men got drunk at the vi

at must have be

I ever had. It's a big cabin, high up on a cliff, and I could look out. Then I had dogs and pets I had tamed, and bo

persist in his unconcern and to keep at work. He

mber-you've lived in Dec

women and children; but I can't make anyth

an read-you

ted. He taught me, and years ago an old rustler lived with us, and

rips," mused Venters. "D

s not return for months. I heard him accused once of living

sk and looked up with an eagern

was something besides a rustler. Tell me, what's his purpose here in th

act, as the men say, his rustling cattle is n

A

s men. They wash for gold week in and week out. Then they drive a few cattl

d, the red herd-twenty-five hundred head! That's no

be called in, and Oldring was to drive the herd and keep it till a certain time-I

that deal was made

man wasn't minding her halter! I saw the man who made the deal. He was a little, queer-shaped man, all humped up. He sat his hors

d?" sugges

y to remember-and Jerry Card appeared

r of his encounter with Tull, yet they had been forgotten and now seemed far off, and the interval one that now appeared large and profound with incalculable change in his feelings. Hatred of Tull still existed in his heart, but it had lost its white heat. His affection for Jane Withersteen had not changed in the least; nevertheless, he seemed to view it from another angle and see it as another

," he said. "Haven't you know

ver let me know them. And all the young people I ever sa

e such a remarkable life would have made her. On this day he had found her simple and frank, as natural as any girl he had ever known. About her there was something sweet. Her voice was low and well modulated. He could not look into her face, meet her steady, unabashed, yet wistful eyes, and think of her as the woman she had confessed herself. Oldring's Masked Rider sat before him, a girl dressed as a man. She had been made to ride at the head of infamous forays an

elieved the latter to be true, and he would not relinquish his conviction of the former; and these conflicting thoughts augmented the mystery that appeared to be a part of Bess. In those ensuing days, however, it became clear as clearest li

mber; now that it was gone he seldom thought of her past. Occasionally he tried to piece together the several stages of strange experience and to make a whole. He had shot a masked outlaw the very sight of whom had been ill omen to riders; he had carried off a wounded woman whose bloody lips quivered in prayer; he had nursed what seemed a frail, shrunken boy; and now he watched a girl whose face had become strangely sweet, whose dark-blue eyes were ever upon hi

o telling how long they would be compelled to stay there. Venters stubbornly resisted the entering into his mind of an insistent thought that, clearly realized, might have made it plain to him that he did not want to leave Surprise Valley at all. But it was imperative th

little risk he could pack out some beef. He wished to do this, however, without letting Bess know

descent. Transformed in the shadowy light, it took shape and dimensions of a spectral god waiting-waiting for the moment to hurl himself down upon the tottering walls and close forever the outlet to

back to the girl, and then roll!" he said,

l as contents to his mind, told Venters that he was all but d

t, and swung it over his shoulder. Here was an exceedingly heavy burden, but Venters was powerful-he could take up a sack of grain and with ease pitch it over a pack-saddle-and he made long distance without resting. The hardest work came in the climb up to the outlet and on through to the valley. When

n absent from camp nearly all night, and only remarked solicitously that he appeared to be more tired than usual, and more in the need of sleep. In the afterno

ncluded that he had enough; but it dawned upon him then that he did not want to kill one. "I've rustled Oldring's cattle," he said, and laughed. He noted t

ut a small quarter of beef. The howling of coyotes told him he need have no apprehension that the work of his k

come out. Presently she appeared and walked under the spruce. Then she approached the camp-fire. There was a t

tired of rabbit?" inquired Ve

ed I

ould yo

if we have to live on

rter hanging from the spruce-tree. "We'll have fresh beef fo

get that?" aske

that from

sked-" While she hesitated the ting

risk, but it

red of rabbit. Why! How-Wh

t ni

I was a

es

ght sometime-bu

e former she saw as the primitive woman without thought; in the latter she looked inward, and her gaze was the reflection of a troubled mind. For

hts I've been working while you slept. I've got eight calves co

nt five

of her eyes, her slow pallor, and her exclam

because I knew you were

herself, but for him. This girl, always slow of speech and action, now seemed almost stupid. She put forth a hand that might have indicated the g

herds-they would kill you

gth and the blaze of her died,

go again," he sa

rned to his. Woman's face, woman's eyes, woman's lips-all acutely and blindly and sweetly and terribly tr

rilling tingle unsteadied his nerve, and something-that he had seen and felt in her-that he could not understand

orned himself for the intelligence that made him still doubt. He meant to judge her as she had judged him. He was face to face with the inevitableness of life itself. He saw destiny in the dark, straight path of her wonderful eyes. Here was the simplicity, the sweetness of a girl contending with new and st

you thinkin

-oh

we are here alon

es

t to civilization, or we may have to stay her

thought-t

oice-to go-or to stay

, ringing vibrantly in her voice

gaze from her face-from her eyes. He knew what