Oldring's Knell
:
Riders Of The Purple Sage
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. No thought
br />
came to him of the defiance and boldness of riding Jane
Withersteen's racers straight into the arch-plotter's stronghold.
He wanted men to see the famous Arabians; he wanted men to see
them dirty and dusty, bearing all the signs of having been driven
to their limit; he wanted men to see and to know that the thieves
who had ridden them out into the sage had not ridden them back.
Venters had come for that and for more--he wanted to meet Tull
face to face; if not Tull, then Dyer; if not Dyer, then anyone in
the secret of these master conspirators. Such was Venters's
passion. The meeting with the rustlers, the unprovoked attack
upon him, the spilling of blood, the recognition of Jerry Card
and the horses, the race, and that last plunge of mad
Wrangle--all these things, fuel on fuel to the smoldering fire,
had kindled and swelled and leaped into living flame. He could
have shot Dyer in the midst of his religious services at the
altar; he could have killed Tull in front of wives and babes.
He walked the three racers down the broad, green-bordered village
road. He heard the murmur of running water from Amber Spring.
Bitter waters for Jane Withersteen! Men and women stopped to gaze
at him and the horses. All knew him; all knew the blacks and the
bay. As well as if it had been spoken, Venters read in the faces
of men the intelligence that Jane Withersteen's Arabians had been
known to have been stolen. Venters reined in and halted before
Dyer's residence. It was a low, long, stone structure resembling
Withersteen House. The spacious front yard was green and
luxuriant with grass and flowers; gravel walks led to the huge
porch; a well-trimmed hedge of purple sage separated the yard
from the church grounds; birds sang in the trees; water flowed
musically along the walks; and there were glad, careless shouts
of children. For Venters the beauty of this home, and the
serenity and its apparent happiness, all turned red and black.
For Venters a shade overspread the lawn, the flowers, the old
vine-clad stone house. In the music of the singing birds, in the
murmur of the running water, he heard an ominous sound. Quiet
beauty--sweet music--innocent laughter! By what monstrous
abortion of fate did these abide in the shadow of Dyer?
Venters rode on and stopped before Tull's cottage. Women stared
at him with white faces and then flew from the porch. Tull
himself appeared at the door, bent low, craning his neck. His
dark face flashed out of sight; the door banged; a heavy bar
dropped with a hollow sound.
Then Venters shook Black Star's bridle, and, sharply trotting,
led the other horses to the center of the village. Here at the
intersecting streets and in front of the stores he halted once
more. The usual lounging atmosphere of that prominent corner was
not now in evidence. Riders and ranchers and villagers broke up
what must have been absorbing conversation. There was a rush of
many feet, and then the walk was lined with faces.
Venters's glance swept down the line of silent stone-faced men.
He recognized many riders and villagers, but none of those he had
hoped to meet. There was no expression in the faces turned toward
him. All of them knew him, most were inimical, but there were few
who were not burning with curiosity and wonder in regard to the
return of Jane Withersteen's racers. Yet all were silent. Here
were the familiar characteristics--masked feeling--strange
secretiveness--expressionless expression of mystery and hidden
power.
"Has anybody here seen Jerry Card?" queried Venters, in a loud
voice.
In reply there came not a word, not a nod or shake of head, not
so much as dropping eye or twitching lip--nothing but a quiet,
stony stare.
"Been under the knife? You've a fine knife-wielder here--one
Tull, I believe!...Maybe you've all had your tongues cut out?"
This passionate sarcasm of Venters brought no response, and the
stony calm was as oil on the fire within him.
"I see some of you pack guns, too!" he added, in biting scorn. In
the long, tense pause, strung keenly as a tight wire, he sat
motionless on Black Star. "All right," he went on. "Then let some
of you take this message to Tull. Tell him I've seen Jerry Card!
...Tell him Jerry Card will never return!"
Thereupon, in the same dead calm, Venters backed Black Star away
from the curb, into the street, and out of range. He was ready
now to ride up to Withersteen House and turn the racers over to
Jane.
"Hello, Venters!" a familiar voice cried, hoarsely, and he saw a
man running toward him. It was the rider Judkins who came up and
gripped Venters's hand. "Venters, I could hev dropped when I seen
them hosses. But thet sight ain't a marker to the looks of you.
What's wrong? Hev you gone crazy? You must be crazy to ride in
here this way--with them hosses--talkie' thet way about Tull en'
Jerry Card."
"Jud, I'm not crazy--only mad clean through," replied Venters.
"Mad, now, Bern, I'm glad to hear some of your old self in your
voice. Fer when you come up you looked like the corpse of a dead
rider with fire fer eyes. You hed thet crowd too stiff fer
throwin' guns. Come, we've got to hev a talk. Let's go up the
lane. We ain't much safe here."
Judkins mounted Bells and rode with Venters up to the cottonwood
grove. Here they dismounted and went among the trees.
"Let's hear from you first," said Judkins. "You fetched back them
hosses. Thet is the trick. An', of course, you got Jerry the same
as you got Horne."
"Horne!"
"Sure. He was found dead yesterday all chewed by coyotes, en'
he'd been shot plumb center."
"Where was he found?"
"At the split down the trail--you know where Oldring's cattle
trail runs off north from the trail to the pass."
"That's where I met Jerry and the rustlers. What was Horne doing
with them? I thought Horne was an honest cattle-man."
"Lord--Bern, don't ask me thet! I'm all muddled now tryin' to
figure things."
Venters told of the fight and the race with Jerry Card and its
tragic conclusion.
"I knowed it! I knowed all along that Wrangle was the best hoss!"
exclaimed Judkins, with his lean face working and his eyes
lighting. "Thet was a race! Lord, I'd like to hev seen Wrangle
jump the cliff with Jerry. An' thet was good-by to the grandest
hoss an' rider ever on the sage!...But, Bern, after you got the
hosses why'd you want to bolt right in Tull's face?"
"I want him to know. An' if I can get to him I'll--"
"You can't get near Tull," interrupted Judkins. "Thet vigilante
bunch hev taken to bein' bodyguard for Tull an' Dyer, too."
"Hasn't Lassiter made a break yet?" inquired Venters, curiously.
"Naw!" replied Judkins, scornfully. "Jane turned his head. He's
mad in love over her--follers her like a dog. He ain't no more
Lassiter! He's lost his nerve, he doesn't look like the same
feller. It's village talk. Everybody knows it. He hasn't thrown a
gun, an' he won't!"
"Jud, I'll bet he does," replied Venters, earnestly. "Remember
what I say. This Lassiter is something more than a gun-man. Jud,
he's big--he's great!...I feel that in him. God help Tull and
Dyer when Lassiter does go after them. For horses and riders and
stone walls won't save them."
"Wal, hev it your way, Bern. I hope you're right. Nat'rully I've
been some sore on Lassiter fer gittin' soft. But I ain't denyin'
his nerve, or whatever's great in him thet sort of paralyzes
people. No later 'n this mornin' I seen him saunterin' down the
lane, quiet an' slow. An' like his guns he comes black--black,
thet's Lassiter. Wal, the crowd on the corner never batted an
eye, en' I'll gamble my hoss thet there wasn't one who hed a
heartbeat till Lassiter got by. He went in Snell's saloon, an' as
there wasn't no gun play I had to go in, too. An' there, darn my
pictures, if Lassiter wasn't standin' to the bar, drinking en'
talkin' with Oldrin'."
"Oldring!" whispered Venters. His voice, as all fire and pulse
within him, seemed to freeze.
"Let go my arm!" exclaimed Judkins. "Thet's my bad arm. Sure it
was Oldrin'. What the hell's wrong with you, anyway? Venters, I
tell you somethin's wrong. You're whiter 'n a sheet. You can't be
scared of the rustler. I don't believe you've got a scare in you.
Wal, now, jest let me talk. You know I like to talk, an' if I'm
slow I allus git there sometime. As I said, Lassiter was talkie'
chummy with Oldrin'. There wasn't no hard feelin's. An' the gang
wasn't payin' no pertic'lar attention. But like a cat watchin' a
mouse I hed my eyes on them two fellers. It was strange to me,
thet confab. I'm gittin' to think a lot, fer a feller who doesn't
know much. There's been some queer deals lately an' this seemed
to me the queerest. These men stood to the bar alone, an' so
close their big gun-hilts butted together. I seen Oldrin' was
some surprised at first, an' Lassiter was cool as ice. They
talked, an' presently at somethin' Lassiter said the rustler
bawled out a curse, an' then he jest fell up against the bar, an'
sagged there. The gang in the saloon looked around an' laughed,
an' thet's about all. Finally Oldrin' turned, and it was easy to
see somethin' hed shook him. Yes, sir, thet big rustler--you know
he's as broad as he is long, an' the powerfulest build of a
man--yes, sir, the nerve had been taken out of him. Then, after a
little, he began to talk an' said a lot to Lassiter, an' by an'
by it didn't take much of an eye to see thet Lassiter was gittin'
hit hard. I never seen him anyway but cooler 'n ice--till then.
He seemed to be hit harder 'n Oldrin', only he didn't roar out
thet way. He jest kind of sunk in, an' looked an' looked, an' he
didn't see a livin' soul in thet saloon. Then he sort of come to,
an' shakin' hands--mind you, shakin' hands with Oldrin'--he went
out. 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.
"He's at Snell's yet. Bern, I hevn't told you yet thet the
rustlers hev been raisin' hell. They shot up Stone Bridge an'
Glaze, an' fer three days they've been here drinkin' an' gamblin'
an' throwin' of gold. These rustlers hev a pile of gold. If it
was gold dust or nugget gold I'd hev reason to think, but it's
new coin gold, as if it had jest come from the United States
treasury. An' the coin's genuine. Thet's all been proved. The
truth is Oldrin's on a rampage. A while back he lost his Masked
Rider, an' they say he's wild about thet. I'm wonderin' if
Lassiter could hev told the rustler anythin' about thet little
masked, hard-ridin' devil. Ride! He was most as good as Jerry
Card. An', Bern, I've been wonderin' if you know--"
"Judkins, you're a good fellow," interrupted Venters. "Some day
I'll tell you a story. I've no time now. Take the horses to
Jane."
Judkins stared, and then, muttering to himself, he mounted Bells,
and stared again at Venters, and then, leading the other horses,
he rode into the grove and disappeared.
Once, long before, on the night Venters had carried Bess through
the canyon and up into Surprise Valley, he had experienced the
strangeness of faculties singularly, tinglingly acute. And now
the same sensation recurred. But it was different in that he felt
cold, frozen, mechanical incapable of free thought, and all about
him seemed unreal, aloof, remote. He hid his rifle in the sage,
marking its exact location with extreme care. Then he faced down
the lane and strode toward the center of the village. Perceptions
flashed upon him, the faint, cold touch of the breeze, a cold,
silvery tinkle of flowing water, a cold sun shining out of a cold
sky, song of birds and laugh of children, coldly distant. Cold
and intangible were all things in earth and heaven. Colder and
tighter stretched the skin over his face; colder and harder grew
the polished butts of his guns; colder and steadier became his
hands as he wiped the clammy sweat from his face or reached low
to his gun-sheaths. Men meeting him in the walk gave him wide
berth. In front of Bevin's store a crowd melted apart for his
passage, and their faces and whispers were faces and whispers of
a dream. He turned a corner to meet Tull face to face, eye to
eye. As once before he had seen this man pale to a ghastly, livid
white so again he saw the change. Tull stopped in his tracks,
with right hand raised and shaking. Suddenly it dropped, and he
seemed to glide aside, to pass out of Venters's sight. Next he
saw many horses with bridles down--all clean-limbed, dark bays or
blacks--rustlers' horses! Loud voices and boisterous laughter,
rattle of dice and scrape of chair and clink of gold, burst in
mingled din from an open doorway. He stepped inside.
With the sight of smoke-hazed room and drinking, cursing,
gambling, dark-visaged men, reality once more dawned upon
Venters.
His entrance had been unnoticed, and he bent his gaze upon the
drinkers at the bar. Dark-clothed, dark-faced men they all were,
burned by the sun, bow-legged as were most riders of the sage,
but neither lean nor gaunt. Then Venters's gaze passed to the
tables, and swiftly it swept over the hard-featured gamesters, to
alight upon the huge, shaggy, black head of the rustler
chief.
"Oldring!" he cried, and to him his voice seemed to split a bell
in his ears.
It stilled the din.
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!"
Oldring kicked a chair out of his way and lunged forward with a
stamp of heavy boot that jarred the floor. He waved down his
muttering, rising men.
Venters backed out of the door and waited, hearing, as no sound
had ever before struck into his soul, the rapid, heavy steps of
the rustler.
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. 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! But she's dead to you--dead to the life
you made her lead--dead as you will be in one second!"
Swift as lightning Venters's glance dropped from Oldring's
rolling eyes to his hands. One of them, the right, swept out,
then toward his gun--and Venters shot him through the heart.
Slowly Oldring sank to his knees, and the hand, dragging at the
gun, fell away. 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.
Bounding swiftly away, Venters fled around the corner, across the
street, and, leaping a hedge, he ran through yard, orchard, and
garden to the sage. Here, under cover of the tall brush, he
turned west and ran on to the place where he had hidden his
rifle. Securing that, he again set out into a run, and, circling
through the sage, came up behind Jane Withersteen's stable and
corrals. With laboring, dripping chest, and pain as of a knife
thrust in his side, he stopped to regain his breath, and while
resting his eyes roved around in search of a horse. Doors and
windows of the stable were open wide and had a deserted look. One
dejected, lonely burro stood in the near corral. Strange indeed
was the silence brooding over the once happy, noisy home of Jane
Withersteen's pets.
He went into the corral, exercising care to leave no tracks, and
led the burro to the watering-trough. Venters, though not
thirsty, drank till he could drink no more. Then, leading the
burro over hard ground, he struck into the sage and down the
slope.
He strode swiftly, turning from time to time to scan the slope
for riders. His head just topped the level of sage-brush, and the
burro could not have been seen at all. Slowly the green of
Cottonwoods sank behind the slope, and at last a wavering line of
purple sage met the blue of sky.
To avoid being seen, to get away, to hide his trail--these were
the sole ideas in his mind as he headed for Deception Pass, and
he directed all his acuteness of eye and ear, and the keenness of
a rider's judgment for distance and ground, to stern
accomplishment of the task. He kept to the sage far to the left
of the trail leading into the Pass. He walked ten miles and
looked back a thousand times. Always the graceful, purple wave of
sage remained wide and lonely, a clear, undotted waste. Coming to
a stretch of rocky ground, he took advantage of it to cross the
trail and then continued down on the right. At length he
persuaded himself that he would be able to see riders mounted on
horses before they could see him on the little burro, and he rode
bareback.
Hour by hour the tireless burro kept to his faithful, steady
trot. The sun sank and the long shadows lengthened down the
slope. Moving veils of purple twilight crept out of the hollows
and, mustering and forming on the levels, soon merged and shaded
into night. Venters guided the burro nearer to the trail, so that
he could see its white line from the ridges, and rode on through
the hours.
Once down in the Pass without leaving a trail, he would hold
himself safe for the time being. When late in the night he
reached the break in the sage, he sent the burro down ahead of
him, and started an avalanche that all but buried the animal at
the bottom of the trail. Bruised and battered as he was, he had a
moment's elation, for he had hidden his tracks. Once more he
mounted the burro and rode on. The hour was the blackest of the
night when he made the thicket which inclosed his old camp. Here
he turned the burro loose in the grass near the spring, and then
lay down on his old bed of leaves.
He felt only vaguely, as outside things, the ache and burn and
throb of the muscles of his body. But a dammed-up torrent of
emotion at last burst its bounds, and the hour that saw his
release from immediate action was one that confounded him in the
reaction of his spirit. He suffered without understanding why. He
caught glimpses into himself, into unlit darkness of soul. The
fire that had blistered him and the cold which had frozen him now
united in one torturing possession of his mind and heart, and
like a fiery steed with ice-shod feet, ranged his being, ran
rioting through his blood, trampling the resurging good, dragging
ever at the evil.
Out of the subsiding chaos came a clear question. What had
happened? He had left the valley to go to Cottonwoods. Why? It
seemed that he had gone to kill a man--Oldring! The name riveted
his consciousness upon the one man of all men upon earth whom he
had wanted to meet. He had met the rustler. Venters recalled the
smoky haze of the saloon, the dark-visaged men, the huge Oldring.
He saw him step out of the door, a splendid specimen of manhood,
a handsome giant with purple-black and sweeping beard. 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? A broken
whisper, strange as death: "MAN--WHY--DIDN'T--YOU WAIT!
BESS--WAS--" And Oldring plunged face forward, dead.
"I killed him," cried Venters, in remembering shock. "But it
wasn't THAT. Ah, the look in his eyes and his whisper!"
Herein lay the secret that had clamored to him through all the
tumult and stress of his emotions. What a look in the eyes of a
man shot through the heart! It had been neither hate nor ferocity
nor fear of men nor fear of death. It had been no passionate
glinting spirit of a fearless foe, willing shot for shot, life
for life, but lacking physical power. Distinctly recalled now,
never to be forgotten, Venters saw in Oldring's magnificent eyes
the rolling of great, glad surprise--softness--love! 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. Bess
was--Herein lay renewed torture for Venters. What had Bess been
to Oldring? The old question, like a specter, stalked from its
grave to haunt him. He had overlooked, he had forgiven, he had
loved and he had forgotten; and now, out of the mystery of a
dying man's whisper rose again that perverse, unsatisfied,
jealous uncertainty. Bess had loved that splendid, black-crowned
giant--by her own confession she had loved him; and in Venters's
soul again flamed up the jealous hell. Then into the clamoring
hell burst the shot that had killed Oldring, and it rang in a
wild fiendish gladness, a hateful, vengeful joy. That passed to
the memory of the love and light in Oldring's eyes and the
mystery in his whisper. So the changing, swaying emotions
fluctuated in Venters's heart.
This was the climax of his year of suffering and the crucial
struggle of his life. And when the gray dawn came he rose, a
gloomy, almost heartbroken man, but victor over evil passions. He
could not change the past; and, even if he had not loved Bess
with all his soul, he had grown into a man who would not change
the future he had planned for her. Only, and once for all, he
must know the truth, know the worst, stifle all these insistent
doubts and subtle hopes and jealous fancies, and kill the past by
knowing truly what Bess had been to Oldring. For that matter he
knew--he had always known, but he must hear it spoken. Then, when
they had safely gotten out of that wild country to take up a new
and an absorbing life, she would forget, she would be happy, and
through that, in the years to come, he could not but find life
worth living.
All day he rode slowly and cautiously up the Pass, taking time to
peer around corners, to pick out hard ground and grassy patches,
and to make sure there was no one in pursuit. In the night
sometime he came to the smooth, scrawled rocks dividing the
valley, and here set the burro at liberty. He walked beyond,
climbed the slope and the dim, starlit gorge. Then, weary to the
point of exhaustion, he crept into a shallow cave and fell
asleep.
In the morning, when he descended the trail, he found the sun was
pouring a golden stream of light through the arch of the great
stone bridge. Surprise Valley, like a valley of dreams, lay
mystically soft and beautiful, awakening to the golden flood
which was rolling away its slumberous bands of mist, brightening
its walled faces.
While yet far off he discerned Bess moving under the silver
spruces, and soon the barking of the dogs told him that they had
seen him. He heard the mocking-birds singing in the trees, and
then the twittering of the quail. Ring and Whitie came bounding
toward him, and behind them ran Bess, her hands
outstretched.
"Bern! You're back! You're back!" she cried, in joy that rang of
her loneliness.
"Yes, I'm back," he said, as she rushed to meet him.
She had reached out for him when suddenly, as she saw him
closely, something checked her, and as quickly all her joy fled,
and with it her color, leaving her pale and trembling.
"Oh! What's happened?"
"A good deal has happened, Bess. I don't need to tell you what.
And I'm played out. Worn out in mind more than body."
"Dear--you look strange to me!" faltered Bess.
"Never mind that. I'm all right. There's nothing for you to be
scared about. Things are going to turn out just as we have
planned. As soon as I'm rested we'll make a break to get out of
the country. Only now, right now, I must know the truth about
you."
"Truth about me?" echoed Bess, shrinkingly. She seemed to be
casting back into her mind for a forgotten key. Venters himself,
as he saw her, received a pang.
"Yes--the truth. Bess, don't misunderstand. I haven't changed
that way. I love you still. I'll love you more afterward. Life
will be just as sweet--sweeter to us. We'll be--be married as
soon as ever we can. We'll be happy--but there's a devil in me. A
perverse, jealous devil! Then I've queer fancies. I forgot for a
long time. Now all those fiendish little whispers of doubt and
faith and fear and hope come torturing me again. I've got to kill
them with the truth."
"I'll tell you anything you want to know," she replied, frankly.
"Then by Heaven! we'll have it over and done with!...Bess--did
Oldring love you?"
"Certainly he did."
"Did--did you love him?"
"Of course. I told you so."
"How can you tell it so lightly?" cried Venters, passionately.
"Haven't you any sense of--of--" He choked back speech. He felt
the rush of pain and passion. He seized her in rude, strong hands
and drew her close. He looked straight into her dark-blue eyes.
They were shadowing with the old wistful light, hut they were as
clear as the limpid water of the spring. 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.
Venters slowly let go of her. There was a violent break in the
force of his feeling--then creeping blankness.
"What--was it--you said?" he asked, in a kind of dull wonder.
"I am his daughter."
"Oldring's daughter?" queried Venters, with life gathering in his
voice.
"Yes."
With a passionately awakening start he grasped her hands and drew
her close.
"All the time--you've been Oldring's daughter?"
"Yes, of course all the time--always."
"But Bess, you told me--you let me think--I made out you
were--a--so--so ashamed."
"It is my shame," she said, with voice deep and full, and now the
scarlet fired her cheek. "I told you--I'm nothing--nameless--just
Bess, Oldring's girl!"
"I know--I remember. But I never thought--" he went on,
hurriedly, huskily. "That time--when you lay dying--you
prayed--you--somehow I got the idea you were bad."
"Bad?" she asked, with a little laugh.
She looked up with a faint smile of bewilderment and the absolute
unconsciousness of a child. Venters gasped in the gathering might
of the truth. She did not understand his meaning.
"Bess! Bess!" He clasped her in his arms, hiding her eyes against
his breast. She must not see his face in that moment. And he held
her while he looked out across the valley. In his dim and blinded
sight, in the blur of golden light and moving mist, he saw
Oldring. She was the rustler's nameless daughter. Oldring had
loved her. He had so guarded her, so kept her from women and men
and knowledge of life that her mind was as a child's. That was
part of the secret--part of the mystery. That was the wonderful
truth. Not only was she not bad, but good, pure, innocent above
all innocence in the world--the innocence of lonely girlhood.
He saw Oldring's magnificent eyes, inquisitive, searching,
softening. He saw them flare in amaze, in gladness, with love,
then suddenly strain in terrible effort of will. He heard Oldring
whisper and saw him sway like a log and fall. Then a million
bellowing, thundering voices--gunshots of conscience,
thunderbolts of remorse--dinned horribly in his ears. He had
killed Bess's father. Then a rushing wind filled his ears like a
moan of wind in the cliffs, a knell indeed--Oldring's knell.
He dropped to his knees and hid his face against Bess, and
grasped her with the hands of a drowning man.
"My God!...My God!...Oh, Bess!...Forgive me! Never mind what I've
done--what I've thought. But forgive me. I'll give you my life.
I'll live for you. I'll love you. Oh, I do love you as no man
ever loved a woman. I want you to know--to remember that I fought
a fight for you--however blind I was. I thought--I thought--never
mind what I thought--but I loved you--I asked you to marry me.
Let that--let me have that to hug to my heart. Oh, Bess, I was
driven! And I might have known! I could not rest nor sleep till I
had this mystery solved. God! how things work out!"
"Bern, you're weak--trembling--you talk wildly," cried Bess.
"You've overdone your strength. There's nothing to forgive.
There's no mystery except your love for me. You have come back to
me!"
And she clasped his head tenderly in her arms and pressed it
closely to her throbbing breast.