Riders of the Purple Sage Page 3

  CHAPTER III. AMBER SPRING

  No unusual circumstances was it for Oldring and some of his men to visitCottonwoods in the broad light of day, but for him to prowl about inthe dark with the hoofs of his horses muffled meant that mischief wasbrewing. Moreover, to Venters the presence of the masked rider withOldring seemed especially ominous. For about this man there was mystery,he seldom rode through the village, and when he did ride through itwas swiftly; riders seldom met by day on the sage, but wherever he rodethere always followed deeds as dark and mysterious as the mask he wore.Oldring's band did not confine themselves to the rustling of cattle.

  Venters lay low in the shade of the cottonwoods, pondering this chancemeeting, and not for many moments did he consider it safe to move on.Then, with sudden impulse, he turned the other way and went back alongthe grove. When he reached the path leading to Jane's home he decidedto go down to the village. So he hurried onward, with quick soft steps.Once beyond the grove he entered the one and only street. It waswide, lined with tall poplars, and under each row of trees, inside thefoot-path, were ditches where ran the water from Jane Withersteen'sspring.

  Between the trees twinkled lights of cottage candles, and far downflared bright windows of the village stores. When Venters got closer tothese he saw knots of men standing together in earnest conversation. Theusual lounging on the corners and benches and steps was not in evidence.Keeping in the shadow Venters went closer and closer until he could hearvoices. But he could not distinguish what was said. He recognized manyMormons, and looked hard for Tull and his men, but looked in vain.Venters concluded that the rustlers had not passed along the villagestreet. No doubt these earnest men were discussing Lassiter's coming.But Venters felt positive that Tull's intention toward himself that dayhad not been and would not be revealed.

  So Venters, seeing there was little for him to learn, began retracinghis steps. The church was dark, Bishop Dyer's home next to it was alsodark, and likewise Tull's cottage. Upon almost any night at this hourthere would be lights here, and Venters marked the unusual omission.

  As he was about to pass out of the street to skirt the grove, he oncemore slunk down at the sound of trotting horses. Presently he descriedtwo mounted men riding toward him. He hugged the shadow of a tree. Againthe starlight, brighter now, aided him, and he made out Tull's stalwartfigure, and beside him the short, froglike shape of the rider Jerry.They were silent, and they rode on to disappear.

  Venters went his way with busy, gloomy mind, revolving events ofthe day, trying to reckon those brooding in the night. His thoughtsoverwhelmed him. Up in that dark grove dwelt a woman who had been hisfriend. And he skulked about her home, gripping a gun stealthily as anIndian, a man without place or people or purpose. Above her hovered theshadow of grim, hidden, secret power. No queen could have given moreroyally out of a bounteous store than Jane Withersteen gave her people,and likewise to those unfortunates whom her people hated. She asked onlythe divine right of all women--freedom; to love and to live as her heartwilled. And yet prayer and her hope were vain.

  "For years I've seen a storm clouding over her and the village ofCottonwoods," muttered Venters, as he strode on. "Soon it'll burst. Idon't like the prospects." That night the villagers whispered in thestreet--and night-riding rustlers muffled horses--and Tull was at workin secret--and out there in the sage hid a man who meant somethingterrible--Lassiter!

  Venters passed the black cottonwoods, and, entering the sage, climbedthe gradual slope. He kept his direction in line with a western star.From time to time he stopped to listen and heard only the usual familiarbark of coyote and sweep of wind and rustle of sage. Presently a lowjumble of rocks loomed up darkly somewhat to his right, and, turningthat way, he whistled softly. Out of the rocks glided a dog that leapedand whined about him. He climbed over rough, broken rock, picking hisway carefully, and then went down. Here it was darker, and shelteredfrom the wind. A white object guided him. It was another dog, and thisone was asleep, curled up between a saddle and a pack. The animalawoke and thumped his tail in greeting. Venters placed the saddle for apillow, rolled in his blankets, with his face upward to the stars. Thewhite dog snuggled close to him. The other whined and pattered a fewyards to the rise of ground and there crouched on guard. And in thatwild covert Venters shut his eyes under the great white stars andintense vaulted blue, bitterly comparing their loneliness to his own,and fell asleep.

  When he awoke, day had dawned and all about him was bright steel-gray.The air had a cold tang. Arising, he greeted the fawning dogs andstretched his cramped body, and then, gathering together bunches of deadsage sticks, he lighted a fire. Strips of dried beef held to the blazefor a moment served him and the dogs. He drank from a canteen. There wasnothing else in his outfit; he had grown used to a scant fire. Then hesat over the fire, palms outspread, and waited. Waiting had been hischief occupation for months, and he scarcely knew what he waited forunless it was the passing of the hours. But now he sensed action in theimmediate present; the day promised another meeting with Lassiter andJane, perhaps news of the rustlers; on the morrow he meant to take thetrail to Deception Pass.

  And while he waited he talked to his dogs. He called them Ring andWhitie; they were sheep-dogs, half collie, half deerhound, superb inbuild, perfectly trained. It seemed that in his fallen fortunes thesedogs understood the nature of their value to him, and governed theiraffection and faithfulness accordingly. Whitie watched him with sombereyes of love, and Ring, crouched on the little rise of ground above,kept tireless guard. When the sun rose, the white dog took the place ofthe other, and Ring went to sleep at his master's feet.

  By and by Venters rolled up his blankets and tied them and his meagerpack together, then climbed out to look for his horse. He saw him,presently, a little way off in the sage, and went to fetch him. In thatcountry, where every rider boasted of a fine mount and was eager for arace, where thoroughbreds dotted the wonderful grazing ranges, Ventersrode a horse that was sad proof of his misfortunes.

  Then, with his back against a stone, Venters faced the east, and, stickin hand and idle blade, he waited. The glorious sunlight filled thevalley with purple fire. Before him, to left, to right, waving, rolling,sinking, rising, like low swells of a purple sea, stretched the sage.Out of the grove of cottonwoods, a green patch on the purple, gleamedthe dull red of Jane Withersteen's old stone house. And from thereextended the wide green of the village gardens and orchards marked bythe graceful poplars; and farther down shone the deep, dark richness ofthe alfalfa fields. Numberless red and black and white dots speckled thesage, and these were cattle and horses.

  So, watching and waiting, Venters let the time wear away. At length hesaw a horse rise above a ridge, and he knew it to be Lassiter'sblack. Climbing to the highest rock, so that he would show against thesky-line, he stood and waved his hat. The almost instant turning ofLassiter's horse attested to the quickness of that rider's eye. ThenVenters climbed down, saddled his horse, tied on his pack, and, witha word to his dogs, was about to ride out to meet Lassiter, when heconcluded to wait for him there, on higher ground, where the outlook wascommanding.

  It had been long since Venters had experienced friendly greeting froma man. Lassiter's warmed in him something that had grown cold fromneglect. And when he had returned it, with a strong grip of the ironhand that held his, and met the gray eyes, he knew that Lassiter and hewere to be friends.

  "Venters, let's talk awhile before we go down there," said Lassiter,slipping his bridle. "I ain't in no hurry. Them's sure fine dogs you'vegot." With a rider's eye he took in the points of Venter's horse, butdid not speak his thought. "Well, did anythin' come off after I left youlast night?"

  Venters told him about the rustlers.

  "I was snug hid in the sage," replied Lassiter, "an' didn't see or hearno one. Oldrin's got a high hand here, I reckon. It's no news up inUtah how he holes in canyons an' leaves no track." Lassiter was silent amoment. "Me an' Oldrin' wasn't exactly strangers some years back when hedrove cattle into Bostil's Ford, at
the head of the Rio Virgin. But hegot harassed there an' now he drives some place else."

  "Lassiter, you knew him? Tell me, is he Mormon or Gentile?"

  "I can't say. I've knowed Mormons who pretended to be Gentiles."

  "No Mormon ever pretended that unless he was a rustler," declaredVenters.

  "Mebbe so."

  "It's a hard country for any one, but hardest for Gentiles. Did you everknow or hear of a Gentile prospering in a Mormon community?"

  "I never did."

  "Well, I want to get out of Utah. I've a mother living in Illinois. Iwant to go home. It's eight years now."

  The older man's sympathy moved Venters to tell his story. He had leftQuincy, run off to seek his fortune in the gold fields had never gottenany farther than Salt Lake City, wandered here and there as helper,teamster, shepherd, and drifted southward over the divide and across thebarrens and up the rugged plateau through the passes to the last bordersettlements. Here he became a rider of the sage, had stock of his own,and for a time prospered, until chance threw him in the employ of JaneWithersteen.

  "Lassiter, I needn't tell you the rest."

  "Well, it'd be no news to me. I know Mormons. I've seen their women'sstrange love en' patience en' sacrifice an' silence en' whet I callmadness for their idea of God. An' over against that I've seen thetricks of men. They work hand in hand, all together, an' in the dark.No man can hold out against them, unless he takes to packin' guns. ForMormons are slow to kill. That's the only good I ever seen in theirreligion. Venters, take this from me, these Mormons ain't just right intheir minds. Else could a Mormon marry one woman when he already has awife, an' call it duty?"

  "Lassiter, you think as I think," returned Venters.

  "How'd it come then that you never throwed a gun on Tull or some ofthem?" inquired the rider, curiously.

  "Jane pleaded with me, begged me to be patient, to overlook. She eventook my guns from me. I lost all before I knew it," replied Venters,with the red color in his face. "But, Lassiter, listen. Out of thewreck I saved a Winchester, two Colts, and plenty of shells. I packedthese down into Deception Pass. There, almost every day for six months,I have practiced with my rifle till the barrel burnt my hands. Practisedthe draw--the firing of a Colt, hour after hour!"

  "Now that's interestin' to me," said Lassiter, with a quick uplift ofhis head and a concentration of his gray gaze on Venters. "Could youthrow a gun before you began that practisin'?"

  "Yes. And now..." Venters made a lightning-swift movement.

  Lassiter smiled, and then his bronzed eyelids narrowed till his eyesseemed mere gray slits. "You'll kill Tull!" He did not question; heaffirmed.

  "I promised Jane Withersteen I'd try to avoid Tull. I'll keep my word.But sooner or later Tull and I will meet. As I feel now, if he evenlooks at me I'll draw!"

  "I reckon so. There'll be hell down there, presently." He paused amoment and flicked a sage-brush with his quirt. "Venters, seein' asyou're considerable worked up, tell me Milly Erne's story."

  Venters's agitation stilled to the trace of suppressed eagerness inLassiter's query.

  "Milly Erne's story? Well, Lassiter, I'll tell you what I know. MillyErne had been in Cottonwoods years when I first arrived there, and mostof what I tell you happened before my arrival. I got to know her prettywell. She was a slip of a woman, and crazy on religion. I conceived anidea that I never mentioned--I thought she was at heart more Gentilethan Mormon. But she passed as a Mormon, and certainly she had theMormon woman's locked lips. You know, in every Mormon village there arewomen who seem mysterious to us, but about Milly there was more thanthe ordinary mystery. When she came to Cottonwoods she had a beautifullittle girl whom she loved passionately. Milly was not known openly inCottonwoods as a Mormon wife. That she really was a Mormon wife I haveno doubt. Perhaps the Mormon's other wife or wives would not acknowledgeMilly. Such things happen in these villages. Mormon wives wearyokes, but they get jealous. Well, whatever had brought Milly to thiscountry--love or madness of religion--she repented of it. She gave upteaching the village school. She quit the church. And she began tofight Mormon upbringing for her baby girl. Then the Mormons put on thescrews--slowly, as is their way. At last the child disappeared. 'Lost'was the report. The child was stolen, I know that. So do you. Thatwrecked Milly Erne. But she lived on in hope. She became a slave. Sheworked her heart and soul and life out to get back her child. She neverheard of it again. Then she sank.... I can see her now, a frail thing, sotransparent you could almost look through her--white like ashes--and hereyes!... Her eyes have always haunted me. She had one real friend--JaneWithersteen. But Jane couldn't mend a broken heart, and Milly died."

  For moments Lassiter did not speak, or turn his head.

  "The man!" he exclaimed, presently, in husky accents.

  "I haven't the slightest idea who the Mormon was," replied Venters; "norhas any Gentile in Cottonwoods."

  "Does Jane Withersteen know?"

  "Yes. But a red-hot running-iron couldn't burn that name out of her!"

  Without further speech Lassiter started off, walking his horse andVenters followed with his dogs. Half a mile down the slope they entereda luxuriant growth of willows, and soon came into an open space carpetedwith grass like deep green velvet. The rushing of water and singing ofbirds filled their ears. Venters led his comrade to a shady bower andshowed him Amber Spring. It was a magnificent outburst of clear, amberwater pouring from a dark, stone-lined hole. Lassiter knelt and drank,lingered there to drink again. He made no comment, but Venters did notneed words. Next to his horse a rider of the sage loved a spring. Andthis spring was the most beautiful and remarkable known to the uplandriders of southern Utah. It was the spring that made old Withersteen afeudal lord and now enabled his daughter to return the toll which herfather had exacted from the toilers of the sage.

  The spring gushed forth in a swirling torrent, and leaped down joyouslyto make its swift way along a willow-skirted channel. Moss and ferns andlilies overhung its green banks. Except for the rough-hewn stones thatheld and directed the water, this willow thicket and glade had been leftas nature had made it.

  Below were artificial lakes, three in number, one above the otherin banks of raised earth, and round about them rose the loftygreen-foliaged shafts of poplar trees. Ducks dotted the glassy surfaceof the lakes; a blue heron stood motionless on a water-gate; kingfishersdarted with shrieking flight along the shady banks; a white hawksailed above; and from the trees and shrubs came the song of robinsand cat-birds. It was all in strange contrast to the endless slopes oflonely sage and the wild rock environs beyond. Venters thought of thewoman who loved the birds and the green of the leaves and the murmur ofthe water.

  Next on the slope, just below the third and largest lake, were corralsand a wide stone barn and open sheds and coops and pens. Here wereclouds of dust, and cracking sounds of hoofs, and romping colts andheehawing burros. Neighing horses trampled to the corral fences. Andon the little windows of the barn projected bobbing heads of bays andblacks and sorrels. When the two men entered the immense barnyard, fromall around the din increased. This welcome, however, was not seconded bythe several men and boys who vanished on sight.

  Venters and Lassiter were turning toward the house when Jane appeared inthe lane leading a horse. In riding-skirt and blouse she seemed to havelost some of her statuesque proportions, and looked more like a girlrider than the mistress of Withersteen. She was brightly smiling, andher greeting was warmly cordial.

  "Good news," she announced. "I've been to the village. All is quiet.I expected--I don't know what. But there's no excitement. And Tull hasridden out on his way to Glaze."

  "Tull gone?" inquired Venters, with surprise. He was wondering whatcould have taken Tull away. Was it to avoid another meeting withLassiter that he went? Could it have any connection with the probablenearness of Oldring and his gang?

  "Gone, yes, thank goodness," replied Jane. "Now I'll have peace for awhile. Lassiter, I want you to see my horses. You are a rider, andyou mu
st be a judge of horseflesh. Some of mine have Arabian blood.My father got his best strain in Nevada from Indians who claimed theirhorses were bred down from the original stock left by the Spaniards."

  "Well, ma'am, the one you've been ridin' takes my eye," said Lassiter,as he walked round the racy, clean-limbed, and fine-pointed roan.

  "Where are the boys?" she asked, looking about. "Jerd, Paul, where areyou? Here, bring out the horses."

  The sound of dropping bars inside the barn was the signal for the horsesto jerk their heads in the windows, to snort and stamp. Then they camepounding out of the door, a file of thoroughbreds, to plunge aboutthe barnyard, heads and tails up, manes flying. They halted afar off,squared away to look, came slowly forward with whinnies for theirmistress, and doubtful snorts for the strangers and their horses.

  "Come--come--come," called Jane, holding out her hands. "Why,Bells--Wrangle, where are your manners? Come, Black Star--come, Night.Ah, you beauties! My racers of the sage!"

  Only two came up to her; those she called Night and Black Star. Ventersnever looked at them without delight. The first was soft dead black, theother glittering black, and they were perfectly matched in size, bothbeing high and long-bodied, wide through the shoulders, with lithe,powerful legs. That they were a woman's pets showed in the gloss ofskin, the fineness of mane. It showed, too, in the light of big eyes andthe gentle reach of eagerness.

  "I never seen their like," was Lassiter's encomium, "an' in my day I'veseen a sight of horses. Now, ma'am, if you was wantin' to make a longan' fast ride across the sage--say to elope--"

  Lassiter ended there with dry humor, yet behind that was meaning. Janeblushed and made arch eyes at him.

  "Take care, Lassiter, I might think that a proposal," she replied,gaily. "It's dangerous to propose elopement to a Mormon woman. Well,I was expecting you. Now will be a good hour to show you Milly Erne'sgrave. The day-riders have gone, and the night-riders haven't come in.Bern, what do you make of that? Need I worry? You know I have to be madeto worry."

  "Well, it's not usual for the night shift to ride in so late," repliedVenters, slowly, and his glance sought Lassiter's. "Cattle are usuallyquiet after dark. Still, I've known even a coyote to stampede your whiteherd."

  "I refuse to borrow trouble. Come," said Jane.

  They mounted, and, with Jane in the lead, rode down the lane, and,turning off into a cattle trail, proceeded westward. Venters's dogstrotted behind them. On this side of the ranch the outlook was differentfrom that on the other; the immediate foreground was rough and the sagemore rugged and less colorful; there were no dark-blue lines of canyonsto hold the eye, nor any uprearing rock walls. It was a long roll andslope into gray obscurity. Soon Jane left the trail and rode into thesage, and presently she dismounted and threw her bridle. The men didlikewise. Then, on foot, they followed her, coming out at length on therim of a low escarpment. She passed by several little ridges of earth tohalt before a faintly defined mound. It lay in the shade of a sweepingsage-brush close to the edge of the promontory; and a rider could havejumped his horse over it without recognizing a grave.

  "Here!"

  She looked sad as she spoke, but she offered no explanation for theneglect of an unmarked, uncared-for grave. There was a little bunch ofpale, sweet lavender daisies, doubtless planted there by Jane.

  "I only come here to remember and to pray," she said. "But I leave notrail!"

  A grave in the sage! How lonely this resting-place of Milly Erne! Thecottonwoods or the alfalfa fields were not in sight, nor was there anyrock or ridge or cedar to lend contrast to the monotony. Gray slopes,tinging the purple, barren and wild, with the wind waving the sage,swept away to the dim horizon.

  Lassiter looked at the grave and then out into space. At that moment heseemed a figure of bronze.

  Jane touched Venters's arm and led him back to the horses.

  "Bern!" cried Jane, when they were out of hearing. "Suppose Lassiterwere Milly's husband--the father of that little girl lost so long ago!"

  "It might be, Jane. Let us ride on. If he wants to see us again he'llcome."

  So they mounted and rode out to the cattle trail and began to climb.From the height of the ridge, where they had started down, Venterslooked back. He did not see Lassiter, but his glance, drawn irresistiblyfarther out on the gradual slope, caught sight of a moving cloud ofdust.

  "Hello, a rider!"

  "Yes, I see," said Jane.

  "That fellow's riding hard. Jane, there's something wrong."

  "Oh yes, there must be.... How he rides!"

  The horse disappeared in the sage, and then puffs of dust marked hiscourse.

  "He's short-cut on us--he's making straight for the corrals."

  Venters and Jane galloped their steeds and reined in at the turning ofthe lane. This lane led down to the right of the grove. Suddenly intoits lower entrance flashed a bay horse. Then Venters caught the fastrhythmic beat of pounding hoofs. Soon his keen eye recognized the swingof the rider in his saddle.

  "It's Judkins, your Gentile rider!" he cried. "Jane, when Judkins rideslike that it means hell!"