SILVER SPRUCE AND ASPENS
The rest of that night seemed to Venters only a few moments of
starlight, a dark overcasting of sky, an hour or so of gray gloom, and
then the lighting of dawn.
When he had bestirred himself, feeding the hungry dogs and breaking his
long fast, and had repacked his saddle-bags, it was clear daylight,
though the sun had not tipped the yellow wall in the east. He concluded
to make the climb and descent into Surprise Valley in one trip. To that
end he tied his blanket upon Ring and gave Whitie the extra lasso and
the rabbit to carry. Then, with the rifle and saddle-bags slung upon
his back, he took up the girl. She did not awaken from heavy slumber.
That climb up under the rugged, menacing brows of the broken cliffs, in
the face of a grim, leaning boulder that seemed to be weary of its
age-long wavering, was a tax on strength and nerve that Venters felt
equally with something sweet and strangely exulting in its
accomplishment. He did not pause until he gained the narrow divide and
there he rested. Balancing Rock loomed huge, cold in the gray light of
dawn, a thing without life, yet it spoke silently to Venters: “I am
waiting to plunge down, to shatter and crash, roar and boom, to bury
your trail, and close forever the outlet to Deception Pass!”
[Illustration: He did not pause until he gained the narrow divide]
On the descent of the other side Venters had easy going, but was
somewhat concerned because Whitie appeared to have succumbed to
temptation, and while carrying the rabbit was also chewing on it. And
Ring evidently regarded this as an injury to himself, especially as he
had carried the heavier load. Presently he snapped at one end of the
rabbit and refused to let go. But his action prevented Whitie from
further misdoing, and then the two dogs pattered down, carrying the
rabbit between them.
Venters turned out of the gorge, and suddenly paused stock-still,
astounded at the scene before him. The curve of the great stone bridge
had caught the sunrise, and through the magnificent arch burst a
glorious stream of gold that shone with a long slant down into the
center of Surprise Valley. Only through the arch did any sunlight pass,
so that all the rest of the valley lay still asleep, dark green,
mysterious, shadowy, merging its level into walls as misty and soft as
morning clouds.
Venters then descended, passing through the arch, looking up at its
tremendous height and sweep. It spanned the opening to Surprise Valley,
stretching in almost perfect curve from rim to rim. Even in his hurry
and concern Venters could not but feel its majesty, and the thought
came to him that the cliff-dwellers must have regarded it as an object
of worship.
Down, down, down Venters strode, more and more feeling the weight of
his burden as he descended, and still the valley lay below him. As all
other cañons and coves and valleys had deceived him, so had this deep,
nestling oval. At length he passed beyond the slope of weathered stone
that spread fan-shape from the arch, and encountered a grassy terrace
running to the right and about on a level with the tips of the oaks and
cottonwoods below. Scattered here and there upon this shelf were clumps
of aspens, and he walked through them into a glade that surpassed in
beauty and adaptability for a wild home, any place he had ever seen.
Silver spruces bordered the base of a precipitous wall that rose
loftily. Caves indented its surface, and there were no detached ledges
or weathered sections that might dislodge a stone. The level ground,
beyond the spruces, dropped down into a little ravine. This was one
dense line of slender aspens from which came the low splashing of
water. And the terrace, lying open to the west, afforded unobstructed
view of the valley of green treetops.
For his camp Venters chose a shady, grassy plot between the silver
spruces and the cliff. Here, in the stone wall, had been wonderfully
carved by wind or washed by water several deep caves above the level of
the terrace. They were clean, dry, roomy.
He cut spruce boughs and made a bed in the largest cave and laid the
girl there. The first intimation that he had of her being aroused from
sleep or lethargy was a low call for water.
He hurried down into the ravine with his canteen. It was a shallow,
grass-green place with aspens growing up everywhere. To his delight he
found a tiny brook of swift-running water. Its faint tinge of amber
reminded him of the spring at Cottonwoods, and the thought gave him a
little shock. The water was so cold it made his fingers tingle as he
dipped the canteen. Having returned to the cave, he was glad to see the
girl drink thirstily. This time he noted that she could raise her head
slightly without his help.
“You were thirsty,” he said. “It’s good water. I’ve found a fine place.
Tell me—how do you feel?”
“There’s pain—here,” she replied, and moved her hand to her left side.
“Why, that’s strange! Your wounds are on your right side. I believe
you’re hungry. Is the pain a kind of dull ache—a gnawing?”
“It’s like—that.”
“Then it’s hunger.” Venters laughed, and suddenly caught himself with a
quick breath and felt again the little shock. When had he laughed?
“It’s hunger,” he went on. “I’ve had that gnaw many a time. I’ve got it
now. But you mustn’t eat. You can have all the water you want, but no
food just yet.”
“Won’t I—starve?”
“No, people don’t starve easily. I’ve discovered that. You must lie
perfectly still and rest and sleep—for days.”
“My hands—are dirty; my face feels—so hot and sticky; my boots hurt.”
It was her longest speech as yet, and it trailed off in a whisper.
“Well, I’m a fine nurse!”
It annoyed him that he had never thought of these things. But then,
awaiting her death and thinking of her comfort were vastly different
matters. He unwrapped the blanket which covered her. What a slender
girl she was! No wonder he had been able to carry her miles and pack
her up that slippery ladder of stone. Her boots were of soft, fine
leather, reaching clear to her knees. He recognized the make as one of
a boot-maker in Sterling. Her spurs, that he had stupidly neglected to
remove, consisted of silver frames and gold chains, and the rowels,
large as silver dollars, were fancifully engraved. The boots slipped
off rather hard. She wore heavy woollen rider’s stockings, half length,
and these were pulled up over the ends of her short trousers. Venters
took off the stockings to note her little feet were red and swollen. He
bathed them. Then he removed his scarf and bathed her face and hands.
“I must see your wounds now,” he said, gently.
She made no reply, but watched him steadily as he opened her blouse and
untied the bandage. His strong fingers trembled a little as he removed
it. If the wounds had reopened! A chill struck him as he saw the angry
red bullet-mark, and a tiny stream of blood winding from it down her
white breast. Very carefully he lifted her to see that the wound in her
back had closed perfectly. Then he washed the blood from her breast,
bathed the wound, and left it unbandaged, open to the air.
Her eyes thanked him.
“Listen,” he said, earnestly. “I’ve had some wounds, and I’ve seen
many. I know a little about them. The hole in your back has closed. If
you lie still three days the one in your breast will close and you’ll
be safe. The danger from hemorrhage will be over.”
He had spoken with earnest sincerity, almost eagerness.
“Why—do you—want me—to get well?” she asked, wonderingly.
The simple question seemed unanswerable except on grounds of humanity.
But the circumstances under which he had shot this strange girl, the
shock and realization, the waiting for death, the hope, had resulted in
a condition of mind wherein Venters wanted her to live more than he had
ever wanted anything. Yet he could not tell why. He believed the
killing of the rustler and the subsequent excitement had disturbed him.
For how else could he explain the throbbing of his brain, the heat of
his blood, the undefined sense of full hours, charged, vibrant with
pulsating mystery where once they had dragged in loneliness?
“I shot you,” he said, slowly, “and I want you to get well so I shall
not have killed a woman. But—for your own sake, too—”
A terrible bitterness darkened her eyes, and her lips quivered.
“Hush,” said Venters. “You’ve talked too much already.”
In her unutterable bitterness he saw a darkness of mood that could not
have been caused by her present weak and feverish state. She hated the
life she had led, that she probably had been compelled to lead. She had
suffered some unforgivable wrong at the hands of Oldring. With that
conviction Venters felt a shame throughout his body, and it marked the
rekindling of fierce anger and ruthlessness. In the past long year he
had nursed resentment. He had hated the wilderness—the loneliness of
the uplands. He had waited for something to come to pass. It had come.
Like an Indian stealing horses he had skulked into the recesses of the
cañons. He had found Oldring’s retreat; he had killed a rustler; he had
shot an unfortunate girl, then had saved her from this unwitting act,
and he meant to save her from the consequent wasting of blood, from
fever and weakness. Starvation he had to fight for her and for himself.
Where he had been sick at the letting of blood, now he remembered it in
grim, cold calm. And as he lost that softness of nature, so he lost his
fear of men. He would watch for Oldring, biding his time, and he would
kill this great black-bearded rustler who had held a girl in bondage,
who had used her to his infamous ends.
Venters surmised this much of the change in him—idleness had passed;
keen, fierce vigor flooded his mind and body; all that had happened to
him at Cottonwoods seemed remote and hard to recall; the difficulties
and perils of the present absorbed him, held him in a kind of spell.
First, then, he fitted up the little cave adjoining the girl’s room for
his own comfort and use. His next work was to build a fireplace of
stones and to gather a store of wood. That done, he spilled the
contents of his saddle-bags upon the grass and took stock. His outfit
consisted of a small-handled axe, a hunting-knife, a large number of
cartridges for rifle or revolver, a tin plate, a cup, and a fork and
spoon, a quantity of dried beef and dried fruits, and small canvas bags
containing tea, sugar, salt, and pepper. For him alone this supply
would have been bountiful to begin a sojourn in the wilderness, but he
was no longer alone. Starvation in the uplands was not an unheard-of
thing; he did not, however, worry at all on that score, and feared only
his possible inability to supply the needs of a woman in a weakened and
extremely delicate condition.
If there was no game in the valley—a contingency he doubted—it would
not be a great task for him to go by night to Oldring’s herd and pack
out a calf. The exigency of the moment was to ascertain if there were
game in Surprise Valley. Whitie still guarded the dilapidated rabbit,
and Ring slept near by under a spruce. Venters called Ring and went to
the edge of the terrace, and there halted to survey the valley.
He was prepared to find it larger than his unstudied glances had made
it appear; for more than a casual idea of dimensions and a hasty
conception of oval shape and singular beauty he had not had time. Again
the felicity of the name he had given the valley struck him forcibly.
Around the red perpendicular walls, except under the great arc of
stone, ran a terrace fringed at the cliff-base by silver spruces; below
that first terrace sloped another wider one densely overgrown with
aspens, and the center of the valley was a level circle of oaks and
alders, with the glittering green line of willows and cottonwood
dividing it in half. Venters saw a number and variety of birds flitting
among the trees. To his left, facing the stone bridge, an enormous
cavern opened in the wall; and low down, just above the tree-tops, he
made out a long shelf of cliff-dwellings, with little black, staring
windows or doors. Like eyes they were, and seemed to watch him. The few
cliff-dwellings he had seen—all ruins—had left him with haunting memory
of age and solitude and of something past. He had come, in a way, to be
a cliff-dweller himself, and those silent eyes would look down upon
him, as if in surprise that after thousands of years a man had invaded
the valley. Venters felt sure that he was the only white man who had
ever walked under the shadow of the wonderful stone bridge, down into
that wonderful valley with its circle of caves and its terraced rings
of silver spruce and aspens.
The dog growled below and rushed into the forest. Venters ran down the
declivity to enter a zone of light shade streaked with sunshine. The
oak-trees were slender, none more than half a foot thick, and they grew
close together, intermingling their branches. Ring came running back
with a rabbit in his mouth. Venters took the rabbit and, holding the
dog near him, stole softly on. There were fluttering of wings among the
branches and quick bird-notes, and rustling of dead leaves and rapid
patterings. Venters crossed well-worn trails marked with fresh tracks;
and when he had stolen on a little farther he saw many birds and
running quail, and more rabbits than he could count. He had not
penetrated the forest of oaks for a hundred yards, had not approached
anywhere near the line of willows and cottonwoods which he knew grew
along a stream. But he had seen enough to know that Surprise Valley was
the home of many wild creatures.
Venters returned to camp. He skinned the rabbits, and gave the dogs the
one they had quarreled over, and the skin of this he dressed and hung
up to dry, feeling that he would like to keep it. It was a particularly
rich, furry pelt with a beautiful white tail. Venters remembered that
but for the bobbing of that white tail catching his eye he would not
have espied the rabbit, and he would never have discovered Surprise
Valley. Little incidents of chance like this had turned him here and
there in Deception Pass; and now they had assumed to him the
significance and direction of destiny.
His good fortune in the matter of game at hand brought to his mind the
necessity of keeping it in the valley. Therefore he took the axe and
cut bundles of aspens and willows, and packed them up under the bridge
to the narrow outlet of the gorge. Here he began fashioning a fence, by
driving aspens into the ground and lacing them fast with willows. Trip
after trip he made down for more building material, and the afternoon
had passed when he finished the work to his satisfaction. Wildcats
might scale the fence, but no coyote could come in to search for prey,
and no rabbits or other small game could escape from the valley.
Upon returning to camp he set about getting his supper at ease, around
a fine fire, without hurry or fear of discovery. After hard work that
had definite purpose, this freedom and comfort gave him peculiar
satisfaction. He caught himself often, as he kept busy round the
camp-fire, stopping to glance at the quiet form in the cave, and at the
dogs stretched cozily near him, and then out across the beautiful
valley. The present was not yet real to him.
While he ate, the sun set beyond a dip in the rim of the curved wall.
As the morning sun burst wondrously through a grand arch into this
valley, in a golden, slanting shaft, so the evening sun, at the moment
of setting, shone through a gap of cliffs, sending down a broad red
burst to brighten the oval with a blaze of fire. To Venters both
sunrise and sunset were unreal.
A cool wind blew across the oval, waving the tips of oaks, and while
the light lasted, fluttering the aspen leaves into millions of facets
of red, and sweeping the graceful spruces. Then with the wind soon came
a shade and a darkening, and suddenly the valley was gray. Night came
there quickly after the sinking of the sun. Venters went softly to look
at the girl. She slept, and her breathing was quiet and slow. He lifted
Ring into the cave, with stern whisper for him to stay there on guard.
Then he drew the blanket carefully over her and returned to the
camp-fire.
Though exceedingly tired, he was yet loath to yield to lassitude, but
this night it was not from listening, watchful vigilance; it was from a
desire to realize his position. The details of his wild environment
seemed the only substance of a strange dream. He saw the darkening
rims, the gray oval turning black, the undulating surface of forest,
like a rippling lake, and the spear-pointed spruces. He heard the
flutter of aspen leaves and the soft, continuous splash of falling
water. The melancholy note of a cañon bird broke clear and lonely from
the high cliffs. Venters had no name for this night singer, and he had
never seen one, but the few notes, always pealing out just at darkness,
were as familiar to him as the cañon silence. Then they ceased, and the
rustle of leaves and the murmur of water hushed in a growing sound that
Venters fancied was not of earth. Neither had he a name for this, only
it was inexpressibly wild and sweet. The thought came that it might be
a moan of the girl in her last outcry of life, and he felt a tremor
shake him. But no! This sound was not human, though it was like
despair. He began to doubt his sensitive perceptions, to believe that
he half-dreamed what he thought he heard. Then the sound swelled with
the strengthening of the breeze, and he realized it was the singing of
the wind in the cliffs.
By and by a drowsiness overcame him, and Venters began to nod, half
asleep, with his back against a spruce. Rousing himself and calling
Whitie, he went to the cave. The girl lay barely visible in the
dimness. Ring crouched beside her, and the patting of his tail on the
stone assured Venters that the dog was awake and faithful to his duty.
Venters sought his own bed of fragrant boughs; and as he lay back,
somehow grateful for the comfort and safety, the night seemed to steal
away from him and he sank softly into intangible space and rest and
slumber.
Venters awakened to the sound of melody that he imagined was only the
haunting echo of dream music. He opened his eyes to another surprise of
this valley of beautiful surprises. Out of his cave he saw the
exquisitely fine foliage of the silver spruces crossing a round space
of blue morning sky; and in this lacy leafage fluttered a number of
gray birds with black and white stripes and long tails. They were
mocking-birds, and they were singing as if they wanted to burst their
throats. Venters listened. One long, silver-tipped branch dropped
almost to his cave, and upon it, within a few yards of him, sat one of
the graceful birds. Venters saw the swelling and quivering of its
throat in song. He arose, and when he slid down out of his cave the
birds fluttered and flew farther away.
Venters stepped before the opening of the other cave and looked in. The
girl was awake, with wide eyes and listening look, and she had a hand
on Ring’s neck.
“Mocking-birds!” she said.
“Yes,” replied Venters, “and I believe they like our company.”
“Where are we?”
“Never mind now. After a little I’ll tell you.”
“The birds woke me. When I heard them—and saw the shiny trees—and the
blue sky—and then a blaze of gold dropping down—I wondered—”
She did not complete her fancy, but Venters imagined he understood her
meaning. She appeared to be wandering in mind. Venters felt her face
and hands and found them burning with fever. He went for water, and was
glad to find it almost as cold as if flowing from ice. That water was
the only medicine he had, and he put faith in it. She did not want to
drink, but he made her swallow, and then he bathed her face and head
and cooled her wrists.
The day began with the heightening of the fever. Venters spent the time
reducing her temperature, cooling her hot cheeks and temples. He kept
close watch over her, and at the least indication of restlessness, that
he knew led to tossing and rolling of the body, he held her tightly, so
no violent move could reopen her wounds. Hour after hour she babbled
and laughed and cried and moaned in delirium; but whatever her secret
was she did not reveal it. Attended by something somber for Venters,
the day passed. At night in the cool winds the fever abated and she
slept.
The second day was a repetition of the first. On the third he seemed to
see her wither and waste away before his eyes. That day he scarcely
went from her side for a moment, except to run for fresh, cool water;
and he did not eat. The fever broke on the fourth day and left her
spent and shrunken, a slip of a girl with life only in her eyes. They
hung upon Venters with a mute observance, and he found hope in that.
To rekindle the spark that had nearly flickered out, to nourish the
little life and vitality that remained in her, was Venters’s problem.
But he had little resource other than the meat of the rabbits and
quail; and from these he made broths and soups as best he could, and
fed her with a spoon. It came to him that the human body, like the
human soul, was a strange thing and capable of recovering from terrible
shocks. For almost immediately she showed faint signs of gathering
strength. There was one more waiting day, in which he doubted, and
spent long hours by her side as she slept, and watched the gentle swell
of her breast rise and fall in breathing, and the wind stir the tangled
chestnut curls. On the next day he knew that she would live.
Upon realizing it he abruptly left the cave and sought his accustomed
seat against the trunk of a big spruce, where once more he let his
glance stray along the sloping terraces. She would live, and the somber
gloom lifted out of the valley, and he felt relief that was pain. Then
he roused to the call of action, to the many things he needed to do in
the way of making camp fixtures and utensils, to the necessity of
hunting food, and the desire to explore the valley.
But he decided to wait a few more days before going far from camp,
because he fancied that the girl rested easier when she could see him
near at hand. And on the first day her languor appeared to leave her in
a renewed grip of life. She awoke stronger from each short slumber; she
ate greedily, and she moved about in her bed of boughs; and always, it
seemed to Venters, her eyes followed him. He knew now that her recovery
would be rapid. She talked about the dogs, about the caves, the valley,
about how hungry she was, till Venters silenced her, asking her to put
off further talk till another time. She obeyed, but she sat up in her
bed, and her eyes roved to and fro, and always back to him.
Upon the second morning she sat up when he awakened her, and would not
permit him to bathe her face and feed her, which actions she performed
for herself. She spoke little, however, and Venters was quick to catch
in her the first intimations of thoughtfulness and curiosity and
appreciation of her situation. He left camp and took Whitie out to hunt
for rabbits. Upon his return he was amazed and somewhat anxiously
concerned to see his invalid sitting with her back to a corner of the
cave and her bare feet swinging out. Hurriedly he approached, intending
to advise her to lie down again, to tell her that perhaps she might
overtax her strength. The sun shone upon her, glinting on the little
head with its tangle of bright hair and the small, oval face with its
pallor, and dark-blue eyes underlined by dark-blue circles. She looked
at him and he looked at her. In that exchange of glances he imagined
each saw the other in some different guise. It seemed impossible to
Venters that this frail girl could be Oldring’s Masked Rider. It
flashed over him that he had made a mistake which presently she would
explain.
“Help me down,” she said.
“But—are you well enough?” he protested. “Wait—a little longer.”
“I’m weak—dizzy. But I want to get down.”
He lifted her—what a light burden now!—and stood her upright beside
him, and supported her as she essayed to walk with halting steps. She
was like a stripling of a boy; the bright, small head scarcely reached
his shoulder. But now, as she clung to his arm, the rider’s costume she
wore did not contradict, as it had done at first, his feeling of her
femininity. She might be the famous Masked Rider of the uplands, she
might resemble a boy; but her outline, her little hands and feet, her
hair, her big eyes and tremulous lips, and especially a something that
Venters felt as a subtle essence rather than what he saw, proclaimed
her sex.
She soon tired. He arranged a comfortable seat for her under the spruce
that overspread the camp-fire.
“Now tell me—everything,” she said.
He recounted all that had happened from the time of his discovery of
the rustlers in the cañon up to the present moment.
“You shot me—and now you’ve saved my life?”
“Yes. After almost killing you I’ve pulled you through.”
“Are you glad?”
“I should say so!”
Her eyes were unusually expressive, and they regarded him steadily; she
was unconscious of that mirroring of her emotions and they shone with
gratefulness and interest and wonder and sadness.
“Tell me—about yourself?” she asked.
He made this a briefer story, telling of his coming to Utah, his
various occupations till he became a rider, and then how the Mormons
had practically driven him out of Cottonwoods, an outcast.
Then, no longer able to withstand his own burning curiosity, he
questioned her in turn.
“Are you Oldring’s Masked Rider?”
“Yes,” she replied, and dropped her eyes.
“I knew it—I recognized your figure—and mask, for I saw you once. Yet I
can’t believe it!... But you never _were_ really that rustler, as we
riders knew him? A thief—a marauder—a kidnapper of women—a murderer of
sleeping riders!”
“No! I never stole—or harmed any one—in all my life. I only rode and
rode—”
“But why—why?” he burst out. “Why the name? I understand Oldring made
you ride. But the black mask—the mystery—the things laid to your
hands—the threats in your infamous name—the night-riding credited to
you—the evil deeds deliberately blamed on you and acknowledged by
rustlers—even Oldring himself! Why? Tell me why?”
“I never knew that,” she answered low. Her drooping head straightened,
and the large eyes, larger now and darker, met Venters’s with a clear,
steadfast gaze in which he read truth. It verified his own conviction.
“Never knew? That’s strange! Are you a Mormon?”
“No.”
“Is Oldring a Mormon?”
“No.”
“Do you—care for him?”
“Yes. I hate his men—his life—sometimes I almost hate him!”
Venters paused in his rapid-fire questioning, as if to brace him self
to ask for a truth that would be abhorrent for him to confirm, but
which he seemed driven to hear.
“What are—what _were_ you to Oldring?”
Like some delicate thing suddenly exposed to blasting heat, the girl
wilted; her head dropped, and into her white, wasted cheeks crept the
red of shame.
Venters would have given anything to recall that question. It seemed so
different—his thought when spoken. Yet her shame established in his
mind something akin to the respect he had strangely been hungering to
feel for her.
“D—n that question!—forget it!” he cried, in a passion of pain for her
and anger at himself. “But once and for all—tell me—I know it, yet I
want to hear you say so—you couldn’t help yourself?”
“Oh no.”
“Well, that makes it all right with me,” he went on, honestly. “I—I
want you to feel that... you see—we’ve been thrown together—and—and I
want to help you—not hurt you. I thought life had been cruel to me, but
when I think of yours I feel mean and little for my complaining.
Anyway, I was a lonely outcast. And now!... I don’t see very clearly
what it all means. Only we are here—together. We’ve got to stay here,
for long, surely till you are well. But you’ll never go back to
Oldring. And I’m sure helping you will help me, for I was sick in mind.
There’s something now for me to do. And if I can win back your
strength—then get you away, out of this wild country—help you somehow
to a happier life—just think how good that’ll be for me!”