GOLD
As Lassiter had reported to Jane, Venters “went through” safely, and
after a toilsome journey reached the peaceful shelter of Surprise
Valley. When finally he lay wearily down under the silver spruces,
resting from the strain of dragging packs and burros up the slope and
through the entrance to Surprise Valley, he had leisure to think, and a
great deal of the time went in regretting that he had not been frank
with his loyal friend, Jane Withersteen.
But, he kept continually recalling, when he had stood once more face to
face with her and had been shocked at the change in her and had heard
the details of her adversity, he had not had the heart to tell her of
the closer interest which had entered his life. He had not lied; yet he
had kept silence.
Bess was in transports over the stores of supplies and the outfit he
had packed from Cottonwoods. He had certainly brought a hundred times
more than he had gone for; enough, surely, for years, perhaps to make
permanent home in the valley. He saw no reason why he need ever leave
there again.
After a day of rest he recovered his strength and shared Bess’s
pleasure in rummaging over the endless packs, and began to plan for the
future. And in this planning, his trip to Cottonwoods, with its revived
hate of Tull and consequent unleashing of fierce passions, soon faded
out of mind. By slower degrees his friendship for Jane Withersteen and
his contrition drifted from the active preoccupation of his present
thought to a place in memory, with more and more infrequent recalls.
And as far as the state of his mind was concerned, upon the second day
after his return, the valley, with its golden hues and purple shades,
the speaking west wind and the cool, silent night, and Bess’s watching
eyes with their wonderful light, so wrought upon Venters that he might
never have left them at all.
That very afternoon he set to work. Only one thing hindered him upon
beginning, though it in no wise checked his delight, and that in the
multiplicity of tasks planned to make a paradise out of the valley he
could not choose the one with which to begin. He had to grow into the
habit of passing from one dreamy pleasure to another, like a bee going
from flower to flower in the valley, and he found this wandering habit
likely to extend to his labors. Nevertheless, he made a start.
At the outset he discovered Bess to be both a considerable help in some
ways and a very great hindrance in others. Her excitement and joy were
spurs, inspirations; but she was utterly impracticable in her ideas,
and she flitted from one plan to another with bewildering vacillation.
Moreover, he fancied that she grew more eager, youthful, and sweet; and
he marked that it was far easier to watch her and listen to her than it
was to work. Therefore he gave her tasks that necessitated her going
often to the cave where he had stored his packs.
Upon the last of these trips, when he was some distance down the
terrace and out of sight of camp, he heard a scream, and then the sharp
barking of the dogs.
For an instant he straightened up, amazed. Danger for her had been
absolutely out of his mind. She had seen a rattlesnake—or a wildcat.
Still she would not have been likely to scream at sight of either; and
the barking of the dogs was ominous. Dropping his work, he dashed back
along the terrace. Upon breaking through a clump of aspens he saw the
dark form of a man in the camp. Cold, then hot, Venters burst into
frenzied speed to reach his guns. He was cursing himself for a
thoughtless fool when the man’s tall form became familiar and he
recognized Lassiter. Then the reversal of emotions changed his run to a
walk; he tried to call out, but his voice refused to carry; when he
reached camp there was Lassiter staring at the white-faced girl. By
that time Ring and Whitie had recognized him.
“Hello, Venters! I’m makin’ you a visit,” said Lassiter, slowly. “An’
I’m some surprised to see you’ve a—a young feller for company.”
One glance had sufficed for the keen rider to read Bess’s real sex, and
for once his cool calm had deserted him. He stared till the white of
Bess’s cheeks flared into crimson. That, if it were needed, was the
concluding evidence of her femininity, for it went fittingly with her
sun-tinted hair and darkened, dilated eyes, the sweetness of her mouth,
and the striking symmetry of her slender shape.
“Heavens! Lassiter!” panted Venters, when he caught his breath. “What
relief—it’s only you! How—in the name of all that’s wonderful—did you
ever get here?”
“I trailed you. We—I wanted to know where you was, if you had a safe
place. So I trailed you.”
“Trailed me,” cried Venters, bluntly.
“I reckon. It was some of a job after I got to them smooth rocks. I was
all day trackin’ you up to them little cut steps in the rock. The rest
was easy.”
“Where’s your hoss? I hope you hid him.”
“I tied him in them queer cedars down on the slope. He can’t be seen
from the valley.”
“That’s good. Well, well! I’m completely dumfounded. It was my idea
that no man could track me in here.”
“I reckon. But if there’s a tracker in these uplands as good as me he
can find you.”
“That’s bad. That’ll worry me. But, Lassiter, now you’re here I’m glad
to see you. And—and my companion here is not a young fellow!... Bess,
this is a friend of mine. He saved my life once.”
The embarrassment of the moment did not extend to Lassiter. Almost at
once his manner, as he shook hands with Bess, relieved Venters and put
the girl at ease. After Venters’s words and one quick look at Lassiter,
her agitation stilled, and, though she was shy, if she were conscious
of anything out of the ordinary in the situation, certainly she did not
show it.
“I reckon I’ll only stay a little while,” Lassiter was saying. “An’ if
you don’t mind troublin’, I’m hungry. I fetched some biscuits along,
but they’re gone. Venters, this place is sure the wonderfullest ever
seen. Them cut steps on the slope! That outlet into the gorge! An’ it’s
like climbin’ up through hell into heaven to climb through that gorge
into this valley! There’s a queer-lookin’ rock at the top of the
passage. I didn’t have time to stop. I’m wonderin’ how you ever found
this place. It’s sure interestin’.”
During the preparation and eating of dinner Lassiter listened mostly,
as was his wont, and occasionally he spoke in his quaint and dry way.
Venters noted, however, that the rider showed an increasing interest in
Bess. He asked her no questions, and only directed his attention to her
while she was occupied and had no opportunity to observe his scrutiny.
It seemed to Venters that Lassiter grew more and more absorbed in his
study of Bess, and that he lost his coolness in some strange, softening
sympathy. Then, quite abruptly, he arose and announced the necessity
for his early departure. He said good-by to Bess in a voice gentle and
somewhat broken, and turned hurriedly away. Venters accompanied him,
and they had traversed the terrace, climbed the weathered slope, and
passed under the stone bridge before either spoke again.
Then Lassiter put a great hand on Venters’s shoulder and wheeled him to
meet a smoldering fire of gray eyes.
“Lassiter, I couldn’t tell Jane! I couldn’t,” burst out Venters,
reading his friend’s mind. “I tried. But I couldn’t. She wouldn’t
understand, and she has troubles enough. And I love the girl!”
“Venters, I reckon this beats me. I’ve seen some queer things in my
time, too. This girl—who is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t know! What is she, then?”
“I don’t know that, either. Oh, it’s the strangest story you ever
heard. I must tell you. But you’ll never believe.”
“Venters, women were always puzzles to me. But for all that, if this
girl ain’t a child, an’ as innocent, I’m no fit person to think of
virtue an’ goodness in anybody. Are you goin’ to be square with her?”
“I am—so help me God!”
“I reckoned so. Mebbe my temper oughtn’t led me to make sure. But, man,
she’s a woman in all but years. She’s sweeter’n the sage.”
“Lassiter, I know, I know. And the _hell_ of it is that in spite of her
innocence and charm she’s—she’s not what she seems!”
“I wouldn’t want to—of course, I couldn’t call you a liar, Venters,”
said the older man.
“What’s more, she was Oldring’s Masked Rider!”
Venters expected to floor his friend with that statement, but he was
not in any way prepared for the shock his words gave. For an instant he
was astounded to see Lassiter stunned; then his own passionate
eagerness to unbosom himself, to tell the wonderful story, precluded
any other thought.
“Son, tell me all about this,” presently said Lassiter as he seated
himself on a stone and wiped his moist brow.
Thereupon Venters began his narrative at the point where he had shot
the rustler and Oldring’s Masked Rider, and he rushed through it,
telling all, not holding back even Bess’s unreserved avowal of her love
or his deepest emotions.
“That’s the story,” he said, concluding. “I love her, though I’ve never
told her. If I did tell her I’d be ready to marry her, and that seems
impossible in this country. I’d be afraid to risk taking her anywhere.
So I intend to do the best I can for her here.”
“The longer I live the stranger life is,” mused Lassiter, with downcast
eyes. “I’m reminded of somethin’ you once said to Jane about hands in
her game of life. There’s that unseen hand of power, an’ Tull’s black
hand, an’ my red one, an’ your indifferent one, an’ the girl’s little
brown, helpless one. An’, Venters there’s another one that’s all-wise
an’ all-wonderful. _That’s_ the hand guidin’ Jane Withersteen’s game of
life!... Your story’s one to daze a far clearer head than mine. I can’t
offer no advice, even if you asked for it. Mebbe I can help you.
Anyway, I’ll hold Oldrin’ up when he comes to the village an’ find out
about this girl. I knew the rustler years ago. He’ll remember me.”
“Lassiter, if I ever meet Oldring I’ll kill him!” cried Venters, with
sudden intensity.
“I reckon that’d be perfectly natural,” replied the rider.
“Make him think Bess is dead—as she is to him and that old life.”
“Sure, sure, son. Cool down now. If you’re goin’ to begin pullin’ guns
on Tull an’ Oldrin’ you want to be cool. I reckon, though, you’d better
keep hid here. Well, I must be leavin’.”
“One thing, Lassiter. You’ll not tell Jane about Bess? Please don’t!”
“I reckon not. But I wouldn’t be afraid to bet that after she’d got
over anger at your secrecy—Venters, she’d be furious once in her
life!—she’d think more of you. I don’t mind sayin’ for myself that I
think you’re a good deal of a man.”
In the further ascent Venters halted several times with the intention
of saying good-by, yet he changed his mind and kept on climbing till
they reached Balancing Rock. Lassiter examined the huge rock, listened
to Venters’s idea of its position and suggestion, and curiously placed
a strong hand upon it.
“Hold on!” cried Venters. “I heaved at it once and have never gotten
over my scare.”
“Well, you do seem uncommon nervous,” replied Lassiter, much amused.
“Now, as for me, why I always had the funniest notion to roll stones!
When I was a kid I did it, an’ the bigger I got the bigger stones I’d
roll. Ain’t that funny? Honest—even now I often get off my hoss just to
tumble a big stone over a precipice, en’ watch it drop, en’ listen to
it bang an’ boom. I’ve started some slides in my time, an’ don’t you
forget it. I never seen a rock I wanted to roll as bad as this one!
Wouldn’t there jest be roarin’, crashin’ hell down that trail?”
“You’d close the outlet forever!” exclaimed Venters. “Well, good-by,
Lassiter. Keep my secret and don’t forget me. And be mighty careful how
you get out of the valley below. The rustlers’ cañon isn’t more than
three miles up the Pass. Now you’ve tracked me here, I’ll never feel
safe again.”
In his descent to the valley, Venters’s emotion, roused to stirring
pitch by the recital of his love story, quieted gradually, and in its
place came a sober, thoughtful mood. All at once he saw that he was
serious, because he would never more regain his sense of security while
in the valley. What Lassiter could do another skilful tracker might
duplicate. Among the many riders with whom Venters had ridden he
recalled no one who could have taken his trail at Cottonwoods and have
followed it to the edge of the bare slope in the pass, let alone up
that glistening smooth stone. Lassiter, however, was not an ordinary
rider. Instead of hunting cattle tracks he had likely spent a goodly
portion of his life tracking men. It was not improbable that among
Oldring’s rustlers there was one who shared Lassiter’s gift for
trailing. And the more Venters dwelt on this possibility the more
perturbed he grew.
Lassiter’s visit, moreover, had a disquieting effect upon Bess, and
Venters fancied that she entertained the same thought as to future
seclusion. The breaking of their solitude, though by a well-meaning
friend, had not only dispelled all its dream and much of its charm, but
had instilled a canker of fear. Both had seen the footprint in the
sand.
Venters did no more work that day. Sunset and twilight gave way to
night, and the cañon bird whistled its melancholy notes, and the wind
sang softly in the cliffs, and the camp-fire blazed and burned down to
red embers. To Venters a subtle difference was apparent in all of
these, or else the shadowy change had been in him. He hoped that on the
morrow this slight depression would have passed away.
In that measure, however, he was doomed to disappointment. Furthermore,
Bess reverted to a wistful sadness that he had not observed in her
since her recovery. His attempt to cheer her out of it resulted in
dismal failure, and consequently in a darkening of his own mood. Hard
work relieved him; still, when the day had passed, his unrest returned.
Then he set to deliberate thinking, and there came to him the startling
conviction that he must leave Surprise Valley and take Bess with him.
As a rider he had taken many chances, and as an adventurer in Deception
Pass he had unhesitatingly risked his life, but now he would run no
preventable hazard of Bess’s safety and happiness, and he was too keen
not to see that hazard. It gave him a pang to think of leaving the
beautiful valley just when he had the means to establish a permanent
and delightful home there. One flashing thought tore in hot temptation
through his mind—why not climb up into the gorge, roll Balancing Rock
down the trail, and close forever the outlet to Deception Pass? “That
was the beast in me—showing his teeth!” muttered Venters, scornfully.
“I’ll just kill him good and quick! I’ll be fair to this girl, if it’s
the last thing I do on earth!”
Another day went by, in which he worked less and pondered more and all
the time covertly watched Bess. Her wistfulness had deepened into
downright unhappiness, and that made his task to tell her all the
harder. He kept the secret another day, hoping by some chance she might
grow less moody, and to his exceeding anxiety she fell into far deeper
gloom. Out of his own secret and the torment of it he divined that she,
too, had a secret and the keeping of it was torturing her. As yet he
had no plan thought out in regard to how or when to leave the valley,
but he decided to tell her the necessity of it and to persuade her to
go. Furthermore, he hoped his speaking out would induce her to unburden
her own mind.
“Bess, what’s wrong with you?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she answered, with averted face.
Venters took hold of her gently, though masterfully, forced her to meet
his eyes.
“You can’t look at me and lie,” he said. “Now—what’s wrong with you?
You’re keeping something from me. Well, I’ve got a secret, too, and I
intend to tell it presently.”
“Oh—I _have_ a secret. I was crazy to tell you when you came back.
That’s why I was so silly about everything. I kept holding my secret
back—gloating over it. But when Lassiter came I got an idea—that
changed my mind. Then I hated to tell you.”
“Are you going to now?”
“Yes—yes. I was coming to it. I tried yesterday, but you were so cold.
I was afraid. I couldn’t keep it much longer.”
“Very well, most mysterious lady, tell your wonderful secret.”
“You needn’t laugh,” she retorted, with a first glimpse of reviving
spirit. “I can take the laugh out of you in one second.”
“It’s a go.”
She ran through the spruces to the cave, and returned carrying
something which was manifestly heavy. Upon nearer view he saw that
whatever she held with such evident importance had been bound up in a
black scarf he well remembered. That alone was sufficient to make him
tingle with curiosity.
“Have you any idea what I did in your absence?” she asked.
“I imagine you lounged about, waiting and watching for me,” he replied,
smiling. “I’ve my share of conceit, you know.”
“You’re wrong. I worked. Look at my hands.” She dropped on her knees
close to where he sat, and, carefully depositing the black bundle, she
held out her hands. The palms and inside of her fingers were white,
puckered, and worn.
“Why, Bess, you’ve been fooling in the water,” he said.
“Fooling? Look here!” With deft fingers she spread open the black
scarf, and the bright sun shone upon a dull, glittering heap of gold.
“Gold!” he ejaculated.
“Yes, gold! See, pounds of gold! I found it—washed it out of the
stream—picked it out grain by grain, nugget by nugget!”
“Gold!” he cried.
“Yes. Now—now laugh at my secret!”
For a long minute Venters gazed. Then he stretched forth a hand to feel
if the gold was real.
“_Gold!_” he almost shouted. “Bess, there are hundreds—thousands of
dollars’ worth here!”
He leaned over to her, and put his hand, strong and clenching now, on
hers.
“Is there more where this came from?” he whispered.
“Plenty of it, all the way up the stream to the cliff. You know I’ve
often washed for gold. Then I’ve heard the men talk. I think there’s no
great quantity of gold here, but enough for—for a fortune for _you_.”
“That—was—your—secret!”
“Yes. I hate gold. For it makes men mad. I’ve seen them drunk with joy
and dance and fling themselves around. I’ve seen them curse and rave.
I’ve seen them fight like dogs and roll in the dust. I’ve seen them
kill each other for gold.”
“Is that why you hated to tell me?”
“Not—not altogether.” Bess lowered her head. “It was because I knew
you’d never stay here long after you found gold.”
“You were afraid I’d leave you?”
“Yes.”
“Listen!... You great, simple child! Listen... You sweet, wonderful,
wild, blue-eyed girl! I was tortured by my secret. It was that I knew
we—_we_ must leave the valley. We can’t stay here much longer. I
couldn’t think how we’d get away—out of the country—or how we’d live,
if we ever got out. I’m a beggar. That’s why I kept my secret. I’m
poor. It takes money to make way beyond Sterling. We couldn’t ride
horses or burros or walk forever. So while I knew we must go, I was
distracted over how to go and what to do. _Now!_ We’ve gold! Once
beyond Sterling, we’ll be safe from rustlers. We’ve no others to fear.
“Oh! Listen! Bess!” Venters now heard his voice ringing high and sweet,
and he felt Bess’s cold hands in his crushing grasp as she leaned
toward him pale, breathless. “This is how much I’d leave you! You made
me live again! I’ll take you away—far away from this wild country.
You’ll begin a new life. You’ll be happy. You shall see cities, ships,
people. You shall have anything your heart craves. All the shame and
sorrow of your life shall be forgotten—as if they had never been. This
is how much I’d leave you here alone—you sad-eyed girl. I love you!
Didn’t you know it? How could you fail to know it? I love you! I’m
free! I’m a man—a man you’ve made—no more a beggar!... Kiss me! This is
how much I’d leave you here alone—you beautiful, strange, unhappy girl.
But I’ll make you happy. What—what do I care for—your past! I love you!
I’ll take you home to Illinois—to my mother. Then I’ll take you to far
places. I’ll make up all you’ve lost. Oh, I know you love me—knew it
before you told me. And it changed my life. And you’ll go with me, not
as my companion as you are here, nor my sister, but, Bess, darling!...
_As my wife!_”