ers leavin' you. Strange thet only a
few riders of other ranchers joined the band! An' Tull's man, Jerry
Card--he's the leader. I seen him en' his hoss. He 'ain't been to Glaze.
I'm not easy to fool on the looks of a hoss thet's traveled the sage.
Tull an' Jerry didn't ride to Glaze!... Well, I met Blake en' Dorn, both
good friends of mine, usually, as far as their Mormon lights will let
'em go. But these fellers couldn't fool me, an' they didn't try very
hard. I asked them, straight out like a man, why they left you like
thet. I didn't forget to mention how you nursed Blake's poor old mother
when she was sick, an' how good you was to Dorn's kids. They looked
ashamed, Miss Withersteen. An' they jest froze up--thet dark set look
thet makes them strange an' different to me. But I could tell the
difference between thet first natural twinge of conscience an' the later
look of some secret thing. An' the difference I caught was thet they
couldn't help themselves. They hadn't no say in the matter. They looked
as if their bein' unfaithful to you was bein' faithful to a higher duty.
An' there's the secret. Why it's as plain as--as sight of my gun here."

"Plain!... My herds to wander in the sage--to be stolen! Jane Withersteen
a poor woman! Her head to be brought low and her spirit broken!... Why,
Judkins, it's plain enough."

"Miss Withersteen, let me get what boys I can gather, an' hold the white
herd. It's on the slope now, not ten miles out--three thousand head,
an' all steers. They're wild, an' likely to stampede at the pop of a
jack-rabbit's ears. We'll camp right with them, en' try to hold them."

"Judkins, I'll reward you some day for your service, unless all is
taken from me. Get the boys and tell Jerd to give you pick of my horses,
except Black Star and Night. But--do not shed blood for my cattle nor
heedlessly risk your lives."

Jane Withersteen rushed to the silence and seclusion of her room, and
there could not longer hold back the bursting of her wrath. She went
stone-blind in the fury of a passion that had never before showed its
power. Lying upon her bed, sightless, voiceless, she was a writhing,
living flame. And she tossed there while her fury burned and burned, and
finally burned itself out.

Then, weak and spent, she lay thinking, not of the oppression that would
break her, but of this new revelation of self. Until the last few days
there had been little in her life to rouse passions. Her forefathers
had