red your horse looked. Were you always riding?"

"Oh, no. Sometimes not for months, when I was shut up in the cabin."

Venters tried to subdue a hot tingling.

"You were shut up, then?" he asked, carelessly.

"When Oldring went away on his long trips--he was gone for months
sometimes--he shut me up in the cabin."

"What for?"

"Perhaps to keep me from running away. I always threatened that. Mostly,
though, because the men got drunk at the villages. But they were always
good to me. I wasn't afraid."

"A prisoner! That must have been hard on you?"

"I liked that. As long as I can remember I've been locked up there at
times, and those times were the only happy ones I ever had. It's a big
cabin, high up on a cliff, and I could look out. Then I had dogs and
pets I had tamed, and books. There was a spring inside, and food stored,
and the men brought me fresh meat. Once I was there one whole winter."

It now required deliberation on Venters's part to persist in his
unconcern and to keep at work. He wanted to look at her, to volley
questions at her.

"As long as you can remember--you've lived in Deception Pass?" he went
on.

"I've a dim memory of some other place, and women and children; but I
can't make anything of it. Sometimes I think till I'm weary."

"Then you can read--you have books?"

"Oh yes, I can read, and write, too, pretty well. Oldring is educated.
He taught me, and years ago an old rustler lived with us, and he had
been something different once. He was always teaching me."

"So Oldring takes long trips," mused Venters. "Do you know where he
goes?"

"No. Every year he drives cattle north of Sterling--then does not return
for months. I heard him accused once of living two lives--and he killed
the man. That was at Stone Bridge."

Venters dropped his apparent task and looked up with an eagerness he no
longer strove to hide.

"Bess," he said, using her name for the first time, "I suspected Oldring
was something besides a rustler. Tell me, what's his purpose here in the
Pass? I believe much that he has done was to hide his real work here."

"You're right. He's more than a rustler. In fact, as the men say, his
rustling cattle is now only a bluff. There's gold in the canyons!"

"Ah!"

"Yes, there's gold, not in great quantities, but gold enough for him and
his men. They wash for gold week in and week out. Then they drive a few
cattle and go into the villages to drink and shoot and kill--to bluff