is back against a stone, Venters faced the east, and, stick
in hand and idle blade, he waited. The glorious sunlight filled the
valley 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, gleamed
the dull red of Jane Withersteen's old stone house. And from there
extended the wide green of the village gardens and orchards marked by
the graceful poplars; and farther down shone the deep, dark richness of
the alfalfa fields. Numberless red and black and white dots speckled the
sage, and these were cattle and horses.

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

It had been long since Venters had experienced friendly greeting from
a man. Lassiter's warmed in him something that had grown cold from
neglect. And when he had returned it, with a strong grip of the iron
hand that held his, and met the gray eyes, he knew that Lassiter and he
were 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've
got." With a rider's eye he took in the points of Venter's horse, but
did not speak his thought. "Well, did anythin' come off after I left you
last night?"

Venters told him about the rustlers.

"I was snug hid in the sage," replied Lassiter, "an' didn't see or hear
no one. Oldrin's got a high hand here, I reckon. It's no news up in
Utah how he holes in canyons an' leaves no track." Lassiter was silent a
moment. "Me an' Oldrin' wasn't exactly strangers some years back when he
drove cattle into Bostil's Ford, at the head of the Rio Virgin. But he
got 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 ru