ers and harried by
wolves. For hand in glove with that power was an insatiate greed; they
were one and the same.

"What can Oldring do with twenty-five hundred head of cattle?" muttered
Venters. "Is he a Mormon? Did he meet Tull last night? It looks like
a black plot to me. But Tull and his churchmen wouldn't ruin Jane
Withersteen unless the Church was to profit by that ruin. Where does
Oldring come in? I'm going to find out about these things."

Wrangle did the twenty-five miles in three hours and walked little of
the way. When he had gotten warmed up he had been allowed to choose his
own gait. The afternoon had well advanced when Venters struck the trail
of the red herd and found where it had grazed the night before. Then
Venters rested the horse and used his eyes. Near at hand were a cow
and a calf and several yearlings, and farther out in the sage some
straggling steers. He caught a glimpse of coyotes skulking near the
cattle. The slow sweeping gaze of the rider failed to find other living
things within the field of sight. The sage about him was breast-high to
his horse, oversweet with its warm, fragrant breath, gray where it
waved to the light, darker where the wind left it still, and beyond the
wonderful haze-purple lent by distance. Far across that wide waste began
the slow lift of uplands through which Deception Pass cut its tortuous
many-canyoned way.

Venters raised the bridle of his horse and followed the broad cattle
trail. The crushed sage resembled the path of a monster snake. In a few
miles of travel he passed several cows and calves that had escaped the
drive. Then he stood on the last high bench of the slope with the floor
of the valley beneath. The opening of the canyon showed in a break of
the sage, and the cattle trail paralleled it as far as he could see.
That trail led to an undiscovered point where Oldring drove cattle
into the pass, and many a rider who had followed it had never returned.
Venters satisfied himself that the rustlers had not deviated from their
usual course, and then he turned at right angles off the cattle trail
and made for the head of the pass.

The sun lost its heat and wore down to the western horizon, where it
changed from white to gold and rested like a huge ball about to roll on
its golden shadows down the slope. Venters watched the lengthening of
the rays and bars, and marveled at his own league-long shadow. The sun
sank. There was instant shading of brightness about h