lay. He had to feel his way through
a thicket of slender oaks to a spring where he watered Wrangle and drank
himself. Here he unsaddled and turned Wrangle loose, having no fear that
the horse would leave the thick, cool grass adjacent to the spring. Next
he satisfied his own hunger, fed Ring and Whitie and, with them curled
beside him, composed himself to await sleep.

There had been a time when night in the high altitude of these Utah
uplands had been satisfying to Venters. But that was before the
oppression of enemies had made the change in his mind. As a rider
guarding the herd he had never thought of the night's wildness and
loneliness; as an outcast, now when the full silence set in, and the
deep darkness, and trains of radiant stars shone cold and calm, he
lay with an ache in his heart. For a year he had lived as a black fox,
driven from his kind. He longed for the sound of a voice, the touch of
a hand. In the daytime there was riding from place to place, and the
gun practice to which something drove him, and other tasks that at least
necessitated action, at night, before he won sleep, there was strife in
his soul. He yearned to leave the endless sage slopes, the wilderness
of canyons, and it was in the lonely night that this yearning grew
unbearable. It was then that he reached forth to feel Ring or Whitie,
immeasurably grateful for the love and companionship of two dogs.

On this night the same old loneliness beset Venters, the old habit
of sad thought and burning unquiet had its way. But from it evolved a
conviction that his useless life had undergone a subtle change. He had
sensed it first when Wrangle swung him up to the high saddle, he knew
it now when he lay in the gateway of Deception Pass. He had no thrill of
adventure, rather a gloomy perception of great hazard, perhaps death. He
meant to find Oldring's retreat. The rustlers had fast horses, but none
that could catch Wrangle. Venters knew no rustler could creep upon him
at night when Ring and Whitie guarded his hiding-place. For the rest, he
had eyes and ears, and a long rifle and an unerring aim, which he meant
to use. Strangely his foreshadowing of change did not hold a thought
of the killing of Tull. It related only to what was to happen to him in
Deception Pass; and he could no more lift the veil of that mystery than
tell where the trails led to in that unexplored canyon. Moreover, he did
not care. And at length, tired out by stress of thought, he fe