girl whom
he had all but murdered. A thousand excuses he invented for himself, yet
not one made any difference in his act or his self-reproach.
It seemed to him that when night fell black he could see her white face
so much more plainly.
"She'll go, presently," he said, "and be out of agony--thank God!"
Every little while certainty of her death came to him with a shock; and
then he would bend over and lay his ear on her breast. Her heart still
beat.
The early night blackness cleared to the cold starlight. The horses were
not moving, and no sound disturbed the deathly silence of the canyon.
"I'll bury her here," thought Venters, "and let her grave be as much a
mystery as her life was."
For the girl's few words, the look of her eyes, the prayer, had
strangely touched Venters.
"She was only a girl," he soliloquized. "What was she to Oldring?
Rustlers don't have wives nor sisters nor daughters. She was bad--that's
all. But somehow... well, she may not have willingly become the companion
of rustlers. That prayer of hers to God for mercy!... Life is strange
and cruel. I wonder if other members of Oldring's gang are women? Likely
enough. But what was his game? Oldring's Mask Rider! A name to make
villagers hide and lock their doors. A name credited with a dozen
murders, a hundred forays, and a thousand stealings of cattle. What
part did the girl have in this? It may have served Oldring to create
mystery."
Hours passed. The white stars moved across the narrow strip of dark-blue
sky above. The silence awoke to the low hum of insects. Venters watched
the immovable white face, and as he watched, hour by hour waiting for
death, the infamy of her passed from his mind. He thought only of the
sadness, the truth of the moment. Whoever she was--whatever she had
done--she was young and she was dying.
The after-part of the night wore on interminably. The starlight failed
and the gloom blackened to the darkest hour. "She'll die at the gray
of dawn," muttered Venters, remembering some old woman's fancy. The
blackness paled to gray, and the gray lightened and day peeped over
the eastern rim. Venters listened at the breast of the girl. She
still lived. Did he only imagine that her heart beat stronger, ever so
slightly, but stronger? He pressed his ear closer to her breast. And he
rose with his own pulse quickening.
"If she doesn't die soon--she's got a chance--the barest chance to
live," he said.
He wondered if the
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