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"What can Oldring do with twenty-five hundred head of cattle?"

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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 cole did the twenty-five miles in three hours and walked little of the way When he had gotten warait 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 so near the cattle The sloeeping gaze of the rider failed to find other living things within the field of sight The sage about hirant 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 aste 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 froles 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 froe ball about to roll on its golden shadon the slope Venters watched the lengthening of the rays and bars, andshadow The sun sank There was instant shading of brightness about him, and he saw a kind of cold purple bloom creep ahead of him to cross the canyon, to mount the opposite slope and chase and darken and bury the last golden flare of sunlight