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"And--then?"

"Well, it'll be time to think of that when you're cured of your wound It's a bad one And--Bess, if you don't want to live--if you don't fight for life--you'll never--"

"Oh! I want--to live! I'o back--to--to--"

"To Oldring?" asked Venters, interrupting her in turn

Her lips moved in an affirmative

"I promise not to take you back to him or to Cottonwoods or to Glaze"

The aze suddenly shone with unutterable gratitude and wonder And as suddenly Venters found her eyes beautiful as he had never seen or felt beauty They were as dark blue as the sky at night Then the flashing changed to a long, thoughtful look, in which there was a wistful, unconscious searching of his face, a look that tree of hope and trust

"I'll try--to live," she said The broken whisper just reached his ears "Do what--you want--with me"

"Rest then--don't worry--sleep," he replied

Abruptly he arose, as if words had been decision for his he strode from the cae within hi of oldof new forces, a moment of inexplicable transition He was both cast down and uplifted He wanted to think and think of the , but he resolutely dispelled emotion His imperative need at present was to find a safe retreat, and this called for action

So he set out It still wanted several hours before dark This trip he turned to the left and wended his skulking way southward aof the valley, where lay the strange scrawled rocks He did not, however, venture boldly out into the open sage, but clung to the right-hand wall and went along that till its perpendicular line broke into the long incline of bare stone

Before proceeding farther he halted, studying the strange character of this slope and realizing that a round Before hiradual swell of smooth stone It was hard, polished, and full of pockets worn by centuries of eddying rain-water A hundred yards up began a line of grotesque cedar-trees, and they extended along the slope clear to its et, and he concluded the cedars, few as they were, would afford some cover

Therefore he climbed swiftly The trees were farther up than he had esti habitnature of distances in that country When he gained the cover of cedars he paused to rest and look, and it was then he sa the trees sprang froes of rain had run down the slope, circling, eddying in depressions, wearing deep round holes There had been dry seasons, accumulations of dust, wind-blown seeds, and cedars rose wonderfully out of solid rock But these were not beautiful cedars They were gnarled, twisted into weird contortions, as if groere torture, dead at the tops, shrunken, gray, and old