Page 87 (1/1)

Mostly, though, because the ood to me I wasn't afraid"

"A prisoner! Thatas I can remember I've been locked up there at times, and those tih up on a cliff, and I could look out

Then I had dogs and pets I had ta inside, and food stored, and the ht me fresh meat Once I was there one whole winter"

It now required deliberation on Venters's part to persist in his unconcern and to keep at work He wanted to look at her, to volley questions at her

"As long as you can remember--you've lived in Deception Pass?" he went on

"I've a dim memory of some other place, and wo of it Sometimes I think till I'm weary"

"Then you can read--you have books?"

"Oh yes, I can read, and write, too, pretty well Oldring is educated He taught o an old rustler lived with us, and he had been sotrips," oes?"

"No Every year he drives cattle north of Sterling--then does not return fortwo lives--and he killed the e"

Venters dropped his apparent task and looked up with an eagerness he no longer strove to hide

"Bess," he said, using her na besides a rustler Tell me, what's his purpose here in the Pass? I believe much that he has done was to hide his real work here"

"You're right He'scattle is now only a bluff There's gold in the canyons!"

"Ah!"

"Yes, there's gold, not in great quantities, but gold enough for hiold week in and week out Then they drive a few cattle and go into the villages to drink and shoot and kill--to bluff the riders"

"Drive a few cattle! But, Bess, the Withersteen herd, the red herd-- twenty-five hundred head! That's not a few And I tracked the never stole the red herd He made a deal with Mor was to drive the herd and keep it till a certain tie What his share was I didn't hear"