by Zane Grey
If there were no game in the valley-a contingency he doubted-it would not be a great task for him to go by night to Oldring's herd and pack out a calf. The exigency of the moment was to ascertain if there were game in Surprise Valley. Whitie still guarded the dilapidated rabbit, and Ring slept nearby under a spruce. Venters called Ring and went to the edge of the terrace, and there halted to survey the valley.
He was prepared to find it larger than his unstudied glances had made it appear, for more than a casual idea of dimensions and a hasty conception of oval shape and singular beauty he had not had time. Again the felicity of the name he had given the valley struck him forcibly. Around the red, perpendicular walls, except under the great arch of stone, ran a terrace fringed at the cliff base by silver spruces; below that first terrace sloped another wider one densely overgrown with aspens, and the center of the valley was a level circle of oaks and alders, with the glittering green line of willows and cottonwood dividing it in half. Venters saw a number and variety of birds flitting among the trees. To his left, facing the stone bridge, an enormous cavern opened in the wall, and low down, just above the tree tops, he made out a long shelf of cliff-dwellings, with little black, staring windows or doors. Like eyes they were, and seemed to watch him. The few cliff-dwellings he had seen-all ruins-had left him with haunting memory of age and solitude and of something past. He had come, in a way, to be a cliff-dweller himself, and those silent eyes would look down upon him, as if in surprise that after thousands of years a man had invaded the valley. Venters felt sure that he was the only white man who had ever walked under the shadow of the wonderful stone bridge, down into that wonderful valley with its circle of caves and its terraced rings of silver spruce and aspens.
The dog growled below and rushed into the forest. Venters ran down the declivity to enter a zone of light shade streaked with sunshine. The oak trees were slender, none more than half a foot thick, and they grew close together, intermingling their branches. Ring came running back with a rabbit in his mouth. Venters took the rabbit and, holding the dog near him, stole softly on. There were fluttering of wings among the branches and quick bird notes, and rustling of dead leaves and rapid patterings. Venters crossed well-worn trails marked with fresh tracks, and, when he had stolen on a little farther, he saw many birds and running quail, and more rabbits than he could count. He had not penetrated the forest of oaks for a hundred yards, had not approached anywhere near the line of willows and cottonwoods that he knew grew along a stream. But he had seen enough to know that Surprise Valley was the home of many wild creatures.
Venters returned to camp. He skinned the rabbits, and gave the dogs the one they had quarreled over, and the skin of this he dressed and hung up to dry, feeling that he would like to keep it. It was a particularly rich, furry pelt with a beautiful white tail. Venters remem bered that but for the bobbing of that white tail catching his eye he would not have espied the rabbit, and he would never have discovered Surprise Valley. Little incidents of chance like this had turned him here and there in Deception Pass, and now they had assumed to him the significance and direction of destiny.
His good fortune in the matter of game at hand brought to his mind the necessity of keeping it in the valley. Therefore, he took the axe and cut bundles of aspens and willows, and packed them up under the bridge to the narrow outlet of the gorge. Here he began fashioning a fence, by driving aspens into the ground and lacing them fast with willows. Trip after trip he made down for more building material, and the afternoon had passed when he finished the work to his satisfaction. Wildcats might scale the fence, but no coyote could come in to search for prey, and no rabbits or other small game could escape from the valley.
Upon returning to camp he set about getting his supper at ease, around a fine fire, without hurry or fear of discovery. After hard work that had definite purpose, this freedom and comfort gave him peculiar satisfaction. He caught himself often, as he kept busy around the campfire, stopping to glance at the quiet form in the cave, and at the dogs stretched cozily near him, and then out across the beautiful valley. The present was not yet real to him.
While he ate, the sun set beyond a dip in the rim of the curved wall. As the morning sun burst wondrously through a grand arch into this valley, in a golden, slanting shaft, so the evening sun, at the moment of setting, shone through a gap of cliffs, sending down a broad, red burst to brighten the oval with a blaze of fire. To Venters both sunrise and sunset were unreal.
A cool wind blew across the oval, waving the tips of oaks, and, while the light lasted, fluttering the aspen leaves into millions of facets of red, and sweeping the graceful spruces. Then with the wind soon came a shade and a darkening, and suddenly the valley was gray. Night came there quickly after the sinking of the sun. Venters went softly to look at the girl. She slept, and her breathing was quiet and slow. He lifted Ring into the cave, with a stern whisper for him to stay there on guard. Then he drew the blanket carefully over her and returned to the campfire.
Although exceedingly tired, he was yet loath to yield to lassitude, but this night it was not from listening, watchful vigilance; it was from a desire to realize his position. The details of his wild environment seemed the only substance of a strange dream. He saw the darkening rims, the gray oval turning black, the undulating surface of forest, like a rippling lake, and the spearpointed spruces. He heard the flutter of aspen leaves and the soft, continuous splash of falling water. The melancholy note of a canon bird broke clearly and lonely from the high cliffs. Venters had no name for this night singer, and he had never seen one, but the few notes, always pealing out just at darkness, were as familiar as the canon silence. Then they ceased, and the rustle of leaves and the murmur of water hushed in a growing sound that Venters fancied was not of earth. Neither had he a name for this, only it was inexpressibly wild and sweet. The thought came that it might be a moan of the girl in her last outcry of life, and he felt a tremor shake him. But, no! This sound was not human, although it was like despair. He began to doubt his sensitive perceptions, to believe that he half dreamed what he thought he heard. Then the sound swelled with the strengthening of the breeze, and he realized it was the singing of the wind in the cliffs.
By and by a drowsiness overcame him, and Venters began to nod, half asleep, with his back against a spruce. Rousing himself and calling Whitie, he went to the cave. The girl lay barely visible in the dimness. Ring crouched beside her, and the patting of his tail on the stone assured Venters that the dog was awake and faithful to his duty. Venters sought his own bed of fragrant boughs, and, as he lay back, somehow grateful for the comfort and safety, the night seemed to steal away from him, and he sank softly into intangible space and rest and slumber.
Venters awakened to the sound of melody that he imagined was only the haunting echo of dream music. He opened his eyes to another surprise of this valley of beautiful surprises. Outside his cave he saw the exquisitely fine foliage of the silver spruces crossing a round space of blue morning sky, and in this lacy leafage fluttered a number of gray birds with black and white stripes and long tails. They were mockingbirds, and they were singing as if they wanted to burst their throats. Venters listened. One long, silver-tipped branch drooped almost to his cave, and upon it, within a few yards of him, sat one of the graceful birds. Venters saw the swelling and quivering of its throat in song. He arose, and, when he slid down out of his cave, the birds fluttered and flew farther away.
Venters stepped before the opening of the other cave and looked in. The girl was awake, with wide eyes and listening look, and she had a hand on Ring's neck.
"Mockingbirds!" she said.
"Yes," replied Venters, "and I believe they like our company."
"Where are we?"
"Never mind now. After a little I'll tell you."
"The birds woke me. When I heard them... and saw the shiny trees... and the blue sky... and then a blaze of gold dropping down... I wondered...
She did not complete her fancy, but Venters imagin
ed he understood her meaning. She appeared to be wandering in mind. Venters felt her face and hands and found them burning with fever. He went for water, and was glad to find it almost as cold as if flowing from ice. That water was the only medicine he had, and he put faith in it. She did not want to drink, but he made her swallow, and then he bathed her face and head and cooled her wrists.
The day began with a heightening of the fever. Venters spent the time reducing her temperature, cooling her hot cheeks and temples. He kept close watch over her, and at the least indication of restlessness, that he knew led to tossing and rolling of the body, he held her tightly, so no violent move could reopen her wounds. Hour after hour she babbled and laughed and cried and moaned in delirium, but whatever her secret was she did not reveal it. Attended by something somber for Venters, the day passed. At night in the cool winds the fever abated, and she slept.
The second day was a repetition of the first. On the third he seemed to see her wither and waste away before his eyes. That day he scarcely went from her side for a moment, except to run for fresh, cool water, and he did not eat. The fever broke on the fourth day and left her spent and shrunken, a slip of a girl with life only in her eyes. They hung upon Venters with a mute observance, and he found hope in that.
To rekindle the spark that had nearly flickered out, to nourish the little life and vitality that remained in her, were Venters's problems. But he had little resource other than the meat of the rabbits and quail, and from these he made broths and soups as best he could, and fed her with a spoon. It came to him that the human body, like the human soul, was a strange thing and capable of recovering from terrible shocks. For almost immediately she showed faint signs of gathering strength. There was one more waiting day, in which he doubted, and spent long hours by her side as she slept, and watched the gentle swell of her breast rise and fall in breathing, and the wind stir the tangled chestnut curls. On the next day he knew that she would live.
Upon realizing it, he abruptly left the cave and sought his accustomed seat against the trunk of a big spruce, where once more he let his glance stray along the sloping terraces. She would live, and the somber gloom lifted out of the valley, and he felt relief that was pain. Then he roused to the call of action, to the many things he needed to do in the way of making camp fixtures and utensils, to the necessity of hunting food, and the desire to explore the valley.
But he decided to wait a few more days before going far from camp, because he fancied that the girl rested easier when she could see him near at hand. On the first day her languor appeared to leave her in a renewed grip of life. She awoke stronger from each short slumber; she ate greedily, and she moved about in her bed of boughs, and always, it seemed to Venters, her eyes followed him. He knew now that her recovery would be rapid. She talked about the dogs, about the caves, the valley, about how hungry she was; still Venters silenced her, asking her to put off further talk till another time. She obeyed, but she sat up in her bed, and her eyes roved to and fro, and always back to him.
Upon the second morning she sat up when he awakened her, and would not permit him to bathe her face and feed her, which actions she performed for herself. She spoke little, however, and Venters was quick to catch in her the first intimations of thoughtfulness and curiosity and appreciation of her situation. He left camp and took Whitie out to hunt for rabbits. Upon his return he was amazed and somewhat anxiously concerned to see his invalid sitting with her bare feet swinging out. Hurriedly he approached, intending to advise her to lie down again, to tell her that perhaps she might overtax her strength. The sun shone upon her, glinting on the little head with its tangle of bright hair and the small, oval face with its pallor, and dark blue eyes underlined by dark blue circles. She looked at him and he looked at her. In that exchange of glances he imagined each saw the other in some different guise. It seemed impossible to Venters that this frail girl could be Oldring's Masked Rider. It flashed over him that he had made a mistake that presently she would explain.
"Help me down," she said.
"But... are you well enough?" he protested. "Wait... a little longer."
"I'm weak... dizzy. But I want to get down."
He lifted her-what a light burden now!-and stood her upright beside him, and supported her as she essayed to walk with halting steps. She was like a stripling of a boy; the bright, small head scarcely reached his shoulder. But now, as she clung to his arm, the rider's costume she wore did not contradict, as it had done at first, his feeling of her femininity. She might be the famous Masked Rider of the uplands, she might resemble a boy, but her outline, her little hands and feet, her hair, her big eyes and tremulous lips, and especially a something that Venters felt as a subtle essence rather than what he saw proclaimed her sex.
She soon tired. He arranged a comfortable seat for her under the spruce that overspread the campfire.
"Now tell me... everything," she said.
He recounted all that had happened from the time of his discovery of the rustlers in the canon up to the present moment.
"You shot me... and now you've saved my life?"
"Yes. After almost killing you, I've pulled you through."
"Are you glad?"
"I should say so!"
Her eyes were unusually expressive, and they regarded him steadily. She was unconscious of that mirroring of her emotions, and they shone with gratefulness and interest and wonder and sadness.
"Tell me... about yourself?" she asked.
He made this a briefer story, telling of his coming to Utah, his various occupations till he became a rider, and then how the Mormons had practically driven him out of Cottonwoods, an outcast. Then, no longer able to withstand his own burning curiosity, he questioned her in turn. "Are you Oldring's Masked Rider?"
"Yes," she replied, and dropped her eyes.
"I knew it... I recognized your figure... and mask, for I saw you once. Yet I can't believe it! But you never were really that rustler, as we riders knew him? A thief... a marauder... a kidnapper of women... a murderer of sleeping riders?"
"No! I never stole... or harmed anyone... in all my life. I only rode and rode...
"But why... why?" he burst out. "Why the name? I understand Oldring made you ride. But the black mask... the mystery... the things laid to your hands... the threats in your infamous name... the night riding credited to you... the evil deeds deliberately blamed on you and acknowledged by rustlers... even Oldring himself! Why? Tell me why?"
"I never knew that," she answered in a low voice. Her drooping head straightened, and the large eyes, larger now and darker, met Venters's with a clear, steadfast gaze in which he read truth. It verified his own conviction.
"Never knew? That's strange! Are you a Mormon?"
"No."
"Is Oldring a Mormon?"
"No."
"Do you care for him?"
"Yes. I hate his men... his life... sometimes I almost hate him!"
Venters paused in his rapid-fire questioning, as if to brace himself to ask for a truth that would be abhorrent for him to confirm, but which he seemed driven to hear.
"What are... what were you to Oldring?"
Like some delicate thing suddenly exposed to blasting heat, the girl wilted; her head dropped, and into her white, wasted cheeks crept the red of shame.
Venters would have given anything to recall that question. It seemed so different, his thought when spoken. Yet her shame established in his mind something akin to the respect he had strangely been hungering to feel for her. "Damn that question!... Forget it!" he cried, in a passion of pain for her and anger at himself. "But once and for all... tell me... I know it, yet I want to hear you say so... you couldn't help yourself."
"Oh, no."
"Well, that makes it all right with me," he went on honestly. "I... I want you to feel that... you see... we've been thrown together... and... and I want to help you... not hurt you. I thought life had been cruel to me, but when I think of yours, I feel mean and little for my complaining. A
nyway, I was a lonely outcast. And now! I don't see very clearly what it all means. Only we are here... together. We've got to stay here for a long time, surely till you are well. But you'll never go back to Oldring. And I'm sure helping you will help me, for I was sick in mind. There's something now for me to do. And if I can win back your strength... then get you away, out of this wild country... help you somehow to a happier fife... just think how good that'll be for me!"
During all these waiting days, Venters, with the exception of the afternoon when he had built the gate in the gorge, had scarcely gone out of sight of camp and never out of hearing. His desire to explore Surprise Valley was keen, and on the morning after his long talk with the girl he took his rifle and, calling Ring, made a move to start. The girl lay back in a rude chair of boughs he had put together for her. She had been watching him, and, when he picked up the gun and called the dog, Venters thought she gave a nervous start.
"I'm only going to look over the valley," he said.
"Will you be gone long?"
"No," he replied, and started off. The incident set him thinking of his former impression that, after her recovery from fever, she did not seem at ease unless he was close at hand. It was fear of being alone, due, he concluded, most likely to her weakened condition. He must not leave her much alone.
As he strode down the sloping terrace, rabbits scampered before him, and the beautiful valley quail, as put ple in color as the sage on the uplands, ran fleetly along the ground into the forest. It was pleasant under the trees, in the gold-flecked shade, with the whistle of quail and twittering of birds everywhere. Soon he had passed the limit of his former excursions and entered new territory. Here the woods began to show open glades and brooks running down from the slope, and presently he emerged from shade into the sunshine of a meadow. The shaking of the high grass told him of the running of animals, what species he could not tell, but from Ring's manifest desire to have a chase they were evidently some kind wilder than rabbits. Venters approached the willow and cottonwood belt that he had observed from the height of the slope. He penetrated it to find a considerable stream of water and great, halfsubmerged mounds of brush and sticks, and all about him were old and new gnawed circles at the base of the cottonwoods.
