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Riders of the Purple Sage-Part16_Zane Gray(1872-1939)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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Ring and Whitie stood waiting for him. Taking to the open aisles



and patches of the sage, he walked guardedly, careful not to

stumble or step in dust or strike against spreading



sage-branches.

If he were burdened he did not feel it. From time to time, when



he passed out of the black lines of shade into the wan starlight,

he glanced at the white face of the girl lying in his arms. She



had not awakened from her sleep or stupor. He did not rest until

he cleared the black gate of the canyon. Then he leaned against a



stone breast-high to him and gently released the girl from his

hold. His brow and hair and the palms of his hands were wet, and



there was a kind of nervouscontraction of his muscles. They

seemed to ripple and string tense. He had a desire to hurry and



no sense of fatigue. A wind blew the scent of sage in his face.

The first early blackness of night passed with the brightening of



the stars. Somewhere back on his trail a coyote yelped, splitting

the dead silence. Venters's faculties seemed singularly



acute.

He lifted the girl again and pressed on. The valley better



traveling than the canyon. It was lighter, freer of sage, and

there were no rocks. Soon, out of the pale gloom shone a still



paler thing, and that was the low swell of slope. Venters mounted

it and his dogs walked beside him. Once upon the stone he slowed



to snail pace, straining his sight to avoid the pockets and

holes. Foot by foot he went up. The weird cedars, like great



demons and witches chained to the rock and writhing in silent

anguish, loomed up with wide and twisting naked arms. Venters



crossed this belt of cedars, skirted the upper border, and

recognized the tree he had marked, even before he saw his waving



scarf.

Here he knelt and deposited the girl gently, feet first and



slowly laid her out full length. What he feared was to reopen one

of her wounds. If he gave her a violent jar, or slipped and fell!



But the supreme confidence so strangely felt that night admitted

no such blunders.



The slope before him seemed to swell into obscurity to lose its

definite outline in a misty, opaque cloud that shaded into the



over-shadowing wall. He scanned the rim where the serrated points

speared the sky, and he found the zigzag crack. It was dim, only



a shade lighter than the dark ramparts, but he distinguished it,

and that served.



Lifting the girl, he stepped upward, closely attending to the

nature of the path under his feet. After a few steps he stopped



to mark his line with the crack in the rim. The dogs clung closer

to him. While chasing the rabbit this slope had appeared



interminable to him; now, burdened as he was, he did not think of

length or height or toil. He remembered only to avoid a misstep



and to keep his direction. He climbed on, with frequent stops to

watch the rim, and before he dreamed of gaining the bench he



bumped his knees into it, and saw, in the dim gray light, his

rifle and the rabbit. He had come straight up without mishap or



swerving off his course, and his shut teeth unlocked.

As he laid the girl down in the shallow hollow of the little



ridge with her white face upturned, she opened her eyes. Wide,

staring black, at once like both the night and the stars, they



made her face seem still whiter.

"Is--it--you?" she asked, faintly.



"Yes," replied Venters.

"Oh! Where--are we?"



"I'm taking you to a safe place where no one will ever find you.

I must climb a little here and call the dogs. Don't be afraid.



I'll soon come for you."

She said no more. Her eyes watched him steadily for a moment and



then closed. Venters pulled off his boots and then felt for the

little steps in the rock. The shade of the cliff above obscured



the point he wanted to gain, but he could see dimly a few feet

before him. What he had attempted with care he now went at with



surpassing lightness. Buoyant, rapid, sure, he attained the

corner of wall and slipped around it. Here he could not see a



hand before his face, so he groped along, found a little flat

space, and there removed the saddle-bags. The lasso he took back



with him to the corner and looped the noose over the spur of

rock.



"Ring--Whitie--come," he called, softly.




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