shall not have killed a woman. But--for your own sake, too--"
A terrible bitterness darkened her eyes, and her lips quivered.

"Hush," said Venters. "You've talked too much already."
In her unutterable bitterness he saw a darkness of mood that

could not have been caused by her present weak and feverish
state. She hated the life she had led, that she probably had been

compelled to lead. She had suffered some unforgivable wrong at
the hands of Oldring. With that conviction Venters felt a shame

throughout his body, and it marked the rekindling of fierce anger
and ruthlessness. In the past long year he had nursed resentment.

He had hated the wilderness--the loneliness of the uplands. He
had waited for something to come to pass. It had come. Like an

Indian stealing horses he had skulked into the recesses of the
canyons. He had found Oldring's retreat; he had killed a rustler;

he had shot an unfortunate girl, then had saved her from this
unwitting act, and he meant to save her from the consequent

wasting of blood, from fever and weakness. Starvation he had to
fight for her and for himself. Where he had been sick at the

letting of blood, now he remembered it in grim, cold calm. And as
he lost that softness of nature, so he lost his fear of men. He

would watch for Oldring, biding his time, and he would kill this
great black-bearded rustler who had held a girl in bondage, who

had used her to his infamous ends.
Venters surmised this much of the change in him--idleness had

passed; keen, fierce vigor flooded his mind and body; all that
had happened to him at Cottonwoods seemed remote and hard to

recall; the difficulties and perils of the present absorbed him,
held him in a kind of spell.

First, then, he fitted up the little cave adjoining the girl's
room for his own comfort and use. His next work was to build a

fireplace of stones and to gather a store of wood. That done, he
spilled the contents of his saddle-bags upon the grass and took

stock. His outfit consisted of a small-handled axe, a
hunting-knife, a large number of cartridges for rifle or

revolver, a tin plate, a cup, and a fork and spoon, a quantity of
dried beef and dried fruits, and small canvas bags containing

tea, sugar, salt, and pepper. For him alone this supply would
have been bountiful to begin a sojourn in the wilderness, but he

was no longer alone. Starvation in the uplands was not an
unheard-of thing; he did not, however, worry at all on that

score, and feared only his possible inability to supply the needs
of a woman in a weakened and extremelydelicate condition.

If there was 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 near by 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 arc 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

which 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 remembered 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 peculiarsatisfaction. He caught himself often, as he

kept busy round the camp-fire, 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 gracefulspruces. 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 stern whisper for him to stay there on guard. Then he drew

the blanket carefully over her and returned to the camp-fire.