“Oh!  Listen!  Bess!” Venters now heard his voice ringing high and sweet, and he felt Bess’s cold hands in his crushing grasp as she leaned toward him pale, breathless.  “This is how much I’d leave you!  You made me live again!  I’ll take you away—­far away from this wild country.  You’ll begin a new life.  You’ll be happy.  You shall see cities, ships, people.  You shall have anything your heart craves.  All the shame and sorrow of your life shall be forgotten—­as if they had never been.  This is how much I’d leave you here alone—­you sad-eyed girl.  I love you!  Didn’t you know it?  How could you fail to know it?  I love you!  I’m free!  I’m a man—­a man you’ve made—­no more a beggar!...Kiss me!  This is how much I’d leave you here alone—­you beautiful, strange, unhappy girl.  But I’ll make you happy.  What—­what do I care for—­your past!  I love you!  I’ll take you home to Illinois—­to my mother.  Then I’ll take you to far places.  I’ll make up all you’ve lost.  Oh, I know you love me—­knew it before you told me.  And it changed my life.  And you’ll go with me, not as my companion as you are here, nor my sister, but, Bess, darling!...As my wife!”

CHAPTER XVII.  WRANGLE’S RACE RUN

The plan eventually decided upon by the lovers was for Venters to go to the village, secure a horse and some kind of a disguise for Bess, or at least less striking apparel than her present garb, and to return post-haste to the valley.  Meanwhile, she would add to their store of gold.  Then they would strike the long and perilous trail to ride out of Utah.  In the event of his inability to fetch back a horse for her, they intended to make the giant sorrel carry double.  The gold, a little food, saddle blankets, and Venters’s guns were to compose the light outfit with which they would make the start.

“I love this beautiful place,” said Bess.  “It’s hard to think of leaving it.”

“Hard!  Well, I should think so,” replied Venters.  “Maybe—­in years—­” But he did not complete in words his thought that might be possible to return after many years of absence and change.

Once again Bess bade Venters farewell under the shadow of Balancing Rock, and this time it was with whispered hope and tenderness and passionate trust.  Long after he had left her, all down through the outlet to the Pass, the clinging clasp of her arms, the sweetness of her lips, and the sense of a new and exquisite birth of character in her remained hauntingly and thrillingly in his mind.  The girl who had sadly called herself nameless and nothing had been marvelously transformed in the moment of his avowal of love.  It was something to think over, something to warm his heart, but for the present it had absolutely to be forgotten so that all his mind could be addressed to the trip so fraught with danger.