He laid the girl down, almost fearing to look at her.  Though marble pale and cold, she was living.  Venters then appreciated the tax that long carry had been to his strength.  He sat down to rest.  Whitie sniffed at the pale girl and whined and crept to Venters’s feet.  Ring lapped the water in the runway of the spring.

Presently Venters went out to the opening, caught the horse and, leading him through the thicket, unsaddled him and tied him with a long halter.  Wrangle left his browsing long enough to whinny and toss his head.  Venters felt that he could not rest easily till he had secured the other rustler’s horse; so, taking his rifle and calling for Ring, he set out.  Swiftly yet watchfully he made his way through the canyon to the oval and out to the cattle trail.  What few tracks might have betrayed him he obliterated, so only an expert tracker could have trailed him.  Then, with many a wary backward glance across the sage, he started to round up the rustler’s horse.  This was unexpectedly easy.  He led the horse to lower ground, out of sight from the opposite side of the oval along the shadowy western wall, and so on into his canyon and secluded camp.

The girl’s eyes were open; a feverish spot burned in her cheeks she moaned something unintelligible to Venters, but he took the movement of her lips to mean that she wanted water.  Lifting her head, he tipped the canteen to her lips.  After that she again lapsed into unconsciousness or a weakness which was its counterpart.  Venters noted, however, that the burning flush had faded into the former pallor.

The sun set behind the high canyon rim, and a cool shade darkened the walls.  Venters fed the dogs and put a halter on the dead rustlers horse.  He allowed Wrangle to browse free.  This done, he cut spruce boughs and made a lean-to for the girl.  Then, gently lifting her upon a blanket, he folded the sides over her.  The other blanket he wrapped about his shoulders and found a comfortable seat against a spruce-tree that upheld the little shack.  Ring and Whitie lay near at hand, one asleep, the other watchful.

Venters dreaded the night’s vigil.  At night his mind was active, and this time he had to watch and think and feel beside a dying girl whom he had all but murdered.  A thousand excuses he invented for himself, yet not one made any difference in his act or his self-reproach.

It seemed to him that when night fell black he could see her white face so much more plainly.

“She’ll go, presently,” he said, “and be out of agony—­thank God!”

Every little while certainty of her death came to him with a shock; and then he would bend over and lay his ear on her breast.  Her heart still beat.

The early night blackness cleared to the cold starlight.  The horses were not moving, and no sound disturbed the deathly silence of the canyon.

“I’ll bury her here,” thought Venters, “and let her grave be as much a mystery as her life was.”