Until Oldring had driven the red herd his thefts of cattle for that time had not been more than enough to supply meat for his men.  Of late no drives had been reported from Sterling or the villages north.  And Venters knew that the riders had wondered at Oldring’s inactivity in that particular field.  He and his band had been active enough in their visits to Glaze and Cottonwoods; they always had gold; but of late the amount gambled away and drunk and thrown away in the villages had given rise to much conjecture.  Oldring’s more frequent visits had resulted in new saloons, and where there had formerly been one raid or shooting fray in the little hamlets there were now many.  Perhaps Oldring had another range farther on up the pass, and from there drove the cattle to distant Utah towns where he was little known But Venters came finally to doubt this.  And, from what he had learned in the last few days, a belief began to form in Venters’s mind that Oldring’s intimidations of the villages and the mystery of the Masked Rider, with his alleged evil deeds, and the fierce resistance offered any trailing riders, and the rustling of cattle—­ these things were only the craft of the rustler-chief to conceal his real life and purpose and work in Deception Pass.

And like a scouting Indian Venters crawled through the sage of the oval valley, crossed trail after trail on the north side, and at last entered the canyon out of which headed the cattle trail, and into which he had watched the rustlers disappear.

If he had used caution before, now he strained every nerve to force himself to creeping stealth and to sensitiveness of ear.  He crawled along so hidden that he could not use his eyes except to aid himself in the toilsome progress through the brakes and ruins of cliff-wall.  Yet from time to time, as he rested, he saw the massive red walls growing higher and wilder, more looming and broken.  He made note of the fact that he was turning and climbing.  The sage and thickets of oak and brakes of alder gave place to pinyon pine growing out of rocky soil.  Suddenly a low, dull murmur assailed his ears.  At first he thought it was thunder, then the slipping of a weathered slope of rock.  But it was incessant, and as he progressed it filled out deeper and from a murmur changed into a soft roar.

“Falling water,” he said.  “There’s volume to that.  I wonder if it’s the stream I lost.”

The roar bothered him, for he could hear nothing else.  Likewise, however, no rustlers could hear him.  Emboldened by this and sure that nothing but a bird could see him, he arose from his hands and knees to hurry on.  An opening in the pinyons warned him that he was nearing the height of slope.

He gained it, and dropped low with a burst of astonishment.  Before him stretched a short canyon with rounded stone floor bare of grass or sage or tree, and with curved, shelving walls.  A broad rippling stream flowed toward him, and at the back of the canyon waterfall burst from a wide rent in the cliff, and, bounding down in two green steps, spread into a long white sheet.