Rider sat before him, a girl dressed as a man.  She had been made to ride at the head of infamous forays and drives.  She had been imprisoned for many months of her life in an obscure cabin.  At times the most vicious of men had been her companions; and the vilest of women, if they had not been permitted to approach her, had, at least, cast their shadows over her.  But—­but in spite of all this—­there thundered at Venters some truth that lifted its voice higher than the clamoring facts of dishonor, some truth that was the very life of her beautiful eyes; and it was innocence.

In the days that followed, Venters balanced perpetually in mind this haunting conception of innocence over against the cold and sickening fact of an unintentional yet actual gift.  How could it be possible for the two things to be true?  He believed the latter to be true, and he would not relinquish his conviction of the former; and these conflicting thoughts augmented the mystery that appeared to be a part of Bess.  In those ensuing days, however, it became clear as clearest light that Bess was rapidly regaining strength; that, unless reminded of her long association with Oldring, she seemed to have forgotten it; that, like an Indian who lives solely from moment to moment, she was utterly absorbed in the present.

Day by day Venters watched the white of her face slowly change to brown, and the wasted cheeks fill out by imperceptible degrees.  There came a time when he could just trace the line of demarcation between the part of her face once hidden by a mask and that left exposed to wind and sun.  When that line disappeared in clear bronze tan it was as if she had been washed clean of the stigma of Oldring’s Masked Rider.  The suggestion of the mask always made Venters remember; now that it was gone he seldom thought of her past.  Occasionally he tried to piece together the several stages of strange experience and to make a whole.  He had shot a masked outlaw the very sight of whom had been ill omen to riders; he had carried off a wounded woman whose bloody lips quivered in prayer; he had nursed what seemed a frail, shrunken boy; and now he watched a girl whose face had become strangely sweet, whose dark-blue eyes were ever upon him without boldness, without shyness, but with a steady, grave, and growing light.  Many times Venters found the clear gaze embarrassing to him, yet, like wine, it had an exhilarating effect.  What did she think when she looked at him so?  Almost he believed she had no thought at all.  All about her and the present there in Surprise Valley, and the dim yet subtly impending future, fascinated Venters and made him thoughtful as all his lonely vigils in the sage had not.