"Tell it, then."
"When will you go to Cottonwoods?"
"As soon as the storms are past, or the worst of them."
"I'll tell you before you go. I can't now. I don't know how I shall then. But it must be told. I'd never let you leave me without knowing. For in spite of what you say there's a chance you mightn't come back."
Day after day the west wind blew across the valley. Day after day the clouds clustered gray and purple and black. The cliffs sang and the caves rang with Oldring's knell, and the lightning flashed, the thunder rolled, the echoes crashed and crashed, and the rains flooded the valley. Wild flowers sprang up everywhere, swaying with the lengthening grass on the terraces, smiling wanly from shady nooks, peeping wondrously from year-dry crevices of the walls. The valley bloomed into a paradise. Every single moment, from the breaking of the gold bar through the bridge at dawn on to the reddening of rays over the western wall, was one of colorful change. The valley swam in thick, transparent haze, golden at dawn, warm and white at noon, purple in the twilight.
At the end of every storm a rainbow curved down into the leaf-bright forest to shine and fade and leave lingeringly some faint essence of its rosy iris in the air.
Venters walked with Bess, once more in a dream, and watched the lights change on the walls, and faced the wind from out of the west.
Always it brought softly to him strange, sweet tidings of far-off things. It blew from a place that was old and whispered of youth.
It blew down the grooves of time. It brought a story of the passing hours. It breathed low of fighting men and praying women.
It sang clearly the song of love. That ever was the burden of its tidings--youth in the shady woods, waders through the wet meadows, boy and girl at the hedgerow stile, bathers in the booming surf, sweet, idle hours on grassy, windy hills, long strolls down moonlit lanes--everywhere in far-off lands, fingers locked and bursting hearts and longing lips--from all the world tidings of unquenchable love.
Often, in these hours of dreams he watched the girl, and asked himself of what was she dreaming? For the changing light of the valley reflected its gleam and its color and its meaning in the changing light of her eyes. He saw in them infinitely more than he saw in his dreams. He saw thought and soul and nature--strong vision of life. All tidings the west wind blew from distance and age he found deep in those dark-blue depths, and found them mysteries solved. Under their wistful shadow he softened, and in the softening felt himself grow a sadder, a wiser, and a better man.
While the west wind blew its tidings, filling his heart full, teaching him a man's part, the days passed, the purple clouds changed to white, and the storms were over for that summer.
"I must go now," he said.
"When?" she asked.
"At once--to-night."
"I'm glad the time has come. It dragged at me. Go--for you'll come back the sooner."
Late in the afternoon, as the ruddy sun split its last flame in the ragged notch of the western wall, Bess walked with Venters along the eastern terrace, up the long, weathered slope, under the great stone bridge. They entered the narrow gorge to climb around the fence long before built there by Venters. Farther than this she had never been. Twilight had already fallen in the gorge. It brightened to waning shadow in the wider ascent. He showed her Balancing Rock, of which he had often told her, and explained its sinister leaning over the outlet. Shuddering, she looked down the long, pale incline with its closed-in, toppling walls.
"What an awful trail! Did you carry me up here?"
"I did, surely," replied he.
"It frightens me, somehow. Yet I never was afraid of trails. I'd ride anywhere a horse could go, and climb where he couldn't. But there's something fearful here. I feel as--as if the place was watching me."
"Look at this rock. It's balanced here--balanced perfectly. You know I told you the cliff-dwellers cut the rock, and why. But they're gone and the rock waits. Can't you see--feel how it waits here? I moved it once, and I'll never dare again. A strong heave would start it. Then it would fall and bang, and smash that crag, and jar the walls, and close forever the outlet to Deception Pass!"
"Ah! When you come back I'll steal up here and push and push with all my might to roll the rock and close forever the outlet to the Pass!" She said it lightly, but in the undercurrent of her voice was a heavier note, a ring deeper than any ever given mere play of words.
"Bess!...You can't dare me! Wait till I come back with supplies--then roll the stone."
"I--was--in--fun." Her voice now throbbed low. "Always you must be free to go when you will. Go now...this place presses on me--stifles me."
"I'm going--but you had something to tell me?"
"Yes....Will you--come back?"
"I'll come if I live."
"But--but you mightn't come?"
"That's possible, of course. It'll take a good deal to kill me. A man couldn't have a faster horse or keener dog. And, Bess, I've guns, and I'll use them if I'm pushed. But don't worry."
"I've faith in you. I'll not worry until after four days. Only--because you mightn't come--I must tell you--"
She lost her voice. Her pale face, her great, glowing, earnest eyes, seemed to stand alone out of the gloom of the gorge. The dog whined, breaking the silence.
"I must tell you--because you mightn't come back," she whispered.
"You must know what--what I think of your goodness--of you.
Always I've been tongue-tied. I seemed not to be grateful. It was deep in my heart. Even now--if I were other than I am--I couldn't tell you. But I'm nothing--only a rustler's girl--nameless--infamous. You've saved me-- and I'm--I'm yours to do with as you like....With all my heart and soul--I love you!"
