The Project Gutenberg EBook of Riders of the Purple Sage, by Zane Grey

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Title: Riders of the Purple Sage

Author: Zane Grey

Release Date: April, 2000 [Etext #1300]
Posting Date: November 7, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE ***

Produced by Bill Brewer and Rick Fane

RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE

By Zane Grey

CHAPTER I. LASSITER

A sharp clip-crop of iron-shod hoofs deadened and died away, and clouds
of yellow dust drifted from under the cottonwoods out over the sage.

Jane Withersteen gazed down the wide purple slope with dreamy and
troubled eyes. A rider had just left her and it was his message that
held her thoughtful and almost sad, awaiting the churchmen who were
coming to resent and attack her right to befriend a Gentile.

She wondered if the unrest and strife that had lately come to the
little village of Cottonwoods was to involve her. And then she sighed,
remembering that her father had founded this remotest border settlement
of southern Utah and that he had left it to her. She owned all the
ground and many of the cottages. Withersteen House was hers, and the
great ranch, with its thousands of cattle, and the swiftest horses of
the sage. To her belonged Amber Spring, the water which gave verdure
and beauty to the village and made living possible on that wild purple
upland waste. She could not escape being involved by whatever befell
Cottonwoods.

That year, 1871, had marked a change which had been gradually coming
in the lives of the peace-loving Mormons of the border. Glaze--Stone
Bridge--Sterling, villages to the north, had risen against the
invasion of Gentile settlers and the forays of rustlers. There had been
opposition to the one and fighting with the other. And now Cottonwoods
had begun to wake and bestir itself and grown hard.

Jane prayed that the tranquillity and sweetness of her life would not be
permanently disrupted. She meant to do so much more for her people than
she had done. She wanted the sleepy quiet pastoral days to last always.
Trouble between the Mormons and the Gentiles of the community would
make her unhappy. She