t, it took shape and dimensions of a
spectral god waiting--waiting for the moment to hurl himself down upon
the tottering walls and close forever the outlet to Deception Pass. At
night more than by day Venters felt something fearful and fateful in
that rock, and that it had leaned and waited through a thousand years to
have somehow to deal with his destiny.

"Old man, if you must roll, wait till I get back to the girl, and then
roll!" he said, aloud, as if the stones were indeed a god.

And those spoken words, in their grim note to his ear, as well as
contents to his mind, told Venters that he was all but drifting on a
current which he had not power nor wish to stem.

Venters exercised his usual care in the matter of hiding tracks from the
outlet, yet it took him scarcely an hour to reach Oldring's cattle.
Here sight of many calves changed his original intention, and instead
of packing out meat he decided to take a calf out alive. He roped one,
securely tied its feet, and swung it over his shoulder. Here was an
exceedingly heavy burden, but Venters was powerful--he could take up
a sack of grain and with ease pitch it over a pack-saddle--and he made
long distance without resting. The hardest work came in the climb up to
the outlet and on through to the valley. When he had accomplished it,
he became fired with another idea that again changed his intention.
He would not kill the calf, but keep it alive. He would go back to
Oldring's herd and pack out more calves. Thereupon he secured the calf
in the best available spot for the moment and turned to make a second
trip.

When Venters got back to the valley with another calf, it was close upon
daybreak. He crawled into his cave and slept late. Bess had no inkling
that he had been absent from camp nearly all night, and only remarked
solicitously that he appeared to be more tired than usual, and more in
the need of sleep. In the afternoon Venters built a gate across a small
ravine near camp, and here corralled the calves; and he succeeded in
completing his task without Bess being any the wiser.

That night he made two more trips to Oldring's range, and again on the
following night, and yet another on the next. With eight calves in his
corral, he concluded that he had enough; but it dawned upon him then
that he did not want to kill one. "I've rustled Oldring's cattle," he
said, and laughed. He noted then that all the calves were red. "Red!"
he exclaimed. "From the red herd.