ull an' Oldin' you want to be cool. I reckon, though, you'd better
keep hid here. Well, I must be leavin'."

"One thing, Lassiter. You'll not tell Jane about Bess? Please don't!"

"I reckon not. But I wouldn't be afraid to bet that after she'd got
over anger at your secrecy--Venters, she'd be furious once in her
life!--she'd think more of you. I don't mind sayin' for myself that I
think you're a good deal of a man."

In the further ascent Venters halted several times with the intention of
saying good-by, yet he changed his mind and kept on climbing till they
reached Balancing Rock. Lassiter examined the huge rock, listened to
Venters's idea of its position and suggestion, and curiously placed a
strong hand upon it.

"Hold on!" cried Venters. "I heaved at it once and have never gotten
over my scare."

"Well, you do seem uncommon nervous," replied Lassiter, much amused.
"Now, as for me, why I always had the funniest notion to roll stones!
When I was a kid I did it, an' the bigger I got the bigger stones I'd
roll. Ain't that funny? Honest--even now I often get off my hoss just to
tumble a big stone over a precipice, en' watch it drop, en' listen to it
bang an' boom. I've started some slides in my time, an' don't you forget
it. I never seen a rock I wanted to roll as bad as this one! Wouldn't
there jest be roarin', crashin' hell down that trail?"

"You'd close the outlet forever!" exclaimed Venters. "Well, good-by,
Lassiter. Keep my secret and don't forget me. And be mighty careful how
you get out of the valley below. The rustlers' canyon isn't more than
three miles up the Pass. Now you've tracked me here, I'll never feel
safe again."

In his descent to the valley, Venters's emotion, roused to stirring
pitch by the recital of his love story, quieted gradually, and in its
place came a sober, thoughtful mood. All at once he saw that he was
serious, because he would never more regain his sense of security while
in the valley. What Lassiter could do another skilful tracker might
duplicate. Among the many riders with whom Venters had ridden he
recalled no one who could have taken his trail at Cottonwoods and have
followed it to the edge of the bare slope in the pass, let alone up that
glistening smooth stone. Lassiter, however, was not an ordinary rider.
Instead of hunting cattle tracks he had likely spent a goodly portion
of his life tracking men. It was not improbable that among Oldring's
rustlers there was one who sha