e pervaded her soul. Her doom had fallen upon her, but, instead
of finding life no longer worth living she found it doubly significant,
full of sweetness as the western breeze, beautiful and unknown as the
sage-slope stretching its purple sunset shadows before her. She became
aware of Judkins's hand touching hers; she heard him speak a husky
good-by; then into the place of Bells shot the dead-black, keen, racy
nose of Night, and she knew Lassiter rode beside her.

"Don't--look--back!" he said, and his voice, too, was not clear.

Facing straight ahead, seeing only the waving, shadowy sage, Jane held
out her gauntleted hand, to feel it enclosed in strong clasp. So she
rode on without a backward glance at the beautiful grove of Cottonwoods.
She did not seem to think of the past of what she left forever, but of
the color and mystery and wildness of the sage-slope leading down to
Deception Pass, and of the future. She watched the shadows lengthen down
the slope; she felt the cool west wind sweeping by from the rear; and
she wondered at low, yellow clouds sailing swiftly over her and beyond.

"Don't look--back!" said Lassiter.

Thick-driving belts of smoke traveled by on the wind, and with it came a
strong, pungent odor of burning wood.

Lassiter had fired Withersteen House! But Jane did not look back.

A misty veil obscured the clear, searching gaze she had kept steadfastly
upon the purple slope and the dim lines of canyons. It passed, as passed
the rolling clouds of smoke, and she saw the valley deepening into the
shades of twilight. Night came on, swift as the fleet racers, and stars
peeped out to brighten and grow, and the huge, windy, eastern heave of
sage-level paled under a rising moon and turned to silver. Blanched
in moonlight, the sage yet seemed to hold its hue of purple and was
infinitely more wild and lonely. So the night hours wore on, and Jane
Withersteen never once looked back.

CHAPTER XXI. BLACK STAR AND NIGHT

The time had come for Venters and Bess to leave their retreat. They were
at great pains to choose the few things they would be able to carry with
them on the journey out of Utah.

"Bern, whatever kind of a pack's this, anyhow?" questioned Bess, rising
from her work with reddened face.

Venters, absorbed in his own task, did not look up at all, and in reply
said he had brought so much from Cottonwoods that he did not recollect
the half of it.

"A woman packed this!" Bess exclaimed.

H