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.
He scarcely caught her meaning, but the peculiar tone of her
voice caused him instantly to rise, and he saw Bess on her knees
before an open pack which he recognized as the one given him by
Jane.
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