So they rode on down the old trail. And the sun sloped to the west, and a golden sheen lay on the sage. The hours sped now; the afternoon waned. Often they rested the horses. The glisten of a pool of water in a hollow caught Venters’s eye, and here he unsaddled the blacks and let them roll and drink and browse. When he and Bess rode up out of the hollow the sun was low, a crimson ball, and the valley seemed veiled in purple fire and smoke. It was that short time when the sun appeared to rest before setting, and silence, like a cloak of invisible life, lay heavy on all that shimmering world of sage. [Illustration: When he and Bess rode up out of the hollow the sun was low.] They watched the sun begin to bury its red curve under the dark horizon. “We’ll ride on till late,” he said. “Then you can sleep a little, while I watch and graze the horses. And we’ll ride into Sterling early to-morrow. We’ll be married!... We’ll be in time to catch the stage. We’ll tie Black Star and Night behind—and then—for a country not wild and terrible like this!” “Oh, Bern!... But look! The sun is setting on the sage—the last time for us till we dare come again to the Utah border. Ten years! Oh, Bern, look, so you will never forget!” Slumbering, fading purple fire burned over the undulating sage ridges. Long streaks and bars and shafts and spears fringed the far western slope. Drifting, golden veils mingled with low, purple shadows. Colors and shades changed in slow, wondrous transformation. Suddenly Venters was startled by a low, rumbling roar—so low that it was like the roar in a sea-shell. “Bess, did you hear anything?” he whispered. “No.” “Listen!... Maybe I only imagined—_Ah!_” Out of the east or north from remote distance, breathed an infinitely low, continuously long sound—deep, weird, detonating, thundering, deadening—dying. CHAPTER XXIII. THE FALL OF BALANCING ROCK Through tear-blurred sight Jane Withersteen watched Venters and Elizabeth Erne and the black racers disappear over the ridge of sage. “They’re gone!” said Lassiter. “An’ they’re safe now. An’ there’ll never be a day of their comin’ happy lives but what they’ll remember Jane Withersteen an’—an’ Uncle Jim!... I reckon, Jane, we’d better be on our way.” The burros obediently wheeled and started down the break with little cautious steps, but Lassiter had to leash the whining dogs and lead them. Jane felt herself bound in a feeling that was neither listlessness nor indifference, yet which rendered her incapable of interest. She was still strong in body, but emotionally tired. That hour at the entrance to Deception Pass had been the climax of her suffering—the flood of her wrath—the last of her sacrifice—the supremity of her love—and the attainment of peace. She thought that if she had little Fay she would not ask any more of life.