BLACK STAR AND NIGHT
"What of that? Bess, I'll get angry at you in a moment. Remember you've been pent up all your life. I venture to say that if you'd been out in the world you'd have had a dozen sweethearts and have told many a lie before this."
"I wouldn't anything of the kind," declared Bess, indignantly.
"Well—perhaps not lie. But you'd have had the sweethearts. You couldn't have helped that—being so pretty."
This remark appeared to be a very clever and fortunate one; and the work of selecting and then of stowing all the packs in the cave, went on without further interruption.
Venters closed up the opening of the cave with a thatch of willows and aspens, so that not even a bird or a rat could get in to the sacks of grain. And this work was in order with the precaution habitually observed by him. He might not be able to get out of Utah, and have to return to the valley. But he owed it to Bess to make the attempt, and in case they were compelled to turn back he wanted to find that fine store of food and grain intact. The outfit of implements and utensils he packed away in another cave.
"Bess, we have enough to live here all our lives," he said once, dreamily.
"Shall I go roll Balancing Rock?" she asked, in light speech, but with deep-blue fire in her eyes.
"No—no."
"Ah, you don't forget the gold and the world," she sighed.
"Child, you forget the beautiful dresses and the travel—and everything."
"Oh, I want to go. But I want to stay!"
"I feel the same way."
They let the eight calves out of the corral, and kept only two of the burros Venters had brought from Cot-
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