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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of To the Last Man, by Zane Grey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: To the Last Man
+
+Author: Zane Grey
+
+Posting Date: November 19, 2008 [EBook #2070]
+Release Date: February, 2000
+[Last updated: August 4, 2013]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TO THE LAST MAN ***
+
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+To The Last Man
+
+
+by
+
+Zane Grey
+
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+It was inevitable that in my efforts to write romantic history of the
+great West I should at length come to the story of a feud.  For long I
+have steered clear of this rock.  But at last I have reached it and
+must go over it, driven by my desire to chronicle the stirring events
+of pioneer days.
+
+Even to-day it is not possible to travel into the remote corners of the
+West without seeing the lives of people still affected by a fighting
+past.  How can the truth be told about the pioneering of the West if
+the struggle, the fight, the blood be left out?  It cannot be done.
+How can a novel be stirring and thrilling, as were those times, unless
+it be full of sensation?  My long labors have been devoted to making
+stories resemble the times they depict.  I have loved the West for its
+vastness, its contrast, its beauty and color and life, for its wildness
+and violence, and for the fact that I have seen how it developed great
+men and women who died unknown and unsung.
+
+In this materialistic age, this hard, practical, swift, greedy age of
+realism, it seems there is no place for writers of romance, no place
+for romance itself.  For many years all the events leading up to the
+great war were realistic, and the war itself was horribly realistic,
+and the aftermath is likewise.  Romance is only another name for
+idealism; and I contend that life without ideals is not worth living.
+Never in the history of the world were ideals needed so terribly as
+now.  Walter Scott wrote romance; so did Victor Hugo; and likewise
+Kipling, Hawthorne, Stevenson.  It was Stevenson, particularly, who
+wielded a bludgeon against the realists.  People live for the dream in
+their hearts.  And I have yet to know anyone who has not some secret
+dream, some hope, however dim, some storied wall to look at in the
+dusk, some painted window leading to the soul. How strange indeed to
+find that the realists have ideals and dreams! To read them one would
+think their lives held nothing significant. But they love, they hope,
+they dream, they sacrifice, they struggle on with that dream in their
+hearts just the same as others.  We all are dreamers, if not in the
+heavy-lidded wasting of time, then in the meaning of life that makes us
+work on.
+
+It was Wordsworth who wrote, "The world is too much with us"; and if I
+could give the secret of my ambition as a novelist in a few words it
+would be contained in that quotation.  My inspiration to write has
+always come from nature.  Character and action are subordinated to
+setting.  In all that I have done I have tried to make people see how
+the world is too much with them.  Getting and spending they lay waste
+their powers, with never a breath of the free and wonderful life of the
+open!
+
+So I come back to the main point of this foreword, in which I am trying
+to tell why and how I came to write the story of a feud notorious in
+Arizona as the Pleasant Valley War.
+
+Some years ago Mr. Harry Adams, a cattleman of Vermajo Park, New
+Mexico, told me he had been in the Tonto Basin of Arizona and thought I
+might find interesting material there concerning this Pleasant Valley
+War. His version of the war between cattlemen and sheepmen certainly
+determined me to look over the ground.  My old guide, Al Doyle of
+Flagstaff, had led me over half of Arizona, but never down into that
+wonderful wild and rugged basin between the Mogollon Mesa and the
+Mazatzal Mountains.  Doyle had long lived on the frontier and his
+version of the Pleasant Valley War differed markedly from that of Mr.
+Adams.  I asked other old timers about it, and their remarks further
+excited my curiosity.
+
+Once down there, Doyle and I found the wildest, most rugged, roughest,
+and most remarkable country either of us had visited; and the few
+inhabitants were like the country.  I went in ostensibly to hunt bear
+and lion and turkey, but what I really was hunting for was the story of
+that Pleasant Valley War.  I engaged the services of a bear hunter who
+had three strapping sons as reserved and strange and aloof as he was.
+No wheel tracks of any kind had ever come within miles of their cabin.
+I spent two wonderful months hunting game and reveling in the beauty
+and grandeur of that Rim Rock country, but I came out knowing no more
+about the Pleasant Valley War.  These Texans and their few neighbors,
+likewise from Texas, did not talk.  But all I saw and felt only
+inspired me the more.  This trip was in the fall of 1918.
+
+The next year I went again with the best horses, outfit, and men the
+Doyles could provide.  And this time I did not ask any questions. But I
+rode horses--some of them too wild for me--and packed a rifle many a
+hundred miles, riding sometimes thirty and forty miles a day, and I
+climbed in and out of the deep canyons, desperately staying at the
+heels of one of those long-legged Texans.  I learned the life of those
+backwoodsmen, but I did not get the story of the Pleasant Valley War.
+I had, however, won the friendship of that hardy people.
+
+In 1920 I went back with a still larger outfit, equipped to stay as
+long as I liked.  And this time, without my asking it, different
+natives of the Tonto came to tell me about the Pleasant Valley War. No
+two of them agreed on anything concerning it, except that only one of
+the active participants survived the fighting.  Whence comes my title,
+TO THE LAST MAN.  Thus I was swamped in a mass of material out of which
+I could only flounder to my own conclusion.  Some of the stories told
+me are singularly tempting to a novelist.  But, though I believe them
+myself, I cannot risk their improbability to those who have no idea of
+the wildness of wild men at a wild time.  There really was a terrible
+and bloody feud, perhaps the most deadly and least known in all the
+annals of the West.  I saw the ground, the cabins, the graves, all so
+darkly suggestive of what must have happened.
+
+I never learned the truth of the cause of the Pleasant Valley War, or
+if I did hear it I had no means of recognizing it.  All the given
+causes were plausible and convincing.  Strange to state, there is still
+secrecy and reticence all over the Tonto Basin as to the facts of this
+feud.  Many descendents of those killed are living there now. But no
+one likes to talk about it.  Assuredly many of the incidents told me
+really occurred, as, for example, the terrible one of the two women, in
+the face of relentless enemies, saving the bodies of their dead
+husbands from being devoured by wild hogs.  Suffice it to say that this
+romance is true to my conception of the war, and I base it upon the
+setting I learned to know and love so well, upon the strange passions
+of primitive people, and upon my instinctive reaction to the facts and
+rumors that I gathered.
+
+ZANE GREY.
+  AVALON, CALIFORNIA,
+    April, 1921
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+At the end of a dry, uphill ride over barren country Jean Isbel
+unpacked to camp at the edge of the cedars where a little rocky canyon
+green with willow and cottonwood, promised water and grass.
+
+His animals were tired, especially the pack mule that had carried a
+heavy load; and with slow heave of relief they knelt and rolled in the
+dust.  Jean experienced something of relief himself as he threw off his
+chaps.  He had not been used to hot, dusty, glaring days on the barren
+lands.  Stretching his long length beside a tiny rill of clear water
+that tinkled over the red stones, he drank thirstily. The water was
+cool, but it had an acrid taste--an alkali bite that he did not like.
+Not since he had left Oregon had he tasted clear, sweet, cold water;
+and he missed it just as he longed for the stately shady forests he had
+loved.  This wild, endless Arizona land bade fair to earn his hatred.
+
+By the time he had leisurely completed his tasks twilight had fallen
+and coyotes had begun their barking.  Jean listened to the yelps and to
+the moan of the cool wind in the cedars with a sense of satisfaction
+that these lonely sounds were familiar.  This cedar wood burned into a
+pretty fire and the smell of its smoke was newly pleasant.
+
+"Reckon maybe I'll learn to like Arizona," he mused, half aloud. "But
+I've a hankerin' for waterfalls an' dark-green forests. Must be the
+Indian in me.... Anyway, dad needs me bad, an' I reckon I'm here for
+keeps."
+
+Jean threw some cedar branches on the fire, in the light of which he
+opened his father's letter, hoping by repeated reading to grasp more of
+its strange portent.  It had been two months in reaching him, coming by
+traveler, by stage and train, and then by boat, and finally by stage
+again.  Written in lead pencil on a leaf torn from an old ledger, it
+would have been hard to read even if the writing had been more legible.
+
+"Dad's writin' was always bad, but I never saw it so shaky," said Jean,
+thinking aloud.
+
+
+   GRASS VALLY, ARIZONA.
+
+   Son Jean,--Come home.  Here is your home and here your needed.
+   When we left Oregon we all reckoned you would not be long behind.
+   But its years now.  I am growing old, son, and you was always my
+   steadiest boy.  Not that you ever was so dam steady.  Only your
+   wildness seemed more for the woods.  You take after mother, and
+   your brothers Bill and Guy take after me.  That is the red and
+   white of it.  Your part Indian, Jean, and that Indian I reckon
+   I am going to need bad.  I am rich in cattle and horses.  And my
+   range here is the best I ever seen.  Lately we have been losing
+   stock.  But that is not all nor so bad.  Sheepmen have moved into
+   the Tonto and are grazing down on Grass Vally.  Cattlemen and
+   sheepmen can never bide in this country.  We have bad times ahead.
+   Reckon I have more reasons to worry and need you, but you must wait
+   to hear that by word of mouth.  Whatever your doing, chuck it and
+   rustle for Grass Vally so to make here by spring.  I am asking you
+   to take pains to pack in some guns and a lot of shells.  And hide
+   them in your outfit.  If you meet anyone when your coming down into
+   the Tonto, listen more than you talk.  And last, son, dont let
+   anything keep you in Oregon.  Reckon you have a sweetheart, and
+   if so fetch her along.  With love from your dad,
+
+   GASTON ISBEL.
+
+
+Jean pondered over this letter.  Judged by memory of his father, who
+had always been self-sufficient, it had been a surprise and somewhat of
+a shock.  Weeks of travel and reflection had not helped him to grasp
+the meaning between the lines.
+
+"Yes, dad's growin' old," mused Jean, feeling a warmth and a sadness
+stir in him.  "He must be 'way over sixty.  But he never looked old....
+So he's rich now an' losin' stock, an' goin' to be sheeped off his
+range.  Dad could stand a lot of rustlin', but not much from sheepmen."
+
+The softness that stirred in Jean merged into a cold, thoughtful
+earnestness which had followed every perusal of his father's letter. A
+dark, full current seemed flowing in his veins, and at times he felt it
+swell and heat.  It troubled him, making him conscious of a deeper,
+stronger self, opposed to his careless, free, and dreamy nature.  No
+ties had bound him in Oregon, except love for the great, still forests
+and the thundering rivers; and this love came from his softer side.  It
+had cost him a wrench to leave.  And all the way by ship down the coast
+to San Diego and across the Sierra Madres by stage, and so on to this
+last overland travel by horseback, he had felt a retreating of the self
+that was tranquil and happy and a dominating of this unknown somber
+self, with its menacing possibilities.  Yet despite a nameless regret
+and a loyalty to Oregon, when he lay in his blankets he had to confess
+a keen interest in his adventurous future, a keen enjoyment of this
+stark, wild Arizona.  It appeared to be a different sky stretching in
+dark, star-spangled dome over him--closer, vaster, bluer.  The strong
+fragrance of sage and cedar floated over him with the camp-fire smoke,
+and all seemed drowsily to subdue his thoughts.
+
+At dawn he rolled out of his blankets and, pulling on his boots, began
+the day with a zest for the work that must bring closer his calling
+future.  White, crackling frost and cold, nipping air were the same
+keen spurs to action that he had known in the uplands of Oregon, yet
+they were not wholly the same.  He sensed an exhilaration similar to
+the effect of a strong, sweet wine.  His horse and mule had fared well
+during the night, having been much refreshed by the grass and water of
+the little canyon.  Jean mounted and rode into the cedars with gladness
+that at last he had put the endless leagues of barren land behind him.
+
+The trail he followed appeared to be seldom traveled.  It led,
+according to the meager information obtainable at the last settlement,
+directly to what was called the Rim, and from there Grass Valley could
+be seen down in the Basin.  The ascent of the ground was so gradual
+that only in long, open stretches could it be seen.  But the nature of
+the vegetation showed Jean how he was climbing.  Scant, low, scraggy
+cedars gave place to more numerous, darker, greener, bushier ones, and
+these to high, full-foliaged, green-berried trees.  Sage and grass in
+the open flats grew more luxuriously.  Then came the pinyons, and
+presently among them the checker-barked junipers.  Jean hailed the
+first pine tree with a hearty slap on the brown, rugged bark.  It was a
+small dwarf pine struggling to live.  The next one was larger, and
+after that came several, and beyond them pines stood up everywhere
+above the lower trees.  Odor of pine needles mingled with the other dry
+smells that made the wind pleasant to Jean.  In an hour from the first
+line of pines he had ridden beyond the cedars and pinyons into a slowly
+thickening and deepening forest.  Underbrush appeared scarce except in
+ravines, and the ground in open patches held a bleached grass. Jean's
+eye roved for sight of squirrels, birds, deer, or any moving creature.
+It appeared to be a dry, uninhabited forest.  About midday Jean halted
+at a pond of surface water, evidently melted snow, and gave his animals
+a drink.  He saw a few old deer tracks in the mud and several huge bird
+tracks new to him which he concluded must have been made by wild
+turkeys.
+
+The trail divided at this pond.  Jean had no idea which branch he ought
+to take.  "Reckon it doesn't matter," he muttered, as he was about to
+remount.  His horse was standing with ears up, looking back along the
+trail.  Then Jean heard a clip-clop of trotting hoofs, and presently
+espied a horseman.
+
+Jean made a pretense of tightening his saddle girths while he peered
+over his horse at the approaching rider.  All men in this country were
+going to be of exceeding interest to Jean Isbel.  This man at a
+distance rode and looked like all the Arizonians Jean had seen, he had
+a superb seat in the saddle, and he was long and lean.  He wore a huge
+black sombrero and a soiled red scarf.  His vest was open and he was
+without a coat.
+
+The rider came trotting up and halted several paces from Jean
+
+"Hullo, stranger!" he said, gruffly.
+
+"Howdy yourself!" replied Jean.  He felt an instinctive importance in
+the meeting with the man.  Never had sharper eyes flashed over Jean and
+his outfit.  He had a dust-colored, sun-burned face, long, lean, and
+hard, a huge sandy mustache that hid his mouth, and eyes of piercing
+light intensity.  Not very much hard Western experience had passed by
+this man, yet he was not old, measured by years. When he dismounted
+Jean saw he was tall, even for an Arizonian.
+
+"Seen your tracks back a ways," he said, as he slipped the bit to let
+his horse drink.  "Where bound?"
+
+"Reckon I'm lost, all right," replied Jean.  "New country for me."
+
+"Shore.  I seen thet from your tracks an' your last camp.  Wal, where
+was you headin' for before you got lost?"
+
+The query was deliberately cool, with a dry, crisp ring.  Jean felt the
+lack of friendliness or kindliness in it.
+
+"Grass Valley.  My name's Isbel," he replied, shortly.
+
+The rider attended to his drinking horse and presently rebridled him;
+then with long swing of leg he appeared to step into the saddle.
+
+"Shore I knowed you was Jean Isbel," he said.  "Everybody in the Tonto
+has heerd old Gass Isbel sent fer his boy."
+
+"Well then, why did you ask?" inquired Jean, bluntly.
+
+"Reckon I wanted to see what you'd say."
+
+"So?  All right.  But I'm not carin' very much for what YOU say."
+
+Their glances locked steadily then and each measured the other by the
+intangible conflict of spirit.
+
+"Shore thet's natural," replied the rider.  His speech was slow, and
+the motions of his long, brown hands, as he took a cigarette from his
+vest, kept time with his words.  "But seein' you're one of the Isbels,
+I'll hev my say whether you want it or not.  My name's Colter an' I'm
+one of the sheepmen Gass Isbel's riled with."
+
+"Colter.  Glad to meet you," replied Jean.  "An' I reckon who riled my
+father is goin' to rile me."
+
+"Shore.  If thet wasn't so you'd not be an Isbel," returned Colter,
+with a grim little laugh.  "It's easy to see you ain't run into any
+Tonto Basin fellers yet.  Wal, I'm goin' to tell you thet your old man
+gabbed like a woman down at Greaves's store.  Bragged aboot you an' how
+you could fight an' how you could shoot an' how you could track a hoss
+or a man!  Bragged how you'd chase every sheep herder back up on the
+Rim.... I'm tellin' you because we want you to git our stand right.
+We're goin' to run sheep down in Grass Valley."
+
+"Ahuh!  Well, who's we?" queried Jean, curtly.
+
+"What-at? ... We--I mean the sheepmen rangin' this Rim from Black Butte
+to the Apache country."
+
+"Colter, I'm a stranger in Arizona," said Jean, slowly.  "I know little
+about ranchers or sheepmen.  It's true my father sent for me.  It's
+true, I dare say, that he bragged, for he was given to bluster an'
+blow. An' he's old now.  I can't help it if he bragged about me.  But
+if he has, an' if he's justified in his stand against you sheepmen, I'm
+goin' to do my best to live up to his brag."
+
+"I get your hunch.  Shore we understand each other, an' thet's a
+powerful help.  You take my hunch to your old man," replied Colter, as
+he turned his horse away toward the left.  "Thet trail leadin' south is
+yours.  When you come to the Rim you'll see a bare spot down in the
+Basin.  Thet 'll be Grass Valley."
+
+He rode away out of sight into the woods.  Jean leaned against his
+horse and pondered.  It seemed difficult to be just to this Colter, not
+because of his claims, but because of a subtle hostility that emanated
+from him.  Colter had the hard face, the masked intent, the turn of
+speech that Jean had come to associate with dishonest men. Even if Jean
+had not been prejudiced, if he had known nothing of his father's
+trouble with these sheepmen, and if Colter had met him only to exchange
+glances and greetings, still Jean would never have had a favorable
+impression.  Colter grated upon him, roused an antagonism seldom felt.
+
+"Heigho!" sighed the young man, "Good-by to huntin' an' fishing'! Dad's
+given me a man's job."
+
+With that he mounted his horse and started the pack mule into the
+right-hand trail.  Walking and trotting, he traveled all afternoon,
+toward sunset getting into heavy forest of pine.  More than one snow
+bank showed white through the green, sheltered on the north slopes of
+shady ravines.  And it was upon entering this zone of richer, deeper
+forestland that Jean sloughed off his gloomy forebodings.  These
+stately pines were not the giant firs of Oregon, but any lover of the
+woods could be happy under them.  Higher still he climbed until the
+forest spread before and around him like a level park, with thicketed
+ravines here and there on each side.  And presently that deceitful
+level led to a higher bench upon which the pines towered, and were
+matched by beautiful trees he took for spruce.  Heavily barked, with
+regular spreading branches, these conifers rose in symmetrical shape to
+spear the sky with silver plumes.  A graceful gray-green moss, waved
+like veils from the branches.  The air was not so dry and it was
+colder, with a scent and touch of snow.  Jean made camp at the first
+likely site, taking the precaution to unroll his bed some little
+distance from his fire.  Under the softly moaning pines he felt
+comfortable, having lost the sense of an immeasurable open space
+falling away from all around him.
+
+The gobbling of wild turkeys awakened Jean, "Chuga-lug, chug-a-lug,
+chug-a-lug-chug."  There was not a great difference between the gobble
+of a wild turkey and that of a tame one.  Jean got up, and taking his
+rifle went out into the gray obscurity of dawn to try to locate the
+turkeys.  But it was too dark, and finally when daylight came they
+appeared to be gone.  The mule had strayed, and, what with finding it
+and cooking breakfast and packing, Jean did not make a very early
+start.  On this last lap of his long journey he had slowed down. He was
+weary of hurrying; the change from weeks in the glaring sun and
+dust-laden wind to this sweet coot darkly green and brown forest was
+very welcome; he wanted to linger along the shaded trail.  This day he
+made sure would see him reach the Rim.  By and by he lost the trail.
+It had just worn out from lack of use.  Every now and then Jean would
+cross an old trail, and as he penetrated deeper into the forest every
+damp or dusty spot showed tracks of turkey, deer, and bear.  The amount
+of bear sign surprised him.  Presently his keen nostrils were assailed
+by a smell of sheep, and soon he rode into a broad sheep, trail.  From
+the tracks Jean calculated that the sheep had passed there the day
+before.
+
+An unreasonable antipathy seemed born in him.  To be sure he had been
+prepared to dislike sheep, and that was why he was unreasonable.  But
+on the other hand this band of sheep had left a broad bare swath,
+weedless, grassless, flowerless, in their wake.  Where sheep grazed
+they destroyed.  That was what Jean had against them.
+
+An hour later he rode to the crest of a long parklike slope, where new
+green grass was sprouting and flowers peeped everywhere.  The pines
+appeared far apart; gnarled oak trees showed rugged and gray against
+the green wall of woods.  A white strip of snow gleamed like a moving
+stream away down in the woods.
+
+Jean heard the musical tinkle of bells and the baa-baa of sheep and the
+faint, sweet bleating of lambs.  As he road toward these sounds a dog
+ran out from an oak thicket and barked at him.  Next Jean smelled a
+camp fire and soon he caught sight of a curling blue column of smoke,
+and then a small peaked tent.  Beyond the clump of oaks Jean
+encountered a Mexican lad carrying a carbine.  The boy had a swarthy,
+pleasant face, and to Jean's greeting he replied, "BUENAS DIAS."  Jean
+understood little Spanish, and about all he gathered by his simple
+queries was that the lad was not alone--and that it was "lambing time."
+
+This latter circumstance grew noisily manifest.  The forest seemed
+shrilly full of incessant baas and plaintive bleats.  All about the
+camp, on the slope, in the glades, and everywhere, were sheep.  A few
+were grazing; many were lying down; most of them were ewes suckling
+white fleecy little lambs that staggered on their feet.  Everywhere
+Jean saw tiny lambs just born.  Their pin-pointed bleats pierced the
+heavier baa-baa of their mothers.
+
+Jean dismounted and led his horse down toward the camp, where he rather
+expected to see another and older Mexican, from whom he might get
+information.  The lad walked with him.  Down this way the plaintive
+uproar made by the sheep was not so loud.
+
+"Hello there!" called Jean, cheerfully, as he approached the tent. No
+answer was forthcoming.  Dropping his bridle, he went on, rather
+slowly, looking for some one to appear.  Then a voice from one side
+startled him.
+
+"Mawnin', stranger."
+
+A girl stepped out from beside a pine.  She carried a rifle.  Her face
+flashed richly brown, but she was not Mexican.  This fact, and the
+sudden conviction that she had been watching him, somewhat disconcerted
+Jean.
+
+"Beg pardon--miss," he floundered.  "Didn't expect, to see a--girl....
+I'm sort of lost--lookin' for the Rim--an' thought I'd find a sheep
+herder who'd show me.  I can't savvy this boy's lingo."
+
+While he spoke it seemed to him an intentness of expression, a strain
+relaxed from her face.  A faint suggestion of hostility likewise
+disappeared.  Jean was not even sure that he had caught it, but there
+had been something that now was gone.
+
+"Shore I'll be glad to show y'u," she said.
+
+"Thanks, miss.  Reckon I can breathe easy now," he replied,
+
+"It's a long ride from San Diego.  Hot an' dusty!  I'm pretty tired.
+An' maybe this woods isn't good medicine to achin' eyes!"
+
+"San Diego!  Y'u're from the coast?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Jean had doffed his sombrero at sight of her and he still held it,
+rather deferentially, perhaps.  It seemed to attract her attention.
+
+"Put on y'ur hat, stranger.... Shore I can't recollect when any man
+bared his haid to me."  She uttered a little laugh in which surprise
+and frankness mingled with a tint of bitterness.
+
+Jean sat down with his back to a pine, and, laying the sombrero by his
+side, he looked full at her, conscious of a singular eagerness, as if
+he wanted to verify by close scrutiny a first hasty impression. If
+there had been an instinct in his meeting with Colter, there was more
+in this.  The girl half sat, half leaned against a log, with the shiny
+little carbine across her knees.  She had a level, curious gaze upon
+him, and Jean had never met one just like it.  Her eyes were rather a
+wide oval in shape, clear and steady, with shadows of thought in their
+amber-brown depths.  They seemed to look through Jean, and his gaze
+dropped first.  Then it was he saw her ragged homespun skirt and a few
+inches of brown, bare ankles, strong and round, and crude worn-out
+moccasins that failed to hide the shapeliness, of her feet. Suddenly
+she drew back her stockingless ankles and ill-shod little feet. When
+Jean lifted his gaze again he found her face half averted and a stain
+of red in the gold tan of her cheek.  That touch of embarrassment
+somehow removed her from this strong, raw, wild woodland setting.  It
+changed her poise.  It detracted from the curious, unabashed, almost
+bold, look that he had encountered in her eyes.
+
+"Reckon you're from Texas," said Jean, presently.
+
+"Shore am," she drawled.  She had a lazy Southern voice, pleasant to
+hear.  "How'd y'u-all guess that?"
+
+"Anybody can tell a Texan.  Where I came from there were a good many
+pioneers an' ranchers from the old Lone Star state.  I've worked for
+several.  An', come to think of it, I'd rather hear a Texas girl talk
+than anybody."
+
+"Did y'u know many Texas girls?" she inquired, turning again to face
+him.
+
+"Reckon I did--quite a good many."
+
+"Did y'u go with them?"
+
+"Go with them?  Reckon you mean keep company.  Why, yes, I guess I
+did--a little," laughed Jean.  "Sometimes on a Sunday or a dance once
+in a blue moon, an' occasionally a ride."
+
+"Shore that accounts," said the girl, wistfully.
+
+"For what?" asked Jean.
+
+"Y'ur bein' a gentleman," she replied, with force.  "Oh, I've not
+forgotten.  I had friends when we lived in Texas.... Three years ago.
+Shore it seems longer.  Three miserable years in this damned country!"
+
+Then she bit her lip, evidently to keep back further unwitting
+utterance to a total stranger.  And it was that biting of her lip that
+drew Jean's attention to her mouth.  It held beauty of curve and
+fullness and color that could not hide a certain sadness and
+bitterness.  Then the whole flashing brown face changed for Jean. He
+saw that it was young, full of passion and restraint, possessing a
+power which grew on him.  This, with her shame and pathos and the fact
+that she craved respect, gave a leap to Jean's interest.
+
+"Well, I reckon you flatter me," he said, hoping to put her at her ease
+again.  "I'm only a rough hunter an' fisherman-woodchopper an' horse
+tracker.  Never had all the school I needed--nor near enough company of
+nice girls like you."
+
+"Am I nice?" she asked, quickly.
+
+"You sure are," he replied, smiling.
+
+"In these rags," she demanded, with a sudden flash of passion that
+thrilled him.  "Look at the holes."  She showed rips and worn-out
+places in the sleeves of her buckskin blouse, through which gleamed a
+round, brown arm.  "I sew when I have anythin' to sew with.... Look at
+my skirt--a dirty rag.  An' I have only one other to my name.... Look!"
+Again a color tinged her cheeks, most becoming, and giving the lie to
+her action.  But shame could not check her violence now.  A dammed-up
+resentment seemed to have broken out in flood.  She lifted the ragged
+skirt almost to her knees.  "No stockings!  No Shoes! ... How can a
+girl be nice when she has no clean, decent woman's clothes to wear?"
+
+"How--how can a girl..." began Jean.  "See here, miss, I'm beggin' your
+pardon for--sort of stirrin' you to forget yourself a little. Reckon I
+understand.  You don't meet many strangers an' I sort of hit you
+wrong--makin' you feel too much--an' talk too much.  Who an' what you
+are is none of my business.  But we met.... An' I reckon somethin' has
+happened--perhaps more to me than to you.... Now let me put you
+straight about clothes an' women.  Reckon I know most women love nice
+things to wear an' think because clothes make them look pretty that
+they're nicer or better.  But they're wrong.  You're wrong. Maybe it 'd
+be too much for a girl like you to be happy without clothes.  But you
+can be--you axe just as nice, an'--an' fine--an', for all you know, a
+good deal more appealin' to some men."
+
+"Stranger, y'u shore must excuse my temper an' the show I made of
+myself," replied the girl, with composure.  "That, to say the least,
+was not nice.  An' I don't want anyone thinkin' better of me than I
+deserve.  My mother died in Texas, an' I've lived out heah in this wild
+country--a girl alone among rough men.  Meetin' y'u to-day makes me see
+what a hard lot they are--an' what it's done to me."
+
+Jean smothered his curiosity and tried to put out of his mind a growing
+sense that he pitied her, liked her.
+
+"Are you a sheep herder?" he asked.
+
+"Shore I am now an' then.  My father lives back heah in a canyon. He's
+a sheepman.  Lately there's been herders shot at.  Just now we're short
+an' I have to fill in.  But I like shepherdin' an' I love the woods,
+and the Rim Rock an' all the Tonto.  If they were all, I'd shore be
+happy."
+
+"Herders shot at!" exclaimed Jean, thoughtfully.  "By whom? An' what
+for?"
+
+"Trouble brewin' between the cattlemen down in the Basin an' the
+sheepmen up on the Rim.  Dad says there'll shore be hell to pay. I tell
+him I hope the cattlemen chase him back to Texas."
+
+"Then--  Are you on the ranchers' side?" queried Jean, trying to
+pretend casual interest.
+
+"No.  I'll always be on my father's side," she replied, with spirit.
+"But I'm bound to admit I think the cattlemen have the fair side of the
+argument."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Because there's grass everywhere.  I see no sense in a sheepman goin'
+out of his way to surround a cattleman an' sheep off his range.  That
+started the row.  Lord knows how it'll end.  For most all of them heah
+are from Texas."
+
+"So I was told," replied Jean.  "An' I heard' most all these Texans got
+run out of Texas.  Any truth in that?"
+
+"Shore I reckon there is," she replied, seriously.  "But, stranger, it
+might not be healthy for y'u to, say that anywhere.  My dad, for one,
+was not run out of Texas.  Shore I never can see why he came heah. He's
+accumulated stock, but he's not rich nor so well off as he was back
+home."
+
+"Are you goin' to stay here always?" queried Jean, suddenly.
+
+"If I do so it 'll be in my grave," she answered, darkly.  "But what's
+the use of thinkin'?  People stay places until they drift away.  Y'u
+can never tell.... Well, stranger, this talk is keepin' y'u."
+
+She seemed moody now, and a note of detachment crept into her voice.
+Jean rose at once and went for his horse.  If this girl did not desire
+to talk further he certainly had no wish to annoy her.  His mule had
+strayed off among the bleating sheep.  Jean drove it back and then led
+his horse up to where the girl stood.  She appeared taller and, though
+not of robust build, she was vigorous and lithe, with something about
+her that fitted the place.  Jean was loath to bid her good-by.
+
+"Which way is the Rim?" he asked, turning to his saddle girths.
+
+"South," she replied, pointing.  "It's only a mile or so.  I'll walk
+down with y'u.... Suppose y'u're on the way to Grass Valley?"
+
+"Yes; I've relatives there," he returned.  He dreaded her next
+question, which he suspected would concern his name.  But she did not
+ask.  Taking up her rifle she turned away.  Jean strode ahead to her
+side.  "Reckon if you walk I won't ride."
+
+So he found himself beside a girl with the free step of a Mountaineer.
+Her bare, brown head came up nearly to his shoulder.  It was a small,
+pretty head, graceful, well held, and the thick hair on it was a shiny,
+soft brown.  She wore it in a braid, rather untidily and tangled, he
+thought, and it was tied with a string of buckskin.  Altogether her
+apparel proclaimed poverty.
+
+Jean let the conversation languish for a little.  He wanted to think
+what to say presently, and then he felt a rather vague pleasure in
+stalking beside her.  Her profile was straight cut and exquisite in
+line.  From this side view the soft curve of lips could not be seen.
+
+She made several attempts to start conversation, all of which Jean
+ignored, manifestly to her growing constraint.  Presently Jean, having
+decided what he wanted to say, suddenly began: "I like this adventure.
+Do you?"
+
+"Adventure! Meetin' me in the woods?"  And she laughed the laugh of
+youth.  "Shore you must be hard up for adventure, stranger."
+
+"Do you like it?" he persisted, and his eyes searched the half-averted
+face.
+
+"I might like it," she answered, frankly, "if--if my temper had not
+made a fool of me.  I never meet anyone I care to talk to.  Why should
+it not be pleasant to run across some one new--some one strange in this
+heah wild country?"
+
+"We are as we are," said Jean, simply.  "I didn't think you made a fool
+of yourself.  If I thought so, would I want to see you again?"
+
+"Do y'u?"  The brown face flashed on him with surprise, with a light he
+took for gladness.  And because he wanted to appear calm and friendly,
+not too eager, he had to deny himself the thrill of meeting those
+changing eyes.
+
+"Sure I do.  Reckon I'm overbold on such short acquaintance.  But I
+might not have another chance to tell you, so please don't hold it
+against me."
+
+This declaration over, Jean felt relief and something of exultation. He
+had been afraid he might not have the courage to make it.  She walked
+on as before, only with her head bowed a little and her eyes downcast.
+No color but the gold-brown tan and the blue tracery of veins showed in
+her cheeks.  He noticed then a slight swelling quiver of her throat;
+and he became alive to its graceful contour, and to how full and
+pulsating it was, how nobly it set into the curve of her shoulder.
+Here in her quivering throat was the weakness of her, the evidence of
+her sex, the womanliness that belied the mountaineer stride and the
+grasp of strong brown hands on a rifle.  It had an effect on Jean
+totally inexplicable to him, both in the strange warmth that stole over
+him and in the utterance he could not hold back.
+
+"Girl, we're strangers, but what of that?  We've met, an' I tell you it
+means somethin' to me.  I've known girls for months an' never felt this
+way.  I don't know who you are an' I don't care.  You betrayed a good
+deal to me.  You're not happy.  You're lonely.  An' if I didn't want to
+see you again for my own sake I would for yours.  Some things you said
+I'll not forget soon.  I've got a sister, an' I know you have no
+brother.  An' I reckon ..."
+
+At this juncture Jean in his earnestness and quite without thought
+grasped her hand.  The contact checked the flow of his speech and
+suddenly made him aghast at his temerity.  But the girl did not make
+any effort to withdraw it.  So Jean, inhaling a deep breath and trying
+to see through his bewilderment, held on bravely.  He imagined he felt
+a faint, warm, returning pressure.  She was young, she was friendless,
+she was human.  By this hand in his Jean felt more than ever the
+loneliness of her.  Then, just as he was about to speak again, she
+pulled her hand free.
+
+"Heah's the Rim," she said, in her quaint Southern drawl. "An' there's
+Y'ur Tonto Basin."
+
+Jean had been intent only upon the girl.  He had kept step beside her
+without taking note of what was ahead of him.  At her words he looked
+up expectantly, to be struck mute.
+
+He felt a sheer force, a downward drawing of an immense abyss beneath
+him. As he looked afar he saw a black basin of timbered country, the
+darkest and wildest he had ever gazed upon, a hundred miles of blue
+distance across to an unflung mountain range, hazy purple against the
+sky. It seemed to be a stupendous gulf surrounded on three sides by
+bold, undulating lines of peaks, and on his side by a wall so high that
+he felt lifted aloft on the run of the sky.
+
+"Southeast y'u see the Sierra Anchas," said the girl pointing. "That
+notch in the range is the pass where sheep are driven to Phoenix an'
+Maricopa.  Those big rough mountains to the south are the Mazatzals.
+Round to the west is the Four Peaks Range.  An' y'u're standin' on the
+Rim."
+
+Jean could not see at first just what the Rim was, but by shifting his
+gaze westward he grasped this remarkable phenomenon of nature. For
+leagues and leagues a colossal red and yellow wall, a rampart, a
+mountain-faced cliff, seemed to zigzag westward.  Grand and bold were
+the promontories reaching out over the void.  They ran toward the
+westering sun.  Sweeping and impressive were the long lines slanting
+away from them, sloping darkly spotted down to merge into the black
+timber.  Jean had never seen such a wild and rugged manifestation of
+nature's depths and upheavals.  He was held mute.
+
+"Stranger, look down," said the girl.
+
+Jean's sight was educated to judge heights and depths and distances.
+This wall upon which he stood sheered precipitously down, so far that
+it made him dizzy to look, and then the craggy broken cliffs merged
+into red-slided, cedar-greened slopes running down and down into gorges
+choked with forests, and from which soared up a roar of rushing waters.
+Slope after slope, ridge beyond ridge, canyon merging into canyon--so
+the tremendous bowl sunk away to its black, deceiving depths, a
+wilderness across which travel seemed impossible.
+
+"Wonderful!" exclaimed Jean.
+
+"Indeed it is!" murmured the girl.  "Shore that is Arizona.  I reckon I
+love THIS.  The heights an' depths--the awfulness of its wilderness!"
+
+"An' you want to leave it?"
+
+"Yes an' no.  I don't deny the peace that comes to me heah.  But not
+often do I see the Basin, an' for that matter, one doesn't live on
+grand scenery."
+
+"Child, even once in a while--this sight would cure any misery, if you
+only see.  I'm glad I came.  I'm glad you showed it to me first."
+
+She too seemed under the spell of a vastness and loneliness and beauty
+and grandeur that could not but strike the heart.
+
+Jean took her hand again.  "Girl, say you will meet me here," he said,
+his voice ringing deep in his ears.
+
+"Shore I will," she replied, softly, and turned to him.  It seemed then
+that Jean saw her face for the first time.  She was beautiful as he had
+never known beauty.  Limned against that scene, she gave it life--wild,
+sweet, young life--the poignant meaning of which haunted yet eluded
+him.  But she belonged there.  Her eyes were again searching his, as if
+for some lost part of herself, unrealized, never known before.
+Wondering, wistful, hopeful, glad--they were eyes that seemed surprised,
+to reveal part of her soul.
+
+Then her red lips parted.  Their tremulous movement was a magnet to
+Jean. An invisible and mighty force pulled him down to kiss them.
+Whatever the spell had been, that rude, unconscious action broke it.
+
+He jerked away, as if he expected to be struck. "Girl--I--I"--he gasped
+in amaze and sudden-dawning contrition--"I kissed you--but I swear it
+wasn't intentional--I never thought...."
+
+The anger that Jean anticipated failed to materialize.  He stood,
+breathing hard, with a hand held out in unconscious appeal.  By the
+same magic, perhaps, that had transfigured her a moment past, she was
+now invested again by the older character.
+
+"Shore I reckon my callin' y'u a gentleman was a little previous," she
+said, with a rather dry bitterness.  "But, stranger, yu're sudden."
+
+"You're not insulted?" asked Jean, hurriedly.
+
+"Oh, I've been kissed before.  Shore men are all alike."
+
+"They're not," he replied, hotly, with a subtle rush of disillusion, a
+dulling of enchantment.  "Don't you class me with other men who've
+kissed you.  I wasn't myself when I did it an' I'd have gone on my
+knees to ask your forgiveness.... But now I wouldn't--an' I wouldn't
+kiss you again, either--even if you--you wanted it."
+
+Jean read in her strange gaze what seemed to him a vague doubt, as if
+she was questioning him.
+
+"Miss, I take that back," added Jean, shortly.  "I'm sorry.  I didn't
+mean to be rude.  It was a mean trick for me to kiss you.  A girl alone
+in the woods who's gone out of her way to be kind to me!  I don't know
+why I forgot my manners.  An' I ask your pardon."
+
+She looked away then, and presently pointed far out and down into the
+Basin.
+
+"There's Grass Valley.  That long gray spot in the black.  It's about
+fifteen miles.  Ride along the Rim that way till y'u cross a trail.
+Shore y'u can't miss it.  Then go down."
+
+"I'm much obliged to you," replied Jean, reluctantly accepting what he
+regarded as his dismissal.  Turning his horse, he put his foot in the
+stirrup, then, hesitating, he looked across the saddle at the girl. Her
+abstraction, as she gazed away over the purple depths suggested
+loneliness and wistfulness.  She was not thinking of that scene spread
+so wondrously before her.  It struck Jean she might be pondering a
+subtle change in his feeling and attitude, something he was conscious
+of, yet could not define.
+
+"Reckon this is good-by," he said, with hesitation.
+
+"ADIOS, SENOR," she replied, facing him again.  She lifted the little
+carbine to the hollow of her elbow and, half turning, appeared ready to
+depart.
+
+"Adios means good-by?" he queried.
+
+"Yes, good-by till to-morrow or good-by forever.  Take it as y'u like."
+
+"Then you'll meet me here day after to-morrow?"  How eagerly he spoke,
+on impulse, without a consideration of the intangible thing that had
+changed him!
+
+"Did I say I wouldn't?"
+
+"No.  But I reckoned you'd not care to after--" he replied, breaking
+off in some confusion.
+
+"Shore I'll be glad to meet y'u.  Day after to-morrow about
+mid-afternoon.  Right heah.  Fetch all the news from Grass Valley."
+
+"All right.  Thanks.  That'll be--fine," replied Jean, and as he spoke
+he experienced a buoyant thrill, a pleasant lightness of enthusiasm,
+such as always stirred boyishly in him at a prospect of adventure.
+Before it passed he wondered at it and felt unsure of himself. He
+needed to think.
+
+"Stranger shore I'm not recollectin' that y'u told me who y'u are," she
+said.
+
+"No, reckon I didn't tell," he returned.  "What difference does that
+make?  I said I didn't care who or what you are.  Can't you feel the
+same about me?"
+
+"Shore--I felt that way," she replied, somewhat non-plussed, with the
+level brown gaze steadily on his face.  "But now y'u make me think."
+
+"Let's meet without knowin' any more about each other than we do now."
+
+"Shore.  I'd like that.  In this big wild Arizona a girl--an' I reckon
+a man--feels so insignificant.  What's a name, anyhow?  Still, people
+an' things have to be distinguished.  I'll call y'u 'Stranger' an' be
+satisfied--if y'u say it's fair for y'u not to tell who y'u are."
+
+"Fair!  No, it's not," declared Jean, forced to confession.  "My name's
+Jean--Jean Isbel."
+
+"ISBEL!" she exclaimed, with a violent start.  "Shore y'u can't be son
+of old Gass Isbel.... I've seen both his sons."
+
+"He has three," replied Jean, with relief, now the secret was out. "I'm
+the youngest.  I'm twenty-four.  Never been out of Oregon till now.  On
+my way--"
+
+The brown color slowly faded out of her face, leaving her quite pale,
+with eyes that began to blaze.  The suppleness of her seemed to stiffen.
+
+"My name's Ellen Jorth," she burst out, passionately.  "Does it mean
+anythin' to y'u?"
+
+"Never heard it in my life," protested Jean.  "Sure I reckoned you
+belonged to the sheep raisers who 're on the outs with my father.
+That's why I had to tell you I'm Jean Isbel.... Ellen Jorth. It's
+strange an' pretty.... Reckon I can be just as good a--a friend to
+you--"
+
+"No Isbel, can ever be a friend to me," she said, with bitter coldness.
+Stripped of her ease and her soft wistfulness, she stood before him one
+instant, entirely another girl, a hostile enemy.  Then she wheeled and
+strode off into the woods.
+
+Jean, in amaze, in consternation, watched her swiftly draw away with
+her lithe, free step, wanting to follow her, wanting to call to her;
+but the resentment roused by her suddenly avowed hostility held him
+mute in his tracks.  He watched her disappear, and when the
+brown-and-green wall of forest swallowed the slender gray form he
+fought against the insistent desire to follow her, and fought in vain.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+But Ellen Jorth's moccasined feet did not leave a distinguishable trail
+on the springy pine needle covering of the ground, and Jean could not
+find any trace of her.
+
+A little futile searching to and fro cooled his impulse and called
+pride to his rescue.  Returning to his horse, he mounted, rode out
+behind the pack mule to start it along, and soon felt the relief of
+decision and action.  Clumps of small pines grew thickly in spots on
+the Rim, making it necessary for him to skirt them; at which times he
+lost sight of the purple basin.  Every time he came back to an opening
+through which he could see the wild ruggedness and colors and
+distances, his appreciation of their nature grew on him. Arizona from
+Yuma to the Little Colorado had been to him an endless waste of
+wind-scoured, sun-blasted barrenness.  This black-forested rock-rimmed
+land of untrodden ways was a world that in itself would satisfy him.
+Some instinct in Jean called for a lonely, wild land, into the
+fastnesses of which he could roam at will and be the other strange self
+that he had always yearned to be but had never been.
+
+Every few moments there intruded into his flowing consciousness the
+flashing face of Ellen Jorth, the way she had looked at him, the things
+she had said.  "Reckon I was a fool," he soliloquized, with an acute
+sense of humiliation.  "She never saw how much in earnest I was."  And
+Jean began to remember the circumstances with a vividness that
+disturbed and perplexed him.
+
+The accident of running across such a girl in that lonely place might
+be out of the ordinary--but it had happened.  Surprise had made him
+dull. The charm of her appearance, the appeal of her manner, must have
+drawn him at the very first, but he had not recognized that.  Only at
+her words, "Oh, I've been kissed before," had his feelings been checked
+in their heedless progress.  And the utterance of them had made a
+difference he now sought to analyze.  Some personality in him, some
+voice, some idea had begun to defend her even before he was conscious
+that he had arraigned her before the bar of his judgment.  Such defense
+seemed clamoring in him now and he forced himself to listen.  He
+wanted, in his hurt pride, to justify his amazing surrender to a sweet
+and sentimental impulse.
+
+He realized now that at first glance he should have recognized in her
+look, her poise, her voice the quality he called thoroughbred.  Ragged
+and stained apparel did not prove her of a common sort.  Jean had known
+a number of fine and wholesome girls of good family; and he remembered
+his sister.  This Ellen Jorth was that kind of a girl irrespective of
+her present environment.  Jean championed her loyally, even after he
+had gratified his selfish pride.
+
+It was then--contending with an intangible and stealing glamour, unreal
+and fanciful, like the dream of a forbidden enchantment--that Jean
+arrived at the part in the little woodland drama where he had kissed
+Ellen Jorth and had been unrebuked.  Why had she not resented his
+action?  Dispelled was the illusion he had been dreamily and nobly
+constructing.  "Oh, I've been kissed before!"  The shock to him now
+exceeded his first dismay.  Half bitterly she had spoken, and wholly
+scornful of herself, or of him, or of all men.  For she had said all
+men were alike.  Jean chafed under the smart of that, a taunt every
+decent man hated.  Naturally every happy and healthy young man would
+want to kiss such red, sweet lips.  But if those lips had been for
+others--never for him!  Jean reflected that not since childish games
+had he kissed a girl--until this brown-faced Ellen Jorth came his way.
+He wondered at it.  Moreover, he wondered at the significance he placed
+upon it.  After all, was it not merely an accident?  Why should he
+remember?  Why should he ponder?  What was the faint, deep, growing
+thrill that accompanied some of his thoughts?
+
+Riding along with busy mind, Jean almost crossed a well-beaten trail,
+leading through a pine thicket and down over the Rim.  Jean's pack mule
+led the way without being driven.  And when Jean reached the edge of
+the bluff one look down was enough to fetch him off his horse. That
+trail was steep, narrow, clogged with stones, and as full of sharp
+corners as a crosscut saw.  Once on the descent with a packed mule and
+a spirited horse, Jean had no time for mind wanderings and very little
+for occasional glimpses out over the cedar tops to the vast blue hollow
+asleep under a westering sun.
+
+The stones rattled, the dust rose, the cedar twigs snapped, the little
+avalanches of red earth slid down, the iron-shod hoofs rang on the
+rocks. This slope had been narrow at the apex in the Rim where the
+trail led down a crack, and it widened in fan shape as Jean descended.
+He zigzagged down a thousand feet before the slope benched into
+dividing ridges.  Here the cedars and junipers failed and pines once
+more hid the sun.  Deep ravines were black with brush.  From somewhere
+rose a roar of running water, most pleasant to Jean's ears.  Fresh deer
+and bear tracks covered old ones made in the trail.
+
+Those timbered ridges were but billows of that tremendous slope that
+now sheered above Jean, ending in a magnificent yellow wall of rock,
+greened in niches, stained by weather rust, carved and cracked and
+caverned.  As Jean descended farther the hum of bees made melody, the
+roar of rapid water and the murmur of a rising breeze filled him with
+the content of the wild.  Sheepmen like Colter and wild girls like
+Ellen Jorth and all that seemed promising or menacing in his father's
+letter could never change the Indian in Jean.  So he thought.  Hard
+upon that conclusion rushed another--one which troubled with its
+stinging revelation.  Surely these influences he had defied were just
+the ones to bring out in him the Indian he had sensed but had never
+known.  The eventful day had brought new and bitter food for Jean to
+reflect upon.
+
+The trail landed him in the bowlder-strewn bed of a wide canyon, where
+the huge trees stretched a canopy of foliage which denied the sunlight,
+and where a beautiful brook rushed and foamed.  Here at last Jean
+tasted water that rivaled his Oregon springs.  "Ah," he cried, "that
+sure is good!"  Dark and shaded and ferny and mossy was this streamway;
+and everywhere were tracks of game, from the giant spread of a grizzly
+bear to the tiny, birdlike imprints of a squirrel.  Jean heard familiar
+sounds of deer crackling the dead twigs; and the chatter of squirrels
+was incessant.  This fragrant, cool retreat under the Rim brought back
+to him the dim recesses of Oregon forests.  After all, Jean felt that
+he would not miss anything that he had loved in the Cascades.  But what
+was the vague sense of all not being well with him--the essence of a
+faint regret--the insistence of a hovering shadow?  And then flashed
+again, etched more vividly by the repetition in memory, a picture of
+eyes, of lips--of something he had to forget.
+
+Wild and broken as this rolling Basin floor had appeared from the Rim,
+the reality of traveling over it made that first impression a deceit of
+distance.  Down here all was on a big, rough, broken scale.  Jean did
+not find even a few rods of level ground.  Bowlders as huge as houses
+obstructed the stream bed; spruce trees eight feet thick tried to lord
+it over the brawny pines; the ravine was a veritable canyon from which
+occasional glimpses through the foliage showed the Rim as a lofty
+red-tipped mountain peak.
+
+Jean's pack mule became frightened at scent of a bear or lion and ran
+off down the rough trail, imperiling Jean's outfit.  It was not an easy
+task to head him off nor, when that was accomplished, to keep him to a
+trot.  But his fright and succeeding skittishness at least made for
+fast traveling.  Jean calculated that he covered ten miles under the
+Rim before the character of ground and forest began to change.
+
+The trail had turned southeast.  Instead of gorge after gorge,
+red-walled and choked with forest, there began to be rolling ridges,
+some high; others were knolls; and a thick cedar growth made up for a
+falling off of pine.  The spruce had long disappeared.  Juniper
+thickets gave way more and more to the beautiful manzanita; and soon on
+the south slopes appeared cactus and a scrubby live oak.  But for the
+well-broken trail, Jean would have fared ill through this tough brush.
+
+Jean espied several deer, and again a coyote, and what he took to be a
+small herd of wild horses.  No more turkey tracks showed in the dusty
+patches.  He crossed a number of tiny brooklets, and at length came to
+a place where the trail ended or merged in a rough road that showed
+evidence of considerable travel.  Horses, sheep, and cattle had passed
+along there that day.  This road turned southward, and Jean began to
+have pleasurable expectations.
+
+The road, like the trail, led down grade, but no longer at such steep
+angles, and was bordered by cedar and pinyon, jack-pine and juniper,
+mescal and manzanita.  Quite sharply, going around a ridge, the road
+led Jean's eye down to a small open flat of marshy, or at least grassy,
+ground.  This green oasis in the wilderness of red and timbered ridges
+marked another change in the character of the Basin.  Beyond that the
+country began to spread out and roll gracefully, its dark-green forest
+interspersed with grassy parks, until Jean headed into a long, wide
+gray-green valley surrounded by black-fringed hills.  His pulses
+quickened here.  He saw cattle dotting the expanse, and here and there
+along the edge log cabins and corrals.
+
+As a village, Grass Valley could not boast of much, apparently, in the
+way of population.  Cabins and houses were widely scattered, as if the
+inhabitants did not care to encroach upon one another.  But the one
+store, built of stone, and stamped also with the characteristic
+isolation, seemed to Jean to be a rather remarkable edifice.  Not
+exactly like a fort did it strike him, but if it had not been designed
+for defense it certainly gave that impression, especially from the
+long, low side with its dark eye-like windows about the height of a
+man's shoulder.  Some rather fine horses were tied to a hitching rail.
+Otherwise dust and dirt and age and long use stamped this Grass Valley
+store and its immediate environment.
+
+Jean threw his bridle, and, getting down, mounted the low porch and
+stepped into the wide open door.  A face, gray against the background
+of gloom inside, passed out of sight just as Jean entered.  He knew he
+had been seen.  In front of the long, rather low-ceiled store were four
+men, all absorbed, apparently, in a game of checkers.  Two were playing
+and two were looking on.  One of these, a gaunt-faced man past middle
+age, casually looked up as Jean entered.  But the moment of that casual
+glance afforded Jean time enough to meet eyes he instinctively
+distrusted. They masked their penetration.  They seemed neither curious
+nor friendly. They saw him as if he had been merely thin air.
+
+"Good evenin'," said Jean.
+
+After what appeared to Jean a lapse of time sufficient to impress him
+with a possible deafness of these men, the gaunt-faced one said,
+"Howdy, Isbel!"
+
+The tone was impersonal, dry, easy, cool, laconic, and yet it could not
+have been more pregnant with meaning.  Jean's sharp sensibilities
+absorbed much.  None of the slouch-sombreroed, long-mustached
+Texans--for so Jean at once classed them--had ever seen Jean, but they
+knew him and knew that he was expected in Grass Valley.  All but the
+one who had spoken happened to have their faces in shadow under the
+wide-brimmed black hats.  Motley-garbed, gun-belted, dusty-booted, they
+gave Jean the same impression of latent force that he had encountered
+in Colter.
+
+"Will somebody please tell me where to find my father, Gaston Isbel?"
+inquired Jean, with as civil a tongue as he could command.
+
+Nobody paid the slightest attention.  It was the same as if Jean had
+not spoken.  Waiting, half amused, half irritated, Jean shot a rapid
+glance around the store.  The place had felt bare; and Jean, peering
+back through gloomy space, saw that it did not contain much.  Dry goods
+and sacks littered a long rude counter; long rough shelves divided
+their length into stacks of canned foods and empty sections; a low
+shelf back of the counter held a generous burden of cartridge boxes,
+and next to it stood a rack of rifles.  On the counter lay open cases
+of plug tobacco, the odor of which was second in strength only to that
+of rum.
+
+Jean's swift-roving eye reverted to the men, three of whom were
+absorbed in the greasy checkerboard.  The fourth man was the one who
+had spoken and he now deigned to look at Jean.  Not much flesh was
+there stretched over his bony, powerful physiognomy.  He stroked a lean
+chin with a big mobile hand that suggested more of bridle holding than
+familiarity with a bucksaw and plow handle.  It was a lazy hand.  The
+man looked lazy.  If he spoke at all it would be with lazy speech, yet
+Jean had not encountered many men to whom he would have accorded more
+potency to stir in him the instinct of self-preservation.
+
+"Shore," drawled this gaunt-faced Texan, "old Gass lives aboot a mile
+down heah."  With slow sweep of the big hand he indicated a general
+direction to the south; then, appearing to forget his questioner, he
+turned his attention to the game.
+
+Jean muttered his thanks and, striding out, he mounted again, and drove
+the pack mule down the road.  "Reckon I've ran into the wrong folds
+to-day," he said.  "If I remember dad right he was a man to make an'
+keep friends.  Somehow I'll bet there's goin' to be hell."  Beyond the
+store were some rather pretty and comfortable homes, little ranch
+houses back in the coves of the hills.  The road turned west and Jean
+saw his first sunset in the Tonto Basin.  It was a pageant of purple
+clouds with silver edges, and background of deep rich gold.  Presently
+Jean met a lad driving a cow.  "Hello, Johnny!" he said, genially, and
+with a double purpose.  "My name's Jean Isbel.  By Golly! I'm lost in
+Grass Valley.  Will you tell me where my dad lives?"
+
+"Yep.  Keep right on, an' y'u cain't miss him," replied the lad, with a
+bright smile.  "He's lookin' fer y'u."
+
+"How do you know, boy?" queried Jean, warmed by that smile.
+
+"Aw, I know.  It's all over the valley thet y'u'd ride in ter-day.
+Shore I wus the one thet tole yer dad an' he give me a dollar."
+
+"Was he glad to hear it?" asked Jean, with a queer sensation in his
+throat.
+
+"Wal, he plumb was."
+
+"An' who told you I was goin' to ride in to-day?"
+
+"I heerd it at the store," replied the lad, with an air of confidence.
+"Some sheepmen was talkin' to Greaves.  He's the storekeeper.  I was
+settin' outside, but I heerd.  A Mexican come down off the Rim ter-day
+an' he fetched the news."  Here the lad looked furtively around, then
+whispered.  "An' thet greaser was sent by somebody.  I never heerd no
+more, but them sheepmen looked pretty plumb sour.  An' one of them,
+comin' out, give me a kick, darn him.  It shore is the luckedest day
+fer us cowmen."
+
+"How's that, Johnny?"
+
+"Wal, that's shore a big fight comin' to Grass Valley.  My dad says so
+an' he rides fer yer dad.  An' if it comes now y'u'll be heah."
+
+"Ahuh!" laughed Jean.  "An' what then, boy?"
+
+The lad turned bright eyes upward.  "Aw, now, yu'all cain't come thet
+on me.  Ain't y'u an Injun, Jean Isbel?  Ain't y'u a hoss tracker thet
+rustlers cain't fool?  Ain't y'u a plumb dead shot?  Ain't y'u wuss'ern
+a grizzly bear in a rough-an'-tumble? ... Now ain't y'u, shore?"
+
+Jean bade the flattering lad a rather sober good day and rode on his
+way.  Manifestly a reputation somewhat difficult to live up to had
+preceded his entry into Grass Valley.
+
+Jean's first sight of his future home thrilled him through.  It was a
+big, low, rambling log structure standing well out from a wooded knoll
+at the edge of the valley.  Corrals and barns and sheds lay off at the
+back.  To the fore stretched broad pastures where numberless cattle and
+horses grazed.  At sunset the scene was one of rich color. Prosperity
+and abundance and peace seemed attendant upon that ranch; lusty voices
+of burros braying and cows bawling seemed welcoming Jean. A hound
+bayed.  The first cool touch of wind fanned Jean's cheek and brought a
+fragrance of wood smoke and frying ham.
+
+Horses in the Pasture romped to the fence and whistled at these
+newcomers.  Jean espied a white-faced black horse that gladdened his
+sight.  "Hello, Whiteface!  I'll sure straddle you," called Jean. Then
+up the gentle slope he saw the tall figure of his father--the same as
+he had seen him thousands of times, bareheaded, shirt sleeved, striding
+with long step.  Jean waved and called to him.
+
+"Hi, You Prodigal!" came the answer.  Yes, the voice of his father--and
+Jean's boyhood memories flashed.  He hurried his horse those last few
+rods.  No--dad was not the same.  His hair shone gray.
+
+"Here I am, dad," called Jean, and then he was dismounting.  A deep,
+quiet emotion settled over him, stilling the hurry, the eagerness, the
+pang in his breast.
+
+"Son, I shore am glad to see you," said his father, and wrung his hand.
+"Wal, wal, the size of you!  Shore you've grown, any how you favor your
+mother."
+
+Jean felt in the iron clasp of hand, in the uplifting of the handsome
+head, in the strong, fine light of piercing eyes that there was no
+difference in the spirit of his father.  But the old smile could not
+hide lines and shades strange to Jean.
+
+"Dad, I'm as glad as you," replied Jean, heartily.  "It seems long
+we've been parted, now I see you.  Are You well, dad, an' all right?"
+
+"Not complainin', son. I can ride all day same as ever," he said.
+"Come.  Never mind your hosses.  They'll be looked after. Come meet the
+folks.... Wal, wal, you got heah at last."
+
+On the porch of the house a group awaited Jean's coming, rather
+silently, he thought.  Wide-eyed children were there, very shy and
+watchful.  The dark face of his sister corresponded with the image of
+her in his memory.  She appeared taller, more womanly, as she embraced
+him.  "Oh, Jean, Jean, I'm glad you've come!" she cried, and pressed
+him close.  Jean felt in her a woman's anxiety for the present as well
+as affection for the past.  He remembered his aunt Mary, though he had
+not seen her for years.  His half brothers, Bill and Guy, had changed
+but little except perhaps to grow lean and rangy.  Bill resembled his
+father, though his aspect was jocular rather than serious.  Guy was
+smaller, wiry, and hard as rock, with snapping eyes in a brown, still
+face, and he had the bow-legs of a cattleman.  Both had married in
+Arizona.  Bill's wife, Kate, was a stout, comely little woman, mother
+of three of the children.  The other wife was young, a strapping girl,
+red headed and freckled, with wonderful lines of pain and strength in
+her face.  Jean remembered, as he looked at her, that some one had
+written him about the tragedy in her life.  When she was only a child
+the Apaches had murdered all her family.  Then next to greet Jean were
+the little children, all shy, yet all manifestly impressed by the
+occasion.  A warmth and intimacy of forgotten home emotions flooded
+over Jean.  Sweet it was to get home to these relatives who loved him
+and welcomed him with quiet gladness.  But there seemed more.  Jean was
+quick to see the shadow in the eyes of the women in that household and
+to sense a strange reliance which his presence brought.
+
+"Son, this heah Tonto is a land of milk an' honey," said his father, as
+Jean gazed spellbound at the bounteous supper.
+
+Jean certainly performed gastronomic feats on this occasion, to the
+delight of Aunt Mary and the wonder of the children.  "Oh, he's
+starv-ved to death," whispered one of the little boys to his sister.
+They had begun to warm to this stranger uncle.  Jean had no chance to
+talk, even had he been able to, for the meal-time showed a relaxation
+of restraint and they all tried to tell him things at once.  In the
+bright lamplight his father looked easier and happier as he beamed upon
+Jean.
+
+After supper the men went into an adjoining room that appeared most
+comfortable and attractive.  It was long, and the width of the house,
+with a huge stone fireplace, low ceiling of hewn timbers and walls of
+the same, small windows with inside shutters of wood, and home-made
+table and chairs and rugs.
+
+"Wal, Jean, do you recollect them shootin'-irons?" inquired the
+rancher, pointing above the fireplace.  Two guns hung on the spreading
+deer antlers there.  One was a musket Jean's father had used in the war
+of the rebellion and the other was a long, heavy, muzzle-loading
+flintlock Kentucky, rifle with which Jean had learned to shoot.
+
+"Reckon I do, dad," replied Jean, and with reverent hands and a rush of
+memory he took the old gun down.
+
+"Jean, you shore handle thet old arm some clumsy," said Guy Isbel,
+dryly.  And Bill added a remark to the effect that perhaps Jean had
+been leading a luxurious and tame life back there in Oregon, and then
+added,  "But I reckon he's packin' that six-shooter like a Texan."
+
+"Say, I fetched a gun or two along with me," replied Jean, jocularly.
+"Reckon I near broke my poor mule's back with the load of shells an'
+guns.  Dad, what was the idea askin' me to pack out an arsenal?"
+
+"Son, shore all shootin' arms an' such are at a premium in the Tonto,"
+replied his father.  "An' I was givin' you a hunch to come loaded."
+
+His cool, drawling voice seemed to put a damper upon the pleasantries.
+Right there Jean sensed the charged atmosphere.  His brothers were
+bursting with utterance about to break forth, and his father suddenly
+wore a look that recalled to Jean critical times of days long past. But
+the entrance of the children and the women folk put an end to
+confidences.  Evidently the youngsters were laboring under subdued
+excitement.  They preceded their mother, the smallest boy in the lead.
+For him this must have been both a dreadful and a wonderful experience,
+for he seemed to be pushed forward by his sister and brother and
+mother, and driven by yearnings of his own.  "There now, Lee.  Say,
+'Uncle Jean, what did you fetch us?'  The lad hesitated for a shy,
+frightened look at Jean, and then, gaining something from his scrutiny
+of his uncle, he toddled forward and bravely delivered the question of
+tremendous importance.
+
+"What did I fetch you, hey?" cried Jean, in delight, as he took the lad
+up on his knee.  "Wouldn't you like to know?  I didn't forget, Lee. I
+remembered you all.  Oh! the job I had packin' your bundle of
+presents.... Now, Lee, make a guess."
+
+"I dess you fetched a dun," replied Lee.
+
+"A dun!--I'll bet you mean a gun," laughed Jean.  "Well, you
+four-year-old Texas gunman!  Make another guess."
+
+That appeared too momentous and entrancing for the other two
+youngsters, and, adding their shrill and joyous voices to Lee's, they
+besieged Jean.
+
+"Dad, where's my pack?" cried Jean.  "These young Apaches are after my
+scalp."
+
+"Reckon the boys fetched it onto the porch," replied the rancher.
+
+Guy Isbel opened the door and went out.  "By golly! heah's three
+packs," he called.  "Which one do you want, Jean?"
+
+"It's a long, heavy bundle, all tied up," replied Jean.
+
+Guy came staggering in under a burden that brought a whoop from the
+youngsters and bright gleams to the eyes of the women.  Jean lost
+nothing of this.  How glad he was that he had tarried in San Francisco
+because of a mental picture of this very reception in far-off wild
+Arizona.
+
+When Guy deposited the bundle on the floor it jarred the room. It gave
+forth metallic and rattling and crackling sounds.
+
+"Everybody stand back an' give me elbow room," ordered Jean,
+majestically.  "My good folks, I want you all to know this is somethin'
+that doesn't happen often.  The bundle you see here weighed about a
+hundred pounds when I packed it on my shoulder down Market Street in
+Frisco.  It was stolen from me on shipboard. I got it back in San Diego
+an' licked the thief.  It rode on a burro from San Diego to Yuma an'
+once I thought the burro was lost for keeps. It came up the Colorado
+River from Yuma to Ehrenberg an' there went on top of a stage.  We got
+chased by bandits an' once when the horses were gallopin' hard it near
+rolled off.  Then it went on the back of a pack horse an' helped wear
+him out.  An' I reckon it would be somewhere else now if I hadn't
+fallen in with a freighter goin' north from Phoenix to the Santa Fe
+Trail.  The last lap when it sagged the back of a mule was the riskiest
+an' full of the narrowest escapes. Twice my mule bucked off his pack
+an' left my outfit scattered. Worst of all, my precious bundle made the
+mule top heavy comin' down that place back here where the trail seems
+to drop off the earth. There I was hard put to keep sight of my pack.
+Sometimes it was on top an' other times the mule.  But it got here at
+last.... An' now I'll open it."
+
+After this long and impressive harangue, which at least augmented the
+suspense of the women and worked the children into a frenzy, Jean
+leisurely untied the many knots round the bundle and unrolled it. He
+had packed that bundle for just such travel as it had sustained. Three
+cloth-bound rifles he laid aside, and with them a long, very heavy
+package tied between two thin wide boards.  From this came the metallic
+clink.  "Oo, I know what dem is!" cried Lee, breaking the silence of
+suspense.  Then Jean, tearing open a long flat parcel, spread before
+the mute, rapt-eyed youngsters such magnificent things, as they had
+never dreamed of--picture books, mouth-harps, dolls, a toy gun and a
+toy pistol, a wonderful whistle and a fox horn, and last of all a box
+of candy.  Before these treasures on the floor, too magical to be
+touched at first, the two little boys and their sister simply knelt.
+That was a sweet, full moment for Jean; yet even that was clouded by
+the something which shadowed these innocent children fatefully born in
+a wild place at a wild time.  Next Jean gave to his sister the presents
+he had brought her--beautiful cloth for a dress, ribbons and a bit of
+lace, handkerchiefs and buttons and yards of linen, a sewing case and a
+whole box of spools of thread, a comb and brush and mirror, and lastly
+a Spanish brooch inlaid with garnets.  "There, Ann," said Jean, "I
+confess I asked a girl friend in Oregon to tell me some things my
+sister might like."  Manifestly there was not much difference in girls.
+Ann seemed stunned by this munificence, and then awakening, she hugged
+Jean in a way that took his breath.  She was not a child any more, that
+was certain.  Aunt Mary turned knowing eyes upon Jean.  "Reckon you
+couldn't have pleased Ann more.  She's engaged, Jean, an' where girls
+are in that state these things mean a heap.... Ann, you'll be married
+in that!"  And she pointed to the beautiful folds of material that Ann
+had spread out.
+
+"What's this?" demanded Jean.  His sister's blushes were enough to
+convict her, and they were mightily becoming, too.
+
+"Here, Aunt Mary," went on Jean, "here's yours, an' here's somethin'
+for each of my new sisters."  This distribution left the women as happy
+and occupied, almost, as the children.  It left also another package,
+the last one in the bundle.  Jean laid hold of it and, lifting it, he
+was about to speak when he sustained a little shock of memory. Quite
+distinctly he saw two little feet, with bare toes peeping out of
+worn-out moccasins, and then round, bare, symmetrical ankles that had
+been scratched by brush.  Next he saw Ellen Jorth's passionate face as
+she looked when she had made the violent action so disconcerting to
+him.  In this happy moment the memory seemed farther off than a few
+hours.  It had crystallized.  It annoyed while it drew him.  As a
+result he slowly laid this package aside and did not speak as he had
+intended to.
+
+"Dad, I reckon I didn't fetch a lot for you an' the boys," continued
+Jean.  "Some knives, some pipes an' tobacco.  An' sure the guns."
+
+"Shore, you're a regular Santa Claus, Jean," replied his father. "Wal,
+wal, look at the kids.  An' look at Mary.  An' for the land's sake look
+at Ann!  Wal, wal, I'm gettin' old.  I'd forgotten the pretty stuff an'
+gimcracks that mean so much to women.  We're out of the world heah.
+It's just as well you've lived apart from us, Jean, for comin' back
+this way, with all that stuff, does us a lot of good.  I cain't say,
+son, how obliged I am.  My mind has been set on the hard side of life.
+An' it's shore good to forget--to see the smiles of the women an' the
+joy of the kids."
+
+At this juncture a tall young man entered the open door.  He looked a
+rider.  All about him, even his face, except his eyes, seemed old, but
+his eyes were young, fine, soft, and dark.
+
+"How do, y'u-all!" he said, evenly.
+
+Ann rose from her knees.  Then Jean did not need to be told who this
+newcomer was.
+
+"Jean, this is my friend, Andrew Colmor."
+
+Jean knew when he met Colmor's grip and the keen flash of his eyes that
+he was glad Ann had set her heart upon one of their kind.  And his
+second impression was something akin to the one given him in the road
+by the admiring lad.  Colmor's estimate of him must have been a
+monument built of Ann's eulogies.  Jean's heart suffered misgivings.
+Could he live up to the character that somehow had forestalled his
+advent in Grass Valley?  Surely life was measured differently here in
+the Tonto Basin.
+
+The children, bundling their treasures to their bosoms, were dragged
+off to bed in some remote part of the house, from which their laughter
+and voices came back with happy significance.  Jean forthwith had an
+interested audience.  How eagerly these lonely pioneer people listened
+to news of the outside world!  Jean talked until he was hoarse. In
+their turn his hearers told him much that had never found place in the
+few and short letters he had received since he had been left in Oregon.
+Not a word about sheepmen or any hint of rustlers! Jean marked the
+omission and thought all the more seriously of probabilities because
+nothing was said.  Altogether the evening was a happy reunion of a
+family of which all living members were there present.  Jean grasped
+that this fact was one of significant satisfaction to his father.
+
+"Shore we're all goin' to live together heah," he declared.  "I started
+this range.  I call most of this valley mine.  We'll run up a cabin for
+Ann soon as she says the word.  An' you, Jean, where's your girl? I
+shore told you to fetch her."
+
+"Dad, I didn't have one," replied Jean.
+
+"Wal, I wish you had," returned the rancher.  "You'll go courtin' one
+of these Tonto hussies that I might object to."
+
+"Why, father, there's not a girl in the valley Jean would look twice
+at," interposed Ann Isbel, with spirit.
+
+Jean laughed the matter aside, but he had an uneasy memory.  Aunt Mary
+averred, after the manner of relatives, that Jean would play havoc
+among the women of the settlement.  And Jean retorted that at least one
+member of the Isbels; should hold out against folly and fight and love
+and marriage, the agents which had reduced the family to these few
+present.  "I'll be the last Isbel to go under," he concluded.
+
+"Son, you're talkin' wisdom," said his father.  "An' shore that reminds
+me of the uncle you're named after.  Jean Isbel! ... Wal, he was my
+youngest brother an' shore a fire-eater.  Our mother was a French
+creole from Louisiana, an' Jean must have inherited some of his
+fightin' nature from her.  When the war of the rebellion started Jean
+an' I enlisted. I was crippled before we ever got to the front.  But
+Jean went through three Years before he was killed.  His company had
+orders to fight to the last man.  An' Jean fought an' lived long enough
+just to be that last man."
+
+At length Jean was left alone with his father.
+
+"Reckon you're used to bunkin' outdoors?" queried the rancher, rather
+abruptly.
+
+"Most of the time," replied Jean.
+
+"Wal, there's room in the house, but I want you to sleep out. Come get
+your beddin' an' gun. I'll show you."
+
+They went outside on the porch, where Jean shouldered his roll of
+tarpaulin and blankets.  His rifle, in its saddle sheath, leaned
+against the door.  His father took it up and, half pulling it out,
+looked at it by the starlight.  "Forty-four, eh?  Wal, wal, there's
+shore no better, if a man can hold straight."  At the moment a big gray
+dog trotted up to sniff at Jean.  "An' heah's your bunkmate, Shepp.
+He's part lofer, Jean.  His mother was a favorite shepherd dog of mine.
+His father was a big timber wolf that took us two years to kill.  Some
+bad wolf packs runnin' this Basin."
+
+The night was cold and still, darkly bright under moon and stars; the
+smell of hay seemed to mingle with that of cedar.  Jean followed his
+father round the house and up a gentle slope of grass to the edge of
+the cedar line.  Here several trees with low-sweeping thick branches
+formed a dense, impenetrable shade.
+
+"Son, your uncle Jean was scout for Liggett, one of the greatest rebels
+the South had," said the rancher.  "An' you're goin' to be scout for
+the Isbels of Tonto.  Reckon you'll find it 'most as hot as your uncle
+did.... Spread your bed inside.  You can see out, but no one can see
+you.  Reckon there's been some queer happenin's 'round heah lately.  If
+Shepp could talk he'd shore have lots to tell us.  Bill an' Guy have
+been sleepin' out, trailin' strange hoss tracks, an' all that.  But
+shore whoever's been prowlin' around heah was too sharp for them.  Some
+bad, crafty, light-steppin' woodsmen 'round heah, Jean.... Three
+mawnin's ago, just after daylight, I stepped out the back door an' some
+one of these sneaks I'm talkin' aboot took a shot at me.  Missed my
+head a quarter of an inch! To-morrow I'll show you the bullet hole in
+the doorpost.  An' some of my gray hairs that 're stickin' in it!"
+
+"Dad!" ejaculated Jean, with a hand outstretched.  "That's awful! You
+frighten me."
+
+"No time to be scared," replied his father, calmly.  "They're shore
+goin' to kill me.  That's why I wanted you home.... In there with you,
+now!  Go to sleep.  You shore can trust Shepp to wake you if he gets
+scent or sound.... An' good night, my son.  I'm sayin' that I'll rest
+easy to-night."
+
+Jean mumbled a good night and stood watching his father's shining white
+head move away under the starlight.  Then the tall, dark form vanished,
+a door closed, and all was still.  The dog Shepp licked Jean's hand.
+Jean felt grateful for that warm touch.  For a moment he sat on his
+roll of bedding, his thought still locked on the shuddering revelation
+of his father's words, "They're shore goin' to kill me."  The shock of
+inaction passed.  Jean pushed his pack in the dark opening and,
+crawling inside, he unrolled it and made his bed.
+
+When at length he was comfortably settled for the night he breathed a
+long sigh of relief.  What bliss to relax!  A throbbing and burning of
+his muscles seemed to begin with his rest.  The cool starlit night, the
+smell of cedar, the moan of wind, the silence--an were real to his
+senses.  After long weeks of long, arduous travel he was home.  The
+warmth of the welcome still lingered, but it seemed to have been
+pierced by an icy thrust.  What lay before him?  The shadow in the eyes
+of his aunt, in the younger, fresher eyes of his sister--Jean connected
+that with the meaning of his father's tragic words.  Far past was the
+morning that had been so keen, the breaking of camp in the sunlit
+forest, the riding down the brown aisles under the pines, the music of
+bleating lambs that had called him not to pass by. Thought of Ellen
+Jorth recurred.  Had he met her only that morning? She was up there in
+the forest, asleep under the starlit pines. Who was she?  What was her
+story?  That savage fling of her skirt, her bitter speech and
+passionate flaming face--they haunted Jean. They were crystallizing
+into simpler memories, growing away from his bewilderment, and
+therefore at once sweeter and more doubtful. "Maybe she meant
+differently from what I thought," Jean soliloquized. "Anyway, she was
+honest."  Both shame and thrill possessed him at the recall of an
+insidious idea--dare he go back and find her and give her the last
+package of gifts he had brought from the city?  What might they mean to
+poor, ragged, untidy, beautiful Ellen Jorth?  The idea grew on Jean.
+It could not be dispelled.  He resisted stubbornly. It was bound to go
+to its fruition.  Deep into his mind had sunk an impression of her
+need--a material need that brought spirit and pride to abasement.  From
+one picture to another his memory wandered, from one speech and act of
+hers to another, choosing, selecting, casting aside, until clear and
+sharp as the stars shone the words, "Oh, I've been kissed before!"
+That stung him now.  By whom?  Not by one man, but by several, by many,
+she had meant.  Pshaw! he had only been sympathetic and drawn by a
+strange girl in the woods.  To-morrow he would forget.  Work there was
+for him in Grass Valley.  And he reverted uneasily to the remarks of
+his father until at last sleep claimed him.
+
+A cold nose against his cheek, a low whine, awakened Jean.  The big dog
+Shepp was beside him, keen, wary, intense.  The night appeared far
+advanced toward dawn.  Far away a cock crowed; the near-at-hand one
+answered in clarion voice.  "What is it, Shepp?" whispered Jean, and he
+sat up.  The dog smelled or heard something suspicious to his nature,
+but whether man or animal Jean could not tell.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The morning star, large, intensely blue-white, magnificent in its
+dominance of the clear night sky, hung over the dim, dark valley
+ramparts. The moon had gone down and all the other stars were wan, pale
+ghosts.
+
+Presently the strained vacuum of Jean's ears vibrated to a low roar of
+many hoofs.  It came from the open valley, along the slope to the
+south.  Shepp acted as if he wanted the word to run.  Jean laid a hand
+on the dog.  "Hold on, Shepp," he whispered.  Then hauling on his boots
+and slipping into his coat Jean took his rifle and stole out into the
+open.  Shepp appeared to be well trained, for it was evident that he
+had a strong natural tendency to run off and hunt for whatever had
+roused him.  Jean thought it more than likely that the dog scented an
+animal of some kind.  If there were men prowling around the ranch
+Shepp, might have been just as vigilant, but it seemed to Jean that the
+dog would have shown less eagerness to leave him, or none at all.
+
+In the stillness of the morning it took Jean a moment to locate the
+direction of the wind, which was very light and coming from the south.
+In fact that little breeze had borne the low roar of trampling hoofs.
+Jean circled the ranch house to the right and kept along the slope at
+the edge of the cedars.  It struck him suddenly how well fitted he was
+for work of this sort.  All the work he had ever done, except for his
+few years in school, had been in the open.  All the leisure he had ever
+been able to obtain had been given to his ruling passion for hunting
+and fishing.  Love of the wild had been born in Jean.  At this moment
+he experienced a grim assurance of what his instinct and his training
+might accomplish if directed to a stern and daring end.  Perhaps his
+father understood this; perhaps the old Texan had some little reason
+for his confidence.
+
+Every few paces Jean halted to listen.  All objects, of course, were
+indistinguishable in the dark-gray obscurity, except when he came close
+upon them.  Shepp showed an increasing eagerness to bolt out into the
+void.  When Jean had traveled half a mile from the house he heard a
+scattered trampling of cattle on the run, and farther out a low
+strangled bawl of a calf.  "Ahuh!" muttered Jean.  "Cougar or some
+varmint pulled down that calf."  Then he discharged his rifle in the
+air and yelled with all his might.  It was necessary then to yell again
+to hold Shepp back.
+
+Thereupon Jean set forth down the valley, and tramped out and across
+and around, as much to scare away whatever had been after the stock as
+to look for the wounded calf.  More than once he heard cattle moving
+away ahead of him, but he could not see them.  Jean let Shepp go,
+hoping the dog would strike a trail.  But Shepp neither gave tongue nor
+came back.  Dawn began to break, and in the growing light Jean searched
+around until at last he stumbled over a dead calf, lying in a little
+bare wash where water ran in wet seasons.  Big wolf tracks showed in
+the soft earth.  "Lofers," said Jean, as he knelt and just covered one
+track with his spread hand.  "We had wolves in Oregon, but not as big
+as these.... Wonder where that half-wolf dog, Shepp, went.  Wonder if
+he can be trusted where wolves are concerned. I'll bet not, if there's
+a she-wolf runnin' around."
+
+Jean found tracks of two wolves, and he trailed them out of the wash,
+then lost them in the grass.  But, guided by their direction, he went
+on and climbed a slope to the cedar line, where in the dusty patches he
+found the tracks again.  "Not scared much," he muttered, as he noted
+the slow trotting tracks.  "Well, you old gray lofers, we're goin' to
+clash."  Jean knew from many a futile hunt that wolves were the wariest
+and most intelligent of wild animals in the quest.  From the top of a
+low foothill he watched the sun rise; and then no longer wondered why
+his father waxed eloquent over the beauty and location and luxuriance
+of this grassy valley.  But it was large enough to make rich a good
+many ranchers.  Jean tried to restrain any curiosity as to his father's
+dealings in Grass Valley until the situation had been made clear.
+
+Moreover, Jean wanted to love this wonderful country.  He wanted to be
+free to ride and hunt and roam to his heart's content; and therefore he
+dreaded hearing his father's claims.  But Jean threw off forebodings.
+Nothing ever turned out so badly as it presaged.  He would think the
+best until certain of the worst.  The morning was gloriously bright,
+and already the frost was glistening wet on the stones.  Grass Valley
+shone like burnished silver dotted with innumerable black spots. Burros
+were braying their discordant messages to one another; the colts were
+romping in the fields; stallions were whistling; cows were bawling.  A
+cloud of blue smoke hung low over the ranch house, slowly wafting away
+on the wind.  Far out in the valley a dark group of horsemen were
+riding toward the village.  Jean glanced thoughtfully at them and
+reflected that he seemed destined to harbor suspicion of all men new
+and strange to him.  Above the distant village stood the darkly green
+foothills leading up to the craggy slopes, and these ending in the Rim,
+a red, black-fringed mountain front, beautiful in the morning sunlight,
+lonely, serene, and mysterious against the level skyline.  Mountains,
+ranges, distances unknown to Jean, always called to him--to come, to
+seek, to explore, to find, but no wild horizon ever before beckoned to
+him as this one.  And the subtle vague emotion that had gone to sleep
+with him last night awoke now hauntingly. It took effort to dispel the
+desire to think, to wonder.
+
+Upon his return to the house, he went around on the valley side, so as
+to see the place by light of day.  His father had built for permanence;
+and evidently there had been three constructive periods in the history
+of that long, substantial, picturesque log house. But few nails and
+little sawed lumber and no glass had been used. Strong and skillful
+hands, axes and a crosscut saw, had been the prime factors in erecting
+this habitation of the Isbels.
+
+"Good mawnin', son," called a cheery voice from the porch.  "Shore
+we-all heard you shoot; an' the crack of that forty-four was as welcome
+as May flowers."
+
+Bill Isbel looked up from a task over a saddle girth and inquired
+pleasantly if Jean ever slept of nights.  Guy Isbel laughed and there
+was warm regard in the gaze he bent on Jean.
+
+"You old Indian!" he drawled, slowly.  "Did you get a bead on anythin'?"
+
+"No.  I shot to scare away what I found to be some of your lofers,"
+replied Jean.  "I heard them pullin' down a calf.  An' I found tracks
+of two whoppin' big wolves.  I found the dead calf, too.  Reckon the
+meat can be saved.  Dad, you must lose a lot of stock here."
+
+"Wal, son, you shore hit the nail on the haid," replied the rancher.
+"What with lions an' bears an' lofers--an' two-footed lofers of another
+breed--I've lost five thousand dollars in stock this last year."
+
+"Dad!  You don't mean it!" exclaimed Jean, in astonishment. To him that
+sum represented a small fortune.
+
+"I shore do," answered his father.
+
+Jean shook his head as if he could not understand such an enormous loss
+where there were keen able-bodied men about.  "But that's awful, dad.
+How could it happen?  Where were your herders an' cowboys? An' Bill an'
+Guy?"
+
+Bill Isbel shook a vehement fist at Jean and retorted in earnest,
+having manifestly been hit in a sore spot.  "Where was me an' Guy, huh?
+Wal, my Oregon brother, we was heah, all year, sleepin' more or less
+aboot three hours out of every twenty-four--ridin' our boots off--an'
+we couldn't keep down that loss."
+
+"Jean, you-all have a mighty tumble comin' to you out heah," said Guy,
+complacently.
+
+"Listen, son," spoke up the rancher.  "You want to have some hunches
+before you figure on our troubles.  There's two or three packs of
+lofers, an' in winter time they are hell to deal with.  Lions thick as
+bees, an' shore bad when the snow's on.  Bears will kill a cow now an'
+then.  An' whenever an' old silvertip comes mozyin' across from the
+Mazatzals he kills stock.  I'm in with half a dozen cattlemen. We all
+work together, an' the whole outfit cain't keep these vermints down.
+Then two years ago the Hash Knife Gang come into the Tonto."
+
+"Hash Knife Gang?  What a pretty name!" replied Jean.  "Who're they?"
+
+"Rustlers, son.  An' shore the real old Texas brand.  The old Lone Star
+State got too hot for them, an' they followed the trail of a lot of
+other Texans who needed a healthier climate.  Some two hundred Texans
+around heah, Jean, an' maybe a matter of three hundred inhabitants in
+the Tonto all told, good an' bad.  Reckon it's aboot half an' half."
+
+A cheery call from the kitchen interrupted the conversation of the men.
+
+"You come to breakfast."
+
+During the meal the old rancher talked to Bill and Guy about the day's
+order of work; and from this Jean gathered an idea of what a big cattle
+business his father conducted.  After breakfast Jean's brothers
+manifested keen interest in the new rifles.  These were unwrapped and
+cleaned and taken out for testing.  The three rifles were forty-four
+calibre Winchesters, the kind of gun Jean had found most effective. He
+tried them out first, and the shots he made were satisfactory to him
+and amazing to the others.  Bill had used an old Henry rifle. Guy did
+not favor any particular rifle.  The rancher pinned his faith to the
+famous old single-shot buffalo gun, mostly called needle gun. "Wal,
+reckon I'd better stick to mine.  Shore you cain't teach an old dog new
+tricks.  But you boys may do well with the forty-fours. Pack 'em on
+your saddles an' practice when you see a coyote."
+
+Jean found it difficult to convince himself that this interest in guns
+and marksmanship had any sinister propulsion back of it.  His father
+and brothers had always been this way.  Rifles were as important to
+pioneers as plows, and their skillful use was an achievement every
+frontiersman tried to attain.  Friendly rivalry had always existed
+among the members of the Isbel family: even Ann Isbel was a good shot.
+But such proficiency in the use of firearms--and life in the open that
+was correlative with it--had not dominated them as it had Jean. Bill
+and Guy Isbel were born cattlemen--chips of the old block. Jean began
+to hope that his father's letter was an exaggeration, and particularly
+that the fatalistic speech of last night, "they are goin' to kill me,"
+was just a moody inclination to see the worst side. Still, even as Jean
+tried to persuade himself of this more hopeful view, he recalled many
+references to the peculiar reputation of Texans for gun-throwing, for
+feuds, for never-ending hatreds.  In Oregon the Isbels had lived among
+industrious and peaceful pioneers from all over the States; to be sure,
+the life had been rough and primitive, and there had been fights on
+occasions, though no Isbel had ever killed a man.  But now they had
+become fixed in a wilder and sparsely settled country among men of
+their own breed.  Jean was afraid his hopes had only sentiment to
+foster them.  Nevertheless, be forced back a strange, brooding, mental
+state and resolutely held up the brighter side.  Whatever the evil
+conditions existing in Grass Valley, they could be met with
+intelligence and courage, with an absolute certainty that it was
+inevitable they must pass away.  Jean refused to consider the old,
+fatal law that at certain wild times and wild places in the West
+certain men had to pass away to change evil conditions.
+
+"Wal, Jean, ride around the range with the boys," said the rancher.
+"Meet some of my neighbors, Jim Blaisdell, in particular.  Take a look
+at the cattle.  An' pick out some hosses for yourself."
+
+"I've seen one already," declared Jean, quickly.  "A black with white
+face.  I'll take him."
+
+"Shore you know a hoss.  To my eye he's my pick.  But the boys don't
+agree.  Bill 'specially has degenerated into a fancier of pitchin'
+hosses.  Ann can ride that black.  You try him this mawnin'.... An',
+son, enjoy yourself."
+
+True to his first impression, Jean named the black horse Whiteface and
+fell in love with him before ever he swung a leg over him. Whiteface
+appeared spirited, yet gentle.  He had been trained instead of being
+broken.  Of hard hits and quirts and spurs he had no experience.  He
+liked to do what his rider wanted him to do.
+
+A hundred or more horses grazed in the grassy meadow, and as Jean rode
+on among them it was a pleasure to see stallions throw heads and ears
+up and whistle or snort.  Whole troops of colts and two-year-olds raced
+with flying tails and manes.
+
+Beyond these pastures stretched the range, and Jean saw the gray-green
+expanse speckled by thousands of cattle.  The scene was inspiring.
+Jean's brothers led him all around, meeting some of the herders and
+riders employed on the ranch, one of whom was a burly, grizzled man
+with eyes reddened and narrowed by much riding in wind and sun and
+dust. His name was Evans and he was father of the lad whom Jean had met
+near the village.  Everts was busily skinning the calf that had been
+killed by the wolves.  "See heah, y'u Jean Isbel," said Everts, "it
+shore was aboot time y'u come home.  We-all heahs y'u hev an eye fer
+tracks. Wal, mebbe y'u can kill Old Gray, the lofer thet did this job.
+He's pulled down nine calves as' yearlin's this last two months thet I
+know of.  An' we've not hed the spring round-up."
+
+Grass Valley widened to the southeast.  Jean would have been backward
+about estimating the square miles in it.  Yet it was not vast acreage
+so much as rich pasture that made it such a wonderful range.  Several
+ranches lay along the western slope of this section.  Jean was informed
+that open parks and swales, and little valleys nestling among the
+foothills, wherever there was water and grass, had been settled by
+ranchers.  Every summer a few new families ventured in.
+
+Blaisdell struck Jean as being a lionlike type of Texan, both in his
+broad, bold face, his huge head with its upstanding tawny hair like a
+mane, and in the speech and force that betokened the nature of his
+heart.  He was not as old as Jean's father.  He had a rolling voice,
+with the same drawling intonation characteristic of all Texans, and
+blue eyes that still held the fire of youth.  Quite a marked contrast
+he presented to the lean, rangy, hard-jawed, intent-eyed men Jean had
+begun to accept as Texans.
+
+Blaisdell took time for a curious scrutiny and study of Jean, that,
+frank and kindly as it was, and evidently the adjustment of impressions
+gotten from hearsay, yet bespoke the attention of one used to judging
+men for himself, and in this particular case having reasons of his own
+for so doing.
+
+"Wal, you're like your sister Ann," said Blaisdell.  "Which you may
+take as a compliment, young man.  Both of you favor your mother. But
+you're an Isbel.  Back in Texas there are men who never wear a glove on
+their right hands, an' shore I reckon if one of them met up with you
+sudden he'd think some graves had opened an' he'd go for his gun."
+
+Blaisdell's laugh pealed out with deep, pleasant roll.  Thus he planted
+in Jean's sensitive mind a significant thought-provoking idea about the
+past-and-gone Isbels.
+
+His further remarks, likewise, were exceedingly interesting to Jean.
+The settling of the Tonto Basin by Texans was a subject often in
+dispute.  His own father had been in the first party of adventurous
+pioneers who had traveled up from the south to cross over the Reno Pass
+of the Mazatzals into the Basin.  "Newcomers from outside get
+impressions of the Tonto accordin' to the first settlers they meet,"
+declared Blaisdell.  "An' shore it's my belief these first impressions
+never change, just so strong they are!  Wal, I've heard my father say
+there were men in his wagon train that got run out of Texas, but he
+swore he wasn't one of them.  So I reckon that sort of talk held good
+for twenty years, an' for all the Texans who emigrated, except, of
+course, such notorious rustlers as Daggs an' men of his ilk.  Shore
+we've got some bad men heah.  There's no law.  Possession used to mean
+more than it does now.  Daggs an' his Hash Knife Gang have begun to
+hold forth with a high hand.  No small rancher can keep enough stock to
+pay for his labor."
+
+At the time of which Blaisdell spoke there were not many sheepmen and
+cattlemen in the Tonto, considering its vast area.  But these, on
+account of the extreme wildness of the broken country, were limited to
+the comparatively open Grass Valley and its adjacent environs.
+Naturally, as the inhabitants increased and stock raising grew in
+proportion the grazing and water rights became matters of extreme
+importance.  Sheepmen ran their flocks up on the Rim in summer time and
+down into the Basin in winter time.  A sheepman could throw a few
+thousand sheep round a cattleman's ranch and ruin him.  The range was
+free.  It was as fair for sheepmen to graze their herds anywhere as it
+was for cattlemen.  This of course did not apply to the few acres of
+cultivated ground that a rancher could call his own; but very few
+cattle could have been raised on such limited area.  Blaisdell said
+that the sheepmen were unfair because they could have done just as
+well, though perhaps at more labor, by keeping to the ridges and
+leaving the open valley and little flats to the ranchers.  Formerly
+there had been room enough for all; now the grazing ranges were being
+encroached upon by sheepmen newly come to the Tonto.  To Blaisdell's
+way of thinking the rustler menace was more serious than the
+sheeping-off of the range, for the simple reason that no cattleman knew
+exactly who the rustlers were and for the more complex and significant
+reason that the rustlers did not steal sheep.
+
+"Texas was overstocked with bad men an' fine steers," concluded
+Blaisdell.  "Most of the first an' some of the last have struck the
+Tonto.  The sheepmen have now got distributin' points for wool an'
+sheep at Maricopa an' Phoenix.  They're shore waxin' strong an' bold."
+
+"Ahuh! ... An' what's likely to come of this mess?" queried Jean.
+
+"Ask your dad," replied Blaisdell.
+
+"I will.  But I reckon I'd be obliged for your opinion."
+
+"Wal, short an' sweet it's this: Texas cattlemen will never allow the
+range they stocked to be overrun by sheepmen."
+
+"Who's this man Greaves?" went on Jean.  "Never run into anyone like
+him."
+
+"Greaves is hard to figure.  He's a snaky customer in deals.  But he
+seems to be good to the poor people 'round heah.  Says he's from
+Missouri.  Ha-ha!  He's as much Texan as I am.  He rode into the Tonto
+without even a pack to his name.  An' presently he builds his stone
+house an' freights supplies in from Phoenix.  Appears to buy an' sell a
+good deal of stock.  For a while it looked like he was steerin' a
+middle course between cattlemen an' sheepmen.  Both sides made a
+rendezvous of his store, where he heard the grievances of each. Laterly
+he's leanin' to the sheepmen.  Nobody has accused him of that yet.  But
+it's time some cattleman called his bluff."
+
+"Of course there are honest an' square sheepmen in the Basin?" queried
+Jean.
+
+"Yes, an' some of them are not unreasonable.  But the new fellows that
+dropped in on us the last few year--they're the ones we're goin' to
+clash with."
+
+"This--sheepman, Jorth?" went on Jean, in slow hesitation, as if
+compelled to ask what he would rather not learn.
+
+"Jorth must be the leader of this sheep faction that's harryin' us
+ranchers.  He doesn't make threats or roar around like some of them.
+But he goes on raisin' an' buyin' more an' more sheep.  An' his herders
+have been grazin' down all around us this winter.  Jorth's got to be
+reckoned with."
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"Wal, I don't know enough to talk aboot.  Your dad never said so, but I
+think he an' Jorth knew each other in Texas years ago.  I never saw
+Jorth but once.  That was in Greaves's barroom.  Your dad an' Jorth met
+that day for the first time in this country.  Wal, I've not known men
+for nothin'.  They just stood stiff an' looked at each other. Your dad
+was aboot to draw.  But Jorth made no sign to throw a gun."
+
+Jean saw the growing and weaving and thickening threads of a tangle
+that had already involved him.  And the sudden pang of regret he
+sustained was not wholly because of sympathies with his own people.
+
+"The other day back up in the woods on the Rim I ran into a sheepman
+who said his name was Colter.  Who is he?
+
+"Colter?  Shore he's a new one.  What'd he look like?"
+
+Jean described Colter with a readiness that spoke volumes for the
+vividness of his impressions.
+
+"I don't know him," replied Blaisdell.  "But that only goes to prove my
+contention--any fellow runnin' wild in the woods can say he's a
+sheepman."
+
+"Colter surprised me by callin' me by my name," continued Jean. "Our
+little talk wasn't exactly friendly.  He said a lot about my bein' sent
+for to run sheep herders out of the country."
+
+"Shore that's all over," replied Blaisdell, seriously.  "You're a
+marked man already."
+
+"What started such rumor?"
+
+"Shore you cain't prove it by me.  But it's not taken as rumor. It's
+got to the sheepmen as hard as bullets."
+
+"Ahuh!  That accunts for Colter's seemin' a little sore under the
+collar.  Well, he said they were goin' to run sheep over Grass Valley,
+an' for me to take that hunch to my dad."
+
+Blaisdell had his chair tilted back and his heavy boots against a post
+of the porch.  Down he thumped.  His neck corded with a sudden rush of
+blood and his eyes changed to blue fire.
+
+"The hell he did!" he ejaculated, in furious amaze.
+
+Jean gauged the brooding, rankling hurt of this old cattleman by his
+sudden break from the cool, easy Texan manner.  Blaisdell cursed under
+his breath, swung his arms violently, as if to throw a last doubt or
+hope aside, and then relapsed to his former state.  He laid a brown
+hand on Jean's knee.
+
+"Two years ago I called the cards," he said, quietly.  "It means a
+Grass Valley war."
+
+Not until late that afternoon did Jean's father broach the subject
+uppermost in his mind.  Then at an opportune moment he drew Jean away
+into the cedars out of sight.
+
+"Son, I shore hate to make your home-comin' unhappy," he said, with
+evidence of agitation, "but so help me God I have to do it!"
+
+"Dad, you called me Prodigal, an' I reckon you were right.  I've
+shirked my duty to you.  I'm ready now to make up for it," replied
+Jean, feelingly.
+
+"Wal, wal, shore thats fine-spoken, my boy.... Let's set down heah an'
+have a long talk.  First off, what did Jim Blaisdell tell you?"
+
+Briefly Jean outlined the neighbor rancher's conversation.  Then Jean
+recounted his experience with Colter and concluded with Blaisdell's
+reception of the sheepman's threat.  If Jean expected to see his father
+rise up like a lion in his wrath he made a huge mistake.  This news of
+Colter and his talk never struck even a spark from Gaston Isbel.
+
+"Wal," he began, thoughtfully, "reckon there are only two points in
+Jim's talk I need touch on.  There's shore goin' to be a Grass Valley
+war.  An' Jim's idea of the cause of it seems to be pretty much the
+same as that of all the other cattlemen.  It 'll go down a black blot
+on the history page of the Tonto Basin as a war between rival sheepmen
+an' cattlemen.  Same old fight over water an' grass! ... Jean, my son,
+that is wrong.  It 'll not be a war between sheepmen an' cattlemen. But
+a war of honest ranchers against rustlers maskin' as sheep-raisers! ...
+Mind you, I don't belittle the trouble between sheepmen an' cattlemen
+in Arizona.  It's real an' it's vital an' it's serious. It 'll take law
+an' order to straighten out the grazin' question. Some day the
+government will keep sheep off of cattle ranges.... So get things right
+in your mind, my son.  You can trust your dad to tell the absolute
+truth.  In this fight that 'll wipe out some of the Isbels--maybe all
+of them--you're on the side of justice an' right. Knowin' that, a man
+can fight a hundred times harder than he who knows he is a liar an' a
+thief."
+
+The old rancher wiped his perspiring face and breathed slowly and
+deeply.  Jean sensed in him the rise of a tremendous emotional strain.
+Wonderingly he watched the keen lined face.  More than material worries
+were at the root of brooding, mounting thoughts in his father's eyes.
+
+"Now next take what Jim said aboot your comin' to chase these
+sheep-herders out of the valley.... Jean, I started that talk. I had my
+tricky reasons.  I know these greaser sheep-herders an' I know the
+respect Texans have for a gunman.  Some say I bragged. Some say I'm an
+old fool in his dotage, ravin' aboot a favorite son. But they are
+people who hate me an' are afraid.  True, son, I talked with a purpose,
+but shore I was mighty cold an' steady when I did it. My feelin' was
+that you'd do what I'd do if I were thirty years younger. No, I
+reckoned you'd do more.  For I figured on your blood.  Jean, you're
+Indian, an' Texas an' French, an' you've trained yourself in the Oregon
+woods.  When you were only a boy, few marksmen I ever knew could beat
+you, an' I never saw your equal for eye an' ear, for trackin' a hoss,
+for all the gifts that make a woodsman.... Wal, rememberin' this an'
+seein' the trouble ahaid for the Isbels, I just broke out whenever I
+had a chance.  I bragged before men I'd reason to believe would take my
+words deep.  For instance, not long ago I missed some stock, an',
+happenin' into Greaves's place one Saturday night, I shore talked loud.
+His barroom was full of men an' some of them were in my black book.
+Greaves took my talk a little testy.  He said. 'Wal, Gass, mebbe you're
+right aboot some of these cattle thieves livin' among us, but ain't
+they jest as liable to be some of your friends or relatives as Ted
+Meeker's or mine or any one around heah?'  That was where Greaves an'
+me fell out.  I yelled at him: 'No, by God, they're not! My record heah
+an' that of my people is open.  The least I can say for you, Greaves,
+an' your crowd, is that your records fade away on dim trails.'  Then he
+said, nasty-like, 'Wal, if you could work out all the dim trails in the
+Tonto you'd shore be surprised.'  An' then I roared.  Shore that was
+the chance I was lookin' for.  I swore the trails he hinted of would be
+tracked to the holes of the rustlers who made them.  I told him I had
+sent for you an' when you got heah these slippery, mysterious thieves,
+whoever they were, would shore have hell to pay.  Greaves said he hoped
+so, but he was afraid I was partial to my Indian son.  Then we had hot
+words.  Blaisdell got between us. When I was leavin' I took a partin'
+fling at him.  'Greaves, you ought to know the Isbels, considerin'
+you're from Texas.  Maybe you've got reasons for throwin' taunts at my
+claims for my son Jean.  Yes, he's got Indian in him an' that 'll be
+the worse for the men who will have to meet him.  I'm tellin' you,
+Greaves, Jean Isbel is the black sheep of the family.  If you ride down
+his record you'll find he's shore in line to be another Poggin, or
+Reddy Kingfisher, or Hardin', or any of the Texas gunmen you ought to
+remember.... Greaves, there are men rubbin' elbows with you right heah
+that my Indian son is goin' to track down!'"
+
+Jean bent his head in stunned cognizance of the notoriety with which
+his father had chosen to affront any and all Tonto Basin men who were
+under the ban of his suspicion.  What a terrible reputation and trust
+to have saddled upon him!  Thrills and strange, heated sensations
+seemed to rush together inside Jean, forming a hot ball of fire that
+threatened to explode.  A retreating self made feeble protests. He saw
+his own pale face going away from this older, grimmer man.
+
+"Son, if I could have looked forward to anythin' but blood spillin' I'd
+never have given you such a name to uphold," continued the rancher.
+"What I'm goin' to tell you now is my secret.  My other sons an' Ann
+have never heard it.  Jim Blaisdell suspects there's somethin' strange,
+but he doesn't know.  I'll shore never tell anyone else but you. An'
+you must promise to keep my secret now an' after I am gone."
+
+"I promise," said Jean.
+
+"Wal, an' now to get it out," began his father, breathing hard. His
+face twitched and his hands clenched.  "The sheepman heah I have to
+reckon with is Lee Jorth, a lifelong enemy of mine.  We were born in
+the same town, played together as children, an' fought with each other
+as boys.  We never got along together.  An' we both fell in love with
+the same girl.  It was nip an' tuck for a while. Ellen Sutton belonged
+to one of the old families of the South. She was a beauty, an' much
+courted, an' I reckon it was hard for her to choose.  But I won her an'
+we became engaged.  Then the war broke out.  I enlisted with my brother
+Jean.  He advised me to marry Ellen before I left.  But I would not.
+That was the blunder of my life. Soon after our partin' her letters
+ceased to come.  But I didn't distrust her.  That was a terrible time
+an' all was confusion. Then I got crippled an' put in a hospital.  An'
+in aboot a year I was sent back home."
+
+At this juncture Jean refrained from further gaze at his father's face.
+
+"Lee Jorth had gotten out of goin' to war," went on the rancher, in
+lower, thicker voice.  "He'd married my sweetheart, Ellen.... I knew
+the story long before I got well.  He had run after her like a hound
+after a hare.... An' Ellen married him.  Wal, when I was able to get
+aboot I went to see Jorth an' Ellen.  I confronted them. I had to know
+why she had gone back on me.  Lee Jorth hadn't changed any with all his
+good fortune.  He'd made Ellen believe in my dishonor. But, I reckon,
+lies or no lies, Ellen Sutton was faithless.  In my absence he had won
+her away from me.  An' I saw that she loved him as she never had me.  I
+reckon that killed all my generosity.  If she'd been imposed upon an'
+weaned away by his lies an' had regretted me a little I'd have
+forgiven, perhaps.  But she worshiped him.  She was his slave.  An' I,
+wal, I learned what hate was.
+
+"The war ruined the Suttons, same as so many Southerners.  Lee Jorth
+went in for raisin' cattle.  He'd gotten the Sutton range an' after a
+few years he began to accumulate stock.  In those days every cattleman
+was a little bit of a thief.  Every cattleman drove in an' branded
+calves he couldn't swear was his.  Wal, the Isbels were the strongest
+cattle raisers in that country.  An' I laid a trap for Lee Jorth,
+caught him in the act of brandin' calves of mine I'd marked, an' I
+proved him a thief.  I made him a rustler.  I ruined him.  We met once.
+But Jorth was one Texan not strong on the draw, at least against an
+Isbel.  He left the country.  He had friends an' relatives an' they
+started him at stock raisin' again.  But he began to gamble an' he got
+in with a shady crowd.  He went from bad to worse an' then he came back
+home.  When I saw the change in proud, beautiful Ellen Sutton, an' how
+she still worshiped Jorth, it shore drove me near mad between pity an'
+hate.... Wal, I reckon in a Texan hate outlives any other feelin'.
+There came a strange turn of the wheel an' my fortunes changed. Like
+most young bloods of the day, I drank an' gambled.  An' one night I run
+across Jorth an' a card-sharp friend.  He fleeced me.  We quarreled.
+Guns were thrown.  I killed my man.... Aboot that period the Texas
+Rangers had come into existence.... An', son, when I said I never was
+run out of Texas I wasn't holdin' to strict truth.  I rode out on a
+hoss.
+
+"I went to Oregon.  There I married soon, an' there Bill an' Guy were
+born.  Their mother did not live long.  An' next I married your mother,
+Jean.  She had some Indian blood, which, for all I could see, made her
+only the finer.  She was a wonderful woman an' gave me the only
+happiness I ever knew.  You remember her, of course, an' those home
+days in Oregon.  I reckon I made another great blunder when I moved to
+Arizona.  But the cattle country had always called me.  I had heard of
+this wild Tonto Basin an' how Texans were settlin' there.  An' Jim
+Blaisdell sent me word to come--that this shore was a garden spot of
+the West.  Wal, it is.  An' your mother was gone--
+
+"Three years ago Lee Jorth drifted into the Tonto.  An', strange to me,
+along aboot a year or so after his comin' the Hash Knife Gang rode up
+from Texas.  Jorth went in for raisin' sheep.  Along with some other
+sheepmen he lives up in the Rim canyons.  Somewhere back in the wild
+brakes is the hidin' place of the Hash Knife Gang.  Nobody but me, I
+reckon, associates Colonel Jorth, as he's called, with Daggs an' his
+gang.  Maybe Blaisdell an' a few others have a hunch.  But that's no
+matter.  As a sheepman Jorth has a legitimate grievance with the
+cattlemen.  But what could be settled by a square consideration for the
+good of all an' the future Jorth will never settle.  He'll never settle
+because he is now no longer an honest man.  He's in with Daggs. I
+cain't prove this, son, but I know it.  I saw it in Jorth's face when I
+met him that day with Greaves.  I saw more.  I shore saw what he is up
+to.  He'd never meet me at an even break.  He's dead set on usin' this
+sheep an' cattle feud to ruin my family an' me, even as I ruined him.
+But he means more, Jean.  This will be a war between Texans, an' a
+bloody war.  There are bad men in this Tonto--some of the worst that
+didn't get shot in Texas.  Jorth will have some of these fellows....
+Now, are we goin' to wait to be sheeped off our range an' to be
+murdered from ambush?"
+
+"No, we are not," replied Jean, quietly.
+
+"Wal, come down to the house," said the rancher, and led the way
+without speaking until he halted by the door.  There he placed his
+finger on a small hole in the wood at about the height of a man's head.
+Jean saw it was a bullet hole and that a few gray hairs stuck to its
+edges.  The rancher stepped closer to the door-post, so that his head
+was within an inch of the wood.  Then he looked at Jean with eyes in
+which there glinted dancing specks of fire, like wild sparks.
+
+"Son, this sneakin' shot at me was made three mawnin's ago.  I
+recollect movin' my haid just when I heard the crack of a rifle.  Shore
+was surprised.  But I got inside quick."
+
+Jean scarcely heard the latter part of this speech.  He seemed doubled
+up inwardly, in hot and cold convulsions of changing emotion.  A
+terrible hold upon his consciousness was about to break and let go. The
+first shot had been fired and he was an Isbel.  Indeed, his father had
+made him ten times an Isbel.  Blood was thick.  His father did not
+speak to dull ears.  This strife of rising tumult in him seemed the
+effect of years of calm, of peace in the woods, of dreamy waiting for
+he knew not what.  It was the passionate primitive life in him that had
+awakened to the call of blood ties.
+
+"That's aboot all, son," concluded the rancher.  "You understand now
+why I feel they're goin' to kill me.  I feel it heah."  With solemn
+gesture he placed his broad hand over his heart.  "An', Jean, strange
+whispers come to me at night.  It seems like your mother was callin' or
+tryin' to warn me.  I cain't explain these queer whispers.  But I know
+what I know."
+
+"Jorth has his followers.  You must have yours," replied Jean, tensely.
+
+"Shore, son, an' I can take my choice of the best men heah," replied
+the rancher, with pride.  "But I'll not do that.  I'll lay the deal
+before them an' let them choose.  I reckon it 'll not be a long-winded
+fight.  It 'll be short an bloody, after the way of Texans.  I'm
+lookin' to you, Jean, to see that an Isbel is the last man!"
+
+"My God--dad! is there no other way?  Think of my sister Ann--of my
+brothers' wives--of--of other women!  Dad, these damned Texas feuds are
+cruel, horrible!" burst out Jean, in passionate protest.
+
+"Jean, would it be any easier for our women if we let these men shoot
+us down in cold blood?"
+
+"Oh no--no, I see, there's no hope of--of.... But, dad, I wasn't
+thinkin' about myself.  I don't care.  Once started I'll--I'll be what
+you bragged I was.  Only it's so hard to-to give in."
+
+Jean leaned an arm against the side of the cabin and, bowing his face
+over it, he surrendered to the irresistible contention within his
+breast.  And as if with a wrench that strange inward hold broke. He let
+down.  He went back.  Something that was boyish and hopeful--and in its
+place slowly rose the dark tide of his inheritance, the savage instinct
+of self-preservation bequeathed by his Indian mother, and the fierce,
+feudal blood lust of his Texan father.
+
+Then as he raised himself, gripped by a sickening coldness in his
+breast, he remembered Ellen Jorth's face as she had gazed dreamily down
+off the Rim--so soft, so different, with tremulous lips, sad, musing,
+with far-seeing stare of dark eyes, peering into the unknown, the
+instinct of life still unlived.  With confused vision and nameless pain
+Jean thought of her.
+
+"Dad, it's hard on--the--the young folks," he said, bitterly.  "The
+sins of the father, you know.  An' the other side.  How about Jorth?
+Has he any children?"
+
+What a curious gleam of surprise and conjecture Jean encountered in his
+father's gaze!
+
+"He has a daughter.  Ellen Jorth.  Named after her mother.  The first
+time I saw Ellen Jorth I thought she was a ghost of the girl I had
+loved an' lost.  Sight of her was like a blade in my side.  But the
+looks of her an' what she is--they don't gibe.  Old as I am, my
+heart--Bah! Ellen Jorth is a damned hussy!"
+
+Jean Isbel went off alone into the cedars.  Surrender and resignation
+to his father's creed should have ended his perplexity and worry. His
+instant and burning resolve to be as his father had represented him
+should have opened his mind to slow cunning, to the craft of the
+Indian, to the development of hate.  But there seemed to be an
+obstacle. A cloud in the way of vision.  A face limned on his memory.
+
+Those damning words of his father's had been a shock--how little or
+great he could not tell.  Was it only a day since he had met Ellen
+Jorth?  What had made all the difference?  Suddenly like a breath the
+fragrance of her hair came back to him.  Then the sweet coolness of her
+lips!  Jean trembled.  He looked around him as if he were pursued or
+surrounded by eyes, by instincts, by fears, by incomprehensible things.
+
+"Ahuh!  That must be what ails me," he muttered.  "The look of her--an'
+that kiss--they've gone hard me.  I should never have stopped to talk.
+An' I'm to kill her father an' leave her to God knows what."
+
+Something was wrong somewhere.  Jean absolutely forgot that within the
+hour he had pledged his manhood, his life to a feud which could be
+blotted out only in blood.  If he had understood himself he would have
+realized that the pledge was no more thrilling and unintelligible in
+its possibilities than this instinct which drew him irresistibly.
+
+"Ellen Jorth!  So--my dad calls her a damned hussy!  So--that explains
+the--the way she acted--why she never hit me when I kissed her.  An'
+her words, so easy an' cool-like.  Hussy?  That means she's bad--bad!
+Scornful of me--maybe disappointed because my kiss was innocent! It
+was, I swear.  An' all she said: 'Oh, I've been kissed before.'"
+
+Jean grew furious with himself for the spreading of a new sensation in
+his breast that seemed now to ache.  Had he become infatuated, all in a
+day, with this Ellen Jorth?  Was he jealous of the men who had the
+privilege of her kisses?  No!  But his reply was hot with shame, with
+uncertainty.  The thing that seemed wrong was outside of himself. A
+blunder was no crime.  To be attracted by a pretty girl in the
+woods--to yield to an impulse was no disgrace, nor wrong.  He had been
+foolish over a girl before, though not to such a rash extent.  Ellen
+Jorth had stuck in his consciousness, and with her a sense of regret.
+
+Then swiftly rang his father's bitter words, the revealing: "But the
+looks of her an' what she is--they don't gibe!"  In the import of these
+words hid the meaning of the wrong that troubled him. Broodingly he
+pondered over them.
+
+"The looks of her.  Yes, she was pretty.  But it didn't dawn on me at
+first.  I--I was sort of excited.  I liked to look at her, but didn't
+think."  And now consciously her face was called up, infinitely sweet
+and more impelling for the deliberate memory.  Flash of brown skin,
+smooth and clear; level gaze of dark, wide eyes, steady, bold,
+unseeing; red curved lips, sad and sweet; her strong, clean, fine face
+rose before Jean, eager and wistful one moment, softened by dreamy
+musing thought, and the next stormily passionate, full of hate, full of
+longing, but the more mysterious and beautiful.
+
+"She looks like that, but she's bad," concluded Jean, with bitter
+finality.  "I might have fallen in love with Ellen Jorth if--if she'd
+been different."
+
+But the conviction forced upon Jean did not dispel the haunting memory
+of her face nor did it wholly silence the deep and stubborn voice of
+his consciousness.  Later that afternoon he sought a moment with his
+sister.
+
+"Ann, did you ever meet Ellen Jorth?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, but not lately," replied Ann.
+
+"Well, I met her as I was ridin' along yesterday.  She was herdin'
+sheep," went on Jean, rapidly.  "I asked her to show me the way to the
+Rim.  An' she walked with me a mile or so.  I can't say the meetin' was
+not interestin', at least to me.... Will you tell me what you know
+about her?"
+
+"Sure, Jean," replied his sister, with her dark eyes fixed wonderingly
+and kindly on his troubled face.  "I've heard a great deal, but in this
+Tonto Basin I don't believe all I hear.  What I know I'll tell you. I
+first met Ellen Jorth two years ago.  We didn't know each other's names
+then.  She was the prettiest girl I ever saw.  I liked her. She liked
+me.  She seemed unhappy.  The next time we met was at a round-up.
+There were other girls with me and they snubbed her. But I left them
+and went around with her.  That snub cut her to the heart.  She was
+lonely.  She had no friends.  She talked about herself--how she hated
+the people, but loved Arizona.  She had nothin' fit to wear.  I didn't
+need to be told that she'd been used to better things.  Just when it
+looked as if we were goin' to be friends she told me who she was and
+asked me my name.  I told her.  Jean, I couldn't have hurt her more if
+I'd slapped her face.  She turned white.  She gasped.  And then she ran
+off.  The last time I saw her was about a year ago.  I was ridin' a
+short-cut trail to the ranch where a friend lived.  And I met Ellen
+Jorth ridin' with a man I'd never seen.  The trail was overgrown and
+shady.  They were ridin' close and didn't see me right off.  The man
+had his arm round her. She pushed him away.  I saw her laugh.  Then he
+got hold of her again and was kissin' her when his horse shied at sight
+of mine.  They rode by me then.  Ellen Jorth held her head high and
+never looked at me."
+
+"Ann, do you think she's a bad girl?" demanded Jean, bluntly.
+
+"Bad?  Oh, Jean!" exclaimed Ann, in surprise and embarrassment.
+
+"Dad said she was a damned hussy."
+
+"Jean, dad hates the Jorths."
+
+"Sister, I'm askin' you what you think of Ellen Jorth.  Would you be
+friends with her if you could?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you don't believe she's bad."
+
+"No.  Ellen Jorth is lonely, unhappy.  She has no mother.  She lives
+alone among rough men.  Such a girl can't keep men from handlin' her
+and kissin' her.  Maybe she's too free.  Maybe she's wild.  But she's
+honest, Jean.  You can trust a woman to tell.  When she rode past me
+that day her face was white and proud.  She was a Jorth and I was an
+Isbel.  She hated herself--she hated me.  But no bad girl could look
+like that.  She knows what's said of her all around the valley. But she
+doesn't care.  She'd encourage gossip."
+
+"Thank you, Ann," replied Jean, huskily.  "Please keep this--this
+meetin' of mine with her all to yourself, won't you?"
+
+"Why, Jean, of course I will."
+
+Jean wandered away again, peculiarly grateful to Ann for reviving and
+upholding something in him that seemed a wavering part of the best of
+him--a chivalry that had demanded to be killed by judgment of a
+righteous woman.  He was conscious of an uplift, a gladdening of his
+spirit.  Yet the ache remained.  More than that, he found himself
+plunged deeper into conjecture, doubt.  Had not the Ellen Jorth
+incident ended?  He denied his father's indictment of her and accepted
+the faith of his sister.  "Reckon that's aboot all, as dad says," he
+soliloquized.  Yet was that all?  He paced under the cedars. He watched
+the sun set.  He listened to the coyotes.  He lingered there after the
+call for supper; until out of the tumult of his conflicting emotions
+and ponderings there evolved the staggering consciousness that he must
+see Ellen Jorth again.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Ellen Jorth hurried back into the forest, hotly resentful of the
+accident that had thrown her in contact with an Isbel.
+
+Disgust filled her--disgust that she had been amiable to a member of
+the hated family that had ruined her father.  The surprise of this
+meeting did not come to her while she was under the spell of stronger
+feeling.  She walked under the trees, swiftly, with head erect, looking
+straight before her, and every step seemed a relief.
+
+Upon reaching camp, her attention was distracted from herself.  Pepe,
+the Mexican boy, with the two shepherd dogs, was trying to drive sheep
+into a closer bunch to save the lambs from coyotes.  Ellen loved the
+fleecy, tottering little lambs, and at this season she hated all the
+prowling beast of the forest.  From this time on for weeks the flock
+would be besieged by wolves, lions, bears, the last of which were often
+bold and dangerous.  The old grizzlies that killed the ewes to eat only
+the milk-bags were particularly dreaded by Ellen.  She was a good shot
+with a rifle, but had orders from her father to let the bears alone.
+Fortunately, such sheep-killing bears were but few, and were left to be
+hunted by men from the ranch.  Mexican sheep herders could not be
+depended upon to protect their flocks from bears. Ellen helped Pepe
+drive in the stragglers, and she took several shots at coyotes skulking
+along the edge of the brush.  The open glade in the forest was
+favorable for herding the sheep at night, and the dogs could be
+depended upon to guard the flock, and in most cases to drive predatory
+beasts away.
+
+After this task, which brought the time to sunset, Ellen had supper to
+cook and eat.  Darkness came, and a cool night wind set in. Here and
+there a lamb bleated plaintively.  With her work done for the day,
+Ellen sat before a ruddy camp fire, and found her thoughts again
+centering around the singular adventure that had befallen her.
+Disdainfully she strove to think of something else.  But there was
+nothing that could dispel the interest of her meeting with Jean Isbel.
+Thereupon she impatiently surrendered to it, and recalled every word
+and action which she could remember.  And in the process of this
+meditation she came to an action of hers, recollection of which brought
+the blood tingling to her neck and cheeks, so unusually and burningly
+that she covered them with her hands.  "What did he think of me?" she
+mused, doubtfully.  It did not matter what he thought, but she could
+not help wondering.  And when she came to the memory of his kiss she
+suffered more than the sensation of throbbing scarlet cheeks.
+Scornfully and bitterly she burst out, "Shore he couldn't have thought
+much good of me."
+
+The half hour following this reminiscence was far from being pleasant.
+Proud, passionate, strong-willed Ellen Jorth found herself a victim of
+conflicting emotions.  The event of the day was too close.  She could
+not understand it.  Disgust and disdain and scorn could not make this
+meeting with Jean Isbel as if it had never been.  Pride could not
+efface it from her mind.  The more she reflected, the harder she tried
+to forget, the stronger grew a significance of interest.  And when a
+hint of this dawned upon her consciousness she resented it so forcibly
+that she lost her temper, scattered the camp fire, and went into the
+little teepee tent to roll in her blankets.
+
+Thus settled snug and warm for the night, with a shepherd dog curled at
+the opening of her tent, she shut her eyes and confidently bade sleep
+end her perplexities.  But sleep did not come at her invitation. She
+found herself wide awake, keenly sensitive to the sputtering of the
+camp fire, the tinkling of bells on the rams, the bleating of lambs,
+the sough of wind in the pines, and the hungry sharp bark of coyotes
+off in the distance.  Darkness was no respecter of her pride.  The
+lonesome night with its emphasis of solitude seemed to induce clamoring
+and strange thoughts, a confusing ensemble of all those that had
+annoyed her during the daytime.  Not for long hours did sheer weariness
+bring her to slumber.
+
+Ellen awakened late and failed of her usual alacrity.  Both Pepe and
+the shepherd dog appeared to regard her with surprise and solicitude.
+Ellen's spirit was low this morning; her blood ran sluggishly; she had
+to fight a mournful tendency to feel sorry for herself.  And at first
+she was not very successful.  There seemed to be some kind of pleasure
+in reveling in melancholy which her common sense told her had no reason
+for existence.  But states of mind persisted in spite of common sense.
+
+"Pepe, when is Antonio comin' back?" she asked.
+
+The boy could not give her a satisfactory answer.  Ellen had willingly
+taken the sheep herder's place for a few days, but now she was
+impatient to go home.  She looked down the green-and-brown aisles of
+the forest until she was tired.  Antonio did not return.  Ellen spent
+the day with the sheep; and in the manifold task of caring for a
+thousand new-born lambs she forgot herself.  This day saw the end of
+lambing-time for that season.  The forest resounded to a babel of baas
+and bleats.  When night came she was glad to go to bed, for what with
+loss of sleep, and weariness she could scarcely keep her eyes open.
+
+The following morning she awakened early, bright, eager, expectant,
+full of bounding life, strangely aware of the beauty and sweetness of
+the scented forest, strangely conscious of some nameless stimulus to
+her feelings.
+
+Not long was Ellen in associating this new and delightful variety of
+sensations with the fact that Jean Isbel had set to-day for his ride up
+to the Rim to see her.  Ellen's joyousness fled; her smiles faded. The
+spring morning lost its magic radiance.
+
+"Shore there's no sense in my lyin' to myself," she soliloquized,
+thoughtfully.  "It's queer of me--feelin' glad aboot him--without
+knowin'.  Lord!  I must be lonesome!  To be glad of seein' an Isbel,
+even if he is different!"
+
+Soberly she accepted the astounding reality.  Her confidence died with
+her gayety; her vanity began to suffer.  And she caught at her
+admission that Jean Isbel was different; she resented it in amaze; she
+ridiculed it; she laughed at her naive confession.  She could arrive at
+no conclusion other than that she was a weak-minded, fluctuating,
+inexplicable little fool.
+
+But for all that she found her mind had been made up for her, without
+consent or desire, before her will had been consulted; and that
+inevitably and unalterably she meant to see Jean Isbel again. Long she
+battled with this strange decree.  One moment she won a victory over,
+this new curious self, only to lose it the next. And at last out of her
+conflict there emerged a few convictions that left her with some shreds
+of pride.  She hated all Isbels, she hated any Isbel, and particularly
+she hated Jean Isbel.  She was only curious--intensely curious to see
+if he would come back, and if he did come what he would do.  She wanted
+only to watch him from some covert.  She would not go near him, not let
+him see her or guess of her presence.
+
+Thus she assuaged her hurt vanity--thus she stifled her miserable
+doubts.
+
+Long before the sun had begun to slant westward toward the
+mid-afternoon Jean Isbel had set as a meeting time Ellen directed her
+steps through the forest to the Rim.  She felt ashamed of her
+eagerness.  She had a guilty conscience that no strange thrills could
+silence.  It would be fun to see him, to watch him, to let him wait for
+her, to fool him.
+
+Like an Indian, she chose the soft pine-needle mats to tread upon, and
+her light-moccasined feet left no trace.  Like an Indian also she made
+a wide detour, and reached the Rim a quarter of a mile west of the spot
+where she had talked with Jean Isbel; and here, turning east, she took
+care to step on the bare stones.  This was an adventure, seemingly the
+first she had ever had in her life.  Assuredly she had never before
+come directly to the Rim without halting to look, to wonder, to
+worship. This time she scarcely glanced into the blue abyss.  All
+absorbed was she in hiding her tracks.  Not one chance in a thousand
+would she risk. The Jorth pride burned even while the feminine side of
+her dominated her actions.  She had some difficult rocky points to
+cross, then windfalls to round, and at length reached the covert she
+desired. A rugged yellow point of the Rim stood somewhat higher than
+the spot Ellen wanted to watch.  A dense thicket of jack pines grew to
+the very edge.  It afforded an ambush that even the Indian eyes Jean
+Isbel was credited with could never penetrate.  Moreover, if by
+accident she made a noise and excited suspicion, she could retreat
+unobserved and hide in the huge rocks below the Rim, where a ferret
+could not locate her.
+
+With her plan decided upon, Ellen had nothing to do but wait, so she
+repaired to the other side  of the pine thicket and to the edge of the
+Rim where she could watch and listen.  She knew that long before she
+saw Isbel she would hear his horse.  It was altogether unlikely that he
+would come on foot.
+
+"Shore, Ellen Jorth, y'u're a queer girl," she mused.  "I reckon I
+wasn't well acquainted with y'u."
+
+Beneath her yawned a wonderful deep canyon, rugged and rocky with but
+few pines on the north slope, thick with dark green timber on the south
+slope.  Yellow and gray crags, like turreted castles, stood up out of
+the sloping forest on the side opposite her.  The trees were all sharp,
+spear pointed.  Patches of light green aspens showed strikingly against
+the dense black.  The great slope beneath Ellen was serrated with
+narrow, deep gorges, almost canyons in themselves. Shadows alternated
+with clear bright spaces.  The mile-wide mouth of the canyon opened
+upon the Basin, down into a world of wild timbered ranges and ravines,
+valleys and hills, that rolled and tumbled in dark-green waves to the
+Sierra Anchas.
+
+But for once Ellen seemed singularly unresponsive to this panorama of
+wildness and grandeur.  Her ears were like those of a listening deer,
+and her eyes continually reverted to the open places along the Rim. At
+first, in her excitement, time flew by.  Gradually, however, as the sun
+moved westward, she began to be restless.  The soft thud of dropping
+pine cones, the rustling of squirrels up and down the shaggy-barked
+spruces, the cracking of weathered bits of rock, these caught her keen
+ears many times and brought her up erect and thrilling.  Finally she
+heard a sound which resembled that of an unshod hoof on stone.
+Stealthily then she took her rifle and slipped back through the pine
+thicket to the spot she had chosen.  The little pines were so close
+together that she had to crawl between their trunks. The ground was
+covered with a soft bed of pine needles, brown and fragrant.  In her
+hurry she pricked her ungloved hand on a sharp pine cone and drew the
+blood.  She sucked the tiny wound.  "Shore I'm wonderin' if that's a
+bad omen," she muttered, darkly thoughtful. Then she resumed her
+sinuous approach to the edge of the thicket, and presently reached it.
+
+Ellen lay flat a moment to recover her breath, then raised herself on
+her elbows.  Through an opening in the fringe of buck brush she could
+plainly see the promontory where she had stood with Jean Isbel, and
+also the approaches by which he might come.  Rather nervously she
+realized that her covert was hardly more than a hundred feet from the
+promontory.  It was imperative that she be absolutely silent. Her eyes
+searched the openings along the Rim.  The gray form of a deer crossed
+one of these, and she concluded it had made the sound she had heard.
+Then she lay down more comfortably and waited. Resolutely she held, as
+much as possible, to her sensorial perceptions. The meaning of Ellen
+Jorth lying in ambush just to see an Isbel was a conundrum she refused
+to ponder in the present.  She was doing it, and the physical act had
+its fascination.  Her ears, attuned to all the sounds of the lonely
+forest, caught them and arranged them according to her knowledge of
+woodcraft.
+
+A long hour passed by.  The sun had slanted to a point halfway between
+the zenith and the horizon.  Suddenly a thought confronted Ellen Jorth:
+"He's not comin'," she whispered.  The instant that idea presented
+itself she felt a blank sense of loss, a vague regret--something that
+must have been disappointment.  Unprepared for this, she was held by
+surprise for a moment, and then she was stunned.  Her spirit, swift and
+rebellious, had no time to rise in her defense.  She was a lonely,
+guilty, miserable girl, too weak for pride to uphold, too fluctuating
+to know her real self.  She stretched there, burying her face in the
+pine needles, digging her fingers into them, wanting nothing so much as
+that they might hide her.  The moment was incomprehensible to Ellen,
+and utterly intolerable.  The sharp pine needles, piercing her wrists
+and cheeks, and her hot heaving breast, seemed to give her exquisite
+relief.
+
+The shrill snort of a horse sounded near at hand.  With a shock Ellen's
+body stiffened.  Then she  quivered a little and her feelings underwent
+swift change.  Cautiously and noiselessly she raised herself upon her
+elbows and peeped through the opening in the brush.  She saw a man
+tying a horse to a bush somewhat back from the Rim.  Drawing a rifle
+from its saddle sheath he threw it in the hollow of his arm and walked
+to the edge of the precipice.  He gazed away across the Basin and
+appeared lost in contemplation or thought.  Then he turned to look back
+into the forest, as if he expected some one.
+
+Ellen recognized the lithe figure, the dark face so like an Indian's.
+It was Isbel.  He had come.  Somehow his coming seemed wonderful and
+terrible.  Ellen shook as she leaned on her elbows.  Jean Isbel, true
+to his word, in spite of her scorn, had come back to see her.  The fact
+seemed monstrous.  He was an enemy of her father.  Long had range rumor
+been bandied from lip to lip--old Gass Isbel had sent for his Indian
+son to fight the Jorths.  Jean Isbel--son of a Texan--unerring
+shot--peerless tracker--a bad and dangerous man!  Then there flashed
+over Ellen a burning thought--if it were true, if he was an enemy of
+her father's, if a fight between Jorth and Isbel was inevitable, she
+ought to kill this Jean Isbel right there in his tracks as he boldly
+and confidently waited for her.  Fool he was to think she would come.
+Ellen sank down and dropped her head until the strange tremor of her
+arms ceased.  That dark and grim flash of thought retreated.  She had
+not come to murder a man from ambush, but only to watch him, to try to
+see what he meant, what he thought, to allay a strange curiosity.
+
+After a while she looked again.  Isbel was sitting on an upheaved
+section of the Rim, in a comfortable position from which he could watch
+the openings in the forest and gaze as well across the west curve of
+the Basin to the Mazatzals.  He had composed himself to wait. He was
+clad in a buckskin suit, rather new, and it certainly showed off to
+advantage, compared with the ragged and soiled apparel Ellen
+remembered.  He did not look so large.  Ellen was used to the long,
+lean, rangy Arizonians and Texans.  This man was built differently. He
+had the widest shoulders of any man she had ever seen, and they made
+him appear rather short.  But his lithe, powerful limbs proved he was
+not short.  Whenever he moved the muscles rippled.  His hands were
+clasped round a knee--brown, sinewy hands, very broad, and fitting the
+thick muscular wrists.  His collar was open, and he did not wear a
+scarf, as did the men Ellen knew.  Then her intense curiosity at last
+brought her steady gaze to Jean Isbel's head and face.  He wore a cap,
+evidently of some thin fur.  His hair was straight and short, and in
+color a dead raven black.  His complexion was dark, clear tan, with no
+trace of red.  He did not have the prominent cheek bones nor the
+high-bridged nose usual with white men who were part Indian.  Still he
+had the Indian look.  Ellen caught that in the dark, intent, piercing
+eyes, in the wide, level, thoughtful brows, in the stern impassiveness
+of his smooth face.  He had a straight, sharp-cut profile.
+
+Ellen whispered to herself: "I saw him right the other day.  Only, I'd
+not admit it.... The finest-lookin' man I ever saw in my life is a
+damned Isbel!  Was that what I come out heah for?"
+
+She lowered herself once more and, folding her arms under her breast,
+she reclined comfortably on them, and searched out a smaller peephole
+from which she could spy upon Isbel.  And as she watched him the new
+and perplexing side of her mind waxed busier.  Why had he come back?
+What did he want of her?  Acquaintance, friendship, was impossible for
+them.  He had been respectful, deferential toward her, in a way that
+had strangely pleased, until the surprising moment when he had kissed
+her.  That had only disrupted her rather dreamy pleasure in a situation
+she had not experienced before.  All the men she had met in this wild
+country were rough and bold; most of them had wanted to marry her, and,
+failing that, they had persisted in amorous attentions not particularly
+flattering or honorable.  They were a bad lot.  And contact with them
+had dulled some of her sensibilities.  But this Jean Isbel had seemed a
+gentleman.  She struggled to be fair, trying to forget her antipathy,
+as much to understand herself as to give him due credit.  True, he had
+kissed her, crudely and forcibly.  But that kiss had not been an
+insult.  Ellen's finer feeling forced her to believe this.  She
+remembered the honest amaze and shame and contrition with which he had
+faced her, trying awkwardly to explain his bold act. Likewise she
+recalled the subtle swift change in him at her words,  "Oh, I've been
+kissed before!"  She was glad she had said that.   Still--was she glad,
+after all?
+
+She watched him.  Every little while he shifted his gaze from the blue
+gulf beneath him to the forest.  When he turned thus the sun shone on
+his face and she caught the piercing gleam of his dark eyes. She saw,
+too, that he was listening.  Watching and listening for her! Ellen had
+to still a tumult within her.  It made her feel very young, very shy,
+very strange.  All the while she hated him because he manifestly
+expected her to come.  Several times he rose and walked a little way
+into the woods.  The last time he looked at the westering sun and shook
+his head.  His confidence had gone.  Then he sat and gazed down into
+the void.  But Ellen knew he did not see anything there.  He seemed an
+image carved in the stone of the Rim, and he gave Ellen a singular
+impression of loneliness and sadness.  Was he thinking of the miserable
+battle his father had summoned him to lead--of what it would cost--of
+its useless pain and hatred?  Ellen seemed to divine his thoughts.  In
+that moment she softened toward him, and in her soul quivered and
+stirred an intangible something that was like pain, that was too deep
+for her understanding.  But she felt sorry for an Isbel until the old
+pride resurged.  What if he admired her?  She remembered his interest,
+the wonder and admiration, the growing light in his eyes.  And it had
+not been repugnant to her until he disclosed his name.  "What's in a
+name?" she mused, recalling poetry learned in her girlhood.  "'A rose
+by any other name would smell as sweet'.... He's an Isbel--yet he might
+be splendid--noble.... Bah! he's not--and I'd hate him anyhow."
+
+All at once Ellen felt cold shivers steal over her.  Isbel's piercing
+gaze was directed straight at her hiding place.  Her heart stopped
+beating.  If he discovered her there she felt that she would die of
+shame.  Then she became aware that a blue jay was screeching in a pine
+above her, and a red squirrel somewhere near was chattering his shrill
+annoyance.  These two denizens of the woods could be depended upon to
+espy the wariest hunter and make known his presence to their kind.
+Ellen had a moment of more than dread.  This keen-eyed, keen-eared
+Indian might see right through her brushy covert, might hear the
+throbbing of her heart.  It relieved her immeasurably to see him turn
+away and take to pacing the promontory, with his head bowed and his
+hands behind his back.  He had stopped looking off into the forest.
+Presently he wheeled to the west, and by the light upon his face Ellen
+saw that the time was near sunset.  Turkeys were beginning to gobble
+back on the ridge.
+
+Isbel walked to his horse and appeared to be untying something from the
+back of his saddle.  When he came back Ellen saw that he carried a
+small package apparently wrapped in paper.  With this under his arm he
+strode off in the direction of Ellen's camp and soon disappeared in the
+forest.
+
+For a little while Ellen lay there in bewilderment.  If she had made
+conjectures before, they were now multiplied.  Where was Jean Isbel
+going?  Ellen sat up suddenly.  "Well, shore this heah beats me," she
+said.  "What did he have in that package?  What was he goin' to do with
+it?"
+
+It took no little will power to hold her there when she wanted to steal
+after him through the woods and find out what he meant.  But his
+reputation influenced even her and she refused to pit her cunning in
+the forest against his.  It would be better to wait until he returned
+to his horse.  Thus decided, she lay back again in her covert and gave
+her mind over to pondering curiosity.  Sooner than she expected she
+espied Isbel approaching through the forest, empty handed.  He had not
+taken his rifle.  Ellen averted her glance a moment and thrilled to see
+the rifle leaning against a rock.  Verily Jean Isbel had been far
+removed from hostile intent that day.  She watched him stride swiftly
+up to his horse, untie the halter, and mount.  Ellen had an impression
+of his arrowlike straight figure, and sinuous grace and ease.  Then he
+looked back at the promontory, as if to fix a picture of it in his
+mind, and rode away along the Rim.  She watched him out of sight.  What
+ailed her? Something was wrong with her, but she recognized only relief.
+
+When Isbel had been gone long enough to assure Ellen that she might
+safely venture forth she crawled through the pine thicket to the Rim on
+the other side of the point.  The sun was setting behind the Black
+Range, shedding a golden glory over the Basin.  Westward the zigzag Rim
+reached like a streamer of fire into the sun.  The vast promontories
+jutted out with blazing beacon lights upon their stone-walled faces.
+Deep down, the Basin was turning shadowy dark blue, going to sleep for
+the night.
+
+Ellen bent swift steps toward her camp.  Long shafts of gold preceded
+her through the forest.  Then they paled and vanished.  The tips of
+pines and spruces turned gold.  A hoarse-voiced old turkey gobbler was
+booming his chug-a-lug from the highest ground, and the softer chick of
+hen turkeys answered him.  Ellen was almost breathless when she
+arrived. Two packs and a couple of lop-eared burros attested to the
+fact of Antonio's return.  This was good news for Ellen.  She heard the
+bleat of lambs and tinkle of bells coming nearer and nearer.  And she
+was glad to feel that if Isbel had visited her camp, most probably it
+was during the absence of the herders.
+
+The instant she glanced into her tent she saw the package Isbel had
+carried.  It lay on her bed.  Ellen stared blankly.  "The--the
+impudence of him!" she ejaculated.  Then she kicked the package out of
+the tent. Words and action seemed to liberate a dammed-up hot fury.
+She kicked the package again, and thought she would kick it into the
+smoldering camp-fire.  But somehow she stopped short of that.  She left
+the thing there on the ground.
+
+Pepe and Antonio hove in sight, driving in the tumbling woolly flock.
+Ellen did not want them to see the package, so with contempt for
+herself, and somewhat lessening anger, she kicked it back into the
+tent.  What was in it?  She peeped inside the tent, devoured by
+curiosity.  Neat, well wrapped and tied packages like that were not
+often seen in the Tonto Basin.  Ellen decided she would wait until
+after supper, and at a favorable moment lay it unopened on the fire.
+What did she care what it contained?  Manifestly it was a gift.  She
+argued that she was highly incensed with this insolent Isbel who had
+the effrontery to approach her with some sort of present.
+
+It developed that the usually cheerful Antonio had returned taciturn
+and gloomy.  All Ellen could get out of him was that the job of sheep
+herder had taken on hazards inimical to peace-loving Mexicans.  He had
+heard something he would not tell.  Ellen helped prepare the supper and
+she ate in silence.  She had her own brooding troubles.  Antonio
+presently told her that her father had said she was not to start back
+home after dark.  After supper the herders repaired to their own tents,
+leaving Ellen the freedom of her camp-fire.  Wherewith she secured the
+package and brought it forth to burn.  Feminine curiosity rankled
+strong in her breast.  Yielding so far as to shake the parcel and press
+it, and finally tear a corner off the paper, she saw some words written
+in lead pencil.  Bending nearer the blaze, she read,  "For my sister
+Ann." Ellen gazed at the big, bold hand-writing, quite legible and
+fairly well done.  Suddenly she tore the outside wrapper completely
+off.  From printed words on the inside she gathered that the package
+had come from a store in San Francisco.  "Reckon he fetched home a lot
+of presents for his folks--the kids--and his sister," muttered Ellen.
+"That was nice of him.  Whatever this is he shore meant it for sister
+Ann.... Ann Isbel.  Why, she must be that black-eyed girl I met and
+liked so well before I knew she was an Isbel.... His sister!"
+
+Whereupon for the second time Ellen deposited the fascinating package
+in her tent.  She could not burn it up just then.  She had other
+emotions besides scorn and hate.  And memory of that soft-voiced,
+kind-hearted, beautiful Isbel girl checked her resentment.  "I wonder
+if he is like his sister," she said, thoughtfully.  It appeared to be
+an unfortunate thought.  Jean Isbel certainly resembled his sister.
+"Too bad they belong to the family that ruined dad."
+
+Ellen went to bed without opening the package or without burning it.
+And to her annoyance, whatever way she lay she appeared to touch this
+strange package.  There was not much room in the little tent.  First
+she put it at her head beside her rifle, but when she turned over her
+cheek came in contact with it.  Then she felt as if she had been stung.
+She moved it again, only to touch it presently with her hand.  Next she
+flung it to the bottom of her bed, where it fell upon her feet, and
+whatever way she moved them she could not escape the pressure of this
+undesirable and mysterious gift.
+
+By and by she fell asleep, only to dream that the package was a
+caressing hand stealing about her, feeling for hers, and holding it
+with soft, strong clasp.  When she awoke she had the strangest
+sensation in her right palm.  It was moist, throbbing, hot, and the
+feel of it on her cheek was strangely thrilling and comforting. She lay
+awake then.  The night was dark and still.  Only a low moan of wind in
+the pines and the faint tinkle of a sheep bell broke the serenity.  She
+felt very small and lonely lying there in the deep forest, and, try how
+she would, it was impossible to think the same then as she did in the
+clear light of day.  Resentment, pride, anger--these seemed abated now.
+If the events of the day had not changed her, they had at least brought
+up softer and kinder memories and emotions than she had known for long.
+Nothing hurt and saddened her so much as to remember the gay, happy
+days of her childhood, her sweet mother, her, old home.  Then her
+thought returned to Isbel and his gift.  It had been years since anyone
+had made her a gift. What could this one be?  It did not matter.  The
+wonder was that Jean Isbel should bring it to her and that she could be
+perturbed by its presence.  "He meant it for his sister and so he
+thought well of me," she said, in finality.
+
+Morning brought Ellen further vacillation.  At length she rolled the
+obnoxious package inside her blankets, saying that she would wait until
+she got home and then consign it cheerfully to the flames. Antonio tied
+her pack on a burro.  She did not have a horse, and therefore had to
+walk the several miles, to her father's ranch.
+
+She set off at a brisk pace, leading the burro and carrying her rifle.
+And soon she was deep in the fragrant forest.  The morning was clear
+and cool, with just enough frost to make the sunlit grass sparkle as if
+with diamonds.  Ellen felt fresh, buoyant, singularly full of, life.
+Her youth would not be denied.  It was pulsing, yearning.  She hummed
+an old Southern tune and every step seemed one of pleasure in action,
+of advance toward some intangible future happiness.  All the unknown of
+life before her called.  Her heart beat high in her breast and she
+walked as one in a dream.  Her thoughts were swift-changing, intimate,
+deep, and vague, not of yesterday or to-day, nor of reality.
+
+The big, gray, white-tailed squirrels crossed ahead of her on the
+trail, scampered over the piny ground to hop on tree trunks, and there
+they paused to watch her pass.  The vociferous little red squirrels
+barked and chattered at her.  From every thicket sounded the gobble of
+turkeys. The blue jays squalled in the tree tops.  A deer lifted its
+head from browsing and stood motionless, with long ears erect, watching
+her go by.
+
+Thus happily and dreamily absorbed, Ellen covered the forest miles and
+soon reached the trail that led down into the wild brakes of Chevelon
+Canyon.  It was rough going and less conducive to sweet wanderings of
+mind.  Ellen slowly lost them.  And then a familiar feeling assailed
+her, one she never failed to have upon returning to her father's
+ranch--a reluctance, a bitter dissatisfaction with her home, a loyal
+struggle against the vague sense that all was not as it should be.
+
+At the head of this canyon in a little, level, grassy meadow stood a
+rude one-room log shack, with a leaning red-stone chimney on the
+outside. This was the abode of a strange old man who had long lived
+there.  His name was John Sprague and his occupation was raising
+burros.  No sheep or cattle or horses did he own, not even a dog.
+Rumor had said Sprague was a prospector, one of the many who had
+searched that country for the Lost Dutchman gold mine.  Sprague knew
+more about the Basin and Rim than any of the sheepmen or ranchers.
+From Black Butte to the Cibique and from Chevelon Butte to Reno Pass he
+knew every trail, canyon, ridge, and spring, and could find his way to
+them on the darkest night.  His fame, however, depended mostly upon the
+fact that he did nothing but raise burros, and would raise none but
+black burros with white faces. These burros were the finest bred in all
+the Basin and were in great demand.  Sprague sold a few every year.  He
+had made a present of one to Ellen, although he hated to part with
+them.  This old man was Ellen's one and only friend.
+
+Upon her trip out to the Rim with the sheep, Uncle John, as Ellen
+called him, had been away on one of his infrequent visits to Grass
+Valley.  It pleased her now to see a blue column of smoke lazily
+lifting from the old chimney and to hear the discordant bray of burros.
+As she entered the clearing Sprague saw her from the door of his shack.
+
+"Hello, Uncle John!" she called.
+
+"Wal, if it ain't Ellen!" he replied, heartily.  "When I seen thet
+white-faced jinny I knowed who was leadin' her.  Where you been, girl?"
+
+Sprague was a little, stoop-shouldered old man, with grizzled head and
+face, and shrewd gray eyes that beamed kindly on her over his ruddy
+cheeks.  Ellen did not like the tobacco stain on his grizzled beard nor
+the dirty, motley, ragged, ill-smelling garb he wore, but she had
+ceased her useless attempts to make him more cleanly.
+
+"I've been herdin' sheep," replied Ellen.  "And where have y'u been,
+uncle?  I missed y'u on the way over."
+
+"Been packin' in some grub.  An' I reckon I stayed longer in Grass
+Valley than I recollect.  But thet was only natural, considerin'--"
+
+"What?" asked Ellen, bluntly, as the old man paused.
+
+Sprague took a black pipe out of his vest pocket and began rimming the
+bowl with his fingers.  The glance he bent on Ellen was thoughtful and
+earnest, and so kind that she feared it was pity.  Ellen suddenly
+burned for news from the village.
+
+"Wal, come in an' set down, won't you?" he asked.
+
+"No, thanks," replied Ellen, and she took a seat on the chopping block.
+"Tell me, uncle, what's goin' on down in the Valley?"
+
+"Nothin' much yet--except talk.  An' there's a heap of thet."
+
+"Humph!  There always was talk," declared Ellen, contemptuously. "A
+nasty, gossipy, catty hole, that Grass Valley!"
+
+"Ellen, thar's goin' to be war--a bloody war in the ole Tonto Basin,"
+went on Sprague, seriously.
+
+"War! ... Between whom?"
+
+"The Isbels an' their enemies.  I reckon most people down thar, an'
+sure all the cattlemen, air on old Gass's side.  Blaisdell, Gordon,
+Fredericks, Blue--they'll all be in it."
+
+"Who are they goin' to fight?" queried Ellen, sharply.
+
+"Wal, the open talk is thet the sheepmen are forcin' this war.  But
+thar's talk not so open, an' I reckon not very healthy for any man to
+whisper hyarbouts."
+
+"Uncle John, y'u needn't be afraid to tell me anythin'," said Ellen.
+"I'd never give y'u away.  Y'u've been a good friend to me."
+
+"Reckon I want to be, Ellen," he returned, nodding his shaggy head. "It
+ain't easy to be fond of you as I am an' keep my mouth shet.... I'd
+like to know somethin'.  Hev you any relatives away from hyar thet you
+could go to till this fight's over?"
+
+"No.  All I have, so far as I know, are right heah."
+
+"How aboot friends?"
+
+"Uncle John, I have none," she said, sadly, with bowed head.
+
+"Wal, wal, I'm sorry.  I was hopin' you might git away."
+
+She lifted her face.  "Shore y'u don't think I'd run off if my dad got
+in a fight?" she flashed.
+
+"I hope you will."
+
+"I'm a Jorth," she said, darkly, and dropped her head again.
+
+Sprague nodded gloomily.  Evidently he was perplexed and worried, and
+strongly swayed by affection for her.
+
+"Would you go away with me?" he asked.  "We could pack over to the
+Mazatzals an' live thar till this blows over."
+
+"Thank y'u, Uncle John.  Y'u're kind and good.  But I'll stay with my
+father.  His troubles are mine."
+
+"Ahuh! ... Wal, I might hev reckoned so.... Ellen, how do you stand on
+this hyar sheep an' cattle question?"
+
+"I think what's fair for one is fair for another.  I don't like sheep
+as much as I like cattle.  But that's not the point.  The range is
+free. Suppose y'u had cattle and I had sheep.  I'd feel as free to run
+my sheep anywhere as y'u were to ran your cattle."
+
+"Right.  But what if you throwed your sheep round my range an' sheeped
+off the grass so my cattle would hev to move or starve?"
+
+"Shore I wouldn't throw my sheep round y'ur range," she declared,
+stoutly.
+
+"Wal, you've answered half of the question.  An' now supposin' a lot of
+my cattle was stolen by rustlers, but not a single one of your sheep.
+What 'd you think then?"
+
+"I'd shore think rustlers chose to steal cattle because there was no
+profit in stealin' sheep."
+
+"Egzactly.  But wouldn't you hev a queer idee aboot it?"
+
+"I don't know.  Why queer?  What 're y'u drivin' at, Uncle John?"
+
+"Wal, wouldn't you git kind of a hunch thet the rustlers was--say a
+leetle friendly toward the sheepmen?"
+
+Ellen felt a sudden vibrating shock.  The blood rushed to her temples.
+Trembling all over, she rose.
+
+"Uncle John!" she cried.
+
+"Now, girl, you needn't fire up thet way.  Set down an' don't--"
+
+"Dare y'u insinuate my father has--"
+
+"Ellen, I ain't insinuatin' nothin'," interrupted the old man.  "I'm
+jest askin' you to think.  Thet's all.  You're 'most grown into a young
+woman now.  An' you've got sense.  Thar's bad times ahead, Ellen. An' I
+hate to see you mix in them."
+
+"Oh, y'u do make me think," replied Ellen, with smarting tears in her
+eyes.  "Y'u make me unhappy.  Oh, I know my dad is not liked in this
+cattle country.  But it's unjust.  He happened to go in for sheep
+raising.  I wish he hadn't.  It was a mistake.  Dad always was a
+cattleman till we came heah.  He made enemies--who--who ruined him. And
+everywhere misfortune crossed his trail.... But, oh, Uncle John, my dad
+is an honest man."
+
+"Wal, child, I--I didn't mean to--to make you cry," said the old man,
+feelingly, and he averted his troubled gaze.  "Never mind what I said.
+I'm an old meddler.  I reckon nothin' I could do or say would ever
+change what's goin' to happen.  If only you wasn't a girl! ... Thar I
+go ag'in.  Ellen, face your future an' fight your way.  All youngsters
+hev to do thet.  An' it's the right kind of fight thet makes the right
+kind of man or woman.  Only you must be sure to find yourself.  An' by
+thet I mean to find the real, true, honest-to-God best in you an' stick
+to it an' die fightin' for it.  You're a young woman, almost, an' a
+blamed handsome one.  Which means you'll hev more trouble an' a harder
+fight.  This country ain't easy on a woman when once slander has marked
+her.
+
+"What do I care for the talk down in that Basin?" returned Ellen. "I
+know they think I'm a hussy.  I've let them think it. I've helped them
+to."
+
+"You're wrong, child," said Sprague, earnestly.  "Pride an' temper! You
+must never let anyone think bad of you, much less help them to."
+
+"I hate everybody down there," cried Ellen, passionately.  "I hate them
+so I'd glory in their thinkin' me bad.... My mother belonged to the
+best blood in Texas.  I am her daughter.  I know WHO AND WHAT I AM.
+That uplifts me whenever I meet the sneaky, sly suspicions of these
+Basin people.  It shows me the difference between them and me. That's
+what I glory in."
+
+"Ellen, you're a wild, headstrong child," rejoined the old man, in
+severe tones.  "Word has been passed ag'in' your good name--your
+honor.... An' hevn't you given cause fer thet?"
+
+Ellen felt her face blanch and all her blood rush back to her heart in
+sickening force.  The shock of his words was like a stab from a cold
+blade.  If their meaning and the stem, just light of the old man's
+glance did not kill her pride and vanity they surely killed her
+girlishness.  She stood mute, staring at him, with her brown, trembling
+hands stealing up toward her bosom, as if to ward off another and a
+mortal blow.
+
+"Ellen!" burst out Sprague, hoarsely.  "You mistook me.  Aw, I didn't
+mean--what you think, I swear.... Ellen, I'm old an' blunt.  I ain't
+used to wimmen.  But I've love for you, child, an' respect, jest the
+same as if you was my own.... An' I KNOW you're good.... Forgive me....
+I meant only hevn't you been, say, sort of--careless?"
+
+"Care-less?" queried Ellen, bitterly and low.
+
+"An' powerful thoughtless an'--an' blind--lettin' men kiss you an'
+fondle you--when you're really a growed-up woman now?"
+
+"Yes--I have," whispered Ellen.
+
+"Wal, then, why did you let them?
+
+"I--I don't know.... I didn't think.  The men never let me
+alone--never--never!  I got tired everlastingly pushin' them away.  And
+sometimes--when they were kind--and I was lonely for something I--I
+didn't mind if one or another fooled round me.  I never thought. It
+never looked as y'u have made it look.... Then--those few times ridin'
+the trail to Grass Valley--when people saw me--then I guess I
+encouraged such attentions.... Oh, I must be--I am a shameless little
+hussy!"
+
+"Hush thet kind of talk," said the old man, as he took her hand.
+"Ellen, you're only young an' lonely an' bitter.  No mother--no
+friends--no one but a lot of rough men!  It's a wonder you hev kept
+yourself good.  But now your eyes are open, Ellen.  They're brave an'
+beautiful eyes, girl, an' if you stand by the light in them you will
+come through any trouble.  An' you'll be happy.  Don't ever forgit
+that.  Life is hard enough, God knows, but it's unfailin' true in the
+end to the man or woman who finds the best in them an' stands by it."
+
+"Uncle John, y'u talk so--so kindly.  Yu make me have hope.  There
+seemed really so little for me to live for--hope for.... But I'll never
+be a coward again--nor a thoughtless fool.  I'll find some good in
+me--or make some--and never fail it, come what will.  I'll remember
+your words.  I'll believe the future holds wonderful things for me....
+I'm only eighteen.  Shore all my life won't be lived heah.  Perhaps
+this threatened fight over sheep and cattle will blow over....
+Somewhere there must be some nice girl to be a friend--a sister to
+me.... And maybe some man who'd believe, in spite of all they say--that
+I'm not a hussy."
+
+"Wal, Ellen, you remind me of what I was wantin' to tell you when you
+just got here.... Yestiddy I heerd you called thet name in a barroom.
+An' thar was a fellar thar who raised hell.  He near killed one man an'
+made another plumb eat his words.  An' he scared thet crowd stiff."
+
+Old John Sprague shook his grizzled head and laughed, beaming upon
+Ellen as if the memory of what he had seen had warmed his heart.
+
+"Was it--y'u?" asked Ellen, tremulously.
+
+"Me?  Aw, I wasn't nowhere.  Ellen, this fellar was quick as a cat in
+his actions an' his words was like lightnin'.'
+
+"Who? she whispered.
+
+"Wal, no one else but a stranger jest come to these parts--an Isbel,
+too.  Jean Isbel."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Ellen, faintly.
+
+"In a barroom full of men--almost all of them in sympathy with the
+sheep crowd--most of them on the Jorth side--this Jean Isbel resented
+an insult to Ellen Jorth."
+
+"No!" cried Ellen.  Something terrible was happening to her mind or her
+heart.
+
+"Wal, he sure did," replied the old man, "an' it's goin' to be good fer
+you to hear all about it."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Old John Sprague launched into his narrative with evident zest.
+
+"I hung round Greaves' store most of two days.  An' I heerd a heap.
+Some of it was jest plain ole men's gab, but I reckon I got the drift
+of things concernin' Grass Valley.  Yestiddy mornin' I was packin' my
+burros in Greaves' back yard, takin' my time carryin' out supplies from
+the store.  An' as last when I went in I seen a strange fellar was
+thar. Strappin' young man--not so young, either--an' he had on
+buckskin.  Hair black as my burros, dark face, sharp eyes--you'd took
+him fer an Injun. He carried a rifle--one of them new forty-fours--an'
+also somethin' wrapped in paper thet he seemed partickler careful
+about.  He wore a belt round his middle an' thar was a bowie-knife in
+it, carried like I've seen scouts an' Injun fighters hev on the
+frontier in the 'seventies.  That looked queer to me, an' I reckon to
+the rest of the crowd thar.  No one overlooked the big six-shooter he
+packed Texas fashion.  Wal, I didn't hev no idee this fellar was an
+Isbel until I heard Greaves call him thet.
+
+"'Isbel,' said Greaves, 'reckon your money's counterfeit hyar. I cain't
+sell you anythin'.'
+
+"'Counterfeit?  Not much,' spoke up the young fellar, an' he flipped
+some gold twenties on the bar, where they rung like bells.  'Why not?
+Ain't this a store?  I want a cinch strap.'
+
+"Greaves looked particular sour thet mornin'.  I'd been watchin' him
+fer two days.  He hedn't hed much sleep, fer I hed my bed back of the
+store, an' I heerd men come in the night an' hev long confabs with him.
+Whatever was in the wind hedn't pleased him none.  An' I calkilated
+thet young Isbel wasn't a sight good fer Greaves' sore eyes, anyway.
+But he paid no more attention to Isbel.  Acted jest as if he hedn't
+heerd Isbel say he wanted a cinch strap.
+
+"I stayed inside the store then.  Thar was a lot of fellars I'd seen,
+an' some I knowed.  Couple of card games goin', an' drinkin', of
+course. I soon gathered thet the general atmosphere wasn't friendly to
+Jean Isbel.  He seen thet quick enough, but he didn't leave.  Between
+you an' me I sort of took a likin' to him.  An' I sure watched him as
+close as I could, not seemin' to, you know.  Reckon they all did the
+same, only you couldn't see it.  It got jest about the same as if Isbel
+hedn't been in thar, only you knowed it wasn't really the same.  Thet
+was how I got the hunch the crowd was all sheepmen or their friends.
+The day before I'd heerd a lot of talk about this young Isbel, an' what
+he'd come to Grass Valley fer, an' what a bad hombre he was.  An' when
+I seen him I was bound to admit he looked his reputation.
+
+"Wal, pretty soon in come two more fellars, an' I knowed both of them.
+You know them, too, I'm sorry to say.  Fer I'm comin' to facts now thet
+will shake you.  The first fellar was your father's Mexican foreman,
+Lorenzo, and the other was Simm Bruce.  I reckon Bruce wasn't drunk,
+but he'd sure been lookin' on red licker.  When he seen Isbel darn me
+if he didn't swell an' bustle all up like a mad ole turkey gobbler.
+
+"'Greaves,' he said, 'if thet fellar's Jean Isbel I ain't hankerin' fer
+the company y'u keep.'  An' he made no bones of pointin' right at
+Isbel.  Greaves looked up dry an' sour an' he bit out spiteful-like:
+'Wal, Simm, we ain't hed a hell of a lot of choice in this heah matter.
+Thet's Jean Isbel shore enough.  Mebbe you can persuade him thet his
+company an' his custom ain't wanted round heah!'
+
+"Jean Isbel set on the counter an took it all in, but he didn't say
+nothin'.  The way he looked at Bruce was sure enough fer me to see thet
+thar might be a surprise any minnit.  I've looked at a lot of men in my
+day, an' can sure feel events comin'.  Bruce got himself a stiff drink
+an' then he straddles over the floor in front of Isbel.
+
+"'Air you Jean Isbel, son of ole Gass Isbel?' asked Bruce, sort of
+lolling back an' givin' a hitch to his belt.
+
+"'Yes sir, you've identified me,' said Isbel, nice an' polite.
+
+"'My name's Bruce.  I'm rangin' sheep heahaboots, an' I hev interest in
+Kurnel Lee Jorth's bizness.'
+
+"'Hod do, Mister Bruce,' replied Isbel, very civil ant cool as you
+please.  Bruce hed an eye fer the crowd thet was now listenin' an'
+watchin'.  He swaggered closer to Isbel.
+
+"'We heerd y'u come into the Tonto Basin to run us sheepmen off the
+range.  How aboot thet?'
+
+"'Wal, you heerd wrong,' said Isbel, quietly.  'I came to work fer my
+father.  Thet work depends on what happens.'
+
+"Bruce began to git redder of face, an' he shook a husky hand in front
+of Isbel.  'I'll tell y'u this heah, my Nez Perce Isbel--' an' when he
+sort of choked fer more wind Greaves spoke up, 'Simm, I shore reckon
+thet Nez Perce handle will stick.'  An' the crowd haw-hawed. Then Bruce
+got goin' ag'in.  'I'll tell y'u this heah, Nez Perce. Thar's been
+enough happen already to run y'u out of Arizona.'
+
+"'Wal, you don't say!  What, fer instance?, asked Isbel, quick an'
+sarcastic.
+
+"Thet made Bruce bust out puffin' an' spittin': 'Wha-tt, fer instance?
+Huh!  Why, y'u darn half-breed, y'u'll git run out fer makin' up to
+Ellen Jorth.  Thet won't go in this heah country.  Not fer any Isbel.'
+
+"'You're a liar,' called Isbel, an' like a big cat he dropped off the
+counter.  I heerd his moccasins pat soft on the floor.  An' I bet to
+myself thet he was as dangerous as he was quick.  But his voice an' his
+looks didn't change even a leetle.
+
+"'I'm not a liar,' yelled Bruce.  'I'll make y'u eat thet.  I can prove
+what I say.... Y'u was seen with Ellen Jorth--up on the Rim--day before
+yestiddy.  Y'u was watched.  Y'u was with her.  Y'u made up to her.
+Y'u grabbed her an' kissed her! ... An' I'm heah to say, Nez Perce,
+thet y'u're a marked man on this range.'
+
+"'Who saw me?' asked Isbel, quiet an' cold.  I seen then thet he'd
+turned white in the face.
+
+"'Yu cain't lie out of it,' hollered Bruce, wavin' his hands. 'We got
+y'u daid to rights.  Lorenzo saw y'u--follered y'u--watched y'u.'
+Bruce pointed at the grinnin' greaser.  'Lorenzo is Kurnel Jorth's
+foreman.  He seen y'u maulin' of Ellen Jorth.  An' when he tells the
+Kurnel an' Tad Jorth an' Jackson Jorth! ... Haw!  Haw! Haw!  Why, hell
+'d be a cooler place fer yu then this heah Tonto.'
+
+"Greaves an' his gang hed come round, sure tickled clean to thar
+gizzards at this mess.  I noticed, howsomever, thet they was Texans
+enough to keep back to one side in case this Isbel started any
+action.... Wal, Isbel took a look at Lorenzo.  Then with one swift grab
+he jerked the little greaser off his feet an' pulled him close.
+Lorenzo stopped grinnin'.  He began to look a leetle sick.  But it was
+plain he hed right on his side.
+
+"'You say you saw me?' demanded Isbel.
+
+"'Si, senor,' replied Lorenzo.
+
+"What did you see?'
+
+"'I see senor an' senorita.  I hide by manzanita.  I see senorita like
+grande senor ver mooch.  She like senor keese.  She--'
+
+"Then Isbel hit the little greaser a back-handed crack in the mouth.
+Sure it was a crack!  Lorenzo went over the counter backward an' landed
+like a pack load of wood.  An' he didn't git up.
+
+"'Mister Bruce,' said Isbel, 'an' you fellars who heerd thet lyin'
+greaser, I did meet Ellen Jorth.  An' I lost my head.  I 'I kissed
+her.... But it was an accident.  I meant no insult.  I apologized--I
+tried to explain my crazy action.... Thet was all.  The greaser lied.
+Ellen Jorth was kind enough to show me the trail.  We talked a little.
+Then--I suppose--because she was young an' pretty an' sweet--I lost my
+head.  She was absolutely innocent.  Thet damned greaser told a
+bare-faced lie when he said she liked me.  The fact was she despised
+me.  She said so.  An' when she learned I was Jean Isbel she turned her
+back on me an' walked away."'
+
+At this point of his narrative the old man halted as if to impress
+Ellen not only with what just had been told, but particularly with what
+was to follow.  The reciting of this tale had evidently given Sprague
+an unconscious pleasure.  He glowed.  He seemed to carry the burden of
+a secret that he yearned to divulge.  As for Ellen, she was deadlocked
+in breathless suspense.  All her emotions waited for the end. She
+begged Sprague to hurry.
+
+"Wal, I wish I could skip the next chapter an' hev only the last to
+tell," rejoined the old man, and he put a heavy, but solicitous, hand
+upon hers.... Simm Bruce haw-hawed loud an' loud.... 'Say, Nez Perce,'
+he calls out, most insolent-like, 'we air too good sheepmen heah to hev
+the wool pulled over our eyes.  We shore know what y'u meant by Ellen
+Jorth.  But y'u wasn't smart when y'u told her y'u was Jean Isbel! ...
+Haw-haw!'
+
+"Isbel flashed a strange, surprised look from the red-faced Bruce to
+Greaves and to the other men.  I take it he was wonderin' if he'd heerd
+right or if they'd got the same hunch thet 'd come to him. An' I reckon
+he determined to make sure.
+
+"'Why wasn't I smart?' he asked.
+
+"'Shore y'u wasn't smart if y'u was aimin' to be one of Ellen Jorth's
+lovers,' said Bruce, with a leer.  'Fer if y'u hedn't give y'urself
+away y'u could hev been easy enough.'
+
+"Thar was no mistakin' Bruce's meanin' an' when he got it out some of
+the men thar laughed.  Isbel kept lookin' from one to another of them.
+Then facin' Greaves, he said, deliberately: 'Greaves, this drunken
+Bruce is excuse enough fer a show-down.  I take it that you are
+sheepmen, an' you're goin' on Jorth's side of the fence in the matter
+of this sheep rangin'.'
+
+"'Wal, Nez Perce, I reckon you hit plumb center,' said Greaves, dryly.
+He spread wide his big hands to the other men, as if to say they'd
+might as well own the jig was up.
+
+"'All right.  You're Jorth's backers.  Have any of you a word to say in
+Ellen Jorth's defense?  I tell you the Mexican lied.  Believin' me or
+not doesn't matter.  But this vile-mouthed Bruce hinted against thet
+girl's honor.'
+
+"Ag'in some of the men laughed, but not so noisy, an' there was a
+nervous shufflin' of feet.  Isbel looked sort of queer.  His neck had a
+bulge round his collar.  An' his eyes was like black coals of fire.
+Greaves spread his big hands again, as if to wash them of this part of
+the dirty argument.
+
+"'When it comes to any wimmen I pass--much less play a hand fer a
+wildcat like Jorth's gurl,' said Greaves, sort of cold an' thick.
+'Bruce shore ought to know her.  Accordin' to talk heahaboots an' what
+HE says, Ellen Jorth has been his gurl fer two years.'
+
+"Then Isbel turned his attention to Bruce an' I fer one begun to shake
+in my boots.
+
+"'Say thet to me!' he called.
+
+"'Shore she's my gurl, an' thet's why Im a-goin' to hev y'u run off
+this range.'
+
+"Isbel jumped at Bruce.  'You damned drunken cur!  You vile-mouthed
+liar! ... I may be an Isbel, but by God you cain't slander thet girl to
+my face! ... Then he moved so quick I couldn't see what he did. But I
+heerd his fist hit Bruce.  It sounded like an ax ag'in' a beef. Bruce
+fell clear across the room.  An' by Jinny when he landed Isbel was
+thar.  As Bruce staggered up, all bloody-faced, bellowin' an' spittin'
+out teeth Isbel eyed Greaves's crowd an' said: 'If any of y'u make a
+move it 'll mean gun-play.'  Nobody moved, thet's sure. In fact, none
+of Greaves's outfit was packin' guns, at least in sight. When Bruce got
+all the way up--he's a tall fellar--why Isbel took a full swing at him
+an' knocked him back across the room ag'in' the counter.  Y'u know when
+a fellar's hurt by the way he yells.  Bruce got thet second smash right
+on his big red nose.... I never seen any one so quick as Isbel.  He
+vaulted over thet counter jest the second Bruce fell back on it, an'
+then, with Greaves's gang in front so he could catch any moves of
+theirs, he jest slugged Bruce right an' left, an' banged his head on
+the counter.  Then as Bruce sunk limp an' slipped down, lookin' like a
+bloody sack, Isbel let him fall to the floor.  Then he vaulted back
+over the counter.  Wipin' the blood off his hands, he throwed his
+kerchief down in Bruce's face.  Bruce wasn't dead or bad hurt.  He'd
+jest been beaten bad. He was moanin' an' slobberin'.  Isbel kicked him,
+not hard, but jest sort of disgustful.  Then he faced thet crowd.
+'Greaves, thet's what I think of your Simm Bruce.  Tell him next time
+he sees me to run or pull a gun.'  An' then Isbel grabbed his rifle an'
+package off the counter an' went out.  He didn't even look back.  I
+seen him nount his horse an' ride away.... Now, girl, what hev you to
+say?"
+
+Ellen could only say good-by and the word was so low as to be almost
+inaudible.  She ran to her burro.  She could not see very clearly
+through tear-blurred eyes, and her shaking fingers were all thumbs. It
+seemed she had to rush away--somewhere, anywhere--not to get away from
+old John Sprague, but from herself--this palpitating, bursting self
+whose feet stumbled down the trail.  All--all seemed ended for her.
+That interminable story!  It had taken so long.  And every minute of it
+she had been helplessly torn asunder by feelings she had never known
+she possessed.  This Ellen Jorth was an unknown creature.  She sobbed
+now as she dragged the burro down the canyon trail.  She sat down only
+to rise.  She hurried only to stop.  Driven, pursued, barred, she had
+no way to escape the flaying thoughts, no time or will to repudiate
+them.  The death of her girlhood, the rending aside of a veil of maiden
+mystery only vaguely instinctively guessed, the barren, sordid truth of
+her life as seen by her enlightened eyes, the bitter realization of the
+vileness of men of her clan in contrast to the manliness and chivalry
+of an enemy, the hard facts of unalterable repute as created by slander
+and fostered by low minds, all these were forces in a cataclysm that
+had suddenly caught her heart and whirled her through changes immense
+and agonizing, to bring her face to face with reality, to force upon
+her suspicion and doubt of all she had trusted, to warn her of the
+dark, impending horror of a tragic bloody feud, and lastly to teach her
+the supreme truth at once so glorious and so terrible--that she could
+not escape the doom of womanhood.
+
+About noon that day Ellen Jorth arrived at the Knoll, which was the
+location of her father's ranch.  Three canyons met there to form a
+larger one.  The knoll was a symmetrical hill situated at the mouth of
+the three canyons.  It was covered with brush and cedars, with here and
+there lichened rocks showing above the bleached grass.  Below the Knoll
+was a wide, grassy flat or meadow through which a willow-bordered
+stream cut its rugged boulder-strewn bed.  Water flowed abundantly at
+this season, and the deep washes leading down from the slopes attested
+to the fact of cloudbursts and heavy storms.  This meadow valley was
+dotted with horses and cattle, and meandered away between the timbered
+slopes to lose itself in a green curve.  A singular feature of this
+canyon was that a heavy growth of spruce trees covered the slope facing
+northwest; and the opposite slope, exposed to the sun and therefore
+less snowbound in winter, held a sparse growth of yellow pines.  The
+ranch house of Colonel Jorth stood round the rough corner of the largest
+of the three canyons, and rather well hidden, it did not obtrude its
+rude and broken-down log cabins, its squalid surroundings, its black
+mud-holes of corrals upon the beautiful and serene meadow valley.
+
+Ellen Jorth approached her home slowly, with dragging, reluctant steps;
+and never before in the three unhappy years of her existence there had
+the ranch seemed so bare, so uncared for, so repugnant to her.  As she
+had seen herself with clarified eyes, so now she saw her home.  The
+cabin that Ellen lived in with her father was a single-room structure
+with one door and no windows.  It was about twenty feet square.  The
+huge, ragged, stone chimney had been built on the outside, with the
+wide open fireplace set inside the logs.  Smoke was rising from the
+chimney.  As Ellen halted at the door and began unpacking her burro she
+heard the loud, lazy laughter of men.  An adjoining log cabin had been
+built in two sections, with a wide roofed hall or space between them.
+The door in each cabin faced the other, and there was a tall man
+standing in one.  Ellen recognized Daggs, a neighbor sheepman, who
+evidently spent more time with her father than at his own home,
+wherever that was.  Ellen had never seen it.  She heard this man drawl,
+"Jorth, heah's your kid come home."
+
+Ellen carried her bed inside the cabin, and unrolled it upon a couch
+built of boughs in the far corner.  She had forgotten Jean Isbel's
+package, and now it fell out under her sight.  Quickly she covered it.
+A Mexican woman, relative of Antonio, and the only servant about the
+place, was squatting Indian fashion before the fireplace, stirring a
+pot of beans.  She and Ellen did not get along well together, and few
+words ever passed between them.  Ellen had a canvas curtain stretched
+upon a wire across a small triangular corner, and this afforded her a
+little privacy.  Her possessions were limited in number.  The crude
+square table she had constructed herself.  Upon it was a little
+old-fashioned walnut-framed mirror, a brush and comb, and a dilapidated
+ebony cabinet which contained odds and ends the sight of which always
+brought a smile of derisive self-pity to her lips.  Under the table
+stood an old leather trunk.  It had come with her from Texas, and
+contained clothing and belongings of her mother's.  Above the couch on
+pegs hung her scant wardrobe.  A tiny shelf held several worn-out books.
+
+When her father slept indoors, which was seldom except in winter, he
+occupied a couch in the opposite corner.  A rude cupboard had been
+built against the logs next to the fireplace.  It contained supplies
+and utensils.  Toward the center, somewhat closer to the door, stood a
+crude table and two benches.  The cabin was dark and smelled of smoke,
+of the stale odors of past cooked meals, of the mustiness of dry,
+rotting timber.  Streaks of light showed through the roof where the
+rough-hewn shingles had split or weathered.  A strip of bacon hung upon
+one side of the cupboard, and upon the other a haunch of venison.
+Ellen detested the Mexican woman because she was dirty. The inside of
+the cabin presented the same unkempt appearance usual to it after Ellen
+had been away for a few days.  Whatever Ellen had lost during the
+retrogression of the Jorths, she had kept her habits of cleanliness,
+and straightway upon her return she set to work.
+
+The Mexican woman sullenly slouched away to her own quarters outside
+and Ellen was left to the satisfaction of labor.  Her mind was as busy
+as her hands.  As she cleaned and swept and dusted she heard from time
+to time the voices of men, the clip-clop of shod horses, the bellow of
+cattle.  And a considerable time elapsed before she was disturbed.
+
+A tall shadow darkened the doorway.
+
+"Howdy, little one!" said a lazy, drawling voice.  "So y'u-all got
+home?"
+
+Ellen looked up.  A superbly built man leaned against the doorpost.
+Like most Texans, he was light haired and light eyed.  His face was
+lined and hard.  His long, sandy mustache hid his mouth and drooped
+with a curl.  Spurred, booted, belted, packing a heavy gun low down on
+his hip, he gave Ellen an entirely new impression.  Indeed, she was
+seeing everything strangely.
+
+"Hello, Daggs!" replied Ellen. "Where's my dad?"
+
+"He's playin' cairds with Jackson an' Colter.  Shore's playin' bad,
+too, an' it's gone to his haid."
+
+"Gamblin'?" queried Ellen.
+
+"Mah child, when'd Kurnel Jorth ever play for fun?" said Daggs, with a
+lazy laugh.  "There's a stack of gold on the table.  Reckon yo' uncle
+Jackson will win it.  Colter's shore out of luck."
+
+Daggs stepped inside.  He was graceful and slow.  His long' spurs
+clinked.  He laid a rather compelling hand on Ellen's shoulder.
+
+"Heah, mah gal, give us a kiss," he said.
+
+"Daggs, I'm not your girl," replied Ellen as she slipped out from under
+his hand.
+
+Then Daggs put his arm round her, not with violence or rudeness, but
+with an indolent, affectionate assurance, at once bold and
+self-contained.  Ellen, however, had to exert herself to get free of
+him, and when she had placed the table between them she looked him
+square in the eyes.
+
+"Daggs, y'u keep your paws off me," she said.
+
+"Aw, now, Ellen, I ain't no bear," he remonstrated.  "What's the
+matter, kid?"
+
+"I'm not a kid.  And there's nothin' the matter.  Y'u're to keep your
+hands to yourself, that's all."
+
+He tried to reach her across the table, and his movements were lazy and
+slow, like his smile.  His tone was coaxing.
+
+"Mah dear, shore you set on my knee just the other day, now, didn't
+you?"
+
+Ellen felt the blood sting her cheeks.
+
+"I was a child," she returned.
+
+"Wal, listen to this heah grown-up young woman.  All in a few days! ...
+Doon't be in a temper, Ellen.... Come, give us a kiss."
+
+She deliberately gazed into his eyes.  Like the eyes of an eagle, they
+were clear and hard, just now warmed by the dalliance of the moment,
+but there was no light, no intelligence in them to prove he understood
+her.  The instant separated Ellen immeasurably from him and from all of
+his ilk.
+
+"Daggs, I was a child," she said.  "I was lonely--hungry for
+affection--I was innocent.  Then I was careless, too, and thoughtless
+when I should have known better.  But I hardly understood y'u men.  I
+put such thoughts out of my mind.  I know now--know what y'u mean--what
+y'u have made people believe I am."
+
+"Ahuh!  Shore I get your hunch," he returned, with a change of tone.
+"But I asked you to marry me?"
+
+"Yes y'u did.  The first day y'u got heah to my dad's house.  And y'u
+asked me to marry y'u after y'u found y'u couldn't have your way with
+me. To y'u the one didn't mean any more than the other."
+
+"Shore I did more than Simm Bruce an' Colter," he retorted. "They never
+asked you to marry."
+
+"No, they didn't.  And if I could respect them at all I'd do it because
+they didn't ask me."
+
+"Wal, I'll be dog-goned!" ejaculated Daggs, thoughtfully, as he stroked
+his long mustache.
+
+"I'll say to them what I've said to y'u," went on Ellen.  "I'll tell
+dad to make y'u let me alone.  I wouldn't marry one of y'u--y'u loafers
+to save my life.  I've my suspicions about y'u.  Y'u're a bad lot."
+
+Daggs changed subtly.  The whole indolent nonchalance of the man
+vanished in an instant.
+
+"Wal, Miss Jorth, I reckon you mean we're a bad lot of sheepmen?" he
+queried, in the cool, easy speech of a Texan.
+
+"No," flashed Ellen.  "Shore I don't say sheepmen.  I say y'u're a BAD
+LOT."
+
+"Oh, the hell you say!"  Daggs spoke as he might have spoken to a man;
+then turning swiftly on his heel he left her.  Outside he encountered
+Ellen's father.  She heard Daggs speak: "Lee, your little wildcat is
+shore heah.  An' take mah hunch.  Somebody has been talkin' to her."
+
+"Who has?" asked her father, in his husky voice.  Ellen knew at once
+that he had been drinking.
+
+"Lord only knows," replied Daggs.  "But shore it wasn't any friends of
+ours."
+
+"We cain't stop people's tongues," said Jorth, resignedly
+
+"Wal, I ain't so shore," continued Daggs, with his slow, cool laugh.
+"Reckon I never yet heard any daid men's tongues wag."
+
+Then the musical tinkle of his spurs sounded fainter.  A moment later
+Ellen's father entered the cabin.  His dark, moody face brightened at
+sight of her.  Ellen knew she was the only person in the world left for
+him to love.  And she was sure of his love.  Her very presence always
+made him different.  And through the years, the darker their
+misfortunes, the farther he slipped away from better days, the more she
+loved him.
+
+"Hello, my Ellen!" he said, and he embraced her.  When he had been
+drinking he never kissed her.  "Shore I'm glad you're home.  This heah
+hole is bad enough any time, but when you're gone it's black.... I'm
+hungry."
+
+Ellen laid food and drink on the table; and for a little while she did
+not look directly at him.  She was concerned about this new searching
+power of her eyes.  In relation to him she vaguely dreaded it.
+
+Lee Jorth had once been a singularly handsome man.  He was tall, but
+did not have the figure of a horseman.  His dark hair was streaked with
+gray, and was white over his ears.  His face was sallow and thin, with
+deep lines.  Under his round, prominent, brown eyes, like deadened
+furnaces, were blue swollen welts.  He had a bitter mouth and weak
+chin, not wholly concealed by gray mustache and pointed beard.  He wore
+a long frock coat and a wide-brimmed sombrero, both black in color, and
+so old and stained and frayed that along with the fashion of them they
+betrayed that they had come from Texas with him.  Jorth always
+persisted in wearing a white linen shirt, likewise a relic of his
+Southern prosperity, and to-day it was ragged and soiled as usual.
+
+Ellen watched her father eat and waited for him to speak.  It occured
+to her strangely that he never asked about the sheep or the new-born
+lambs.  She divined with a subtle new woman's intuition that he cared
+nothing for his sheep.
+
+"Ellen, what riled Daggs?" inquired her father, presently.  "He shore
+had fire in his eye."
+
+Long ago Ellen had betrayed an indignity she had suffered at the hands
+of a man.  Her father had nearly killed him.  Since then she had taken
+care to keep her troubles to herself.  If her father had not been blind
+and absorbed in his own brooding he would have seen a thousand things
+sufficient to inflame his Southern pride and temper.
+
+"Daggs asked me to marry him again and I said he belonged to a bad
+lot," she replied.
+
+Jorth laughed in scorn.  "Fool!  My God! Ellen, I must have dragged you
+low--that every damned ru--er--sheepman--who comes along thinks he can
+marry you."
+
+At the break in his words, the incompleted meaning, Ellen dropped her
+eyes.  Little things once never noted by her were now come to have a
+fascinating significance.
+
+"Never mind, dad," she replied.  "They cain't marry me."
+
+"Daggs said somebody had been talkin' to you.  How aboot that?"
+
+"Old John Sprague has just gotten back from Grass Valley," said Ellen.
+"I stopped in to see him.  Shore he told me all the village gossip."
+
+"Anythin' to interest me?" he queried, darkly.
+
+"Yes, dad, I'm afraid a good deal," she said, hesitatingly.  Then in
+accordance with a decision Ellen had made she told him of the rumored
+war between sheepmen and cattlemen; that old Isbel had Blaisdell,
+Gordon, Fredericks, Blue and other well-known ranchers on his side;
+that his son Jean Isbel had come from Oregon with a wonderful
+reputation as fighter and scout and tracker; that it was no secret how
+Colonel Lee Jorth was at the head of the sheepmen; that a bloody war
+was sure to come.
+
+"Hah!" exclaimed Jorth, with a stain of red in his sallow cheek.
+"Reckon none of that is news to me.  I knew all that."
+
+Ellen wondered if he had heard of her meeting with Jean Isbel.  If not
+he would hear as soon as Simm Bruce and Lorenzo came back.  She decided
+to forestall them.
+
+"Dad, I met Jean Isbel.  He came into my camp.  Asked the way to the
+Rim. I showed him.  We--we talked a little.  And shore were gettin'
+acquainted when--when he told me who he was.  Then I left him--hurried
+back to camp."
+
+"Colter met Isbel down in the woods," replied Jorth, ponderingly. "Said
+he looked like an Indian--a hard an' slippery customer to reckon with."
+
+"Shore I guess I can indorse what Colter said," returned Ellen, dryly.
+She could have laughed aloud at her deceit.  Still she had not lied.
+
+"How'd this heah young Isbel strike you?" queried her father, suddenly
+glancing up at her.
+
+Ellen felt the slow, sickening, guilty rise of blood in her face. She
+was helpless to stop it.  But her father evidently never saw it. He was
+looking at her without seeing her.
+
+"He--he struck me as different from men heah," she stammered.
+
+"Did Sprague tell you aboot this half-Indian Isbel--aboot his
+reputation?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did he look to you like a real woodsman?"
+
+"Indeed he did.  He wore buckskin.  He stepped quick and soft.  He
+acted at home in the woods.  He had eyes black as night and sharp as
+lightnin'. They shore saw about all there was to see."
+
+Jorth chewed at his mustache and lost himself in brooding thought.
+
+"Dad, tell me, is there goin' to be a war?" asked Ellen, presently.
+
+What a red, strange, rolling flash blazed in his eyes!  His body jerked.
+
+"Shore.  You might as well know."
+
+"Between sheepmen and cattlemen?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"With y'u, dad, at the haid of one faction and Gaston Isbel the other?"
+
+"Daughter, you have it correct, so far as you go."
+
+"Oh! ... Dad, can't this fight be avoided?"
+
+"You forget you're from Texas," he replied.
+
+"Cain't it be helped?" she repeated, stubbornly.
+
+"No!" he declared, with deep, hoarse passion.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Wal, we sheepmen are goin' to run sheep anywhere we like on the range.
+An' cattlemen won't stand for that."
+
+"But, dad, it's so foolish," declared Ellen, earnestly.  "Y'u sheepmen
+do not have to run sheep over the cattle range."
+
+"I reckon we do."
+
+"Dad, that argument doesn't go with me.  I know the country.  For years
+to come there will be room for both sheep and cattle without
+overrunnin'. If some of the range is better in water and grass, then
+whoever got there first should have it.  That shore is only fair.  It's
+common sense, too."
+
+"Ellen, I reckon some cattle people have been prejudicin' you," said
+Jorth, bitterly.
+
+"Dad!" she cried, hotly.
+
+This had grown to be an ordeal for Jorth.  He seemed a victim of
+contending tides of feeling.  Some will or struggle broke within him
+and the change was manifest.  Haggard, shifty-eyed, with wabbling chin,
+he burst into speech.
+
+"See heah, girl.  You listen.  There's a clique of ranchers down in the
+Basin, all those you named, with Isbel at their haid.  They have
+resented sheepmen comin' down into the valley.  They want it all to
+themselves.  That's the reason.  Shore there's another.  All the Isbels
+are crooked.  They're cattle an' horse thieves--have been for years.
+Gaston Isbel always was a maverick rustler.  He's gettin' old now an'
+rich, so he wants to cover his tracks.  He aims to blame this cattle
+rustlin' an' horse stealin' on to us sheepmen, an' run us out of the
+country."
+
+Gravely Ellen Jorth studied her father's face, and the newly found
+truth-seeing power of her eyes did not fail her.  In part, perhaps in
+all, he was telling lies.  She shuddered a little, loyally battling
+against the insidious convictions being brought to fruition.  Perhaps
+in his brooding over his failures and troubles he leaned toward false
+judgments.  Ellen could not attach dishonor to her father's motives or
+speeches.  For long, however, something about him had troubled her,
+perplexed her.  Fearfully she believed she was coming to some
+revelation, and, despite her keen determination to know, she found
+herself shrinking.
+
+"Dad, mother told me before she died that the Isbels had ruined you,"
+said Ellen, very low.  It hurt her so to see her father cover his face
+that she could hardly go on.  "If they ruined you they ruined all of
+us.  I know what we had once--what we lost again and again--and I see
+what we are come to now.  Mother hated the Isbels.  She taught me to
+hate the very name.  But I never knew how they ruined you--or why--or
+when.  And I want to know now."
+
+Then it was not the face of a liar that Jorth disclosed.  The present
+was forgotten.  He lived in the past.  He even seemed younger 'in the
+revivifying flash of hate that made his face radiant.  The lines burned
+out.  Hate gave him back the spirit of his youth.
+
+"Gaston Isbel an' I were boys together in Weston, Texas," began Jorth,
+in swift, passionate voice.  "We went to school together.  We loved the
+same girl--your mother.  When the war broke out she was engaged to
+Isbel.  His family was rich.  They influenced her people.  But she
+loved me.  When Isbel went to war she married me.  He came back an'
+faced us.  God!  I'll never forget that.  Your mother confessed her
+unfaithfulness--by Heaven!  She taunted him with it.  Isbel accused me
+of winnin' her by lies.  But she took the sting out of that.
+
+"Isbel never forgave her an' he hounded me to ruin.  He made me out a
+card-sharp, cheatin' my best friends.  I was disgraced.  Later he
+tangled me in the courts--he beat me out of property--an' last by
+convictin' me of rustlin' cattle he run me out of Texas."
+
+Black and distorted now, Jorth's face was a spectacle to make Ellen
+sick with a terrible passion of despair and hate.  The truth of her
+father's ruin and her own were enough.  What mattered all else? Jorth
+beat the table with fluttering, nerveless hands that seemed all the
+more significant for their lack of physical force.
+
+"An' so help me God, it's got to be wiped out in blood!" he hissed.
+
+That was his answer to the wavering and nobility of Ellen.  And she in
+her turn had no answer to make.  She crept away into the corner behind
+the curtain, and there on her couch in the semidarkness she lay with
+strained heart, and a resurging, unconquerable tumult in her mind.  And
+she lay there from the middle of that afternoon until the next morning.
+
+When she awakened she expected to be unable to rise--she hoped she
+could not--but life seemed multiplied in her, and inaction was
+impossible.  Something young and sweet and hopeful that had been in her
+did not greet the sun this morning.  In their place was a woman's
+passion to learn for herself, to watch events, to meet what must come,
+to survive.
+
+After breakfast, at which she sat alone, she decided to put Isbel's
+package out of the way, so that it would not be subjecting her to
+continual annoyance.  The moment she picked it up the old curiosity
+assailed her.
+
+"Shore I'll see what it is, anyway," she muttered, and with swift hands
+she opened the package.  The action disclosed two pairs of fine, soft
+shoes, of a style she had never seen, and four pairs of stockings, two
+of strong, serviceable wool, and the others of a finer texture. Ellen
+looked at them in amaze.  Of all things in the world, these would have
+been the last she expected to see.  And, strangely, they were what she
+wanted and needed most.  Naturally, then, Ellen made the mistake of
+taking them in her hands to feel their softness and warmth.
+
+"Shore!  He saw my bare legs!  And he brought me these presents he'd
+intended for his sister.... He was ashamed for me--sorry for me.... And
+I thought he looked at me bold-like, as I'm used to be looked at heah!
+Isbel or not, he's shore..."
+
+But Ellen Jorth could not utter aloud the conviction her intelligence
+tried to force upon her.
+
+"It'd be a pity to burn them," she mused.  "I cain't do it. Sometime I
+might send them to Ann Isbel."
+
+Whereupon she wrapped them up again and hid them in the bottom of the
+old trunk, and slowly, as she lowered the lid, looking darkly, blankly
+at the wall, she whispered: "Jean Isbel! ... I hate him!"
+
+Later when Ellen went outdoors she carried her rifle, which was unusual
+for her, unless she intended to go into the woods.
+
+The morning was sunny and warm.  A group of shirt-sleeved men lounged
+in the hall and before the porch of the double cabin.  Her father was
+pacing up and down, talking forcibly.  Ellen heard his hoarse voice. As
+she approached he ceased talking and his listeners relaxed their
+attention.  Ellen's glance ran over them swiftly--Daggs, with his
+superb head, like that of a hawk, uncovered to the sun; Colter with his
+lowered, secretive looks, his sand-gray lean face; Jackson Jorth, her
+uncle, huge, gaunt, hulking, with white in his black beard and hair,
+and the fire of a ghoul in his hollow eyes; Tad Jorth, another brother
+of her father's, younger, red of eye and nose, a weak-chinned drinker
+of rum.  Three other limber-legged Texans lounged there, partners of
+Daggs, and they were sun-browned, light-haired, blue-eyed men
+singularly alike in appearance, from their dusty high-heeled boots to
+their broad black sombreros.  They claimed to be sheepmen.  All Ellen
+could be sure of was that Rock Wells spent most of his time there,
+doing nothing but look for a chance to waylay her; Springer was a
+gambler; and the third, who answered to the strange name of Queen, was
+a silent, lazy, watchful-eyed man who never wore a glove on his right
+hand and who never was seen without a gun within easy reach of that
+hand.
+
+"Howdy, Ellen.  Shore you ain't goin' to say good mawnin' to this heah
+bad lot?" drawled Daggs, with good-natured sarcasm.
+
+"Why, shore!  Good morning, y'u hard-working industrious MANANA sheep
+raisers," replied Ellen, coolly.
+
+Daggs stared.  The others appeared taken back by a greeting so foreign
+from any to which they were accustomed from her.  Jackson Jorth let out
+a gruff haw-haw.  Some of them doffed their sombreros, and Rock Wells
+managed a lazy, polite good morning.  Ellen's father seemed most
+significantly struck by her greeting, and the least amused.
+
+"Ellen, I'm not likin' your talk," he said, with a frown.
+
+"Dad, when y'u play cards don't y'u call a spade a spade?"
+
+"Why, shore I do."
+
+"Well, I'm calling spades spades."
+
+"Ahuh!" grunted Jorth, furtively dropping his eyes.  "Where you goin'
+with your gun?  I'd rather you hung round heah now."
+
+"Reckon I might as well get used to packing my gun all the time,"
+replied Ellen.  "Reckon I'll be treated more like a man."
+
+Then the event Ellen had been expecting all morning took place. Simm
+Bruce and Lorenzo rode around the slope of the Knoll and trotted toward
+the cabin.  Interest in Ellen was relegated to the background.
+
+"Shore they're bustin' with news," declared Daggs.
+
+"They been ridin' some, you bet," remarked another.
+
+"Huh!" exclaimed Jorth.  "Bruce shore looks queer to me."
+
+"Red liquor," said Tad Jorth, sententiously.  "You-all know the brand
+Greaves hands out."
+
+"Naw, Simm ain't drunk," said Jackson Jorth.  "Look at his bloody
+shirt."
+
+The cool, indolent interest of the crowd vanished at the red color
+pointed out by Jackson Jorth.  Daggs rose in a single springy motion to
+his lofty height.  The face Bruce turned to Jorth was swollen and
+bruised, with unhealed cuts.  Where his right eye should have been
+showed a puffed dark purple bulge.  His other eye, however, gleamed
+with hard and sullen light.  He stretched a big shaking hand toward
+Jorth.
+
+"Thet Nez Perce Isbel beat me half to death," he bellowed.
+
+Jorth stared hard at the tragic, almost grotesque figure, at the
+battered face.  But speech failed him.  It was Daggs who answered Bruce.
+
+"Wal, Simm, I'll be damned if you don't look it."
+
+"Beat you!  What with?" burst out Jorth, explosively.
+
+"I thought he was swingin' an ax, but Greaves swore it was his fists,"
+bawled Bruce, in misery and fury.
+
+"Where was your gun?" queried Jorth, sharply.
+
+"Gun? Hell!" exclaimed Bruce, flinging wide his arms.  "Ask Lorenzo. He
+had a gun.  An' he got a biff in the jaw before my turn come. Ask him?"
+
+Attention thus directed to the Mexican showed a heavy discolored
+swelling upon the side of his olive-skinned face.  Lorenzo looked only
+serious.
+
+"Hah!  Speak up," shouted Jorth, impatiently.
+
+"Senor Isbel heet me ver quick," replied Lorenzo, with expressive
+gesture.  "I see thousand stars--then moocho black--all like night."
+
+At that some of Daggs's men lolled back with dry crisp laughter.
+Daggs's hard face rippled with a smile.  But there was no humor in
+anything for Colonel Jorth.
+
+"Tell us what come off.  Quick!" he ordered.  "Where did it happen?
+Why?  Who saw it?  What did you do?"
+
+Bruce lapsed into a sullen impressiveness.  "Wal, I happened in
+Greaves's store an' run into Jean Isbel.  Shore was lookin' fer him. I
+had my mind made up what to do, but I got to shootin' off my gab
+instead of my gun.  I called him Nez Perce--an' I throwed all thet talk
+in his face about old Gass Isbel sendin' fer him---an' I told him he'd
+git run out of the Tonto.  Reckon I was jest warmin' up.... But then it
+all happened.  He slugged Lorenzo jest one.  An' Lorenzo slid
+peaceful-like to bed behind the counter.  I hadn't time to think of
+throwin' a gun before he whaled into me.  He knocked out two of my
+teeth.  An' I swallered one of them."
+
+Ellen stood in the background behind three of the men and in the
+shadow.  She did not join in the laugh that followed Bruce's remarks.
+She had known that he would lie.  Uncertain yet of her reaction to
+this, but more bitter and furious as he revealed his utter baseness,
+she waited for more to be said.
+
+"Wal, I'll be doggoned," drawled Daggs.
+
+"What do you make of this kind of fightin'?" queried Jorth,
+
+"Darn if I know," replied Daggs in perplexity.  "Shore an' sartin it's
+not the way of a Texan.  Mebbe this young Isbel really is what old Gass
+swears he is.  Shore Bruce ain't nothin' to give an edge to a real gun
+fighter.  Looks to me like Isbel bluffed Greaves an' his gang an'
+licked your men without throwin' a gun."
+
+"Maybe Isbel doesn't want the name of drawin' first blood," suggested
+Jorth.
+
+"That 'd be like Gass," spoke up Rock Wells, quietly.  "I onct rode fer
+Gass in Texas."
+
+"Say, Bruce," said Daggs, "was this heah palaverin' of yours an' Jean
+Isbel's aboot the old stock dispute?  Aboot his father's range an'
+water?  An' partickler aboot, sheep?"
+
+"Wal--I--I yelled a heap," declared Bruce, haltingly, "but I don't
+recollect all I said--I was riled.... Shore, though it was the same old
+argyment thet's been fetchin' us closer an' closer to trouble."
+
+Daggs removed his keen hawklike gaze from Bruce.  "Wal, Jorth, all I'll
+say is this.  If Bruce is tellin' the truth we ain't got a hell of a
+lot to fear from this young Isbel.  I've known a heap of gun fighters
+in my day.  An' Jean Isbel don't ran true to class.  Shore there never
+was a gunman who'd risk cripplin' his right hand by sluggin' anybody."
+
+"Wal," broke in Bruce, sullenly.  "You-all can take it daid straight or
+not.  I don't give a damn.  But you've shore got my hunch thet Nez
+Perce Isbel is liable to handle any of you fellars jest as he did me,
+an' jest as easy.  What's more, he's got Greaves figgered.  An' you-all
+know thet Greaves is as deep in--"
+
+"Shut up that kind of gab," demanded Jorth, stridently.  "An' answer
+me. Was the row in Greaves's barroom aboot sheep?"
+
+"Aw, hell!  I said so, didn't I?" shouted Bruce, with a fierce uplift
+of his distorted face.
+
+Ellen strode out from the shadow of the tall men who had obscured her.
+
+"Bruce, y'u're a liar," she said, bitingly.
+
+The surprise of her sudden appearance seemed to root Bruce to the spot.
+All but the discolored places on his face turned white.  He held his
+breath a moment, then expelled it hard.  His effort to recover from the
+shock was painfully obvious.  He stammered incoherently.
+
+"Shore y'u're more than a liar, too," cried Ellen, facing him with
+blazing eyes.  And the rifle, gripped in both hands, seemed to declare
+her intent of menace.  "That row was not about sheep.... Jean Isbel
+didn't beat y'u for anythin' about sheep.... Old John Sprague was in
+Greaves's store.  He heard y'u.  He saw Jean Isbel beat y'u as y'u
+deserved.... An' he told ME!"
+
+Ellen saw Bruce shrink in fear of his life; and despite her fury she
+was filled with disgust that he could imagine she would have his blood
+on her hands.  Then she divined that Bruce saw more in the gathering
+storm in her father's eyes than he had to fear from her.
+
+"Girl, what the hell are y'u sayin'?" hoarsely called Jorth, in dark
+amaze.
+
+"Dad, y'u leave this to me," she retorted.
+
+Daggs stepped beside Jorth, significantly on his right side.  "Let her
+alone Lee," he advised, coolly.  "She's shore got a hunch on Bruce."
+
+"Simm Bruce, y'u cast a dirty slur on my name," cried Ellen,
+passionately.
+
+It was then that Daggs grasped Jorth's right arm and held it tight,
+"Jest what I thought," he said.  "Stand still, Lee.  Let's see the kid
+make him showdown."
+
+"That's what jean Isbel beat y'u for," went on Ellen.  "For slandering
+a girl who wasn't there.... Me!  Y'u rotten liar!"
+
+"But, Ellen, it wasn't all lies," said Bruce, huskily.  "I was half
+drunk--an' horrible jealous.... You know Lorenzo seen Isbel kissin'
+you.  I can prove thet."
+
+Ellen threw up her head and a scarlet wave of shame and wrath flooded
+her face.
+
+"Yes," she cried, ringingly.  "He saw Jean Isbel kiss me. Once! ... An'
+it was the only decent kiss I've had in years.  He meant no insult. I
+didn't know who he was.  An' through his kiss I learned a difference
+between men.... Y'u made Lorenzo lie.  An' if I had a shred of good
+name left in Grass Valley you dishonored it.... Y'u made him think I
+was your girl!  Damn y'u!  I ought to kill y'u.... Eat your words
+now--take them back--or I'll cripple y'u for life!"
+
+Ellen lowered the cocked rifle toward his feet.
+
+"Shore, Ellen, I take back--all I said," gulped Bruce.  He gazed at the
+quivering rifle barrel and then into the face of Ellen's father.
+Instinct told him where his real peril lay.
+
+Here the cool and tactful Daggs showed himself master of the situation.
+
+"Heah, listen!" he called.  "Ellen, I reckon Bruce was drunk an' out of
+his haid.  He's shore ate his words.  Now, we don't want any cripples
+in this camp.  Let him alone.  Your dad got me heah to lead the Jorths,
+an' that's my say to you.... Simm, you're shore a low-down lyin'
+rascal.  Keep away from Ellen after this or I'll bore you myself....
+Jorth, it won't be a bad idee for you to forget you're a Texan till you
+cool off.  Let Bruce stop some Isbel lead.  Shore the Jorth-Isbel war
+is aboot on, an' I reckon we'd be smart to believe old Gass's talk
+aboot his Nez Perce son."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+From this hour Ellen Jorth bent all of her lately awakened intelligence
+and will to the only end that seemed to hold possible salvation for
+her. In the crisis sure to come she did not want to be blind or weak.
+Dreaming and indolence, habits born in her which were often a comfort
+to one as lonely as she, would ill fit her for the hard test she
+divined and dreaded.  In the matter of her father's fight she must
+stand by him whatever the issue or the outcome; in what pertained to
+her own principles, her womanhood, and her soul she stood absolutely
+alone.
+
+Therefore, Ellen put dreams aside, and indolence of mind and body
+behind her.  Many tasks she found, and when these were done for a day
+she kept active in other ways, thus earning the poise and peace of
+labor.
+
+Jorth rode off every day, sometimes with one or two of the men, often
+with a larger number.  If he spoke of such trips to Ellen it was to
+give an impression of visiting the ranches of his neighbors or the
+various sheep camps.  Often he did not return the day he left.  When he
+did get back he smelled of rum and appeared heavy from need of sleep.
+His horses were always dust and sweat covered.  During his absences
+Ellen fell victim to anxious dread until he returned.  Daily he grew
+darker and more haggard of face, more obsessed by some impending fate.
+Often he stayed up late, haranguing with the men in the dim-lit cabin,
+where they drank and smoked, but seldom gambled any more.  When the men
+did not gamble something immediate and perturbing was on their minds.
+Ellen had not yet lowered herself to the deceit and suspicion of
+eavesdropping, but she realized that there was a climax approaching in
+which she would deliberately do so.
+
+In those closing May days Ellen learned the significance of many things
+that previously she had taken as a matter of course.  Her father did
+not run a ranch.  There was absolutely no ranching done, and little
+work. Often Ellen had to chop wood herself.  Jorth did not possess a
+plow. Ellen was bound to confess that the evidence of this lack
+dumfounded her. Even old John Sprague raised some hay, beets, turnips.
+Jorth's cattle and horses fared ill during the winter.  Ellen
+remembered how they used to clean up four-inch oak saplings and aspens.
+Many of them died in the snow.  The flocks of sheep, however, were
+driven down into the Basin in the fall, and across the Reno Pass to
+Phoenix and Maricopa.
+
+Ellen could not discover a fence post on the ranch, nor a piece of salt
+for the horses and cattle, nor a wagon, nor any sign of a
+sheep-shearing outfit.  She had never seen any sheep sheared. Ellen
+could never keep track of the many and different horses running loose
+and hobbled round the ranch.  There were droves of horses in the woods,
+and some of them wild as deer.  According to her long-established
+understanding, her father and her uncles were keen on horse trading and
+buying.
+
+Then the many trails leading away from the Jorth ranch--these grew to
+have a fascination for Ellen; and the time came when she rode out on
+them to see for herself where they led.  The sheep ranch of Daggs,
+supposed to be only a few miles across the ridges, down in Bear Canyon,
+never materialized at all for Ellen.  This circumstance so interested
+her that she went up to see her friend Sprague and got him to direct
+her to Bear Canyon, so that she would be sure not to miss it.  And she
+rode from the narrow, maple-thicketed head of it near the Rim down all
+its length.  She found no ranch, no cabin, not even a corral in Bear
+Canyon.  Sprague said there was only one canyon by that name.  Daggs
+had assured her of the exact location on his place, and so had her
+father.  Had they lied?  Were they mistaken in the canyon?  There were
+many canyons, all heading up near the Rim, all running and widening
+down for miles through the wooded mountain, and vastly different from
+the deep, short, yellow-walled gorges that cut into the Rim from the
+Basin side. Ellen investigated the canyons within six or eight miles of
+her home, both to east and to west.  All she discovered was a couple of
+old log cabins, long deserted.  Still, she did not follow out all the
+trails to their ends.  Several of them led far into the deepest,
+roughest, wildest brakes of gorge and thicket that she had seen.  No
+cattle or sheep had ever been driven over these trails.
+
+This riding around of Ellen's at length got to her father's ears. Ellen
+expected that a bitter quarrel would ensue, for she certainly would
+refuse to be confined to the camp; but her father only asked her to
+limit her riding to the meadow valley, and straightway forgot all about
+it.  In fact, his abstraction one moment, his intense nervousness the
+next, his harder drinking and fiercer harangues with the men, grew to
+be distressing for Ellen.  They presaged his further deterioration and
+the ever-present evil of the growing feud.
+
+One day Jorth rode home in the early morning, after an absence of two
+nights.  Ellen heard the clip-clop of, horses long before she saw them.
+
+"Hey, Ellen!  Come out heah," called her father.
+
+Ellen left her work and went outside.  A stranger had ridden in with
+her father, a young giant whose sharp-featured face appeared marked by
+ferret-like eyes and a fine, light, fuzzy beard.  He was long, loose
+jointed, not heavy of build, and he had the largest hands and feet
+Ellen bad ever seen.  Next Ellen espied a black horse they had
+evidently brought with them.  Her father was holding a rope halter.  At
+once the black horse struck Ellen as being a beauty and a thoroughbred.
+
+"Ellen, heah's a horse for you," said Jorth, with something of pride.
+"I made a trade.  Reckon I wanted him myself, but he's too gentle for
+me an' maybe a little small for my weight."
+
+Delight visited Ellen for the first time in many days.  Seldom had she
+owned a good horse, and never one like this.
+
+"Oh, dad!" she exclaimed, in her gratitude.
+
+"Shore he's yours on one condition," said her father.
+
+"What's that?" asked Ellen, as she laid caressing hands on the restless
+horse.
+
+"You're not to ride him out of the canyon."
+
+"Agreed.... All daid black, isn't he, except that white face? What's
+his name, dad?
+
+"I forgot to ask," replied Jorth, as he began unsaddling his own horse.
+"Slater, what's this heah black's name?"
+
+The lanky giant grinned.  "I reckon it was Spades."
+
+"Spades?" ejaculated Ellen, blankly.  "What a name! ... Well, I guess
+it's as good as any.  He's shore black."
+
+"Ellen, keep him hobbled when you're not ridin' him," was her father's
+parting advice as he walked off with the stranger.
+
+Spades was wet and dusty and his satiny skin quivered.  He had fine,
+dark, intelligent eyes that watched Ellen's every move.  She knew how
+her father and his friends dragged and jammed horses through the woods
+and over the rough trails.  It did not take her long to discover that
+this horse had been a pet.  Ellen cleaned his coat and brushed him and
+fed him.  Then she fitted her bridle to suit his head and saddled him.
+His evident response to her kindness assured her that he was gentle, so
+she mounted and rode him, to discover he had the easiest gait she had
+ever experienced.  He walked and trotted to suit her will, but when
+left to choose his own gait he fell into a graceful little pace that
+was very easy for her.  He appeared quite ready to break into a run at
+her slightest bidding, but Ellen satisfied herself on this first ride
+with his slower gaits.
+
+"Spades, y'u've shore cut out my burro Jinny," said Ellen, regretfully.
+"Well, I reckon women are fickle."
+
+Next day she rode up the canyon to show Spades to her friend John
+Sprague.  The old burro breeder was not at home.  As his door was open,
+however, and a fire smoldering, Ellen concluded he would soon return.
+So she waited.  Dismounting, she left Spades free to graze on the new
+green grass that carpeted the ground.  The cabin and little level
+clearing accentuated the loneliness and wildness of the forest. Ellen
+always liked it here and had once been in the habit of visiting the old
+man often.  But of late she had stayed away, for the reason that
+Sprague's talk and his news and his poorly hidden pity depressed her.
+
+Presently she heard hoof beats on the hard, packed trail leading down
+the canyon in the direction from which she had come.  Scarcely likely
+was it that Sprague should return from this direction.  Ellen thought
+her father had sent one of the herders for her.  But when she caught a
+glimpse of the approaching horseman, down in the aspens, she failed to
+recognize him.  After he had passed one of the openings she heard his
+horse stop.  Probably the man had seen her; at least she could not
+otherwise account for his stopping.  The glimpse she had of him had
+given her the impression that he was bending over, peering ahead in the
+trail, looking for tracks.  Then she heard the rider come on again,
+more slowly this time.  At length the horse trotted out into the
+opening, to be hauled up short.  Ellen recognized the buckskin-clad
+figure, the broad shoulders, the dark face of Jean Isbel.
+
+Ellen felt prey to the strangest quaking sensation she had ever
+suffered. It took violence of her new-born spirit to subdue that
+feeling.
+
+Isbel rode slowly across the clearing toward her.  For Ellen his
+approach seemed singularly swift--so swift that her surprise, dismay,
+conjecture, and anger obstructed her will.  The outwardly calm and cold
+Ellen Jorth was a travesty that mocked her--that she felt he would
+discern.
+
+The moment Isbel drew close enough for Ellen to see his face she
+experienced a strong, shuddering repetition of her first shock of
+recognition.  He was not the same.  The light, the youth was gone.
+This, however, did not cause her emotion.  Was it not a sudden
+transition of her nature to the dominance of hate?  Ellen seemed to
+feel the shadow of her unknown self standing with her.
+
+Isbel halted his horse.  Ellen had been standing near the trunk of a
+fallen pine and she instinctively backed against it.  How her legs
+trembled!  Isbel took off his cap and crushed it nervously in his bare,
+brown hand.
+
+"Good mornin', Miss Ellen!" he said.
+
+Ellen did not return his greeting, but queried, almost breathlessly,
+"Did y'u come by our ranch?"
+
+"No. I circled," he replied.
+
+"Jean Isbel!  What do y'u want heah?" she demanded.
+
+"Don't you know?" he returned.  His eyes were intensely black and
+piercing.  They seemed to search Ellen's very soul.  To meet their gaze
+was an ordeal that only her rousing fury sustained.
+
+Ellen felt on her lips a scornful allusion to his half-breed Indian
+traits and the reputation that had preceded him.  But she could not
+utter it.
+
+"No," she replied.
+
+"It's hard to call a woman a liar," he returned, bitterly.  But you
+must be--seein' you're a Jorth.
+
+"Liar!  Not to y'u, Jean Isbel," she retorted.  "I'd not lie to y'u to
+save my life."
+
+He studied her with keen, sober, moody intent.  The dark fire of his
+eyes thrilled her.
+
+"If that's true, I'm glad," he said.
+
+"Shore it's true.  I've no idea why y'u came heah."
+
+Ellen did have a dawning idea that she could not force into oblivion.
+But if she ever admitted it to her consciousness, she must fail in the
+contempt and scorn and fearlessness she chose to throw in this man's
+face.
+
+"Does old Sprague live here?" asked Isbel.
+
+"Yes.  I expect him back soon.... Did y'u come to see him?"
+
+"No.... Did Sprague tell you anythin' about the row he saw me in?"
+
+"He--did not," replied Ellen, lying with stiff lips.  She who had sworn
+she could not lie!  She felt the hot blood leaving her heart, mounting
+in a wave.  All her conscious will seemed impelled to deceive.  What
+had she to hide from Jean Isbel?  And a still, small voice replied that
+she had to hide the Ellen Jorth who had waited for him that day, who
+had spied upon him, who had treasured a gift she could not destroy, who
+had hugged to her miserable heart the fact that he had fought for her
+name.
+
+"I'm glad of that," Isbel was saying, thoughtfully.
+
+"Did you come heah to see me?" interrupted Ellen.  She felt that she
+could not endure this reiterated suggestion of fineness, of
+consideration in him.  She would betray herself--betray what she did
+not even realize herself.  She must force other footing--and that
+should be the one of strife between the Jorths and Isbels.
+
+"No--honest, I didn't, Miss Ellen," he rejoined, humbly.  "I'll tell
+you, presently, why I came.  But it wasn't to see you.... I don't deny
+I wanted ... but that's no matter.  You didn't meet me that day on the
+Rim."
+
+"Meet y'u!" she echoed, coldly.   "Shore y'u never expected me?"
+
+"Somehow I did," he replied, with those penetrating eyes on her. "I put
+somethin' in your tent that day.  Did you find it?"
+
+"Yes," she replied, with the same casual coldness.
+
+"What did you do with it?"
+
+"I kicked it out, of course," she replied.
+
+She saw him flinch.
+
+"And you never opened it?"
+
+"Certainly not," she retorted, as if forced.  "Doon't y'u know anythin'
+about--about people? ... Shore even if y'u are an Isbel y'u never were
+born in Texas."
+
+"Thank God I wasn't!" he replied.  "I was born in a beautiful country
+of green meadows and deep forests and white rivers, not in a barren
+desert where men live dry and hard as the cactus.  Where I come from
+men don't live on hate.  They can forgive."
+
+"Forgive! ... Could y'u forgive a Jorth?"
+
+"Yes, I could."
+
+"Shore that's easy to say--with the wrongs all on your side," she
+declared, bitterly.
+
+"Ellen Jorth, the first wrong was on your side," retorted Jean, his
+voice fall.  "Your father stole my father's sweetheart--by lies, by
+slander, by dishonor, by makin' terrible love to her in his absence."
+
+"It's a lie," cried Ellen, passionately.
+
+"It is not," he declared, solemnly.
+
+"Jean Isbel, I say y'u lie!"
+
+"No!  I say you've been lied to," he thundered.
+
+The tremendous force of his spirit seemed to fling truth at Ellen. It
+weakened her.
+
+"But--mother loved dad--best."
+
+"Yes, afterward.  No wonder, poor woman! ... But it was the action of
+your father and your mother that ruined all these lives.  You've got to
+know the truth, Ellen Jorth.... All the years of hate have borne their
+fruit.  God Almighty can never save us now.  Blood must be spilled.
+The Jorths and the Isbels can't live on the same earth.... And you've
+got to know the truth because the worst of this hell falls on you and
+me."
+
+The hate that he spoke of alone upheld her.
+
+"Never, Jean Isbel!" she cried.  "I'll never know truth from y'u....
+I'll never share anythin' with y'u--not even hell."
+
+Isbel dismounted and stood before her, still holding his bridle reins.
+The bay horse champed his bit and tossed his head.
+
+"Why do you hate me so?" he asked.  "I just happen to be my father's
+son. I never harmed you or any of your people.  I met you ... fell in
+love with you in a flash--though I never knew it till after.... Why do
+you hate me so terribly?"
+
+Ellen felt a heavy, stifling pressure within her breast.  "Y'u're an
+Isbel.... Doon't speak of love to me."
+
+"I didn't intend to.  But your--your hate seems unnatural.  And we'll
+probably never meet again.... I can't help it.  I love you.  Love at
+first sight!  Jean Isbel and Ellen Jorth!  Strange, isn't it? ... It
+was all so strange.  My meetin' you so lonely and unhappy, my seein'
+you so sweet and beautiful, my thinkin' you so good in spite of--"
+
+"Shore it was strange," interrupted Ellen, with scornful laugh. She had
+found her defense.  In hurting him she could hide her own hurt.
+"Thinking me so good in spite of--  Ha-ha!  And I said I'd been kissed
+before!"
+
+"Yes, in spite of everything," he said.
+
+Ellen could not look at him as he loomed over her.  She felt a wild
+tumult in her heart.  All that crowded to her lips for utterance was
+false.
+
+"Yes--kissed before I met you--and since," she said, mockingly. "And I
+laugh at what y'u call love, Jean Isbel."
+
+"Laugh if you want--but believe it was sweet, honorable--the best in
+me," he replied, in deep earnestness.
+
+"Bah!" cried Ellen, with all the force of her pain and shame and hate.
+
+"By Heaven, you must be different from what I thought!" exclaimed
+Isbel, huskily.
+
+"Shore if I wasn't, I'd make myself.... Now, Mister Jean Isbel, get on
+your horse an' go!"
+
+Something of composure came to Ellen with these words of dismissal, and
+she glanced up at him with half-veiled eyes.  His changed aspect
+prepared her for some blow.
+
+"That's a pretty black horse."
+
+"Yes," replied Ellen, blankly.
+
+"Do you like him?"
+
+"I--I love him."
+
+"All right, I'll give him to you then.  He'll have less work and kinder
+treatment than if I used him.  I've got some pretty hard rides ahead of
+me."
+
+"Y'u--y'u give--" whispered Ellen, slowly stiffening.  "Yes.  He's
+mine," replied Isbel.  With that he turned to whistle.  Spades threw up
+his head, snorted, and started forward at a trot.  He came faster the
+closer he got, and if ever Ellen saw the joy of a horse at sight of a
+beloved master she saw it then.  Isbel laid a hand on the animal's neck
+and caressed him, then, turning back to Ellen, he went on speaking: "I
+picked him from a lot of fine horses of my father's.  We got along
+well.  My sister Ann rode him a good deal.... He was stolen from our
+pasture day before yesterday.  I took his trail and tracked him up
+here.  Never lost his trail till I got to your ranch, where I had to
+circle till I picked it up again."
+
+"Stolen--pasture--tracked him up heah?" echoed Ellen, without any
+evidence of emotion whatever.  Indeed, she seemed to have been turned
+to stone.
+
+"Trackin' him was easy.  I wish for your sake it 'd been impossible,"
+he said, bluntly.
+
+"For my sake?" she echoed, in precisely the same tone,
+
+Manifestly that tone irritated Isbel beyond control.  He misunderstood
+it.  With a hand far from gentle he pushed her bent head back so he
+could look into her face.
+
+"Yes, for your sake!" he declared, harshly.  "Haven't you sense enough
+to see that? ... What kind of a game do you think you can play with me?"
+
+"Game I ... Game of what?" she asked.
+
+"Why, a--a game of ignorance--innocence--any old game to fool a man
+who's tryin' to be decent."
+
+This time Ellen mutely looked her dull, blank questioning.  And it
+inflamed Isbel.
+
+"You know your father's a horse thief!" he thundered.
+
+Outwardly Ellen remained the same.  She had been prepared for an
+unknown and a terrible blow.  It had fallen.  And her face, her body,
+her hands, locked with the supreme fortitude of pride and sustained by
+hate, gave no betrayal of the crashing, thundering ruin within her mind
+and soul.  Motionless she leaned there, meeting the piercing fire of
+Isbel's eyes, seeing in them a righteous and terrible scorn.  In one
+flash the naked truth seemed blazed at her.  The faith she had fostered
+died a sudden death.  A thousand perplexing problems were solved in a
+second of whirling, revealing thought.
+
+"Ellen Jorth, you know your father's in with this Hash Knife Gang of
+rustlers," thundered Isbel.
+
+"Shore," she replied, with the cool, easy, careless defiance of a Texan.
+
+"You know he's got this Daggs to lead his faction against the Isbels?"
+
+"Shore."
+
+"You know this talk of sheepmen buckin' the cattlemen is all a blind?"
+
+"Shore," reiterated Ellen.
+
+Isbel gazed darkly down upon her.  With his anger spent for the moment,
+he appeared ready to end the interview.  But he seemed fascinated by
+the strange look of her, by the incomprehensible something she
+emanated. Havoc gleamed in his pale, set face.  He shook his dark head
+and his broad hand went to his breast.
+
+"To think I fell in love with such as you!" he exclaimed, and his other
+hand swept out in a tragic gesture of helpless pathos and impotence.
+
+The hell Isbel had hinted at now possessed Ellen--body, mind, and soul.
+Disgraced, scorned by an Isbel!  Yet loved by him!  In that divination
+there flamed up a wild, fierce passion to hurt, to rend, to flay, to
+fling back upon him a stinging agony.  Her thought flew upon her like
+whips.  Pride of the Jorths!  Pride of the old Texan blue blood!  It
+lay dead at her feet, killed by the scornful words of the last of that
+family to whom she owed her degradation.  Daughter of a horse thief and
+rustler!  Dark and evil and grim set the forces within her, accepting
+her fate, damning her enemies, true to the blood of the Jorths.  The
+sins of the father must be visited upon the daughter.
+
+"Shore y'u might have had me--that day on the Rim--if y'u hadn't told
+your name," she said, mockingly, and she gazed into his eyes with all
+the mystery of a woman's nature.
+
+Isbel's powerful frame shook as with an ague.  "Girl, what do you mean?"
+
+"Shore, I'd have been plumb fond of havin' y'u make up to me," she
+drawled.  It possessed her now with irresistible power, this fact of
+the love he could not help.  Some fiendish woman's satisfaction dwelt
+in her consciousness of her power to kill the noble, the faithful, the
+good in him.
+
+"Ellen Jorth, you lie!" he burst out, hoarsely.
+
+"Jean, shore I'd been a toy and a rag for these rustlers long enough. I
+was tired of them.... I wanted a new lover.... And if y'u hadn't give
+yourself away--"
+
+Isbel moved so swiftly that she did not realize his intention until his
+hard hand smote her mouth.  Instantly she tasted the hot, salty blood
+from a cut lip.
+
+"Shut up, you hussy!" he ordered, roughly.  "Have you no shame? ... My
+sister Ann spoke well of you.  She made excuses--she pitied you."
+
+That for Ellen seemed the culminating blow under which she almost sank.
+But one moment longer could she maintain this unnatural and terrible
+poise.
+
+"Jean Isbel--go along with y'u," she said, impatiently.  "I'm waiting
+heah for Simm Bruce!"
+
+At last it was as if she struck his heart.  Because of doubt of himself
+and a stubborn faith in her, his passion and jealousy were not proof
+against this last stab.  Instinctive subtlety inherent in Ellen had
+prompted the speech that tortured Isbel.  How the shock to him
+rebounded on her!  She gasped as he lunged for her, too swift for her
+to move a hand.  One arm crushed round her like a steel band; the
+other, hard across her breast and neck, forced her head back.  Then she
+tried to wrestle away.  But she was utterly powerless.  His dark face
+bent down closer and closer.  Suddenly Ellen ceased trying to struggle.
+She was like a stricken creature paralyzed by the piercing, hypnotic
+eyes of a snake.  Yet in spite of her terror, if he meant death by her,
+she welcomed it.
+
+"Ellen Jorth, I'm thinkin' yet--you lie!" he said, low and tense
+between his teeth.
+
+"No!  No!" she screamed, wildly.  Her nerve broke there.  She could no
+longer meet those terrible black eyes.  Her passionate denial was not
+only the last of her shameful deceit; it was the woman of her,
+repudiating herself and him, and all this sickening, miserable
+situation.
+
+Isbel took her literally.  She had convinced him.  And the instant held
+blank horror for Ellen.
+
+"By God--then I'll have somethin'--of you anyway!" muttered Isbel,
+thickly.
+
+Ellen saw the blood bulge in his powerful neck.  She saw his dark, hard
+face, strange now, fearful to behold, come lower and lower, till it
+blurred and obstructed her gaze.  She felt the swell and ripple and
+stretch--then the bind of his muscles, like huge coils of elastic rope.
+Then with savage rude force his mouth closed on hers.  All Ellen's
+senses reeled, as if she were swooning.  She was suffocating.  The
+spasm passed, and a bursting spurt of blood revived her to acute and
+terrible consciousness.  For the endless period of one moment he held
+her so that her breast seemed crushed.  His kisses burned and braised
+her lips.  And then, shifting violently to her neck, they pressed so
+hard that she choked under them.  It was as if a huge bat had fastened
+upon her throat.
+
+Suddenly the remorseless binding embraces--the hot and savage
+kisses--fell away from her.  Isbel had let go.  She saw him throw up
+his hands, and stagger back a little, all the while with his piercing
+gaze on her. His face had been dark purple: now it was white.
+
+"No--Ellen Jorth," he panted, "I don't--want any of you--that way." And
+suddenly he sank on the log and covered his face with his hands. "What
+I loved in you--was what I thought--you were."
+
+Like a wildcat Ellen sprang upon him, beating him with her fists,
+tearing at his hair, scratching his face, in a blind fury.  Isbel made
+no move to stop her, and her violence spent itself with her strength.
+She swayed back from him, shaking so that she could scarcely stand.
+
+"Y'u--damned--Isbel!" she gasped, with hoarse passion.  "Y'u insulted
+me!"
+
+"Insulted you?..." laughed Isbel, in bitter scorn.  "It couldn't be
+done."
+
+"Oh! ... I'll KILL y'u!" she hissed.
+
+Isbel stood up and wiped the red scratches on his face.  "Go ahead.
+There's my gun," he said, pointing to his saddle sheath.  "Somebody's
+got to begin this Jorth-Isbel feud.  It'll be a dirty business.  I'm
+sick of it already.... Kill me! ... First blood for Ellen Jorth!"
+
+Suddenly the dark grim tide that had seemed to engulf Ellen's very soul
+cooled and receded, leaving her without its false  strength.  She began
+to sag.  She stared at Isbel's gun.  "Kill him," whispered the
+retreating voices of her hate.  But she was as powerless as if she were
+still held in Jean Isbel's giant embrace.
+
+"I--I want to--kill y'u," she whispered, "but I cain't.... Leave me."
+
+"You're no Jorth--the same as I'm no Isbel.  We oughtn't be mixed in
+this deal," he said, somberly.  "I'm sorrier for you than I am for
+myself.... You're a girl.... You once had a good mother--a decent home.
+And this life you've led here--mean as it's been--is nothin' to what
+you'll face now.  Damn the men that brought you to this!  I'm goin' to
+kill some of them."
+
+With that he mounted and turned away.  Ellen called out for him to take
+his horse.  He did not stop nor look back.  She called again, but her
+voice was fainter, and Isbel was now leaving at a trot.  Slowly she
+sagged against the tree, lower and lower.  He headed into the trail
+leading up the canyon.  How strange a relief Ellen felt!  She watched
+him ride into the aspens and start up the slope, at last to disappear
+in the pines.  It seemed at the moment that he took with him something
+which had been hers.  A pain in her head dulled the thoughts that
+wavered to and fro.  After he had gone she could not see so well. Her
+eyes were tired.  What had happened to her?  There was blood on her
+hands.  Isbel's blood!  She shuddered.  Was it an omen?  Lower she sank
+against the tree and closed her eyes.
+
+Old John Sprague did not return.  Hours dragged by--dark hours for
+Ellen Jorth lying prostrate beside the tree, hiding the blue sky and
+golden sunlight from her eyes.  At length the lethargy of despair, the
+black dull misery wore away; and she gradually returned to a condition
+of coherent thought.
+
+What had she learned?  Sight of the black horse grazing near seemed to
+prompt the trenchant replies.  Spades belonged to Jean Isbel.  He had
+been stolen by her father or by one of her father's accomplices.
+Isbel's vaunted cunning as a tracker had been no idle boast.  Her
+father was a horse thief, a rustler, a sheepman only as a blind, a
+consort of Daggs, leader of the Hash Knife Gang.  Ellen well remembered
+the ill repute of that gang, way back in Texas, years ago. Her father
+had gotten in with this famous band of rustlers to serve his own
+ends--the extermination of the Isbels.  It was all very plain now to
+Ellen.
+
+"Daughter of a horse thief an' rustler!" she muttered.
+
+And her thoughts sped back to the days of her girlhood.  Only the very
+early stage of that time had been happy.  In the light of Isbel's
+revelation the many changes of residence, the sudden moves to unsettled
+parts of Texas, the periods of poverty and sudden prosperity, all
+leading to the final journey to this God-forsaken Arizona--these were
+now seen in their true significance.  As far back as she could remember
+her father had been a crooked man.  And her mother had known it.  He
+had dragged her to her ruin.  That degradation had killed her. Ellen
+realized that with poignant sorrow, with a sudden revolt against her
+father.  Had Gaston Isbel truly and dishonestly started her father on
+his downhill road?  Ellen wondered.  She hated the Isbels with
+unutterable and growing hate, yet she had it in her to think, to
+ponder, to weigh judgments in their behalf.  She owed it to something
+in herself to be fair.  But what did it matter who was to blame for the
+Jorth-Isbel feud?  Somehow Ellen was forced to confess that deep in her
+soul it mattered terribly.  To be true to herself--the self that she
+alone knew--she must have right on her side.  If the Jorths were
+guilty, and she clung to them and their creed, then she would be one of
+them.
+
+"But I'm not," she mused, aloud.  "My name's Jorth, an' I reckon I have
+bad blood.... But it never came out in me till to-day.  I've been
+honest.  I've been good--yes, GOOD, as my mother taught me to be--in
+spite of all.... Shore my pride made me a fool.... An' now have I any
+choice to make?  I'm a Jorth.  I must stick to my father."
+
+All this summing up, however, did not wholly account for the pang in
+her breast.
+
+What had she done that day?  And the answer beat in her ears like a
+great throbbing hammer-stroke.  In an agony of shame, in the throes of
+hate, she had perjured herself.  She had sworn away her honor.  She had
+basely made herself vile.  She had struck ruthlessly at the great heart
+of a man who loved her.  Ah!  That thrust had rebounded to leave this
+dreadful pang in her breast.  Loved her?  Yes, the strange truth, the
+insupportable truth!  She had to contend now, not with her father and
+her disgrace, not with the baffling presence of Jean Isbel, but with
+the mysteries of her own soul.  Wonder of all wonders was it that such
+love had been born for her. Shame worse than all other shame was it
+that she should kill it by a poisoned lie.  By what monstrous motive
+had she done that?  To sting Isbel as he had stung her!  But that had
+been base.  Never could she have stopped so low except in a moment of
+tremendous tumult.  If she had done sore injury to Isbel what bad she
+done to herself?  How strange, how tenacious had been his faith in her
+honor!  Could she ever forget?  She must forget it.  But she could
+never forget the way he had scorned those vile men in Greaves's
+store--the way he had beaten Bruce for defiling her name--the way he
+had stubbornly denied her own insinuations.  She was a woman now.  She
+had learned something of the complexity of a woman's heart.  She could
+not change nature.  And all her passionate being thrilled to the
+manhood of her defender.  But even while she thrilled she acknowledged
+her hate. It was the contention between the two that caused the pang in
+her breast.  "An' now what's left for me?" murmured Ellen.  She did not
+analyze the significance of what had prompted that query.  The most
+incalculable of the day's disclosures was the wrong she had done
+herself.  "Shore I'm done for, one way or another.... I must stick to
+Dad.... or kill myself?"
+
+Ellen rode Spades back to the ranch.  She rode like the wind.  When she
+swung out of the trail into the open meadow in plain sight of the ranch
+her appearance created a commotion among the loungers before the cabin.
+She rode Spades at a full run.
+
+"Who's after you?" yelled her father, as she pulled the black to a
+halt. Jorth held a rifle.  Daggs, Colter, the other Jorths were there,
+likewise armed, and all watchful, strung with expectancy.
+
+"Shore nobody's after me," replied Ellen.  "Cain't I run a horse round
+heah without being chased?"
+
+Jorth appeared both incensed and relieved.
+
+"Hah! ... What you mean, girl, runnin' like a streak right down on us?
+You're actin' queer these days, an' you look queer. I'm not likin' it."
+
+"Reckon these are queer times--for the Jorths," replied Ellen,
+sarcastically.
+
+"Daggs found strange horse tracks crossin' the meadow," said her
+father. "An' that worried us.  Some one's been snoopin' round the
+ranch.  An' when we seen you runnin' so wild we shore thought you was
+bein' chased."
+
+"No.  I was only trying out Spades to see how fast he could run,"
+returned Ellen.  "Reckon when we do get chased it'll take some running
+to catch me."
+
+"Haw! Haw!" roared Daggs.  "It shore will, Ellen."
+
+"Girl, it's not only your runnin' an' your looks that's queer,"
+declared Jorth, in dark perplexity.  "You talk queer."
+
+"Shore, dad, y'u're not used to hearing spades called spades," said
+Ellen, as she dismounted.
+
+"Humph!" ejaculated her father, as if convinced of the uselessness of
+trying to understand a woman.  "Say, did you see any strange horse
+tracks?"
+
+"I reckon I did.  And I know who made them."
+
+Jorth stiffened.  All the men behind him showed a sudden intensity of
+suspense.
+
+"Who?" demanded Jorth.
+
+"Shore it was Jean Isbel," replied Ellen, coolly.  "He came up heah
+tracking his black horse."
+
+"Jean--Isbel--trackin'--his--black horse," repeated her father.
+
+"Yes.  He's not overrated as a tracker, that's shore."
+
+Blank silence ensued.  Ellen cast a slow glance over her father and the
+others, then she began to loosen the cinches of her saddle. Presently
+Jorth burst the silence with a curse, and Daggs followed with one of
+his sardonic laughs.
+
+"Wal, boss, what did I tell you?" he drawled.
+
+Jorth strode to Ellen, and, whirling her around with a strong hand, he
+held her facing him.
+
+"Did y'u see Isbel?"
+
+"Yes," replied Ellen, just as sharply as her father had asked.
+
+"Did y'u talk to him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What did he want up heah?"
+
+"I told y'u.  He was tracking the black horse y'u stole."
+
+Jorth's hand and arm dropped limply.  His sallow face turned a livid
+hue. Amaze merged into discomfiture and that gave place to rage.  He
+raised a hand as if to strike Ellen.  And suddenly Daggs's long arm
+shot out to clutch Jorth's wrist.  Wrestling to free himself, Jorth
+cursed under his breath.  "Let go, Daggs," he shouted, stridently.  "Am
+I drunk that you grab me?"
+
+"Wal, y'u ain't drunk, I reckon," replied the rustler, with sarcasm.
+"But y'u're shore some things I'll reserve for your private ear."
+
+Jorth gained a semblance of composure.  But it was evident that he
+labored under a shock.
+
+"Ellen, did Jean Isbel see this black horse?"
+
+"Yes.  He asked me how I got Spades an' I told him."
+
+"Did he say Spades belonged to him?"
+
+"Shore I reckon he, proved it.  Y'u can always tell a horse that loves
+its master."
+
+"Did y'u offer to give Spades back?"
+
+"Yes.  But Isbel wouldn't take him."
+
+"Hah! ... An' why not?"
+
+"He said he'd rather I kept him.  He was about to engage in a dirty,
+blood-spilling deal, an' he reckoned he'd not be able to care for a
+fine horse.... I didn't want Spades.  I tried to make Isbel take him.
+But he rode off.... And that's all there is to that."
+
+"Maybe it's not," replied Jorth, chewing his mustache and eying Ellen
+with dark, intent gaze.  "Y'u've met this Isbel twice."
+
+"It wasn't any fault of mine," retorted Ellen.
+
+"I heah he's sweet on y'u.  How aboot that?"
+
+Ellen smarted under the blaze of blood that swept to neck and cheek and
+temple.  But it was only memory which fired this shame.  What her
+father and his crowd might think were matters of supreme indifference.
+Yet she met his suspicious gaze with truthful blazing eyes.
+
+"I heah talk from Bruce an' Lorenzo," went on her father.  "An' Daggs
+heah--"
+
+"Daggs nothin'!" interrupted that worthy.  "Don't fetch me in.  I said
+nothin' an' I think nothin'."
+
+"Yes, Jean Isbel was sweet on me, dad ... but he will never be again,"
+returned Ellen, in low tones.  With that she pulled her saddle off
+Spades and, throwing it over her shoulder, she walked off to her cabin.
+
+Hardly had she gotten indoors when her father entered.
+
+"Ellen, I didn't know that horse belonged to Isbel," he began, in the
+swift, hoarse, persuasive voice so familiar to Ellen.  "I swear I
+didn't. I bought him--traded with Slater for him.... Honest to God, I
+never had any idea he was stolen! ... Why, when y'u said 'that horse
+y'u stole,'  I felt as if y'u'd knifed me...."
+
+Ellen sat at the table and listened while her father paced to and fro
+and, by his restless action and passionate speech, worked himself into
+a frenzy.  He talked incessantly, as if her silence was condemnatory
+and as if eloquence alone could convince her of his honesty.  It seemed
+that Ellen saw and heard with keener faculties than ever before. He had
+a terrible thirst for her respect.  Not so much for her love, she
+divined, but that she would not see how he had fallen!
+
+She pitied him with all her heart.  She was all he had, as he was all
+the world to her.  And so, as she gave ear to his long, illogical
+rigmarole of argument and defense, she slowly found that her pity and
+her love were making vital decisions for her.  As of old, in poignant
+moments, her father lapsed at last into a denunciation of the Isbels
+and what they had brought him to.  His sufferings were real, at least,
+in Ellen's presence.  She was the only link that bound him to long-past
+happier times.  She was her mother over again--the woman who had
+betrayed another man for him and gone with him to her ruin and death.
+
+"Dad, don't go on so," said Ellen, breaking in upon her father's rant.
+"I will be true to y'u--as my mother was.... I am a Jorth.  Your place
+is my place--your fight is my fight.... Never speak of the past to me
+again.  If God spares us through this feud we will go away and begin
+all over again, far off where no one ever heard of a Jorth.... If we're
+not spared we'll at least have had our whack at these damned Isbels."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+During June Jean Isbel did not ride far away from Grass Valley.
+
+Another attempt had been made upon Gaston Isbel's life.  Another
+cowardly shot had been fired from ambush, this time from a pine thicket
+bordering the trail that led to Blaisdell's ranch.  Blaisdell heard
+this shot, so near his home was it fired.  No trace of the hidden foe
+could be found.  The 'ground all around that vicinity bore a carpet of
+pine needles which showed no trace of footprints.  The supposition was
+that this cowardly attempt had been perpetrated, or certainly
+instigated, by the Jorths.  But there was no proof.  And Gaston Isbel
+had other enemies in the Tonto Basin besides the sheep clan.  The old
+man raged like a lion about this sneaking attack on him.  And his
+friend Blaisdell urged an immediate gathering of their kin and friends.
+"Let's quit ranchin' till this trouble's settled," he declared.  "Let's
+arm an' ride the trails an' meet these men half-way.... It won't help
+our side any to wait till you're shot in the back."  More than one of
+Isbel's supporters offered the same advice.
+
+"No; we'll wait till we know for shore," was the stubborn cattleman's
+reply to all these promptings.
+
+"Know!  Wal, hell!  Didn't Jean find the black hoss up at Jorth's
+ranch?" demanded Blaisdell.  "What more do we want?"
+
+"Jean couldn't swear Jorth stole the black."
+
+"Wal, by thunder, I can swear to it!" growled Blaisdell.  "An' we're
+losin' cattle all the time.  Who's stealin' 'em?"
+
+"We've always lost cattle ever since we started ranchin' heah."
+
+"Gas, I reckon yu want Jorth to start this fight in the open."
+
+"It'll start soon enough," was Isbel's gloomy reply.
+
+Jean had not failed altogether in his tracking of lost or stolen
+cattle. Circumstances had been against him, and there was something
+baffling about this rustling.  The summer storms set in early, and it
+had been his luck to have heavy rains wash out fresh tracks that he
+might have followed.  The range was large and cattle were everywhere.
+Sometimes a loss was not discovered for weeks.  Gaston Isbel's sons
+were now the only men left to ride the range.  Two of his riders had
+quit because of the threatened war, and Isbel had let another go.  So
+that Jean did not often learn that cattle had been stolen until their
+tracks were old. Added to that was the fact that this Grass Valley
+country was covered with horse tracks and cattle tracks.  The rustlers,
+whoever they were, had long been at the game, and now that there was
+reason for them to show their cunning they did it.
+
+Early in July the hot weather came.  Down on the red ridges of the
+Tonto it was hot desert.  The nights were cool, the early mornings were
+pleasant, but the day was something to endure.  When the white cumulus
+clouds rolled up out of the southwest, growing larger and thicker and
+darker, here and there coalescing into a black thundercloud, Jean
+welcomed them.  He liked to see the gray streamers of rain hanging down
+from a canopy of black, and the roar of rain on the trees as it
+approached like a trampling army was always welcome.  The grassy flats,
+the red ridges, the rocky slopes, the thickets of manzanita and scrub
+oak and cactus were dusty, glaring, throat-parching places under the
+hot summer sun.  Jean longed for the cool heights of the Rim, the shady
+pines, the dark sweet verdure under the silver spruces, the tinkle and
+murmur of the clear rills.  He often had another longing, too, which he
+bitterly stifled.
+
+Jean's ally, the keen-nosed shepherd clog, had disappeared one day, and
+had never returned.  Among men at the ranch there was a difference of
+opinion as to what had happened to Shepp.  The old rancher thought he
+had been poisoned or shot; Bill and Guy Isbel believed he had been
+stolen by sheep herders, who were always stealing dogs; and Jean
+inclined to the conviction that Shepp had gone off with the timber
+wolves.  The fact was that Shepp did not return, and Jean missed him.
+
+One morning at dawn Jean heard the cattle bellowing and trampling out
+in the valley; and upon hurrying to a vantage point he was amazed to
+see upward of five hundred steers chasing a lone wolf.  Jean's father
+had seen such a spectacle as this, but it was a new one for Jean.  The
+wolf was a big gray and black fellow, rangy and powerful, and until he
+got the steers all behind him he was rather hard put to it to keep out
+of their way.  Probably he had dogged the herd, trying to sneak in and
+pull down a yearling, and finally the steers had charged him. Jean kept
+along the edge of the valley in the hope they would chase him within
+range of a rifle.  But the wary wolf saw Jean and sheered off,
+gradually drawing away from his pursuers.
+
+Jean returned to the house for his breakfast, and then set off across
+the valley.  His father owned one small flock of sheep that had not yet
+been driven up on the Rim, where all the sheep in the country were run
+during the hot, dry summer down on the Tonto.  Young Evarts and a
+Mexican boy named Bernardino had charge of this flock.  The regular
+Mexican herder, a man of experience, had given up his job; and these
+boys were not equal to the task of risking the sheep up in the enemies'
+stronghold.
+
+This flock was known to be grazing in a side draw, well up from Grass
+Valley, where the brush afforded some protection from the sun, and
+there was good water and a little feed.  Before Jean reached his
+destination he heard a shot.  It was not a rifle shot, which fact
+caused Jean a little concern.  Evarts and Bernardino had rifles, but,
+to his knowledge, no small arms.  Jean rode up on one of the
+black-brushed conical hills that rose on the south side of Grass
+Valley, and from there he took a sharp survey of the country.  At first
+he made out only cattle, and bare meadowland, and the low encircling
+ridges and hills.  But presently up toward the head of the valley he
+descried a bunch of horsemen riding toward the village.  He could not
+tell their number.  That dark moving mass seemed to Jean to be instinct
+with life, mystery, menace.  Who were they?  It was too far for him to
+recognize horses, let alone riders.  They were moving fast, too.
+
+Jean watched them out of sight, then turned his horse downhill again,
+and rode on his quest.  A number of horsemen like that was a very
+unusual sight around Grass Valley at any time.  What then did it
+portend now?  Jean experienced a little shock of uneasy dread that was
+a new sensation for him.  Brooding over this he proceeded on his way,
+at length to turn into the draw where the camp of the sheep-herders was
+located.  Upon coming in sight of it he heard a hoarse shout.  Young
+Evarts appeared running frantically out of the brush.  Jean urged his
+horse into a run and soon covered the distance between them.  Evarts
+appeared beside himself with terror.
+
+"Boy! what's the matter?" queried Jean, as he dismounted, rifle in
+hand, peering quickly from Evarts's white face to the camp, and all
+around.
+
+"Ber-nardino!  Ber-nardino!" gasped the boy, wringing his hands and
+pointing.
+
+Jean ran the few remaining rods to the sheep camp.  He saw the little
+teepee, a burned-out fire, a half-finished meal--and then the Mexican
+lad lying prone on the ground, dead, with a bullet hole in his ghastly
+face.  Near him lay an old six-shooter.
+
+"Whose gun is that?" demanded Jean, as he picked it up.
+
+"Ber-nardino's," replied Evarts, huskily. "He--he jest got it--the
+other day."
+
+"Did he shoot himself accidentally?"
+
+"Oh no!  No!  He didn't do it--atall."
+
+"Who did, then?"
+
+"The men--they rode up--a gang-they did it," panted Evarts.
+
+"Did you know who they were?"
+
+"No. I couldn't tell.  I saw them comin' an' I was skeered. Bernardino
+had gone fer water.  I run an' hid in the brush.  I wanted to yell, but
+they come too close.... Then I heerd them talkin'.  Bernardino come
+back.  They 'peared friendly-like.  Thet made me raise up, to look. An'
+I couldn't see good.  I heerd one of them ask Bernardino to let him see
+his gun.  An' Bernardino handed it over.  He looked at the gun an'
+haw-hawed, an' flipped it up in the air, an' when it fell back in his
+hand it--it went off bang! ... An' Bernardino dropped.... I hid down
+close.  I was skeered stiff.  I heerd them talk more, but not what they
+said.  Then they rode away.... An' I hid there till I seen y'u comin'."
+
+"Have you got a horse?" queried Jean, sharply.
+
+"No. But I can ride one of Bernardino's burros."
+
+"Get one.  Hurry over to Blaisdell.  Tell him to send word to Blue and
+Gordon and Fredericks to ride like the devil to my father's ranch.
+Hurry now!"
+
+Young Evarts ran off without reply.  Jean stood looking down at the
+limp and pathetic figure of the Mexican boy.  "By Heaven!" he
+exclaimed, grimly "the Jorth-Isbel war is on! ... Deliberate,
+cold-blooded murder! I'll gamble Daggs did this job.  He's been given
+the leadership.  He's started it.... Bernardino, greaser or not, you
+were a faithful lad, and you won't go long unavenged."
+
+Jean had no time to spare.  Tearing a tarpaulin out of the teepee he
+covered the lad with it and then ran for, his horse.  Mounting, he
+galloped down the draw, over the little red ridges, out into the
+valley, where he put his horse to a run.
+
+Action changed the sickening horror that sight of Bernardino had
+engendered.  Jean even felt a strange, grim relief.  The long, dragging
+days of waiting were over.  Jorth's gang had taken the initiative.
+Blood had begun to flow.  And it would continue to flow now till the
+last man of one faction stood over the dead body of the last man of the
+other.  Would it be a Jorth or an Isbel?  "My instinct was right," he
+muttered, aloud.  "That bunch of horses gave me a queer feelin'." Jean
+gazed all around the grassy, cattle-dotted valley he was crossing so
+swiftly, and toward the village, but he did not see any sign of the
+dark group of riders.  They had gone on to Greaves's store, there, no
+doubt, to drink and to add more enemies of the Isbels to their gang.
+Suddenly across Jean's mind flashed a thought of Ellen Jorth.  "What
+'ll become of her? ... What 'll become of all the women?  My sister?
+... The little ones?"
+
+No one was in sight around the ranch.  Never had it appeared more
+peaceful and pastoral to Jean.  The grazing cattle and horses in the
+foreground, the haystack half eaten away, the cows in the fenced
+pasture, the column of blue smoke lazily ascending, the cackle of hens,
+the solid, well-built cabins--all these seemed to repudiate Jean's
+haste and his darkness of mind.  This place was, his father's farm.
+There was not a cloud in the blue, summer sky.
+
+As Jean galloped up the lane some one saw him from the door, and then
+Bill and Guy and their gray-headed father came out upon the porch. Jean
+saw how he' waved the womenfolk back, and then strode out into the
+lane.  Bill and Guy reached his side as Jean pulled his heaving horse
+to a halt.  They all looked at Jean, swiftly and intently, with a
+little, hard, fiery gleam strangely identical in the eyes of each.
+Probably before a word was spoken they knew what to expect.
+
+"Wal, you shore was in a hurry," remarked the father.
+
+"What the hell's up?" queried Bill, grimly.
+
+Guy Isbel remained silent and it was he who turned slightly pale. Jean
+leaped off his horse.
+
+"Bernardino has just been killed--murdered with his own gun."
+
+Gaston Isbel seemed to exhale a long-dammed, bursting breath that let
+his chest sag.  A terrible deadly glint, pale and cold as sunlight on
+ice, grew slowly to dominate his clear eyes.
+
+"A-huh!" ejaculated Bill Isbel, hoarsely.
+
+Not one of the three men asked who had done the killing.  They were
+silent a moment, motionless, locked in the secret seclusion of their
+own minds.  Then they listened with absorption to Jean's brief story.
+
+"Wal, that lets us in," said his father.  "I wish we had more time.
+Reckon I'd done better to listen to you boys an' have my men close at
+hand.  Jacobs happened to ride over.  That makes five of us besides the
+women."
+
+"Aw, dad, you don't reckon they'll round us up heah?" asked Guy Isbel.
+
+"Boys, I always feared they might," replied the old man.  "But I never
+really believed they'd have the nerve.  Shore I ought to have figgered
+Daggs better.  This heah secret bizness an' shootin' at us from ambush
+looked aboot Jorth's size to me.  But I reckon now we'll have to fight
+without our friends."
+
+"Let them come," said Jean.  "I sent for Blaisdell, Blue, Gordon, and
+Fredericks.  Maybe they'll get here in time.  But if they don't it
+needn't worry us much.  We can hold out here longer than Jorth's gang
+can hang around.  We'll want plenty of water, wood, and meat in the
+house."
+
+"Wal, I'll see to that," rejoined his father.  "Jean, you go out close
+by, where you can see all around, an' keep watch."
+
+"Who's goin' to tell the women?" asked Guy Isbel.
+
+The silence that momentarily ensued was an eloquent testimony to the
+hardest and saddest aspect of this strife between men.  The
+inevitableness of it in no wise detracted from its sheer uselessness.
+Men from time immemorial had hated, and killed one another, always to
+the misery and degradation of their women.  Old Gaston Isbel showed
+this tragic realization in his lined face.
+
+"Wal, boys, I'll tell the women," he said.  "Shore you needn't worry
+none aboot them.  They'll be game."
+
+Jean rode away to an open knoll a short distance from the house, and
+here he stationed himself to watch all points.  The cedared ridge back
+of the ranch was the one approach by which Jorth's gang might come
+close without being detected, but even so, Jean could see them and ride
+to the house in time to prevent a surprise.  The moments dragged by,
+and at the end of an hour Jean was in hopes that Blaisdell would soon
+come.  These hopes were well founded.  Presently he heard a clatter of
+hoofs on hard ground to the south, and upon wheeling to look he saw the
+friendly neighbor coming fast along the road, riding a big white horse.
+Blaisdell carried a rifle in his hand, and the sight of him gave Jean a
+glow of warmth.  He was one of the Texans who would stand by the Isbels
+to the last man.  Jean watched him ride to the house--watched the
+meeting between him and his lifelong friend. There floated out to Jean
+old Blaisdell's roar of rage.
+
+Then out on the green of Grass Valley, where a long, swelling plain
+swept away toward the village, there appeared a moving dark patch. A
+bunch of horses!  Jean's body gave a slight start--the shock of sudden
+propulsion of blood through all his veins.  Those horses bore riders.
+They were coming straight down the open valley, on the wagon road to
+Isbel's ranch.  No subterfuge nor secrecy nor sneaking in that advance!
+A hot thrill ran over Jean.
+
+"By Heaven!  They mean business!" he muttered.  Up to the last moment
+he had unconsciously hoped Jorth's gang would not come boldly like
+that. The verifications of all a Texan's inherited instincts left no
+doubts, no hopes, no illusions--only a grim certainty that this was not
+conjecture nor probability, but fact.  For a moment longer Jean watched
+the slowly moving dark patch of horsemen against the green background,
+then he hurried back to the ranch.  His father saw him coming--strode
+out as before.
+
+"Dad--Jorth is comin'," said Jean, huskily.  How he hated to be forced
+to tell his father that!  The boyish love of old had flashed up.
+
+"Whar?" demanded the old man, his eagle gaze sweeping the horizon.
+
+"Down the road from Grass Valley.  You can't see from here."
+
+"Wal, come in an' let's get ready."
+
+Isbel's house had not been constructed with the idea of repelling an
+attack from a band of Apaches.  The long living room of the main cabin
+was the one selected for defense and protection.  This room had two
+windows and a door facing the lane, and a door at each end, one of
+which opened into the kitchen and the other into an adjoining and
+later-built cabin.  The logs of this main cabin were of large size, and
+the doors and window coverings were heavy, affording safer protection
+from bullets than the other cabins.
+
+When Jean went in he seemed to see a host of white faces lifted to him.
+His sister Ann, his two sisters-in-law, the children, all mutely
+watched him with eyes that would haunt him.
+
+"Wal, Blaisdell, Jean says Jorth an' his precious gang of rustlers are
+on the way heah," announced the rancher.
+
+"Damn me if it's not a bad day fer Lee Jorth!" declared Blaisdell.
+
+"Clear off that table," ordered Isbel, "an' fetch out all the guns an'
+shells we got."
+
+Once laid upon the table these presented a formidable arsenal, which
+consisted of the three new .44 Winchesters that Jean had brought with
+him from the coast; the enormous buffalo, or so-called "needle" gun,
+that Gaston Isbel had used for years; a Henry rifle which Blaisdell had
+brought, and half a dozen six-shooters.  Piles and packages of
+ammunition littered the table.
+
+"Sort out these heah shells," said Isbel.  "Everybody wants to get hold
+of his own."
+
+Jacobs, the neighbor who was present, was a thick-set, bearded man,
+rather jovial among those lean-jawed Texans.  He carried a .44 rifle of
+an old pattern.  "Wal, boys, if I'd knowed we was in fer some fun I'd
+hev fetched more shells.  Only got one magazine full.  Mebbe them new
+.44's will fit my gun."
+
+It was discovered that the ammunition Jean had brought in quantity
+fitted Jacob's rifle, a fact which afforded peculiar satisfaction to
+all the men present.
+
+"Wal, shore we're lucky," declared Gaston Isbel.
+
+The women sat apart, in the corner toward the kitchen, and there seemed
+to be a strange fascination for them in the talk and action of the men.
+The wife of Jacobs was a little woman, with homely face and very bright
+eyes.  Jean thought she would be a help in that household during the
+next doubtful hours.
+
+Every moment Jean would go to the window and peer out down the road.
+His companions evidently relied upon him, for no one else looked out.
+Now that the suspense of days and weeks was over, these Texans faced
+the issue with talk and act not noticeably different from those of
+ordinary moments.
+
+At last Jean espied the dark mass of horsemen out in the valley road.
+They were close together, walking their mounts, and evidently in
+earnest conversation.  After several ineffectual attempts Jean counted
+eleven horses, every one of which he was sure bore a rider.
+
+"Dad, look out!" called Jean.
+
+Gaston Isbel strode to the door and stood looking, without a word.
+
+The other men crowded to the windows.  Blaisdell cursed under his
+breath.  Jacobs said: "By Golly!  Come to pay us a call!"  The women
+sat motionless, with dark, strained eyes.  The children ceased their
+play and looked fearfully to their mother.
+
+When just out of rifle shot of the cabins the band of horsemen halted
+and lined up in a half circle, all facing the ranch.  They were close
+enough for Jean to see their gestures, but he could not recognize any
+of their faces.  It struck him singularly that not one of them wore a
+mask.
+
+"Jean, do you know any of them?" asked his father
+
+"No, not yet.  They're too far off."
+
+"Dad, I'll get your old telescope," said Guy Isbel, and he ran out
+toward the adjoining cabin.
+
+Blaisdell shook his big, hoary head and rumbled out of his bull-like
+neck, "Wal, now you're heah, you sheep fellars, what are you goin' to
+do aboot it?"
+
+Guy Isbel returned with a yard-long telescope, which he passed to his
+father.  The old man took it with shaking hands and leveled it.
+Suddenly it was as if he had been transfixed; then he lowered the
+glass, shaking violently, and his face grew gray with an exceeding
+bitter wrath.
+
+"Jorth!" he swore, harshly.
+
+Jean had only to look at his father to know that recognition had been
+like a mortal shock.  It passed.  Again the rancher leveled the glass.
+
+"Wal, Blaisdell, there's our old Texas friend, Daggs," he drawled,
+dryly. "An' Greaves, our honest storekeeper of Grass Valley.  An'
+there's Stonewall Jackson Jorth.  An' Tad Jorth, with the same old red
+nose! ... An', say, damn if one of that gang isn't Queen, as bad a gun
+fighter as Texas ever bred.  Shore I thought he'd been killed in the
+Big Bend country.  So I heard.... An' there's Craig, another
+respectable sheepman of Grass Valley.  Haw-haw!  An', wal, I don't
+recognize any more of them."
+
+Jean forthwith took the glass and moved it slowly across the faces of
+that group of horsemen.  "Simm Bruce," he said, instantly.  "I see
+Colter.  And, yes, Greaves is there.  I've seen the man next to
+him--face like a ham...."
+
+"Shore that is Craig," interrupted his father.
+
+Jean knew the dark face of Lee Jorth by the resemblance it bore to
+Ellen's, and the recognition brought a twinge.  He thought, too, that
+he could tell the other Jorths.  He asked his father to describe Daggs
+and then Queen.  It was not likely that Jean would fail to know these
+several men in the future.  Then Blaisdell asked for the telescope and,
+when he got through looking and cursing, he passed it on to others,
+who, one by one, took a long look, until finally it came back to the
+old rancher.
+
+"Wal, Daggs is wavin' his hand heah an' there, like a general aboot to
+send out scouts.  Haw-haw! ... An' 'pears to me he's not overlookin'
+our hosses.  Wal, that's natural for a rustler.  He'd have to steal a
+hoss or a steer before goin' into a fight or to dinner or to a funeral."
+
+"It 'll be his funeral if he goes to foolin' 'round them hosses,"
+declared Guy Isbel, peering anxiously out of the door.
+
+"Wal, son, shore it 'll be somebody's funeral," replied his father.
+
+Jean paid but little heed to the conversation.  With sharp eyes fixed
+upon the horsemen, he tried to grasp at their intention.  Daggs pointed
+to the horses in the pasture lot that lay between him and the house.
+These animals were the best on the range and belonged mostly to Guy
+Isbel, who was the horse fancier and trader of the family.  His horses
+were his passion.
+
+"Looks like they'd do some horse stealin'," said Jean.
+
+"Lend me that glass," demanded Guy, forcefully.  He surveyed the band
+of men for a long moment, then he handed the glass back to Jean.
+
+"I'm goin' out there after my hosses," he declared.
+
+"No!" exclaimed his father.
+
+"That gang come to steal an' not to fight.  Can't you see that? If they
+meant to fight they'd do it.  They're out there arguin' about my
+hosses."
+
+Guy picked up his rifle.  He looked sullenly determined and the gleam
+in his eye was one of fearlessness.
+
+"Son, I know Daggs," said his father.  "An' I know Jorth.  They've come
+to kill us.  It 'll be shore death for y'u to go out there."
+
+"I'm goin', anyhow.  They can't steal my hosses out from under my eyes.
+An' they ain't in range."
+
+"Wal, Guy, you ain't goin' alone," spoke up Jacobs, cheerily, as he
+came forward.
+
+The red-haired young wife of Guy Isbel showed no change of her grave
+face.  She had been reared in a stern school.  She knew men in times
+like these.  But Jacobs's wife appealed to him,  "Bill, don't risk your
+life for a horse or two."
+
+Jacobs laughed and answered,  "Not much risk," and went out with Guy.
+To Jean their action seemed foolhardy.  He kept a keen eye on them and
+saw instantly when the band became aware of Guy's and Jacobs's entrance
+into the pasture.  It took only another second then to realize that
+Daggs and Jorth had deadly intent.  Jean saw Daggs slip out of his
+saddle, rifle in hand.  Others of the gang did likewise, until half of
+them were dismounted.
+
+"Dad, they're goin' to shoot," called out Jean, sharply.  "Yell for Guy
+and Jacobs.  Make them come back."
+
+The old man shouted; Bill Isbel yelled; Blaisdell lifted his stentorian
+voice.
+
+Jean screamed piercingly: "Guy!  Run!  Run!"
+
+But Guy Isbel and his companion strode on into the pasture, as if they
+had not heard, as if no menacing horse thieves were within miles.  They
+had covered about a quarter of the distance across the pasture, and
+were nearing the horses, when Jean saw red flashes and white puffs of
+smoke burst out from the front of that dark band of rustlers.  Then
+followed the sharp, rattling crack of rifles.
+
+Guy Isbel stopped short, and, dropping his gun, he threw up his arms
+and fell headlong.  Jacobs acted as if he had suddenly encountered an
+invisible blow.  He had been hit.  Turning, he began to run and ran
+fast for a few paces.  There were more quick, sharp shots.  He let go
+of his rifle.  His running broke.  Walking, reeling, staggering, he
+kept on. A hoarse cry came from him.  Then a single rifle shot pealed
+out.  Jean heard the bullet strike.  Jacobs fell to his knees, then
+forward on his face.
+
+Jean Isbel felt himself turned to marble.  The suddenness of this
+tragedy paralyzed him.  His gaze remained riveted on those prostrate
+forms.
+
+A hand clutched his arm--a shaking woman's hand, slim and hard and
+tense.
+
+"Bill's--killed!" whispered a broken voice.  "I was watchin'....
+They're both dead!"
+
+The wives of Jacobs and Guy Isbel had slipped up behind Jean and from
+behind him they had seen the tragedy.
+
+"I asked Bill--not to--go," faltered the Jacobs woman, and, covering
+her face with her hands, she groped back to the corner of the cabin,
+where the other women, shaking and white, received her in their arms.
+Guy Isbel's wife stood at the window, peering over Jean's shoulder. She
+had the nerve of a man.  She had looked out upon death before.
+
+"Yes, they're dead," she said, bitterly.  "An' how are we goin' to get
+their bodies?"
+
+At this Gaston Isbel seemed to rouse from the cold spell that had
+transfixed him.
+
+"God, this is hell for our women," he cried out, hoarsely.  "My son--my
+son! ... Murdered by the Jorths!"  Then he swore a terrible oath.
+
+Jean saw the remainder of the mounted rustlers get off, and then, all
+of them leading their horses, they began to move around to the left.
+
+"Dad, they're movin' round," said Jean.
+
+"Up to some trick," declared Bill Isbel.
+
+"Bill, you make a hole through the back wall, say aboot the fifth log
+up," ordered the father.  "Shore we've got to look out."
+
+The elder son grasped a tool and, scattering the children, who had been
+playing near the back corner, he began to work at the point designated.
+The little children backed away with fixed, wondering, grave eyes.  The
+women moved their chairs, and huddled together as if waiting and
+listening.
+
+Jean watched the rustlers until they passed out of his sight.  They had
+moved toward the sloping, brushy ground to the north and west of the
+cabins.
+
+"Let me know when you get a hole in the back wall," said Jean, and he
+went through the kitchen and cautiously out another door to slip into a
+low-roofed, shed-like end of the rambling cabin.  This small space was
+used to store winter firewood.  The chinks between the walls had not
+been filled with adobe clay, and he could see out on three sides. The
+rustlers were going into the juniper brush.  They moved out of sight,
+and presently reappeared without their horses.  It looked to Jean as if
+they intended to attack the cabins.  Then they halted at the edge of
+the brush and held a long consultation.  Jean could see them
+distinctly, though they were too far distant for him to recognize any
+particular man.  One of them, however, stood and moved apart from the
+closely massed group.  Evidently, from his strides and gestures, he was
+exhorting his listeners.  Jean concluded this was either Daggs or
+Jorth.  Whoever it was had a loud, coarse voice, and this and his
+actions impressed Jean with a suspicion that the man was under the
+influence of the bottle.
+
+Presently Bill Isbel called Jean in a low voice.  "Jean, I got the hole
+made, but we can't see anyone."
+
+"I see them," Jean replied.  "They're havin' a powwow.   Looks to me
+like either Jorth or Daggs is drunk.  He's arguin' to charge us, an'
+the rest of the gang are holdin' back.... Tell dad, an' all of you keep
+watchin'.  I'll let you know when they make a move."
+
+Jorth's gang appeared to be in no hurry to expose their plan of battle.
+Gradually the group disintegrated a little; some of them sat down;
+others walked to and fro.  Presently two of them went into the brush,
+probably back to the horses.  In a few moments they reappeared,
+carrying a pack.  And when this was deposited on the ground all the
+rustlers sat down around it.  They had brought food and drink.  Jean
+had to utter a grim laugh at their coolness; and he was reminded of
+many dare-devil deeds known to have been perpetrated by the Hash Knife
+Gang.  Jean was glad of a reprieve.  The longer the rustlers put off an
+attack the more time the allies of the Isbels would have to get here.
+Rather hazardous, however, would it be now for anyone to attempt to get
+to the Isbel cabins in the daytime.  Night would be more favorable.
+
+Twice Bill Isbel came through the kitchen to whisper to Jean.  The
+strain in the large room, from which the rustlers could not be seen,
+must have been great.  Jean told him all he had seen and what he
+thought about it. "Eatin' an' drinkin'!" ejaculated Bill.  "Well, I'll
+be--!  That 'll jar the old man.  He wants to get the fight over.
+
+"Tell him I said it'll be over too quick--for us--unless are mighty
+careful," replied Jean, sharply.
+
+Bill went back muttering to himself.  Then followed a long wait,
+fraught with suspense, during which Jean watched the rustlers regale
+themselves. The day was hot and still.  And the unnatural silence of
+the cabin was broken now and then by the gay laughter of the children.
+The sound shocked and haunted Jean.  Playing children!  Then another
+sound, so faint he had to strain to hear it, disturbed and saddened
+him--his father's slow tread up and down the cabin floor, to and fro,
+to and fro. What must be in his father's heart this day!
+
+At length the rustlers rose and, with rifles in hand, they moved as one
+man down the slope.  They came several hundred yards closer, until
+Jean, grimly cocking his rifle, muttered to himself that a few more
+rods closer would mean the end of several of that gang.  They knew the
+range of a rifle well enough, and once more sheered off at right angles
+with the cabin.  When they got even with the line of corrals they
+stooped down and were lost to Jean's sight.  This fact caused him
+alarm. They were, of course, crawling up on the cabins.  At the end of
+that line of corrals ran a ditch, the bank of which was high enough to
+afford cover.  Moreover, it ran along in front of the cabins, scarcely
+a hundred yards, and it was covered with grass and little clumps of
+brush, from behind which the rustlers could fire into the windows and
+through the clay chinks without any considerable risk to themselves. As
+they did not come into sight again, Jean concluded he had discovered
+their plan.  Still, he waited awhile longer, until he saw faint, little
+clouds of dust rising from behind the far end of the embankment.  That
+discovery made him rush out, and through the kitchen to the large
+cabin, where his sudden appearance startled the men.
+
+"Get back out of sight!" he ordered, sharply, and with swift steps he
+reached the door and closed it.  "They're behind the bank out there by
+the corrals.  An' they're goin' to crawl down the ditch closer to
+us.... It looks bad.  They'll have grass an' brush to shoot from. We've
+got to be mighty careful how we peep out."
+
+"Ahuh!  All right," replied his father.  "You women keep the kids with
+you in that corner.  An' you all better lay down flat."
+
+Blaisdell, Bill Isbel, and the old man crouched at the large window,
+peeping through cracks in the rough edges of the logs.  Jean took his
+post beside the small window, with his keen eyes vibrating like a
+compass needle.  The movement of a blade of grass, the flight of a
+grasshopper could not escape his trained sight.
+
+"Look sharp now!" he called to the other men.  "I see dust.... They're
+workin' along almost to that bare spot on the bank.... I saw the tip of
+a rifle ... a black hat ... more dust.  They're spreadin' along behind
+the bank."
+
+Loud voices, and then thick clouds of yellow dust, coming from behind
+the highest and brushiest line of the embankment, attested to the truth
+of Jean's observation, and also to a reckless disregard of danger.
+
+Suddenly Jean caught a glint of moving color through the fringe of
+brush.  Instantly he was strung like a whipcord.
+
+Then a tall, hatless and coatless man stepped up in plain sight. The
+sun shone on his fair, ruffled hair.  Daggs!
+
+"Hey, you -- -- Isbels!" he bawled, in magnificent derisive boldness.
+"Come out an' fight!"
+
+Quick as lightning Jean threw up his rifle and fired.  He saw tufts of
+fair hair fly from Daggs's head.  He saw the squirt of red blood. Then
+quick shots from his comrades rang out.  They all hit the swaying body
+of the rustler.  But Jean knew with a terrible thrill that his bullet
+had killed Daggs before the other three struck.  Daggs fell forward,
+his arms and half his body resting over, the embankment. Then the
+rustlers dragged him back out of sight.  Hoarse shouts rose. A cloud of
+yellow dust drifted away from the spot.
+
+"Daggs!" burst out Gaston Isbel.  "Jean, you knocked off the top of his
+haid.  I seen that when I was pullin' trigger.  Shore we over heah
+wasted our shots."
+
+"God! he must have been crazy or drunk--to pop up there--an' brace us
+that way," said Blaisdell, breathing hard.
+
+"Arizona is bad for Texans," replied Isbel, sardonically.  "Shore it's
+been too peaceful heah.  Rustlers have no practice at fightin'.  An' I
+reckon Daggs forgot."
+
+"Daggs made as crazy a move as that of Guy an' Jacobs," spoke up Jean.
+"They were overbold, an' he was drunk.  Let them be a lesson to us."
+
+Jean had smelled whisky upon his entrance to this cabin.  Bill was a
+hard drinker, and his father was not immune.  Blaisdell, too, drank
+heavily upon occasions.  Jean made a mental note that he would not
+permit their chances to become impaired by liquor.
+
+Rifles began to crack, and puffs of smoke rose all along the embankment
+for the space of a hundred feet.  Bullets whistled through the rude
+window casing and spattered on the heavy door, and one split the clay
+between the logs before Jean, narrowly missing him.  Another volley
+followed, then another.  The rustlers had repeating rifles and they
+were emptying their magazines.  Jean changed his position.  The other
+men profited by his wise move.  The volleys had merged into one
+continuous rattling roar of rifle shots.  Then came a sudden cessation
+of reports, with silence of relief.  The cabin was full of dust,
+mingled with the smoke from the shots of Jean and his companions.  Jean
+heard the stifled breaths of the children.  Evidently they were
+terror-stricken, but they did not cry out.  The women uttered no sound.
+
+A loud voice pealed from behind the embankment.
+
+"Come out an' fight!  Do you Isbels want to be killed like sheep?"
+
+This sally gained no reply. Jean returned to his post by the window and
+his comrades followed his example. And they exercised extreme caution
+when they peeped out.
+
+"Boys, don't shoot till you see one," said Gaston Isbel.  "Maybe after
+a while they'll get careless.  But Jorth will never show himself."
+
+The rustlers did not again resort to volleys.  One by one, from
+different angles, they began to shoot, and they were not firing at
+random.  A few bullets came straight in at the windows to pat into the
+walls; a few others ticked and splintered the edges of the windows; and
+most of them broke through the clay chinks between the logs.  It dawned
+upon Jean that these dangerous shots were not accident.  They were well
+aimed, and most of them hit low down.  The cunning rustlers had some
+unerring riflemen and they were picking out the vulnerable places all
+along the front of the cabin.  If Jean had not been lying flat he would
+have been hit twice.  Presently he conceived the idea of driving pegs
+between the logs, high up, and, kneeling on these, he managed to peep
+out from the upper edge of the window.  But this position was awkward
+and difficult to hold for long.
+
+He heard a bullet hit one of his comrades.  Whoever had been struck
+never uttered a sound.  Jean turned to look.  Bill Isbel was holding
+his shoulder, where red splotches appeared on his shirt.  He shook his
+head at Jean, evidently to make light of the wound.  The women and
+children were lying face down and could not see what was happening.
+Plain is was that Bill did not want them to know.  Blaisdell bound up
+the bloody shoulder with a scarf.
+
+Steady firing from the rustlers went on, at the rate of one shot every
+few minutes.  The Isbels did not return these.  Jean did not fire again
+that afternoon.  Toward sunset, when the besiegers appeared to grow
+restless or careless, Blaisdell fired at something moving behind the
+brush; and Gaston Isbel's huge buffalo gun boomed out.
+
+"Wal, what 're they goin' to do after dark, an' what 're WE goin' to
+do?" grumbled Blaisdell.
+
+"Reckon they'll never charge us," said Gaston.
+
+"They might set fire to the cabins," added Bill Isbel.  He appeared to
+be the gloomiest of the Isbel faction.  There was something on his mind.
+
+"Wal, the Jorths are bad, but I reckon they'd not burn us alive,"
+replied Blaisdell.
+
+"Hah!" ejaculated Gaston Isbel.  "Much you know aboot Lee Jorth. He
+would skin me alive an' throw red-hot coals on my raw flesh."
+
+So they talked during the hour from sunset to dark.  Jean Isbel had
+little to say.  He was revolving possibilities in his mind.  Darkness
+brought a change in the attack of the rustlers.  They stationed men at
+four points around the cabins; and every few minutes one of these
+outposts would fire.  These bullets embedded themselves in the logs,
+causing but little anxiety to the Isbels.
+
+"Jean, what you make of it?" asked the old rancher.
+
+"Looks to me this way," replied Jean.  "They're set for a long fight.
+They're shootin' just to let us know they're on the watch."
+
+"Ahuh!  Wal, what 're you goin' to do aboot it?"
+
+"I'm goin' out there presently."
+
+Gaston Isbel grunted his satisfaction at this intention of Jean's.
+
+All was pitch dark inside the cabin.  The women had water and food at
+hand.  Jean kept a sharp lookout from his window while he ate his
+supper of meat, bread, and milk.  At last the children, worn out by the
+long day, fell asleep.  The women whispered a little in their corner.
+
+About nine o'clock Jean signified his intention of going out to
+reconnoitre.
+
+"Dad, they've got the best of us in the daytime," he said, "but not
+after dark."
+
+Jean buckled on a belt that carried shells, a bowie knife, and
+revolver, and with rifle in hand he went out through the kitchen to the
+yard. The night was darker than usual, as some of the stars were hidden
+by clouds.  He leaned against the log cabin, waiting for his eyes to
+become perfectly adjusted to the darkness.  Like an Indian, Jean could
+see well at night.  He knew every point around cabins and sheds and
+corrals, every post, log, tree, rock, adjacent to the ranch.  After
+perhaps a quarter of an hour watching, during which time several shots
+were fired from behind the embankment and one each from the rustlers at
+the other locations, Jean slipped out on his quest.
+
+He kept in the shadow of the cabin walls, then the line of orchard
+trees, then a row of currant bushes.  Here, crouching low, he halted to
+look and listen.  He was now at the edge of the open ground, with the
+gently rising slope before him.  He could see the dark patches of cedar
+and juniper trees.  On the north side of the cabin a streak of fire
+flashed in the blackness, and a shot rang out.  Jean heard the bullet
+bit the cabin.  Then silence enfolded the lonely ranch and the darkness
+lay like a black blanket.  A low hum of insects pervaded the air.  Dull
+sheets of lightning illumined the dark horizon to the south. Once Jean
+heard voices, but could not tell from which direction they came.  To
+the west of him then flared out another rifle shot.  The bullet
+whistled down over Jean to thud into the cabin.
+
+Jean made a careful study of the obscure, gray-black open before him
+and then the background to his rear.  So long as he kept the dense
+shadows behind him he could not be seen.  He slipped from behind his
+covert and, gliding with absolutely noiseless footsteps, he gained the
+first clump of junipers.  Here he waited patiently and motionlessly for
+another round of shots from the rustlers.  After the second shot from
+the west side Jean sheered off to the right.  Patches of brush, clumps
+of juniper, and isolated cedars covered this slope, affording Jean a
+perfect means for his purpose, which was to make a detour and come up
+behind the rustler who was firing from that side.  Jean climbed to the
+top of the ridge, descended the opposite slope, made his turn to the
+left, and slowly worked up behind the point near where he expected to
+locate the rustler.  Long habit in the open, by day and night, rendered
+his sense of direction almost as perfect as sight itself.  The first
+flash of fire he saw from this side proved that he had come straight up
+toward his man.  Jean's intention was to crawl up on this one of the
+Jorth gang and silently kill him with a knife.  If the plan worked
+successfully, Jean meant to work round to the next rustler.  Laying
+aside his rifle, he crawled forward on hands and knees, making no more
+sound than a cat.  His approach was slow.  He had to pick his way, be
+careful not to break twigs nor rattle stones.  His buckskin garments
+made no sound against the brush.  Jean located the rustler sitting on
+the top of the ridge in the center of an open space. He was alone.
+Jean saw the dull-red end of the cigarette he was smoking.  The ground
+on the ridge top was rocky and not well adapted for Jean's purpose.  He
+had to abandon the idea of crawling up on the rustler.  Whereupon, Jean
+turned back, patiently and slowly, to get his rifle.
+
+Upon securing it he began to retrace his course, this time more slowly
+than before, as he was hampered by the rifle.  But he did not make the
+slightest sound, and at length he reached the edge of the open ridge
+top, once more to espy the dark form of the rustler silhouetted against
+the sky.  The distance was not more than fifty yards.
+
+As Jean rose to his knee and carefully lifted his rifle round to avoid
+the twigs of a juniper he suddenly experienced another emotion besides
+the one of grim, hard wrath at the Jorths.  It was an emotion that
+sickened him, made him weak internally, a cold, shaking, ungovernable
+sensation.  Suppose this man was Ellen Jorth's father!  Jean lowered
+the rifle.  He felt it shake over his knee.  He was trembling all over.
+The astounding discovery that he did not want to kill Ellen's
+father--that he could not do it--awakened Jean to the despairing nature
+of his love for her.  In this grim moment of indecision, when he knew
+his Indian subtlety and ability gave him a great advantage over the
+Jorths, he fully realized his strange, hopeless, and irresistible love
+for the girl.  He made no attempt to deny it any longer.  Like the
+night and the lonely wilderness around him, like the inevitableness of
+this Jorth-Isbel feud, this love of his was a thing, a fact, a reality.
+He breathed to his own inward ear, to his soul--he could not kill Ellen
+Jorth's father.  Feud or no feud, Isbel or not, he could not
+deliberately do it.  And why not?  There was no answer.  Was he not
+faithless to his father?  He had no hope of ever winning Ellen Jorth.
+He did not want the love of a girl of her character.  But he loved her.
+And his struggle must be against the insidious and mysterious growth of
+that passion.  It swayed him already.  It made him a coward. Through
+his mind and heart swept the memory of Ellen Jorth, her beauty and
+charm, her boldness and pathos, her shame and her degradation. And the
+sweetness of her outweighed the boldness.  And the mystery of her
+arrayed itself in unquenchable protest against her acknowledged shame.
+Jean lifted his face to the heavens, to the pitiless white stars, to
+the infinite depths of the dark-blue sky.  He could sense the fact of
+his being an atom in the universe of nature.  What was he, what was his
+revengeful father, what were hate and passion and strife in comparison
+to the nameless something, immense and everlasting, that he sensed in
+this dark moment?
+
+But the rustlers--Daggs--the Jorths--they had killed his brother
+Guy--murdered him brutally and ruthlessly.  Guy had been a playmate of
+Jean's--a favorite brother.  Bill had been secretive and selfish.  Jean
+had never loved him as he did Guy.  Guy lay dead down there on the
+meadow. This feud had begun to run its bloody course.  Jean steeled his
+nerve. The hot blood crept back along his veins.  The dark and
+masterful tide of revenge waved over him.  The keen edge of his mind
+then cut out sharp and trenchant thoughts.  He must kill when and where
+he could.  This man could hardly be Ellen Jorth's father.  Jorth would
+be with the main crowd, directing hostilities.  Jean could shoot this
+rustler guard and his shot would be taken by the gang as the regular
+one from their comrade.  Then swiftly Jean leveled his rifle, covered
+the dark form, grew cold and set, and pressed the trigger.  After the
+report he rose and wheeled away.  He did not look nor listen for the
+result of his shot.  A clammy sweat wet his face, the hollow of his
+hands, his breast. A horrible, leaden, thick sensation oppressed his
+heart.  Nature had endowed him with Indian gifts, but the exercise of
+them to this end caused a revolt in his soul.
+
+Nevertheless, it was the Isbel blood that dominated him.  The wind blew
+cool on his face.  The burden upon his shoulders seemed to lift.  The
+clamoring whispers grew fainter in his ears.  And by the time he had
+retraced his cautious steps back to the orchard all his physical being
+was strung to the task at hand.  Something had come between his
+reflective self and this man of action.
+
+Crossing the lane, he took to the west line of sheds, and passed beyond
+them into the meadow.  In the grass he crawled silently away to the
+right, using the same precaution that had actuated him on the slope,
+only here he did not pause so often, nor move so slowly.  Jean aimed to
+go far enough to the right to pass the end of the embankment behind
+which the rustlers had found such efficient cover.  This ditch had been
+made to keep water, during spring thaws and summer storms, from pouring
+off the slope to flood the corrals.
+
+Jean miscalculated and found he had come upon the embankment somewhat
+to the left of the end, which fact, however, caused him no uneasiness.
+He lay there awhile to listen.  Again he heard voices.  After a time a
+shot pealed out.  He did not see the flash, but he calculated that it
+had come from the north side of the cabins.
+
+The next quarter of an hour discovered to Jean that the nearest guard
+was firing from the top of the embankment, perhaps a hundred yards
+distant, and a second one was performing the same office from a point
+apparently only a few yards farther on.  Two rustlers close together!
+Jean had not calculated upon that.  For a little while he pondered on
+what was best to do, and at length decided to crawl round behind them,
+and as close as the situation made advisable.
+
+He found the ditch behind the embankment a favorable path by which to
+stalk these enemies.  It was dry and sandy, with borders of high weeds.
+The only drawback was that it was almost impossible for him to keep
+from brushing against the dry, invisible branches of the weeds.  To
+offset this he wormed his way like a snail, inch by inch, taking a long
+time before he caught sight of the sitting figure of a man, black
+against the dark-blue sky.  This rustler had fired his rifle three
+times during Jean's slow approach.  Jean watched and listened a few
+moments, then wormed himself closer and closer, until the man was
+within twenty steps of him.
+
+Jean smelled tobacco smoke, but could see no light of pipe or
+cigarette, because the fellow's back was turned.
+
+"Say, Ben," said this man to his companion sitting hunched up a few
+yards distant, "shore it strikes me queer thet Somers ain't shootin'
+any over thar."
+
+Jean recognized the dry, drawling voice of Greaves, and the shock of it
+seemed to contract the muscles of his whole thrilling body, like that
+of a panther about to spring.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+"Was shore thinkin' thet same," said the other man.  "An', say, didn't
+thet last shot sound too sharp fer Somers's forty-five?"
+
+"Come to think of it, I reckon it did," replied Greaves.
+
+"Wal, I'll go around over thar an' see."
+
+The dark form of the rustler slipped out of sight over the embankment.
+
+"Better go slow an' careful," warned Greaves.  "An' only go close
+enough to call Somers.... Mebbe thet damn half-breed Isbel is comin'
+some Injun on us."
+
+Jean heard the soft swish of footsteps through wet grass.  Then all was
+still.  He lay flat, with his cheek on the sand, and he had to look
+ahead and upward to make out the dark figure of Greaves on the bank.
+One way or another he meant to kill Greaves, and he had the will power
+to resist the strongest gust of passion that had ever stormed his
+breast.  If he arose and shot the rustler, that act would defeat his
+plan of slipping on around upon the other outposts who were firing at
+the cabins.  Jean wanted to call softly to Greaves, "You're right about
+the half-breed!" and then, as he wheeled aghast, to kill him as he
+moved.  But it suited Jean to risk leaping upon the man.  Jean did not
+waste time in trying to understand the strange, deadly instinct that
+gripped him at the moment.  But he realized then he had chosen the most
+perilous plan to get rid of Greaves.
+
+Jean drew a long, deep breath and held it.  He let go of his rifle. He
+rose, silently as a lifting shadow.  He drew the bowie knife. Then with
+light, swift bounds he glided up the bank.  Greaves must have heard a
+rustling--a soft, quick pad of moccasin, for he turned with a start.
+And that instant Jean's left arm darted like a striking snake round
+Greaves's neck and closed tight and hard.  With his right hand free,
+holding the knife, Jean might have ended the deadly business in just
+one move.  But when his bared arm felt the hot, bulging neck something
+terrible burst out of the depths of him.  To kill this enemy of his
+father's was not enough!  Physical contact had unleashed the savage
+soul of the Indian.  Yet there was more, and as Jean gave the straining
+body a tremendous jerk backward, he felt the same strange thrill, the
+dark joy that he had known when his fist had smashed the face of Simm
+Bruce.  Greaves had leered--he had corroborated Bruce's vile
+insinuation about Ellen Jorth.  So it was more than hate that actuated
+Jean Isbel.
+
+Greaves was heavy and powerful.  He whirled himself, feet first, over
+backward, in a lunge like that of a lassoed steer.  But Jean's hold
+held.  They rolled down the bank into the sandy ditch, and Jean landed
+uppermost, with his body at right angles with that of his adversary.
+
+"Greaves, your hunch was right," hissed Jean.  "It's the half-breed....
+An' I'm goin' to cut you--first for Ellen Jorth--an' then for Gaston
+Isbel!"
+
+Jean gazed down into the gleaming eyes.  Then his right arm whipped the
+big blade.  It flashed.  It fell.  Low down, as far as Jean could
+reach, it entered Greaves's body.
+
+All the heavy, muscular frame of Greaves seemed to contract and burst.
+His spring was that of an animal in terror and agony.  It was so
+tremendous that it broke Jean's hold.  Greaves let out a strangled yell
+that cleared, swelling wildly, with a hideous mortal note.  He wrestled
+free.  The big knife came out.  Supple and swift, he got to his, knees.
+He had his gun out when Jean reached him again.  Like a bear Jean
+enveloped him.  Greaves shot, but he could not raise the gun, nor twist
+it far enough.  Then Jean, letting go with his right arm, swung the
+bowie.  Greaves's strength went out in an awful, hoarse cry. His gun
+boomed again, then dropped from his hand.  He swayed.  Jean let go.
+And that enemy of the Isbels sank limply in the ditch. Jean's eyes
+roved for his rifle and caught the starlit gleam of it. Snatching it
+up, he leaped over the embankment and ran straight for the cabins.
+From all around yells of the Jorth faction attested to their excitement
+and fury.
+
+A fence loomed up gray in the obscurity.  Jean vaulted it, darted
+across the lane into the shadow of the corral, and soon gained the
+first cabin.  Here he leaned to regain his breath.  His heart pounded
+high and seemed too large for his breast.  The hot blood beat and
+surged all over his body.  Sweat poured off him.  His teeth were
+clenched tight as a vise, and it took effort on his part to open his
+mouth so he could breathe more freely and deeply.  But these physical
+sensations were as nothing compared to the tumult of his mind. Then the
+instinct, the spell, let go its grip and he could think. He had avenged
+Guy, he had depleted the ranks of the Jorths, he had made good the brag
+of his father, all of which afforded him satisfaction. But these
+thoughts were not accountable for all that he felt, especially for the
+bittersweet sting of the fact that death to the defiler of Ellen Jorth
+could not efface the doubt, the regret which seemed to grow with the
+hours.
+
+Groping his way into the woodshed, he entered the kitchen and, calling
+low, he went on into the main cabin.
+
+"Jean!  Jean!" came his father's shaking voice.
+
+"Yes, I'm back," replied Jean.
+
+"Are--you--all right?"
+
+"Yes.  I think I've got a bullet crease on my leg.  I didn't know I had
+it till now.... It's bleedin' a little.  But it's nothin'."
+
+Jean heard soft steps and some one reached shaking hands for him. They
+belonged to his sister Ann.  She embraced him.  Jean felt the heave and
+throb of her breast.
+
+"Why, Ann, I'm not hurt," he said, and held her close.  "Now you lie
+down an' try to sleep."
+
+In the black darkness of the cabin Jean led her back to the corner and
+his heart was full.  Speech was difficult, because the very touch of
+Ann's hands had made him divine that the success of his venture in no
+wise changed the plight of the women.
+
+"Wal, what happened out there?" demanded Blaisdell.
+
+"I got two of them," replied Jean.  "That fellow who was shootin' from
+the ridge west.  An' the other was Greaves."
+
+"Hah!" exclaimed his father.
+
+"Shore then it was Greaves yellin'," declared Blaisdell.  "By God, I
+never heard such yells!  Whad 'd you do, Jean?"
+
+"I knifed him.  You see, I'd planned to slip up on one after another.
+An' I didn't want to make noise.  But I didn't get any farther than
+Greaves."
+
+"Wal, I reckon that 'll end their shootin' in the dark," muttered
+Gaston Isbel.  "We've got to be on the lookout for somethin'
+else--fire, most likely."
+
+The old rancher's surmise proved to be partially correct.  Jorth's
+faction ceased the shooting.  Nothing further was seen or heard from
+them.  But this silence and apparent break in the siege were harder to
+bear than deliberate hostility.  The long, dark hours dragged by. The
+men took turns watching and resting, but none of them slept. At last
+the blackness paled and gray dawn stole out of the east. The sky turned
+rose over the distant range and daylight came.
+
+The children awoke hungry and noisy, having slept away their fears. The
+women took advantage of the quiet morning hour to get a hot breakfast.
+
+"Maybe they've gone away," suggested Guy Isbel's wife, peering out of
+the window.  She had done that several times since daybreak.  Jean saw
+her somber gaze search the pasture until it rested upon the dark, prone
+shape of her dead husband, lying face down in the grass.  Her look
+worried Jean.
+
+"No, Esther, they've not gone yet," replied Jean.  "I've seen some of
+them out there at the edge of the brush."
+
+Blaisdell was optimistic.  He said Jean's night work would have its
+effect and that the Jorth contingent would not renew the siege very
+determinedly.  It turned out, however, that Blaisdell was wrong.
+Directly after sunrise they began to pour volleys from four sides and
+from closer range.  During the night Jorth's gang had thrown earth
+banks and constructed log breastworks, from behind which they were now
+firing.  Jean and his comrades could see the flashes of fire and
+streaks of smoke to such good advantage that they began to return the
+volleys.
+
+In half an hour the cabin was so full of smoke that Jean could not see
+the womenfolk in their corner.  The fierce attack then abated somewhat,
+and the firing became more intermittent, and therefore more carefully
+aimed.  A glancing bullet cut a furrow in Blaisdell's hoary head,
+making a painful, though not serious wound.  It was Esther Isbel who
+stopped the flow of blood and bound Blaisdell's head, a task which she
+performed skillfully and without a tremor.  The old Texan could not sit
+still during this operation.  Sight of the blood on his hands, which he
+tried to rub off, appeared to inflame him to a great degree.
+
+"Isbel, we got to go out thar," he kept repeating, "an' kill them all."
+
+"No, we're goin' to stay heah," replied Gaston Isbel.  "Shore I'm
+lookin' for Blue an' Fredericks an' Gordon to open up out there. They
+ought to be heah, an' if they are y'u shore can bet they've got the
+fight sized up."
+
+Isbel's hopes did not materialize.  The shooting continued without any
+lull until about midday.  Then the Jorth faction stopped.
+
+"Wal, now what's up?" queried Isbel.  "Boys, hold your fire an' let's
+wait."
+
+Gradually the smoke wafted out of the windows and doors, until the room
+was once more clear.  And at this juncture Esther Isbel came over to
+take another gaze out upon the meadows.  Jean saw her suddenly start
+violently, then stiffen, with a trembling hand outstretched.
+
+"Look!" she cried.
+
+"Esther, get back," ordered the old rancher.  "Keep away from that
+window."
+
+"What the hell!" muttered Blaisdell.  "She sees somethin', or she's
+gone dotty."
+
+Esther seemed turned to stone.  "Look!  The hogs have broken into the
+pasture! ... They'll eat Guy's body!"
+
+Everyone was frozen with horror at Esther's statement.  Jean took a
+swift survey of the pasture.  A bunch of big black hogs had indeed
+appeared on the scene and were rooting around in the grass not far from
+where lay the bodies of Guy Isbel and Jacobs.  This herd of hogs
+belonged to the rancher and was allowed to run wild.
+
+"Jane, those hogs--" stammered Esther Isbel, to the wife of Jacobs.
+"Come!  Look! ... Do y'u know anythin' about hogs?"
+
+The woman ran to the window and looked out.  She stiffened as had
+Esther.
+
+"Dad, will those hogs--eat human flesh?" queried Jean, breathlessly.
+
+The old man stared out of the window.  Surprise seemed to hold him. A
+completely unexpected situation had staggered him.
+
+"Jean--can you--can you shoot that far?" he asked, huskily.
+
+"To those hogs?  No, it's out of range."
+
+"Then, by God, we've got to stay trapped in heah an' watch an awful
+sight," ejaculated the old man, completely unnerved.  "See that break
+in the fence! ... Jorth's done that.... To let in the hogs!"
+
+"Aw, Isbel, it's not so bad as all that," remonstrated Blaisdell,
+wagging his bloody head.  "Jorth wouldn't do such a hell-bent trick."
+
+"It's shore done."
+
+"Wal, mebbe the hogs won't find Guy an' Jacobs," returned Blaisdell,
+weakly.  Plain it was that he only hoped for such a contingency and
+certainly doubted it.
+
+"Look!" cried Esther Isbel, piercingly.  "They're workin' straight up
+the pasture!"
+
+Indeed, to Jean it appeared to be the fatal truth.  He looked blankly,
+feeling a little sick.  Ann Isbel came to peer out of the window and
+she uttered a cry.  Jacobs's wife stood mute, as if dazed.
+
+Blaisdell swore a mighty oath.  "-- -- --!  Isbel, we cain't stand heah
+an' watch them hogs eat our people!"
+
+"Wal, we'll have to.  What else on earth can we do?"
+
+Esther turned to the men.  She was white and cold, except her eyes,
+which resembled gray flames.
+
+"Somebody can run out there an' bury our dead men," she said.
+
+"Why, child, it'd be shore death.  Y'u saw what happened to Guy an'
+Jacobs.... We've jest got to bear it.  Shore nobody needn't look
+out--an' see."
+
+Jean wondered if it would be possible to keep from watching.  The thing
+had a horrible fascination.  The big hogs were rooting and tearing in
+the grass, some of them lazy, others nimble, and all were gradually
+working closer and closer to the bodies.  The leader, a huge, gaunt
+boar, that had fared ill all his life in this barren country, was
+scarcely fifty feet away from where Guy Isbel lay.
+
+"Ann, get me some of your clothes, an' a sunbonnet--quick," said Jean,
+forced out of his lethargy.  "I'll run out there disguised.  Maybe I
+can go through with it."
+
+"No!" ordered his father, positively, and with dark face flaming. "Guy
+an' Jacobs are dead.  We cain't help them now."
+
+"But, dad--" pleaded Jean.  He had been wrought to a pitch by Esther's
+blaze of passion, by the agony in the face of the other woman.
+
+"I tell y'u no!" thundered Gaston Isbel, flinging his arms wide.
+
+"I WILL GO!" cried Esther, her voice ringing.
+
+"You won't go alone!" instantly answered the wife of Jacobs, repeating
+unconsciously the words her husband had spoken.
+
+"You stay right heah," shouted Gaston Isbel, hoarsely.
+
+"I'm goin'," replied Esther.  "You've no hold over me.  My husband is
+dead.  No one can stop me.  I'm goin' out there to drive those hogs
+away an' bury him."
+
+"Esther, for Heaven's sake, listen," replied Isbel.  "If y'u show
+yourself outside, Jorth an' his gang will kin y'u."
+
+"They may be mean, but no white men could be so low as that."
+
+Then they pleaded with her to give up her purpose.  But in vain! She
+pushed them back and ran out through the kitchen with Jacobs's wife
+following her.  Jean turned to the window in time to see both women run
+out into the lane.  Jean looked fearfully, and listened for shots.  But
+only a loud, "Haw!  Haw!" came from the watchers outside.  That coarse
+laugh relieved the tension in Jean's breast. Possibly the Jorths were
+not as black as his father painted them. The two women entered an open
+shed and came forth with a shovel and spade.
+
+"Shore they've got to hurry," burst out Gaston Isbel.
+
+Shifting his gaze, Jean understood the import of his father's speech.
+The leader of the hogs had no doubt scented the bodies.  Suddenly he
+espied them and broke into a trot.
+
+"Run, Esther, run!" yelled Jean, with all his might.
+
+That urged the women to flight.  Jean began to shoot.  The hog reached
+the body of Guy.  Jean's shots did not reach nor frighten the beast.
+All the hogs now had caught a scent and went ambling toward their
+leader.  Esther and her companion passed swiftly out of sight behind a
+corral.  Loud and piercingly, with some awful note, rang out their
+screams.  The hogs appeared frightened.  The leader lifted his long
+snout, looked, and turned away.  The others had halted.  Then they,
+too, wheeled and ran off.
+
+All was silent then in the cabin and also outside wherever the Jorth
+faction lay concealed.  All eyes manifestly were fixed upon the brave
+wives.  They spaded up the sod and dug a grave for Guy Isbel.  For a
+shroud Esther wrapped him in her shawl.  Then they buried him.  Next
+they hurried to the side of Jacobs, who lay some yards away.  They dug
+a grave for him.  Mrs. Jacobs took off her outer skirt to wrap round
+him.  Then the two women labored hard to lift him and lower him. Jacobs
+was a heavy man.  When he had been covered his widow knelt beside his
+grave.  Esther went back to the other.  But she remained standing and
+did not look as if she prayed.  Her aspect was tragic--that of a woman
+who had lost father, mother, sisters, brother, and now her husband, in
+this bloody Arizona land.
+
+The deed and the demeanor of these wives of the murdered men surely
+must have shamed Jorth and his followers.  They did not fire a shot
+during the ordeal nor give any sign of their presence.
+
+Inside the cabin all were silent, too. Jean's eyes blurred so that he
+continually had to wipe them.  Old Isbel made no effort to hide his
+tears.  Blaisdell nodded his shaggy head and swallowed hard.  The women
+sat staring into space.  The children, in round-eyed dismay, gazed from
+one to the other of their elders.
+
+"Wal, they're comin' back," declared Isbel, in immense relief. "An' so
+help me--Jorth let them bury their daid!"
+
+The fact seemed to have been monstrously strange to Gaston Isbel. When
+the women entered the old man said, brokenly: "I'm shore glad.... An' I
+reckon I was wrong to oppose you ... an' wrong to say what I did aboot
+Jorth."
+
+No one had any chance to reply to Isbel, for the Jorth gang, as if to
+make up for lost time and surcharged feelings of shame, renewed the
+attack with such a persistent and furious volleying that the defenders
+did not risk a return shot.  They all had to lie flat next to the
+lowest log in order to keep from being hit.  Bullets rained in through
+the window.  And all the clay between the logs low down was shot away.
+This fusillade lasted for more than an hour, then gradually the fire
+diminished on one side and then on the other until it became desultory
+and finally ceased.
+
+"Ahuh!  Shore they've shot their bolt," declared Gaston Isbel.
+
+"Wal, I doon't know aboot that," returned Blaisdell, "but they've shot
+a hell of a lot of shells."
+
+"Listen," suddenly called Jean. "Somebody's yellin'."
+
+"Hey, Isbel!" came in loud, hoarse voice.  "Let your women fight for
+you."
+
+Gaston Isbel sat up with a start and his face turned livid.  Jean
+needed no more to prove that the derisive voice from outside had
+belonged to Jorth.  The old rancher lunged up to his full height and
+with reckless disregard of life he rushed to the window. "Jorth," he
+roared, "I dare you to meet me--man to man!"
+
+This elicited no answer.  Jean dragged his father away from the window.
+After that a waiting silence ensued, gradually less fraught with
+suspense.  Blaisdell started conversation by saying he believed the
+fight was over for that particular time.  No one disputed him.
+Evidently Gaston Isbel was loath to believe it.  Jean, however,
+watching at the back of the kitchen, eventually discovered that the
+Jorth gang had lifted the siege.  Jean saw them congregate at the edge
+of the brush, somewhat lower down than they had been the day before. A
+team of mules, drawing a wagon, appeared on the road, and turned toward
+the slope.  Saddled horses were led down out of the junipers. Jean saw
+bodies, evidently of dead men, lifted into the wagon, to be hauled away
+toward the village.  Seven mounted men, leading four riderless horses,
+rode out into the valley and followed the wagon.
+
+"Dad, they've gone," declared Jean.  "We had the best of this fight....
+If only Guy an' Jacobs had listened!"
+
+The old man nodded moodily.  He had aged considerably during these two
+trying days.  His hair was grayer.  Now that the blaze and glow of the
+fight had passed he showed a subtle change, a fixed and morbid sadness,
+a resignation to a fate he had accepted.
+
+The ordinary routine of ranch life did not return for the Isbels.
+Blaisdell returned home to settle matters there, so that he could
+devote all his time to this feud.  Gaston Isbel sat down to wait for
+the members of his clan.
+
+The male members of the family kept guard in turn over the ranch that
+night.  And another day dawned.  It brought word from Blaisdell that
+Blue, Fredericks, Gordon, and Colmor were all at his house, on the way
+to join the Isbels.  This news appeared greatly to rejuvenate Gaston
+Isbel.  But his enthusiasm did not last long.  Impatient and moody by
+turns, he paced or moped around the cabin, always looking out,
+sometimes toward Blaisdell's ranch, but mostly toward Grass Valley.
+
+It struck Jean as singular that neither Esther Isbel nor Mrs. Jacobs
+suggested a reburial of their husbands.  The two bereaved women did not
+ask for assistance, but repaired to the pasture, and there spent
+several hours working over the graves.  They raised mounds, which they
+sodded, and then placed stones at the heads and feet.  Lastly, they
+fenced in the graves.
+
+"I reckon I'll hitch up an' drive back home," said Mrs. Jacobs, when
+she returned to the cabin.  "I've much to do an' plan.  Probably I'll
+go to my mother's home.  She's old an' will be glad to have me."
+
+"If I had any place to go to I'd sure go," declared Esther Isbel,
+bitterly.
+
+Gaston Isbel heard this remark.  He raised his face from his hands,
+evidently both nettled and hurt.
+
+"Esther, shore that's not kind," he said.
+
+The red-haired woman--for she did not appear to be a girl any
+more--halted before his chair and gazed down at him, with a terrible
+flare of scorn in her gray eyes.
+
+"Gaston Isbel, all I've got to say to you is this," she retorted, with
+the voice of a man.  "Seein' that you an' Lee Jorth hate each other,
+why couldn't you act like men? ... You damned Texans, with your bloody
+feuds, draggin' in every relation, every friend to murder each other!
+That's not the way of Arizona men.... We've all got to suffer--an' we
+women be ruined for life--because YOU had differences with Jorth. If
+you were half a man you'd go out an' kill him yourself, an' not leave a
+lot of widows an' orphaned children!"
+
+Jean himself writhed under the lash of her scorn.  Gaston Isbel turned
+a dead white.  He could not answer her.  He seemed stricken with
+merciless truth.  Slowly dropping his head, he remained motionless, a
+pathetic and tragic figure; and he did not stir until the rapid beat of
+hoofs denoted the approach of horsemen.  Blaisdell appeared on his
+white charger, leading a pack animal.  And behind rode a group of men,
+all heavily armed, and likewise with packs.
+
+"Get down an' come in," was Isbel's greeting.  "Bill--you look after
+their packs.  Better leave the hosses saddled."
+
+The booted and spurred riders trooped in, and their demeanor fitted
+their errand.  Jean was acquainted with all of them.  Fredericks was a
+lanky Texan, the color of dust, and he had yellow, clear eyes, like
+those of a hawk.  His mother had been an Isbel.  Gordon, too, was
+related to Jean's family, though distantly.  He resembled an
+industrious miner more than a prosperous cattleman.  Blue was the most
+striking of the visitors, as he was the most noted.  A little, shrunken
+gray-eyed man, with years of cowboy written all over him, he looked the
+quiet, easy, cool, and deadly Texan he was reputed to be.  Blue's Texas
+record was shady, and was seldom alluded to, as unfavorable comment had
+turned out to be hazardous.  He was the only one of the group who did
+not carry a rifle.  But he packed two guns, a habit not often noted in
+Texans, and almost never in Arizonians.
+
+Colmor, Ann Isbel's fiance, was the youngest member of the clan, and
+the one closest to Jean.  His meeting with Ann affected Jean
+powerfully, and brought to a climax an idea that had been developing in
+Jean's mind. His sister devotedly loved this lean-faced, keen-eyed
+Arizonian; and it took no great insight to discover that Colmor
+reciprocated her affection. They were young.  They had long life before
+them.  It seemed to Jean a pity that Colmor should be drawn into this
+war.  Jean watched them, as they conversed apart; and he saw Ann's
+hands creep up to Colmor's breast, and he saw her dark eyes, eloquent,
+hungry, fearful, lifted with queries her lips did not speak.  Jean
+stepped beside them, and laid an arm over both their shoulders.
+
+"Colmor, for Ann's sake you'd better back out of this Jorth-Isbel
+fight," he whispered.
+
+Colmor looked insulted.  "But, Jean, it's Ann's father," he said. "I'm
+almost one of the family."
+
+"You're Ann's sweetheart, an', by Heaven, I say you oughtn't to go with
+us!" whispered Jean.
+
+"Go--with--you," faltered Ann.
+
+"Yes.  Dad is goin' straight after Jorth.  Can't you tell that?  An'
+there 'll be one hell of a fight."
+
+Ann looked up into Colmor's face with all her soul in her eyes, but she
+did not speak.  Her look was noble.  She yearned to guide him right,
+yet her lips were sealed.  And Colmor betrayed the trouble of his soul.
+The code of men held him bound, and he could not break from it, though
+he divined in that moment how truly it was wrong.
+
+"Jean, your dad started me in the cattle business," said Colmor,
+earnestly.  "An' I'm doin' well now.  An' when I asked him for Ann he
+said he'd be glad to have me in the family.... Well, when this talk of
+fight come up, I asked your dad to let me go in on his side. He
+wouldn't hear of it.  But after a while, as the time passed an' he made
+more enemies, he finally consented.  I reckon he needs me now. An' I
+can't back out, not even for Ann."
+
+"I would if I were you," replied jean, and knew that he lied.
+
+"Jean, I'm gamblin' to come out of the fight," said Colmor, with a
+smile. He had no morbid fears nor presentiments, such as troubled jean.
+
+"Why, sure--you stand as good a chance as anyone," rejoined Jean. "It
+wasn't that I was worryin' about so much."
+
+"What was it, then?" asked Ann, steadily.
+
+"If Andrew DOES come through alive he'll have blood on his hands,"
+returned Jean, with passion.  "He can't come through without it....
+I've begun to feel what it means to have killed my fellow men.... An'
+I'd rather your husband an' the father of your children never felt
+that."
+
+Colmor did not take Jean as subtly as Ann did.  She shrunk a little.
+Her dark eyes dilated.  But Colmor showed nothing of her spiritual
+reaction.  He was young.  He had wild blood.  He was loyal to the
+Isbels.
+
+"Jean, never worry about my conscience," he said, with a keen look.
+"Nothin' would tickle me any more than to get a shot at every damn one
+of the Jorths."
+
+That established Colmor's status in regard to the Jorth-Isbel feud.
+Jean had no more to say.  He respected Ann's friend and felt poignant
+sorrow for Ann.
+
+Gaston Isbel called for meat and drink to be set on the table for his
+guests.  When his wishes had been complied with the women took the
+children into the adjoining cabin and shut the door.
+
+"Hah!  Wal, we can eat an' talk now."
+
+First the newcomers wanted to hear particulars of what had happened.
+Blaisdell had told all he knew and had seen, but that was not
+sufficient.  They plied Gaston Isbel with questions.  Laboriously and
+ponderously he rehearsed the experiences of the fight at the ranch,
+according to his impressions.  Bill Isbel was exhorted to talk, but he
+had of late manifested a sullen and taciturn disposition. In spite of
+Jean's vigilance Bill had continued to imbibe red liquor. Then Jean was
+called upon to relate all he had seen and done.  It had been Jean's
+intention to keep his mouth shut, first for his own sake and, secondly,
+because he did not like to talk of his deeds.  But when thus appealed
+to by these somber-faced, intent-eyed men he divined that the more
+carefully he described the cruelty and baseness of their enemies, and
+the more vividly he presented his participation in the first fight of
+the feud the more strongly he would bind these friends to the Isbel
+cause.  So he talked for an hour, beginning with his meeting with
+Colter up on the Rim and ending with an account of his killing Greaves.
+His listeners sat through this long narrative with unabated interest
+and at the close they were leaning forward, breathless and tense.
+
+"Ah!  So Greaves got his desserts at last," exclaimed Gordon.
+
+All the men around the table made comments, and the last, from Blue,
+was the one that struck Jean forcibly.
+
+"Shore thet was a strange an' a hell of a way to kill Greaves. Why'd
+you do thet, Jean?"
+
+"I told you.  I wanted to avoid noise an' I hoped to get more of them."
+
+Blue nodded his lean, eagle-like head and sat thoughtfully, as if not
+convinced of anything save Jean's prowess.  After a moment Blue spoke
+again.
+
+"Then, goin' back to Jean's tellin' aboot trackin' rustled Cattle, I've
+got this to say.  I've long suspected thet somebody livin' right heah
+in the valley has been drivin' off cattle an' dealin' with rustlers.
+An' now I'm shore of it."
+
+This speech did not elicit the amaze from Gaston Isbel that Jean
+expected it would.
+
+"You mean Greaves or some of his friends?"
+
+"No.  They wasn't none of them in the cattle business, like we are.
+Shore we all knowed Greaves was crooked.  But what I'm figgerin' is
+thet some so-called honest man in our settlement has been makin'
+crooked deals."
+
+Blue was a man of deeds rather than words, and so much strong speech
+from him, whom everybody knew to be remarkably reliable and keen, made
+a profound impression upon most of the Isbel faction.  But, to Jean's
+surprise, his father did not rave.  It was Blaisdell who supplied the
+rage and invective.  Bill Isbel, also, was strangely indifferent to
+this new element in the condition of cattle dealing. Suddenly Jean
+caught a vague flash of thought, as if he had intercepted the thought
+of another's mind, and he wondered--could his brother Bill know
+anything about this crooked work alluded to by Blue?  Dismissing the
+conjecture, Jean listened earnestly.
+
+"An' if it's true it shore makes this difference--we cain't blame all
+the rustlin' on to Jorth," concluded Blue.
+
+"Wal, it's not true," declared Gaston Isbel, roughly.  "Jorth an' his
+Hash Knife Gang are at the bottom of all the rustlin' in the valley for
+years back.  An' they've got to be wiped out!"
+
+"Isbel, I reckon we'd all feel better if we talk straight," replied
+Blue, coolly.  "I'm heah to stand by the Isbels.  An' y'u know what
+thet means. But I'm not heah to fight Jorth because he may be a
+rustler.  The others may have their own reasons, but mine is this--you
+once stood by me in Texas when I was needin' friends.  Wal, I'm
+standin' by y'u now. Jorth is your enemy, an' so he is mine."
+
+Gaston Isbel bowed to this ultimatum, scarcely less agitated than when
+Esther Isbel had denounced him.  His rabid and morbid hate of Jorth had
+eaten into his heart to take possession there, like the parasite that
+battened upon the life of its victim.  Blue's steely voice, his cold,
+gray eyes, showed the unbiased truth of the man, as well as his
+fidelity to his creed.  Here again, but in a different manner,  Gaston
+Isbel had the fact flung at him that other men must suffer, perhaps
+die, for his hate.  And the very soul of the old rancher apparently
+rose in Passionate revolt against the blind, headlong, elemental
+strength of his nature.  So it seemed to Jean, who, in love and pity
+that hourly grew, saw through his father.  Was it too late? Alas!
+Gaston Isbel could never be turned back!  Yet something was altering
+his brooding, fixed mind.
+
+"Wal," said Blaisdell, gruffly, "let's get down to business.... I'm for
+havin' Blue be foreman of this heah outfit, an' all of us to do as he
+says."
+
+Gaston Isbel opposed this selection and indeed resented it. He intended
+to lead the Isbel faction.
+
+"All right, then.  Give us a hunch what we're goin' to do," replied
+Blaisdell.
+
+"We're goin' to ride off on Jorth's trail--an' one way or another--kill
+him--KILL HIM! ... I reckon that'll end the fight."
+
+What did old Isbel have in his mind?  His listeners shook their heads.
+
+"No," asserted Blaisdell.  "Killin' Jorth might be the end of your
+desires, Isbel, but it 'd never end our fight.  We'll have gone too
+far.... If we take Jorth's trail from heah it means we've got to wipe
+out that rustier gang, or stay to the last man."
+
+"Yes, by God!" exclaimed Fredericks.
+
+"Let's drink to thet!" said Blue.  Strangely they turned to this Texas
+gunman, instinctively recognizing in him the brain and heart, and the
+past deeds, that fitted him for the leadership of such a clan.  Blue
+had all in life to lose, and nothing to gain.  Yet his spirit was such
+that he could not lean to all the possible gain of the future, and
+leave a debt unpaid.  Then his voice, his look, his influence were
+those of a fighter.  They all drank with him, even Jean, who hated
+liquor.  And this act of drinking seemed the climax of the council.
+Preparations were at once begun for their departure on Jorth's trail.
+
+Jean took but little time for his own needs.  A horse, a blanket, a
+knapsack of meat and bread, a canteen, and his weapons, with all the
+ammunition he could pack, made up his outfit.  He wore his buckskin
+suit, leggings, and moccasins.  Very soon the cavalcade was ready to
+depart.  Jean tried not to watch Bill Isbel say good-by to his
+children, but it was impossible not to.  Whatever Bill was, as a man,
+he was father of those children, and he loved them.  How strange that
+the little ones seemed to realize the meaning of this good-by?  They
+were grave, somber-eyed, pale up to the last moment, then they broke
+down and wept.  Did they sense that their father would never come back?
+Jean caught that dark, fatalistic presentiment.  Bill Isbel's convulsed
+face showed that he also caught it.  Jean did not see Bill say good-by
+to his wife.  But he heard her.  Old Gaston Isbel forgot to speak to
+the children, or else could not.  He never looked at them.  And his
+good-by to Ann was as if he were only riding to the village for a day.
+Jean saw woman's love, woman's intuition, woman's grief in her eyes. He
+could not escape her.  "Oh, Jean! oh, brother!" she whispered as she
+enfolded him.  "It's awful!  It's wrong!  Wrong!  Wrong! ... Good-by!
+... If killing MUST be--see that y'u kill the Jorths! ... Good-by!"
+
+Even in Ann, gentle and mild, the Isbel blood spoke at the last. Jean
+gave Ann over to the pale-faced Colmor, who took her in his arms. Then
+Jean fled out to his horse.  This cold-blooded devastation of a home
+was almost more than he could bear.  There was love here. What would be
+left?
+
+Colmor was the last one to come out to the horses.  He did not walk
+erect, nor as one whose sight was clear.  Then, as the silent, tense,
+grim men mounted their horses,  Bill Isbel's eldest child, the boy,
+appeared in the door.  His little form seemed instinct with a force
+vastly different from grief.  His face was the face of an Isbel.
+
+"Daddy--kill 'em all!" he shouted, with a passion all the fiercer for
+its incongruity to the treble voice.
+
+So the poison had spread from father to son.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Half a mile from the Isbel ranch the cavalcade passed the log cabin of
+Evarts, father of the boy who had tended sheep with Bernardino.
+
+It suited Gaston Isbel to halt here.  No need to call!  Evarts and his
+son appeared so quickly as to convince observers that they had been
+watching.
+
+"Howdy, Jake!" said Isbel.  "I'm wantin' a word with y'u alone."
+
+"Shore, boss, git down an' come in," replied Evarts.
+
+Isbel led him aside, and said something forcible that Jean divined from
+the very gesture which accompanied it.  His father was telling Evarts
+that he was not to join in the Isbel-Jorth war.  Evarts had worked for
+the Isbels a long time, and his faithfulness, along with something
+stronger and darker, showed in his rugged face as he stubbornly opposed
+Isbel.  The old man raised his voice: "No, I tell you.  An' that
+settles it."
+
+They returned to the horses, and, before mounting, Isbel, as if he
+remembered something, directed his somber gaze on young Evarts.
+
+"Son, did you bury Bernardino?"
+
+"Dad an' me went over yestiddy," replied the lad.  "I shore was glad
+the coyotes hadn't been round."
+
+"How aboot the sheep?"
+
+"I left them there.  I was goin' to stay, but bein' all alone--I got
+skeered.... The sheep was doin' fine.  Good water an' some grass. An'
+this ain't time fer varmints to hang round."
+
+"Jake, keep your eye on that flock," returned Isbel.  "An' if I
+shouldn't happen to come back y'u can call them sheep yours.... I'd
+like your boy to ride up to the village.  Not with us, so anybody would
+see him.  But afterward.  We'll be at Abel Meeker's."
+
+Again Jean was confronted with an uneasy premonition as to some idea or
+plan his father had not shared with his followers.  When the cavalcade
+started on again Jean rode to his father's side and asked him why he
+had wanted the Evarts boy to come to Grass Valley.  And the old man
+replied that, as the boy could run to and fro in the village without
+danger, he might be useful in reporting what was going on at Greaves's
+store, where undoubtedly the Jorth gang would hold forth. This appeared
+reasonable enough, therefore Jean smothered the objection he had meant
+to make.
+
+The valley road was deserted.  When, a mile farther on, the riders
+passed a group of cabins, just on the outskirts of the village, Jean's
+quick eye caught sight of curious and evidently frightened people
+trying to see while they avoided being seen.  No doubt the whole
+settlement was in a state of suspense and terror.  Not unlikely this
+dark, closely grouped band of horsemen appeared to them as Jorth's gang
+had looked to Jean.  It was an orderly, trotting march that manifested
+neither hurry nor excitement.  But any Western eye could have caught
+the singular aspect of such a group, as if the intent of the riders was
+a visible thing.
+
+Soon they reached the outskirts of the village.  Here their approach
+bad been watched for or had been already reported.  Jean saw men,
+women, children peeping from behind cabins and from half-opened doors.
+Farther on Jean espied the dark figures of men, slipping out the back
+way through orchards and gardens and running north, toward the center
+of the village.  Could these be friends of the Jorth crowd, on the way
+with warnings of the approach of the Isbels?  Jean felt convinced of
+it. He was learning that his father had not been absolutely correct in
+his estimation of the way Jorth and his followers were regarded by
+their neighbors.  Not improbably there were really many villagers who,
+being more interested in sheep raising than in cattle, had an honest
+leaning toward the Jorths.  Some, too, no doubt, had leanings that were
+dishonest in deed if not in sincerity.
+
+Gaston Isbel led his clan straight down the middle of the wide road of
+Grass Valley until he reached a point opposite Abel Meeker's cabin.
+Jean espied the same curiosity from behind Meeker's door and windows as
+had been shown all along the road.  But presently, at Isbel's call, the
+door opened and a short, swarthy man appeared.  He carried a rifle.
+
+"Howdy, Gass!" he said.  "What's the good word?"
+
+"Wal, Abel, it's not good, but bad.  An' it's shore started," replied
+Isbel.  "I'm askin' y'u to let me have your cabin."
+
+"You're welcome.  I'll send the folks 'round to Jim's," returned
+Meeker. "An' if y'u want me, I'm with y'u, Isbel."
+
+"Thanks, Abel, but I'm not leadin' any more kin an' friends into this
+heah deal."
+
+"Wal, jest as y'u say.  But I'd like damn bad to jine with y'u.... My
+brother Ted was shot last night."
+
+"Ted!  Is he daid?" ejaculated Isbel, blankly.
+
+"We can't find out," replied Meeker.  "Jim says thet Jeff Campbell said
+thet Ted went into Greaves's place last night.  Greaves allus was
+friendly to Ted, but Greaves wasn't thar--"
+
+"No, he shore wasn't," interrupted Isbel, with a dark smile, "an' he
+never will be there again."
+
+Meeker nodded with slow comprehension and a shade crossed his face.
+
+"Wal, Campbell claimed he'd heerd from some one who was thar.  Anyway,
+the Jorths were drinkin' hard, an' they raised a row with Ted--same old
+sheep talk an' somebody shot him.  Campbell said Ted was thrown out
+back, an' he was shore he wasn't killed."
+
+"Ahuh!  Wal, I'm sorry, Abel, your family had to lose in this.  Maybe
+Ted's not bad hurt.  I shore hope so.... An' y'u an' Jim keep out of
+the fight, anyway."
+
+"All right, Isbel.  But I reckon I'll give y'u a hunch.  If this heah
+fight lasts long the whole damn Basin will be in it, on one side or
+t'other."
+
+"Abe, you're talkin' sense," broke in Blaisdell.  "An' that's why we're
+up heah for quick action."
+
+"I heerd y'u got Daggs," whispered Meeker, as he peered all around.
+
+"Wal, y'u heerd correct," drawled Blaisdell.
+
+Meeker muttered strong words into his beard.  "Say, was Daggs in thet
+Jorth outfit?"
+
+"He WAS.  But he walked right into Jean's forty-four.... An' I reckon
+his carcass would show some more."
+
+"An' whar's Guy Isbel?" demanded Meeker.
+
+"Daid an' buried, Abel," replied Gaston Isbel.  "An' now I'd be obliged
+if y'u 'll hurry your folks away, an' let us have your cabin an'
+corral. Have yu got any hay for the hosses?"
+
+"Shore.  The barn's half full," replied Meeker, as he turned away.
+"Come on in."
+
+"No.  We'll wait till you've gone."
+
+When Meeker had gone, Isbel and his men sat their horses and looked
+about them and spoke low.  Their advent had been expected, and the
+little town awoke to the imminence of the impending battle.  Inside
+Meeker's house there was the sound of indistinct voices of women and
+the bustle incident to a hurried vacating.
+
+Across the wide road people were peering out on all sides, some hiding,
+others walking to and fro, from fence to fence, whispering in little
+groups.  Down the wide road, at the point where it turned, stood
+Greaves's fort-like stone house.  Low, flat, isolated, with its dark,
+eye-like windows, it presented a forbidding and sinister aspect. Jean
+distinctly saw the forms of men, some dark, others in shirt sleeves,
+come to the wide door and look down the road.
+
+"Wal, I reckon only aboot five hundred good hoss steps are separatin'
+us from that outfit," drawled Blaisdell.
+
+No one replied to his jocularity.  Gaston Isbel's eyes narrowed to a
+slit in his furrowed face and he kept them fastened upon Greaves's
+store. Blue, likewise, had a somber cast of countenance, not, perhaps,
+any darker nor grimmer than those of his comrades, but more
+representative of intense preoccupation of mind.  The look of him
+thrilled Jean, who could sense its deadliness, yet could not grasp any
+more.  Altogether, the manner of the villagers and the watchful pacing
+to and fro of the Jorth followers and the silent, boding front of Isbel
+and his men summed up for Jean the menace of the moment that must very
+soon change to a terrible reality.
+
+At a call from Meeker, who stood at the back of the cabin, Gaston Isbel
+rode into the yard, followed by the others of his party.  "Somebody
+look after the hosses," ordered Isbel, as he dismounted and took his
+rifle and pack.  "Better leave the saddles on, leastways till we see
+what's comin' off."
+
+Jean and Bill Isbel led the horses back to the corral.  While watering
+and feeding them, Jean somehow received the impression that Bill was
+trying to speak, to confide in him, to unburden himself of some load.
+This peculiarity of Bill's had become marked when he was perfectly
+sober. Yet he had never spoken or even begun anything unusual.  Upon
+the present occasion, however, Jean believed that his brother might
+have gotten rid of his emotion, or whatever it was, had they not been
+interrupted by Colmor.
+
+"Boys, the old man's orders are for us to sneak round on three sides of
+Greaves's store, keepin' out of gunshot till we find good cover, an'
+then crawl closer an' to pick off any of Jorth's gang who shows
+himself."
+
+Bill Isbel strode off without a reply to Colmor.
+
+"Well, I don't think so much of that," said Jean, ponderingly. "Jorth
+has lots of friends here.  Somebody might pick us off."
+
+"I kicked, but the old man shut me up.  He's not to be bucked ag'in'
+now.  Struck me as powerful queer.  But no wonder."
+
+"Maybe he knows best.  Did he say anythin' about what he an' the rest
+of them are goin' to do?"
+
+"Nope.  Blue taxed him with that an' got the same as me.  I reckon we'd
+better try it out, for a while, anyway."
+
+"Looks like he wants us to keep out of the fight," replied Jean,
+thoughtfully.  "Maybe, though ... Dad's no fool.  Colmor, you wait here
+till I get out of sight.  I'll go round an' come up as close as
+advisable behind Greaves's store.  You take the right side. An' keep
+hid."
+
+With that Jean strode off, going around the barn, straight out the
+orchard lane to the open flat, and then climbing a fence to the north
+of the village.  Presently he reached a line of sheds and corrals, to
+which he held until he arrived at the road.  This point was about a
+quarter of a mile from Greaves's store, and around the bend.  Jean
+sighted no one.  The road, the fields, the yards, the backs of the
+cabins all looked deserted.  A blight had settled down upon the
+peaceful activities of Grass Valley.  Crossing the road, Jean began to
+circle until he came close to several cabins, around which he made a
+wide detour.  This took him to the edge of the slope, where brush and
+thickets afforded him a safe passage to a line directly back of
+Greaves's store.  Then he turned toward it.  Soon he was again
+approaching a cabin of that side, and some of its inmates descried him,
+Their actions attested to their alarm.  Jean half expected a shot from
+this quarter, such were his growing doubts, but he was mistaken.  A
+man, unknown to Jean, closely watched his guarded movements and then
+waved a hand, as if to signify to Jean that he had nothing to fear.
+After this act he disappeared.  Jean believed that he had been
+recognized by some one not antagonistic to the Isbels.  Therefore he
+passed the cabin and, coming to a thick scrub-oak tree that offered
+shelter, he hid there to watch.  From this spot he could see the back
+of Greaves's store, at a distance probably too far for a rifle bullet
+to reach.  Before him, as far as the store, and on each side, extended
+the village common. In front of the store ran the road.  Jean's
+position was such that he could not command sight of this road down
+toward Meeker's house, a fact that disturbed him.  Not satisfied with
+this stand, he studied his surroundings in the hope of espying a
+better.  And he discovered what he thought would be a more favorable
+position, although he could not see much farther down the road.  Jean
+went back around the cabin and, coming out into the open to the right,
+he got the corner of Greaves's barn between him and the window of the
+store.  Then he boldly hurried into the open, and soon reached an old
+wagon, from behind which he proposed to watch.  He could not see either
+window or door of the store, but if any of the Jorth contingent came
+out the back way they would be within reach of his rifle.  Jean took
+the risk of being shot at from either side.
+
+So sharp and roving was his sight that he soon espied Colmor slipping
+along behind the trees some hundred yards to the left.  All his efforts
+to catch a glimpse of Bill, however, were fruitless.  And this appeared
+strange to Jean, for there were several good places on the right from
+which Bill could have commanded the front of Greaves's store and the
+whole west side.
+
+Colmor disappeared among some shrubbery, and Jean seemed left alone to
+watch a deserted, silent village.  Watching and listening, he felt that
+the time dragged.  Yet the shadows cast by the sun showed him that, no
+matter how tense he felt and how the moments seemed hours, they were
+really flying.
+
+Suddenly Jean's ears rang with the vibrant shock of a rifle report. He
+jerked up, strung and thrilling.  It came from in front of the store.
+It was followed by revolver shots, heavy, booming.  Three he counted,
+and the rest were too close together to enumerate.  A single hoarse
+yell pealed out, somehow trenchant and triumphant.  Other yells, not so
+wild and strange, muffled the first one.  Then silence clapped down on
+the store and the open square.
+
+Jean was deadly certain that some of the Jorth clan would show
+themselves.  He strained to still the trembling those sudden shots and
+that significant yell had caused him.  No man appeared.  No more sounds
+caught Jean's ears.  The suspense, then, grew unbearable. It was not
+that he could not wait for an enemy to appear, but that he could not
+wait to learn what had happened.  Every moment that he stayed there,
+with hands like steel on his rifle, with eyes of a falcon, but added to
+a dreadful, dark certainty of disaster.  A rifle shot swiftly followed
+by revolver shots!  What could, they mean?  Revolver shots of different
+caliber, surely fired by different men!  What could they mean? It was
+not these shots that accounted for Jean's dread, but the yell which had
+followed.  All his intelligence and all his nerve were not sufficient
+to fight down the feeling of calamity.  And at last, yielding to it, he
+left his post, and ran like a deer across the open, through the cabin
+yard, and around the edge of the slope to the road.  Here his caution
+brought him to a halt.  Not a living thing crossed his vision. Breaking
+into a run, he soon reached the back of Meeker's place and entered, to
+hurry forward to the cabin.
+
+Colmor was there in the yard, breathing hard, his face working, and in
+front of him crouched several of the men with rifles ready.  The road,
+to Jean's flashing glance, was apparently deserted.  Blue sat on the
+doorstep, lighting a cigarette.  Then on the moment Blaisdell strode to
+the door of the cabin.  Jean had never seen him look like that.
+
+"Jean--look--down the road," he said, brokenly, and with big hand
+shaking he pointed down toward Greaves's store.
+
+Like lightning Jean's glance shot down--down--down--until it stopped to
+fix upon the prostrate form of a man, lying in the middle of the road.
+A man of lengthy build, shirt-sleeved arms flung wide, white head in
+the dust--dead!  Jean's recognition was as swift as his sight.  His
+father! They had killed him!  The Jorths!  It was done.  His father's
+premonition of death had not been false.  And then, after these
+flashing thoughts, came a sense of blankness, momentarily almost
+oblivion, that gave place to a rending of the heart.  That pain Jean
+had known only at the death of his mother.  It passed, this agonizing
+pang, and its icy pressure yielded to a rushing gust of blood, fiery as
+hell.
+
+"Who--did it?" whispered Jean.
+
+"Jorth!" replied Blaisdell, huskily.  "Son, we couldn't hold your dad
+back.... We couldn't.  He was like a lion.... An' he throwed his life
+away! Oh, if it hadn't been for that it 'd not be so awful.  Shore, we
+come heah to shoot an' be shot.  But not like that.... By God, it was
+murder--murder!"
+
+Jean's mute lips framed a query easily read.
+
+"Tell him, Blue.  I cain't,"  continued Blaisdell, and he tramped back
+into the cabin.
+
+"Set down, Jean, an' take things easy," said Blue, calmly.  "You know
+we all reckoned we'd git plugged one way or another in this deal. An'
+shore it doesn't matter much how a fellar gits it.  All thet ought to
+bother us is to make shore the other outfit bites the dust--same as
+your dad had to."
+
+Under this man's tranquil presence, all the more quieting because it
+seemed to be so deadly sure and cool, Jean felt the uplift of his dark
+spirit, the acceptance of fatality, the mounting control of faculties
+that must wait.  The little gunman seemed to have about his inert
+presence something that suggested a rattlesnake's inherent knowledge of
+its destructiveness.  Jean sat down and wiped his clammy face.
+
+"Jean, your dad reckoned to square accounts with Jorth, an' save us
+all," began Blue, puffing out a cloud of smoke.  "But he reckoned too
+late. Mebbe years; ago--or even not long ago--if he'd called Jorth out
+man to man there'd never been any Jorth-Isbel war.  Gaston Isbel's
+conscience woke too late.  That's how I figger it."
+
+"Hurry!  Tell me--how it--happen," panted Jean.
+
+"Wal, a little while after y'u left I seen your dad writin' on a leaf
+he tore out of a book--Meeker's Bible, as yu can see.  I thought thet
+was funny.  An' Blaisdell gave me a hunch.  Pretty soon along comes
+young Evarts.  The old man calls him out of our hearin' an' talks to
+him. Then I seen him give the boy somethin', which I afterward figgered
+was what he wrote on the leaf out of the Bible.  Me an' Blaisdell both
+tried to git out of him what thet meant.  But not a word.  I kept
+watchin' an' after a while I seen young Evarts slip out the back way.
+Mebbe half an hour I seen a bare-legged kid cross, the road an' go into
+Greaves's store.... Then shore I tumbled to your dad.  He'd sent a note
+to Jorth to come out an' meet him face to face, man to man! ... Shore
+it was like readin' what your dad had wrote.  But I didn't say nothin'
+to Blaisdell.  I jest watched."
+
+Blue drawled these last words, as if he enjoyed remembrance of his keen
+reasoning.  A smile wreathed his thin lips.  He drew twice on the
+cigarette and emitted another cloud of smoke.   Quite suddenly then he
+changed.  He made a rapid gesture--the whip of a hand, significant and
+passionate.  And swift words followed:
+
+"Colonel Lee Jorth stalked out of the store--out into the road--mebbe a
+hundred steps.  Then he halted.  He wore his long black coat an' his
+wide black hat, an' he stood like a stone.
+
+"'What the hell!' burst out Blaisdell, comin' out of his trance.
+
+"The rest of us jest looked.  I'd forgot your dad, for the minnit. So
+had all of us.  But we remembered soon enough when we seen him stalk
+out.  Everybody had a hunch then.  I called him.  Blaisdell begged him
+to come back.  All the fellars; had a say.  No use! Then I shore cussed
+him an' told him it was plain as day thet Jorth didn't hit me like an
+honest man.  I can sense such things.  I knew Jorth had trick up his
+sleeve.  I've not been a gun fighter fer nothin'.
+
+"Your dad had no rifle.  He packed his gun at his hip.  He jest stalked
+down thet road like a giant, goin' faster an' faster, holdin' his head
+high.  It shore was fine to see him.  But I was sick.  I heerd
+Blaisdell groan, an' Fredericks thar cussed somethin' fierce.... When
+your dad halted--I reckon aboot fifty steps from Jorth--then we all
+went numb. I heerd your dad's voice--then Jorth's.  They cut like
+knives. Y'u could shore heah the hate they hed fer each other."
+
+Blue had become a little husky.  His speech had grown gradually to
+denote his feeling.  Underneath his serenity there was a different
+order of man.
+
+"I reckon both your dad an' Jorth went fer their guns at the same
+time--an even break.  But jest as they drew, some one shot a rifle from
+the store.  Must hev been a forty-five seventy.  A big gun!  The bullet
+must have hit your dad low down, aboot the middle.  He acted thet way,
+sinkin' to his knees.  An' he was wild in shootin'--so wild thet he
+must hev missed.  Then he wabbled--an' Jorth run in a dozen steps,
+shootin' fast, till your dad fell over.... Jorth run closer, bent over
+him, an' then straightened up with an Apache yell, if I ever heerd
+one.... An' then Jorth backed slow--lookin' all the time--backed to the
+store, an' went in."
+
+Blue's voice ceased.  Jean seemed suddenly released from an impelling
+magnet that now dropped him to some numb, dizzy depth.  Blue's lean
+face grew hazy.  Then Jean bowed his head in his hands, and sat there,
+while a slight tremor shook all his muscles at once.  He grew deathly
+cold and deathly sick.  This paroxysm slowly wore away, and Jean grew
+conscious of a dull amaze at the apparent deadness of his spirit.
+Blaisdell placed a huge, kindly hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Brace up, son!" he said, with voice now clear and resonant.  "Shore
+it's what your dad expected--an' what we all must look for.... If yu
+was goin' to kill Jorth before--think how -- -- shore y'u're goin' to
+kill him now."
+
+"Blaisdell's talkin'," put in Blue, and his voice had a cold ring. "Lee
+Jorth will never see the sun rise ag'in!"
+
+These calls to the primitive in Jean, to the Indian, were not in vain.
+But even so, when the dark tide rose in him, there was still a haunting
+consciousness of the cruelty of this singular doom imposed upon him.
+Strangely Ellen Jorth's face floated back in the depths of his vision,
+pale, fading, like the face of a spirit floating by.
+
+"Blue," said Blaisdell, "let's get Isbel's body soon as we dare, an'
+bury it.  Reckon we can, right after dark."
+
+"Shore," replied Blue.  "But y'u fellars figger thet out.  I'm thinkin'
+hard.  I've got somethin' on my mind."
+
+Jean grew fascinated by the looks and speech and action of the little
+gunman.  Blue, indeed, had something on his mind.  And it boded ill to
+the men in that dark square stone house down the road.  He paced to and
+fro in the yard, back and forth on the path to the gate, and then he
+entered the cabin to stalk up and down, faster and faster, until all at
+once he halted as if struck, to upfling his right arm in a singular
+fierce gesture.
+
+"Jean, call the men in," he said, tersely.
+
+They all filed in, sinister and silent, with eager faces turned to the
+little Texan.  His dominance showed markedly.
+
+"Gordon, y'u stand in the door an' keep your eye peeled," went on Blue.
+"... Now, boys, listen!  I've thought it all out.  This game of man
+huntin' is the same to me as cattle raisin' is to y'u.  An' my life in
+Texas all comes back to me, I reckon, in good stead fer us now.  I'm
+goin' to kill Lee Jorth!  Him first, an' mebbe his brothers.  I had to
+think of a good many ways before I hit on one I reckon will be shore.
+It's got to be SHORE.  Jorth has got to die!  Wal, heah's my plan....
+Thet Jorth outfit is drinkin' some, we can gamble on it.  They're not
+goin' to leave thet store.  An' of course they'll be expectin' us to
+start a fight.  I reckon they'll look fer some such siege as they held
+round Isbel's ranch.  But we shore ain't goin' to do thet.  I'm goin'
+to surprise thet outfit.  There's only one man among them who is
+dangerous, an' thet's Queen.  I know Queen.  But he doesn't know me.
+An' I'm goin' to finish my job before he gets acquainted with me. After
+thet, all right!"
+
+Blue paused a moment, his eyes narrowing down, his whole face setting
+in hard cast of intense preoccupation, as if he visualized a scene of
+extraordinary nature.
+
+"Wal, what's your trick?" demanded Blaisdell.
+
+"Y'u all know Greaves's store," continued Blue.  "How them winders have
+wooden shutters thet keep a light from showin' outside?  Wal, I'm
+gamblin' thet as soon as it's dark Jorth's gang will be celebratin'.
+They'll be drinkin' an' they'll have a light, an' the winders will be
+shut.  They're not goin' to worry none aboot us.  Thet store is like a
+fort.  It won't burn.  An' shore they'd never think of us chargin' them
+in there.  Wal, as soon as it's dark, we'll go round behind the lots
+an' come up jest acrost the road from Greaves's.  I reckon we'd better
+leave Isbel where he lays till this fight's over.  Mebbe y'u 'll have
+more 'n him to bury. We'll crawl behind them bushes in front of
+Coleman's yard.  An' heah's where Jean comes in.  He'll take an ax, an'
+his guns, of course, an' do some of his Injun sneakin' round to the
+back of Greaves's store.... An', Jean, y'u must do a slick job of this.
+But I reckon it 'll be easy fer you.  Back there it 'll be dark as
+pitch, fer anyone lookin' out of the store.  An' I'm figgerin' y'u can
+take your time an' crawl right up. Now if y'u don't remember how
+Greaves's back yard looks I'll tell y'u."
+
+Here Blue dropped on one knee to the floor and with a finger he traced
+a map of Greaves's barn and fence, the back door and window, and
+especially a break in the stone foundation which led into a kind of
+cellar where Greaves stored wood and other things that could be left
+outdoors.
+
+"Jean, I take particular pains to show y'u where this hole is," said
+Blue, "because if the gang runs out y'u could duck in there an' hide.
+An' if they run out into the yard--wal, y'u'd make it a sorry run fer
+them.... Wal, when y'u've crawled up close to Greaves's back door, an'
+waited long enough to see an' listen--then you're to run fast an' swing
+your ax smash ag'in' the winder.  Take a quick peep in if y'u want to.
+It might help.  Then jump quick an' take a swing at the door. Y'u 'll
+be standin' to one side, so if the gang shoots through the door they
+won't hit y'u.  Bang thet door good an' hard.... Wal, now's where I
+come in.  When y'u swing thet ax I'll shore run fer the front of the
+store.  Jorth an' his outfit will be some attentive to thet poundin' of
+yours on the back door.  So I reckon.  An' they'll be lookin' thet way.
+I'll run in--yell--an' throw my guns on Jorth."
+
+"Humph!  Is that all?" ejaculated Blaisdell.
+
+"I reckon thet's all an' I'm figgerin' it's a hell of a lot," responded
+Blue, dryly.  "Thet's what Jorth will think."
+
+"Where do we come in?"
+
+"Wal, y'u all can back me up," replied Blue, dubiously.  "Y'u see, my
+plan goes as far as killin' Jorth--an' mebbe his brothers.  Mebbe I'll
+get a crack at Queen.  But I'll be shore of Jorth.  After thet all
+depends.  Mebbe it 'll be easy fer me to get out.  An' if I do y'u
+fellars will know it an' can fill thet storeroom full of bullets."
+
+"Wal, Blue, with all due respect to y'u, I shore don't like your plan,"
+declared Blaisdell.  "Success depends upon too many little things any
+one of which might go wrong."
+
+"Blaisdell, I reckon I know this heah game better than y'u," replied
+Blue.  "A gun fighter goes by instinct.  This trick will work."
+
+"But suppose that front door of Greaves's store is barred," protested
+Blaisdell.
+
+"It hasn't got any bar," said Blue.
+
+"Y'u're shore?"
+
+"Yes, I reckon," replied Blue.
+
+"Hell, man! Aren't y'u takin' a terrible chance?" queried Blaisdell.
+
+Blue's answer to that was a look that brought the blood to Blaisdell's
+face.  Only then did the rancher really comprehend how the little
+gunman had taken such desperate chances before, and meant to take them
+now, not with any hope or assurance of escaping with his life, but to
+live up to his peculiar code of honor.
+
+"Blaisdell, did y'u ever heah of me in Texas?" he queried, dryly.
+
+"Wal, no, Blue, I cain't swear I did," replied the rancher,
+apologetically.  "An' Isbel was always sort of' mysterious aboot his
+acquaintance with you."
+
+"My name's not Blue."
+
+"Ahuh!  Wal, what is it, then--if I'm safe to ask?" returned Blaisdell,
+gruffly.
+
+"It's King Fisher," replied Blue.
+
+The shock that stiffened Blaisdell must have been communicated to the
+others.  Jean certainly felt amaze, and some other emotion not fully
+realized, when he found himself face to face with one of the most
+notorious characters ever known in Texas--an outlaw long supposed to be
+dead.
+
+"Men, I reckon I'd kept my secret if I'd any idee of comin' out of this
+Isbel-Jorth war alive," said Blue.  "But I'm goin' to cash.  I feel it
+heah.... Isbel was my friend.  He saved me from bein' lynched in Texas.
+An' so I'm goin' to kill Jorth.  Now I'll take it kind of y'u--if any
+of y'u come out of this alive--to tell who I was an' why I was on the
+Isbel side.  Because this sheep an' cattle war--this talk of Jorth an'
+the Hash Knife Gang--it makes me, sick.  I KNOW there's been crooked
+work on Isbel's side, too.  An' I never want it on record thet I killed
+Jorth because he was a rustler."
+
+"By God, Blue! it's late in the day for such talk," burst out
+Blaisdell, in rage and amaze.  "But I reckon y'u know what y'u're
+talkin' aboot.... Wal, I shore don't want to heah it."
+
+At this juncture Bill Isbel quietly entered the cabin, too late to hear
+any of Blue's statement.  Jean was positive of that, for as Blue was
+speaking those last revealing words Bill's heavy boots had resounded on
+the gravel path outside.  Yet something in Bill's look or in the way
+Blue averted his lean face or in the entrance of Bill at that
+particular moment, or all these together, seemed to Jean to add further
+mystery to the long secret causes leading up to the Jorth-Isbel war.
+Did Bill know what Blue knew?  Jean had an inkling that he did.  And on
+the moment, so perplexing and bitter, Jean gazed out the door, down the
+deserted road to where his dead father lay, white-haired and ghastly in
+the sunlight.
+
+"Blue, you could have kept that to yourself, as well as your real
+name," interposed Jean, with bitterness.  "It's too late now for either
+to do any good.... But I appreciate your friendship for dad, an' I'm
+ready to help carry out your plan."
+
+That decision of Jean's appeared to put an end to protest or argument
+from Blaisdell or any of the others.  Blue's fleeting dark smile was
+one of satisfaction.  Then upon most of this group of men seemed to
+settle a grim restraint.  They went out and walked and watched; they
+came in again, restless and somber.  Jean thought that he must have
+bent his gaze a thousand times down the road to the tragic figure of
+his father.  That sight roused all emotions in his breast, and the one
+that stirred there most was pity.  The pity of it!  Gaston Isbel lying
+face down in the dust of the village street!  Patches of blood showed
+on the back of his vest and one white-sleeved shoulder.  He had been
+shot through.  Every time Jean saw this blood he had to stifle a
+gathering of wild, savage impulses.
+
+Meanwhile the afternoon hours dragged by and the village remained as if
+its inhabitants had abandoned it.  Not even a dog showed on the side
+road.  Jorth and some of his men came out in front of the store and sat
+on the steps, in close convening groups.  Every move they, made seemed
+significant of their confidence and importance.  About sunset they went
+back into the store, closing  door and window shutters.  Then Blaisdell
+called the Isbel faction to have food and drink.  Jean felt no hunger.
+And Blue, who had kept apart from the others, showed no desire to eat.
+Neither did he smoke, though early in the day he had never been without
+a cigarette between his lips.
+
+Twilight fell and darkness came.  Not a light showed anywhere in the
+blackness.
+
+"Wal, I reckon it's aboot time," said Blue, and he led the way out of
+the cabin to the back of the lot.  Jean strode behind him, carrying his
+rifle and an ax.  Silently the other men followed.  Blue turned to the
+left and led through the field until he came within sight of a dark
+line of trees.
+
+"Thet's where the road turns off," he said to Jean.  "An' heah's the
+back of Coleman's place.... Wal, Jean, good luck!"
+
+Jean felt the grip of a steel-like hand, and in the darkness he caught
+the gleam of Blue's eyes.  Jean had no response in words for the
+laconic Blue, but he wrung the hard, thin hand and hurried away in the
+darkness.
+
+Once alone, his part of the business at hand rushed him into eager
+thrilling action.  This was the sort of work he was fitted to do. In
+this instance it was important, but it seemed to him that Blue had
+coolly taken the perilous part.  And this cowboy with gray in his thin
+hair was in reality the great King Fisher!  Jean marveled at the fact.
+And he shivered all over for Jorth.  In ten minutes--fifteen, more or
+less, Jorth would lie gasping bloody froth and sinking down. Something
+in the dark, lonely, silent, oppressive summer night told Jean this.
+He strode on swiftly.  Crossing the road at a run, he kept on over the
+ground he had traversed during the afternoon, and in a few moments he
+stood breathing hard at the edge of the common behind Greaves's store.
+
+A pin point of light penetrated the blackness.  It made Jean's heart
+leap.  The Jorth contingent were burning the big lamp that hung in the
+center of Greaves's store.  Jean listened.  Loud voices and coarse
+laughter sounded discord on the melancholy silence of the night.  What
+Blue had called his instinct had surely guided him aright.  Death of
+Gaston Isbel was being celebrated by revel.
+
+In a few moments Jean had regained his breath.  Then all his faculties
+set intensely to the action at hand.  He seemed to magnify his hearing
+and his sight.  His movements made no sound.  He gained the wagon,
+where he crouched a moment.
+
+The ground seemed a pale, obscure medium, hardly more real than the
+gloom above it.  Through this gloom of night, which looked thick like a
+cloud, but was really clear, shone the thin, bright point of light,
+accentuating the black square that was Greaves's store.  Above this
+stood a gray line of tree foliage, and then the intensely dark-blue sky
+studded with white, cold stars.
+
+A hound bayed lonesomely somewhere in the distance.  Voices of men
+sounded more distinctly, some deep and low, others loud, unguarded,
+with the vacant note of thoughtlessness.
+
+Jean gathered all his forces, until sense of sight and hearing were in
+exquisite accord with the suppleness and lightness of his movements. He
+glided on about ten short, swift steps before he halted.  That was as
+far as his piercing eyes could penetrate.  If there had been a guard
+stationed outside the store Jean would have seen him before being seen.
+He saw the fence, reached it, entered the yard, glided in the dense
+shadow of the barn until the black square began to loom gray--the color
+of stone at night.  Jean peered through the obscurity.  No dark figure
+of a man showed against that gray wall--only a black patch, which must
+be the hole in the foundation mentioned.  A ray of light now streaked
+out from the little black window.  To the right showed the wide, black
+door.
+
+Farther on Jean glided silently.  Then he halted.  There was no guard
+outside.  Jean heard the clink of a cap, the lazy drawl of a Texan, and
+then a strong, harsh voice--Jorth's.  It strung Jean's whole being
+tight and vibrating.  Inside he was on fire while cold thrills rippled
+over his skin.  It took tremendous effort of will to hold himself back
+another instant to listen, to look, to feel, to make sure.  And that
+instant charged him with a mighty current of hot blood, straining,
+throbbing, damming.
+
+When Jean leaped this current burst.  In a few swift bounds he gained
+his point halfway between door and window.  He leaned his rifle against
+the stone wall.  Then he swung the ax.  Crash!  The window shutter
+split and rattled to the floor inside.  The silence then broke with a
+hoarse, "What's thet?"
+
+With all his might Jean swung the heavy ax on the door.  Smash!  The
+lower half caved in and banged to the floor.  Bright light flared out
+the hole.
+
+"Look out!" yelled a man, in loud alarm.  "They're batterin' the back
+door!"
+
+Jean swung again, high on the splintered door.  Crash!  Pieces flew
+inside.
+
+"They've got axes," hoarsely shouted another voice.  "Shove the counter
+ag'in' the door."
+
+"No!" thundered a voice of authority that denoted terror as well. "Let
+them come in.  Pull your guns an' take to cover!"
+
+"They ain't comin' in," was the hoarse reply.  "They'll shoot in on us
+from the dark."
+
+"Put out the lamp!" yelled another.
+
+Jean's third heavy swing caved in part of the upper half of the door.
+Shouts and curses intermingled with the sliding of benches across the
+floor and the hard shuffle of boots.  This confusion seemed to be split
+and silenced by a piercing yell, of different caliber, of terrible
+meaning.  It stayed Jean's swing--caused him to drop the ax and snatch
+up his rifle.
+
+"DON'T ANYBODY MOVE!"
+
+Like a steel whip this voice cut the silence.  It belonged to Blue.
+Jean swiftly bent to put his eye to a crack in the door.  Most of those
+visible seemed to have been frozen into unnatural positions.  Jorth
+stood rather in front of his men, hatless and coatless, one arm
+outstretched, and his dark profile set toward a little man just inside
+the door.  This man was Blue.  Jean needed only one flashing look at
+Blue's face, at his leveled, quivering guns, to understand why he had
+chosen this trick.
+
+"Who're---you?" demanded Jorth, in husky pants.
+
+"Reckon I'm Isbel's right-hand man," came the biting reply. "Once
+tolerable well known in Texas.... KING FISHER!"
+
+The name must have been a guarantee of death.  Jorth recognized this
+outlaw and realized his own fate.  In the lamplight his face turned a
+pale greenish white.  His outstretched hand began to quiver down.
+
+Blue's left gun seemed to leap up and flash red and explode.  Several
+heavy reports merged almost as one.  Jorth's arm jerked limply,
+flinging his gun.  And his body sagged in the middle.  His hands
+fluttered like crippled wings and found their way to his abdomen.  His
+death-pale face never changed its set look nor position toward Blue.
+But his gasping utterance was one of horrible mortal fury and terror.
+Then he began to sway, still with that strange, rigid set of his face
+toward his slayer, until he fell.
+
+His fall broke the spell.  Even Blue, like the gunman he was, had
+paused to watch Jorth in his last mortal action.  Jorth's followers
+began to draw and shoot.  Jean saw Blue's return fire bring down a huge
+man, who fell across Jorth's body.  Then Jean, quick as the thought
+that actuated him, raised his rifle and shot at the big lamp.  It burst
+in a flare.  It crashed to the floor.  Darkness followed--a blank,
+thick, enveloping mantle.  Then red flashes of guns emphasized the
+blackness. Inside the store there broke loose a pandemonium of shots,
+yells, curses, and thudding boots.  Jean shoved his rifle barrel inside
+the door and, holding it low down, he moved it to and fro while he
+worked lever and trigger until the magazine was empty.  Then, drawing
+his six-shooter, he emptied that.  A roar of rifles from the front of
+the store told Jean that his comrades had entered the fray.  Bullets
+zipped through the door he had broken.  Jean ran swiftly round the
+corner, taking care to sheer off a little to the left, and when he got
+clear of the building he saw a line of flashes in the middle of the
+road.  Blaisdell and the others were firing into the door of the store.
+With nimble fingers Jean reloaded his rifle.  Then swiftly he ran
+across the road and down to get behind his comrades.  Their shooting
+had slackened.  Jean saw dark forms coming his way.
+
+"Hello, Blaisdell!" he called, warningly.
+
+"That y'u, Jean?" returned the rancher, looming up.  "Wal, we wasn't
+worried aboot y'u."
+
+"Blue?" queried Jean, sharply.
+
+A little, dark figure shuffled past Jean.  "Howdy, Jean!" said Blue,
+dryly.  "Y'u shore did your part.  Reckon I'll need to be tied up, but
+I ain't hurt much."
+
+"Colmor's hit," called the voice of Gordon, a few yards distant. "Help
+me, somebody!"
+
+Jean ran to help Gordon uphold the swaying Colmor.  "Are you hurt--bad?"
+asked Jean, anxiously.  The young man's head rolled and hung.  He was
+breathing hard and did not reply.  They had almost to carry him.
+
+"Come on, men!" called Blaisdell, turning back toward the others who
+were still firing.  "We'll let well enough alone.... Fredericks, y'u
+an' Bill help me find the body of the old man.  It's heah somewhere."
+
+Farther on down the road the searchers stumbled over Gaston Isbel. They
+picked him up and followed Jean and Gordon, who were supporting the
+wounded Colmor.  Jean looked back to see Blue dragging himself along in
+the rear.  It was too dark to see distinctly; nevertheless, Jean got
+the impression that Blue was more severely wounded than he had claimed
+to be.  The distance to Meeker's cabin was not far, but it took what
+Jean felt to be a long and anxious time to get there. Colmor apparently
+rallied somewhat.  When this procession entered Meeker's yard, Blue was
+lagging behind.
+
+"Blue, how air y'u?" called Blaisdell, with concern.
+
+"Wal, I got--my boots--on--anyhow," replied Blue, huskily.
+
+He lurched into the yard and slid down on the grass and stretched out.
+
+"Man!  Y'u're hurt bad!" exclaimed Blaisdell.  The others halted in
+their slow march and, as if by tacit, unspoken word, lowered the body
+of Isbel to the ground.  Then Blaisdell knelt beside Blue.  Jean left
+Colmor to Gordon and hurried to peer down into Blue's dim face.
+
+"No, I ain't--hurt," said Blue, in a much weaker voice.  "I'm--jest
+killed! ... It was Queen! ... Y'u all heerd me--Queen was--only bad man
+in that lot.  I knowed it.... I could--hev killed him.... But I
+was--after Lee Jorth an' his brothers...."
+
+Blue's voice failed there.
+
+"Wal!" ejaculated Blaisdell.
+
+"Shore was funny--Jorth's face--when I said--King Fisher," whispered
+Blue.  "Funnier--when I bored--him through.... But it--was--Queen--"
+
+His whisper died away.
+
+"Blue!" called Blaisdell, sharply.  Receiving no answer, he bent lower
+in the starlight and placed a hand upon the man's breast.
+
+"Wal, he's gone.... I wonder if he really was the old Texas King
+Fisher.  No one would ever believe it.... But if he killed the Jorths,
+I'll shore believe him."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Two weeks of lonely solitude in the forest had worked incalculable
+change in Ellen Jorth.
+
+Late in June her father and her two uncles had packed and ridden off
+with Daggs, Colter, and six other men, all heavily armed, some somber
+with drink, others hard and grim with a foretaste of fight.  Ellen had
+not been given any orders.  Her father had forgotten to bid her good-by
+or had avoided it.  Their dark mission was stamped on their faces.
+
+They had gone and, keen as had been Ellen's pang, nevertheless, their
+departure was a relief.  She had heard them bluster and brag so often
+that she had her doubts of any great Jorth-Isbel war.  Barking dogs did
+not bite.  Somebody, perhaps on each side, would be badly wounded,
+possibly killed, and then the feud would go on as before, mostly talk.
+Many of her former impressions had faded.  Development had been so
+rapid and continuous in her that she could look back to a day-by-day
+transformation.  At night she had hated the sight of herself and when
+the dawn came she would rise, singing.
+
+Jorth had left Ellen at home with the Mexican woman and Antonio. Ellen
+saw them only at meal times, and often not then, for she frequently
+visited old John Sprague or came home late to do her own cooking.
+
+It was but a short distance up to Sprague's cabin, and since she had
+stopped riding the black horse, Spades, she walked.  Spades was
+accustomed to having grain, and in the mornings he would come down to
+the ranch and whistle.  Ellen had vowed she would never feed the horse
+and bade Antonio do it.  But one morning Antonio was absent. She fed
+Spades herself.  When she laid a hand on him and when he rubbed his
+nose against her shoulder she was not quite so sure she hated him. "Why
+should I?" she queried.  "A horse cain't help it if he belongs
+to--to--"  Ellen was not sure of anything except that more and more it
+grew good to be alone.
+
+A whole day in the lonely forest passed swiftly, yet it left a feeling
+of long time.  She lived by her thoughts.  Always the morning was
+bright, sunny, sweet and fragrant and colorful, and her mood was
+pensive, wistful, dreamy.  And always, just as surely as the hours
+passed, thought intruded upon her happiness, and thought brought
+memory, and memory brought shame, and shame brought fight.  Sunset
+after sunset she had dragged herself back to the ranch, sullen and sick
+and beaten.  Yet she never ceased to struggle.
+
+The July storms came, and the forest floor that had been so sear and
+brown and dry and dusty changed as if by magic.  The green grass shot
+up, the flowers bloomed, and along the canyon beds of lacy ferns swayed
+in the wind and bent their graceful tips over the amber-colored water.
+Ellen haunted these cool dells, these pine-shaded, mossy-rocked ravines
+where the brooks tinkled and the deer came down to drink.  She wandered
+alone.  But there grew to be company in the aspens and the music of the
+little waterfalls.  If she could have lived in that solitude always,
+never returning to the ranch home that reminded her of her name, she
+could have forgotten and have been happy.
+
+She loved the storms.  It was a dry country and she had learned through
+years to welcome the creamy clouds that rolled from the southwest.
+They came sailing and clustering and darkening at last to form a great,
+purple, angry mass that appeared to lodge against the mountain rim and
+burst into dazzling streaks of lightning and gray palls of rain.
+Lightning seldom struck near the ranch, but up on the Rim there was
+never a storm that did not splinter and crash some of the noble pines.
+During the storm season sheep herders and woodsmen generally did not
+camp under the pines. Fear of lightning was inborn in the natives, but
+for Ellen the dazzling white streaks or the tremendous splitting,
+crackling shock, or the thunderous boom and rumble along the
+battlements of the Rim had no terrors.  A storm eased her breast.  Deep
+in her heart was a hidden gathering storm.  And somehow, to be out when
+the elements were warring, when the earth trembled and the heavens
+seemed to burst asunder, afforded her strange relief.
+
+The summer days became weeks, and farther and farther they carried
+Ellen on the wings of solitude and loneliness until she seemed to look
+back years at the self she had hated.  And always, when the dark memory
+impinged upon peace, she fought and fought until she seemed to be
+fighting hatred itself.  Scorn of scorn and hate of hate!  Yet even her
+battles grew to be dreams.  For when the inevitable retrospect brought
+back Jean Isbel and his love and her cowardly falsehood she would
+shudder a little and put an unconscious hand to her breast and utterly
+fail in her fight and drift off down to vague and wistful dreams. The
+clean and healing forest, with its whispering wind and imperious
+solitude, had come between Ellen and the meaning of the squalid sheep
+ranch, with its travesty of home, its tragic owner.  And it was coming
+between her two selves, the one that she had been forced to be and the
+other that she did not know--the thinker, the dreamer, the romancer,
+the one who lived in fancy the life she loved.
+
+The summer morning dawned that brought Ellen strange tidings.  They
+must have been created in her sleep, and now were realized in the
+glorious burst of golden sun, in the sweep of creamy clouds across the
+blue, in the solemn music of the wind in the pines, in the wild screech
+of the blue jays and the noble bugle of a stag.  These heralded the day
+as no ordinary day.  Something was going to happen to her. She divined
+it.  She felt it.  And she trembled.  Nothing beautiful, hopeful,
+wonderful could ever happen to Ellen Jorth.  She had been born to
+disaster, to suffer, to be forgotten, and die alone.  Yet all nature
+about her seemed a magnificent rebuke to her morbidness.  The same
+spirit that came out there with the thick, amber light was in her.  She
+lived, and something in her was stronger than mind.
+
+Ellen went to the door of her cabin, where she flung out her arms,
+driven to embrace this nameless purport of the morning.  And a
+well-known voice broke in upon her rapture.
+
+"Wal, lass, I like to see you happy an' I hate myself fer comin'.
+Because I've been to Grass Valley fer two days an' I've got news."
+
+Old John Sprague stood there, with a smile that did not hide a troubled
+look.
+
+"Oh!  Uncle John!  You startled me," exclaimed Ellen, shocked back to
+reality.  And slowly she added: "Grass Valley!  News?"
+
+She put out an appealing hand, which Sprague quickly took in his own,
+as if to reassure her.
+
+"Yes, an' not bad so far as you Jorths are concerned," he replied. "The
+first Jorth-Isbel fight has come off.... Reckon you remember makin' me
+promise to tell you if I heerd anythin'.  Wal, I didn't wait fer you to
+come up."
+
+"So Ellen heard her voice calmly saying.  What was this lying calm when
+there seemed to be a stone hammer at her heart?  The first fight--not
+so bad for the Jorths!  Then it had been bad for the Isbels. A sudden,
+cold stillness fell upon her senses.
+
+"Let's sit down--outdoors," Sprague was saying.  "Nice an' sunny
+this--mornin'.  I declare--I'm out of breath.  Not used to walkin'.
+An' besides, I left Grass Valley, in the night--an' I'm tired.  But
+excoose me from hangin' round thet village last night!  There was
+shore--"
+
+"Who--who was killed?" interrupted Ellen, her voice breaking low and
+deep.
+
+"Guy Isbel an' Bill Jacobs on the Isbel side, an' Daggs, Craig, an'
+Greaves on your father's side," stated Sprague, with something of awed
+haste.
+
+"Ah!" breathed Ellen, and she relaxed to sink back against the cabin
+wall.
+
+Sprague seated himself on the log beside her, turning to face her, and
+he seemed burdened with grave and important matters.
+
+"I heerd a good many conflictin' stories," he said, earnestly.  "The
+village folks is all skeered an' there's no believin' their gossip. But
+I got what happened straight from Jake Evarts.  The fight come off day
+before yestiddy.  Your father's gang rode down to Isbel's ranch. Daggs
+was seen to be wantin' some of the Isbel hosses, so Evarts says. An'
+Guy Isbel an' Jacobs ran out in the pasture.  Daggs an' some others
+shot them down."
+
+"Killed them--that way?" put in Ellen, sharply.
+
+"So Evarts says.  He was on the ridge an' swears he seen it all.  They
+killed Guy an' Jacobs in cold blood.  No chance fer their lives--not
+even to fight! ... Wall, hen they surrounded the Isbel cabin.  The
+fight last all thet day an' all night an' the next day.  Evarts says
+Guy an' Jacobs laid out thar all this time.  An' a herd of hogs broke
+in the pasture an' was eatin' the dead bodies ..."
+
+"My God!" burst out Ellen.  "Uncle John, y'u shore cain't mean my
+father wouldn't stop fightin' long enough to drive the hogs off an'
+bury those daid men?"
+
+"Evarts says they stopped fightin', all right, but it was to watch the
+hogs," declared Sprague.  "An' then, what d' ye think?  The wimminfolks
+come out--the  red-headed one, Guy's wife, an' Jacobs's wife--they
+drove the hogs away an' buried their husbands right there in the
+pasture.  Evarts says he seen the graves."
+
+"It is the women who can teach these bloody Texans a lesson," declared
+Ellen, forcibly.
+
+"Wal, Daggs was drunk, an' he got up from behind where the gang was
+hidin', an' dared the Isbels to come out.  They shot him to pieces. An'
+thet night some one of the Isbels shot Craig, who was alone on
+guard.... An' last--this here's what I come to tell you--Jean Isbel
+slipped up in the dark on Greaves an' knifed him."
+
+"Why did y'u want to tell me that particularly?" asked Ellen, slowly.
+
+"Because I reckon the facts in the case are queer--an' because, Ellen,
+your name was mentioned," announced Sprague, positively.
+
+"My name--mentioned?" echoed Ellen.  Her horror and disgust gave way to
+a quickening process of thought, a mounting astonishment.  "By whom?"
+
+"Jean Isbel," replied Sprague, as if the name and the fact were
+momentous.
+
+Ellen sat still as a stone, her hands between her knees.  Slowly she
+felt the blood recede from her face, prickling her kin down below her
+neck.  That name locked her thought.
+
+"Ellen, it's a mighty queer story--too queer to be a lie," went on
+Sprague.  "Now you listen!  Evarts got this from Ted Meeker.  An' Ted
+Meeker heerd it from Greaves, who didn't die till the next day after
+Jean Isbel knifed him.  An' your dad shot Ted fer tellin' what he
+heerd.... No, Greaves wasn't killed outright.  He was cut somethin'
+turrible--in two places.  They wrapped him all up an' next day packed
+him in a wagon back to Grass Valley.  Evarts says Ted Meeker was
+friendly with Greaves an' went to see him as he was layin' in his room
+next to the store.  Wal, accordin' to Meeker's story, Greaves came to
+an' talked. He said he was sittin' there in the dark, shootin'
+occasionally at Isbel's cabin, when he heerd a rustle behind him in the
+grass.  He knowed some one was crawlin' on him.  But before he could
+get his gun around he was jumped by what he thought was a grizzly bear.
+But it was a man.  He shut off Greaves's wind an' dragged him back in
+the ditch. An' he said: 'Greaves, it's the half-breed.  An' he's goin'
+to cut you--FIRST FOR ELLEN JORTH! an' then for Gaston Isbel!' ...
+Greaves said Jean ripped him with a bowie knife.... An' thet was all
+Greaves remembered.  He died soon after tellin' this story.  He must
+hev fought awful hard.  Thet second cut Isbel gave him went clear
+through him.... Some of the gang was thar when Greaves talked, an'
+naturally they wondered why Jean Isbel had said 'first for Ellen
+Jorth.' ... Somebody remembered thet Greaves had cast a slur on your
+good name, Ellen.  An' then they had Jean Isbel's reason fer sayin'
+thet to Greaves.  It caused a lot of talk.  An' when Simm Bruce busted
+in some of the gang haw-hawed him an' said as how he'd get the third
+cut from Jean Isbel's bowie. Bruce was half drunk an' he began to cuss
+an' rave about Jean Isbel bein' in love with his girl.... As bad luck
+would have it, a couple of more fellars come in an' asked Meeker
+questions.  He jest got to thet part, 'Greaves, it's the half-breed,
+an' he's goin' to cut you--FIRST FOR ELLEN JORTH,' when in walked your
+father! ... Then it all had to come out--what Jean Isbel had said an'
+done--an' why. How Greaves had backed Simm Bruce in slurrin' you!"
+
+Sprague paused to look hard at Ellen.
+
+"Oh!  Then--what did dad do?" whispered Ellen.
+
+"He said, 'By God! half-breed or not, there's one Isbel who's a man!'
+An' he killed Bruce on the spot an' gave Meeker a nasty wound. Somebody
+grabbed him before he could shoot Meeker again.  They threw Meeker out
+an' he crawled to a neighbor's house, where he was when Evarts seen
+him."
+
+Ellen felt Sprague's rough but kindly hand shaking her.  "An' now what
+do you think of Jean Isbel?" he queried.
+
+A great, unsurmountable wall seemed to obstruct Ellen's thought. It
+seemed gray in color.  It moved toward her.  It was inside her brain.
+
+"I tell you, Ellen Jorth," declared the old man, "thet Jean Isbel loves
+you--loves you turribly--an' he believes you're good."
+
+"Oh no--he doesn't!" faltered Ellen.
+
+"Wal, he jest does."
+
+"Oh, Uncle John, he cain't believe that!" she cried.
+
+"Of course he can.  He does.  You are good--good as gold, Ellen, an' he
+knows it.... What a queer deal it all is!  Poor devil!  To love you
+thet turribly an' hev to fight your people!  Ellen, your dad had it
+correct.  Isbel or not, he's a man.... An' I say what a shame you two
+are divided by hate.  Hate thet you hed nothin' to do with." Sprague
+patted her head and rose to go.  "Mebbe thet fight will end the
+trouble.  I reckon it will.  Don't cross bridges till you come to them,
+Ellen.... I must hurry back now.  I didn't take time to unpack my
+burros.  Come up soon.... An', say, Ellen, don't think hard any more of
+thet Jean Isbel."
+
+Sprague strode away, and Ellen neither heard nor saw him go.  She sat
+perfectly motionless, yet had a strange sensation of being lifted by
+invisible and mighty power.  It was like movement felt in a dream. She
+was being impelled upward when her body seemed immovable as stone. When
+her blood beat down this deadlock of an her physical being and rushed
+on and on through her veins it gave her an irresistible impulse to fly,
+to sail through space, to ran and run and ran.
+
+And on the moment the black horse, Spades, coming from the meadow,
+whinnied at sight of her.  Ellen leaped up and ran swiftly, but her
+feet seemed to be stumbling.  She hugged the horse and buried her hot
+face in his mane and clung to him.  Then just as violently she rushed
+for her saddle and bridle and carried the heavy weight as easily as if
+it had been an empty sack.  Throwing them upon him, she buckled and
+strapped with strong, eager hands.  It never occurred to her that she
+was not dressed to ride.  Up she flung herself.  And the horse, sensing
+her spirit, plunged into strong, free gait down the canyon trail.
+
+The ride, the action, the thrill, the sensations of violence were not
+all she needed.  Solitude, the empty aisles of the forest, the far
+miles of lonely wilderness--were these the added all?  Spades took a
+swinging, rhythmic lope up the winding trail.  The wind fanned her hot
+face.  The sting of whipping aspen branches was pleasant.  A deep
+rumble of thunder shook the sultry air.  Up beyond the green slope of
+the canyon massed the creamy clouds, shading darker and darker.  Spades
+loped on the levels, leaped the washes, trotted over the rocky ground,
+and took to a walk up the long slope.  Ellen dropped the reins over the
+pommel. Her hands could not stay set on anything.  They pressed her
+breast and flew out to caress the white aspens and to tear at the maple
+leaves, and gather the lavender juniper berries, and came back again to
+her heart. Her heart that was going to burst or break!  As it had
+swelled, so now it labored. It could not keep pace with her needs.  All
+that was physical, all that was living in her had to be unleashed.
+
+Spades gained the level forest.  How the great, brown-green pines
+seemed to bend their lofty branches over her, protectively,
+understandingly. Patches of azure-blue sky flashed between the trees.
+The great white clouds sailed along with her, and shafts of golden
+sunlight, flecked with gleams of falling pine needles, shone down
+through the canopy overhead.  Away in front of her, up the slow heave
+of forest land, boomed the heavy thunderbolts along the battlements of
+the Rim.
+
+Was she riding to escape from herself?  For no gait suited her until
+Spades was running hard and fast through the glades.  Then the pressure
+of dry wind, the thick odor of pine, the flashes of brown and green and
+gold and blue, the soft, rhythmic thuds of hoofs, the feel of the
+powerful horse under her, the whip of spruce branches on her muscles
+contracting and expanding in hard action--all these sensations seemed
+to quell for the time the mounting cataclysm in her heart.
+
+The oak swales, the maple thickets, the aspen groves, the pine-shaded
+aisles, and the miles of silver spruce all sped by her, as if she had
+ridden the wind; and through the forest ahead shone the vast open of
+the Basin, gloomed by purple and silver cloud, shadowed by gray storm,
+and in the west brightened by golden sky.
+
+Straight to the Rim she had ridden, and to the point where she had
+watched Jean Isbel that unforgetable day.  She rode to the promontory
+behind the pine thicket and beheld a scene which stayed her restless
+hands upon her heaving breast.
+
+The world of sky and cloud and earthly abyss seemed one of
+storm-sundered grandeur.  The air was sultry and still, and smelled of
+the peculiar burnt-wood odor caused by lightning striking trees.  A few
+heavy drops of rain were pattering down from the thin, gray edge of
+clouds overhead. To the east hung the storm--a black cloud lodged
+against the Rim, from which long, misty veils of rain streamed down
+into the gulf.  The roar of rain sounded like the steady roar of the
+rapids of a river.  Then a blue-white, piercingly bright, ragged streak
+of lightning shot down out of the black cloud.  It struck with a
+splitting report that shocked the very wall of rock under Ellen.  Then
+the heavens seemed to burst open with thundering crash and close with
+mighty thundering boom.  Long roar and longer rumble rolled away to the
+eastward.  The rain poured down in roaring cataracts.
+
+The south held a panorama of purple-shrouded range and canyon, canyon
+and range, on across the rolling leagues to the dim, lofty peaks, all
+canopied over with angry, dusky, low-drifting clouds, horizon-wide,
+smoky, and sulphurous.  And as Ellen watched, hands pressed to her
+breast, feeling incalculable relief in sight of this tempest and gulf
+that resembled her soul, the sun burst out from behind the long bank of
+purple cloud in the west and flooded the world there with golden
+lightning.
+
+"It is for me!" cried Ellen. "My mind--my heart--my very soul.... Oh, I
+know!  I know now! ... I love him--love him--love him!"
+
+She cried it out to the elements.  "Oh, I love Jean Isbel--an' my heart
+will burst or break!"
+
+The might of her passion was like the blaze of the sun.  Before it all
+else retreated, diminished.  The suddenness of the truth dimmed her
+sight. But she saw clearly enough to crawl into the pine thicket,
+through the clutching, dry twigs, over the mats of fragrant needles to
+the covert where she had once spied upon Jean Isbel.  And here she lay
+face down for a while, hands clutching the needles, breast pressed hard
+upon the ground, stricken and spent.  But vitality was exceeding strong
+in her. It passed, that weakness of realization, and she awakened to
+the consciousness of love.
+
+But in the beginning it was not consciousness of the man.  It was new,
+sensorial life, elemental, primitive, a liberation of a million
+inherited instincts, quivering and physical, over which Ellen had no
+more control than she had over the glory of the sun.  If she thought at
+all it was of her need to be hidden, like an animal, low down near the
+earth, covered by green thicket, lost in the wildness of nature.  She
+went to nature, unconsciously seeking a mother.  And love was a birth
+from the depths of her, like a rushing spring of pure water, long
+underground, and at last propelled to the surface by a convulsion.
+
+Ellen gradually lost her tense rigidity and relaxed.  Her body
+softened. She rolled over until her face caught the lacy, golden
+shadows cast by sun and bough.  Scattered drops of rain pattered around
+her.  The air was hot, and its odor was that of dry pine and spruce
+fragrance penetrated by brimstone from the lightning.  The nest where
+she lay was warm and sweet.  No eye save that of nature saw her in her
+abandonment.  An ineffable and exquisite smile wreathed her lips,
+dreamy, sad, sensuous, the supremity of unconscious happiness.  Over
+her dark and eloquent eyes, as Ellen gazed upward, spread a luminous
+film, a veil.  She was looking intensely, yet she did not see.  The
+wilderness enveloped her with its secretive, elemental sheaths of rock,
+of tree, of cloud, of sunlight. Through her thrilling skin poured the
+multiple and nameless sensations of the living organism stirred to
+supreme sensitiveness.  She could not lie still, but all her movements
+were gentle, involuntary.  The slow reaching out of her hand, to grasp
+at nothing visible, was similar to the lazy stretching of her limbs, to
+the heave of her breast, to the ripple of muscle.
+
+Ellen knew not what she felt.  To live that sublime hour was beyond
+thought.  Such happiness was like the first dawn of the world to the
+sight of man.  It had to do with bygone ages.  Her heart, her blood,
+her flesh, her very bones were filled with instincts and emotions
+common to the race before intellect developed, when the savage lived
+only with his sensorial perceptions.  Of all happiness, joy, bliss,
+rapture to which man was heir, that of intense and exquisite
+preoccupation of the senses, unhindered and unburdened by thought, was
+the greatest.  Ellen felt that which life meant with its inscrutable
+design.  Love was only the realization of her mission on the earth.
+
+The dark storm cloud with its white, ragged ropes of lightning and
+down-streaming gray veils of rain, the purple gulf rolling like a
+colored sea to the dim mountains, the glorious golden light of the
+sun--these had enchanted her eyes with her beauty of the universe. They
+had burst the windows of her blindness.  When she crawled into the
+green-brown covert it was to escape too great perception.  She needed
+to be encompassed by close, tangible things.  And there her body paid
+the tribute to the realization of life.  Shock, convulsion, pain,
+relaxation, and then unutterable and insupportable sensing of her
+environment and the heart!  In one way she was a wild animal alone in
+the woods, forced into the mating that meant reproduction of its kind.
+In another she was an infinitely higher being shot through and through
+with the most resistless and mysterious transport that life could give
+to flesh.
+
+And when that spell slackened its hold there wedged into her mind a
+consciousness of the man she loved--Jean Isbel.  Then emotion and
+thought strove for mastery over her.  It was not herself or love that
+she loved, but a living man.  Suddenly he existed so clearly for her
+that she could see him, hear him, almost feel him.  Her whole soul, her
+very life cried out to him for protection, for salvation, for love, for
+fulfillment.  No denial, no doubt marred the white blaze of her
+realization.  From the instant that she had looked up into Jean Isbel's
+dark face she had loved him.  Only she had not known.  She bowed now,
+and bent, and humbly quivered under the mastery of something beyond her
+ken.  Thought clung to the beginnings of her romance--to the three
+times she had seen him.  Every look, every word, every act of his
+returned to her now in the light of the truth.  Love at first sight! He
+had sworn it, bitterly, eloquently, scornful of her doubts.  And now a
+blind, sweet, shuddering ecstasy swayed her.  How weak and frail seemed
+her body--too small, too slight for this monstrous and terrible engine
+of fire and lightning and fury and glory--her heart!  It must burst or
+break.  Relentlessly memory pursued Ellen, and her thoughts whirled and
+emotion conquered her.  At last she quivered up to her knees as if
+lashed to action.  It seemed that first kiss of Isbel's, cool and
+gentle and timid, was on her lips.  And her eyes closed and hot tears
+welled from under her lids.  Her groping hands found only the dead
+twigs and the pine boughs of the trees.  Had she reached out to clasp
+him?  Then hard and violent on her mouth and cheek and neck burned
+those other kisses of Isbel's, and with the flashing, stinging memory
+came the truth that now she would have bartered her soul for them.
+Utterly she surrendered to the resistlessness of this love.  Her loss
+of mother and friends, her wandering from one wild place to another,
+her lonely life among bold and rough men, had developed her for violent
+love.  It overthrew all pride, it engendered humility, it killed hate.
+Ellen wiped the tears from her eyes, and as she knelt there she swept
+to her breast a fragrant spreading bough of pine needles.  "I'll go to
+him," she whispered.  "I'll tell him of--of my--my love.  I'll tell him
+to take me away--away to the end of the world--away from heah--before
+it's too late!"
+
+It was a solemn, beautiful moment.  But the last spoken words lingered
+hauntingly.  "Too late?" she whispered.
+
+And suddenly it seemed that death itself shuddered in her soul. Too
+late!  It was too late.  She had killed his love.  That Jorth blood in
+her--that poisonous hate--had chosen the only way to strike this noble
+Isbel to the heart.  Basely, with an abandonment of womanhood, she had
+mockingly perjured her soul with a vile lie.  She writhed, she shook
+under the whip of this inconceivable fact.  Lost!  Lost!  She wailed
+her misery.  She might as well be what she had made Jean Isbel think
+she was.  If she had been shamed before, she was now abased, degraded,
+lost in her own sight.  And if she would have given her soul for his
+kisses, she now would have killed herself to earn back his respect.
+Jean Isbel had given her at sight the deference that she had
+unconsciously craved, and the love that would have been her salvation.
+What a horrible mistake she had made of her life!  Not her mother's
+blood, but her father's--the Jorth blood--had been her ruin.
+
+Again Ellen fell upon the soft pine-needle mat, face down, and she
+groveled and burrowed there, in an agony that could not bear the sense
+of light.  All she had suffered was as nothing to this.  To have
+awakened to a splendid and uplifting love for a man whom she had
+imagined she hated, who had fought for her name and had killed in
+revenge for the dishonor she had avowed--to have lost his love and what
+was infinitely more precious to her now in her ignominy--his faith in
+her purity--this broke her heart.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+When Ellen, utterly spent in body and mind, reached home that day a
+melancholy, sultry twilight was falling.  Fitful flares of sheet
+lightning swept across the dark horizon to the east.  The cabins were
+deserted.  Antonio and the Mexican woman were gone.  The circumstances
+made Ellen wonder, but she was too tired and too sunken in spirit to
+think long about it or to care.  She fed and watered her horse and left
+him in the corral.  Then, supperless and without removing her clothes,
+she threw herself upon the bed, and at once sank into heavy slumber.
+
+Sometime during the night she awoke.  Coyotes were yelping, and from
+that sound she concluded it was near dawn.  Her body ached; her mind
+seemed dull.  Drowsily she was sinking into slumber again when she
+heard the rapid clip-clop of trotting horses.  Startled, she raised her
+head to listen.  The men were coming back.  Relief and dread seemed to
+clear her stupor.
+
+The trotting horses stopped across the lane from her cabin, evidently
+at the corral where she had left Spades.  She heard him whistle.
+
+From the sound of hoofs she judged the number of horses to be six or
+eight.  Low voices of men mingled with thuds and cracking of straps and
+flopping of saddles on the ground.  After that the heavy tread of boots
+sounded on the porch of the cabin opposite.  A door creaked on its
+hinges.  Next a slow footstep, accompanied by clinking of spurs,
+approached Ellen's door, and a heavy hand banged upon it.  She knew
+this person could not be her father.
+
+"Hullo, Ellen!"
+
+She recognized the voice as belonging to Colter.  Somehow its tone, or
+something about it, sent a little shiver clown her spine.  It acted
+like a revivifying current.  Ellen lost her dragging lethargy.
+
+"Hey, Ellen, are y'u there?" added Colter, louder voice.
+
+"Yes.  Of course I'm heah," she replied.  "What do y'u want?"
+
+"Wal--I'm shore glad y'u're home," he replied.  "Antonio's gone with
+his squaw.  An' I was some worried aboot y'u."
+
+"Who's with y'u, Colter?" queried Ellen, sitting up.
+
+"Rock Wells an' Springer.  Tad Jorth was with us, but we had to leave
+him over heah in a cabin."
+
+"What's the matter with him?"
+
+"Wal, he's hurt tolerable bad," was the slow reply.
+
+Ellen heard Colter's spurs jangle, as if he had uneasily shifted his
+feet.
+
+"Where's dad an' Uncle Jackson?" asked Ellen.
+
+A silence pregnant enough to augment Ellen's dread finally broke to
+Colter's voice, somehow different.  "Shore they're back on the trail.
+An' we're to meet them where we left Tad."
+
+"Are yu goin' away again?"
+
+"I reckon.... An', Ellen, y'u're goin' with us."
+
+"I am not," she retorted.
+
+"Wal, y'u are, if I have to pack y'u," he replied, forcibly.  "It's not
+safe heah any more.  That damned half-breed Isbel with his gang are on
+our trail."
+
+That name seemed like a red-hot blade at Ellen's leaden heart. She
+wanted to fling a hundred queries on Colter, but she could not utter
+one.
+
+"Ellen, we've got to hit the trail an' hide," continued Colter,
+anxiously.  "Y'u mustn't stay heah alone.  Suppose them Isbels would
+trap y'u! ... They'd tear your clothes off an' rope y'u to a tree.
+Ellen, shore y'u're goin'.... Y'u heah me!"
+
+"Yes--I'll go," she replied, as if forced.
+
+"Wal--that's good," he said, quickly.  "An' rustle tolerable lively.
+We've got to pack."
+
+The slow jangle of Colter's spurs and his slow steps moved away out of
+Ellen's hearing.  Throwing off the blankets, she put her feet to the
+floor and sat there a moment staring at the blank nothingness of the
+cabin interior in the obscure gray of dawn.  Cold, gray, dreary,
+obscure--like her life, her future!  And she was compelled to do what
+was hateful to her.  As a Jorth she must take to the unfrequented
+trails and hide like a rabbit in the thickets.  But the interest of the
+moment, a premonition of events to be, quickened her into action.
+
+Ellen unbarred the door to let in the light.  Day was breaking with an
+intense, clear, steely light in the east through which the morning star
+still shone white.  A ruddy flare betokened the advent of the sun.
+Ellen unbraided her tangled hair and brushed and combed it.  A queer,
+still pang came to her at sight of pine needles tangled in her brown
+locks.  Then she washed her hands and face.  Breakfast was a matter of
+considerable work and she was hungry.
+
+The sun rose and changed the gray world of forest.  For the first time
+in her life Ellen hated the golden brightness, the wonderful blue of
+sky, the scream of the eagle and the screech of the jay; and the
+squirrels she had always loved to feed were neglected that morning.
+
+Colter came in.  Either Ellen had never before looked attentively at
+him or else he had changed.  Her scrutiny of his lean, hard features
+accorded him more Texan attributes than formerly.  His gray eyes were
+as light, as clear, as fierce as those of an eagle.  And the sand gray
+of his face, the long, drooping, fair mustache hid the secrets of his
+mind, but not its strength.  The instant Ellen met his gaze she sensed
+a power in him that she instinctively opposed.  Colter had not been so
+bold nor so rude as Daggs, but he was the same kind of man, perhaps the
+more dangerous for his secretiveness, his cool, waiting inscrutableness.
+
+"'Mawnin', Ellen!" he drawled.  "Y'u shore look good for sore eyes."
+
+"Don't pay me compliments, Colter," replied Ellen.  "An' your eyes are
+not sore."
+
+"Wal, I'm shore sore from fightin' an' ridin' an' layin' out," he said,
+bluntly.
+
+"Tell me--what's happened," returned Ellen.
+
+"Girl, it's a tolerable long story," replied Colter.  "An' we've no
+time now.  Wait till we get to camp."
+
+"Am I to pack my belongin's or leave them heah?" asked Ellen.
+
+"Reckon y'u'd better leave--them heah."
+
+"But if we did not come back--"
+
+"Wal, I reckon it's not likely we'll come--soon," he said, rather
+evasively.
+
+"Colter, I'll not go off into the woods with just the clothes I have on
+my back."
+
+"Ellen, we shore got to pack all the grab we can.  This shore ain't
+goin' to be a visit to neighbors.  We're shy pack hosses.  But y'u make
+up a bundle of belongin's y'u care for, an' the things y'u'll need bad.
+We'll throw it on somewhere."
+
+Colter stalked away across the lane, and Ellen found herself dubiously
+staring at his tall figure.  Was it the situation that struck her with
+a foreboding perplexity or was her intuition steeling her against this
+man?  Ellen could not decide.  But she had to go with him.  Her
+prejudice was unreasonable at this portentous moment.  And she could
+not yet feel that she was solely responsible to herself.
+
+When it came to making a small bundle of her belongings she was in a
+quandary.  She discarded this and put in that, and then reversed the
+order.  Next in preciousness to her mother's things were the
+long-hidden gifts of Jean Isbel.  She could part with neither.
+
+While she was selecting and packing this bundle Colter again entered
+and, without speaking, began to rummage in the corner where her father
+kept his possessions.  This irritated Ellen.
+
+"What do y'u want there?" she demanded.
+
+"Wal, I reckon your dad wants his papers--an' the gold he left
+heah--an' a change of clothes.  Now doesn't he?" returned Colter,
+coolly.
+
+"Of course.  But I supposed y'u would have me pack them."
+
+Colter vouchsafed no reply to this, but deliberately went on rummaging,
+with little regard for how he scattered things.  Ellen turned her back
+on him.  At length, when he left, she went to her father's corner and
+found that, as far as she was able to see, Colter had taken neither
+papers nor clothes, but only the gold.  Perhaps, however, she had been
+mistaken, for she had not observed Colter's departure closely enough to
+know whether or not he carried a package.  She missed only the gold.
+Her father's papers, old and musty, were scattered about, and these she
+gathered up to slip in her own bundle.
+
+Colter, or one of the men, had saddled Spades, and he was now tied to
+the corral fence, champing his bit and pounding the sand.  Ellen
+wrapped bread and meat inside her coat, and after tying this behind her
+saddle she was ready to go.  But evidently she would have to wait, and,
+preferring to remain outdoors, she stayed by her horse.  Presently,
+while watching the men pack, she noticed that Springer wore a bandage
+round his head under the brim of his sombrero.  His motions were slow
+and lacked energy.  Shuddering at the sight, Ellen refused to
+conjecture. All too soon she would learn what had happened, and all too
+soon, perhaps, she herself would be in the midst of another fight.  She
+watched the men.  They were making a hurried slipshod job of packing
+food supplies from both cabins.  More than once she caught Colter's
+gray gleam of gaze on her, and she did not like it.
+
+"I'll ride up an' say good-by to Sprague," she called to Colter.
+
+"Shore y'u won't do nothin' of the kind," he called back.
+
+There was authority in his tone that angered Ellen, and something else
+which inhibited her anger.  What was there about Colter with which she
+must reckon?  The other two Texans laughed aloud, to be suddenly
+silenced by Colter's harsh and lowered curses.  Ellen walked out of
+hearing and sat upon a log, where she remained until Colter hailed her.
+
+"Get up an' ride," he called.
+
+Ellen complied with this order and, riding up behind the three mounted
+men, she soon found herself leaving what for years had been her home.
+Not once did she look back.  She hoped she would never see the squalid,
+bare pretension of a ranch again.
+
+Colter and the other riders drove the pack horses across the meadow,
+off of the trails, and up the slope into the forest.  Not very long did
+it take Ellen to see that Colter's object was to hide their tracks. He
+zigzagged through the forest, avoiding the bare spots of dust, the dry,
+sun-baked flats of clay where water lay in spring, and he chose the
+grassy, open glades, the long, pine-needle matted aisles.  Ellen rode
+at their heels and it pleased her to watch for their tracks.  Colter
+manifestly had been long practiced in this game of hiding his trail,
+and he showed the skill of a rustler.  But Ellen was not convinced that
+he could ever elude a real woodsman.  Not improbably, however, Colter
+was only aiming to leave a trail difficult to follow and which would
+allow him and his confederates ample time to forge ahead of pursuers.
+Ellen could not accept a certainty of pursuit.  Yet Colter must have
+expected it, and Springer and Wells also, for they had a dark,
+sinister, furtive demeanor that strangely contrasted with the cool,
+easy manner habitual to them.
+
+They were not seeking the level routes of the forest land, that was
+sure. They rode straight across the thick-timbered ridge down into
+another canyon, up out of that, and across rough, rocky bluffs, and
+down again. These riders headed a little to the northwest and every
+mile brought them into wilder, more rugged country, until Ellen, losing
+count of canyons and ridges, had no idea where she was.  No stop was
+made at noon to rest the laboring, sweating pack animals.
+
+Under circumstances where pleasure might have been possible Ellen would
+have reveled in this hard ride into a wonderful forest ever thickening
+and darkening.  But the wild beauty of glade and the spruce slopes and
+the deep, bronze-walled canyons left her cold.  She saw and felt, but
+had no thrill, except now and then a thrill of alarm when Spades slid
+to his haunches down some steep, damp, piny declivity.
+
+All the woodland, up and down, appeared to be richer greener as they
+traveled farther west.  Grass grew thick and heavy.  Water ran in all
+ravines.  The rocks were bronze and copper and russet, and some had
+green patches of lichen.
+
+Ellen felt the sun now on her left cheek and knew that the day was
+waning and that Colter was swinging farther to the northwest.  She had
+never before ridden through such heavy forest and down and up such wild
+canyons.  Toward sunset the deepest and ruggedest canyon halted their
+advance.  Colter rode to the right, searching for a place to get down
+through a spruce thicket that stood on end.  Presently he dismounted
+and the others followed suit.  Ellen found she could not lead Spades
+because he slid down upon her heels, so she looped the end of her reins
+over the pommel and left him free.  She herself managed to descend by
+holding to branches and sliding all the way down that slope. She heard
+the horses cracking the brush, snorting and heaving.  One pack slipped
+and had to be removed from the horse, and rolled down.  At the bottom
+of this deep, green-walled notch roared a stream of water. Shadowed,
+cool, mossy, damp, this narrow gulch seemed the wildest place Ellen had
+ever seen.  She could just see the sunset-flushed, gold-tipped spruces
+far above her.  The men repacked the horse that had slipped his burden,
+and once more resumed their progress ahead, now turning up this canyon.
+There was no horse trail, but deer and bear trails were numerous.  The
+sun sank and the sky darkened, but still the men rode on; and the
+farther they traveled the wilder grew the aspect of the canyon.
+
+At length Colter broke a way through a heavy thicket of willows and
+entered a side canyon, the mouth of which Ellen had not even descried.
+It turned and widened, and at length opened out into a round pocket,
+apparently inclosed, and as lonely and isolated a place as even pursued
+rustlers could desire.  Hidden by jutting wall and thicket of spruce
+were two old log cabins joined together by roof and attic floor, the
+same as the double cabin at the Jorth ranch.
+
+Ellen smelled wood smoke, and presently, on going round the cabins, saw
+a bright fire.  One man stood beside it gazing at Colter's party, which
+evidently he had heard approaching.
+
+"Hullo, Queen!" said Colter.  "How's Tad?"
+
+"He's holdin' on fine," replied Queen, bending over the fire, where he
+turned pieces of meat.
+
+"Where's father?" suddenly asked Ellen, addressing Colter.
+
+As if he had not heard her, he went on wearily loosening a pack.
+
+Queen looked at her.  The light of the fire only partially shone on his
+face.  Ellen could not see its expression.  But from the fact that
+Queen did not answer her question she got further intimation of an
+impending catastrophe.  The long, wild ride had helped prepare her for
+the secrecy and taciturnity of men who had resorted to flight.  Perhaps
+her father had been delayed or was still off on the deadly mission that
+had obsessed him; or there might, and probably was, darker reason for
+his absence.  Ellen shut her teeth and turned to the needs of her
+horse. And presently, returning to the fire, she thought of her uncle.
+
+"Queen, is my uncle Tad heah?" she asked.
+
+"Shore.  He's in there," replied Queen, pointing at the nearer cabin.
+
+Ellen hurried toward the dark doorway.  She could see how the logs of
+the cabin had moved awry and what a big, dilapidated hovel it was. As
+she looked in, Colter loomed over her--placed a familiar and somehow
+masterful hand upon her.  Ellen let it rest on her shoulder a moment.
+Must she forever be repulsing these rude men among whom her lot was
+cast? Did Colter mean what Daggs had always meant?  Ellen felt herself
+weary, weak in body, and her spent spirit had not rallied.  Yet,
+whatever Colter meant by his familiarity, she could not bear it.  So
+she slipped out from under his hand.
+
+"Uncle Tad, are y'u heah?" she called into the blackness.  She heard
+the mice scamper and rustle and she smelled the musty, old, woody odor
+of a long-unused cabin.
+
+"Hello, Ellen!" came a voice she recognized as her uncle's, yet it was
+strange.  "Yes.  I'm heah--bad luck to me! ... How 're y'u buckin' up,
+girl?"
+
+"I'm all right, Uncle Tad--only tired an' worried.  I--"
+
+"Tad, how's your hurt?" interrupted Colter.
+
+"Reckon I'm easier," replied Jorth, wearily, "but shore I'm in bad
+shape. I'm still spittin' blood.  I keep tellin' Queen that bullet
+lodged in my lungs—but he says it went through."
+
+"Wal, hang on, Tad!" replied Colter, with a cheerfulness Ellen sensed
+was really indifferent.
+
+"Oh, what the hell's the use!" exclaimed Jorth. "It's all--up with
+us--Colter!"
+
+"Wal, shut up, then," tersely returned Colter.  "It ain't doin' y'u or
+us any good to holler."
+
+Tad Jorth did not reply to this.  Ellen heard his breathing and it did
+not seem natural.  It rasped a little--came hurriedly--then caught in
+his throat.  Then he spat.  Ellen shrunk back against the door. He was
+breathing through blood.
+
+"Uncle, are y'u in pain?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, Ellen--it burns like hell," he said.
+
+"Oh! I'm sorry.... Isn't there something I can do?"
+
+"I reckon not.  Queen did all anybody could do for me--now--unless it's
+pray."
+
+Colter laughed at this--the slow, easy, drawling laugh of a Texan. But
+Ellen felt pity for this wounded uncle.  She had always hated him. He
+had been a drunkard, a gambler, a waster of her father's property; and
+now he was a rustler and a fugitive, lying in pain, perhaps mortally
+hurt.
+
+"Yes, uncle--I will pray for y'u," she said, softly.
+
+The change in his voice held a note of sadness that she had been quick
+to catch.
+
+"Ellen, y'u're the only good Jorth--in the whole damned lot," he said.
+"God!  I see it all now.... We've dragged y'u to hell!"
+
+"Yes, Uncle Tad, I've shore been dragged some--but not yet--to hell,"
+she responded, with a break in her voice.
+
+"Y'u will be--Ellen--unless--"
+
+"Aw, shut up that kind of gab, will y'u?" broke in Colter, harshly.
+
+It amazed Ellen that Colter should dominate her uncle, even though he
+was wounded.  Tad Jorth had been the last man to take orders from
+anyone, much less a rustler of the Hash Knife Gang.  This Colter began
+to loom up in Ellen's estimate as he loomed physically over her, a
+lofty figure, dark motionless, somehow menacing.
+
+"Ellen, has Colter told y'u yet--aboot--aboot Lee an' Jackson?"
+inquired the wounded man.
+
+The pitch-black darkness of the cabin seemed to help fortify Ellen to
+bear further trouble.
+
+"Colter told me dad an' Uncle Jackson would meet us heah," she
+rejoined, hurriedly.
+
+Jorth could be heard breathing in difficulty, and he coughed and spat
+again, and seemed to hiss.
+
+"Ellen, he lied to y'u.  They'll never meet us--heah!"
+
+"Why not?" whispered Ellen.
+
+"Because--Ellen--" he replied, in husky pants, "your dad an'--uncle
+Jackson--are daid--an' buried!"
+
+If Ellen suffered a terrible shock it was a blankness, a deadness, and
+a slow, creeping failure of sense in her knees.  They gave way under
+her and she sank on the grass against the cabin wall.  She did not
+faint nor grow dizzy nor lose her sight, but for a while there was no
+process of thought in her mind.  Suddenly then it was there--the quick,
+spiritual rending of her heart--followed by a profound emotion of
+intimate and irretrievable loss--and after that grief and bitter
+realization.
+
+An hour later Ellen found strength to go to the fire and partake of the
+food and drink her body sorely needed.
+
+Colter and the men waited on her solicitously, and in silence, now and
+then stealing furtive glances at her from under the shadow of their
+black sombreros.  The dark night settled down like a blanket.  There
+were no stars.  The wind moaned fitfully among the pines, and all about
+that lonely, hidden recess was in harmony with Ellen's thoughts.
+
+"Girl, y'u're shore game," said Colter, admiringly.  "An' I reckon y'u
+never got it from the Jorths."
+
+"Tad in there--he's game," said Queen, in mild protest.
+
+"Not to my notion," replied Colter.  "Any man can be game when he's
+croakin', with somebody around.... But Lee Jorth an' Jackson--they
+always was yellow clear to their gizzards.  They was born in
+Louisiana--not Texas.... Shore they're no more Texans than I am.  Ellen
+heah, she must have got another strain in her blood."
+
+To Ellen their words had no meaning.  She rose and asked, "Where can I
+sleep?"
+
+"I'll fetch a light presently an' y'u can make your bed in there by
+Tad," replied Colter.
+
+"Yes, I'd like that."
+
+"Wal, if y'u reckon y'u can coax him to talk you're shore wrong,"
+declared Colter, with that cold timbre of voice that struck like steel
+on Ellen's nerves.  "I cussed him good an' told him he'd keep his mouth
+shut.  Talkin' makes him cough an' that fetches up the blood....
+Besides, I reckon I'm the one to tell y'u how your dad an' uncle got
+killed.  Tad didn't see it done, an' he was bad hurt when it happened.
+Shore all the fellars left have their idee aboot it. But I've got it
+straight."
+
+"Colter--tell me now," cried Ellen.
+
+"Wal, all right.  Come over heah," he replied, and drew her away from
+the camp fire, out in the shadow of gloom.  "Poor kid!  I shore feel
+bad aboot it."  He put a long arm around her waist and drew her against
+him.  Ellen felt it, yet did not offer any resistance.  All her
+faculties seemed absorbed in a morbid and sad anticipation.
+
+"Ellen, y'u shore know I always loved y'u--now don't y 'u?" he asked,
+with suppressed breath.
+
+"No, Colter.  It's news to me--an' not what I want to heah."
+
+"Wal, y'u may as well heah it right now," he said.  "It's true. An'
+what's more--your dad gave y'u to me before he died."
+
+"What! Colter, y'u must be a liar."
+
+"Ellen, I swear I'm not lyin'," he returned, in eager passion.  "I was
+with your dad last an' heard him last.  He shore knew I'd loved y'u for
+years.  An' he said he'd rather y'u be left in my care than anybody's."
+
+"My father gave me to y'u in marriage!" ejaculated Ellen, in
+bewilderment.
+
+Colter's ready assurance did not carry him over this point.  It was
+evident that her words somewhat surprised and disconcerted him for the
+moment.
+
+"To let me marry a rustler--one of the Hash Knife Gang!" exclaimed
+Ellen, with weary incredulity.
+
+"Wal, your dad belonged to Daggs's gang, same as I do," replied Colter,
+recovering his cool ardor.
+
+"No!" cried Ellen.
+
+"Yes, he shore did, for years," declared Colter, positively. "Back in
+Texas.  An' it was your dad that got Daggs to come to Arizona."
+
+Ellen tried to fling herself away.  But her strength and her spirit
+were ebbing, and Colter increased the pressure of his arm.  All at once
+she sank limp.  Could she escape her fate?  Nothing seemed left to
+fight with or for.
+
+"All right--don't hold me--so tight," she panted.  "Now tell me how dad
+was killed ... an' who--who--"
+
+Colter bent over so he could peer into her face.  In the darkness Ellen
+just caught the gleam of his eyes.  She felt the virile force of the
+man in the strain of his body as he pressed her close.  It all seemed
+unreal--a hideous dream--the gloom, the moan of the wind, the weird
+solitude, and this rustler with hand and will like cold steel.
+
+"We'd come back to Greaves's store," Colter began.  "An' as Greaves was
+daid we all got free with his liquor.  Shore some of us got drunk.
+Bruce was drunk, an' Tad in there--he was drunk.  Your dad put away
+more 'n I ever seen him.  But shore he wasn't exactly drunk.  He got
+one of them weak an' shaky spells.  He cried an' he wanted some of us
+to get the Isbels to call off the fightin'.... He shore was ready to
+call it quits.  I reckon the killin' of Daggs--an' then the awful way
+Greaves was cut up by Jean Isbel--took all the fight out of your dad.
+He said to me, 'Colter, we'll take Ellen an' leave this heah
+country--an' begin life all over again--where no one knows us.'"
+
+"Oh, did he really say that? ... Did he--really mean it?" murmured
+Ellen, with a sob.
+
+"I'll swear it by the memory of my daid mother," protested Colter.
+"Wal, when night come the Isbels rode down on us in the dark an' began
+to shoot.  They smashed in the door--tried to burn us out--an' hollered
+around for a while.  Then they left an' we reckoned there'd be no more
+trouble that night.  All the same we kept watch.  I was the soberest
+one an' I bossed the gang.  We had some quarrels aboot the drinkin'.
+Your dad said if we kept it up it 'd be the end of the Jorths.  An' he
+planned to send word to the Isbels next mawnin' that he was ready for a
+truce. An' I was to go fix it up with Gaston Isbel.  Wal, your dad went
+to bed in Greaves's room, an' a little while later your uncle Jackson
+went in there, too.  Some of the men laid down in the store an' went to
+sleep. I kept guard till aboot three in the mawnin'.  An' I got so
+sleepy I couldn't hold my eyes open.  So I waked up Wells an' Slater
+an' set them on guard, one at each end of the store.  Then I laid down
+on the counter to take a nap."
+
+Colter's low voice, the strain and breathlessness of him, the agitation
+with which he appeared to be laboring, and especially the simple,
+matter-of-fact detail of his story, carried absolute conviction to
+Ellen Jorth.  Her vague doubt of him had been created by his attitude
+toward her.  Emotion dominated her intelligence.  The images, the
+scenes called up by Colter's words, were as true as the gloom of the
+wild gulch and the loneliness of the night solitude--as true as the
+strange fact that she lay passive in the arm of a rustler.
+
+"Wall, after a while I woke up," went on Colter, clearing his throat.
+"It was gray dawn.  All was as still as death.... An' somethin' shore
+was wrong.  Wells an' Slater had got to drinkin' again an' now laid
+daid drunk or asleep.  Anyways, when I kicked them they never moved.
+Then I heard a moan.  It came from the room where your dad an' uncle
+was.  I went in.  It was just light enough to see.  Your uncle Jackson
+was layin' on the floor--cut half in two--daid as a door nail.... Your
+dad lay on the bed.  He was alive, breathin' his last.... He says,
+'That half-breed Isbel--knifed us--while we slept!' ... The winder
+shutter was open.  I seen where Jean Isbel had come in an' gone out.  I
+seen his moccasin tracks in the dirt outside an' I seen where he'd
+stepped in Jackson's blood an' tracked it to the winder.  Y'u shore can
+see them bloody tracks yourself, if y'u go back to Greaves's store....
+Your dad was goin' fast.... He said, 'Colter--take care of Ellen,' an'
+I reckon he meant a lot by that.  He kept sayin', 'My God! if I'd only
+seen Gaston Isbel before it was too late!' an' then he raved a little,
+whisperin' out of his haid.... An' after that he died.... I woke up the
+men, an' aboot sunup we carried your dad an' uncle out of town an'
+buried them.... An' them Isbels shot at us while we were buryin' our
+daid!  That's where Tad got his hurt.... Then we hit the trail for
+Jorth's ranch.... An now, Ellen, that's all my story. Your dad was
+ready to bury the hatchet with his old enemy.  An' that Nez Perce Jean
+Isbel, like the sneakin' savage he is, murdered your uncle an' your
+dad.... Cut him horrible--made him suffer tortures of hell--all for
+Isbel revenge!"
+
+When Colter's husky voice ceased Ellen whispered through lips as cold
+and still as ice, "Let me go ... leave me--heah--alone!"
+
+"Why, shore!  I reckon I understand," replied Colter.  "I hated to tell
+y'u.  But y'u had to heah the truth aboot that half-breed.... I'll
+carry your pack in the cabin an' unroll your blankets."
+
+Releasing her, Colter strode off in the gloom.  Like a dead weight,
+Ellen began to slide until she slipped down full length beside the log.
+And then she lay in the cool, damp shadow, inert and lifeless so far as
+outward physical movement was concerned.  She saw nothing and felt
+nothing of the night, the wind, the cold, the falling dew.  For the
+moment or hour she was crushed by despair, and seemed to see herself
+sinking down and down into a black, bottomless pit, into an abyss where
+murky tides of blood and furious gusts of passion contended between her
+body and her soul.  Into the stormy blast of hell!  In her despair she
+longed, she ached for death.  Born of infidelity, cursed by a taint of
+evil blood, further cursed by higher instinct for good and happy life,
+dragged from one lonely and wild and sordid spot to another, never
+knowing love or peace or joy or home, left to the companionship of
+violent and vile men, driven by a strange fate to love with
+unquenchable and insupportable love a' half-breed, a savage, an Isbel,
+the hereditary enemy of her people, and at last the ruthless murderer
+of her father--what in the name of God had she left to live for?
+Revenge!  An eye for an eye!  A life for a life!  But she could not
+kill Jean Isbel. Woman's love could turn to hate, but not the love of
+Ellen Jorth. He could drag her by the hair in the dust, beat her, and
+make her a thing to loathe, and cut her mortally in his savage and
+implacable thirst for revenge--but with her last gasp she would whisper
+she loved him and that she had lied to him to kill his faith.  It was
+that--his strange faith in her purity--which had won her love.  Of all
+men, that he should be the one to recognize the truth of her, the
+womanhood yet unsullied--how strange, how terrible, how overpowering!
+False, indeed, was she to the Jorths!  False as her mother had been to
+an Isbel! This agony and destruction of her soul was the bitter Dead
+Sea fruit--the sins of her parents visited upon her.
+
+"I'll end it all," she whispered to the night shadows that hovered over
+her.  No coward was she--no fear of pain or mangled flesh or death or
+the mysterious hereafter could ever stay her.  It would be easy, it
+would be a last thrill, a transport of self-abasement and supreme
+self-proof of her love for Jean Isbel to kiss the Rim rock where his
+feet had trod and then fling herself down into the depths.  She was the
+last Jorth.  So the wronged Isbels would be avenged.
+
+"But he would never know--never know--I lied to him!" she wailed to the
+night wind.
+
+She was lost--lost on earth and to hope of heaven.  She had right
+neither to live nor to die.  She was nothing but a little weed along
+the trail of life, trampled upon, buried in the mud.  She was nothing
+but a single rotten thread in a tangled web of love and hate and
+revenge. And she had broken.
+
+Lower and lower she seemed to sink.  Was there no end to this gulf of
+despair?  If Colter had returned he would have found her a rag and a
+toy--a creature degraded, fit for his vile embrace.  To be thrust
+deeper into the mire--to be punished fittingly for her betrayal of a
+man's noble love and her own womanhood--to be made an end of, body,
+mind, and soul.
+
+But Colter did not return.
+
+The wind mourned, the owls hooted, the leaves rustled, the insects
+whispered their melancholy night song, the camp-fire flickered and
+faded. Then the wild forestland seemed to close imponderably over
+Ellen.  All that she wailed in her despair, all that she confessed in
+her abasement, was true, and hard as life could be--but she belonged to
+nature.  If nature had not failed her, had God failed her?  It was
+there--the lonely land of tree and fern and flower and brook, full of
+wild birds and beasts, where the mossy rocks could speak and the
+solitude had ears, where she had always felt herself unutterably a part
+of creation.  Thus a wavering spark of hope quivered through the
+blackness of her soul and gathered light.
+
+The gloom of the sky, the shifting clouds of dull shade, split asunder
+to show a glimpse of a radiant star, piercingly white, cold, pure, a
+steadfast eye of the universe, beyond all understanding and illimitable
+with its meaning of the past and the present and the future.  Ellen
+watched it until the drifting clouds once more hid it from her strained
+sight.
+
+What had that star to do with hell?  She might be crushed and destroyed
+by life, but was there not something beyond?  Just to be born, just to
+suffer, just to die--could that be all?  Despair did not loose its hold
+on Ellen, the strife and pang of her breast did not subside.  But with
+the long hours and the strange closing in of the forest around her and
+the fleeting glimpse of that wonderful star, with a subtle divination
+of the meaning of her beating heart and throbbing mind, and, lastly,
+with a voice thundering at her conscience that a man's faith in a woman
+must not be greater, nobler, than her faith in God and eternity--with
+these she checked the dark flight of her soul toward destruction.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A chill, gray, somber dawn was breaking when Ellen dragged herself into
+the cabin and crept under her blankets, there to sleep the sleep of
+exhaustion.
+
+When she awoke the hour appeared to be late afternoon.  Sun and sky
+shone through the sunken and decayed roof of the old cabin.  Her uncle,
+Tad Jorth, lay upon a blanket bed upheld by a crude couch of boughs.
+The light fell upon his face, pale, lined, cast in a still mold of
+suffering.  He was not dead, for she heard his respiration.
+
+The floor underneath Ellen's blankets was bare clay.  She and Jorth
+were alone in this cabin.  It contained nothing besides their beds and
+a rank growth of weeds along the decayed lower logs.  Half of the cabin
+had a rude ceiling of rough-hewn boards which formed a kind of loft.
+This attic extended through to the adjoining cabin, forming the ceiling
+of the porch-like space between the two structures.  There was no
+partition.  A ladder of two aspen saplings, pegged to the logs, and
+with braces between for steps, led up to the attic.
+
+Ellen smelled wood smoke and the odor of frying meat, and she heard the
+voices of men.  She looked out to see that Slater and Somers had joined
+their party--an addition that might have strengthened it for defense,
+but did not lend her own situation anything favorable.  Somers had
+always appeared the one best to avoid.
+
+Colter espied her and called her to "Come an' feed your pale face." His
+comrades laughed, not loudly, but guardedly, as if noise was something
+to avoid.  Nevertheless, they awoke Tad Jorth, who began to toss and
+moan on the bed.
+
+Ellen hurried to his side and at once ascertained that he had a high
+fever and was in a critical condition.  Every time he tossed he opened
+a wound in his right breast, rather high up.  For all she could see,
+nothing had been done for him except the binding of a scarf round his
+neck and under his arm.  This scant bandage had worked loose.  Going to
+the door, she called out:
+
+"Fetch me some water."  When Colter brought it, Ellen was rummaging in
+her pack for some clothing or towel that she could use for bandages.
+
+"Weren't any of y'u decent enough to look after my uncle?" she queried.
+
+"Huh!  Wal, what the hell!" rejoined Colter.  "We shore did all we
+could. I reckon y'u think it wasn't a tough job to pack him up the Rim.
+He was done for then an' I said so."
+
+"I'll do all I can for him," said Ellen.
+
+"Shore.  Go ahaid.  When I get plugged or knifed by that half-breed I
+shore hope y'u'll be round to nurse me."
+
+"Y'u seem to be pretty shore of your fate, Colter."
+
+"Shore as hell!" he bit out, darkly.  "Somers saw Isbel an' his gang
+trailin' us to the Jorth ranch."
+
+"Are y'u goin' to stay heah--an' wait for them?"
+
+"Shore I've been quarrelin' with the fellars out there over that very
+question.  I'm for leavin' the country.  But Queen, the damn gun
+fighter, is daid set to kill that cowman, Blue, who swore he was King
+Fisher, the old Texas outlaw.  None but Queen are spoilin' for another
+fight. All the same they won't leave Tad Jorth heah alone."
+
+Then Colter leaned in at the door and whispered: "Ellen, I cain't boss
+this outfit.  So let's y'u an' me shake 'em.  I've got your dad's gold.
+Let's ride off to-night an' shake this country."
+
+Colter, muttering under his breath, left the door and returned to his
+comrades.  Ellen had received her first intimation of his cowardice;
+and his mention of her father's gold started a train of thought that
+persisted in spite of her efforts to put all her mind to attending her
+uncle.  He grew conscious enough to recognize her working over him, and
+thanked her with a look that touched Ellen deeply.  It changed the
+direction of her mind.  His suffering and imminent death, which she was
+able to alleviate and retard somewhat, worked upon her pity and
+compassion so that she forgot her own plight.  Half the night she was
+tending him, cooling his fever, holding him quiet.  Well she realized
+that but for her ministrations he would have died.  At length he went
+to sleep.
+
+And Ellen, sitting beside him in the lonely, silent darkness of that
+late hour, received again the intimation of nature, those vague and
+nameless stirrings of her innermost being, those whisperings out of the
+night and the forest and the sky.  Something great would not let go of
+her soul.  She pondered.
+
+Attention to the wounded man occupied Ellen; and soon she redoubled her
+activities in this regard, finding in them something of protection
+against Colter.
+
+He had waylaid her as she went to a spring for water, and with a lunge
+like that of a bear he had tried to embrace her.  But Ellen had been
+too quick.
+
+"Wal, are y'u goin' away with me?" he demanded.
+
+"No.  I'll stick by my uncle," she replied.
+
+That motive of hers seemed to obstruct his will.  Ellen was keen to see
+that Colter and his comrades were at a last stand and disintegrating
+under a severe strain.  Nerve and courage of the open and the wild they
+possessed, but only in a limited degree.  Colter seemed obsessed by his
+passion for her, and though Ellen in her stubborn pride did not yet
+fear him, she realized she ought to.  After that incident she watched
+closely, never leaving her uncle's bedside except when Colter was
+absent.  One or more of the men kept constant lookout somewhere down
+the canyon.
+
+Day after day passed on the wings of suspense, of watching, of
+ministering to her uncle, of waiting for some hour that seemed fixed.
+
+Colter was like a hound upon her trail.  At every turn he was there to
+importune her to run off with him, to frighten her with the menace of
+the Isbels, to beg her to give herself to him.  It came to pass that
+the only relief she had was when she ate with the men or barred the
+cabin door at night.  Not much relief, however, was there in the shut
+and barred door.  With one thrust of his powerful arm Colter could have
+caved it in.  He knew this as well as Ellen.  Still she did not have
+the fear she should have had.  There was her rifle beside her, and
+though she did not allow her mind to run darkly on its possible use,
+still the fact of its being there at hand somehow strengthened her.
+Colter was a cat playing with a mouse, but not yet sure of his quarry.
+
+Ellen came to know hours when she was weak--weak physically, mentally,
+spiritually, morally--when under the sheer weight of this frightful and
+growing burden of suspense she was not capable of fighting her misery,
+her abasement, her low ebb of vitality, and at the same time wholly
+withstanding Colter's advances.
+
+He would come into the cabin and, utterly indifferent to Tad Jorth, he
+would try to make bold and unrestrained love to Ellen.  When he caught
+her in one of her unresisting moments and was able to hold her in his
+arms and kiss her he seemed to be beside himself with the wonder of
+her.  At such moments, if he had any softness or gentleness in him,
+they expressed themselves in his sooner or later letting her go, when
+apparently she was about to faint.  So it must have become
+fascinatingly fixed in Colter's mind that at times Ellen repulsed him
+with scorn and at others could not resist him.
+
+Ellen had escaped two crises in her relation with this man, and as a
+morbid doubt, like a poisonous fungus, began to strangle her mind, she
+instinctively divined that there was an approaching and final crisis.
+No uplift of her spirit came this time--no intimations--no whisperings.
+How horrible it all was!  To long to be good and noble--to realize that
+she was neither--to sink lower day by day!  Must she decay there like
+one of these rotting logs?  Worst of all, then, was the insinuating and
+ever-growing hopelessness.  What was the use? What did it matter?  Who
+would ever think of Ellen Jorth?  "O God!" she whispered in her
+distraction, "is there nothing left--nothing at all?"
+
+A period of several days of less torment to Ellen followed.  Her uncle
+apparently took a turn for the better and Colter let her alone.  This
+last circumstance nonplused Ellen.  She was at a loss to understand it
+unless the Isbel menace now encroached upon Colter so formidably that
+he had forgotten her for the present.
+
+Then one bright August morning, when she had just begun to relax her
+eternal vigilance and breathe without oppression, Colter encountered
+her and, darkly silent and fierce, he grasped her and drew her off her
+feet.  Ellen struggled violently, but the total surprise had deprived
+her of strength.  And that paralyzing weakness assailed her as never
+before.  Without apparent effort Colter carried her, striding rapidly
+away from the cabins into the border of spruce trees at the foot of the
+canyon wall.
+
+"Colter--where--oh, where are Y'u takin' me?" she found voice to cry
+out.
+
+"By God!  I don't know," he replied, with strong, vibrant passion. "I
+was a fool not to carry y'u off long ago.  But I waited.  I was hopin'
+y'u'd love me! ... An' now that Isbel gang has corralled us. Somers
+seen the half-breed up on the rocks.  An' Springer seen the rest of
+them sneakin' around.  I run back after my horse an' y'u."
+
+"But Uncle Tad! ... We mustn't leave him alone," cried Ellen.
+
+"We've got to," replied Colter, grimly.  "Tad shore won't worry y'u no
+more--soon as Jean Isbel gets to him."
+
+"Oh, let me stay," implored Ellen.  "I will save him."
+
+Colter laughed at the utter absurdity of her appeal and claim. Suddenly
+he set her down upon her feet.  "Stand still," he ordered. Ellen saw
+his big bay horse, saddled, with pack and blanket, tied there in the
+shade of a spruce.  With swift hands Colter untied him and mounted him,
+scarcely moving his piercing gaze from Ellen.  He reached to grasp her.
+"Up with y'u! ... Put your foot in the stirrup!" His will, like his
+powerful arm, was irresistible for Ellen at that moment.  She found
+herself swung up behind him.  Then the horse plunged away.  What with
+the hard motion and Colter's iron grasp on her Ellen was in a painful
+position.  Her knees and feet came into violent contact with branches
+and snags.  He galloped the horse, tearing through the dense thicket of
+willows that served to hide the entrance to the side canyon, and when
+out in the larger and more open canyon he urged him to a run.
+Presently when Colter put the horse to a slow rise of ground, thereby
+bringing him to a walk, it was just in time to save Ellen a serious
+bruising.  Again the sunlight appeared to shade over. They were in the
+pines.  Suddenly with backward lunge Colter halted the horse.  Ellen
+heard a yell.  She recognized Queen's voice.
+
+"Turn back, Colter!  Turn back!"
+
+With an oath Colter wheeled his mount.  "If I didn't run plump into
+them," he ejaculated, harshly.  And scarcely had the goaded horse
+gotten a start when a shot rang out.  Ellen felt a violent shock, as if
+her momentum had suddenly met with a check, and then she felt herself
+wrenched from Colter, from the saddle, and propelled into the air. She
+alighted on soft ground and thick grass, and was unhurt save for the
+violent wrench and shaking that had rendered her breathless.  Before
+she could rise Colter was pulling at her, lifting her to her feet.  She
+saw the horse lying with bloody head.  Tall pines loomed all around.
+Another rifle cracked.  "Run!" hissed Colter, and he bounded off,
+dragging her by the hand.  Another yell pealed out.  "Here we are,
+Colter!".  Again it was Queen's shrill voice.  Ellen ran with all her
+might, her heart in her throat, her sight failing to record more than a
+blur of passing pines and a blank green wall of spruce.  Then she lost
+her balance, was falling, yet could not fall because of that steel grip
+on her hand, and was dragged, and finally carried, into a dense shade.
+She was blinded.  The trees whirled and faded.  Voices and shots
+sounded far away.  Then something black seemed to be wiped across her
+feeling.
+
+It turned to gray, to moving blankness, to dim, hazy objects, spectral
+and tall, like blanketed trees, and when Ellen fully recovered
+consciousness she was being carried through the forest.
+
+"Wal, little one, that was a close shave for y'u," said Colter's hard
+voice, growing clearer.  "Reckon your keelin' over was natural enough."
+
+He held her lightly in both arms, her head resting above his left
+elbow. Ellen saw his face as a gray blur, then taking sharper outline,
+until it stood out distinctly, pale and clammy, with eyes cold and
+wonderful in their intense flare.  As she gazed upward Colter turned
+his head to look back through the woods, and his motion betrayed a
+keen, wild vigilance.  The veins of his lean, brown neck stood out like
+whipcords. Two comrades were stalking beside him.  Ellen heard their
+stealthy steps, and she felt Colter sheer from one side or the other.
+They were proceeding cautiously, fearful of the rear, but not wholly
+trusting to the fore.
+
+"Reckon we'd better go slow an' look before we leap," said one whose
+voice Ellen recognized as Springer's.
+
+"Shore.  That open slope ain't to my likin', with our Nez Perce friend
+prowlin' round," drawled Colter, as he set Ellen down on her feet.
+
+Another of the rustlers laughed.  "Say, can't he twinkle through the
+forest?  I had four shots at him.  Harder to hit than a turkey runnin'
+crossways."
+
+This facetious speaker was the evil-visaged, sardonic Somers. He
+carried two rifles and wore two belts of cartridges.
+
+"Ellen, shore y'u ain't so daid white as y'u was," observed Colter, and
+he chucked her under the chin with familiar hand.  "Set down heah. I
+don't want y'u stoppin' any bullets.  An' there's no tellin'."
+
+Ellen was glad to comply with his wish.  She had begun to recover wits
+and strength, yet she still felt shaky.  She observed that their
+position then was on the edge of a well-wooded slope from which she
+could see the grassy canyon floor below.  They were on a level bench,
+projecting out from the main canyon wall that loomed gray and rugged
+and pine fringed. Somers and Cotter and Springer gave careful attention
+to all points of the compass, especially in the direction from which
+they had come. They evidently anticipated being trailed or circled or
+headed off, but did not manifest much concern.  Somers lit a cigarette;
+Springer wiped his face with a grimy hand and counted the shells in his
+belt, which appeared to be half empty.  Colter stretched his long neck
+like a vulture and peered down the slope and through the aisles of the
+forest up toward the canyon rim.
+
+"Listen!" he said, tersely, and bent his head a little to one side, ear
+to the slight breeze.
+
+They all listened.  Ellen heard the beating of her heart, the rustle of
+leaves, the tapping of a woodpecker, and faint, remote sounds that she
+could not name.
+
+"Deer, I reckon," spoke up Somers.
+
+"Ahuh!  Wal, I reckon they ain't trailin' us yet," replied Colter. "We
+gave them a shade better 'n they sent us."
+
+"Short an' sweet!" ejaculated Springer, and he removed his black
+sombrero to poke a dirty forefinger through a buffet hole in the crown.
+"Thet's how close I come to cashin'.  I was lyin' behind a log,
+listenin' an' watchin', an' when I stuck my head up a little--zam!
+Somebody made my bonnet leak."
+
+"Where's Queen?" asked Colter.
+
+"He was with me fust off," replied Somers.  "An' then when the shootin'
+slacked--after I'd plugged thet big, red-faced, white-haired pal of
+Isbel's--"
+
+"Reckon thet was Blaisdell," interrupted Springer.
+
+"Queen--he got tired layin' low," went on Somers.  "He wanted action. I
+heerd him chewin' to himself, an' when I asked him what was eatin' him
+he up an' growled he was goin' to quit this Injun fightin'. An' he
+slipped off in the woods."
+
+"Wal, that's the gun fighter of it," declared Colter, wagging his head,
+"Ever since that cowman, Blue, braced us an' said he was King Fisher,
+why Queen has been sulkier an' sulkier.  He cain't help it.  He'll do
+the same trick as Blue tried.  An' shore he'll get his everlastin'. But
+he's the Texas breed all right."
+
+"Say, do you reckon Blue really is King Fisher?" queried Somers.
+
+"Naw!" ejaculated Colter, with downward sweep of his hand.  "Many a
+would-be gun slinger has borrowed Fisher's name.  But Fisher is daid
+these many years."
+
+"Ahuh!  Wal, mebbe, but don't you fergit it--thet Blue was no
+would-be," declared Somers.  "He was the genuine article."
+
+"I should smile!" affirmed Springer.
+
+The subject irritated Colter, and he dismissed it with another forcible
+gesture and a counter question.
+
+"How many left in that Isbel outfit?"
+
+"No tellin'.  There shore was enough of them," replied Somers.
+"Anyhow, the woods was full of flyin' bullets.... Springer, did you
+account for any of them?"
+
+"Nope--not thet I noticed," responded Springer, dryly.  "I had my
+chance at the half-breed.... Reckon I was nervous."
+
+"Was Slater near you when he yelled out?"
+
+"No.  He was lyin' beside Somers."
+
+"Wasn't thet a queer way fer a man to act?" broke in Somers.  "A bullet
+hit Slater, cut him down the back as he was lyin' flat.  Reckon it
+wasn't bad.  But it hurt him so thet he jumped right up an' staggered
+around. He made a target big as a tree.  An' mebbe them Isbels didn't
+riddle him!"
+
+"That was when I got my crack at Bill Isbel," declared Colter, with
+grim satisfaction.  "When they shot my horse out from under me I had
+Ellen to think of an' couldn't get my rifle.  Shore had to run, as yu
+seen.  Wal, as I only had my six-shooter, there was nothin' for me to
+do but lay low an' listen to the sping of lead.  Wells was standin' up
+behind a tree about thirty yards off.  He got plugged, an' fallin' over
+he began to crawl my way, still holdin' to his rifle.  I crawled along
+the log to meet him.  But he dropped aboot half-way.  I went on an'
+took his rifle an' belt.  When I peeped out from behind a spruce bush
+then I seen Bill Isbel.  He was shootin' fast, an' all of them was
+shootin' fast.  That war, when they had the open shot at Slater....
+Wal, I bored Bill Isbel right through his middle.  He dropped his rifle
+an', all bent double, he fooled around in a circle till he flopped over
+the Rim.  I reckon he's layin' right up there somewhere below that daid
+spruce.  I'd shore like to see him."
+
+"I Wal, you'd be as crazy as Queen if you tried thet," declared Somers.
+"We're not out of the woods yet."
+
+"I reckon not," replied Colter.  "An' I've lost my horse.  Where'd y'u
+leave yours?"
+
+"They're down the canyon, below thet willow brake.  An' saddled an'
+none of them tied.  Reckon we'll have to look them up before dark."
+
+"Colter, what 're we goin' to do?" demanded Springer.
+
+"Wait heah a while--then cross the canyon an' work round up under the
+bluff, back to the cabin."
+
+"An' then what?" queried Somers, doubtfully eying Colter.
+
+"We've got to eat--we've got to have blankets," rejoined Colter,
+testily.  "An' I reckon we can hide there an' stand a better show in a
+fight than runnin' for it in the woods."
+
+"Wal, I'm givin' you a hunch thet it looked like you was runnin' fer
+it," retorted Somers.
+
+"Yes, an' packin' the girl," added Springer. "Looks funny to me."
+
+Both rustlers eyed Colter with dark and distrustful glances.  What he
+might have replied never transpired, for the reason that his gaze,
+always shifting around, had suddenly fixed on something.
+
+"Is that a wolf?" he asked, pointing to the Rim.
+
+Both his comrades moved to get in line with his finger.  Ellen could
+not see from her position.
+
+"Shore thet's a big lofer," declared Somers.  "Reckon he scented us."
+
+"There he goes along the Rim," observed Colter.  "He doesn't act leary.
+Looks like a good sign to me.  Mebbe the Isbels have gone the other
+way."
+
+"Looks bad to me," rejoined Springer, gloomily.
+
+"An' why?" demanded Colter.
+
+"I seen thet animal.  Fust time I reckoned it was a lofer.  Second time
+it was right near them Isbels.  An' I'm damned now if I don't believe
+it's thet half-lofer sheep dog of Gass Isbel's."
+
+"Wal, what if it is?"
+
+"Ha! ... Shore we needn't worry about hidin' out," replied Springer,
+sententiously.  "With thet dog Jean Isbel could trail a grasshopper."
+
+"The hell y'u say!" muttered Colter.  Manifestly such a possibility put
+a different light upon the present situation.  The men grew silent and
+watchful, occupied by brooding thoughts and vigilant surveillance of
+all points.  Somers slipped off into the brush, soon to return, with
+intent look of importance.
+
+"I heerd somethin'," he whispered, jerking his thumb backward. "Rollin'
+gravel--crackin' of twigs.  No deer! ... Reckon it'd be a good idee for
+us to slip round acrost this bench."
+
+"Wal, y'u fellars go, an' I'll watch heah," returned Colter.
+
+"Not much," said Somers, while Springer leered knowingly.
+
+Colter became incensed, but he did not give way to it.  Pondering a
+moment, he finally turned to Ellen.  "Y'u wait heah till I come back.
+An' if I don't come in reasonable time y'u slip across the canyon an'
+through the willows to the cabins.  Wait till aboot dark."  With that
+he possessed himself of one of the extra rifles and belts and silently
+joined his comrades.  Together they noiselessly stole into the brush.
+
+Ellen had no other thought than to comply with Colter's wishes. There
+was her wounded uncle who had been left unattended, and she was anxious
+to get back to him.  Besides, if she had wanted to run off from Colter,
+where could she go?  Alone in the woods, she would get lost and die of
+starvation.  Her lot must be cast with the Jorth faction until the end.
+That did not seem far away.
+
+Her strained attention and suspense made the moments fly.  By and by
+several shots pealed out far across the side canyon on her right, and
+they were answered by reports sounding closer to her.  The fight was on
+again.  But these shots were not repeated.  The flies buzzed, the hot
+sun beat down and sloped to the west, the soft, warm breeze stirred the
+aspens, the ravens croaked, the red squirrels and blue jays chattered.
+
+Suddenly a quick, short, yelp electrified Ellen, brought her upright
+with sharp, listening rigidity.  Surely it was not a wolf and hardly
+could it be a coyote.  Again she heard it.  The yelp of a sheep dog!
+She had heard that' often enough to know.  And she rose to change her
+position so she could command a view of the rocky bluff above.
+Presently she espied what really appeared to be a big timber wolf.  But
+another yelp satisfied her that it really was a dog.  She watched him.
+Soon it became evident that he wanted to get down over the bluff.  He
+ran to and fro, and then out of sight.  In a few moments his yelp
+sounded from lower down, at the base of the bluff, and it was now the
+cry of an intelligent dog that was trying to call some one to his aid.
+Ellen grew convinced that the dog was near where Colter had said Bill
+Isbel had plunged over the declivity.  Would the dog yelp that way if
+the man was dead?  Ellen thought not.
+
+No one came, and the continuous yelping of the dog got on Ellen's
+nerves. It was a call for help.  And finally she surrendered to it.
+Since her natural terror when Colter's horse was shot from under her
+and she had been dragged away, she had not recovered from fear of the
+Isbels.  But calm consideration now convinced her that she could hardly
+be in a worse plight in their hands than if she remained in Colter's.
+So she started out to find the dog.
+
+The wooded bench was level for a few hundred yards, and then it began
+to heave in rugged, rocky bulges up toward the Rim.  It did not appear
+far to where the dog was barking, but the latter part of the distance
+proved to be a hard climb over jumbled rocks and through thick brush.
+Panting and hot, she at length reached the base of the bluff, to find
+that it was not very high.
+
+The dog espied her before she saw him, for he was coming toward her
+when she discovered him.  Big, shaggy, grayish white and black, with
+wild, keen face and eyes he assuredly looked the reputation Springer
+had accorded him.  But sagacious, guarded as was his approach, he
+appeared friendly.
+
+"Hello--doggie!" panted Ellen. "What's--wrong--up heah?"
+
+He yelped, his ears lost their stiffness, his body sank a little, and
+his bushy tail wagged to and fro.  What a gray, clear, intelligent look
+he gave her!  Then he trotted back.
+
+Ellen followed him around a corner of bluff to see the body of a man
+lying on his back.  Fresh earth and gravel lay about him, attesting to
+his fall from above.  He had on neither coat nor hat, and the position
+of his body and limbs suggested broken bones.  As Ellen hurried to his
+side she saw that the front of his shirt, low down, was a bloody
+blotch. But he could lift his head; his eyes were open; he was
+perfectly conscious.  Ellen did not recognize the dusty, skinned face,
+yet the mold of features, the look of the eyes, seemed strangely
+familiar.
+
+"You're--Jorth's--girl," he said, in faint voice of surprise.
+
+"Yes, I'm Ellen Jorth," she replied.  "An' are y'u Bill Isbel?"
+
+"All thet's left of me.  But I'm thankin' God somebody come--even a
+Jorth."
+
+Ellen knelt beside him and examined the wound in his abdomen. A heavy
+bullet had indeed, as Colter had avowed, torn clear through his middle.
+Even if he had not sustained other serious injury from the fall over
+the cliff, that terrible bullet wound meant death very shortly.  Ellen
+shuddered.  How inexplicable were men!  How cruel, bloody, mindless!
+
+"Isbel, I'm sorry--there's no hope," she said, low voiced.  "Y'u've not
+long to live.  I cain't help y'u.  God knows I'd do so if I could."
+
+"All over!" he sighed, with his eyes looking beyond her. "I reckon--I'm
+glad.... But y'u can--do somethin' for or me.  Will y'u?"
+
+"Indeed, Yes.  Tell me," she replied, lifting his dusty head on her
+knee. Her hands trembled as she brushed his wet hair back from his
+clammy brow.
+
+"I've somethin'--on my conscience," he whispered.
+
+The woman, the sensitive in Ellen, understood and pitied him then.
+
+"Yes," she encouraged him.
+
+"I stole cattle--my dad's an' Blaisdell's--an' made deals--with
+Daggs.... All the crookedness--wasn't on--Jorth's side.... I want--my
+brother Jean--to know."
+
+"I'll try--to tell him," whispered Ellen, out of her great amaze.
+
+"We were all--a bad lot--except Jean," went on Isbel.  "Dad wasn't
+fair.... God! how he hated Jorth!  Jorth, yes, who was--your father....
+Wal, they're even now."
+
+"How--so?" faltered Ellen.
+
+"Your father killed dad.... At the last--dad wanted to--save us. He
+sent word--he'd meet him--face to face--an' let thet end the feud. They
+met out in the road.... But some one shot dad down--with a rifle--an'
+then your father finished him."
+
+"An' then, Isbel," added Ellen, with unconscious mocking bitterness,
+"Your brother murdered my dad!"
+
+"What!" whispered Bill Isbel.  "Shore y'u've got--it wrong.  I reckon
+Jean--could have killed--your father.... But he didn't.  Queer, we all
+thought."
+
+"Ah! ... Who did kill my father?" burst out Ellen, and her voice rang
+like great hammers at her ears.
+
+"It was Blue.  He went in the store--alone--faced the whole gang alone.
+Bluffed them--taunted them--told them he was King Fisher.... Then he
+killed--your dad--an' Jackson Jorth.... Jean was out--back of the
+store.  We were out--front.  There was shootin'.  Colmor was hit. Then
+Blue ran out--bad hurt.... Both of them--died in Meeker's yard."
+
+"An' so Jean Isbel has not killed a Jorth!" said Ellen, in strange,
+deep voice.
+
+"No," replied Isbel, earnestly.  "I reckon this feud--was hardest on
+Jean.  He never lived heah.... An' my sister Ann said--he got sweet on
+y'u.... Now did he?"
+
+Slow, stinging tears filled Ellen's eyes, and her head sank low and
+lower.
+
+"Yes--he did," she murmured, tremulously.
+
+"Ahuh!  Wal, thet accounts," replied Isbel, wonderingly.  "Too bad! ...
+It might have been.... A man always sees--different when--he's
+dyin'.... If I had--my life--to live over again! ... My poor
+kids--deserted in their babyhood--ruined for life!  All for nothin'....
+May God forgive--"
+
+Then he choked and whispered for water.
+
+Ellen laid his head back and, rising, she took his sombrero and started
+hurriedly down the slope, making dust fly and rocks roll.  Her mind was
+a seething ferment.  Leaping, bounding, sliding down the weathered
+slope, she gained the bench, to run across that, and so on down into
+the open canyon to the willow-bordered brook.  Here she filled the
+sombrero with water and started back, forced now to walk slowly and
+carefully.  It was then, with the violence and fury of intense muscular
+activity denied her, that the tremendous import of Bill Isbel's
+revelation burst upon her very flesh and blood and transfiguring the
+very world of golden light and azure sky and speaking forestland that
+encompassed her.
+
+Not a drop of the precious water did she spill.  Not a misstep did she
+make.  Yet so great was the spell upon her that she was not aware she
+had climbed the steep slope until the dog yelped his welcome.  Then
+with all the flood of her emotion surging and resurging she knelt to
+allay the parching thirst of this dying enemy whose words had changed
+frailty to strength, hate to love, and, the gloomy hell of despair to
+something unutterable.  But she had returned too late.  Bill Isbel was
+dead.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Jean Isbel, holding the wolf-dog Shepp in leash, was on the trail of
+the most dangerous of Jorth's gang, the gunman Queen.  Dark drops of
+blood on the stones and plain tracks of a rider's sharp-heeled boots
+behind coverts indicated the trail of a wounded, slow-traveling
+fugitive.  Therefore, Jean Isbel held in the dog and proceeded with the
+wary eye and watchful caution of an Indian.
+
+Queen, true to his class, and emulating Blue with the same magnificent
+effrontery and with the same paralyzing suddenness of surprise, had
+appeared as if by magic at the last night camp of the Isbel faction.
+Jean had seen him first, in time to leap like a panther into the
+shadow. But he carried in his shoulder Queen's first bullet of that
+terrible encounter.  Upon Gordon and Fredericks fell the brunt of
+Queen's fusillade.  And they, shot to pieces, staggering and falling,
+held passionate grip on life long enough to draw and still Queen's guns
+and send him reeling off into the darkness of the forest.
+
+Unarmed, and hindered by a painful wound, Jean had kept a vigil near
+camp all that silent and menacing night.  Morning disclosed Gordon and
+Fredericks stark and ghastly beside the burned-out camp-fire, their
+guns clutched immovably in stiffened hands.  Jean buried them as best
+he could, and when they were under ground with flat stones on their
+graves he knew himself to be indeed the last of the Isbel clan.  And
+all that was wild and savage in his blood and desperate in his spirit
+rose to make him more than man and less than human.  Then for the third
+time during these tragic last days the wolf-dog Shepp came to him.
+
+Jean washed the wound Queen had given him and bound it tightly. The
+keen pang and burn of the lead was a constant and all-powerful reminder
+of the grim work left for him to do.  The whole world was no longer
+large enough for him and whoever was left of the Jorths.  The heritage
+of blood his father had bequeathed him, the unshakable love for a
+worthless girl who had so dwarfed and obstructed his will and so
+bitterly defeated and reviled his poor, romantic, boyish faith, the
+killing of hostile men, so strange in its after effects, the pursuits
+and fights, and loss of one by one of his confederates--these had
+finally engendered in Jean Isbel a wild, unslakable thirst, these had
+been the cause of his retrogression, these had unalterably and
+ruthlessly fixed in his darkened mind one fierce passion--to live and
+die the last man of that Jorth-Isbel feud.
+
+At sunrise Jean left this camp, taking with him only a small knapsack
+of meat and bread, and with the eager, wild Shepp in leash he set out
+on Queen's bloody trail.
+
+Black drops of blood on the stones and an irregular trail of footprints
+proved to Jean that the gunman was hard hit.  Here he had fallen, or
+knelt, or sat down, evidently to bind his wounds.  Jean found strips of
+scarf, red and discarded.  And the blood drops failed to show on more
+rocks.  In a deep forest of spruce, under silver-tipped spreading
+branches, Queen had rested, perhaps slept.  Then laboring with dragging
+steps, not improbably with a lame leg, he had gone on, up out of the
+dark-green ravine to the open, dry, pine-tipped ridge.  Here he had
+rested, perhaps waited to see if he were pursued.  From that point his
+trail spoke an easy language for Jean's keen eye.  The gunman knew he
+was pursued.  He had seen his enemy.  Therefore Jean proceeded with a
+slow caution, never getting within revolver range of ambush, using all
+his woodcraft to trail this man and yet save himself.  Queen traveled
+slowly, either because he was wounded or else because he tried to
+ambush his pursuer, and Jean accommodated his pace to that of Queen.
+From noon of that day they were never far apart, never out of hearing
+of a rifle shot.
+
+The contrast of the beauty and peace and loneliness of the surroundings
+to the nature of Queen's flight often obtruded its strange truth into
+the somber turbulence of Jean's mind, into that fixed columnar idea
+around which fleeting thoughts hovered and gathered like shadows.
+
+Early frost had touched the heights with its magic wand.  And the
+forest seemed a temple in which man might worship nature and life
+rather than steal through the dells and under the arched aisles like a
+beast of prey. The green-and-gold leaves of aspens quivered in the
+glades; maples in the ravines fluttered their red-and-purple leaves.
+The needle-matted carpet under the pines vied with the long lanes of
+silvery grass, alike enticing to the eye of man and beast.  Sunny rays
+of light, flecked with dust and flying insects, slanted down from the
+overhanging brown-limbed, green-massed foliage.  Roar of wind in the
+distant forest alternated with soft breeze close at hand.  Small
+dove-gray squirrels ran all over the woodland, very curious about Jean
+and his dog, rustling the twigs, scratching the bark of trees,
+chattering and barking, frisky, saucy, and bright-eyed.  A plaintive
+twitter of wild canaries came from the region above the treetops--first
+voices of birds in their pilgrimage toward the south.  Pine cones
+dropped with soft thuds.  The blue jays followed these intruders in the
+forest, screeching their displeasure. Like rain pattered the dropping
+seeds from the spruces.  A woody, earthy, leafy fragrance, damp with
+the current of life, mingled with a cool, dry, sweet smell of withered
+grass and rotting pines.
+
+Solitude and lonesomeness, peace and rest, wild life and nature,
+reigned there.  It was a golden-green region, enchanting to the gaze of
+man.  An Indian would have walked there with his spirits.
+
+And even as Jean felt all this elevating beauty and inscrutable spirit
+his keen eye once more fastened upon the blood-red drops Queen had
+again left on the gray moss and rock.  His wound had reopened. Jean
+felt the thrill of the scenting panther.
+
+The sun set, twilight gathered, night fell.  Jean crawled under a
+dense, low-spreading spruce, ate some bread and meat, fed the dog, and
+lay down to rest and sleep.  His thoughts burdened him, heavy and black
+as the mantle of night.  A wolf mourned a hungry cry for a mate.  Shepp
+quivered under Jean's hand.  That was the call which had lured him from
+the ranch. The wolf blood in him yearned for the wild.  Jean tied the
+cowhide leash to his wrist.  When this dark business was at an end
+Shepp could be free to join the lonely mate mourning out there in the
+forest.  Then Jean slept.
+
+Dawn broke cold, clear, frosty, with silvered grass sparkling, with a
+soft, faint rustling of falling aspen leaves.  When the sun rose red
+Jean was again on the trail of Queen.  By a frosty-ferned brook, where
+water tinkled and ran clear as air and cold as ice, Jean quenched his
+thirst, leaning on a stone that showed drops of blood.  Queen, too, had
+to quench his thirst.  What good, what help, Jean wondered, could the
+cold, sweet, granite water, so dear to woodsmen and wild creatures, do
+this wounded, hunted rustler?  Why did he not wait in the open to fight
+and face the death he had meted?  Where was that splendid and terrible
+daring of the gunman?  Queen's love of life dragged him on and on, hour
+by hour, through the pine groves and spruce woods, through the oak
+swales and aspen glades, up and down the rocky gorges, around the
+windfalls and over the rotting logs.
+
+The time came when Queen tried no more ambush.  He gave up trying to
+trap his pursuer by lying in wait.  He gave up trying to conceal his
+tracks.  He grew stronger or, in desperation, increased his energy, so
+that he redoubled his progress through the wilderness.  That, at best,
+would count only a few miles a day.  And he began to circle to the
+northwest, back toward the deep canyon where Blaisdell and Bill Isbel
+had reached the end of their trails.  Queen had evidently left his
+comrades, had lone-handed it in his last fight, but was now trying to
+get back to them.  Somewhere in these wild, deep forest brakes the rest
+of the Jorth faction had found a hiding place.  Jean let Queen lead him
+there.
+
+Ellen Jorth would be with them.  Jean had seen her.  It had been his
+shot that killed Colter's horse.  And he had withheld further fire
+because Colter had dragged the girl behind him, protecting his body
+with hers.  Sooner or later Jean would come upon their camp.  She would
+be there.  The thought of her dark beauty, wasted in wantonness upon
+these rustlers, added a deadly rage to the blood lust and righteous
+wrath of his vengeance.  Let her again flaunt her degradation in his
+face and, by the God she had forsaken, he would kill her, and so end
+the race of Jorths!
+
+Another night fell, dark and cold, without starlight.  The wind moaned
+in the forest.  Shepp was restless.  He sniffed the air.  There was a
+step on his trail.  Again a mournful, eager, wild, and hungry wolf cry
+broke the silence.  It was deep and low, like that of a baying hound,
+but infinitely wilder.  Shepp strained to get away.  During the night,
+while Jean slept, he managed to chew the cowhide leash apart and run
+off.
+
+Next day no dog was needed to trail Queen.  Fog and low-drifting clouds
+in the forest and a misty rain had put the rustler off his bearings. He
+was lost, and showed that he realized it.  Strange how a matured man,
+fighter of a hundred battles, steeped in bloodshed, and on his last
+stand, should grow panic-stricken upon being lost!  So Jean Isbel read
+the signs of the trail.
+
+Queen circled and wandered through the foggy, dripping forest until he
+headed down into a canyon.  It was one that notched the Rim and led
+down and down, mile after mile into the Basin.  Not soon had Queen
+discovered his mistake.  When he did do so, night overtook him.
+
+The weather cleared before morning.  Red and bright the sun burst out
+of the east to flood that low basin land with light.  Jean found that
+Queen had traveled on and on, hoping, no doubt, to regain what he had
+lost.  But in the darkness he had climbed to the manzanita slopes
+instead of back up the canyon.  And here he had fought the hold of that
+strange brush of Spanish name until he fell exhausted.
+
+Surely Queen would make his stand and wait somewhere in this devilish
+thicket for Jean to catch up with him.  Many and many a place Jean
+would have chosen had he been in Queen's place.  Many a rock and dense
+thicket Jean circled or approached with extreme care.  Manzanita grew
+in patches that were impenetrable except for a small animal.  The brush
+was a few feet high, seldom so high that Jean could not look over it,
+and of a beautiful appearance, having glossy, small leaves, a golden
+berry, and branches of dark-red color.  These branches were tough and
+unbendable. Every bush, almost, had low branches that were dead, hard
+as steel, sharp as thorns, as clutching as cactus.  Progress was
+possible only by endless detours to find the half-closed aisles between
+patches, or else by crashing through with main strength or walking
+right over the tops.  Jean preferred this last method, not because it
+was the easiest, but for the reason that he could see ahead so much
+farther. So he literally walked across the tips of the manzanita brush.
+Often he fell through and had to step up again; many a branch broke
+with him, letting him down; but for the most part he stepped from fork
+to fork, on branch after branch, with balance of an Indian and the
+patience of a man whose purpose was sustaining and immutable.
+
+On that south slope under the Rim the sun beat down hot.  There was no
+breeze to temper the dry air.  And before midday Jean was laboring, wet
+with sweat, parching with thirst, dusty and hot and tiring. It amazed
+him, the doggedness and tenacity of life shown by this wounded rustler.
+The time came when under the burning rays of the sun he was compelled
+to abandon the walk across the tips of the manzanita bushes and take to
+the winding, open threads that ran between.  It would have been poor
+sight indeed that could not have followed Queen's labyrinthine and
+broken passage through the brush.  Then the time came when Jean espied
+Queen, far ahead and above, crawling like a black bug along the
+bright-green slope.  Sight then acted upon Jean as upon a hound in the
+chase.  But he governed his actions if he could not govern his
+instincts.  Slowly but surely he followed the dusty, hot trail, and
+never a patch of blood failed to send a thrill along his veins.
+
+Queen, headed up toward the Rim, finally vanished from sight.  Had he
+fallen?  Was he hiding?  But the hour disclosed that he was crawling.
+Jean's keen eye caught the slow moving of the brush and enabled him to
+keep just so close to the rustler, out of range of the six-shooters he
+carried.  And so all the interminable hours of the hot afternoon that
+snail-pace flight and pursuit kept on.
+
+Halfway up the Rim the growth of manzanita gave place to open, yellow,
+rocky slope dotted with cedars.  Queen took to a slow-ascending ridge
+and left his bloody tracks all the way to the top, where in the
+gathering darkness the weary pursuer lost them.
+
+Another night passed.  Daylight was relentless to the rustler.  He
+could not hide his trail.  But somehow in a desperate last rally of
+strength he reached a point on the heavily timbered ridge that Jean
+recognized as being near the scene of the fight in the canyon.  Queen
+was nearing the rendezvous of the rustlers.  Jean crossed tracks of
+horses, and then more tracks that he was certain had been made days
+past by his own party. To the left of this ridge must be the deep
+canyon that had frustrated his efforts to catch up with the rustlers on
+the day Blaisdell lost his life, and probably Bill Isbel, too.
+Something warned Jean that he was nearing the end of the trail, and an
+unaccountable sense of imminent catastrophe seemed foreshadowed by
+vague dreads and doubts in his gloomy mind.  Jean felt the need of
+rest, of food, of ease from the strain of the last weeks.  But his
+spirit drove him implacably.
+
+Queen's rally of strength ended at the edge of an open, bald ridge that
+was bare of brush or grass and was surrounded by a line of forest on
+three sides, and on the fourth by a low bluff which raised its gray
+head above the pines.  Across this dusty open Queen had crawled,
+leaving unmistakable signs of his condition.  Jean took long survey of
+the circle of trees and of the low, rocky eminence, neither of which he
+liked.  It might be wiser to keep to cover, Jean thought, and work
+around to where Queen's trail entered the forest again.  But he was
+tired, gloomy, and his eternal vigilance was failing.  Nevertheless, he
+stilled for the thousandth time that bold prompting of his vengeance
+and, taking to the edge of the forest, he went to considerable pains to
+circle the open ground.  And suddenly sight of a man sitting back
+against a tree halted Jean.
+
+He stared to make sure his eyes did not deceive him.  Many times stumps
+and snags and rocks had taken on strange resemblance to a standing or
+crouching man.  This was only another suggestive blunder of the mind
+behind his eyes--what he wanted to see he imagined he saw.  Jean glided
+on from tree to tree until he made sure that this sitting image indeed
+was that of a man.  He sat bolt upright, facing back across the open,
+hands resting on his knees--and closer scrutiny showed Jean that he
+held a gun in each hand.
+
+Queen!  At the last his nerve had revived.  He could not crawl any
+farther, he could never escape, so with the courage of fatality he
+chose the open, to face his foe and die.  Jean had a thrill of
+admiration for the rustler.  Then he stalked out from under the pines
+and strode forward with his rifle ready.
+
+A watching man could not have failed to espy Jean.  But Queen never
+made the slightest move.  Moreover, his stiff, unnatural position
+struck Jean so singularly that he halted with a muttered exclamation.
+He was now about fifty paces from Queen, within range of those small
+guns.  Jean called, sharply, "QUEEN!" Still the figure never relaxed in
+the slightest.
+
+Jean advanced a few more paces, rifle up, ready to fire the instant
+Queen lifted a gun.  The man's immobility brought the cold sweat to
+Jean's brow.  He stopped to bend the full intense power of his gaze
+upon this inert figure.  Suddenly over Jean flashed its meaning. Queen
+was dead.  He had backed up against the pine, ready to face his foe,
+and he had died there.  Not a shadow of a doubt entered Jean's mind as
+he started forward again.  He knew.  After all, Queen's blood would not
+be on his hands.  Gordon and Fredericks in their death throes had given
+the rustler mortal wounds.  Jean kept on, marveling the while. How
+ghastly thin and hard!  Those four days of flight had been hell for
+Queen.
+
+Jean reached him--looked down with staring eyes.  The guns were tied to
+his hands.  Jean started violently as the whole direction of his mind
+shifted.  A lightning glance showed that Queen had been propped against
+the tree--another showed boot tracks in the dust.
+
+"By Heaven, they've fooled me!" hissed Jean, and quickly as he leaped
+behind the pine he was not quick enough to escape the cunning rustlers
+who had waylaid him thus.  He felt the shock, the bite and burn of lead
+before he heard a rifle crack.  A bullet had ripped through his left
+forearm.  From behind the tree he saw a puff of white smoke along the
+face of the bluff--the very spot his keen and gloomy vigilance had
+descried as one of menace.  Then several puffs of white smoke and
+ringing reports betrayed the ambush of the tricksters.  Bullets barked
+the pine and whistled by.  Jean saw a man dart from behind a rock and,
+leaning over, run for another.  Jean's swift shot stopped him midway.
+He fell, got up, and floundered behind a bush scarcely large enough to
+conceal him.  Into that bush Jean shot again and again.  He had no pain
+in his wounded arm, but the sense of the shock clung in his
+consciousness, and this, with the tremendous surprise of the deceit,
+and sudden release of long-dammed overmastering passion, caused him to
+empty the magazine of his Winchester in a terrible haste to kill the
+man he had hit.
+
+These were all the loads he had for his rifle.  Blood passion had made
+him blunder.  Jean cursed himself, and his hand moved to his belt.  His
+six-shooter was gone.  The sheath had been loose.  He had tied the gun
+fast.  But the strings had been torn apart.  The rustlers were shooting
+again.  Bullets thudded into the pine and whistled by.  Bending
+carefully, Jean reached one of Queen's guns and jerked it from his
+hand. The weapon was empty.  Both of his guns were empty.  Jean peeped
+out again to get the line in which the bullets were coming and, marking
+a course from his position to the cover of the forest, he ran with all
+his might.  He gained the shelter.  Shrill yells behind warned him that
+he had been seen, that his reason for flight had been guessed.  Looking
+back, he saw two or three men scrambling down the bluff.  Then the loud
+neigh of a frightened horse pealed out.
+
+Jean discarded his useless rifle, and headed down the ridge slope,
+keeping to the thickest line of pines and sheering around the clumps of
+spruce.  As he ran, his mind whirled with grim thoughts of escape, of
+his necessity to find the camp where Gordon and Fredericks were buried,
+there to procure another rifle and ammunition.  He felt the wet blood
+dripping down his arm, yet no pain.  The forest was too open for good
+cover.  He dared not run uphill.  His only course was ahead, and that
+soon ended in an abrupt declivity too precipitous to descend. As he
+halted, panting for breath, he heard the ring of hoofs on stone, then
+the thudding beat of running horses on soft ground.  The rustlers had
+sighted the direction he had taken.  Jean did not waste time to look.
+Indeed, there was no need, for as he bounded along the cliff to the
+right a rifle cracked and a bullet whizzed over his head.  It lent
+wings to his feet.  Like a deer he sped along, leaping cracks and logs
+and rocks, his ears filled by the rush of wind, until his quick eye
+caught sight of thick-growing spruce foliage close to the precipice. He
+sprang down into the green mass.  His weight precipitated him through
+the upper branches.  But lower down his spread arms broke his fall,
+then retarded it until he caught.  A long, swaying limb let him down
+and down, where he grasped another and a stiffer one that held his
+weight. Hand over hand he worked toward the trunk of this spruce and,
+gaining it, he found other branches close together down which he
+hastened, hold by hold and step by step, until all above him was black,
+dense foliage, and beneath him the brown, shady slope.  Sure of being
+unseen from above, he glided noiselessly down under the trees, slowly
+regaining freedom from that constriction of his breast.
+
+Passing on to a gray-lichened cliff, overhanging and gloomy, he paused
+there to rest and to listen.  A faint crack of hoof on stone came to
+him from above, apparently farther on to the right.  Eventually his
+pursuers would discover that he had taken to the canyon.  But for the
+moment he felt safe.  The wound in his forearm drew his attention. The
+bullet had gone clear through without breaking either bone. His shirt
+sleeve was soaked  with blood.  Jean rolled it back and tightly wrapped
+his scarf around the wound, yet still the dark-red blood oozed out and
+dripped down into his hand.  He became aware of a dull, throbbing pain.
+
+Not much time did Jean waste in arriving at what was best to do. For
+the time being he had escaped, and whatever had been his peril, it was
+past.  In dense, rugged country like this he could not be caught by
+rustlers.  But he had only a knife left for a weapon, and there was
+very little meat in the pocket of his coat.  Salt and matches he
+possessed.  Therefore the imperative need was for him to find the last
+camp, where he could get rifle and ammunition, bake bread, and rest up
+before taking again the trail of the rustlers.  He had reason to
+believe that this canyon was the one where the fight on the Rim, and
+later, on a bench of woodland below, had taken place.
+
+Thereupon he arose and glided down under the spruces toward the level,
+grassy open he could see between the trees.  And as he proceeded, with
+the slow step and wary eye of an Indian, his mind was busy.
+
+Queen had in his flight unerringly worked in the direction of this
+canyon until he became lost in the fog; and upon regaining his bearings
+he had made a wonderful and heroic effort to surmount the manzanita
+slope and the Rim and find the rendezvous of his comrades.  But he had
+failed up there on the ridge.  In thinking it over Jean arrived at a
+conclusion that Queen, finding he could go no farther, had waited, guns
+in hands, for his pursuer.  And he had died in this position. Then by
+strange coincidence his comrades had happened to come across him and,
+recognizing the situation, they had taken the shells from his guns and
+propped him up with the idea of luring Jean on.  They had arranged a
+cunning trick and ambush, which had all but snuffed out the last of the
+Isbels.  Colter probably had been at the bottom of this crafty plan.
+Since the fight at the Isbel ranch, now seemingly far back in the past,
+this man Colter had loomed up more and more as a stronger and more
+dangerous antagonist then either Jorth or Daggs. Before that he had
+been little known to any of the Isbel faction. And it was Colter now
+who controlled the remnant of the gang and who had Ellen Jorth in his
+possession.
+
+The canyon wall above Jean, on the right, grew more rugged and loftier,
+and the one on the left began to show wooded slopes and brakes, and at
+last a wide expanse with a winding, willow border on the west and a
+long, low, pine-dotted bench on the east.  It took several moments of
+study for Jean to recognize the rugged bluff above this bench.  On up
+that canyon several miles was the site where Queen had surprised Jean
+and his comrades at their campfire.  Somewhere in this vicinity was the
+hiding place of the rustlers.
+
+Thereupon Jean proceeded with the utmost stealth, absolutely certain
+that he would miss no sound, movement, sign, or anything unnatural to
+the wild peace of the canyon.  And his first sense to register
+something was his keen smell.  Sheep!  He was amazed to smell sheep.
+There must be a flock not far away.  Then from where he glided along
+under the trees he saw down to open places in the willow brake and
+noticed sheep tracks in the dark, muddy bank of the brook.  Next he
+heard faint tinkle of bells, and at length, when he could see farther
+into the open enlargement of the canyon, his surprised gaze fell upon
+an immense gray, woolly patch that blotted out acres and acres of
+grass.  Thousands of sheep were grazing there.  Jean knew there were
+several flocks of Jorth's sheep on the mountain in the care of herders,
+but he had never thought of them being so far west, more than twenty
+miles from Chevelon Canyon.  His roving eyes could not descry any
+herders or dogs. But he knew there must be dogs close to that immense
+flock.  And, whatever his cunning, he could not hope to elude the scent
+and sight of shepherd dogs.  It would be best to go back the way he had
+come, wait for darkness, then cross the canyon and climb out, and work
+around to his objective point.  Turning at once, he started to glide
+back. But almost immediately he was brought stock-still and thrilling
+by the sound of hoofs.
+
+Horses were coming in the direction he wished to take.  They were
+close. His swift conclusion was that the men who had pursued him up on
+the Rim had worked down into the canyon.  One circling glance showed
+him that he had no sure covert near at hand.  It would not do to risk
+their passing him there.  The border of woodland was narrow and not
+dense enough for close inspection.  He was forced to turn back up the
+canyon, in the hope of soon finding a hiding place or a break in the
+wall where he could climb up.
+
+Hugging the base of the wall, he slipped on, passing the point where he
+had espied the sheep, and gliding on until he was stopped by a bend in
+the dense line of willows.  It sheered to the west there and ran close
+to the high wall.  Jean kept on until he was stooping under a curling
+border of willow thicket, with branches slim and yellow and masses of
+green foliage that brushed against the wall.  Suddenly he encountered
+an abrupt corner of rock.  He rounded it, to discover that it ran at
+right angles with the one he had just passed.  Peering up through the
+willows, he ascertained that there was a narrow crack in the main wall
+of the canyon.  It had been concealed by willows low down and leaning
+spruces above.  A wild, hidden retreat!  Along the base of the wall
+there were tracks of small animals.  The place was odorous, like all
+dense thickets, but it was not dry.  Water ran through there somewhere.
+Jean drew easier breath.  All sounds except the rustling of birds or
+mice in the willows had ceased.  The brake was pervaded by a dreamy
+emptiness.  Jean decided to steal on a little farther, then wait till
+he felt he might safely dare go back.
+
+The golden-green gloom suddenly brightened.  Light showed ahead, and
+parting the willows, he looked out into a narrow, winding canyon, with
+an open, grassy, willow-streaked lane in the center and on each side a
+thin strip of woodland.
+
+His surprise was short lived.  A crashing of horses back of him in the
+willows gave him a shock.  He ran out along the base of the wall, back
+of the trees.  Like the strip of woodland in the main canyon, this one
+was scant and had but little underbrush.  There were young spruces
+growing with thick branches clear to the grass, and under these he
+could have concealed himself.  But, with a certainty of sheep dogs in
+the vicinity, he would not think of hiding except as a last resource.
+These horsemen, whoever they were, were as likely to be sheep herders
+as not.  Jean slackened his pace to look back.  He could not see any
+moving objects, but he still heard horses, though not so close now.
+Ahead of him this narrow gorge opened out like the neck of a bottle. He
+would run on to the head of it and find a place to climb to the top.
+
+Hurried and anxious as Jean was, he yet received an impression of
+singular, wild nature of this side gorge.  It was a hidden,
+pine-fringed crack in the rock-ribbed and canyon-cut tableland.  Above
+him the sky seemed a winding stream of blue.  The walls were red and
+bulged out in spruce-greened shelves.  From wall to wall was scarcely a
+distance of a hundred feet.  Jumbles of rock obstructed his close
+holding to the wall. He had to walk at the edge of the timber.  As he
+progressed, the gorge widened into wilder, ruggeder aspect.  Through
+the trees ahead he saw where the wall circled to meet the cliff on the
+left, forming an oval depression, the nature of which he could not
+ascertain.  But it appeared to be a small opening surrounded by dense
+thickets and the overhanging walls.  Anxiety augmented to alarm.  He
+might not be able to find a place to scale those rough cliffs.
+Breathing hard, Jean halted again. The situation was growing critical
+again.  His physical condition was worse.  Loss of sleep and rest, lack
+of food, the long pursuit of Queen, the wound in his arm, and the
+desperate run for his life--these had weakened him to the extent that
+if he undertook any strenuous effort he would fail.  His cunning
+weighed all chances.
+
+The shade of wall and foliage above, and another jumble of ruined
+cliff, hindered his survey of the ground ahead, and he almost stumbled
+upon a cabin, hidden on three sides, with a small, bare clearing in
+front. It was an old, ramshackle structure like others he had run
+across in the canons.  Cautiously he approached and peeped around the
+corner. At first swift glance it had all the appearance of long disuse.
+But Jean had no time for another look.  A clip-clop of trotting horses
+on hard ground brought the same pell-mell rush of sensations that had
+driven him to wild flight scarcely an hour past.  His body jerked with
+its instinctive impulse, then quivered with his restraint.  To turn
+back would be risky, to run ahead would be fatal, to hide was his one
+hope.  No covert behind!  And the clip-clop of hoofs sounded closer.
+One moment longer Jean held mastery over his instincts of
+self-preservation.  To keep from running was almost impossible. It was
+the sheer primitive animal sense to escape.  He drove it back and
+glided along the front of the cabin.
+
+Here he saw that the cabin adjoined another.  Reaching the door, he was
+about to peep in when the thud of hoofs and voices close at hand
+transfixed him with a grim certainty that he had not an instant to
+lose. Through the thin, black-streaked line of trees he saw moving red
+objects. Horses!  He must run.  Passing the door, his keen nose caught
+a musty, woody odor and the tail of his eye saw bare dirt floor.  This
+cabin was unused.  He halted--gave a quick look back.  And the first
+thing his eye fell upon was a ladder, right inside the door, against
+the wall. He looked up.  It led to a loft that, dark and gloomy,
+stretched halfway across the cabin.  An irresistible impulse drove
+Jean.  Slipping inside, he climbed up the ladder to the loft.  It was
+like night up there.  But he crawled on the rough-hewn rafters and,
+turning with his head toward the opening, he stretched out and lay
+still.
+
+What seemed an interminable moment ended with a trample of hoofs
+outside the cabin.  It ceased.  Jean's vibrating ears caught the jingle
+of spurs and a thud of boots striking the ground.
+
+"Wal, sweetheart, heah we are home again," drawled a slow, cool,
+mocking Texas voice.
+
+"Home!  I wonder, Colter--did y'u ever have a home--a mother--a
+sister--much less a sweetheart?" was the reply, bitter and caustic.
+
+Jean's palpitating, hot body suddenly stretched still and cold with
+intensity of shock.  His very bones seemed to quiver and stiffen into
+ice. During the instant of realization his heart stopped.  And a slow,
+contracting pressure enveloped his breast and moved up to constrict his
+throat.   That woman's voice belonged to Ellen Jorth.  The sound of it
+had lingered in his dreams.  He had stumbled upon the rendezvous of the
+Jorth faction.  Hard indeed had been the fates meted out to those of
+the Isbels and Jorths who had passed to their deaths.  But, no ordeal,
+not even Queen's, could compare with this desperate one Jean must
+endure. He had loved Ellen Jorth, strangely, wonderfully, and he had
+scorned repute to believe her good.  He had spared her father and her
+uncle. He had weakened or lost the cause of the Isbels.  He loved her
+now, desperately, deathlessly, knowing from her own lips that she was
+worthless--loved her the more because he had felt her terrible shame.
+And to him--the last of the Isbels--had come the cruelest of dooms--to
+be caught like a crippled rat in a trap; to be compelled to lie
+helpless, wounded, without a gun; to listen, and perhaps to see Ellen
+Jorth enact the very truth of her mocking insinuation.  His will, his
+promise, his creed, his blood must hold him to the stem decree that he
+should be the last man of the Jorth-Isbel war.  But could he lie there
+to hear--to see--when he had a knife and an arm?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Then followed the leathery flop of saddles to the soft turf and the
+stamp, of loosened horses.
+
+Jean heard a noise at the cabin door, a rustle, and then a knock of
+something hard against wood.  Silently he moved his head to look down
+through a crack between the rafters.  He saw the glint of a rifle
+leaning against the sill.  Then the doorstep was darkened.  Ellen Jorth
+sat down with a long, tired sigh.  She took off her sombrero and the
+light shone on the rippling, dark-brown hair, hanging in a tangled
+braid. The curved nape of her neck showed a warm tint of golden tan.
+She wore a gray blouse, soiled and torn, that clung to her lissome
+shoulders.
+
+"Colter, what are y'u goin' to do?" she asked, suddenly.  Her voice
+carried something Jean did not remember.  It thrilled into the icy
+fixity of his senses.
+
+"We'll stay heah," was the response, and it was followed by a clinking
+step of spurred boot.
+
+"Shore I won't stay heah," declared Ellen.  "It makes me sick when I
+think of how Uncle Tad died in there alone--helpless--sufferin'. The
+place seems haunted."
+
+"Wal, I'll agree that it's tough on y'u.  But what the hell CAN we do?"
+
+A long silence ensued which Ellen did not break.
+
+"Somethin' has come off round heah since early mawnin'," declared
+Colter. "Somers an' Springer haven't got back.  An' Antonio's gone....
+Now, honest, Ellen, didn't y'u heah rifle shots off somewhere?"
+
+"I reckon I did," she responded, gloomily.
+
+"An' which way?"
+
+"Sounded to me up on the bluff, back pretty far."
+
+"Wal, shore that's my idee.  An' it makes me think hard.  Y'u know
+Somers come across the last camp of the Isbels.  An' he dug into a
+grave to find the bodies of Jim Gordon an' another man he didn't know.
+Queen kept good his brag.  He braced that Isbel gang an' killed those
+fellars.  But either him or Jean Isbel went off leavin' bloody tracks.
+If it was Queen's y'u can bet Isbel was after him.  An' if it was
+Isbel's tracks, why shore Queen would stick to them.  Somers an'
+Springer couldn't follow the trail.  They're shore not much good at
+trackin'.  But for days they've been ridin' the woods, hopin' to run
+across Queen.... Wal now, mebbe they run across Isbel instead.  An' if
+they did an' got away from him they'll be heah sooner or later.  If
+Isbel was too many for them he'd hunt for my trail.  I'm gamblin' that
+either Queen or Jean Isbel is daid.  I'm hopin' it's Isbel.  Because if
+he ain't daid he's the last of the Isbels, an' mebbe I'm the last of
+Jorth's gang.... Shore I'm not hankerin' to meet the half-breed. That's
+why I say we'll stay heah.  This is as good a hidin' place as there is
+in the country.  We've grub.  There's water an' grass."
+
+"Me--stay heah with y'u--alone!"
+
+The tone seemed a contradiction to the apparently accepted sense of her
+words.  Jean held his breath.  But he could not still the slowly
+mounting and accelerating faculties within that were involuntarily
+rising to meet some strange, nameless import.  He felt it.  He imagined
+it would be the catastrophe of Ellen Jorth's calm acceptance of
+Colter's proposition.  But down in Jean's miserable heart lived
+something that would not die.  No mere words could kill it.  How
+poignant that moment of her silence!  How terribly he realized that if
+his intelligence and his emotion had believed her betraying words, his
+soul had not!
+
+But Ellen Jorth did not speak.  Her brown head hung thoughtfully. Her
+supple shoulders sagged a little.
+
+"Ellen, what's happened to y'u?" went on Colter.
+
+"All the misery possible to a woman," she replied, dejectedly.
+
+"Shore I don't mean that way," he continued, persuasively.  "I ain't
+gainsayin' the hard facts of your life.  It's been bad.  Your dad was
+no good.... But I mean I can't figger the change in y'u."
+
+"No, I reckon y'u cain't," she said.  "Whoever was responsible for your
+make-up left out a mind--not to say feeling."
+
+Colter drawled a low laugh.
+
+"Wal, have that your own way.  But how much longer are yu goin' to be
+like this heah?"
+
+"Like what?" she rejoined, sharply.
+
+"Wal, this stand-offishness of yours?"
+
+"Colter, I told y'u to let me alone," she said, sullenly.
+
+"Shore.  An' y'u did that before.  But this time y'u're different....
+An' wal, I'm gettin' tired of it."
+
+Here the cool, slow voice of the Texan sounded an inflexibility before
+absent, a timber that hinted of illimitable power.
+
+Ellen Jorth shrugged her lithe shoulders and, slowly rising, she picked
+up the little rifle and turned to step into the cabin.
+
+"Colter," she said, "fetch my pack an' my blankets in heah."
+
+"Shore," he returned, with good nature.
+
+Jean saw Ellen Jorth lay the rifle lengthwise in a chink between two
+logs and then slowly turn, back to the wall.  Jean knew her then, yet
+did not know her.  The brown flash of her face seemed that of an older,
+graver woman.  His strained gaze, like his waiting mind, had expected
+something, he knew not what--a hardened face, a ghost of beauty, a
+recklessness, a distorted, bitter, lost expression in keeping with her
+fortunes.  But he had reckoned falsely.  She did not look like that.
+There was incalculable change, but the beauty remained, somehow
+different.  Her red lips were parted.  Her brooding eyes, looking out
+straight from under the level, dark brows, seemed sloe black and
+wonderful with their steady, passionate light.
+
+Jean, in his eager, hungry devouring of the beloved face, did not on
+the first instant grasp the significance of its expression.  He was
+seeing the features that had haunted him.  But quickly he interpreted
+her expression as the somber, hunted look of a woman who would bear no
+more.  Under the torn blouse her full breast heaved.  She held her
+hands clenched at her sides.  She was' listening, waiting for that
+jangling, slow step.  It came, and with the sound she subtly changed.
+She was a woman hiding her true feelings.  She relaxed, and that
+strong, dark look of fury seemed to fade back into her eyes.
+
+Colter appeared at the door, carrying a roll of blankets and a pack.
+
+"Throw them heah," she said.  "I reckon y'u needn't bother coming in."
+
+That angered the man.  With one long stride he stepped over the
+doorsill, down into the cabin, and flung the blankets at her feet and
+then the pack after it.  Whereupon he deliberately sat down in the
+door, facing her. With one hand he slid off his sombrero, which fell
+outside, and with the other he reached in his upper vest pocket for the
+little bag of tobacco that showed there.  All the time he looked at
+her.  By the light now unobstructed Jean descried Colter's face; and
+sight of it then sounded the roll and drum of his passions.
+
+"Wal, Ellen, I reckon we'll have it out right now an' heah," he said,
+and with tobacco in one hand, paper in the other he began the
+operations of making a cigarette.  However, he scarcely removed his
+glance from her.
+
+"Yes?" queried Ellen Jorth.
+
+"I'm goin' to have things the way they were before--an' more," he
+declared.  The cigarette paper shook in his fingers.
+
+"What do y'u mean?" she demanded.
+
+"Y'u know what I mean," he retorted.  Voice and action were subtly
+unhinging this man's control over himself.
+
+"Maybe I don't.  I reckon y'u'd better talk plain."
+
+The rustler had clear gray-yellow eyes, flawless, like, crystal, and
+suddenly they danced with little fiery flecks.
+
+"The last time I laid my hand on y'u I got hit for my pains. An' shore
+that's been ranklin'."
+
+"Colter, y'u'll get hit again if y'u put your hands on me," she said,
+dark, straight glance on him.  A frown wrinkled the level brows.
+
+"Y'u mean that?" he asked, thickly.
+
+"I shore, do."
+
+Manifestly he accepted her assertion.  Something of incredulity and
+bewilderment, that had vied with his resentment, utterly disappeared
+from his face.
+
+"Heah I've been waitin' for y'u to love me," he declared, with a
+gesture not without dignified emotion.  "Your givin' in without that
+wasn't so much to me."
+
+And at these words of the rustler's Jean Isbel felt an icy, sickening
+shudder creep into his soul.  He shut his eyes.  The end of his dream
+had been long in coming, but at last it had arrived.  A mocking voice,
+like a hollow wind, echoed through that region--that lonely and
+ghost-like hall of his heart which had harbored faith.
+
+She burst into speech, louder and sharper, the first words of which
+Jean's strangely throbbing ears did not distinguish.
+
+"-- -- you! ... I never gave in to y'u an' I never will."
+
+"But, girl--I kissed y'u--hugged y'u--handled y'u--" he expostulated,
+and the making of the cigarette ceased.
+
+"Yes, y'u did--y'u brute--when I was so downhearted and weak I couldn't
+lift my hand," she flashed.
+
+"Ahuh!  Y'u mean I couldn't do that now?"
+
+"I should smile I do, Jim Colter!" she replied.
+
+"Wal, mebbe--I'll see--presently," he went on, straining with words.
+"But I'm shore curious.... Daggs, then--he was nothin' to y'u?"
+
+"No more than y'u," she said, morbidly.  "He used to run after me--long
+ago, it seems..... I was only a girl then--innocent--an' I'd not known
+any but rough men.  I couldn't all the time--every day, every
+hour--keep him at arm's length.  Sometimes before I knew--I didn't
+care. I was a child.  A kiss meant nothing to me.  But after I knew--"
+
+Ellen dropped her head in brooding silence.
+
+"Say, do y'u expect me to believe that?" he queried, with a derisive
+leer.
+
+"Bah!  What do I care what y'u believe?" she cried, with lifting head.
+
+"How aboot Simm Brace?"
+
+"That coyote! ... He lied aboot me, Jim Colter.  And any man half a man
+would have known he lied."
+
+"Wal, Simm always bragged aboot y'u bein' his girl," asserted Colter.
+"An' he wasn't over--particular aboot details of your love-makin'."
+
+Ellen gazed out of the door, over Colter's head, as if the forest out
+there was a refuge.  She evidently sensed more about the man than
+appeared in his slow talk, in his slouching position.  Her lips shut in
+a firm line, as if to hide their trembling and to still her passionate
+tongue.  Jean, in his absorption, magnified his perceptions. Not yet
+was Ellen Jorth afraid of this man, but she feared the situation.
+Jean's heart was at bursting pitch.  All within him seemed chaos--a
+wreck of beliefs and convictions.  Nothing was true.  He would wake
+presently out of a nightmare.  Yet, as surely as he quivered there, he
+felt the imminence of a great moment--a lightning flash--a
+thunderbolt--a balance struck.
+
+Colter attended to the forgotten cigarette.  He rolled it, lighted it,
+all the time with lowered, pondering head, and when he had puffed a
+cloud of smoke he suddenly looked up with face as hard as flint, eyes
+as fiery as molten steel.
+
+"Wal, Ellen--how aboot Jean Isbel--our half-breed Nez Perce friend--who
+was shore seen handlin' y'u familiar?" he drawled.
+
+Ellen Jorth quivered as under a lash, and her brown face turned a dusty
+scarlet, that slowly receding left her pale.
+
+"Damn y'u, Jim Colter!" she burst out, furiously.  "I wish Jean Isbel
+would jump in that door--or down out of that loft! ... He killed
+Greaves for defiling my name! ... He'd kill Y'U for your dirty
+insult.... And I'd like to watch him do it.... Y'u cold-blooded Texan!
+Y'u thieving rustler!  Y'u liar! ... Y'u lied aboot my father's death.
+And I know why.  Y'u stole my father's gold.... An' now y'u want
+me--y'u expect me to fall into your arms.... My Heaven! cain't y'u tell
+a decent woman?  Was your mother decent?  Was your sister decent? ...
+Bah! I'm appealing to deafness.  But y'u'll HEAH this, Jim Colter! ...
+I'm not what yu think I am!  I'm not the--the damned hussy y'u liars
+have made me out.... I'm a Jorth, alas!  I've no home, no relatives, no
+friends!  I've been forced to live my life with rustlers--vile men like
+y'u an' Daggs an' the rest of your like.... But I've been good!  Do y'u
+heah that? ... I AM good--so help me God, y'u an' all your rottenness
+cain't make me bad!"
+
+Colter lounged to his tall height and the laxity of the man vanished.
+
+Vanished also was Jean Isbel's suspended icy dread, the cold clogging
+of his fevered mind--vanished in a white, living, leaping flame.
+
+Silently he drew his knife and lay there watching with the eyes of a
+wildcat.  The instant Colter stepped far enough over toward the edge of
+the loft Jean meant to bound erect and plunge down upon him.  But Jean
+could wait now.  Colter had a gun at his hip.  He must never have a
+chance to draw it.
+
+"Ahuh!  So y'u wish Jean Isbel would hop in heah, do y'u?" queried
+Colter. "Wal, if I had any pity on y'u, that's done for it."
+
+A sweep of his long arm, so swift Ellen had no time to move, brought
+his hand in clutching contact with her.  And the force of it flung her
+half across the cabin room, leaving the sleeve of her blouse in his
+grasp. Pantingly she put out that bared arm and her other to ward him
+off as he took long, slow strides toward her.
+
+Jean rose half to his feet, dragged by almost ungovernable passion to
+risk all on one leap.  But the distance was too great.  Colter, blind
+as he was to all outward things, would hear, would see in time to make
+Jean's effort futile.  Shaking like a leaf, Jean sank back, eye again
+to the crack between the rafters.
+
+Ellen did not retreat, nor scream, nor move.  Every line of her body
+was instinct with fight, and the magnificent blaze of her eyes would
+have checked a less callous brute.
+
+Colter's big hand darted between Ellen's arms and fastened in the front
+of her blouse.  He did not try to hold her or draw her close.  The
+unleashed passion of the man required violence.  In one savage pull he
+tore off her blouse, exposing her white, rounded shoulders and heaving
+bosom, where instantly a wave of red burned upward.
+
+Overcome by the tremendous violence and spirit of the rustler, Ellen
+sank to her knees, with blanched face and dilating eyes, trying with
+folded arms and trembling hand to hide her nudity.
+
+At that moment the rapid beat of hoofs on the hard trail outside halted
+Colter in his tracks.
+
+"Hell!" he exclaimed.  "An' who's that?"  With a fierce action he flung
+the remnants of Ellen's blouse in her face and turned to leap out the
+door.
+
+Jean saw Ellen catch the blouse and try to wrap it around her, while
+she sagged against the wall and stared at the door.  The hoof beats
+pounded to a solid thumping halt just outside.
+
+"Jim--thar's hell to pay!" rasped out a panting voice.
+
+"Wal, Springer, I reckon I wished y'u'd paid it without spoilin' my
+deals," retorted Colter, cool and sharp.
+
+"Deals?  Ha!  Y'u'll be forgettin'--your lady love in a minnit,"
+replied Springer.  "When I catch--my breath."
+
+"Where's Somers?" demanded Colter.
+
+"I reckon he's all shot up--if my eyes didn't fool me."
+
+"Where is he?" yelled Colter.
+
+"Jim--he's layin' up in the bushes round thet bluff.  I didn't wait to
+see how he was hurt.  But he shore stopped some lead.  An' he flopped
+like a chicken with its--haid cut off."
+
+"Where's Antonio?"
+
+"He run like the greaser he is," declared Springer, disgustedly.
+
+"Ahuh!  An' where's Queen?" queried Colter, after a significant pause.
+
+"Dead!"
+
+The silence ensuing was fraught with a suspense that held Jean in cold
+bonds.  He saw the girl below rise from her knees, one hand holding the
+blouse to her breast, the other extended, and with strange, repressed,
+almost frantic look she swayed toward the door.
+
+"Wal, talk," ordered Colter, harshly.
+
+"Jim, there ain't a hell of a lot," replied Springer; drawing a deep
+breath, "but what there is is shore interestin'.... Me an' Somers took
+Antonio with us.  He left his woman with the sheep.  An' we rode up the
+canyon, clumb out on top, an' made a circle back on the ridge. That's
+the way we've been huntin' fer tracks.  Up thar in a bare spot we run
+plump into Queen sittin' against a tree, right out in the open.
+Queerest sight y'u ever seen!  The damn gunfighter had set down to wait
+for Isbel, who was trailin' him, as we suspected---an' he died thar. He
+wasn't cold when we found him.... Somers was quick to see a trick. So
+he propped Queen up an' tied the guns to his hands--an', Jim, the
+queerest thing aboot that deal was this--Queen's guns was empty!  Not a
+shell left!  It beat us holler.... We left him thar, an' hid up high on
+the bluff, mebbe a hundred yards off.  The hosses we left back of a
+thicket.  An' we waited thar a long time.  But, sure enough, the
+half-breed come.  He was too smart.  Too much Injun!  He would not
+cross the open, but went around.  An' then he seen Queen.  It was great
+to watch him.  After a little he shoved his rifle out an' went right
+fer Queen.  This is when I wanted to shoot.  I could have plugged him.
+But Somers says wait an' make it sure.  When Isbel got up to Queen he
+was sort of half hid by the tree.  An' I couldn't wait no longer, so I
+shot.  I hit him, too.  We all begun to shoot.  Somers showed himself,
+an' that's when Isbel opened up.  He used up a whole magazine on Somers
+an' then, suddenlike, he quit.  It didn't take me long to figger mebbe
+he was out of shells.  When I seen him run I was certain of it.  Then
+we made for the hosses an' rode after Isbel.  Pretty soon I seen him
+runnin' like a deer down the ridge.  I yelled an' spurred after him.
+There is where Antonio quit me.  But I kept on.  An' I got a shot at
+Isbel.  He ran out of sight.  I follered him by spots of blood on the
+stones an' grass until I couldn't trail him no more.  He must have gone
+down over the cliffs.  He couldn't have done nothin' else without me
+seein' him.  I found his rifle, an' here it is to prove what I say.  I
+had to go back to climb down off the Rim, an' I rode fast down the
+canyon.  He's somewhere along that west wall, hidin' in the brush, hard
+hit if I know anythin' aboot the color of blood."
+
+"Wal! ... that beats me holler, too," ejaculated Colter.
+
+"Jim, what's to be done?" inquired Springer, eagerly.  "If we're sharp
+we can corral that half-breed.  He's the last of the Isbels."
+
+"More, pard.  He's the last of the Isbel outfit," declared Colter. "If
+y'u can show me blood in his tracks I'll trail him."
+
+"Y'u can bet I'll show y'u," rejoined the other rustler.  "But listen!
+Wouldn't it be better for us first to see if he crossed the canyon? I
+reckon he didn't.  But let's make sure.  An' if he didn't we'll have
+him somewhar along that west canyon wall.  He's not got no gun.  He'd
+never run thet way if he had.... Jim, he's our meat!"
+
+"Shore, he'll have that knife," pondered Colter.
+
+"We needn't worry about thet," said the other, positively.  "He's hard
+hit, I tell y'u.  All we got to do is find thet bloody trail again an'
+stick to it--goin' careful.  He's layin' low like a crippled wolf."
+
+"Springer, I want the job of finishin' that half-breed," hissed Colter.
+"I'd give ten years of my life to stick a gun down his throat an' shoot
+it off."
+
+"All right.  Let's rustle.  Mebbe y'u'll not have to give much more 'n
+ten minnits.  Because I tell y'u I can find him.  It'd been easy--but,
+Jim, I reckon I was afraid."
+
+"Leave your hoss for me an' go ahaid," the rustler then said,
+brusquely. "I've a job in the cabin heah."
+
+"Haw-haw! ... Wal, Jim, I'll rustle a bit down the trail an' wait. No
+huntin' Jean Isbel alone--not fer me.  I've had a queer feelin' about
+thet knife he used on Greaves.  An' I reckon y'u'd oughter let thet
+Jorth hussy alone long enough to--"
+
+"Springer, I reckon I've got to hawg-tie her--"  His voice became
+indistinguishable, and footfalls attested to a slow moving away of the
+men.
+
+Jean had listened with ears acutely strung to catch every syllable
+while his gaze rested upon Ellen who stood beside the door.  Every line
+of her body denoted a listening intensity.  Her back was toward Jean,
+so that he could not see her face.  And he did not want to see, but
+could not help seeing her naked shoulders.  She put her head out of the
+door.  Suddenly she drew it in quickly and half turned her face, slowly
+raising her white arm.  This was the left one and bore the marks of
+Colter's hard fingers.
+
+She gave a little gasp.  Her eyes became large and staring.  They were
+bent on the hand that she had removed from a step on the ladder.  On
+hand and wrist showed a bright-red smear of blood.
+
+Jean, with a convulsive leap of his heart, realized that he had left
+his bloody tracks on the ladder as he had climbed.  That moment seemed
+the supremely terrible one of his life.
+
+Ellen Jorth's face blanched and her eyes darkened and dilated with
+exceeding amaze and flashing thought to become fixed with horror. That
+instant was the one in which her reason connected the blood on the
+ladder with the escape of Jean Isbel.
+
+One moment she leaned there, still as a stone except for her heaving
+breast, and then her fixed gaze changed to a swift, dark blaze,
+comprehending, yet inscrutable, as she flashed it up the ladder to the
+loft.  She could see nothing, yet she knew and Jean knew that she knew
+he was there.  A marvelous transformation passed over her features and
+even over her form.  Jean choked with the ache in his throat. Slowly
+she put the bloody hand behind her while with the other she still held
+the torn blouse to her breast.
+
+Colter's slouching, musical step sounded outside.  And it might have
+been a strange breath of infinitely vitalizing and passionate life
+blown into the well-springs of Ellen Jorth's being.  Isbel had no name
+for her then.  The spirit of a woman had been to him a thing unknown.
+
+She swayed back from the door against the wall in singular, softened
+poise, as if all the steel had melted out of her body.  And as Colter's
+tall shadow fell across the threshold Jean Isbel felt himself staring
+with eyeballs that ached--straining incredulous sight at this woman who
+in a few seconds had bewildered his senses with her transfiguration. He
+saw but could not comprehend.
+
+"Jim--I heard--all Springer told y'u," she said.  The look of her
+dumfounded Colter and her voice seemed to shake him visibly.
+
+"Suppose y'u did.  What then?" he demanded, harshly, as he halted with
+one booted foot over the threshold.  Malignant and forceful, he eyed
+her darkly, doubtfully.
+
+"I'm afraid," she whispered.
+
+"What of? Me?"
+
+"No. Of--of Jean Isbel.  He might kill y'u and--then where would I be?"
+
+"Wal, I'm damned!" ejaculated the rustler.  "What's got into y'u?" He
+moved to enter, but a sort of fascination bound him.
+
+"Jim, I hated y'u a moment ago," she burst out.  "But now--with that
+Jean Isbel somewhere near--hidin'--watchin' to kill y'u--an' maybe me,
+too--I--I don't hate y'u any more.... Take me away."
+
+"Girl, have y'u lost your nerve?" he demanded.
+
+"My God! Colter--cain't y'u see?" she implored.  "Won't y'u take me
+away?"
+
+"I shore will--presently," he replied, grimly.  "But y'u'll wait till
+I've shot the lights out of this Isbel."
+
+"No!" she cried.  "Take me away now.... An' I'll give in--I'll be what
+y'u--want.... Y'u can do with me--as y'u like."
+
+Colter's lofty frame leaped as if at the release of bursting blood.
+With a lunge he cleared the threshold to loom over her.
+
+"Am I out of my haid, or are y'u?" he asked, in low, hoarse voice. His
+darkly corded face expressed extremest amaze.
+
+"Jim, I mean it," she whispered, edging an inch nearer him, her white
+face uplifted, her dark eyes unreadable in their eloquence and mystery.
+"I've no friend but y'u.  I'll be--yours.... I'm lost.... What does it
+matter?  If y'u want me--take me NOW--before I kill myself."
+
+"Ellen Jorth, there's somethin' wrong aboot y'u," he responded. "Did
+y'u tell the truth--when y'u denied ever bein' a sweetheart of Simm
+Bruce?"
+
+"Yes, I told y'u the truth."
+
+"Ahuh!  An' how do y'u account for layin' me out with every dirty name
+y'u could give tongue to?"
+
+"Oh, it was temper. I wanted to be let alone."
+
+"Temper!  Wal, I reckon y'u've got one," he retorted, grimly.  "An' I'm
+not shore y'u're not crazy or lyin'.  An hour ago I couldn't touch y'u."
+
+"Y'u may now--if y'u promise to take me away--at once.  This place has
+got on my nerves.  I couldn't sleep heah with that Isbel hidin' around.
+Could y'u?"
+
+"Wal, I reckon I'd not sleep very deep."
+
+"Then let us go."
+
+He shook his lean, eagle-like head in slow, doubtful vehemence, and his
+piercing gaze studied her distrustfully.  Yet all the while there was
+manifest in his strung frame an almost irrepressible violence, held in
+abeyance to his will.
+
+"That aboot your bein' so good?" he inquired, with a return of the
+mocking drawl.
+
+"Never mind what's past," she flashed, with passion dark as his. "I've
+made my offer."
+
+"Shore there's a lie aboot y'u somewhere," he muttered, thickly.
+
+"Man, could I do more?" she demanded, in scorn.
+
+"No.  But it's a lie," he returned.  "Y'u'll get me to take y'u away
+an' then fool me--run off--God knows what.  Women are all liars."
+
+Manifestly he could not believe in her strange transformation.  Memory
+of her wild and passionate denunciation of him and his kind must have
+seared even his calloused soul.  But the ruthless nature of him had not
+weakened nor softened in the least as to his intentions.  This
+weather-vane veering of hers bewildered him, obsessed him with its
+possibilities.  He had the look of a man who was divided between love
+of her and hate, whose love demanded a return, but whose hate required
+a proof of her abasement.  Not proof of surrender, but proof of her
+shame! The ignominy of him thirsted for its like.  He could grind her
+beauty under his heel, but he could not soften to this feminine
+inscrutableness.
+
+And whatever was the truth of Ellen Jorth in this moment, beyond
+Colter's gloomy and stunted intelligence, beyond even the love of Jean
+Isbel, it was something that held the balance of mastery.  She read
+Colter's mind.  She dropped the torn blouse from her hand and stood
+there, unashamed, with the wave of her white breast pulsing, eyes black
+as night and full of hell, her face white, tragic, terrible, yet
+strangely lovely.
+
+"Take me away," she whispered, stretching one white arm toward him,
+then the other.
+
+Colter, even as she moved, had leaped with inarticulate cry and radiant
+face to meet her embrace.  But it seemed, just as her left arm flashed
+up toward his neck, that he saw her bloody hand and wrist.  Strange how
+that checked his ardor--threw up his lean head like that striking bird
+of prey.
+
+"Blood!  What the hell!" he ejaculated, and in one sweep he grasped
+her. "How'd yu do that?  Are y'u cut? ... Hold still."
+
+Ellen could not release her hand.
+
+"I scratched myself," she said.
+
+"Where?... All that blood!"  And suddenly he flung her hand back with
+fierce gesture, and the gleams of his yellow eyes were like the points
+of leaping flames.  They pierced her--read the secret falsity of her.
+Slowly he stepped backward, guardedly his hand moved to his gun, and
+his glance circled and swept the interior of the cabin.  As if he had
+the nose of a hound and sight to follow scent, his eyes bent to the
+dust of the ground before the door.  He quivered, grew rigid as stone,
+and then moved his head with exceeding slowness as if searching through
+a microscope in the dust--farther to the left--to the foot of the
+ladder--and up one step--another--a third--all the way up to the loft.
+Then he whipped out his gun and wheeled to face the girl.
+
+"Ellen, y'u've got your half-breed heah!" he said, with a terrible
+smile.
+
+She neither moved nor spoke.  There was a suggestion of collapse, but
+it was only a change where the alluring softness of her hardened into a
+strange, rapt glow.  And in it seemed the same mastery that had
+characterized her former aspect.  Herein the treachery of her was
+revealed.  She had known what she meant to do in any case.
+
+Colter, standing at the door, reached a long arm toward the ladder,
+where he laid his hand on a rung.  Taking it away he held it palm
+outward for her to see the dark splotch of blood.
+
+"See?"
+
+"Yes, I see," she said, ringingly.
+
+Passion wrenched him, transformed him.  "All that--aboot leavin'
+heah--with me--aboot givin' in--was a lie!"
+
+"No, Colter. It was the truth. I'll go--yet--now--if y'u'll
+spare--HIM!" She whispered the last word and made a slight movement of
+her hand toward the loft.  "Girl!" he exploded, incredulously.  "Y'u
+love this half-breed--this ISBEL! ... Y'u LOVE him!"
+
+"With all my heart! ... Thank God!  It has been my glory.... It might
+have been my salvation.... But now I'll go to hell with y'u--if y'u'll
+spare him."
+
+"Damn my soul!" rasped out the rustler, as if something of respect was
+wrung from that sordid deep of him.  "Y'u--y'u woman! ... Jorth will
+turn over in his grave.  He'd rise out of his grave if this Isbel got
+y'u."
+
+"Hurry!  Hurry!" implored Ellen.  "Springer may come back. I think I
+heard a call."
+
+"Wal, Ellen Jorth, I'll not spare Isbel--nor y'u," he returned, with
+dark and meaning leer, as he turned to ascend the ladder.
+
+Jean Isbel, too, had reached the climax of his suspense.  Gathering all
+his muscles in a knot he prepared to leap upon Colter as he mounted the
+ladder.  But, Ellen Jorth screamed piercingly and snatched her rifle
+from its resting place and, cocking it, she held it forward and low.
+
+"COLTER!"
+
+Her scream and his uttered name stiffened him.
+
+"Y'u will spare Jean Isbel!" she rang out.  "Drop that gun-drop it!"
+
+"Shore, Ellen.... Easy now.  Remember your temper.... I'll let Isbel
+off," he panted, huskily, and all his body sank quiveringly to a crouch.
+
+"Drop your gun!  Don't turn round.... Colter!--I'LL KILL Y'U!"
+
+But even then he failed to divine the meaning and the spirit of her.
+
+"Aw, now, Ellen," he entreated, in louder, huskier tones, and as if
+dragged by fatal doubt of her still, he began to turn.
+
+Crash!  The rifle emptied its contents in Colter's breast.  All his
+body sprang up.  He dropped the gun.  Both hands fluttered toward her.
+And an awful surprise flashed over his face.
+
+"So--help--me--God!" he whispered, with blood thick in his voice. Then
+darkly, as one groping, he reached for her with shaking hands.
+"Y'u--y'u white-throated hussy!... I'll ..."
+
+He grasped the quivering rifle barrel.  Crash!  She shot him again. As
+he swayed over her and fell she had to leap aside, and his clutching
+hand tore the rifle from her grasp.  Then in convulsion he writhed, to
+heave on his back, and stretch out--a ghastly spectacle.  Ellen backed
+away from it, her white arms wide, a slow horror blotting out the
+passion of her face.
+
+Then from without came a shrill call and the sound of rapid footsteps.
+Ellen leaned against the wall, staring still at Colter.  "Hey,
+Jim--what's the shootin'?" called Springer, breathlessly.
+
+As his form darkened the doorway Jean once again gathered all his
+muscular force for a tremendous spring.
+
+Springer saw the girl first and he appeared thunderstruck.  His jaw
+dropped.  He needed not the white gleam of her person to transfix him.
+Her eyes did that and they were riveted in unutterable horror upon
+something on the ground.  Thus instinctively directed, Springer espied
+Colter.
+
+"Y'u--y'u shot him!" he shrieked.  "What for--y'u hussy? ... Ellen
+Jorth, if y'u've killed him, I'll..."
+
+He strode toward where Colter lay.
+
+Then Jean, rising silently, took a step and like a tiger he launched
+himself into the air, down upon the rustler.  Even as he leaped
+Springer gave a quick, upward look.  And he cried out.  Jean's
+moccasined feet struck him squarely and sent him staggering into the
+wall, where his head hit hard.  Jean fell, but bounded up as the
+half-stunned Springer drew his gun.  Then Jean lunged forward with a
+single sweep of his arm--and looked no more.
+
+Ellen ran swaying out of the door, and, once clear of the threshold,
+she tottered out on the grass, to sink to her knees.  The bright,
+golden sunlight gleamed upon her white shoulders and arms.  Jean had
+one foot out of the door when he saw her and he whirled back to get her
+blouse.  But Springer had fallen upon it.  Snatching up a blanket, Jean
+ran out.
+
+"Ellen!  Ellen!  Ellen!" he cried.  "It's over!"  And reaching her, he
+tried to wrap her in the blanket.
+
+She wildly clutched his knees.  Jean was conscious only of her white,
+agonized face and the dark eyes with their look of terrible strain.
+
+"Did y'u--did y'u..." she whispered.
+
+"Yes--it's over," he said, gravely.  "Ellen, the Isbel-Jorth feud is
+ended."
+
+"Oh, thank--God!" she cried, in breaking voice.  "Jean--y'u are
+wounded... the blood on the step!"
+
+"My arm.  See.  It's not bad.... Ellen, let me wrap this round you."
+Folding the blanket around her shoulders, he held it there and
+entreated her to get up.  But she only clung the closer.  She hid her
+face on his knees.  Long shudders rippled over her, shaking the
+blanket, shaking Jean's hands.  Distraught, he did not know what to do.
+And his own heart was bursting.
+
+"Ellen, you must not kneel--there--that way," he implored.
+
+"Jean!  Jean!" she moaned, and clung the tighter.
+
+He tried to lift her up, but she was a dead weight, and with that hold
+on him seemed anchored at his feet.
+
+"I killed Colter," she gasped.  "I HAD to--kill him! ... I offered--to
+fling myself away...."
+
+"For me!" he cried, poignantly.  "Oh, Ellen!  Ellen! the world has come
+to an end! ... Hush! don't keep sayin' that.  Of course you killed him.
+You saved my life.  For I'd never have let you go off with him ....
+Yes, you killed him.... You're a Jorth an' I'm an Isbel ... We've blood
+on our hands--both of us--I for you an' you for me!"
+
+His voice of entreaty and sadness strengthened her and she raised her
+white face, loosening her clasp to lean back and look up.  Tragic,
+sweet, despairing, the loveliness of her--the significance of her there
+on her knees--thrilled him to his soul.
+
+"Blood on my hands!" she whispered.  "Yes.  It was awful--killing
+him.... But--all I care for in this world is for your forgiveness--and
+your faith that saved my soul!"
+
+"Child, there's nothin' to forgive," he responded.  "Nothin'... Please,
+Ellen..."
+
+"I lied to y'u!" she cried.  "I lied to y'u!"
+
+"Ellen, listen--darlin'."  And the tender epithet brought her head and
+arms back close-pressed to him.  "I know--now," he faltered on.  "I
+found out to-day what I believed.  An' I swear to God--by the memory of
+my dead mother--down in my heart I never, never, never believed what
+they--what y'u tried to make me believe.  NEVER!"
+
+"Jean--I love y'u--love y'u--love y'u!" she breathed with exquisite,
+passionate sweetness.  Her dark eyes burned up into his.
+
+"Ellen, I can't lift you up," he said, in trembling eagerness,
+signifying his crippled arm.  "But I can kneel with you! ..."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of To the Last Man, by Zane Grey
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