“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.
“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.
