Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
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.
"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!"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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." 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.
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.
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.
Word Of The Day