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Updated: May 26, 2025
"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."
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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