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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!"
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?"
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.
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.
"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.
"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!
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.
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.
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?
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.
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