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Updated: June 24, 2025
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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." During June Jean Isbel did not ride far away from Grass Valley. Another attempt had been made upon Gaston Isbel's life.
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.
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.
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.
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