“An’, if it’s true, it shore makes this difference … we cain’t blame all the rustlin’ onto 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, from 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’ you 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 you now. Jorth’s 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. 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 would 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 rustler gang, or stay to the last man.”

  “Yes, by God!” exclaimed Fredericks.

  “Let’s drink to thet!” said Blue. Strangely they all 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 for 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 bye to his children, but, of course, 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 bye! 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 presage. Bill Isbel’s convulsed face showed that he, also, caught it. Jean did not see Bill say good bye to his wife. But he heard her. Old Gaston Isbel could not. He never looked at them. And his good bye 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 bye! If killing must be … see that you kill the Jorths! Good bye!”

  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. 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, 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 more fierce for its incongruity to the treble voice.

  So the poison had spread from father to son.

  Chapter Nine

  Half a mile from the Isbel Ranch the cavalcade passed the log cabin of Evarts, father of the boy who had tended sheep with Bernardino. It suited Gaston Isbel to halt here. No need to call! Evarts and his son appeared so quickly as to convince observers that they had been watching.

  “Howdy, Jake,” said Isbel. “I’m wantin’ a word with you alone.”

  “Shore, boss, get down an’ come in,” replied Evarts.

  Isbel led him aside, and said something forcible that Jean divined from the very gesture that accompanied it. His father was telling Evarts that he was not to join in the Isbel-Jorth war. Evarts had worked for the Isbels a long time, and his faithfulness, along with something stronger and darker, showed in his rugged face as he stubbornly opposed Isbel. The old man raised his voice: “No, I tell you an’ that settles it.”

  They returned to the horses, and, before mounting, Isbel, as if he remembered something, directed his somber gaze on young Evarts.

  “Son, did you bury Bernardino?”

  “Dad an’ me went over yestiddy,” replied the lad. “I shore was glad the coyotes hadn’t been around.”

  “How aboot the sheep?”

  “I left them there. I was goin’ to stay, but bein’ all alone … I got skeered. The sheep was doin’ fine. Good water an’ some grass. An’ this ain’t time for varmints to hang around.”

  “Jake, keep your eye on that flock,” returned Isbel. “An’, if I shouldn’t happen to come back, you can call them sheep yours. I’d like your boy to ride up to the village. Not with us, or anybody would see him. But afterwards. We’ll be at Abel Meeker’s.”

  Again Jean was confronted with an uneasy premonition about some idea or plan his father had not shared with his followers. When the cavalcade started on again, Jean rode to his father’s side and asked him why he had wanted the Evarts boy to come to Grass Valley. The old man replied that, if the boy could run to and fro in the village without danger, he might be useful in reporting what was going on at Greaves’s store where undoubtedly the Jorth gang would hold forth. This appeared reasonable enough, so Jean smothered the objection he had meant to make.

  The valley road was deserted. When a mile farther on the riders passed a group of cabins, just on the outskirts of the village, Jean’s quick eye caught sight of curious and evidently frightened people trying to see while they avoided being seen. No doubt the whole settlement was in a state of suspense and terror. It was likely their dark, closely grouped band of horsemen appeared to them as Jorth’s gang had looked to Jean. It was an orderly trotting march that manifested neither hurry nor excitement. But any Western eye could have caught the singular aspect of such a group, as if the intent of the riders was a visible thing.

  Soon they reached the outskirts of the village. Here their approach had been watched for, or had been already reported. 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 ways 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. He was learning that his father had not been absolutely correct in his estimation of the way Jorth and his followers were regarded by their neighbors. Not improbably there were really many villagers, who, being more interested in sheep raising than in cattle, had an honest leaning toward the Jorths. Some, too, no doubt had leanings that were dishonest in deed, if not in sincerity.

  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 doors 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?”

  “Wal, Abel, it’s not good, but bad. An’ it’s shore started,” replied Isbel. “I’m askin’ you to let me have your cabin.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ll send the folks ’round to Jim’s,” returned Meeker. “An’ if you want me, I’m with you, Isbel.”

  “Thanks, Abel, but I’m not leadin’ any more kin an’ friends into this heah deal.”

  “Wal, jest as you say. But I’d like damn’ bad to jine with you.… my brother Ted was shot last night.”

  “Ted! Is he daid?” ejaculated Isbel blankly.

  “We can’t find out,” replied Meeker. “Jim says that Jeff Campbell said thet Ted went into Greaves’s place last night. Greaves allus was friendly to Ted, but Greaves wasn’t thar.…”

  “No, he shore wasn’t,” interrupted Isbel with a dark smile, “an’ he never will be there again.”

  Meeker nodded with slow comprehension, and a shade crossed his face.

  “Wal, Campbell claimed he’d heered of it from someone who was thar. Anyway, the Jorths were drinkin’ hard an’ they raised a row with Ted … same old sheep talk … an’ somebody shot him. Campbell said Ted was thrown out back, an’ he was shore he wasn’t killed.”

  “A-huh! Wal, I’m sorry, Abel, your family had to lose in this. Maybe Ted’s not bad hurt. I shore hope so. An’ you an’ Jim keep out of the fight, anyway.”

  “All right, Isbel. But I reckon I’ll give you a hunch. If this heah fight lasts long, the whole damn’ basin will be in it, on one side or t’other.”

  “Abe, you’re talkin’ sense,” broke in Blaisdell. “An’ that’s why we’re up heah for quick action.”

  “I heered you got Daggs,” whispered Meeker, as he peered all around.

  “Wal, you heered correct,” drawled Blaisdell.

  Meeker muttered strong words into his beard. “Say, was Daggs in that Jorth outfit?”

  “He was. But he walked right into Jean’s mark, which is a Forty-Four. An’ I reckon his carcass would show some more.”

  “An’ whar’s Guy Isbel?” demanded Meeker.

  “Daid an’ buried, Abel,” replied Gaston Isbel. “An’ now I’d be obliged if you’ll hurry your folks away, an’ let us have your cabin an’ corral. Have you got any hay for the horses?”

  “Shore. The barn’s half full,” replied Meeker, as he turned away. “Come on in.”

  “No. We’ll wait till you’ve gone.”

  When Meeker had gone, Isbel and his men sat their horses, and looked about them, and spoke low. Their advent had been expected, and the little town awoke to the imminence of the impending battle. Inside Meeker’s house there was the sound of indistinct voices of women and the bustle incident to a hurried vacating.

  Across the wide road people were peering out on all sides, some hiding, others walking to and fro, from fence to fence, whispering in little groups. Down the wide road, at the point where it turned, stood Greaves’s fort-like stone house. Low, flat, isolated, with its dark eye-like windows, it presented a forbidding and sinister aspect. Jean distinctly saw the forms of men, some dark, others in shirt sleeves, come to the wide door and look down the road.

  “Wal, I reckon only aboot five hundred good hoss steps are separatin’ us from that outfit,” drawled Blaisdell.

  No one replied to his jocularity. Gaston Isbel’s eyes narrowed to a slit in his furrowed face and he kept them fastened upon Greaves’s store. Blue likewise had a somber cast of countenance, not perhaps any darker or grimmer than those of his comrades, but more representative of intense preoccupation of mind. The look of him thrilled Jean, who could sense its deadliness yet could not grasp any more. Altogether the manner of the villagers, and the watchful pacing to and fro of the Jorth followers, and the silent boding front of Isbel and his men summed up for Jean the menace of the moment, that must very soon change to a terrible reality.

  At a call from Meeker, who stood at the back of the cabin, Gaston Isbel rode into the yard, followed by the others of his party. “Somebody look after the horses,” ordered Isbel, as he dismounted and took his rifle and pack. “Better leave the saddles on, leastways till we see what’s comin’ off.”

  Jean and Bill Isbel led the horses back to the corral. While watering and feeding them, Jean somehow received the impression that Bill was trying to speak, to confide in him, to unburden himself of some load. 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.

  “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’ 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.”

  “I kicked, but the old man shut me up. He’s not to be bucked ag’in now. Struck me as powerful queer. But no wonder.”

  “Maybe he knows best. Did he say anythin’ about what he an’ the rest of them are goin’ to do?”

  “Nope. Blue taxed him with that an’ got the same as me. I reckon we’d better try it out for a while, anyway.”

  “Looks like he wants us to keep out of the fight,” replied Jean thoughtfully. “Maybe though … Dad’s no fool. Colmor, you wait here till I get out of sight. I’ll go ’round an’ come up as close as advisable behind Greaves’s store. You take the right side. An’ keep hid.”

  With that Jean strode off, going around the barn, straight out the orchard lane to the open flat, and then climbing a fence to the north of the village. Presently he reached a line of sheds and corrals to which he held until he arrived at the road. This point was about a quarter of a mile from Greaves’s store and around the bend. Jean sighted no one. The road, the fields, the yards, the backs of the cabins all looked deserted. A blight had settled down upon the peaceful activities of Grass Valley. Crossing the road, Jean began to circle until he came close to several cabins, around which he made a wide detour. This took him to the edge of the slope, where brush and thickets afforded him a safe passage to a line directly back of Greaves’s store. Then he turned toward it. Soon he was again approaching a cabin on that side and some of its inmates descried him. Their actions attested to their alarm. Jean half expected a shot from this quarter, such were his growing doubts, but he was mistaken. A man, unknown to Jean, closely watched his guarded movements, and then waved a hand, as if to signify to Jean that he had nothing to fear. After this he disappeared. Jean believed that he had been recognized by someone not antagonistic to the Isbels. Therefore, he passed the cabin, and, coming to a thick scrub-oak tree that offered shelter, he hid there to watch. From this spot he could see the back of Greaves’s store, at a distance probably too far for a rifle bullet to reach. Before him, as far as the store, and on each side, extended the village common. In front of the store ran the road. Jean’s position was such that he could not command sight of this road down toward Meeker’s house, a fact that disturbed him. Not satisfied with this stand, he studied his surroundings in the hope of espying a better. He discerned what he thought would be a more favorable position, although he could not see much farther. Jean went back around the cabin, and, coming out into the open to the right, he got the corner of Greaves’s barn between him and the window of the store. Then he boldly hurried into the open, and soon reached an old wagon, from behind which he proposed to watch. He could not see either window or door of the store, but if any of the Jorth contingent came out the back way, they would be within reach of his rifle. Jean took the risk of being shot at from either side.

  So sharp and roving was his sight that he soon espied Colmor slipping along behind 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.

  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. It came from in front of the store. It was followed by revolver shots, heavy, booming. Three he counted, and the rest were too close together to enumerate. A single hoarse yell pealed out, somehow trenchant and triumphant. Other yells, not so wild and strange, muffled the first one. Then silence clapped down on the store and the open square.

  Jean was deadly certain that some of the Jorth clan would show themselves. He strained to still the trembling those sudden shots and that significant yell had caused him. No man appeared. No more sounds caught Jean’s ears. The suspense, then, grew unbearable. It was not that he could not wait for an enemy to appear, but that he could not wait to learn what had happened. Every moment that he stayed there, with hands like steel on his rifle, with eyes of a falcon, only added to his dreadful dark certainty of disaster. A rifle shot swiftly followed by revolver shots! What could they mean? Revolver shots of different caliber, surely fired by different men. It was not these shots that accounted for Jean’s dread, but the yell which had followed. All his intelligence and all his nerve were not sufficient to fight down the feeling of calamity. At last, yielding to it, he left his post, and ran like a deer across the open, through the cabin yard, and around the edge of the slope to the road. Here his caution brought him to a halt. Not a living thing crossed his vision. Breaking into a run, he soon reached the back of Meeker’s place and entered, to hurry forward to the cabin.