After this long and impressive harangue, which at least augmented the suspense of the women and worked the children into a frenzy, Jean leisurely untied the many knots around the bundle and unrolled it. He had packed that bundle for just such travel as it had sustained. Three cloth-bound rifles he laid aside, and with them a long, very heavy package tied between thin wide boards. From this came a metallic clink. “Oh, I know what dem is!” cried Lee, breaking the silence of suspense. Then Jean, tearing open the long, flat parcel, spread before the mute, rapt-eyed youngsters such magnificent things as they had never dreamed of—picture books, mouth harps, dolls, a toy rifle and a toy pistol, a wonderful whistle and a box horn, and last of all a box of candy. Before these treasures on the floor, too magical to be touched at first, the two little boys and their sister simply knelt. That was a sweet full moment for Jean, yet even this was clouded by something that shadowed these innocent children fatefully born in a wild place at a wild time. Next Jean gave to his sister the presents he had brought her—beautiful cloth for a dress, ribbons and a bit of lace, handkerchiefs and buttons and yards of linen, a sewing case, and a whole box of spools of thread, a comb and brush and mirror, and lastly a Spanish brooch inlaid with garnets. “There, Ann,” said Jean, “I confess I asked a girl friend in Oregon to tell me some things my sister might like.” Manifestly there was not much difference in girls. Ann seemed stunned by this munificence, and, then awakening, she hugged Jean in a way that took his breath. She was not a child any more, that was certain. Aunt Mary turned knowing eyes upon Jean. “Reckon you couldn’t have pleased Ann more. She’s engaged, Jean, an’, when girls are in that state, these things mean a heap. Ann, you’ll be married in that!” She pointed to the beautiful folds of material that Ann had spread out.

  “What’s this?” demanded Jean. His sister’s blushes were enough to convict her, and they were mightily becoming, too. “Here, Aunt Mary,” went on Jean, “here’s yours, an’ here’s somethin’ for each of my new sisters.” This distribution left the women as happy and occupied, almost, as the children. It left also another package, the last one in the bundle. Jean laid hold of it, and, lifting it, he was about to speak when he sustained a little shock of memory. Quite distinctly he saw two little feet with bare toes peeping out of worn-out moccasins, and then round, bare, symmetrical ankles that had been scratched by brush. Next he saw Ellen Jorth’s passionate face as she looked when she had made the violent action so disconcerting to him. In this happy moment the memory seemed farther off than a few hours. It had crystallized. It amazed while it drew him. As a result he slowly laid this last package aside and did not speak as he had intended to.

  “Dad, I reckon I didn’t fetch a lot for you an’ the boys,” continued Jean. “Some knives, some pipes an’ tobacco. An’, sure, the guns.”

  “Shore, you’re a regular Santa Claus, Jean,” replied his father. “Wal, wal, look at the kids. An’ look at Mary. An’ for the land’s sake look at Ann! Wal, wal, I’m gettin’ old. I’d forgotten the pretty stuff an’ gimcracks that mean so much to women. We’re out of the world heah. It’s just as well you’ve lived apart from us, Jean, for comin’ back this way, with all that stuff, does us a lot of good. I cain’t say, Son, how obliged I am. My mind has been set on the hard side of life. An’ it’s shore good to forget … to see the smiles of the women an’ the joy of the kids.”

  At this juncture a tall young man entered the open door. He looked to be a rider. All about him, even his face, except his eyes, seemed old, but his eyes were young, fine, soft, and dark. “How do, y’all,” he said evenly.

  Ann rose from her knees. Then Jean did not need to be told who this newcomer was. “Jean, this is my … my friend, Andrew Colmor.” Jean knew that when he met Colmor’s grip and the keen flash of his eyes that he was glad Ann had set her heart on one of this kind, and his second impression was something akin to the one given him in the road by the admiring lad. Colmor’s estimate of him must have been a monument built of Ann’s eulogies. Jean’s heart suffered misgivings. Could he live up to the character that somehow had forestalled his advent in Grass Valley? Surely life was measured differently here in the Tonto Basin.

  The children, bundling their treasures to their bosoms, were dragged off to bed in some remote part of the house from which their laughter and voices came back with its happy significance. Jean forthwith had an interested audience. How eagerly these lonely pioneer people listened to news of the outside world! Jean talked until he was hoarse. In their turn, his hearers told him much that had never found place in the few and short letters he had received since he had been left in Oregon. His mother, who was part Nez Percé Indian, had pined away in Arizona and found a grave there. That, however, was the only sad note in their reminiscences. Not a word about sheepmen or any hint of rustlers! Jean marked the omission and thought all the more seriously of probabilities because nothing was said. Altogether the evening was a happy reunion of a family at which all the living members were present. Jean grasped that this fact was one of significant satisfaction to his father. “Shore, we’re all goin’ to live together heah,” he declared. “I staked this range. I call most of this valley mine. We’ll run up a cabin for Ann soon as she says the word. An’ you, Jean, where’s your girl? I shore told you to fetch her.”

  “Dad, I didn’t have one,” replied Jean.

  “Wal, I wish you had,” returned the rancher. “You’ll go courtin’ one of these Tonto hussies that I might object to.”

  “Why, Father, there’s not a girl in the valley Jean would look at,” interposed Ann Isbel with spirit.

  Jean laughed the matter aside, but he had an uneasy memory. Aunt Mary averred, after the manner of relations, that Jean would play havoc among the women of the settlement. Jean retorted that at least one member of the Isbels should hold out against folly and love and marriage, and fighting the agents that had reduced the family to these few present. “I’ll be the last Isbel to go under,” he concluded.

  “Son, you’re talkin’ wisdom,” said his father. “An’ shore that reminds me of the uncle you’re named after, Jean Isbel! Wal, he was my youngest brother an’ shore a fire-eater. Our mother was a French Creole from Louisiana, an’ Jean must have inherited some of his fightin’ nature from her. When the War Between the States started, Jean an’ I enlisted. I was crippled before we ever got to the front. But Jean went through three years before he was killed. His company had orders to fight to the last man. An’ Jean fought an’ lived long enough just to be that last man.”

  At length Jean was finally left alone with his father.

  “Reckon you’re used to bunkin’ outdoors?” grunted the rancher rather abruptly.

  “Most of the time,” replied Jean.

  “Wal, there’s room in the house, but I want you to sleep out. Come, get your beddin’ an’ gun. I’ll show you.”

  They went outside on the porch where Jean shouldered his roll of tarpaulin and blankets. His rifle, in its saddle sheath, leaned against the door. His father took it up and, half pulling it out, looked at it by the starlight. “Forty-Four, eh? Wal, wal, there’s shore no better, if a man can shoot straight.” At the moment a big gray dog trotted up to sniff at Jean. “An’ heah’s your bunkmate, Shepp. He’s part loafer, Jean. His mother was a favorite shepherd dog of mine. His father was a big timber wolf that took me two years to kill. Some bad wolf packs runnin’ this basin.”

  The night was cold and still, darkly bright under moon and stars; the smell of hay seemed to mingle with that of cedar. Jean followed his father around the house and up a gentle slope of graze to the edge of the cedar line. Here several trees with low-sweeping, thick branches forming a dense, impenetrable shade.

  “Son, your uncle Jean was scout for Liggett, one of the greatest Rebels the South had,” said the rancher. “An’ you’re goin’ to be scout for the Isbels of Tonto. Reckon you’ll find it ’most as hot as your uncle did. Spread your bed inside. You can see out, but no one can see you. Reckon there’s been some queer happenin’s ’round heah lately. If Shepp could talk, he’d shore have lots to tell us. Bill an’ Guy have been sleepin’ out, trailin’ strange lion tracks, an’ all that. But shore whoever’s been prowlin’ around heah was too sharp for them. Some bad, crafty, light-steppin’ woodsmen ’round heah, Jean. Three mawnin’s ago, just after daylight, I stepped out the back door. An’ some one of those sneaks I’m talkin’ aboot took a shot at me. Missed my head by a quarter of an inch! Tomorrow I’ll show you the bullet hole in the door post an’ some of my gray hairs that’re stickin’ in it!”

  “Dad!” ejaculated Jean with a hand outstretched. “That’s awful. You frighten me.”

  “No time to be scared,” replied his father calmly. “They’re shore goin’ to kill me. That’s why I wanted you home.… In there with you now. Go to sleep. You shore can trust Shepp to wake you if he gets scent or sound. An’ good night, my son. I’m sayin’ that I’ll rest easy tonight.”

  Jean mumbled a good night and stood watching his father’s shining white head move away under the starlight. Then the tall dark form vanished, a door closed, and all was still. The dog Shepp licked Jean’s hand. Jean felt grateful for that warm touch. For a moment he sat on his roll of bedding, his thought still locked on the shuddering revelation of his father’s words: They’re shore goin’ to kill me. The shock of inaction passed. Jean pushed his pack in the dark opening, and, crawling inside, he unrolled it and made his bed.

  When at length he was comfortably settled for the night, he breathed a long sigh of relief. What bliss to relax! A throbbing and burning of his muscles seemed to begin with his rest. The cool starlit night, the smell of cedar, the moan of wind, the silence all were real to his senses. After long weeks of arduous travel he was home. The warmth of the welcome still lingered, but it seemed to have been pierced by an icy thrust. What lay before him? The shadow in the eyes of his aunt, in the younger fresher eyes of his sister—Jean connected that with the meaning of his father’s tragic words. Far past was the morning that had been so keen—the breaking of camp in the sunlit forest—the riding down the brown aisles under the pines—the music of bleating lambs that had called him not to pass by. Thought of Ellen Jorth recurred. Had he met her only that morning? She was up there in the forest, asleep under the starlit pines. Who was she? What was her story? That savage fling of her skirt, her little speech, and passionate, flaming face—they haunted Jean. They were crystallizing into simpler memories, growing away from his bewilderment, and therefore at once sweeter and more doubtful. “Maybe she meant differently from what I thought,” Jean soliloquized. “Anyway, she was honest.” Both shame and thrill possessed him at the recall of an insidious idea—dare he go back and find her and give her the last package of gifts he had brought from the city? What might they mean to poor ragged untidy beautiful Ellen Jorth? The idea grew on Jean. It could not be dispelled. He resisted stubbornly. It was bound to go to its fruition. Deeply into his mind had sunk an impression of her need—a material need that brought spirit and pride to abasement. From one picture to another his memory wandered, from one speech and act of hers to another, choosing, selecting, casting aside, until clear and sharp as the stars shone the words —Oh, I’ve been kissed before!—that stung him now. By whom? Not by one man, but by several, by many, she had meant. Pshaw! He had only been sympathetic and drawn by a strange girl in the woods. Tomorrow he would forget. Work there was for him in Grass Valley. He reverted uneasily to the remark of his father until at last sleep claimed him.

  A cold nose against his chest, a low whine awakened Jean. Shepp was beside him, keen, wary, intense. The night appeared well advanced toward dawn. Far away a cock crowed, then near at hand one answered in clarion voice. “What is it, Shepp?” whispered Jean, and he sat up. The dog smelled or heard something suspicious to his nature, but whether man or animal Jean could not tell.

  Chapter Three

  The morning star, large, intensely blue-white, magnificent in its dominance of the clear night sky, hung over the dim, dark valley ramparts. The moon had gone down, and all the other stars were wan pale ghosts. Presently the strained vacuum of Jean’s ears vibrated to a low roar of many hoofs. It came from the open valley, along the slope to the south. Shepp acted as if he wanted the word to run. Jean laid a hand on the dog. “Hold on, Shepp,” he whispered. Then, hauling on his boots and slipping into his coat, Jean took his rifle, and stole out into the open. Shepp appeared to be well trained, for it was evident that he had a strong natural tendency to run off and hunt for whatever had roused him. Jean thought it more than likely that the dog scented an animal of some kind. If there were men prowling around the ranch, Shepp might have been just as vigilant, but it seemed to Jean that the dog would have shown less eagerness to leave him, or none at all.

  In the stillness of the morning it took Jean a moment to locate the direction of the wind, which was very light and coming from the south. In fact, that little breeze had borne the low roar of tramping hoofs. Jean circled the ranch house to the right, and kept along the slope at the edge of the cedars. It struck him suddenly how well fitted he was for work of this sort. All he had ever done, except for his few years in school, had been done in the open. All the leisure he had ever been able to maintain had been given to his ruling passion for hunting and fishing. Love of the wild had been born in Jean. At this moment he experienced a grim assurance of what his instinct and his training might accomplish, if directed to a stern and daring end. Perhaps his father understood this, perhaps the old Texan had some little reason for his confidence.

  Every few paces Jean halted to listen. All objects, of course, were indistinguishable in the dark gray obscurity, except when he came close upon them. Shepp showed an increasing eagerness to bolt out into the void. When Jean had traveled half a mile from the house, he heard a scattered trampling of cattle on the run, and farther out a low strangled bawl of a calf. “A-huh,” muttered Jean. “Cougar or some varmint pulled down that calf.” Then he discharged his rifle in the air and yelled with all his might. It was necessary then to yell again to hold Shepp back.

  Thereupon Jean set forth down the valley, and tramped out and across and around, as much to scare away whatever had been after the stock as to look for the wounded calf. More than once he heard cattle moving away ahead of him, but he could not see them. Jean let Shepp go, hoping the dog would strike a trail, but Shepp neither gave tongue nor came back. Dawn began to break, and in the growing light Jean searched around until at last he stumbled over a dead calf, lying in a little bare wash where water ran in wet seasons. Big wolf tracks showed in the soft earth. “Loafers,” said Jean, as he knelt and just covered one track with his spread hand. “We had wolves in Oregon, but not as big as these. Wonder where that wolf-dog, Shepp, went. Wonder if he can be trusted where wolves are concerned. I’ll bet not, if there’s a she-wolf runnin’ around.”

  Jean found tracks of two wolves, and he trailed them out of the wash, then lost them in the grass. But guided by their direction, he went on, and climbed a slope to the cedar line, where in the dusty patches he found the tracks again. “Not scared much,” he muttered, as he noted the slow-trotting tracks. “Well, you old gray loafers, we’re goin’ to clash.” Jean knew from many a futile hunt that wolves were the wariest and most intelligent of wild animals in the West. From the top of a low foothill he watched the sun rise, and then no longer wondered why his father waxed eloquent over the beauty and location and luxuriance of this grassy valley. It was large enough to make rich a good many ranchers. Jean tried to restrain any curiosity as to his father’s dealings in Grass Valley until the situation had been made clear.

  Moreover, Jean wanted to love this wonderful country. He wanted to be free to ride and hunt and roam to his heart’s content, and, therefore, he dreaded hearing his father’s claims. Jean threw off forebodings. Nothing ever turned out as badly as it presaged. He would think the best until certain of the worst. The morning was gloriously bright, and already the frost was glisteningly wet on the stones. Grass Valley shone like burnished silver dotted with innumerable black spots. Burros were braying their discordant messages to one another; the colts were romping in the fields; stallions were whistling; cows were bawling. A cloud of blue smoke hung low over the ranch house, slowly wafting away in the wind. Far out in the valley a dark group of horsemen were riding toward the village. Jean glanced thoughtfully at them and reflected that he seemed destined to harbor suspicion of all men new and strange to him. Above the distant village stood the darkly green foothills leading up to the craggy slopes and then ending in the Tonto Rim, a red, black-fringed mountain front, beautiful in the morning sunlight, lonely, serene, and mysterious against the level skyline. Mountains, ranges, distances unknown to Jean always called to him—to come, to seek, to explore, to find, but no wild horizon ever before beckoned to him as this one. The subtly vague emotion that had gone to sleep with him last night awoke now hauntingly. It took effort to dispel the desire to think, to wonder.