CHAPTER VI
From this hour Ellen Jorth bent all of her lately awakened intelligenceand will to the only end that seemed to hold possible salvation forher. In the crisis sure to come she did not want to be blind or weak.Dreaming and indolence, habits born in her which were often a comfortto one as lonely as she, would ill fit her for the hard test shedivined and dreaded. In the matter of her father's fight she muststand by him whatever the issue or the outcome; in what pertained toher own principles, her womanhood, and her soul she stood absolutelyalone.
Therefore, Ellen put dreams aside, and indolence of mind and bodybehind her. Many tasks she found, and when these were done for a dayshe kept active in other ways, thus earning the poise and peace oflabor.
Jorth rode off every day, sometimes with one or two of the men, oftenwith a larger number. If he spoke of such trips to Ellen it was togive an impression of visiting the ranches of his neighbors or thevarious sheep camps. Often he did not return the day he left. When hedid get back he smelled of rum and appeared heavy from need of sleep.His horses were always dust and sweat covered. During his absencesEllen fell victim to anxious dread until he returned. Daily he grewdarker and more haggard of face, more obsessed by some impending fate.Often he stayed up late, haranguing with the men in the dim-lit cabin,where they drank and smoked, but seldom gambled any more. When the mendid not gamble something immediate and perturbing was on their minds.Ellen had not yet lowered herself to the deceit and suspicion ofeavesdropping, but she realized that there was a climax approaching inwhich she would deliberately do so.
In those closing May days Ellen learned the significance of many thingsthat previously she had taken as a matter of course. Her father didnot run a ranch. There was absolutely no ranching done, and littlework. Often Ellen had to chop wood herself. Jorth did not possess aplow. Ellen was bound to confess that the evidence of this lackdumfounded her. Even old John Sprague raised some hay, beets, turnips.Jorth's cattle and horses fared ill during the winter. Ellenremembered how they used to clean up four-inch oak saplings and aspens.Many of them died in the snow. The flocks of sheep, however, weredriven down into the Basin in the fall, and across the Reno Pass toPhoenix and Maricopa.
Ellen could not discover a fence post on the ranch, nor a piece of saltfor the horses and cattle, nor a wagon, nor any sign of asheep-shearing outfit. She had never seen any sheep sheared. Ellencould never keep track of the many and different horses running looseand hobbled round the ranch. There were droves of horses in the woods,and some of them wild as deer. According to her long-establishedunderstanding, her father and her uncles were keen on horse trading andbuying.
Then the many trails leading away from the Jorth ranch--these grew tohave a fascination for Ellen; and the time came when she rode out onthem to see for herself where they led. The sheep ranch of Daggs,supposed to be only a few miles across the ridges, down in Bear Canyon,never materialized at all for Ellen. This circumstance so interestedher that she went up to see her friend Sprague and got him to directher to Bear Canyon, so that she would be sure not to miss it. And sherode from the narrow, maple-thicketed head of it near the Rim down allits length. She found no ranch, no cabin, not even a corral in BearCanyon. Sprague said there was only one canyon by that name. Daggshad assured her of the exact location on his place, and so had herfather. Had they lied? Were they mistaken in the canyon? There weremany canyons, all heading up near the Rim, all running and wideningdown for miles through the wooded mountain, and vastly different fromthe deep, short, yellow-walled gorges that cut into the Rim from theBasin side. Ellen investigated the canyons within six or eight miles ofher home, both to east and to west. All she discovered was a couple ofold log cabins, long deserted. Still, she did not follow out all thetrails to their ends. Several of them led far into the deepest,roughest, wildest brakes of gorge and thicket that she had seen. Nocattle or sheep had ever been driven over these trails.
This riding around of Ellen's at length got to her father's ears. Ellenexpected that a bitter quarrel would ensue, for she certainly wouldrefuse to be confined to the camp; but her father only asked her tolimit her riding to the meadow valley, and straightway forgot all aboutit. In fact, his abstraction one moment, his intense nervousness thenext, his harder drinking and fiercer harangues with the men, grew tobe distressing for Ellen. They presaged his further deterioration andthe ever-present evil of the growing feud.
One day Jorth rode home in the early morning, after an absence of twonights. Ellen heard the clip-clop of, horses long before she saw them.
"Hey, Ellen! Come out heah," called her father.
Ellen left her work and went outside. A stranger had ridden in withher father, a young giant whose sharp-featured face appeared marked byferret-like eyes and a fine, light, fuzzy beard. He was long, loosejointed, not heavy of build, and he had the largest hands and feetEllen bad ever seen. Next Ellen espied a black horse they hadevidently brought with them. Her father was holding a rope halter. Atonce the black horse struck Ellen as being a beauty and a thoroughbred.
"Ellen, heah's a horse for you," said Jorth, with something of pride."I made a trade. Reckon I wanted him myself, but he's too gentle forme an' maybe a little small for my weight."
Delight visited Ellen for the first time in many days. Seldom had sheowned a good horse, and never one like this.
"Oh, dad!" she exclaimed, in her gratitude.
"Shore he's yours on one condition," said her father.
"What's that?" asked Ellen, as she laid caressing hands on the restlesshorse.
"You're not to ride him out of the canyon."
"Agreed.... All daid black, isn't he, except that white face? What'shis name, dad?
"I forgot to ask," replied Jorth, as he began unsaddling his own horse."Slater, what's this heah black's name?"
The lanky giant grinned. "I reckon it was Spades."
"Spades?" ejaculated Ellen, blankly. "What a name! ... Well, I guessit's as good as any. He's shore black."
"Ellen, keep him hobbled when you're not ridin' him," was her father'sparting advice as he walked off with the stranger.
Spades was wet and dusty and his satiny skin quivered. He had fine,dark, intelligent eyes that watched Ellen's every move. She knew howher father and his friends dragged and jammed horses through the woodsand over the rough trails. It did not take her long to discover thatthis horse had been a pet. Ellen cleaned his coat and brushed him andfed him. Then she fitted her bridle to suit his head and saddled him.His evident response to her kindness assured her that he was gentle, soshe mounted and rode him, to discover he had the easiest gait she hadever experienced. He walked and trotted to suit her will, but whenleft to choose his own gait he fell into a graceful little pace thatwas very easy for her. He appeared quite ready to break into a run ather slightest bidding, but Ellen satisfied herself on this first ridewith his slower gaits.
"Spades, y'u've shore cut out my burro Jinny," said Ellen, regretfully."Well, I reckon women are fickle."
Next day she rode up the canyon to show Spades to her friend JohnSprague. The old burro breeder was not at home. As his door was open,however, and a fire smoldering, Ellen concluded he would soon return.So she waited. Dismounting, she left Spades free to graze on the newgreen grass that carpeted the ground. The cabin and little levelclearing accentuated the loneliness and wildness of the forest. Ellenalways liked it here and had once been in the habit of visiting the oldman often. But of late she had stayed away, for the reason thatSprague's talk and his news and his poorly hidden pity depressed her.
Presently she heard hoof beats on the hard, packed trail leading downthe canyon in the direction from which she had come. Scarcely likelywas it that Sprague should return from this direction. Ellen thoughther father had sent one of the herders for her. But when she caught aglimpse of the approaching horseman, down in the aspens, she failed torecognize him. After he had passed one of the openings she heard hishorse stop. Probably the man had s
een her; at least she could nototherwise account for his stopping. The glimpse she had of him hadgiven her the impression that he was bending over, peering ahead in thetrail, looking for tracks. Then she heard the rider come on again,more slowly this time. At length the horse trotted out into theopening, to be hauled up short. Ellen recognized the buckskin-cladfigure, the broad shoulders, the dark face of Jean Isbel.
Ellen felt prey to the strangest quaking sensation she had eversuffered. It took violence of her new-born spirit to subdue thatfeeling.
Isbel rode slowly across the clearing toward her. For Ellen hisapproach seemed singularly swift--so swift that her surprise, dismay,conjecture, and anger obstructed her will. The outwardly calm and coldEllen Jorth was a travesty that mocked her--that she felt he woulddiscern.
The moment Isbel drew close enough for Ellen to see his face sheexperienced a strong, shuddering repetition of her first shock ofrecognition. He was not the same. The light, the youth was gone.This, however, did not cause her emotion. Was it not a suddentransition of her nature to the dominance of hate? Ellen seemed tofeel the shadow of her unknown self standing with her.
Isbel halted his horse. Ellen had been standing near the trunk of afallen pine and she instinctively backed against it. How her legstrembled! Isbel took off his cap and crushed it nervously in his bare,brown hand.
"Good mornin', Miss Ellen!" he said.
Ellen did not return his greeting, but queried, almost breathlessly,"Did y'u come by our ranch?"
"No. I circled," he replied.
"Jean Isbel! What do y'u want heah?" she demanded.
"Don't you know?" he returned. His eyes were intensely black andpiercing. They seemed to search Ellen's very soul. To meet their gazewas an ordeal that only her rousing fury sustained.
Ellen felt on her lips a scornful allusion to his half-breed Indiantraits and the reputation that had preceded him. But she could notutter it.
"No," she replied.
"It's hard to call a woman a liar," he returned, bitterly. But youmust be--seein' you're a Jorth.
"Liar! Not to y'u, Jean Isbel," she retorted. "I'd not lie to y'u tosave my life."
He studied her with keen, sober, moody intent. The dark fire of hiseyes thrilled her.
"If that's true, I'm glad," he said.
"Shore it's true. I've no idea why y'u came heah."
Ellen did have a dawning idea that she could not force into oblivion.But if she ever admitted it to her consciousness, she must fail in thecontempt and scorn and fearlessness she chose to throw in this man'sface.
"Does old Sprague live here?" asked Isbel.
"Yes. I expect him back soon.... Did y'u come to see him?"
"No.... Did Sprague tell you anythin' about the row he saw me in?"
"He--did not," replied Ellen, lying with stiff lips. She who had swornshe could not lie! She felt the hot blood leaving her heart, mountingin a wave. All her conscious will seemed impelled to deceive. Whathad she to hide from Jean Isbel? And a still, small voice replied thatshe had to hide the Ellen Jorth who had waited for him that day, whohad spied upon him, who had treasured a gift she could not destroy, whohad hugged to her miserable heart the fact that he had fought for hername.
"I'm glad of that," Isbel was saying, thoughtfully.
"Did you come heah to see me?" interrupted Ellen. She felt that shecould not endure this reiterated suggestion of fineness, ofconsideration in him. She would betray herself--betray what she didnot even realize herself. She must force other footing--and thatshould be the one of strife between the Jorths and Isbels.
"No--honest, I didn't, Miss Ellen," he rejoined, humbly. "I'll tellyou, presently, why I came. But it wasn't to see you.... I don't denyI wanted ... but that's no matter. You didn't meet me that day on theRim."
"Meet y'u!" she echoed, coldly. "Shore y'u never expected me?"
"Somehow I did," he replied, with those penetrating eyes on her. "I putsomethin' in your tent that day. Did you find it?"
"Yes," she replied, with the same casual coldness.
"What did you do with it?"
"I kicked it out, of course," she replied.
She saw him flinch.
"And you never opened it?"
"Certainly not," she retorted, as if forced. "Doon't y'u know anythin'about--about people? ... Shore even if y'u are an Isbel y'u never wereborn in Texas."
"Thank God I wasn't!" he replied. "I was born in a beautiful countryof green meadows and deep forests and white rivers, not in a barrendesert where men live dry and hard as the cactus. Where I come frommen don't live on hate. They can forgive."
"Forgive! ... Could y'u forgive a Jorth?"
"Yes, I could."
"Shore that's easy to say--with the wrongs all on your side," shedeclared, bitterly.
"Ellen Jorth, the first wrong was on your side," retorted Jean, hisvoice fall. "Your father stole my father's sweetheart--by lies, byslander, by dishonor, by makin' terrible love to her in his absence."
"It's a lie," cried Ellen, passionately.
"It is not," he declared, solemnly.
"Jean Isbel, I say y'u lie!"
"No! I say you've been lied to," he thundered.
The tremendous force of his spirit seemed to fling truth at Ellen. Itweakened her.
"But--mother loved dad--best."
"Yes, afterward. No wonder, poor woman! ... But it was the action ofyour father and your mother that ruined all these lives. You've got toknow the truth, Ellen Jorth.... All the years of hate have borne theirfruit. God Almighty can never save us now. Blood must be spilled.The Jorths and the Isbels can't live on the same earth.... And you'vegot to know the truth because the worst of this hell falls on you andme."
The hate that he spoke of alone upheld her.
"Never, Jean Isbel!" she cried. "I'll never know truth from y'u....I'll never share anythin' with y'u--not even hell."
Isbel dismounted and stood before her, still holding his bridle reins.The bay horse champed his bit and tossed his head.
"Why do you hate me so?" he asked. "I just happen to be my father'sson. I never harmed you or any of your people. I met you ... fell inlove with you in a flash--though I never knew it till after.... Why doyou hate me so terribly?"
Ellen felt a heavy, stifling pressure within her breast. "Y'u're anIsbel.... Doon't speak of love to me."
"I didn't intend to. But your--your hate seems unnatural. And we'llprobably never meet again.... I can't help it. I love you. Love atfirst sight! Jean Isbel and Ellen Jorth! Strange, isn't it? ... Itwas all so strange. My meetin' you so lonely and unhappy, my seein'you so sweet and beautiful, my thinkin' you so good in spite of--"
"Shore it was strange," interrupted Ellen, with scornful laugh. She hadfound her defense. In hurting him she could hide her own hurt."Thinking me so good in spite of-- Ha-ha! And I said I'd been kissedbefore!"
"Yes, in spite of everything," he said.
Ellen could not look at him as he loomed over her. She felt a wildtumult in her heart. All that crowded to her lips for utterance wasfalse.
"Yes--kissed before I met you--and since," she said, mockingly. "And Ilaugh at what y'u call love, Jean Isbel."
"Laugh if you want--but believe it was sweet, honorable--the best inme," he replied, in deep earnestness.
"Bah!" cried Ellen, with all the force of her pain and shame and hate.
"By Heaven, you must be different from what I thought!" exclaimedIsbel, huskily.
"Shore if I wasn't, I'd make myself.... Now, Mister Jean Isbel, get onyour horse an' go!"
Something of composure came to Ellen with these words of dismissal, andshe glanced up at him with half-veiled eyes. His changed aspectprepared her for some blow.
"That's a pretty black horse."
"Yes," replied Ellen, blankly.
"Do you like him?"
"I--I love him."
"All right, I'll give him to you then. He'll have less work and kindertreatment th
an if I used him. I've got some pretty hard rides ahead ofme."
"Y'u--y'u give--" whispered Ellen, slowly stiffening. "Yes. He'smine," replied Isbel. With that he turned to whistle. Spades threw uphis head, snorted, and started forward at a trot. He came faster thecloser he got, and if ever Ellen saw the joy of a horse at sight of abeloved master she saw it then. Isbel laid a hand on the animal's neckand caressed him, then, turning back to Ellen, he went on speaking: "Ipicked him from a lot of fine horses of my father's. We got alongwell. My sister Ann rode him a good deal.... He was stolen from ourpasture day before yesterday. I took his trail and tracked him uphere. Never lost his trail till I got to your ranch, where I had tocircle till I picked it up again."
"Stolen--pasture--tracked him up heah?" echoed Ellen, without anyevidence of emotion whatever. Indeed, she seemed to have been turnedto stone.
"Trackin' him was easy. I wish for your sake it 'd been impossible,"he said, bluntly.
"For my sake?" she echoed, in precisely the same tone,
Manifestly that tone irritated Isbel beyond control. He misunderstoodit. With a hand far from gentle he pushed her bent head back so hecould look into her face.
"Yes, for your sake!" he declared, harshly. "Haven't you sense enoughto see that? ... What kind of a game do you think you can play with me?"
"Game I ... Game of what?" she asked.
"Why, a--a game of ignorance--innocence--any old game to fool a manwho's tryin' to be decent."
This time Ellen mutely looked her dull, blank questioning. And itinflamed Isbel.
"You know your father's a horse thief!" he thundered.
Outwardly Ellen remained the same. She had been prepared for anunknown and a terrible blow. It had fallen. And her face, her body,her hands, locked with the supreme fortitude of pride and sustained byhate, gave no betrayal of the crashing, thundering ruin within her mindand soul. Motionless she leaned there, meeting the piercing fire ofIsbel's eyes, seeing in them a righteous and terrible scorn. In oneflash the naked truth seemed blazed at her. The faith she had fostereddied a sudden death. A thousand perplexing problems were solved in asecond of whirling, revealing thought.
"Ellen Jorth, you know your father's in with this Hash Knife Gang ofrustlers," thundered Isbel.
"Shore," she replied, with the cool, easy, careless defiance of a Texan.
"You know he's got this Daggs to lead his faction against the Isbels?"
"Shore."
"You know this talk of sheepmen buckin' the cattlemen is all a blind?"
"Shore," reiterated Ellen.
Isbel gazed darkly down upon her. With his anger spent for the moment,he appeared ready to end the interview. But he seemed fascinated bythe strange look of her, by the incomprehensible something sheemanated. Havoc gleamed in his pale, set face. He shook his dark headand his broad hand went to his breast.
"To think I fell in love with such as you!" he exclaimed, and his otherhand swept out in a tragic gesture of helpless pathos and impotence.
The hell Isbel had hinted at now possessed Ellen--body, mind, and soul.Disgraced, scorned by an Isbel! Yet loved by him! In that divinationthere flamed up a wild, fierce passion to hurt, to rend, to flay, tofling back upon him a stinging agony. Her thought flew upon her likewhips. Pride of the Jorths! Pride of the old Texan blue blood! Itlay dead at her feet, killed by the scornful words of the last of thatfamily to whom she owed her degradation. Daughter of a horse thief andrustler! Dark and evil and grim set the forces within her, acceptingher fate, damning her enemies, true to the blood of the Jorths. Thesins 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 toldyour name," she said, mockingly, and she gazed into his eyes with allthe mystery of a woman's nature.
Isbel's powerful frame shook as with an ague. "Girl, what do you mean?"
"Shore, I'd have been plumb fond of havin' y'u make up to me," shedrawled. It possessed her now with irresistible power, this fact ofthe love he could not help. Some fiendish woman's satisfaction dweltin her consciousness of her power to kill the noble, the faithful, thegood in him.
"Ellen Jorth, you lie!" he burst out, hoarsely.
"Jean, shore I'd been a toy and a rag for these rustlers long enough. Iwas tired of them.... I wanted a new lover.... And if y'u hadn't giveyourself away--"
Isbel moved so swiftly that she did not realize his intention until hishard hand smote her mouth. Instantly she tasted the hot, salty bloodfrom a cut lip.
"Shut up, you hussy!" he ordered, roughly. "Have you no shame? ... Mysister Ann spoke well of you. She made excuses--she pitied you."
That for Ellen seemed the culminating blow under which she almost sank.But one moment longer could she maintain this unnatural and terriblepoise.
"Jean Isbel--go along with y'u," she said, impatiently. "I'm waitingheah for Simm Bruce!"
At last it was as if she struck his heart. Because of doubt of himselfand a stubborn faith in her, his passion and jealousy were not proofagainst this last stab. Instinctive subtlety inherent in Ellen hadprompted the speech that tortured Isbel. How the shock to himrebounded on her! She gasped as he lunged for her, too swift for herto move a hand. One arm crushed round her like a steel band; theother, hard across her breast and neck, forced her head back. Then shetried to wrestle away. But she was utterly powerless. His dark facebent down closer and closer. Suddenly Ellen ceased trying to struggle.She was like a stricken creature paralyzed by the piercing, hypnoticeyes of a snake. Yet in spite of her terror, if he meant death by her,she welcomed it.
"Ellen Jorth, I'm thinkin' yet--you lie!" he said, low and tensebetween his teeth.
"No! No!" she screamed, wildly. Her nerve broke there. She could nolonger meet those terrible black eyes. Her passionate denial was notonly the last of her shameful deceit; it was the woman of her,repudiating herself and him, and all this sickening, miserablesituation.
Isbel took her literally. She had convinced him. And the instant heldblank horror for Ellen.
"By God--then I'll have somethin'--of you anyway!" muttered Isbel,thickly.
Ellen saw the blood bulge in his powerful neck. She saw his dark, hardface, strange now, fearful to behold, come lower and lower, till itblurred and obstructed her gaze. She felt the swell and ripple andstretch--then the bind of his muscles, like huge coils of elastic rope.Then with savage rude force his mouth closed on hers. All Ellen'ssenses reeled, as if she were swooning. She was suffocating. Thespasm passed, and a bursting spurt of blood revived her to acute andterrible consciousness. For the endless period of one moment he heldher so that her breast seemed crushed. His kisses burned and braisedher lips. And then, shifting violently to her neck, they pressed sohard that she choked under them. It was as if a huge bat had fastenedupon her throat.
Suddenly the remorseless binding embraces--the hot and savagekisses--fell away from her. Isbel had let go. She saw him throw uphis hands, and stagger back a little, all the while with his piercinggaze on her. His face had been dark purple: now it was white.
"No--Ellen Jorth," he panted, "I don't--want any of you--that way." Andsuddenly he sank on the log and covered his face with his hands. "WhatI loved in you--was what I thought--you were."
Like a wildcat Ellen sprang upon him, beating him with her fists,tearing at his hair, scratching his face, in a blind fury. Isbel madeno move to stop her, and her violence spent itself with her strength.She swayed back from him, shaking so that she could scarcely stand.
"Y'u--damned--Isbel!" she gasped, with hoarse passion. "Y'u insultedme!"
"Insulted you?..." laughed Isbel, in bitter scorn. "It couldn't bedone."
"Oh! ... I'll KILL y'u!" she hissed.
Isbel stood up and wiped the red scratches on his face. "Go ahead.There's my gun," he said, pointing to his saddle sheath. "Somebody'sgot to begin this Jorth-Isbel feud. It'll be a dirty business. I'msick of it already.... Kill me! ... First blood for Elle
n Jorth!"
Suddenly the dark grim tide that had seemed to engulf Ellen's very soulcooled and receded, leaving her without its false strength. She beganto sag. She stared at Isbel's gun. "Kill him," whispered theretreating voices of her hate. But she was as powerless as if she werestill held in Jean Isbel's giant embrace.
"I--I want to--kill y'u," she whispered, "but I cain't.... Leave me."
"You're no Jorth--the same as I'm no Isbel. We oughtn't be mixed inthis deal," he said, somberly. "I'm sorrier for you than I am formyself.... You're a girl.... You once had a good mother--a decent home.And this life you've led here--mean as it's been--is nothin' to whatyou'll face now. Damn the men that brought you to this! I'm goin' tokill some of them."
With that he mounted and turned away. Ellen called out for him to takehis horse. He did not stop nor look back. She called again, but hervoice was fainter, and Isbel was now leaving at a trot. Slowly shesagged against the tree, lower and lower. He headed into the trailleading up the canyon. How strange a relief Ellen felt! She watchedhim ride into the aspens and start up the slope, at last to disappearin the pines. It seemed at the moment that he took with him somethingwhich had been hers. A pain in her head dulled the thoughts thatwavered to and fro. After he had gone she could not see so well. Hereyes were tired. What had happened to her? There was blood on herhands. Isbel's blood! She shuddered. Was it an omen? Lower she sankagainst the tree and closed her eyes.
Old John Sprague did not return. Hours dragged by--dark hours forEllen Jorth lying prostrate beside the tree, hiding the blue sky andgolden sunlight from her eyes. At length the lethargy of despair, theblack dull misery wore away; and she gradually returned to a conditionof coherent thought.
What had she learned? Sight of the black horse grazing near seemed toprompt the trenchant replies. Spades belonged to Jean Isbel. He hadbeen stolen by her father or by one of her father's accomplices.Isbel's vaunted cunning as a tracker had been no idle boast. Herfather was a horse thief, a rustler, a sheepman only as a blind, aconsort of Daggs, leader of the Hash Knife Gang. Ellen well rememberedthe ill repute of that gang, way back in Texas, years ago. Her fatherhad gotten in with this famous band of rustlers to serve his ownends--the extermination of the Isbels. It was all very plain now toEllen.
"Daughter of a horse thief an' rustler!" she muttered.
And her thoughts sped back to the days of her girlhood. Only the veryearly stage of that time had been happy. In the light of Isbel'srevelation the many changes of residence, the sudden moves to unsettledparts of Texas, the periods of poverty and sudden prosperity, allleading to the final journey to this God-forsaken Arizona--these werenow seen in their true significance. As far back as she could rememberher father had been a crooked man. And her mother had known it. Hehad dragged her to her ruin. That degradation had killed her. Ellenrealized that with poignant sorrow, with a sudden revolt against herfather. Had Gaston Isbel truly and dishonestly started her father onhis downhill road? Ellen wondered. She hated the Isbels withunutterable and growing hate, yet she had it in her to think, toponder, to weigh judgments in their behalf. She owed it to somethingin herself to be fair. But what did it matter who was to blame for theJorth-Isbel feud? Somehow Ellen was forced to confess that deep in hersoul it mattered terribly. To be true to herself--the self that shealone knew--she must have right on her side. If the Jorths wereguilty, and she clung to them and their creed, then she would be one ofthem.
"But I'm not," she mused, aloud. "My name's Jorth, an' I reckon I havebad blood.... But it never came out in me till to-day. I've beenhonest. I've been good--yes, GOOD, as my mother taught me to be--inspite of all.... Shore my pride made me a fool.... An' now have I anychoice to make? I'm a Jorth. I must stick to my father."
All this summing up, however, did not wholly account for the pang inher breast.
What had she done that day? And the answer beat in her ears like agreat throbbing hammer-stroke. In an agony of shame, in the throes ofhate, she had perjured herself. She had sworn away her honor. She hadbasely made herself vile. She had struck ruthlessly at the great heartof a man who loved her. Ah! That thrust had rebounded to leave thisdreadful pang in her breast. Loved her? Yes, the strange truth, theinsupportable truth! She had to contend now, not with her father andher disgrace, not with the baffling presence of Jean Isbel, but withthe mysteries of her own soul. Wonder of all wonders was it that suchlove had been born for her. Shame worse than all other shame was itthat she should kill it by a poisoned lie. By what monstrous motivehad she done that? To sting Isbel as he had stung her! But that hadbeen base. Never could she have stopped so low except in a moment oftremendous tumult. If she had done sore injury to Isbel what bad shedone to herself? How strange, how tenacious had been his faith in herhonor! Could she ever forget? She must forget it. But she couldnever forget the way he had scorned those vile men in Greaves'sstore--the way he had beaten Bruce for defiling her name--the way hehad stubbornly denied her own insinuations. She was a woman now. Shehad learned something of the complexity of a woman's heart. She couldnot change nature. And all her passionate being thrilled to themanhood of her defender. But even while she thrilled she acknowledgedher hate. It was the contention between the two that caused the pang inher breast. "An' now what's left for me?" murmured Ellen. She did notanalyze the significance of what had prompted that query. The mostincalculable of the day's disclosures was the wrong she had doneherself. "Shore I'm done for, one way or another.... I must stick toDad.... or kill myself?"
Ellen rode Spades back to the ranch. She rode like the wind. When sheswung out of the trail into the open meadow in plain sight of the ranchher appearance created a commotion among the loungers before the cabin.She rode Spades at a full run.
"Who's after you?" yelled her father, as she pulled the black to ahalt. Jorth held a rifle. Daggs, Colter, the other Jorths were there,likewise armed, and all watchful, strung with expectancy.
"Shore nobody's after me," replied Ellen. "Cain't I run a horse roundheah without being chased?"
Jorth appeared both incensed and relieved.
"Hah! ... What you mean, girl, runnin' like a streak right down on us?You're actin' queer these days, an' you look queer. I'm not likin' it."
"Reckon these are queer times--for the Jorths," replied Ellen,sarcastically.
"Daggs found strange horse tracks crossin' the meadow," said herfather. "An' that worried us. Some one's been snoopin' round theranch. An' when we seen you runnin' so wild we shore thought you wasbein' chased."
"No. I was only trying out Spades to see how fast he could run,"returned Ellen. "Reckon when we do get chased it'll take some runningto catch me."
"Haw! Haw!" roared Daggs. "It shore will, Ellen."
"Girl, it's not only your runnin' an' your looks that's queer,"declared Jorth, in dark perplexity. "You talk queer."
"Shore, dad, y'u're not used to hearing spades called spades," saidEllen, as she dismounted.
"Humph!" ejaculated her father, as if convinced of the uselessness oftrying to understand a woman. "Say, did you see any strange horsetracks?"
"I reckon I did. And I know who made them."
Jorth stiffened. All the men behind him showed a sudden intensity ofsuspense.
"Who?" demanded Jorth.
"Shore it was Jean Isbel," replied Ellen, coolly. "He came up heahtracking his black horse."
"Jean--Isbel--trackin'--his--black horse," repeated her father.
"Yes. He's not overrated as a tracker, that's shore."
Blank silence ensued. Ellen cast a slow glance over her father and theothers, then she began to loosen the cinches of her saddle. PresentlyJorth burst the silence with a curse, and Daggs followed with one ofhis sardonic laughs.
"Wal, boss, what did I tell you?" he drawled.
Jorth strode to Ellen, and, whirling her around with a strong hand, heheld her facing him.
"Did y'u see Isbel?"
"Yes," rep
lied Ellen, just as sharply as her father had asked.
"Did y'u talk to him?"
"Yes."
"What did he want up heah?"
"I told y'u. He was tracking the black horse y'u stole."
Jorth's hand and arm dropped limply. His sallow face turned a lividhue. Amaze merged into discomfiture and that gave place to rage. Heraised a hand as if to strike Ellen. And suddenly Daggs's long armshot out to clutch Jorth's wrist. Wrestling to free himself, Jorthcursed under his breath. "Let go, Daggs," he shouted, stridently. "AmI drunk that you grab me?"
"Wal, y'u ain't drunk, I reckon," replied the rustler, with sarcasm."But y'u're shore some things I'll reserve for your private ear."
Jorth gained a semblance of composure. But it was evident that helabored under a shock.
"Ellen, did Jean Isbel see this black horse?"
"Yes. He asked me how I got Spades an' I told him."
"Did he say Spades belonged to him?"
"Shore I reckon he, proved it. Y'u can always tell a horse that lovesits master."
"Did y'u offer to give Spades back?"
"Yes. But Isbel wouldn't take him."
"Hah! ... An' why not?"
"He said he'd rather I kept him. He was about to engage in a dirty,blood-spilling deal, an' he reckoned he'd not be able to care for afine horse.... I didn't want Spades. I tried to make Isbel take him.But he rode off.... And that's all there is to that."
"Maybe it's not," replied Jorth, chewing his mustache and eying Ellenwith dark, intent gaze. "Y'u've met this Isbel twice."
"It wasn't any fault of mine," retorted Ellen.
"I heah he's sweet on y'u. How aboot that?"
Ellen smarted under the blaze of blood that swept to neck and cheek andtemple. But it was only memory which fired this shame. What herfather and his crowd might think were matters of supreme indifference.Yet she met his suspicious gaze with truthful blazing eyes.
"I heah talk from Bruce an' Lorenzo," went on her father. "An' Daggsheah--"
"Daggs nothin'!" interrupted that worthy. "Don't fetch me in. I saidnothin' an' I think nothin'."
"Yes, Jean Isbel was sweet on me, dad ... but he will never be again,"returned Ellen, in low tones. With that she pulled her saddle offSpades and, throwing it over her shoulder, she walked off to her cabin.
Hardly had she gotten indoors when her father entered.
"Ellen, I didn't know that horse belonged to Isbel," he began, in theswift, hoarse, persuasive voice so familiar to Ellen. "I swear Ididn't. I bought him--traded with Slater for him.... Honest to God, Inever had any idea he was stolen! ... Why, when y'u said 'that horsey'u stole,' I felt as if y'u'd knifed me...."
Ellen sat at the table and listened while her father paced to and froand, by his restless action and passionate speech, worked himself intoa frenzy. He talked incessantly, as if her silence was condemnatoryand as if eloquence alone could convince her of his honesty. It seemedthat Ellen saw and heard with keener faculties than ever before. He hada terrible thirst for her respect. Not so much for her love, shedivined, but that she would not see how he had fallen!
She pitied him with all her heart. She was all he had, as he was allthe world to her. And so, as she gave ear to his long, illogicalrigmarole of argument and defense, she slowly found that her pity andher love were making vital decisions for her. As of old, in poignantmoments, her father lapsed at last into a denunciation of the Isbelsand what they had brought him to. His sufferings were real, at least,in Ellen's presence. She was the only link that bound him to long-pasthappier times. She was her mother over again--the woman who hadbetrayed another man for him and gone with him to her ruin and death.
"Dad, don't go on so," said Ellen, breaking in upon her father's rant."I will be true to y'u--as my mother was.... I am a Jorth. Your placeis my place--your fight is my fight.... Never speak of the past to meagain. If God spares us through this feud we will go away and beginall over again, far off where no one ever heard of a Jorth.... If we'renot spared we'll at least have had our whack at these damned Isbels."