To the Last Man

by Zane Grey

  CHAPTER XIII

  Jean Isbel, holding the wolf-dog Shepp in leash, was on the trail ofthe most dangerous of Jorth's gang, the gunman Queen. Dark drops ofblood on the stones and plain tracks of a rider's sharp-heeled bootsbehind coverts indicated the trail of a wounded, slow-travelingfugitive. Therefore, Jean Isbel held in the dog and proceeded with thewary eye and watchful caution of an Indian.

  Queen, true to his class, and emulating Blue with the same magnificenteffrontery and with the same paralyzing suddenness of surprise, hadappeared as if by magic at the last night camp of the Isbel faction.Jean had seen him first, in time to leap like a panther into theshadow. But he carried in his shoulder Queen's first bullet of thatterrible encounter. Upon Gordon and Fredericks fell the brunt ofQueen's fusillade. And they, shot to pieces, staggering and falling,held passionate grip on life long enough to draw and still Queen's gunsand send him reeling off into the darkness of the forest.

  Unarmed, and hindered by a painful wound, Jean had kept a vigil nearcamp all that silent and menacing night. Morning disclosed Gordon andFredericks stark and ghastly beside the burned-out camp-fire, theirguns clutched immovably in stiffened hands. Jean buried them as besthe could, and when they were under ground with flat stones on theirgraves he knew himself to be indeed the last of the Isbel clan. Andall that was wild and savage in his blood and desperate in his spiritrose to make him more than man and less than human. Then for the thirdtime during these tragic last days the wolf-dog Shepp came to him.

  Jean washed the wound Queen had given him and bound it tightly. Thekeen pang and burn of the lead was a constant and all-powerful reminderof the grim work left for him to do. The whole world was no longerlarge enough for him and whoever was left of the Jorths. The heritageof blood his father had bequeathed him, the unshakable love for aworthless girl who had so dwarfed and obstructed his will and sobitterly defeated and reviled his poor, romantic, boyish faith, thekilling of hostile men, so strange in its after effects, the pursuitsand fights, and loss of one by one of his confederates--these hadfinally engendered in Jean Isbel a wild, unslakable thirst, these hadbeen the cause of his retrogression, these had unalterably andruthlessly fixed in his darkened mind one fierce passion--to live anddie the last man of that Jorth-Isbel feud.

  At sunrise Jean left this camp, taking with him only a small knapsackof meat and bread, and with the eager, wild Shepp in leash he set outon Queen's bloody trail.

  Black drops of blood on the stones and an irregular trail of footprintsproved to Jean that the gunman was hard hit. Here he had fallen, orknelt, or sat down, evidently to bind his wounds. Jean found strips ofscarf, red and discarded. And the blood drops failed to show on morerocks. In a deep forest of spruce, under silver-tipped spreadingbranches, Queen had rested, perhaps slept. Then laboring with draggingsteps, not improbably with a lame leg, he had gone on, up out of thedark-green ravine to the open, dry, pine-tipped ridge. Here he hadrested, perhaps waited to see if he were pursued. From that point histrail spoke an easy language for Jean's keen eye. The gunman knew hewas pursued. He had seen his enemy. Therefore Jean proceeded with aslow caution, never getting within revolver range of ambush, using allhis woodcraft to trail this man and yet save himself. Queen traveledslowly, either because he was wounded or else because he tried toambush his pursuer, and Jean accommodated his pace to that of Queen.From noon of that day they were never far apart, never out of hearingof a rifle shot.

  The contrast of the beauty and peace and loneliness of the surroundingsto the nature of Queen's flight often obtruded its strange truth intothe somber turbulence of Jean's mind, into that fixed columnar ideaaround which fleeting thoughts hovered and gathered like shadows.

  Early frost had touched the heights with its magic wand. And theforest seemed a temple in which man might worship nature and liferather than steal through the dells and under the arched aisles like abeast of prey. The green-and-gold leaves of aspens quivered in theglades; maples in the ravines fluttered their red-and-purple leaves.The needle-matted carpet under the pines vied with the long lanes ofsilvery grass, alike enticing to the eye of man and beast. Sunny raysof light, flecked with dust and flying insects, slanted down from theoverhanging brown-limbed, green-massed foliage. Roar of wind in thedistant forest alternated with soft breeze close at hand. Smalldove-gray squirrels ran all over the woodland, very curious about Jeanand his dog, rustling the twigs, scratching the bark of trees,chattering and barking, frisky, saucy, and bright-eyed. A plaintivetwitter of wild canaries came from the region above the treetops--firstvoices of birds in their pilgrimage toward the south. Pine conesdropped with soft thuds. The blue jays followed these intruders in theforest, screeching their displeasure. Like rain pattered the droppingseeds from the spruces. A woody, earthy, leafy fragrance, damp withthe current of life, mingled with a cool, dry, sweet smell of witheredgrass and rotting pines.

  Solitude and lonesomeness, peace and rest, wild life and nature,reigned there. It was a golden-green region, enchanting to the gaze ofman. An Indian would have walked there with his spirits.

  And even as Jean felt all this elevating beauty and inscrutable spirithis keen eye once more fastened upon the blood-red drops Queen hadagain left on the gray moss and rock. His wound had reopened. Jeanfelt the thrill of the scenting panther.

  The sun set, twilight gathered, night fell. Jean crawled under adense, low-spreading spruce, ate some bread and meat, fed the dog, andlay down to rest and sleep. His thoughts burdened him, heavy and blackas the mantle of night. A wolf mourned a hungry cry for a mate. Sheppquivered under Jean's hand. That was the call which had lured him fromthe ranch. The wolf blood in him yearned for the wild. Jean tied thecowhide leash to his wrist. When this dark business was at an endShepp could be free to join the lonely mate mourning out there in theforest. Then Jean slept.

  Dawn broke cold, clear, frosty, with silvered grass sparkling, with asoft, faint rustling of falling aspen leaves. When the sun rose redJean was again on the trail of Queen. By a frosty-ferned brook, wherewater tinkled and ran clear as air and cold as ice, Jean quenched histhirst, leaning on a stone that showed drops of blood. Queen, too, hadto quench his thirst. What good, what help, Jean wondered, could thecold, sweet, granite water, so dear to woodsmen and wild creatures, dothis wounded, hunted rustler? Why did he not wait in the open to fightand face the death he had meted? Where was that splendid and terribledaring of the gunman? Queen's love of life dragged him on and on, hourby hour, through the pine groves and spruce woods, through the oakswales and aspen glades, up and down the rocky gorges, around thewindfalls and over the rotting logs.

  The time came when Queen tried no more ambush. He gave up trying totrap his pursuer by lying in wait. He gave up trying to conceal histracks. He grew stronger or, in desperation, increased his energy, sothat he redoubled his progress through the wilderness. That, at best,would count only a few miles a day. And he began to circle to thenorthwest, back toward the deep canyon where Blaisdell and Bill Isbelhad reached the end of their trails. Queen had evidently left hiscomrades, had lone-handed it in his last fight, but was now trying toget back to them. Somewhere in these wild, deep forest brakes the restof the Jorth faction had found a hiding place. Jean let Queen lead himthere.

  Ellen Jorth would be with them. Jean had seen her. It had been hisshot that killed Colter's horse. And he had withheld further firebecause Colter had dragged the girl behind him, protecting his bodywith hers. Sooner or later Jean would come upon their camp. She wouldbe there. The thought of her dark beauty, wasted in wantonness uponthese rustlers, added a deadly rage to the blood lust and righteouswrath of his vengeance. Let her again flaunt her degradation in hisface and, by the God she had forsaken, he would kill her, and so endthe race of Jorths!

  Another night fell, dark and cold, without starlight. The wind moanedin the forest. Shepp was restless. He sniffed the air. There was astep on his trail. Again a mournful, eager, wild, and hungry wolf crybroke the silence. It wa
s deep and low, like that of a baying hound,but infinitely wilder. Shepp strained to get away. During the night,while Jean slept, he managed to chew the cowhide leash apart and runoff.

  Next day no dog was needed to trail Queen. Fog and low-drifting cloudsin the forest and a misty rain had put the rustler off his bearings. Hewas lost, and showed that he realized it. Strange how a matured man,fighter of a hundred battles, steeped in bloodshed, and on his laststand, should grow panic-stricken upon being lost! So Jean Isbel readthe signs of the trail.

  Queen circled and wandered through the foggy, dripping forest until heheaded down into a canyon. It was one that notched the Rim and leddown and down, mile after mile into the Basin. Not soon had Queendiscovered his mistake. When he did do so, night overtook him.

  The weather cleared before morning. Red and bright the sun burst outof the east to flood that low basin land with light. Jean found thatQueen had traveled on and on, hoping, no doubt, to regain what he hadlost. But in the darkness he had climbed to the manzanita slopesinstead of back up the canyon. And here he had fought the hold of thatstrange brush of Spanish name until he fell exhausted.

  Surely Queen would make his stand and wait somewhere in this devilishthicket for Jean to catch up with him. Many and many a place Jeanwould have chosen had he been in Queen's place. Many a rock and densethicket Jean circled or approached with extreme care. Manzanita grewin patches that were impenetrable except for a small animal. The brushwas a few feet high, seldom so high that Jean could not look over it,and of a beautiful appearance, having glossy, small leaves, a goldenberry, and branches of dark-red color. These branches were tough andunbendable. Every bush, almost, had low branches that were dead, hardas steel, sharp as thorns, as clutching as cactus. Progress waspossible only by endless detours to find the half-closed aisles betweenpatches, or else by crashing through with main strength or walkingright over the tops. Jean preferred this last method, not because itwas the easiest, but for the reason that he could see ahead so muchfarther. So he literally walked across the tips of the manzanita brush.Often he fell through and had to step up again; many a branch brokewith him, letting him down; but for the most part he stepped from forkto fork, on branch after branch, with balance of an Indian and thepatience of a man whose purpose was sustaining and immutable.

  On that south slope under the Rim the sun beat down hot. There was nobreeze to temper the dry air. And before midday Jean was laboring, wetwith sweat, parching with thirst, dusty and hot and tiring. It amazedhim, the doggedness and tenacity of life shown by this wounded rustler.The time came when under the burning rays of the sun he was compelledto abandon the walk across the tips of the manzanita bushes and take tothe winding, open threads that ran between. It would have been poorsight indeed that could not have followed Queen's labyrinthine andbroken passage through the brush. Then the time came when Jean espiedQueen, far ahead and above, crawling like a black bug along thebright-green slope. Sight then acted upon Jean as upon a hound in thechase. But he governed his actions if he could not govern hisinstincts. Slowly but surely he followed the dusty, hot trail, andnever a patch of blood failed to send a thrill along his veins.

  Queen, headed up toward the Rim, finally vanished from sight. Had hefallen? Was he hiding? But the hour disclosed that he was crawling.Jean's keen eye caught the slow moving of the brush and enabled him tokeep just so close to the rustler, out of range of the six-shooters hecarried. And so all the interminable hours of the hot afternoon thatsnail-pace flight and pursuit kept on.

  Halfway up the Rim the growth of manzanita gave place to open, yellow,rocky slope dotted with cedars. Queen took to a slow-ascending ridgeand left his bloody tracks all the way to the top, where in thegathering darkness the weary pursuer lost them.

  Another night passed. Daylight was relentless to the rustler. Hecould not hide his trail. But somehow in a desperate last rally ofstrength he reached a point on the heavily timbered ridge that Jeanrecognized as being near the scene of the fight in the canyon. Queenwas nearing the rendezvous of the rustlers. Jean crossed tracks ofhorses, and then more tracks that he was certain had been made dayspast by his own party. To the left of this ridge must be the deepcanyon that had frustrated his efforts to catch up with the rustlers onthe day Blaisdell lost his life, and probably Bill Isbel, too.Something warned Jean that he was nearing the end of the trail, and anunaccountable sense of imminent catastrophe seemed foreshadowed byvague dreads and doubts in his gloomy mind. Jean felt the need ofrest, of food, of ease from the strain of the last weeks. But hisspirit drove him implacably.

  Queen's rally of strength ended at the edge of an open, bald ridge thatwas bare of brush or grass and was surrounded by a line of forest onthree sides, and on the fourth by a low bluff which raised its grayhead above the pines. Across this dusty open Queen had crawled,leaving unmistakable signs of his condition. Jean took long survey ofthe circle of trees and of the low, rocky eminence, neither of which heliked. It might be wiser to keep to cover, Jean thought, and workaround to where Queen's trail entered the forest again. But he wastired, gloomy, and his eternal vigilance was failing. Nevertheless, hestilled for the thousandth time that bold prompting of his vengeanceand, taking to the edge of the forest, he went to considerable pains tocircle the open ground. And suddenly sight of a man sitting backagainst a tree halted Jean.

  He stared to make sure his eyes did not deceive him. Many times stumpsand snags and rocks had taken on strange resemblance to a standing orcrouching man. This was only another suggestive blunder of the mindbehind his eyes--what he wanted to see he imagined he saw. Jean glidedon from tree to tree until he made sure that this sitting image indeedwas that of a man. He sat bolt upright, facing back across the open,hands resting on his knees--and closer scrutiny showed Jean that heheld a gun in each hand.

  Queen! At the last his nerve had revived. He could not crawl anyfarther, he could never escape, so with the courage of fatality hechose the open, to face his foe and die. Jean had a thrill ofadmiration for the rustler. Then he stalked out from under the pinesand strode forward with his rifle ready.

  A watching man could not have failed to espy Jean. But Queen nevermade the slightest move. Moreover, his stiff, unnatural positionstruck Jean so singularly that he halted with a muttered exclamation.He was now about fifty paces from Queen, within range of those smallguns. Jean called, sharply, "QUEEN!" Still the figure never relaxed inthe slightest.

  Jean advanced a few more paces, rifle up, ready to fire the instantQueen lifted a gun. The man's immobility brought the cold sweat toJean's brow. He stopped to bend the full intense power of his gazeupon this inert figure. Suddenly over Jean flashed its meaning. Queenwas dead. He had backed up against the pine, ready to face his foe,and he had died there. Not a shadow of a doubt entered Jean's mind ashe started forward again. He knew. After all, Queen's blood would notbe on his hands. Gordon and Fredericks in their death throes had giventhe rustler mortal wounds. Jean kept on, marveling the while. Howghastly thin and hard! Those four days of flight had been hell forQueen.

  Jean reached him--looked down with staring eyes. The guns were tied tohis hands. Jean started violently as the whole direction of his mindshifted. A lightning glance showed that Queen had been propped againstthe tree--another showed boot tracks in the dust.

  "By Heaven, they've fooled me!" hissed Jean, and quickly as he leapedbehind the pine he was not quick enough to escape the cunning rustlerswho had waylaid him thus. He felt the shock, the bite and burn of leadbefore he heard a rifle crack. A bullet had ripped through his leftforearm. From behind the tree he saw a puff of white smoke along theface of the bluff--the very spot his keen and gloomy vigilance haddescried as one of menace. Then several puffs of white smoke andringing reports betrayed the ambush of the tricksters. Bullets barkedthe pine and whistled by. Jean saw a man dart from behind a rock and,leaning over, run for another. Jean's swift shot stopped him midway.He fell, got up, and floundered behind a bush scarcely lar
ge enough toconceal him. Into that bush Jean shot again and again. He had no painin his wounded arm, but the sense of the shock clung in hisconsciousness, and this, with the tremendous surprise of the deceit,and sudden release of long-dammed overmastering passion, caused him toempty the magazine of his Winchester in a terrible haste to kill theman he had hit.

  These were all the loads he had for his rifle. Blood passion had madehim blunder. Jean cursed himself, and his hand moved to his belt. Hissix-shooter was gone. The sheath had been loose. He had tied the gunfast. But the strings had been torn apart. The rustlers were shootingagain. Bullets thudded into the pine and whistled by. Bendingcarefully, Jean reached one of Queen's guns and jerked it from hishand. The weapon was empty. Both of his guns were empty. Jean peepedout again to get the line in which the bullets were coming and, markinga course from his position to the cover of the forest, he ran with allhis might. He gained the shelter. Shrill yells behind warned him thathe had been seen, that his reason for flight had been guessed. Lookingback, he saw two or three men scrambling down the bluff. Then the loudneigh of a frightened horse pealed out.

  Jean discarded his useless rifle, and headed down the ridge slope,keeping to the thickest line of pines and sheering around the clumps ofspruce. As he ran, his mind whirled with grim thoughts of escape, ofhis necessity to find the camp where Gordon and Fredericks were buried,there to procure another rifle and ammunition. He felt the wet blooddripping down his arm, yet no pain. The forest was too open for goodcover. He dared not run uphill. His only course was ahead, and thatsoon ended in an abrupt declivity too precipitous to descend. As hehalted, panting for breath, he heard the ring of hoofs on stone, thenthe thudding beat of running horses on soft ground. The rustlers hadsighted the direction he had taken. Jean did not waste time to look.Indeed, there was no need, for as he bounded along the cliff to theright a rifle cracked and a bullet whizzed over his head. It lentwings to his feet. Like a deer he sped along, leaping cracks and logsand rocks, his ears filled by the rush of wind, until his quick eyecaught sight of thick-growing spruce foliage close to the precipice. Hesprang down into the green mass. His weight precipitated him throughthe upper branches. But lower down his spread arms broke his fall,then retarded it until he caught. A long, swaying limb let him downand down, where he grasped another and a stiffer one that held hisweight. Hand over hand he worked toward the trunk of this spruce and,gaining it, he found other branches close together down which hehastened, hold by hold and step by step, until all above him was black,dense foliage, and beneath him the brown, shady slope. Sure of beingunseen from above, he glided noiselessly down under the trees, slowlyregaining freedom from that constriction of his breast.

  Passing on to a gray-lichened cliff, overhanging and gloomy, he pausedthere to rest and to listen. A faint crack of hoof on stone came tohim from above, apparently farther on to the right. Eventually hispursuers would discover that he had taken to the canyon. But for themoment he felt safe. The wound in his forearm drew his attention. Thebullet had gone clear through without breaking either bone. His shirtsleeve was soaked with blood. Jean rolled it back and tightly wrappedhis scarf around the wound, yet still the dark-red blood oozed out anddripped down into his hand. He became aware of a dull, throbbing pain.

  Not much time did Jean waste in arriving at what was best to do. Forthe time being he had escaped, and whatever had been his peril, it waspast. In dense, rugged country like this he could not be caught byrustlers. But he had only a knife left for a weapon, and there wasvery little meat in the pocket of his coat. Salt and matches hepossessed. Therefore the imperative need was for him to find the lastcamp, where he could get rifle and ammunition, bake bread, and rest upbefore taking again the trail of the rustlers. He had reason tobelieve that this canyon was the one where the fight on the Rim, andlater, on a bench of woodland below, had taken place.

  Thereupon he arose and glided down under the spruces toward the level,grassy open he could see between the trees. And as he proceeded, withthe slow step and wary eye of an Indian, his mind was busy.

  Queen had in his flight unerringly worked in the direction of thiscanyon until he became lost in the fog; and upon regaining his bearingshe had made a wonderful and heroic effort to surmount the manzanitaslope and the Rim and find the rendezvous of his comrades. But he hadfailed up there on the ridge. In thinking it over Jean arrived at aconclusion that Queen, finding he could go no farther, had waited, gunsin hands, for his pursuer. And he had died in this position. Then bystrange coincidence his comrades had happened to come across him and,recognizing the situation, they had taken the shells from his guns andpropped him up with the idea of luring Jean on. They had arranged acunning trick and ambush, which had all but snuffed out the last of theIsbels. Colter probably had been at the bottom of this crafty plan.Since the fight at the Isbel ranch, now seemingly far back in the past,this man Colter had loomed up more and more as a stronger and moredangerous antagonist then either Jorth or Daggs. Before that he hadbeen little known to any of the Isbel faction. And it was Colter nowwho controlled the remnant of the gang and who had Ellen Jorth in hispossession.

  The canyon wall above Jean, on the right, grew more rugged and loftier,and the one on the left began to show wooded slopes and brakes, and atlast a wide expanse with a winding, willow border on the west and along, low, pine-dotted bench on the east. It took several moments ofstudy for Jean to recognize the rugged bluff above this bench. On upthat canyon several miles was the site where Queen had surprised Jeanand his comrades at their campfire. Somewhere in this vicinity was thehiding place of the rustlers.

  Thereupon Jean proceeded with the utmost stealth, absolutely certainthat he would miss no sound, movement, sign, or anything unnatural tothe wild peace of the canyon. And his first sense to registersomething was his keen smell. Sheep! He was amazed to smell sheep.There must be a flock not far away. Then from where he glided alongunder the trees he saw down to open places in the willow brake andnoticed sheep tracks in the dark, muddy bank of the brook. Next heheard faint tinkle of bells, and at length, when he could see fartherinto the open enlargement of the canyon, his surprised gaze fell uponan immense gray, woolly patch that blotted out acres and acres ofgrass. Thousands of sheep were grazing there. Jean knew there wereseveral flocks of Jorth's sheep on the mountain in the care of herders,but he had never thought of them being so far west, more than twentymiles from Chevelon Canyon. His roving eyes could not descry anyherders or dogs. But he knew there must be dogs close to that immenseflock. And, whatever his cunning, he could not hope to elude the scentand sight of shepherd dogs. It would be best to go back the way he hadcome, wait for darkness, then cross the canyon and climb out, and workaround to his objective point. Turning at once, he started to glideback. But almost immediately he was brought stock-still and thrillingby the sound of hoofs.

  Horses were coming in the direction he wished to take. They wereclose. His swift conclusion was that the men who had pursued him up onthe Rim had worked down into the canyon. One circling glance showedhim that he had no sure covert near at hand. It would not do to risktheir passing him there. The border of woodland was narrow and notdense enough for close inspection. He was forced to turn back up thecanyon, in the hope of soon finding a hiding place or a break in thewall where he could climb up.

  Hugging the base of the wall, he slipped on, passing the point where hehad espied the sheep, and gliding on until he was stopped by a bend inthe dense line of willows. It sheered to the west there and ran closeto the high wall. Jean kept on until he was stooping under a curlingborder of willow thicket, with branches slim and yellow and masses ofgreen foliage that brushed against the wall. Suddenly he encounteredan abrupt corner of rock. He rounded it, to discover that it ran atright angles with the one he had just passed. Peering up through thewillows, he ascertained that there was a narrow crack in the main wallof the canyon. It had been concealed by willows low down and leaningspruces above. A wild, hidden retr
eat! Along the base of the wallthere were tracks of small animals. The place was odorous, like alldense thickets, but it was not dry. Water ran through there somewhere.Jean drew easier breath. All sounds except the rustling of birds ormice in the willows had ceased. The brake was pervaded by a dreamyemptiness. Jean decided to steal on a little farther, then wait tillhe felt he might safely dare go back.

  The golden-green gloom suddenly brightened. Light showed ahead, andparting the willows, he looked out into a narrow, winding canyon, withan open, grassy, willow-streaked lane in the center and on each side athin strip of woodland.

  His surprise was short lived. A crashing of horses back of him in thewillows gave him a shock. He ran out along the base of the wall, backof the trees. Like the strip of woodland in the main canyon, this onewas scant and had but little underbrush. There were young sprucesgrowing with thick branches clear to the grass, and under these hecould have concealed himself. But, with a certainty of sheep dogs inthe vicinity, he would not think of hiding except as a last resource.These horsemen, whoever they were, were as likely to be sheep herdersas not. Jean slackened his pace to look back. He could not see anymoving objects, but he still heard horses, though not so close now.Ahead of him this narrow gorge opened out like the neck of a bottle. Hewould run on to the head of it and find a place to climb to the top.

  Hurried and anxious as Jean was, he yet received an impression ofsingular, wild nature of this side gorge. It was a hidden,pine-fringed crack in the rock-ribbed and canyon-cut tableland. Abovehim the sky seemed a winding stream of blue. The walls were red andbulged out in spruce-greened shelves. From wall to wall was scarcely adistance of a hundred feet. Jumbles of rock obstructed his closeholding to the wall. He had to walk at the edge of the timber. As heprogressed, the gorge widened into wilder, ruggeder aspect. Throughthe trees ahead he saw where the wall circled to meet the cliff on theleft, forming an oval depression, the nature of which he could notascertain. But it appeared to be a small opening surrounded by densethickets and the overhanging walls. Anxiety augmented to alarm. Hemight not be able to find a place to scale those rough cliffs.Breathing hard, Jean halted again. The situation was growing criticalagain. His physical condition was worse. Loss of sleep and rest, lackof food, the long pursuit of Queen, the wound in his arm, and thedesperate run for his life--these had weakened him to the extent thatif he undertook any strenuous effort he would fail. His cunningweighed all chances.

  The shade of wall and foliage above, and another jumble of ruinedcliff, hindered his survey of the ground ahead, and he almost stumbledupon a cabin, hidden on three sides, with a small, bare clearing infront. It was an old, ramshackle structure like others he had runacross in the canons. Cautiously he approached and peeped around thecorner. At first swift glance it had all the appearance of long disuse.But Jean had no time for another look. A clip-clop of trotting horseson hard ground brought the same pell-mell rush of sensations that haddriven him to wild flight scarcely an hour past. His body jerked withits instinctive impulse, then quivered with his restraint. To turnback would be risky, to run ahead would be fatal, to hide was his onehope. No covert behind! And the clip-clop of hoofs sounded closer.One moment longer Jean held mastery over his instincts ofself-preservation. To keep from running was almost impossible. It wasthe sheer primitive animal sense to escape. He drove it back andglided along the front of the cabin.

  Here he saw that the cabin adjoined another. Reaching the door, he wasabout to peep in when the thud of hoofs and voices close at handtransfixed him with a grim certainty that he had not an instant tolose. Through the thin, black-streaked line of trees he saw moving redobjects. Horses! He must run. Passing the door, his keen nose caughta musty, woody odor and the tail of his eye saw bare dirt floor. Thiscabin was unused. He halted--gave a quick look back. And the firstthing his eye fell upon was a ladder, right inside the door, againstthe wall. He looked up. It led to a loft that, dark and gloomy,stretched halfway across the cabin. An irresistible impulse droveJean. Slipping inside, he climbed up the ladder to the loft. It waslike night up there. But he crawled on the rough-hewn rafters and,turning with his head toward the opening, he stretched out and laystill.

  What seemed an interminable moment ended with a trample of hoofsoutside the cabin. It ceased. Jean's vibrating ears caught the jingleof spurs and a thud of boots striking the ground.

  "Wal, sweetheart, heah we are home again," drawled a slow, cool,mocking Texas voice.

  "Home! I wonder, Colter--did y'u ever have a home--a mother--asister--much less a sweetheart?" was the reply, bitter and caustic.

  Jean's palpitating, hot body suddenly stretched still and cold withintensity of shock. His very bones seemed to quiver and stiffen intoice. During the instant of realization his heart stopped. And a slow,contracting pressure enveloped his breast and moved up to constrict histhroat. That woman's voice belonged to Ellen Jorth. The sound of ithad lingered in his dreams. He had stumbled upon the rendezvous of theJorth faction. Hard indeed had been the fates meted out to those ofthe Isbels and Jorths who had passed to their deaths. But, no ordeal,not even Queen's, could compare with this desperate one Jean mustendure. He had loved Ellen Jorth, strangely, wonderfully, and he hadscorned repute to believe her good. He had spared her father and heruncle. He had weakened or lost the cause of the Isbels. He loved hernow, desperately, deathlessly, knowing from her own lips that she wasworthless--loved her the more because he had felt her terrible shame.And to him--the last of the Isbels--had come the cruelest of dooms--tobe caught like a crippled rat in a trap; to be compelled to liehelpless, wounded, without a gun; to listen, and perhaps to see EllenJorth enact the very truth of her mocking insinuation. His will, hispromise, his creed, his blood must hold him to the stem decree that heshould be the last man of the Jorth-Isbel war. But could he lie thereto hear--to see--when he had a knife and an arm?