re settlin' there. An' Jim
Blaisdell sent me word to come--that this shore was a garden spot of
the West. Wal, it is. An' your mother was gone--

"Three years ago Lee Jorth drifted into the Tonto. An', strange to me,
along aboot a year or so after his comin' the Hash Knife Gang rode up
from Texas. Jorth went in for raisin' sheep. Along with some other
sheepmen he lives up in the Rim canyons. Somewhere back in the wild
brakes is the hidin' place of the Hash Knife Gang. Nobody but me, I
reckon, associates Colonel Jorth, as he's called, with Daggs an' his
gang. Maybe Blaisdell an' a few others have a hunch. But that's no
matter. As a sheepman Jorth has a legitimate grievance with the
cattlemen. But what could be settled by a square consideration for the
good of all an' the future Jorth will never settle. He'll never settle
because he is now no longer an honest man. He's in with Daggs. I
cain't prove this, son, but I know it. I saw it in Jorth's face when I
met him that day with Greaves. I saw more. I shore saw what he is up
to. He'd never meet me at an even break. He's dead set on usin' this
sheep an' cattle feud to ruin my family an' me, even as I ruined him.
But he means more, Jean. This will be a war between Texans, an' a
bloody war. There are bad men in this Tonto--some of the worst that
didn't get shot in Texas. Jorth will have some of these fellows....
Now, are we goin' to wait to be sheeped off our range an' to be
murdered from ambush?"

"No, we are not," replied Jean, quietly.

"Wal, come down to the house," said the rancher, and led the way
without speaking until he halted by the door. There he placed his
finger on a small hole in the wood at about the height of a man's head.
Jean saw it was a bullet hole and that a few gray hairs stuck to its
edges. The rancher stepped closer to the door-post, so that his head
was within an inch of the wood. Then he looked at Jean with eyes in
which there glinted dancing specks of fire, like wild sparks.

"Son, this sneakin' shot at me was made three mawnin's ago. I
recollect movin' my haid just when I heard the crack of a rifle. Shore
was surprised. But I got inside quick."

Jean scarcely heard the latter part of this speech. He seemed doubled
up inwardly, in hot and cold convulsions of changing emotion. A
terrible hold upon his consciousness was about to break and let go. The
first shot had been fired and he was an Isbel. Indeed, his father h