hem in amaze. Of all things in the world, these would have
been the last she expected to see. And, strangely, they were what she
wanted and needed most. Naturally, then, Ellen made the mistake of
taking them in her hands to feel their softness and warmth.

"Shore! He saw my bare legs! And he brought me these presents he'd
intended for his sister.... He was ashamed for me--sorry for me.... And
I thought he looked at me bold-like, as I'm used to be looked at heah!
Isbel or not, he's shore..."

But Ellen Jorth could not utter aloud the conviction her intelligence
tried to force upon her.

"It'd be a pity to burn them," she mused. "I cain't do it. Sometime I
might send them to Ann Isbel."

Whereupon she wrapped them up again and hid them in the bottom of the
old trunk, and slowly, as she lowered the lid, looking darkly, blankly
at the wall, she whispered: "Jean Isbel! ... I hate him!"

Later when Ellen went outdoors she carried her rifle, which was unusual
for her, unless she intended to go into the woods.

The morning was sunny and warm. A group of shirt-sleeved men lounged
in the hall and before the porch of the double cabin. Her father was
pacing up and down, talking forcibly. Ellen heard his hoarse voice. As
she approached he ceased talking and his listeners relaxed their
attention. Ellen's glance ran over them swiftly--Daggs, with his
superb head, like that of a hawk, uncovered to the sun; Colter with his
lowered, secretive looks, his sand-gray lean face; Jackson Jorth, her
uncle, huge, gaunt, hulking, with white in his black beard and hair,
and the fire of a ghoul in his hollow eyes; Tad Jorth, another brother
of her father's, younger, red of eye and nose, a weak-chinned drinker
of rum. Three other limber-legged Texans lounged there, partners of
Daggs, and they were sun-browned, light-haired, blue-eyed men
singularly alike in appearance, from their dusty high-heeled boots to
their broad black sombreros. They claimed to be sheepmen. All Ellen
could be sure of was that Rock Wells spent most of his time there,
doing nothing but look for a chance to waylay her; Springer was a
gambler; and the third, who answered to the strange name of Queen, was
a silent, lazy, watchful-eyed man who never wore a glove on his right
hand and who never was seen without a gun within easy reach of that
hand.

"Howdy, Ellen. Shore you ain't goin' to say good mawnin' to this heah
bad lot?" drawled Daggs, with good-natured s