et's see the kid
make him showdown."

"That's what jean Isbel beat y'u for," went on Ellen. "For slandering
a girl who wasn't there.... Me! Y'u rotten liar!"

"But, Ellen, it wasn't all lies," said Bruce, huskily. "I was half
drunk--an' horrible jealous.... You know Lorenzo seen Isbel kissin'
you. I can prove thet."

Ellen threw up her head and a scarlet wave of shame and wrath flooded
her face.

"Yes," she cried, ringingly. "He saw Jean Isbel kiss me. Once! ... An'
it was the only decent kiss I've had in years. He meant no insult. I
didn't know who he was. An' through his kiss I learned a difference
between men.... Y'u made Lorenzo lie. An' if I had a shred of good
name left in Grass Valley you dishonored it.... Y'u made him think I
was your girl! Damn y'u! I ought to kill y'u.... Eat your words
now--take them back--or I'll cripple y'u for life!"

Ellen lowered the cocked rifle toward his feet.

"Shore, Ellen, I take back--all I said," gulped Bruce. He gazed at the
quivering rifle barrel and then into the face of Ellen's father.
Instinct told him where his real peril lay.

Here the cool and tactful Daggs showed himself master of the situation.

"Heah, listen!" he called. "Ellen, I reckon Bruce was drunk an' out of
his haid. He's shore ate his words. Now, we don't want any cripples
in this camp. Let him alone. Your dad got me heah to lead the Jorths,
an' that's my say to you.... Simm, you're shore a low-down lyin'
rascal. Keep away from Ellen after this or I'll bore you myself....
Jorth, it won't be a bad idee for you to forget you're a Texan till you
cool off. Let Bruce stop some Isbel lead. Shore the Jorth-Isbel war
is aboot on, an' I reckon we'd be smart to believe old Gass's talk
aboot his Nez Perce son."

CHAPTER VI

From this hour Ellen Jorth bent all of her lately awakened intelligence
and will to the only end that seemed to hold possible salvation for
her. 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 comfort
to one as lonely as she, would ill fit her for the hard test she
divined and dreaded. In the matter of her father's fight she must
stand by him whatever the issue or the outcome; in what pertained to
her own principles, her womanhood, and her soul she stood absolutely
alone.

Therefore, Ellen put dreams aside, and indolence of mind and body
behind her. Many tasks she found, and when these