were done for a day
she kept active in other ways, thus earning the poise and peace of
labor.

Jorth rode off every day, sometimes with one or two of the men, often
with a larger number. If he spoke of such trips to Ellen it was to
give an impression of visiting the ranches of his neighbors or the
various sheep camps. Often he did not return the day he left. When he
did get back he smelled of rum and appeared heavy from need of sleep.
His horses were always dust and sweat covered. During his absences
Ellen fell victim to anxious dread until he returned. Daily he grew
darker 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 men
did not gamble something immediate and perturbing was on their minds.
Ellen had not yet lowered herself to the deceit and suspicion of
eavesdropping, but she realized that there was a climax approaching in
which she would deliberately do so.

In those closing May days Ellen learned the significance of many things
that previously she had taken as a matter of course. Her father did
not run a ranch. There was absolutely no ranching done, and little
work. Often Ellen had to chop wood herself. Jorth did not possess a
plow. Ellen was bound to confess that the evidence of this lack
dumfounded her. Even old John Sprague raised some hay, beets, turnips.
Jorth's cattle and horses fared ill during the winter. Ellen
remembered how they used to clean up four-inch oak saplings and aspens.
Many of them died in the snow. The flocks of sheep, however, were
driven down into the Basin in the fall, and across the Reno Pass to
Phoenix and Maricopa.

Ellen could not discover a fence post on the ranch, nor a piece of salt
for the horses and cattle, nor a wagon, nor any sign of a
sheep-shearing outfit. She had never seen any sheep sheared. Ellen
could never keep track of the many and different horses running loose
and hobbled round the ranch. There were droves of horses in the woods,
and some of them wild as deer. According to her long-established
understanding, her father and her uncles were keen on horse trading and
buying.

Then the many trails leading away from the Jorth ranch--these grew to
have a fascination for Ellen; and the time came when she rode out on
them to see for herself where they led. The sheep ranch of Daggs,
supposed to be only a