g voices of her hate. But she was as powerless as if she were
still held in Jean Isbel's giant embrace.

"I--I want to--kill y'u," she whispered, "but I cain't.... Leave me."

"You're no Jorth--the same as I'm no Isbel. We oughtn't be mixed in
this deal," he said, somberly. "I'm sorrier for you than I am for
myself.... You're a girl.... You once had a good mother--a decent home.
And this life you've led here--mean as it's been--is nothin' to what
you'll face now. Damn the men that brought you to this! I'm goin' to
kill some of them."

With that he mounted and turned away. Ellen called out for him to take
his horse. He did not stop nor look back. She called again, but her
voice was fainter, and Isbel was now leaving at a trot. Slowly she
sagged against the tree, lower and lower. He headed into the trail
leading up the canyon. How strange a relief Ellen felt! She watched
him ride into the aspens and start up the slope, at last to disappear
in the pines. It seemed at the moment that he took with him something
which had been hers. A pain in her head dulled the thoughts that
wavered to and fro. After he had gone she could not see so well. Her
eyes were tired. What had happened to her? There was blood on her
hands. Isbel's blood! She shuddered. Was it an omen? Lower she sank
against the tree and closed her eyes.

Old John Sprague did not return. Hours dragged by--dark hours for
Ellen Jorth lying prostrate beside the tree, hiding the blue sky and
golden sunlight from her eyes. At length the lethargy of despair, the
black dull misery wore away; and she gradually returned to a condition
of coherent thought.

What had she learned? Sight of the black horse grazing near seemed to
prompt the trenchant replies. Spades belonged to Jean Isbel. He had
been stolen by her father or by one of her father's accomplices.
Isbel's vaunted cunning as a tracker had been no idle boast. Her
father was a horse thief, a rustler, a sheepman only as a blind, a
consort of Daggs, leader of the Hash Knife Gang. Ellen well remembered
the ill repute of that gang, way back in Texas, years ago. Her father
had gotten in with this famous band of rustlers to serve his own
ends--the extermination of the Isbels. It was all very plain now to
Ellen.

"Daughter of a horse thief an' rustler!" she muttered.

And her thoughts sped back to the days of her girlhood. Only the very
early stage of that time had been happy. In the light