day was hot and still. And the unnatural silence of
the cabin was broken now and then by the gay laughter of the children.
The sound shocked and haunted Jean. Playing children! Then another
sound, so faint he had to strain to hear it, disturbed and saddened
him--his father's slow tread up and down the cabin floor, to and fro,
to and fro. What must be in his father's heart this day!

At length the rustlers rose and, with rifles in hand, they moved as one
man down the slope. They came several hundred yards closer, until
Jean, grimly cocking his rifle, muttered to himself that a few more
rods closer would mean the end of several of that gang. They knew the
range of a rifle well enough, and once more sheered off at right angles
with the cabin. When they got even with the line of corrals they
stooped down and were lost to Jean's sight. This fact caused him
alarm. They were, of course, crawling up on the cabins. At the end of
that line of corrals ran a ditch, the bank of which was high enough to
afford cover. Moreover, it ran along in front of the cabins, scarcely
a hundred yards, and it was covered with grass and little clumps of
brush, from behind which the rustlers could fire into the windows and
through the clay chinks without any considerable risk to themselves. As
they did not come into sight again, Jean concluded he had discovered
their plan. Still, he waited awhile longer, until he saw faint, little
clouds of dust rising from behind the far end of the embankment. That
discovery made him rush out, and through the kitchen to the large
cabin, where his sudden appearance startled the men.

"Get back out of sight!" he ordered, sharply, and with swift steps he
reached the door and closed it. "They're behind the bank out there by
the corrals. An' they're goin' to crawl down the ditch closer to
us.... It looks bad. They'll have grass an' brush to shoot from. We've
got to be mighty careful how we peep out."

"Ahuh! All right," replied his father. "You women keep the kids with
you in that corner. An' you all better lay down flat."

Blaisdell, Bill Isbel, and the old man crouched at the large window,
peeping through cracks in the rough edges of the logs. Jean took his
post beside the small window, with his keen eyes vibrating like a
compass needle. The movement of a blade of grass, the flight of a
grasshopper could not escape his trained sight.

"Look sharp now!" he called to the other men. "I see dust...