to Ann was as if he were only riding to the village for a day.
Jean saw woman's love, woman's intuition, woman's grief in her eyes. He
could not escape her. "Oh, Jean! oh, brother!" she whispered as she
enfolded him. "It's awful! It's wrong! Wrong! Wrong! ... Good-by!
... If killing MUST be--see that y'u kill the Jorths! ... Good-by!"

Even in Ann, gentle and mild, the Isbel blood spoke at the last. Jean
gave Ann over to the pale-faced Colmor, who took her in his arms. Then
Jean fled out to his horse. This cold-blooded devastation of a home
was almost more than he could bear. There was love here. What would be
left?

Colmor was the last one to come out to the horses. He did not walk
erect, nor as one whose sight was clear. Then, as the silent, tense,
grim men mounted their horses, Bill Isbel's eldest child, the boy,
appeared in the door. His little form seemed instinct with a force
vastly different from grief. His face was the face of an Isbel.

"Daddy--kill 'em all!" he shouted, with a passion all the fiercer for
its incongruity to the treble voice.

So the poison had spread from father to son.

CHAPTER IX

Half a mile from the Isbel ranch the cavalcade passed the log cabin of
Evarts, father of the boy who had tended sheep with Bernardino.

It suited Gaston Isbel to halt here. No need to call! Evarts and his
son appeared so quickly as to convince observers that they had been
watching.

"Howdy, Jake!" said Isbel. "I'm wantin' a word with y'u alone."

"Shore, boss, git down an' come in," replied Evarts.

Isbel led him aside, and said something forcible that Jean divined from
the very gesture which accompanied it. His father was telling Evarts
that he was not to join in the Isbel-Jorth war. Evarts had worked for
the Isbels a long time, and his faithfulness, along with something
stronger and darker, showed in his rugged face as he stubbornly opposed
Isbel. The old man raised his voice: "No, I tell you. An' that
settles it."

They returned to the horses, and, before mounting, Isbel, as if he
remembered something, directed his somber gaze on young Evarts.

"Son, did you bury Bernardino?"

"Dad an' me went over yestiddy," replied the lad. "I shore was glad
the coyotes hadn't been round."

"How aboot the sheep?"

"I left them there. I was goin' to stay, but bein' all alone--I got
skeered.... The sheep was doin' fine. Good water an' some grass. An'
this ain't time fer varmints to han