osite. A door creaked on its
hinges. Next a slow footstep, accompanied by clinking of spurs,
approached Ellen's door, and a heavy hand banged upon it. She knew
this person could not be her father.

"Hullo, Ellen!"

She recognized the voice as belonging to Colter. Somehow its tone, or
something about it, sent a little shiver clown her spine. It acted
like a revivifying current. Ellen lost her dragging lethargy.

"Hey, Ellen, are y'u there?" added Colter, louder voice.

"Yes. Of course I'm heah," she replied. "What do y'u want?"

"Wal--I'm shore glad y'u're home," he replied. "Antonio's gone with
his squaw. An' I was some worried aboot y'u."

"Who's with y'u, Colter?" queried Ellen, sitting up.

"Rock Wells an' Springer. Tad Jorth was with us, but we had to leave
him over heah in a cabin."

"What's the matter with him?"

"Wal, he's hurt tolerable bad," was the slow reply.

Ellen heard Colter's spurs jangle, as if he had uneasily shifted his
feet.

"Where's dad an' Uncle Jackson?" asked Ellen.

A silence pregnant enough to augment Ellen's dread finally broke to
Colter's voice, somehow different. "Shore they're back on the trail.
An' we're to meet them where we left Tad."

"Are yu goin' away again?"

"I reckon.... An', Ellen, y'u're goin' with us."

"I am not," she retorted.

"Wal, y'u are, if I have to pack y'u," he replied, forcibly. "It's not
safe heah any more. That damned half-breed Isbel with his gang are on
our trail."

That name seemed like a red-hot blade at Ellen's leaden heart. She
wanted to fling a hundred queries on Colter, but she could not utter
one.

"Ellen, we've got to hit the trail an' hide," continued Colter,
anxiously. "Y'u mustn't stay heah alone. Suppose them Isbels would
trap y'u! ... They'd tear your clothes off an' rope y'u to a tree.
Ellen, shore y'u're goin'.... Y'u heah me!"

"Yes--I'll go," she replied, as if forced.

"Wal--that's good," he said, quickly. "An' rustle tolerable lively.
We've got to pack."

The slow jangle of Colter's spurs and his slow steps moved away out of
Ellen's hearing. Throwing off the blankets, she put her feet to the
floor and sat there a moment staring at the blank nothingness of the
cabin interior in the obscure gray of dawn. Cold, gray, dreary,
obscure--like her life, her future! And she was compelled to do what
was hateful to her. As a Jorth she must take to the unfrequented
trails and hide like a rabbit in the thick