ad was goin' fast.... He said, 'Colter--take care of Ellen,' an'
I reckon he meant a lot by that. He kept sayin', 'My God! if I'd only
seen Gaston Isbel before it was too late!' an' then he raved a little,
whisperin' out of his haid.... An' after that he died.... I woke up the
men, an' aboot sunup we carried your dad an' uncle out of town an'
buried them.... An' them Isbels shot at us while we were buryin' our
daid! That's where Tad got his hurt.... Then we hit the trail for
Jorth's ranch.... An now, Ellen, that's all my story. Your dad was
ready to bury the hatchet with his old enemy. An' that Nez Perce Jean
Isbel, like the sneakin' savage he is, murdered your uncle an' your
dad.... Cut him horrible--made him suffer tortures of hell--all for
Isbel revenge!"

When Colter's husky voice ceased Ellen whispered through lips as cold
and still as ice, "Let me go ... leave me--heah--alone!"

"Why, shore! I reckon I understand," replied Colter. "I hated to tell
y'u. But y'u had to heah the truth aboot that half-breed.... I'll
carry your pack in the cabin an' unroll your blankets."

Releasing her, Colter strode off in the gloom. Like a dead weight,
Ellen began to slide until she slipped down full length beside the log.
And then she lay in the cool, damp shadow, inert and lifeless so far as
outward physical movement was concerned. She saw nothing and felt
nothing of the night, the wind, the cold, the falling dew. For the
moment or hour she was crushed by despair, and seemed to see herself
sinking down and down into a black, bottomless pit, into an abyss where
murky tides of blood and furious gusts of passion contended between her
body and her soul. Into the stormy blast of hell! In her despair she
longed, she ached for death. Born of infidelity, cursed by a taint of
evil blood, further cursed by higher instinct for good and happy life,
dragged from one lonely and wild and sordid spot to another, never
knowing love or peace or joy or home, left to the companionship of
violent and vile men, driven by a strange fate to love with
unquenchable and insupportable love a' half-breed, a savage, an Isbel,
the hereditary enemy of her people, and at last the ruthless murderer
of her father--what in the name of God had she left to live for?
Revenge! An eye for an eye! A life for a life! But she could not
kill Jean Isbel. Woman's love could turn to hate, but not the love of
Ellen Jorth. He could drag her by the hair in the dus