ged him.

"I stole cattle--my dad's an' Blaisdell's--an' made deals--with
Daggs.... All the crookedness--wasn't on--Jorth's side.... I want--my
brother Jean--to know."

"I'll try--to tell him," whispered Ellen, out of her great amaze.

"We were all--a bad lot--except Jean," went on Isbel. "Dad wasn't
fair.... God! how he hated Jorth! Jorth, yes, who was--your father....
Wal, they're even now."

"How--so?" faltered Ellen.

"Your father killed dad.... At the last--dad wanted to--save us. He
sent word--he'd meet him--face to face--an' let thet end the feud. They
met out in the road.... But some one shot dad down--with a rifle--an'
then your father finished him."

"An' then, Isbel," added Ellen, with unconscious mocking bitterness,
"Your brother murdered my dad!"

"What!" whispered Bill Isbel. "Shore y'u've got--it wrong. I reckon
Jean--could have killed--your father.... But he didn't. Queer, we all
thought."

"Ah! ... Who did kill my father?" burst out Ellen, and her voice rang
like great hammers at her ears.

"It was Blue. He went in the store--alone--faced the whole gang alone.
Bluffed them--taunted them--told them he was King Fisher.... Then he
killed--your dad--an' Jackson Jorth.... Jean was out--back of the
store. We were out--front. There was shootin'. Colmor was hit. Then
Blue ran out--bad hurt.... Both of them--died in Meeker's yard."

"An' so Jean Isbel has not killed a Jorth!" said Ellen, in strange,
deep voice.

"No," replied Isbel, earnestly. "I reckon this feud--was hardest on
Jean. He never lived heah.... An' my sister Ann said--he got sweet on
y'u.... Now did he?"

Slow, stinging tears filled Ellen's eyes, and her head sank low and
lower.

"Yes--he did," she murmured, tremulously.

"Ahuh! Wal, thet accounts," replied Isbel, wonderingly. "Too bad! ...
It might have been.... A man always sees--different when--he's
dyin'.... If I had--my life--to live over again! ... My poor
kids--deserted in their babyhood--ruined for life! All for nothin'....
May God forgive--"

Then he choked and whispered for water.

Ellen laid his head back and, rising, she took his sombrero and started
hurriedly down the slope, making dust fly and rocks roll. Her mind was
a seething ferment. Leaping, bounding, sliding down the weathered
slope, she gained the bench, to run across that, and so on down into
the open canyon to the willow-bordered brook. Here she filled the
sombrero with water and starte