Jean Isbel felt himself turned to marble. The suddenness of this tragedy paralyzed him. His gaze remained riveted on those prostrate forms.
A hand clutched his arm--a shaking woman's hand, slim and hard and tense.
"Bill's--killed!" whispered a broken voice. "I was watchin'.
. . . They're both dead!"
The wives of Jacobs and Guy Isbel had slipped up behind Jean and from behind him they had seen the tragedy.
"I asked Bill--not to--go," faltered the Jacobs woman, and, covering her face with her hands, she groped back to the comer of the cabin, where the other women, shaking and white, received her in their arms.
Guy Isbel's wife stood at the window, peering over Jean's shoulder.
She had the nerve of a man. She had looked out upon death before.
"Yes, they're dead," she said, bitterly. "An' how are we goin' to get their bodies?"
At this Gaston Isbel seemed to rouse from the cold spell that had transfixed him.
"God, this is hell for our women," he cried out, hoarsely. My son--my son! . . . Murdered by the Jorths!" Then he swore a terrible oath.
Jean saw the remainder of the mounted rustlers get off, and then, all of them leading their horses, they began to move around to the left.
"Dad, they're movin' round," said Jean.
"Up to some trick," declared Bill Isbel.
"Bill, you make a hole through the back wall, say aboot the fifth log up," ordered the father. "Shore we've got to look out."
The elder son grasped a tool and, scattering the children, who had been playing near the back corner, he began to work at the point designated. The little children backed away with fixed, wondering, grave eyes. The women moved their chairs, and huddled together as if waiting and listening.
Jean watched the rustlers until they passed out of his sight. They had moved toward the sloping, brushy ground to the north and west of the cabins.
"Let me know when you get a hole in the back wall," said Jean, and he went through the kitchen and cautiously out another door to slip into a low-roofed, shed-like end of the rambling cabin. This small space was used to store winter firewood. The chinks between the walls had not been filled with adobe clay, and he could see out on three sides.
The rustlers were going into the juniper brush. They moved out of sight, and presently reappeared without their horses. It looked to Jean as if they intended to attack the cabins. Then they halted at the edge of the brush and held a long consultation. Jean could see them distinctly, though they were too far distant for him to recognize any particular man. One of them, however, stood and moved apart from the closely massed group. Evidently, from his strides and gestures, he was exhorting his listeners. Jean concluded this was either Daggs or Jorth. Whoever it was had a loud, coarse voice, and this and his actions impressed Jean with a suspicion that the man was under the influence of the bottle.
Presently Bill Isbel called Jean in a low voice. "Jean, I got the hole made, but we can't see anyone."
"I see them," Jean replied. "They're havin' a powwow. Looks to me like either Jorth or Daggs is drunk. He's arguin' to charge us, an' the rest of the gang are holdin' back. . . . Tell dad, an' all of you keep watchin'. I'll let you know when they make a move."
Jorth's gang appeared to be in no hurry to expose their plan of battle.
Gradually the group disintegrated a little; some of them sat down; others walked to and fro. Presently two of them went into the brush, probably back to the horses. In a few moments they reappeared, carrying a pack. And when this was deposited on the ground all the rustlers sat down around it. They had brought food and drink. Jean had to utter a grim laugh at their coolness; and he was reminded of many dare-devil deeds known to have been perpetrated by the Hash Knife Gang. Jean was glad of a reprieve. The longer the rustlers put off an attack the more time the allies of the Isbels would have to get here. Rather hazardous, however, would it be now for anyone to attempt to get to the Isbel cabins in the daytime. Night would be more favorable.
Twice Bill Isbel came through the kitchen to whisper to Jean. The strain in the large room, from which the rustlers could not be seen, must have been great. Jean told him all he had seen and what he thought about it.
"Eatin' an' drinkin'!" ejaculated Bill. "Well, I'll be--! That 'll jar the old man. He wants to get the fight over.
"Tell him I said it'll be over too quick--for us--unless are mighty careful," replied Jean, sharply.
Bill went back muttering to himself. Then followed a long wait, fraught with suspense, during which Jean watched the rustlers regale themselves.
The 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.