But I'm not heah to fight Jorth because he may be a rustler. The others may have their own reasons, but mine is this--you once stood by me in Texas when I was needin' friends. Wal, I'm standin' by y'u now.
Jorth is your enemy, an' so he is mine."
Gaston Isbel bowed to this ultimatum, scarcely less agitated than when Esther Isbel had denounced him. His rabid and morbid hate of Jorth had eaten into his heart to take possession there, like the parasite that battened upon the life of its victim. Blue's steely voice, his cold, gray eyes, showed the unbiased truth of the man, as well as his fidelity to his creed. Here again, but in a different manner, Gaston Isbel had the fact flung at him that other men must suffer, perhaps die, for his hate. And the very soul of the old rancher apparently rose in Passionate revolt against the blind, headlong, elemental strength of his nature. So it seemed to Jean, who, in love and pity that hourly grew, saw through his father. Was it too late? Alas! Gaston Isbel could never be turned back! Yet something was altering his brooding, fixed mind.
"Wal," said Blaisdell, gruffly, "let's get down to business. . . .
I'm for havin' Blue be foreman of this heah outfit, an' all of us to do as he says."
Gaston Isbel opposed this selection and indeed resented it.
He intended to lead the Isbel faction.
"All right, then. Give us a hunch what we're goin' to do," replied Blaisdell.
"We're goin' to ride off on Jorth's trail--an' one way or another--kill him--KILL HIM! . . . I reckon that'll end the fight."
What did old Isbel have in his mind? His listeners shook their heads.
"No," asserted Blaisdell. "Killin' Jorth might be the end of your desires, Isbel, but it 'd never end our fight. We'll have gone too far.
. . . If we take Jorth's trail from heah it means we've got to wipe out that rustier gang, or stay to the last man."
"Yes, by God!" exclaimed Fredericks.
"Let's drink to thet!" said Blue. Strangely they turned to this Texas gunman, instinctively recognizing in him the brain and heart, and the past deeds, that fitted him for the leadership of such a clan. Blue had all in life to lose, and nothing to gain. Yet his spirit was such that he could not lean to all the possible gain of the future, and leave a debt unpaid. Then his voice, his look, his influence were those of a fighter. They all drank with him, even Jean, who hated liquor. And this act of drinking seemed the climax of the council.
Preparations were at once begun for their departure on Jorth's trail.
Jean took but little time for his own needs. A horse, a blanket, a knapsack of meat and bread, a canteen, and his weapons, with all the ammunition he could pack, made up his outfit. He wore his buckskin suit, leggings, and moccasins. Very soon the cavalcade was ready to depart. Jean tried not to watch Bill Isbel say good-by to his children, but it was impossible not to. Whatever Bill was, as a man, he was father of those children, and he loved them. How strange that the little ones seemed to realize the meaning of this good-by? They were grave, somber-eyed, pale up to the last moment, then they broke down and wept. Did they sense that their father would never come back?
Jean caught that dark, fatalistic presentiment. Bill Isbel's convulsed face showed that he also caught it. Jean did not see Bill say good-by to his wife. But he heard her. Old Gaston Isbel forgot to speak to the children, or else could not. He never looked at them. And his good-by 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.