"Wal, lass, I like to see you happy an' I hate myself fer comin'.
Because I've been to Grass Valley fer two days an' I've got news."
Old John Sprague stood there, with a smile that did not hide a troubled look.
"Oh! Uncle John! You startled me," exclaimed Ellen, shocked back to reality. And slowly she added: "Grass Valley! News?"
She put out an appealing hand, which Sprague quickly took in his own, as if to reassure her.
"Yes, an' not bad so far as you Jorths are concerned," he replied.
"The first Jorth-Isbel fight has come off. . . . Reckon you remember makin' me promise to tell you if I heerd anythin'. Wal, I didn't wait fer you to come up."
"So Ellen heard her voice calmly saying. What was this lying calm when there seemed to be a stone hammer at her heart? The first fight --not so bad for the Jorths! Then it had been bad for the Isbels.
A sudden, cold stillness fell upon her senses.
"Let's sit down--outdoors," Sprague was saying. "Nice an' sunny this --mornin'. I declare--I'm out of breath. Not used to walkin'. An' besides, I left Grass Valley, in the night--an' I'm tired. But excoose me from hangin' round thet village last night! There was shore--"
"Who--who was killed?" interrupted Ellen, her voice breaking low and deep.
"Guy Isbel an' Bill Jacobs on the Isbel side, an' Daggs, Craig, an'
Greaves on your father's side," stated Sprague, with something of awed haste.
"Ah!" breathed Ellen, and she relaxed to sink back against the cabin wall.
Sprague seated himself on the log beside her, turning to face her, and he seemed burdened with grave and important matters.
"I heerd a good many conflictin' stories," he said, earnestly. "The village folks is all skeered an' there's no believin' their gossip.
But I got what happened straight from Jake Evarts. The fight come off day before yestiddy. Your father's gang rode down to Isbel's ranch.
Daggs was seen to be wantin' some of the Isbel hosses, so Evarts says.
An' Guy Isbel an' Jacobs ran out in the pasture. Daggs an' some others shot them down "Killed them--that way?" put in Ellen, sharply.
"So Evarts says. He was on the ridge an' swears he seen it all. They killed Guy an' Jacobs in cold blood. No chance fer their lives--not even to fight! . . . Wall, hen they surrounded the Isbel cabin. The fight last all thet day an' all night an' the next day. Evarts says Guy an' Jacobs laid out thar all this time. An' a herd of hogs broke in the pasture an' was eatin' the dead bodies . . ."
"My God!" burst out Ellen. "Uncle John, y'u shore cain't mean my father wouldn't stop fightin' long enough to drive the hogs off an' bury those daid men?"
"Evarts says they stopped fightin', all right, but it was to watch the hogs," declared Sprague. "An' then, what d' ye think? The wimminfolks come out--the red-headed one, Guy's wife, an' Jacobs's wife--they drove the hogs away an' buried their husbands right there in the pasture. Evarts says he seen the graves."
"It is the women who can teach these bloody Texans a lesson," declared Ellen, forcibly.
"Wal, Daggs was drunk, an' he got up from behind where the gang was hidin', an' dared the Isbels to come out. They shot him to pieces.
An' thet night some one of the Isbels shot Craig, who was alone on guard.
. . . An' last--this here's what I come to tell you--Jean Isbel slipped up in the dark on Greaves an' knifed him."
"Why did y'u want to tell me that particularly?" asked Ellen, slowly.
"Because I reckon the facts in the case are queer--an' because, Ellen, your name was mentioned," announced Sprague, positively.
"My name--mentioned?" echoed Ellen. Her horror and disgust gave way to a quickening process of thought, a mounting astonishment. "By whom?"
"Jean Isbel," replied Sprague, as if the name and the fact were momentous.
Ellen sat still as a stone, her hands between her knees. Slowly she felt the blood recede from her face, prickling her kin down below her neck. That name locked her thought.
"Ellen, it's a mighty queer story--too queer to be a lie," went on Sprague. "Now you listen! Evarts got this from Ted Meeker. An' Ted Meeker heerd it from Greaves, who didn't die till the next day after Jean Isbel knifed him. An' your dad shot Ted fer tellin' what he heerd.
. . . No, Greaves wasn't killed outright. He was cut somethin' turrible --in two places. They wrapped him all up an' next day packed him in a wagon back to Grass Valley. Evarts says Ted Meeker was friendly with Greaves an' went to see him as he was layin' in his room next to the store. Wal, accordin' to Meeker's story, Greaves came to an' talked.
He said he was sittin' there in the dark, shootin' occasionally at Isbel's cabin, when he heerd a rustle behind him in the grass. He knowed some one was crawlin' on him. But before he could get his gun around he was jumped by what he thought was a grizzly bear. But it was a man. He shut off Greaves's wind an' dragged him back in the ditch.
An' he said: 'Greaves, it's the half-breed. An' he's goin' to cut you --FIRST FOR ELLEN JORTH! an' then for Gaston Isbel!' . . . Greaves said Jean ripped him with a bowie knife. . . . An' thet was all Greaves remembered. He died soon after tellin' this story. He must hev fought awful hard. Thet second cut Isbel gave him went clear through him. . . .
Some of the gang was thar when Greaves talked, an' naturally they wondered why Jean Isbel had said 'first for Ellen Jorth.' . . . Somebody remembered thet Greaves had cast a slur on your good name, Ellen. An' then they had Jean Isbel's reason fer sayin' thet to Greaves. It caused a lot of talk. An' when Simm Bruce busted in some of the gang haw-hawed him an' said as how he'd get the third cut from Jean Isbel's bowie.
Bruce was half drunk an' he began to cuss an' rave about Jean Isbel bein' in love with his girl. . . . As bad luck would have it, a couple of more fellars come in an' asked Meeker questions. He jest got to thet part, 'Greaves, it's the half-breed, an' he's goin' to cut you--FIRST FOR ELLEN JORTH,' when in walked your father! . . . Then it all had to come out--what Jean Isbel had said an' done--an' why.
How Greaves had backed Simm Bruce in slurrin' you!"