Ellen felt the sun now on her left cheek and knew that the day was waning and that Colter was swinging farther to the northwest. She had never before ridden through such heavy forest and down and up such wild canyons. Toward sunset the deepest and ruggedest canyon halted their advance. Colter rode to the right, searching for a place to get down through a spruce thicket that stood on end. Presently he dismounted and the others followed suit. Ellen found she could not lead Spades because he slid down upon her heels, so she looped the end of her reins over the pommel and left him free. She herself managed to descend by holding to branches and sliding all the way down that slope.
She heard the horses cracking the brush, snorting and heaving. One pack slipped and had to be removed from the horse, and rolled down. At the bottom of this deep, green-walled notch roared a stream of water.
Shadowed, cool, mossy, damp, this narrow gulch seemed the wildest place Ellen had ever seen. She could just see the sunset-flushed, gold-tipped spruces far above her. The men repacked the horse that had slipped his burden, and once more resumed their progress ahead, now turning up this canyon. There was no horse trail, but deer and bear trails were numerous. The sun sank and the sky darkened, but still the men rode on; and the farther they traveled the wilder grew the aspect of the canyon.
At length Colter broke a way through a heavy thicket of willows and entered a side canyon, the mouth of which Ellen had not even descried.
It turned and widened, and at length opened out into a round pocket, apparently inclosed, and as lonely and isolated a place as even pursued rustlers could desire. Hidden by jutting wall and thicket of spruce were two old log cabins joined together by roof and attic floor, the same as the double cabin at the Jorth ranch.
Ellen smelled wood smoke, and presently, on going round the cabins, saw a bright fire. One man stood beside it gazing at Colter's party, which evidently he had heard approaching.
"Hullo, Queen!" said Colter. How's Tad?"
"He's holdin' on fine," replied Queen, bending over the fire, where he turned pieces of meat.
"Where's father?" suddenly asked Ellen, addressing Colter.
As if he had not heard her, he went on wearily loosening a pack.
Queen looked at her. The light of the fire only partially shone on his face. Ellen could not see its expression. But from the fact that Queen did not answer her question she got further intimation of an impending catastrophe. The long, wild ride had helped prepare her for the secrecy and taciturnity of men who had resorted to flight. Perhaps her father had been delayed or was still off on the deadly mission that had obsessed him; or there might, and probably was, darker reason for his absence. Ellen shut her teeth and turned to the needs of her horse.
And presently. returning to the fire, she thought of her uncle.
"Queen, is my uncle Tad heah?" she asked.
"Shore. He's in there," replied Queen, pointing at the nearer cabin.
Ellen hurried toward the dark doorway. She could see how the logs of the cabin had moved awry and what a big, dilapidated hovel it was.
As she looked in, Colter loomed over her--placed a familiar and somehow masterful hand upon her. Ellen let it rest on her shoulder a moment.
Must she forever be repulsing these rude men among whom her lot was cast?
Did Colter mean what Daggs had always meant? Ellen felt herself weary, weak in body, and her spent spirit had not rallied. Yet, whatever Colter meant by his familiarity, she could not bear it. So she slipped out from under his hand.
"Uncle Tad, are y'u heah?" she called into the blackness. She heard the mice scamper and rustle and she smelled the musty, old, woody odor of a long-unused cabin.
"Hello, Ellen!" came a voice she recognized as her uncle's, yet it was strange. "Yes. I'm heah--bad luck to me! . . . How 're y'u buckin' up, girl?"
"I'm all right, Uncle Tad--only tired an' worried. I--"
"Tad, how's your hurt?" interrupted Colter.
"Reckon I'm easier," replied Jorth, wearily, "but shore I'm in bad shape.
I'm still spittin' blood. I keep tellin' Queen that bullet lodged in my lungs-but he says it went through."
"Wal, hang on, Tad!" replied Colter, with a cheerfulness Ellen sensed was really indifferent.
"Oh, what the hell's the use!" exclaimed Jorth. "It's all--up with us--Colter!"
"Wal, shut up, then," tersely returned Colter. "It ain't doin' y'u or us any good to holler."
Tad Jorth did not reply to this. Ellen heard his breathing and it did not seem natural. It rasped a little--came hurriedly--then caught in his throat. Then he spat. Ellen shrunk back against the door.
He was breathing through blood.
"Uncle, are y'u in pain?" she asked.
"Yes, Ellen--it burns like hell," he said.
"Oh! I'm sorry. . . . Isn't there something I can do?"
"I reckon not. Queen did all anybody could do for me--now--unless it's pray."
Colter laughed at this--the slow, easy, drawling laugh of a Texan.
But Ellen felt pity for this wounded uncle. She had always hated him.
He had been a drunkard, a gambler, a waster of her father's property; and now he was a rustler and a fugitive, lying in pain, perhaps mortally hurt.
"Yes, uncle--I will pray for y'u," she said, softly.
The change in his voice held a note of sadness that she had been quick to catch.
"Ellen, y'u're the only good Jorth--in the whole damned lot," he said.
"God! I see it all now. . . . We've dragged y'u to hell!"
"Yes, Uncle Tad, I've shore been dragged some--but not yet--to hell," she responded, with a break in her voice.
"Y'u will be--Ellen--unless--"
"Aw, shut up that kind of gab, will y'u?" broke in Colter, harshly.
It amazed Ellen that Colter should dominate her uncle, even though he was wounded. Tad Jorth had been the last man to take orders from anyone, much less a rustler of the Hash Knife Gang. This Colter began to loom up in Ellen's estimate as he loomed physically over her, a lofty figure, dark motionless, somehow menacing.