"Ellen, has Colter told y'u yet--aboot--aboot Lee an' Jackson?" inquired the wounded man.
The pitch-black darkness of the cabin seemed to help fortify Ellen to bear further trouble.
"Colter told me dad an' Uncle Jackson would meet us heah," she rejoined, hurriedly.
Jorth could be heard breathing in difficulty, and he coughed and spat again, and seemed to hiss.
"Ellen, he lied to y'u. They'll never meet us--heah!"
"Why not?" whispered Ellen.
"Because--Ellen-- " he replied, in husky pants, "your dad an'--uncle Jackson--are daid--an' buried!"
If Ellen suffered a terrible shock it was a blankness, a deadness, and a slow, creeping failure of sense in her knees. They gave way under her and she sank on the grass against the cabin wall. She did not faint nor grow dizzy nor lose her sight, but for a while there was no process of thought in her mind. Suddenly then it was there--the quick, spiritual rending of her heart--followed by a profound emotion of intimate and irretrievable loss--and after that grief and bitter realization.
An hour later Ellen found strength to go to the fire and partake of the food and drink her body sorely needed.
Colter and the men waited on her solicitously, and in silence, now and then stealing furtive glances at her from under the shadow of their black sombreros. The dark night settled down like a blanket. There were no stars. The wind moaned fitfully among the pines, and all about that lonely, hidden recess was in harmony with Ellen's thoughts.
"Girl, y'u're shore game," said Colter, admiringly. "An' I reckon y'u never got it from the Jorths."
"Tad in there--he's game," said Queen, in mild protest.
"Not to my notion," replied Colter. "Any man can be game when he's croakin', with somebody around. . . . But Lee Jorth an' Jackson--they always was yellow clear to their gizzards. They was born in Louisiana --not Texas. . . . Shore they're no more Texans than I am. Ellen heah, she must have got another strain in her blood.
To Ellen their words had no meaning. She rose and asked, "Where can I sleep?"
"I'll fetch a light presently an' y'u can make your bed in there by Tad," replied Colter.
"Yes, I'd like that."
"Wal, if y'u reckon y'u can coax him to talk you're shore wrong, "declared Colter, with that cold timbre of voice that struck like steel on Ellen's nerves. "I cussed him good an' told him he'd keep his mouth shut. Talkin' makes him cough an' that fetches up the blood.
. . Besides, I reckon I'm the one to tell y'u how your dad an' uncle got killed. Tad didn't see it done, an' he was bad hurt when it happened. Shore all the fellars left have their idee aboot it.
But I've got it straight."
"Colter--tell me now," cried Ellen.
"Wal, all right. Come over heah, "he replied, and drew her away from the camp fire, out in the shadow of gloom. "Poor kid! I shore feel bad aboot it." He put a long arm around her waist and drew her against him. Ellen felt it, yet did not offer any resistance. All her faculties seemed absorbed in a morbid and sad anticipation.
"Ellen, y'u shore know I always loved y'u--now don't y 'u?" he asked, with suppressed breath.
"No, Colter. It's news to me--an' not what I want to heah."
"Wal, y'u may as well heah it right now," he said. "It's true.
An' what's more--your dad gave y'u to me before he died."
"What! Colter, y'u must be a liar."
"Ellen, I swear I'm not lyin'," he returned, in eager passion. "I was with your dad last an' heard him last. He shore knew I'd loved y'u for years. An' he said he'd rather y'u be left in my care than anybody's."
"My father gave me to y'u in marriage!" ejaculated Ellen, in bewilderment.
Colter's ready assurance did not carry him over this point. It was evident that her words somewhat surprised and disconcerted him for the moment.
"To let me marry a rustler--one of the Hash Knife Gang!" exclaimed Ellen, with weary incredulity.
"Wal, your dad belonged to Daggs's gang, same as I do," replied Colter, recovering his cool ardor.
"No!" cried Ellen.
"Yes, he shore did, for years," declared Colter, positively.
"Back in Texas. An' it was your dad that got Daggs to come to Arizona."
Ellen tried to fling herself away. But her strength and her spirit were ebbing, and Colter increased the pressure of his arm. All at once she sank limp. Could she escape her fate? Nothing seemed left to fight with or for.
"All right--don't hold me--so tight," she panted. "Now tell me how dad was killed . . . an' who--who--"
Colter bent over so he could peer into her face. In the darkness Ellen just caught the gleam of his eyes. She felt the virile force of the man in the strain of his body as he pressed her close. It all seemed unreal--a hideous dream--the gloom, the moan of the wind, the weird solitude, and this rustler with hand and will like cold steel.
"We'd come back to Greaves's store," Colter began. "An' as Greaves was daid we all got free with his liquor. Shore some of us got drunk.
Bruce was drunk, an' Tad in there--he was drunk. Your dad put away more 'n I ever seen him. But shore he wasn't exactly drunk. He got one of them weak an' shaky spells. He cried an' he wanted some of us to get the Isbels to call off the fightin'. . . . He shore was ready to call it quits. I reckon the killin' of Daggs--an' then the awful way Greaves was cut up by Jean Isbel--took all the fight out of your dad. He said to me, 'Colter, we'll take Ellen an' leave this heah country--an' begin life all over again--where no one knows us.'"
"Oh, did he really say that? . . . Did he--really mean it?" murmured Ellen, with a sob.
"I'll swear it by the memory of my daid mother," protested Colter.
"Wal, when night come the Isbels rode down on us in the dark an' began to shoot. They smashed in the door--tried to burn us out--an' hollered around for a while. Then they left an' we reckoned there'd be no more trouble that night. All the same we kept watch. I was the soberest one an' I bossed the gang. We had some quarrels aboot the drinkin'. Your dad said if we kept it up it 'd be the end of the Jorths. An' he planned to send word to the Isbels next mawnin' that he was ready for a truce.