CHAPTER XI
When Ellen, utterly spent in body and mind, reached home that day amelancholy, sultry twilight was falling. Fitful flares of sheetlightning swept across the dark horizon to the east. The cabins weredeserted. Antonio and the Mexican woman were gone. The circumstancesmade Ellen wonder, but she was too tired and too sunken in spirit tothink long about it or to care. She fed and watered her horse and lefthim in the corral. Then, supperless and without removing her clothes,she threw herself upon the bed, and at once sank into heavy slumber.
Sometime during the night she awoke. Coyotes were yelping, and fromthat sound she concluded it was near dawn. Her body ached; her mindseemed dull. Drowsily she was sinking into slumber again when sheheard the rapid clip-clop of trotting horses. Startled, she raised herhead to listen. The men were coming back. Relief and dread seemed toclear her stupor.
The trotting horses stopped across the lane from her cabin, evidentlyat the corral where she had left Spades. She heard him whistle.
From the sound of hoofs she judged the number of horses to be six oreight. Low voices of men mingled with thuds and cracking of straps andflopping of saddles on the ground. After that the heavy tread of bootssounded on the porch of the cabin opposite. A door creaked on itshinges. Next a slow footstep, accompanied by clinking of spurs,approached Ellen's door, and a heavy hand banged upon it. She knewthis person could not be her father.
"Hullo, Ellen!"
She recognized the voice as belonging to Colter. Somehow its tone, orsomething about it, sent a little shiver clown her spine. It actedlike a revivifying current. Ellen lost her dragging lethargy.
"Hey, Ellen, are y'u there?" added Colter, louder voice.
"Yes. Of course I'm heah," she replied. "What do y'u want?"
"Wal--I'm shore glad y'u're home," he replied. "Antonio's gone withhis squaw. An' I was some worried aboot y'u."
"Who's with y'u, Colter?" queried Ellen, sitting up.
"Rock Wells an' Springer. Tad Jorth was with us, but we had to leavehim over heah in a cabin."
"What's the matter with him?"
"Wal, he's hurt tolerable bad," was the slow reply.
Ellen heard Colter's spurs jangle, as if he had uneasily shifted hisfeet.
"Where's dad an' Uncle Jackson?" asked Ellen.
A silence pregnant enough to augment Ellen's dread finally broke toColter's voice, somehow different. "Shore they're back on the trail.An' we're to meet them where we left Tad."
"Are yu goin' away again?"
"I reckon.... An', Ellen, y'u're goin' with us."
"I am not," she retorted.
"Wal, y'u are, if I have to pack y'u," he replied, forcibly. "It's notsafe heah any more. That damned half-breed Isbel with his gang are onour trail."
That name seemed like a red-hot blade at Ellen's leaden heart. Shewanted to fling a hundred queries on Colter, but she could not utterone.
"Ellen, we've got to hit the trail an' hide," continued Colter,anxiously. "Y'u mustn't stay heah alone. Suppose them Isbels wouldtrap y'u! ... They'd tear your clothes off an' rope y'u to a tree.Ellen, shore y'u're goin'.... Y'u heah me!"
"Yes--I'll go," she replied, as if forced.
"Wal--that's good," he said, quickly. "An' rustle tolerable lively.We've got to pack."
The slow jangle of Colter's spurs and his slow steps moved away out ofEllen's hearing. Throwing off the blankets, she put her feet to thefloor and sat there a moment staring at the blank nothingness of thecabin interior in the obscure gray of dawn. Cold, gray, dreary,obscure--like her life, her future! And she was compelled to do whatwas hateful to her. As a Jorth she must take to the unfrequentedtrails and hide like a rabbit in the thickets. But the interest of themoment, a premonition of events to be, quickened her into action.
Ellen unbarred the door to let in the light. Day was breaking with anintense, clear, steely light in the east through which the morning starstill shone white. A ruddy flare betokened the advent of the sun.Ellen unbraided her tangled hair and brushed and combed it. A queer,still pang came to her at sight of pine needles tangled in her brownlocks. Then she washed her hands and face. Breakfast was a matter ofconsiderable work and she was hungry.
The sun rose and changed the gray world of forest. For the first timein her life Ellen hated the golden brightness, the wonderful blue ofsky, the scream of the eagle and the screech of the jay; and thesquirrels she had always loved to feed were neglected that morning.
Colter came in. Either Ellen had never before looked attentively athim or else he had changed. Her scrutiny of his lean, hard featuresaccorded him more Texan attributes than formerly. His gray eyes wereas light, as clear, as fierce as those of an eagle. And the sand grayof his face, the long, drooping, fair mustache hid the secrets of hismind, but not its strength. The instant Ellen met his gaze she senseda power in him that she instinctively opposed. Colter had not been sobold nor so rude as Daggs, but he was the same kind of man, perhaps themore dangerous for his secretiveness, his cool, waiting inscrutableness.
"'Mawnin', Ellen!" he drawled. "Y'u shore look good for sore eyes."
"Don't pay me compliments, Colter," replied Ellen. "An' your eyes arenot sore."
"Wal, I'm shore sore from fightin' an' ridin' an' layin' out," he said,bluntly.
"Tell me--what's happened," returned Ellen.
"Girl, it's a tolerable long story," replied Colter. "An' we've notime now. Wait till we get to camp."
"Am I to pack my belongin's or leave them heah?" asked Ellen.
"Reckon y'u'd better leave--them heah."
"But if we did not come back--"
"Wal, I reckon it's not likely we'll come--soon," he said, ratherevasively.
"Colter, I'll not go off into the woods with just the clothes I have onmy back."
"Ellen, we shore got to pack all the grab we can. This shore ain'tgoin' to be a visit to neighbors. We're shy pack hosses. But y'u makeup a bundle of belongin's y'u care for, an' the things y'u'll need bad.We'll throw it on somewhere."
Colter stalked away across the lane, and Ellen found herself dubiouslystaring at his tall figure. Was it the situation that struck her witha foreboding perplexity or was her intuition steeling her against thisman? Ellen could not decide. But she had to go with him. Herprejudice was unreasonable at this portentous moment. And she couldnot yet feel that she was solely responsible to herself.
When it came to making a small bundle of her belongings she was in aquandary. She discarded this and put in that, and then reversed theorder. Next in preciousness to her mother's things were thelong-hidden gifts of Jean Isbel. She could part with neither.
While she was selecting and packing this bundle Colter again enteredand, without speaking, began to rummage in the corner where her fatherkept his possessions. This irritated Ellen.
"What do y'u want there?" she demanded.
"Wal, I reckon your dad wants his papers--an' the gold he leftheah--an' a change of clothes. Now doesn't he?" returned Colter,coolly.
"Of course. But I supposed y'u would have me pack them."
Colter vouchsafed no reply to this, but deliberately went on rummaging,with little regard for how he scattered things. Ellen turned her backon him. At length, when he left, she went to her father's corner andfound that, as far as she was able to see, Colter had taken neitherpapers nor clothes, but only the gold. Perhaps, however, she had beenmistaken, for she had not observed Colter's departure closely enough toknow whether or not he carried a package. She missed only the gold.Her father's papers, old and musty, were scattered about, and these shegathered up to slip in her own bundle.
Colter, or one of the men, had saddled Spades, and he was now tied tothe corral fence, champing his bit and pounding the sand. Ellenwrapped bread and meat inside her coat, and after tying this behind hersaddle she was ready to go. But evidently she would have to wait, and,preferring to remain outdoors, she stayed by her horse. Presently,while watching the men pack, she
noticed that Springer wore a bandageround his head under the brim of his sombrero. His motions were slowand lacked energy. Shuddering at the sight, Ellen refused toconjecture. All too soon she would learn what had happened, and all toosoon, perhaps, she herself would be in the midst of another fight. Shewatched the men. They were making a hurried slipshod job of packingfood supplies from both cabins. More than once she caught Colter'sgray gleam of gaze on her, and she did not like it.
"I'll ride up an' say good-by to Sprague," she called to Colter.
"Shore y'u won't do nothin' of the kind," he called back.
There was authority in his tone that angered Ellen, and something elsewhich inhibited her anger. What was there about Colter with which shemust reckon? The other two Texans laughed aloud, to be suddenlysilenced by Colter's harsh and lowered curses. Ellen walked out ofhearing and sat upon a log, where she remained until Colter hailed her.
"Get up an' ride," he called.
Ellen complied with this order and, riding up behind the three mountedmen, she soon found herself leaving what for years had been her home.Not once did she look back. She hoped she would never see the squalid,bare pretension of a ranch again.
Colter and the other riders drove the pack horses across the meadow,off of the trails, and up the slope into the forest. Not very long didit take Ellen to see that Colter's object was to hide their tracks. Hezigzagged through the forest, avoiding the bare spots of dust, the dry,sun-baked flats of clay where water lay in spring, and he chose thegrassy, open glades, the long, pine-needle matted aisles. Ellen rodeat their heels and it pleased her to watch for their tracks. Coltermanifestly had been long practiced in this game of hiding his trail,and he showed the skill of a rustler. But Ellen was not convinced thathe could ever elude a real woodsman. Not improbably, however, Colterwas only aiming to leave a trail difficult to follow and which wouldallow him and his confederates ample time to forge ahead of pursuers.Ellen could not accept a certainty of pursuit. Yet Colter must haveexpected it, and Springer and Wells also, for they had a dark,sinister, furtive demeanor that strangely contrasted with the cool,easy manner habitual to them.
They were not seeking the level routes of the forest land, that wassure. They rode straight across the thick-timbered ridge down intoanother canyon, up out of that, and across rough, rocky bluffs, anddown again. These riders headed a little to the northwest and everymile brought them into wilder, more rugged country, until Ellen, losingcount of canyons and ridges, had no idea where she was. No stop wasmade at noon to rest the laboring, sweating pack animals.
Under circumstances where pleasure might have been possible Ellen wouldhave reveled in this hard ride into a wonderful forest ever thickeningand darkening. But the wild beauty of glade and the spruce slopes andthe deep, bronze-walled canyons left her cold. She saw and felt, buthad no thrill, except now and then a thrill of alarm when Spades slidto his haunches down some steep, damp, piny declivity.
All the woodland, up and down, appeared to be richer greener as theytraveled farther west. Grass grew thick and heavy. Water ran in allravines. The rocks were bronze and copper and russet, and some hadgreen patches of lichen.
Ellen felt the sun now on her left cheek and knew that the day waswaning and that Colter was swinging farther to the northwest. She hadnever before ridden through such heavy forest and down and up such wildcanyons. Toward sunset the deepest and ruggedest canyon halted theiradvance. Colter rode to the right, searching for a place to get downthrough a spruce thicket that stood on end. Presently he dismountedand the others followed suit. Ellen found she could not lead Spadesbecause he slid down upon her heels, so she looped the end of her reinsover the pommel and left him free. She herself managed to descend byholding to branches and sliding all the way down that slope. She heardthe horses cracking the brush, snorting and heaving. One pack slippedand had to be removed from the horse, and rolled down. At the bottomof this deep, green-walled notch roared a stream of water. Shadowed,cool, mossy, damp, this narrow gulch seemed the wildest place Ellen hadever seen. She could just see the sunset-flushed, gold-tipped sprucesfar 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. Thesun sank and the sky darkened, but still the men rode on and thefarther they traveled the wilder grew the aspect of the canyon.
At length Colter broke a way through a heavy thicket of willows andentered 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 pursuedrustlers could desire. Hidden by jutting wall and thicket of sprucewere two old log cabins joined together by roof and attic floor, thesame as the double cabin at the Jorth ranch.
Ellen smelled wood smoke, and presently, on going round the cabins, sawa bright fire. One man stood beside it gazing at Colter's party, whichevidently he had heard approaching.
"Hullo, Queen!" said Colter. "How's Tad?"
"He's holdin' on fine," replied Queen, bending over the fire, where heturned 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 hisface. Ellen could not see its expression. But from the fact thatQueen did not answer her question she got further intimation of animpending catastrophe. The long, wild ride had helped prepare her forthe secrecy and taciturnity of men who had resorted to flight. Perhapsher father had been delayed or was still off on the deadly mission thathad obsessed him; or there might, and probably was, darker reason forhis absence. Ellen shut her teeth and turned to the needs of herhorse. 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 ofthe cabin had moved awry and what a big, dilapidated hovel it was. Asshe looked in, Colter loomed over her--placed a familiar and somehowmasterful hand upon her. Ellen let it rest on her shoulder a moment.Must she forever be repulsing these rude men among whom her lot wascast? Did Colter mean what Daggs had always meant? Ellen felt herselfweary, weak in body, and her spent spirit had not rallied. Yet,whatever Colter meant by his familiarity, she could not bear it. Soshe slipped out from under his hand.
"Uncle Tad, are y'u heah?" she called into the blackness. She heardthe mice scamper and rustle and she smelled the musty, old, woody odorof a long-unused cabin.
"Hello, Ellen!" came a voice she recognized as her uncle's, yet it wasstrange. "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 badshape. I'm still spittin' blood. I keep tellin' Queen that bulletlodged in my lungs—but he says it went through."
"Wal, hang on, Tad!" replied Colter, with a cheerfulness Ellen sensedwas really indifferent.
"Oh, what the hell's the use!" exclaimed Jorth. "It's all--up withus--Colter!"
"Wal, shut up, then," tersely returned Colter. "It ain't doin' y'u orus any good to holler."
Tad Jorth did not reply to this. Ellen heard his breathing and it didnot seem natural. It rasped a little--came hurriedly--then caught inhis throat. Then he spat. Ellen shrunk back against the door. He wasbreathing 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'spray."
Colter laughed at this--the slow, easy, drawling laugh of a Texan. ButEllen
felt pity for this wounded uncle. She had always hated him. Hehad been a drunkard, a gambler, a waster of her father's property; andnow he was a rustler and a fugitive, lying in pain, perhaps mortallyhurt.
"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 quickto 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 hewas wounded. Tad Jorth had been the last man to take orders fromanyone, much less a rustler of the Hash Knife Gang. This Colter beganto loom up in Ellen's estimate as he loomed physically over her, alofty figure, dark motionless, somehow menacing.
"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 tobear further trouble.
"Colter told me dad an' Uncle Jackson would meet us heah," sherejoined, hurriedly.
Jorth could be heard breathing in difficulty, and he coughed and spatagain, 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'--uncleJackson--are daid--an' buried!"
If Ellen suffered a terrible shock it was a blankness, a deadness, anda slow, creeping failure of sense in her knees. They gave way underher and she sank on the grass against the cabin wall. She did notfaint nor grow dizzy nor lose her sight, but for a while there was noprocess of thought in her mind. Suddenly then it was there--the quick,spiritual rending of her heart--followed by a profound emotion ofintimate and irretrievable loss--and after that grief and bitterrealization.
An hour later Ellen found strength to go to the fire and partake of thefood and drink her body sorely needed.
Colter and the men waited on her solicitously, and in silence, now andthen stealing furtive glances at her from under the shadow of theirblack sombreros. The dark night settled down like a blanket. Therewere no stars. The wind moaned fitfully among the pines, and all aboutthat lonely, hidden recess was in harmony with Ellen's thoughts.
"Girl, y'u're shore game," said Colter, admiringly. "An' I reckon y'unever 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'scroakin', with somebody around.... But Lee Jorth an' Jackson--theyalways was yellow clear to their gizzards. They was born inLouisiana--not Texas.... Shore they're no more Texans than I am. Ellenheah, she must have got another strain in her blood."
To Ellen their words had no meaning. She rose and asked, "Where can Isleep?"
"I'll fetch a light presently an' y'u can make your bed in there byTad," 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 steelon Ellen's nerves. "I cussed him good an' told him he'd keep his mouthshut. 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 gotkilled. 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 itstraight."
"Colter--tell me now," cried Ellen.
"Wal, all right. Come over heah," he replied, and drew her away fromthe camp fire, out in the shadow of gloom. "Poor kid! I shore feelbad aboot it." He put a long arm around her waist and drew her againsthim. Ellen felt it, yet did not offer any resistance. All herfaculties 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 waswith your dad last an' heard him last. He shore knew I'd loved y'u foryears. 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, inbewilderment.
Colter's ready assurance did not carry him over this point. It wasevident that her words somewhat surprised and disconcerted him for themoment.
"To let me marry a rustler--one of the Hash Knife Gang!" exclaimedEllen, 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 inTexas. An' it was your dad that got Daggs to come to Arizona."
Ellen tried to fling herself away. But her strength and her spiritwere ebbing, and Colter increased the pressure of his arm. All at onceshe sank limp. Could she escape her fate? Nothing seemed left tofight with or for.
"All right--don't hold me--so tight," she panted. "Now tell me how dadwas killed ... an' who--who--"
Colter bent over so he could peer into her face. In the darkness Ellenjust caught the gleam of his eyes. She felt the virile force of theman in the strain of his body as he pressed her close. It all seemedunreal--a hideous dream--the gloom, the moan of the wind, the weirdsolitude, and this rustler with hand and will like cold steel.
"We'd come back to Greaves's store," Colter began. "An' as Greaves wasdaid 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 awaymore 'n I ever seen him. But shore he wasn't exactly drunk. He gotone of them weak an' shaky spells. He cried an' he wanted some of usto get the Isbels to call off the fightin'.... He shore was ready tocall it quits. I reckon the killin' of Daggs--an' then the awful wayGreaves 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 heahcountry--an' begin life all over again--where no one knows us.'"
"Oh, did he really say that? ... Did he--really mean it?" murmuredEllen, 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' beganto shoot. They smashed in the door--tried to burn us out--an' holleredaround for a while. Then they left an' we reckoned there'd be no moretrouble that night. All the same we kept watch. I was the soberestone 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' heplanned to send word to the Isbels next mawnin' that he was ready for atruce. An' I was to go fix it up with Gaston Isbel. Wal, your dad wentto bed in Greaves's room, an' a little while later your uncle Jacksonwent in there, too. Some of the men laid down in the store an' went tosleep. I kept guard till aboot three in the mawnin'. An' I got sosleepy I couldn't hold my eyes open. So I waked up Wells an' Slateran' set them on guard, one at each end of the store. Then I laid downon the counter to take a nap."
Colter's low voice, the strain and breathlessness of him, the agitationwith which he appeared to be laboring, and especially the simple,matter-of-fact detail of his story, carried absolute conviction toEllen Jorth. Her vague doubt of him had been created by his attitudetoward her. Emotion dominated her intelligence. The images, thescenes called up by Colter's words, were as true as the gloom of thewild gulch and the loneliness of the night solitude--as true as thestrange fact that she lay passive in the arm of a rustler.
"Wall, after a while I woke up," went on Colter, clearing his throat."It was gray dawn. All was as still as deat
h.... An' somethin' shorewas wrong. Wells an' Slater had got to drinkin' again an' now laiddaid drunk or asleep. Anyways, when I kicked them they never moved.Then I heard a moan. It came from the room where your dad an' unclewas. I went in. It was just light enough to see. Your uncle Jacksonwas layin' on the floor--cut half in two--daid as a door nail.... Yourdad lay on the bed. He was alive, breathin' his last.... He says,'That half-breed Isbel--knifed us--while we slept!' ... The windershutter was open. I seen where Jean Isbel had come in an' gone out. Iseen his moccasin tracks in the dirt outside an' I seen where he'dstepped in Jackson's blood an' tracked it to the winder. Y'u shore cansee them bloody tracks yourself, if y'u go back to Greaves's store....Your dad was goin' fast.... He said, 'Colter--take care of Ellen,' an'I reckon he meant a lot by that. He kept sayin', 'My God! if I'd onlyseen Gaston Isbel before it was too late!' an' then he raved a little,whisperin' out of his haid.... An' after that he died.... I woke up themen, an' aboot sunup we carried your dad an' uncle out of town an'buried them.... An' them Isbels shot at us while we were buryin' ourdaid! That's where Tad got his hurt.... Then we hit the trail forJorth's ranch.... An now, Ellen, that's all my story. Your dad wasready to bury the hatchet with his old enemy. An' that Nez Perce JeanIsbel, like the sneakin' savage he is, murdered your uncle an' yourdad.... Cut him horrible--made him suffer tortures of hell--all forIsbel revenge!"
When Colter's husky voice ceased Ellen whispered through lips as coldand still as ice, "Let me go ... leave me--heah--alone!"
"Why, shore! I reckon I understand," replied Colter. "I hated to telly'u. But y'u had to heah the truth aboot that half-breed.... I'llcarry your pack in the cabin an' unroll your blankets."
Releasing her, Colter strode off in the gloom. Like a dead weight,Ellen began to slide until she slipped down full length beside the log.And then she lay in the cool, damp shadow, inert and lifeless so far asoutward physical movement was concerned. She saw nothing and feltnothing of the night, the wind, the cold, the falling dew. For themoment or hour she was crushed by despair, and seemed to see herselfsinking down and down into a black, bottomless pit, into an abyss wheremurky tides of blood and furious gusts of passion contended between herbody and her soul. Into the stormy blast of hell! In her despair shelonged, she ached for death. Born of infidelity, cursed by a taint ofevil blood, further cursed by higher instinct for good and happy life,dragged from one lonely and wild and sordid spot to another, neverknowing love or peace or joy or home, left to the companionship ofviolent and vile men, driven by a strange fate to love withunquenchable and insupportable love a' half-breed, a savage, an Isbel,the hereditary enemy of her people, and at last the ruthless murdererof her father--what in the name of God had she left to live for?Revenge! An eye for an eye! A life for a life! But she could notkill Jean Isbel. Woman's love could turn to hate, but not the love ofEllen Jorth. He could drag her by the hair in the dust, beat her, andmake her a thing to loathe, and cut her mortally in his savage andimplacable thirst for revenge--but with her last gasp she would whispershe loved him and that she had lied to him to kill his faith. It wasthat--his strange faith in her purity--which had won her love. Of allmen, that he should be the one to recognize the truth of her, thewomanhood yet unsullied--how strange, how terrible, how overpowering!False, indeed, was she to the Jorths! False as her mother had been toan Isbel! This agony and destruction of her soul was the bitter DeadSea fruit--the sins of her parents visited upon her.
"I'll end it all," she whispered to the night shadows that hovered overher. No coward was she--no fear of pain or mangled flesh or death orthe mysterious hereafter could ever stay her. It would be easy, itwould be a last thrill, a transport of self-abasement and supremeself-proof of her love for Jean Isbel to kiss the Rim rock where hisfeet had trod and then fling herself down into the depths. She was thelast Jorth. So the wronged Isbels would be avenged.
"But he would never know--never know--I lied to him!" she wailed to thenight wind.
She was lost--lost on earth and to hope of heaven. She had rightneither to live nor to die. She was nothing but a little weed alongthe trail of life, trampled upon, buried in the mud. She was nothingbut a single rotten thread in a tangled web of love and hate andrevenge. And she had broken.
Lower and lower she seemed to sink. Was there no end to this gulf ofdespair? If Colter had returned he would have found her a rag and atoy--a creature degraded, fit for his vile embrace. To be thrustdeeper into the mire--to be punished fittingly for her betrayal of aman's noble love and her own womanhood--to be made an end of, body,mind, and soul.
But Colter did not return.
The wind mourned, the owls hooted, the leaves rustled, the insectswhispered their melancholy night song, the camp-fire flickered andfaded. Then the wild forestland seemed to close imponderably overEllen. All that she wailed in her despair, all that she confessed inher abasement, was true, and hard as life could be--but she belonged tonature. If nature had not failed her, had God failed her? It wasthere--the lonely land of tree and fern and flower and brook, full ofwild birds and beasts, where the mossy rocks could speak and thesolitude had ears, where she had always felt herself unutterably a partof creation. Thus a wavering spark of hope quivered through theblackness of her soul and gathered light.
The gloom of the sky, the shifting clouds of dull shade, split asunderto show a glimpse of a radiant star, piercingly white, cold, pure, asteadfast eye of the universe, beyond all understanding and illimitablewith its meaning of the past and the present and the future. Ellenwatched it until the drifting clouds once more hid it from her strainedsight.
What had that star to do with hell? She might be crushed and destroyedby life, but was there not something beyond? Just to be born, just tosuffer, just to die--could that be all? Despair did not loose its holdon Ellen, the strife and pang of her breast did not subside. But withthe long hours and the strange closing in of the forest around her andthe fleeting glimpse of that wonderful star, with a subtle divinationof the meaning of her beating heart and throbbing mind, and, lastly,with a voice thundering at her conscience that a man's faith in a womanmust not be greater, nobler, than her faith in God and eternity--withthese she checked the dark flight of her soul toward destruction.