come to these parts--an Isbel,
too. Jean Isbel."

"Oh!" exclaimed Ellen, faintly.

"In a barroom full of men--almost all of them in sympathy with the
sheep crowd--most of them on the Jorth side--this Jean Isbel resented
an insult to Ellen Jorth."

"No!" cried Ellen. Something terrible was happening to her mind or her
heart.

"Wal, he sure did," replied the old man, "an' it's goin' to be good fer
you to hear all about it."

CHAPTER V

Old John Sprague launched into his narrative with evident zest.

"I hung round Greaves' store most of two days. An' I heerd a heap.
Some of it was jest plain ole men's gab, but I reckon I got the drift
of things concernin' Grass Valley. Yestiddy mornin' I was packin' my
burros in Greaves' back yard, takin' my time carryin' out supplies from
the store. An' as last when I went in I seen a strange fellar was
thar. Strappin' young man--not so young, either--an' he had on
buckskin. Hair black as my burros, dark face, sharp eyes--you'd took
him fer an Injun. He carried a rifle--one of them new forty-fours--an'
also somethin' wrapped in paper thet he seemed partickler careful
about. He wore a belt round his middle an' thar was a bowie-knife in
it, carried like I've seen scouts an' Injun fighters hev on the
frontier in the 'seventies. That looked queer to me, an' I reckon to
the rest of the crowd thar. No one overlooked the big six-shooter he
packed Texas fashion. Wal, I didn't hev no idee this fellar was an
Isbel until I heard Greaves call him thet.

"'Isbel,' said Greaves, 'reckon your money's counterfeit hyar. I cain't
sell you anythin'.'

"'Counterfeit? Not much,' spoke up the young fellar, an' he flipped
some gold twenties on the bar, where they rung like bells. 'Why not?
Ain't this a store? I want a cinch strap.'

"Greaves looked particular sour thet mornin'. I'd been watchin' him
fer two days. He hedn't hed much sleep, fer I hed my bed back of the
store, an' I heerd men come in the night an' hev long confabs with him.
Whatever was in the wind hedn't pleased him none. An' I calkilated
thet young Isbel wasn't a sight good fer Greaves' sore eyes, anyway.
But he paid no more attention to Isbel. Acted jest as if he hedn't
heerd Isbel say he wanted a cinch strap.

"I stayed inside the store then. Thar was a lot of fellars I'd seen,
an' some I knowed. Couple of card games goin', an' drinkin', of
course. I soon gathered thet the general atmosphere wasn't friendl