ver the counter. Wipin' the blood off his hands, he throwed his
kerchief down in Bruce's face. Bruce wasn't dead or bad hurt. He'd
jest been beaten bad. He was moanin' an' slobberin'. Isbel kicked him,
not hard, but jest sort of disgustful. Then he faced thet crowd.
'Greaves, thet's what I think of your Simm Bruce. Tell him next time
he sees me to run or pull a gun.' An' then Isbel grabbed his rifle an'
package off the counter an' went out. He didn't even look back. I
seen him nount his horse an' ride away.... Now, girl, what hev you to
say?"

Ellen could only say good-by and the word was so low as to be almost
inaudible. She ran to her burro. She could not see very clearly
through tear-blurred eyes, and her shaking fingers were all thumbs. It
seemed she had to rush away--somewhere, anywhere--not to get away from
old John Sprague, but from herself--this palpitating, bursting self
whose feet stumbled down the trail. All--all seemed ended for her.
That interminable story! It had taken so long. And every minute of it
she had been helplessly torn asunder by feelings she had never known
she possessed. This Ellen Jorth was an unknown creature. She sobbed
now as she dragged the burro down the canyon trail. She sat down only
to rise. She hurried only to stop. Driven, pursued, barred, she had
no way to escape the flaying thoughts, no time or will to repudiate
them. The death of her girlhood, the rending aside of a veil of maiden
mystery only vaguely instinctively guessed, the barren, sordid truth of
her life as seen by her enlightened eyes, the bitter realization of the
vileness of men of her clan in contrast to the manliness and chivalry
of an enemy, the hard facts of unalterable repute as created by slander
and fostered by low minds, all these were forces in a cataclysm that
had suddenly caught her heart and whirled her through changes immense
and agonizing, to bring her face to face with reality, to force upon
her suspicion and doubt of all she had trusted, to warn her of the
dark, impending horror of a tragic bloody feud, and lastly to teach her
the supreme truth at once so glorious and so terrible--that she could
not escape the doom of womanhood.

About noon that day Ellen Jorth arrived at the Knoll, which was the
location of her father's ranch. Three canyons met there to form a
larger one. The knoll was a symmetrical hill situated at the mouth of
the three canyons. It was covered with brush and ceda