he sheepmen; that a bloody war
was sure to come.

"Hah!" exclaimed Jorth, with a stain of red in his sallow cheek.
"Reckon none of that is news to me. I knew all that."

Ellen wondered if he had heard of her meeting with Jean Isbel. If not
he would hear as soon as Simm Bruce and Lorenzo came back. She decided
to forestall them.

"Dad, I met Jean Isbel. He came into my camp. Asked the way to the
Rim. I showed him. We--we talked a little. And shore were gettin'
acquainted when--when he told me who he was. Then I left him--hurried
back to camp."

"Colter met Isbel down in the woods," replied Jorth, ponderingly. "Said
he looked like an Indian--a hard an' slippery customer to reckon with."

"Shore I guess I can indorse what Colter said," returned Ellen, dryly.
She could have laughed aloud at her deceit. Still she had not lied.

"How'd this heah young Isbel strike you?" queried her father, suddenly
glancing up at her.

Ellen felt the slow, sickening, guilty rise of blood in her face. She
was helpless to stop it. But her father evidently never saw it. He was
looking at her without seeing her.

"He--he struck me as different from men heah," she stammered.

"Did Sprague tell you aboot this half-Indian Isbel--aboot his
reputation?"

"Yes."

"Did he look to you like a real woodsman?"

"Indeed he did. He wore buckskin. He stepped quick and soft. He
acted at home in the woods. He had eyes black as night and sharp as
lightnin'. They shore saw about all there was to see."

Jorth chewed at his mustache and lost himself in brooding thought.

"Dad, tell me, is there goin' to be a war?" asked Ellen, presently.

What a red, strange, rolling flash blazed in his eyes! His body jerked.

"Shore. You might as well know."

"Between sheepmen and cattlemen?"

"Yes."

"With y'u, dad, at the haid of one faction and Gaston Isbel the other?"

"Daughter, you have it correct, so far as you go."

"Oh! ... Dad, can't this fight be avoided?"

"You forget you're from Texas," he replied.

"Cain't it be helped?" she repeated, stubbornly.

"No!" he declared, with deep, hoarse passion.

"Why not?"

"Wal, we sheepmen are goin' to run sheep anywhere we like on the range.
An' cattlemen won't stand for that."

"But, dad, it's so foolish," declared Ellen, earnestly. "Y'u sheepmen
do not have to run sheep over the cattle range."

"I reckon we do."

"Dad, that argument doesn't go with me. I know the country. For