an. "But I never
really believed they'd have the nerve. Shore I ought to have figgered
Daggs better. This heah secret bizness an' shootin' at us from ambush
looked aboot Jorth's size to me. But I reckon now we'll have to fight
without our friends."

"Let them come," said Jean. "I sent for Blaisdell, Blue, Gordon, and
Fredericks. Maybe they'll get here in time. But if they don't it
needn't worry us much. We can hold out here longer than Jorth's gang
can hang around. We'll want plenty of water, wood, and meat in the
house."

"Wal, I'll see to that," rejoined his father. "Jean, you go out close
by, where you can see all around, an' keep watch."

"Who's goin' to tell the women?" asked Guy Isbel.

The silence that momentarily ensued was an eloquent testimony to the
hardest and saddest aspect of this strife between men. The
inevitableness of it in no wise detracted from its sheer uselessness.
Men from time immemorial had hated, and killed one another, always to
the misery and degradation of their women. Old Gaston Isbel showed
this tragic realization in his lined face.

"Wal, boys, I'll tell the women," he said. "Shore you needn't worry
none aboot them. They'll be game."

Jean rode away to an open knoll a short distance from the house, and
here he stationed himself to watch all points. The cedared ridge back
of the ranch was the one approach by which Jorth's gang might come
close without being detected, but even so, Jean could see them and ride
to the house in time to prevent a surprise. The moments dragged by,
and at the end of an hour Jean was in hopes that Blaisdell would soon
come. These hopes were well founded. Presently he heard a clatter of
hoofs on hard ground to the south, and upon wheeling to look he saw the
friendly neighbor coming fast along the road, riding a big white horse.
Blaisdell carried a rifle in his hand, and the sight of him gave Jean a
glow of warmth. He was one of the Texans who would stand by the Isbels
to the last man. Jean watched him ride to the house--watched the
meeting between him and his lifelong friend. There floated out to Jean
old Blaisdell's roar of rage.

Then out on the green of Grass Valley, where a long, swelling plain
swept away toward the village, there appeared a moving dark patch. A
bunch of horses! Jean's body gave a slight start--the shock of sudden
propulsion of blood through all his veins. Those horses bore riders.
They were coming straight down t