The old man nodded moodily. He had aged considerably during these two trying days. His hair was grayer. Now that the blaze and glow of the fight had passed he showed a subtle change, a fixed and morbid sadness, a resignation to a fate he had accepted.
The ordinary routine of ranch life did not return for the Isbels.
Blaisdell returned home to settle matters there, so that he could devote all his time to this feud. Gaston Isbel sat down to wait for the members of his clan.
The male members of the family kept guard in turn over the ranch that night. And another day dawned. It brought word from Blaisdell that Blue, Fredericks, Gordon, and Colmor were all at his house, on the way to join the Isbels. This news appeared greatly to rejuvenate Gaston Isbel. But his enthusiasm did not last long. Impatient and moody by turns, he paced or moped around the cabin, always looking out, sometimes toward Blaisdell's ranch, but mostly toward Grass Valley.
It struck Jean as singular that neither Esther Isbel nor Mrs. Jacobs suggested a reburial of their husbands. The two bereaved women did not ask for assistance, but repaired to the pasture, and there spent several hours working over the graves. They raised mounds, which they sodded, and then placed stones at the heads and feet. Lastly, they fenced in the graves.
"I reckon I'll hitch up an' drive back home," said Mrs. Jacobs, when she returned to the cabin. "I've much to do an' plan. Probably I'll go to my mother's home. She's old an' will be glad to have me."
"If I had any place to go to I'd sure go," declared Esther Isbel, bitterly.
Gaston Isbel heard this remark. He raised his face from his hands, evidently both nettled and hurt.
"Esther, shore that's not kind," he said.
The red-haired woman--for she did not appear to be a girl any more--halted before his chair and gazed down at him, with a terrible flare of scorn in her gray eyes.
"Gaston Isbel, all I've got to say to you is this," she retorted, with the voice of a man. "Seein' that you an' Lee Jorth hate each other, why couldn't you act like men? . . . You damned Texans, with your bloody feuds, draggin' in every relation, every friend to murder each other!
That's not the way of Arizona men. . . . We've all got to suffer--an' we women be ruined for life--because YOU had differences with Jorth.
If you were half a man you'd go out an' kill him yourself, an' not leave a lot of widows an' orphaned children!"
Jean himself writhed under the lash of her scorn. Gaston Isbel turned a dead white. He could not. answer her. He seemed stricken with merciless truth. Slowly dropping his head, he remained motionless, a pathetic and tragic figure; and he did not stir until the rapid beat of hoofs denoted the approach of horsemen. Blaisdell appeared on his white charger, leading a pack animal. And behind rode a group of men, all heavily armed, and likewise with packs.
"Get down an' come in," was Isbel's greeting. "Bill--you look after their packs. Better leave the hosses saddled."
The booted and spurred riders trooped in, and their demeanor fitted their errand. Jean was acquainted with all of them. Fredericks was a lanky Texan, the color of dust, and he had yellow, clear eyes, like those of a hawk. His mother had been an Isbel. Gordon, too, was related to Jean's family, though distantly. He resembled an industrious miner more than a prosperous cattleman. Blue was the most striking of the visitors, as he was the most noted. A little, shrunken gray-eyed man, with years of cowboy written all over him, he looked the quiet, easy, cool, and deadly Texan he was reputed to be. Blue's Texas record was shady, and was seldom alluded to, as unfavorable comment had turned out to be hazardous. He was the only one of the group who did not carry a rifle. But he packed two guns, a habit not often noted in Texans, and almost never in Arizonians.
Colmor, Ann Isbel's fiance, was the youngest member of the clan, and the one closest to Jean. His meeting with Ann affected Jean powerfully, and brought to a climax an idea that had been developing in Jean's mind.
His sister devotedly loved this lean-faced, keen-eyed Arizonian; and it took no great insight to discover that Colmor reciprocated her affection.
They were young. They had long life before them. It seemed to Jean a pity that Colmor should be drawn into this war. Jean watched them, as they conversed apart; and he saw Ann's hands creep up to Colmor's breast, and he saw her dark eyes, eloquent, hungry, fearful, lifted with queries her lips did not speak. Jean stepped beside them, and laid an arm over both their shoulders.
"Colmor, for Ann's sake you'd better back out of this Jorth-Isbel fight," he whispered.
Colmor looked insulted. "But, Jean, it's Ann's father," he said.
"I'm almost one of the family."
"You're Ann's sweetheart, an', by Heaven, I say you oughtn't to go with us!" whispered Jean.
"Go--with--you," faltered Ann.
"Yes. Dad is goin' straight after Jorth. Can't you tell that? An' there 'll be one hell of a fight."
Ann looked up into Colmor's face with all her soul in her eyes, but she did not speak. Her look was noble. She yearned to guide him right, yet her lips were sealed. And Colmor betrayed the trouble of his soul.
The code of men held him bound, and he could not break from it, though he divined in that moment how truly it was wrong.
"Jean, your dad started me in the cattle business," said Colmor, earnestly. "An' I'm doin' well now. An' when I asked him for Ann he said he'd be glad to have me in the family. . . . Well, when this talk of fight come up, I asked your dad to let me go in on his side.
He wouldn't hear of it. But after a while, as the time passed an' he made more enemies, he finally consented. I reckon he needs me now.
An' I can't back out, not even for Ann."
"I would if I were you," replied jean, and knew that he lied.
"Jean, I'm gamblin' to come out of the fight," said Colmor, with a smile.
He had no morbid fears nor presentiments, such as troubled jean.
"Why, sure--you stand as good a chance as anyone," rejoined Jean.
"It wasn't that I was worryin' about so much."
