To The Last Man

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"Dad, don't go on so," said Ellen, breaking in upon her father's rant.
"I will be true to y'u--as my mother was. . . . I am a Jorth. Your
place is my place--your fight is my fight. . . . Never speak of the
past to me again. If God spares us through this feud we will go away
and begin all over again, far off where no one ever heard of a Jorth.
. . . If we're not spared we'll at least have had our whack at these
damned Isbels."

CHAPTER VII

During June Jean Isbel did not ride far away from Grass Valley.

Another attempt had been made upon Gaston Isbel's life. Another
cowardly shot had been fired from ambush, this time from a pine
thicket bordering the trail that led to Blaisdell's ranch. Blaisdell
heard this shot, so near his home was it fired. No trace of the hidden
foe could be found. The 'ground all around that vicinity bore a carpet
of pine needles which showed no trace of footprints. The supposition
was that this cowardly attempt had been perpetrated, or certainly
instigated, by the Jorths. But there was no proof. And Gaston Isbel
had other enemies in the Tonto Basin besides the sheep clan. The old
man raged like a lion about this sneaking attack on him. And his friend
Blaisdell urged an immediate gathering of their kin and friends. "Let's
quit ranchin' till this trouble's settled," he declared. "Let's arm an'
ride the trails an' meet these men half-way. . . . It won't help our
side any to wait till you're shot in the back." More than one of
Isbel's supporters offered the same advice.

"No; we'll wait till we know for shore," was the stubborn cattleman's
reply to all these promptings.

"Know! Wal, hell! Didn't Jean find the black hoss up at Jorth's ranch?"
demanded Blaisdell. "What more do we want?"

"Jean couldn't swear Jorth stole the black."

"Wal, by thunder, I can swear to it!" growled Blaisdell. "An' we're
losin' cattle all the time. Who's stealin' 'em?"

"We've always lost cattle ever since we started ranchin' heah."

"Gas, I reckon yu want Jorth to start this fight in the open."

"It'll start soon enough," was Isbel's gloomy reply.

Jean had not failed altogether in his tracking of lost or stolen cattle.
Circumstances had been against him, and there was something baffling
about this rustling. The summer storms set in early, and it had been
his luck to have heavy rains wash out fresh tracks that he might have
followed. The range was large and cattle were everywhere. Sometimes
a loss was not discovered for weeks. Gaston Isbel's sons were now the
only men left to ride the range. Two of his riders had quit because of
the threatened war, and Isbel had let another go. So that Jean did not
often learn that cattle had been stolen until their tracks were old.
Added to that was the fact that this Grass Valley country was covered
with horse tracks and cattle tracks. The rustlers, whoever they were,
had long been at the game, and now that there was reason for them to
show their cunning they did it.

Early in July the hot weather came. Down on the red ridges of the
Tonto it was hot desert. The nights were cool, the early mornings
were pleasant, but the day was something to endure. When the white
cumulus clouds rolled up out of the southwest, growing larger and
thicker and darker, here and there coalescing into a black thundercloud,
Jean welcomed them. He liked to see the gray streamers of rain hanging
down from a canopy of black, and the roar of rain on the trees as it
approached like a trampling army was always welcome. The grassy flats,
the red ridges, the rocky slopes, the thickets of manzanita and scrub
oak and cactus were dusty, glaring, throat-parching places under the
hot summer sun. Jean longed for the cool heights of the Rim, the shady
pines, the dark sweet verdure under the silver spruces, the tinkle and
murmur of the clear rills. He often had another longing, too, which
he bitterly stifled.

Jean's ally, the keen-nosed shepherd clog, had disappeared one day,
and had never returned. Among men at the ranch there was a difference
of opinion as to what had happened to Shepp. The old rancher thought
he had been poisoned or shot; Bill and Guy Isbel believed he had been
stolen by sheep herders, who were always stealing dogs; and Jean
inclined to the conviction that Shepp had gone off with the timber
wolves. The fact was that Shepp did not return, and Jean missed him.

One morning at dawn Jean heard the cattle bellowing and trampling out
in the valley; and upon hurrying to a vantage point he was amazed to
see upward of five hundred steers chasing a lone wolf. Jean's father
had seen such a spectacle as this, but it was a new one for Jean. The
wolf was a big gray and black fellow, rangy and powerful, and until he
got the steers all behind him he was rather hard put to it to keep out
of their way. Probably he had dogged the herd, trying to sneak in
and pull down a yearling, and finally the steers had charged him.
Jean kept along the edge of the valley in the hope they would chase
him within range of a rifle. But the wary wolf saw Jean and sheered
off, gradually drawing away from his pursuers.

Jean returned to the house for his breakfast, and then set off across
the valley. His father owned one small flock of sheep that had not
yet been driven up on the Rim, where all the sheep in the country
were run during the hot, dry summer down on the Tonto. Young Evarts
and a Mexican boy named Bernardino had charge of this flock. The
regular Mexican herder, a man of experience, had given up his job;
and these boys were not equal to the task of risking the sheep up
in the enemies' stronghold.

This flock was known to be grazing in a side draw, well up from
Grass Valley, where the brush afforded some protection from the sun,
and there was good water and a little feed. Before Jean reached his
destination he heard a shot. It was not a rifle shot, which fact
caused Jean a little concern. Evarts and Bernardino had rifles,
but, to his knowledge, no small arms. Jean rode up on one of the
black-brushed conical hills that rose on the south side of Grass Valley,
and from there he took a sharp survey of the country. At first he made
out only cattle, and bare meadowland, and the low encircling ridges and
hills. But presently up toward the head of the valley he descried a
bunch of horsemen riding toward the village. He could not tell their
number. That dark moving mass seemed to Jean to be instinct with life,
mystery, menace. Who were they? It was too far for him to recognize
horses, let alone riders. They were moving fast, too.

Jean watched them out of sight, then turned his horse downhill again,
and rode on his quest. A number of horsemen like that was a very
unusual sight around Grass Valley at any time. What then did it portend
now? Jean experienced a little shock of uneasy dread that was a new
sensation for him. Brooding over this he proceeded on his way, at
length to turn into the draw where the camp of the sheep-herders was
located. Upon coming in sight of it he heard a hoarse shout. Young
Evarts appeared running frantically out of the brush. Jean urged his
horse into a run and soon covered the distance between them. Evarts
appeared beside himself with terror.

"Boy! what's the matter?" queried Jean, as he dismounted, rifle in hand,
peering quickly from Evarts's white face to the camp, and all around.

"Ber-nardino! Ber-nardino!" gasped the boy, wringing his hands and
pointing.

Jean ran the few remaining rods to the sheep camp. He saw the little
teepee, a burned-out fire, a half-finished meal--and then the Mexican
lad lying prone on the ground, dead, with a bullet hole in his ghastly
face. Near him lay an old six-shooter.

"Whose gun is that?" demanded Jean, as he picked it up.

"Ber-nardino's," replied Evarts, huskily. "He--he jest got it--the
other day."

"Did he shoot himself accidentally?"

"Oh no! No! He didn't do it--atall."

"Who did, then?"

"The men--they rode up--a gang-they did it," panted Evarts.

"Did you know who they were?"

"No. I couldn't tell. I saw them comin' an' I was skeered. Bernardino
had gone fer water. I run an' hid in the brush. I wanted to yell, but
they come too close. . . . Then I heerd them talkin'. Bernardino come
back. They 'peared friendly-like. Thet made me raise up, to look.
An' I couldn't see good. I heerd one of them ask Bernardino to let him
see his gun. An' Bernardino handed it over. He looked at the gun an'
haw-hawed, an' flipped it up in the air, an' when it fell back in his
hand it--it went off bang! . . . An' Bernardino dropped. . . . I hid
down close. I was skeered stiff. I heerd them talk more, but not what
they said. Then they rode away. . . . An' I hid there till I seen
y'u comin'."

"Have you got a horse?" queried Jean, sharply.

"No. But I can ride one of Bernardino's burros."

"Get one. Hurry over to Blaisdell. Tell him to send word to Blue and
Gordon and Fredericks to ride like the devil to my father's ranch.
Hurry now!"

Young Evarts ran off without reply. Jean stood looking down at the
limp and pathetic figure of the Mexican boy. "By Heaven!" he exclaimed,
grimly "the Jorth-Isbel war is on! . . . Deliberate, cold-blooded murder!
I'll gamble Daggs did this job. He's been given the leadership. He's
started it. . . . Bernardino, greaser or not, you were a faithful lad,
and you won't go long unavenged."

Jean had no time to spare. Tearing a tarpaulin out of the teepee he
covered the lad with it and then ran for, his horse. Mounting, he
galloped down the draw, over the little red ridges, out into the valley,
where he put his horse to a run.

Action changed the sickening horror that sight of Bernardino had
engendered. Jean even felt a strange, grim relief. The long, dragging
days of waiting were over. Jorth's gang had taken the initiative.
Blood had begun to flow. And it would continue to flow now till the
last man of one faction stood over the dead body of the last man of
the other. Would it be a Jorth or an Isbel? "My instinct was right,"
he muttered, aloud. "That bunch of horses gave me a queer feelin'."
Jean gazed all around the grassy, cattle-dotted valley he was crossing
so swiftly, and toward the village, but he did not see any sign of the
dark group of riders. They had gone on to Greaves's store, there, no
doubt, to drink and to add more enemies of the Isbels to their gang.
Suddenly across Jean's mind flashed a thought of Ellen Jorth. "What
'll become of her? . . . What 'll become of all the women? My sister?
. . . The little ones?"

No one was in sight around the ranch. Never had it appeared more
peaceful and pastoral to Jean. The grazing cattle and horses in the
foreground, the haystack half eaten away, the cows in the fenced
pasture, the column of blue smoke lazily ascending, the cackle of
hens, the solid, well-built cabins--all these seemed to repudiate
Jean's haste and his darkness of mind. This place was, his father's
farm. There was not a cloud in the blue, summer sky.

As Jean galloped up the lane some one saw him from the door, and
then Bill and Guy and their gray-headed father came out upon the porch.
Jean saw how he' waved the womenfolk back, and then strode out into
the lane. Bill and Guy reached his side as Jean pulled his heaving
horse to a halt. They all looked at Jean, swiftly and intently, with
a little, hard, fiery gleam strangely identical in the eyes of each.
Probably before a word was spoken they knew what to expect.

"Wal, you shore was in a hurry," remarked the father.

"What the hell's up?" queried Bill, grimly.

Guy Isbel remained silent and it was he who turned slightly pale.
Jean leaped off his horse.

"Bernardino has just been killed--murdered with his own gun.

Gaston Isbel seemed to exhale a long-dammed, bursting breath that
let his chest sag. A terrible deadly glint, pale and cold as
sunlight on ice, grew slowly to dominate his clear eyes.

"A-huh!" ejaculated Bill Isbel, hoarsely.

Not one of the three men asked who had done the killing. They were
silent a moment, motionless, locked in the secret seclusion of their
own minds. Then they listened with absorption to Jean's brief story.

"Wal, that lets us in," said his father. "I wish we had more time.
Reckon I'd done better to listen to you boys an' have my men close
at hand. Jacobs happened to ride over. That makes five of us besides
the women."

"Aw, dad, you don't reckon they'll round us up heah?" asked Guy Isbel.

"Boys, I always feared they might," replied the old man. "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 the open valley, on the wagon
road to Isbel's ranch. No subterfuge nor secrecy nor sneaking in that
advance! A hot thrill ran over Jean.

"By Heaven! They mean business!" he muttered. Up to the last moment
he had unconsciously hoped Jorth's gang would not come boldly like that.
The verifications of all a Texan's inherited instincts left no doubts,
no hopes, no illusions--only a grim certainty that this was not
conjecture nor probability, but fact. For a moment longer Jean
watched the slowly moving dark patch of horsemen against the green
background, then he hurried back to the ranch. His father saw him
coming--strode out as before.

"Dad--Jorth is comin'," said Jean, huskily. How he hated to be forced
to tell his father that! The boyish love of old had flashed up.

"Whar?" demanded the old man, his eagle gaze sweeping the horizon.

"Down the road from Grass Valley. You can't see from here."

"Wal, come in an' let's get ready."

Isbel's house had not been constructed with the idea of repelling an
attack from a band of Apaches. The long living room of the main cabin
was the one selected for defense and protection. This room had two
windows and a door facing the lane, and a door at each end, one of
which opened into the kitchen and the other into an adjoining and
later-built cabin. The logs of this main cabin were of large size,
and the doors and window coverings were heavy, affording safer
protection from bullets than the other cabins.

When Jean went in he seemed to see a host of white faces lifted to him.
His sister Ann, his two sisters-in-law, the children, all mutely watched
him with eyes that would haunt him.

"Wal, Blaisdell, Jean says Jorth an' his precious gang of rustlers are
on the way heah," announced the rancher.

"Damn me if it's not a bad day fer Lee Jorth! " declared Blaisdell.

"Clear off that table," ordered Isbel, "an' fetch out all the guns
an' shells we got."

Once laid upon the table these presented a formidable arsenal, which
consisted of the three new .44 Winchesters that Jean had brought with
him from the coast; the enormous buffalo, or so-called "needle" gun,
that Gaston Isbel had used for years; a Henry rifle which Blaisdell
had brought, and half a dozen six-shooters. Piles and packages of
ammunition littered the table.

"Sort out these heah shells," said Isbel. "Everybody wants to get
hold of his own."

Jacobs, the neighbor who was present, was a thick-set, bearded man,
rather jovial among those lean-jawed Texans. He carried a .44 rifle
of an old pattern. "Wal, boys, if I'd knowed we was in fer some fun
I'd hev fetched more shells. Only got one magazine full. Mebbe them
new .44's will fit my gun."

It was discovered that the ammunition Jean had brought in quantity
fitted Jacob's rifle, a fact which afforded peculiar satisfaction
to all the men present.

"Wal, shore we're lucky," declared Gaston Isbel.

The women sat apart, in the comer toward the kitchen, and there seemed
to be a strange fascination for them in the talk and action of the men.
The wife of Jacobs was a little woman, with homely face and very bright
eyes. Jean thought she would be a help in that household during the
next doubtful hours.

Every moment Jean would go to the window and peer out down the road.
His companions evidently relied upon him, for no one else looked out.
Now that the suspense of days and weeks was over, these Texans faced
the issue with talk and act not noticeably different from those of
ordinary moments.

At last Jean espied the dark mass of horsemen out in the valley road.
They were close together, walking their mounts, and evidently in earnest
conversation. After several ineffectual attempts Jean counted eleven
horses, every one of which he was sure bore a rider.

"Dad, look out!" called Jean.

Gaston Isbel strode to the door and stood looking, without a word.

The other men crowded to the windows. Blaisdell cursed under his
breath. Jacobs said: "By Golly! Come to pay us a call!" The women
sat motionless, with dark, strained eyes. The children ceased their
play and looked fearfully to their mother.

When just out of rifle shot of the cabins the band of horsemen halted
and lined up in a half circle, all facing the ranch. They were close
enough for Jean to see their gestures, but he could not recognize any
of their faces. It struck him singularly that not one of them wore
a mask.

"Jean, do you know any of them?" asked his father

"No, not yet. They're too far off."

"Dad, I'll get your old telescope," said Guy Isbel, and he ran out
toward the adjoining cabin.

Blaisdell shook his big, hoary head and rumbled out of his bull-like
neck, "Wal, now you're heah, you sheep fellars, what are you goin'
to do aboot it? "

Guy Isbel returned with a yard-long telescope, which he passed to his
father. The old man took it with shaking hands and leveled it.
Suddenly it was as if he had been transfixed; then he lowered the
glass, shaking violently, and his face grew gray with an exceeding
bitter wrath.

"Jorth!" he swore, harshly.

Jean had only to look at his father to know that recognition had been
like a mortal shock. It passed. Again the rancher leveled the glass.

"Wal, Blaisdell, there's our old Texas friend, Daggs," he drawled, dryly.
"An' Greaves, our honest storekeeper of Grass Valley. An' there's
Stonewall Jackson Jorth. An' Tad Jorth, with the same old red nose!
. . . An', say, damn if one of that gang isn't Queen, as bad a gun
fighter as Texas ever bred. Shore I thought he'd been killed in the
Big Bend country. So I heard. . . . An' there's Craig, another
respectable sheepman of Grass Valley. Haw-haw! An', wal, I don't
recognize any more of them."

Jean forthwith took the glass and moved it slowly across the faces of
that group of horsemen. "Simm Bruce," he said, instantly. "I see
Colter. And, yes, Greaves is there. I've seen the man next to him
--face like a ham. . . ."

"Shore that is Craig," interrupted his father.

Jean knew the dark face of Lee Jorth by the resemblance it bore to
Ellen's, and the recognition brought a twinge. He thought, too,
that he could tell the other Jorths. He asked his father to describe
Daggs and then Queen. It was not likely that Jean would fail to know
these several men in the future. Then Blaisdell asked for the telescope
and, when he got through looking and cursing, he passed it on to others,
who, one by one, took a long look, until finally it came back to the
old rancher.

"Wal, Daggs is wavin' his hand heah an' there, like a general aboot
to send out scouts. Haw-haw! . . . An' 'pears to me he's not overlookin'
our hosses. Wal, that's natural for a rustler. He'd have to steal a
hoss or a steer before goin' into a fight or to dinner or to a funeral."

"It 'll be his funeral if he goes to foolin' 'round them hosses,"
declared Guy Isbel, peering anxiously out of the door.

"Wal, son, shore it 'll be somebody's funeral," replied his father.

Jean paid but little heed to the conversation. With sharp eyes fixed
upon the horsemen, he tried to grasp at their intention. Daggs pointed
to the horses in the pasture lot that lay between him and the house.
These animals were the best on the range and belonged mostly to Guy
Isbel, who was the horse fancier and trader of the family. His horses
were his passion.

"Looks like they'd do some horse stealin'," said Jean.

"Lend me that glass," demanded Guy, forcefully. He surveyed the band
of men for a long moment, then he handed the glass back to Jean.

"I'm goin' out there after my bosses," he declared.

"No!" exclaimed his father.

"That gang come to steal an' not to fight. Can't you see that?
If they meant to fight they'd do it. They're out there arguin'
about my hosses."

Guy picked up his rifle. He looked sullenly determined and the gleam
in his eye was one of fearlessness.

"Son, I know Daggs," said his father. "An' I know Jorth. They've come
to kill us. It 'll be shore death for y'u to go out there."

"I'm goin', anyhow. They can't steal my hosses out from under my eyes.
An' they ain't in range."

"Wal, Guy, you ain't goin' alone," spoke up Jacobs, cheerily, as he
came forward.

The red-haired young wife of Guy Isbel showed no change of her grave
face. She had been reared in a stern school. She knew men in times
like these. But Jacobs's wife appealed to him, "Bill, don't risk
your life for a horse or two."

Jacobs laughed and answered, "Not much risk," and went out with Guy.
To Jean their action seemed foolhardy. He kept a keen eye on them
and saw instantly when the band became aware of Guy's and Jacobs's
entrance into the pasture. It took only another second then to realize
that Daggs and Jorth had deadly intent. Jean saw Daggs slip out of his
saddle, rifle in hand. Others of the gang did likewise, until half of
them were dismounted.

"Dad, they're goin' to shoot," called out Jean, sharply. "Yell for
Guy and Jacobs. Make them come back."

The old man shouted; Bill Isbel yelled; Blaisdell lifted his
stentorian voice.

Jean screamed piercingly: "Guy! Run! Run!"

But Guy Isbel and his companion strode on into the pasture, as if they
had not heard, as if no menacing horse thieves were within miles. They
had covered about a quarter of the distance across the pasture, and
were nearing the horses, when Jean saw red flashes and white puffs of
smoke burst out from the front of that dark band of rustlers. Then
followed the sharp, rattling crack of rifles.

Guy Isbel stopped short, and, dropping his gun, he threw up his arms
and fell headlong. Jacobs acted as if he had suddenly encountered an
invisible blow. He had been hit. Turning, he began to run and ran fast
for a few paces. There were more quick, sharp shots. He let go of his
rifle. His running broke. Walking, reeling, staggering, he kept on.
A hoarse cry came from him. Then a single rifle shot pealed out. Jean
heard the bullet strike. Jacobs fell to his knees, then forward on his
face.

Jean Isbel felt himself turned to marble. The suddenness of this
tragedy paralyzed him. His gaze remained riveted on those prostrate
forms.

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