To The Last Man

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A hand clutched his arm--a shaking woman's hand, slim and hard
and tense.

"Bill's--killed!" whispered a broken voice. "I was watchin'.
. . . They're both dead!"

The wives of Jacobs and Guy Isbel had slipped up behind Jean and
from behind him they had seen the tragedy.

"I asked Bill--not to--go," faltered the Jacobs woman, and, covering
her face with her hands, she groped back to the comer of the cabin,
where the other women, shaking and white, received her in their arms.
Guy Isbel's wife stood at the window, peering over Jean's shoulder.
She had the nerve of a man. She had looked out upon death before.

"Yes, they're dead," she said, bitterly. "An' how are we goin' to
get their bodies?"

At this Gaston Isbel seemed to rouse from the cold spell that had
transfixed him.

"God, this is hell for our women," he cried out, hoarsely. My son--
my son! . . . Murdered by the Jorths!" Then he swore a terrible oath.

Jean saw the remainder of the mounted rustlers get off, and then, all
of them leading their horses, they began to move around to the left.

"Dad, they're movin' round," said Jean.

"Up to some trick," declared Bill Isbel.

"Bill, you make a hole through the back wall, say aboot the fifth
log up," ordered the father. "Shore we've got to look out."

The elder son grasped a tool and, scattering the children, who had
been playing near the back corner, he began to work at the point
designated. The little children backed away with fixed, wondering,
grave eyes. The women moved their chairs, and huddled together as
if waiting and listening.

Jean watched the rustlers until they passed out of his sight. They
had moved toward the sloping, brushy ground to the north and west of
the cabins.

"Let me know when you get a hole in the back wall," said Jean, and he
went through the kitchen and cautiously out another door to slip into
a low-roofed, shed-like end of the rambling cabin. This small space
was used to store winter firewood. The chinks between the walls had
not been filled with adobe clay, and he could see out on three sides.
The rustlers were going into the juniper brush. They moved out of
sight, and presently reappeared without their horses. It looked to
Jean as if they intended to attack the cabins. Then they halted at
the edge of the brush and held a long consultation. Jean could see
them distinctly, though they were too far distant for him to recognize
any particular man. One of them, however, stood and moved apart from
the closely massed group. Evidently, from his strides and gestures,
he was exhorting his listeners. Jean concluded this was either Daggs
or Jorth. Whoever it was had a loud, coarse voice, and this and his
actions impressed Jean with a suspicion that the man was under the
influence of the bottle.

Presently Bill Isbel called Jean in a low voice. "Jean, I got the
hole made, but we can't see anyone."

"I see them," Jean replied. "They're havin' a powwow. Looks to me
like either Jorth or Daggs is drunk. He's arguin' to charge us, an'
the rest of the gang are holdin' back. . . . Tell dad, an' all of you
keep watchin'. I'll let you know when they make a move."

Jorth's gang appeared to be in no hurry to expose their plan of battle.
Gradually the group disintegrated a little; some of them sat down;
others walked to and fro. Presently two of them went into the brush,
probably back to the horses. In a few moments they reappeared, carrying
a pack. And when this was deposited on the ground all the rustlers sat
down around it. They had brought food and drink. Jean had to utter a
grim laugh at their coolness; and he was reminded of many dare-devil
deeds known to have been perpetrated by the Hash Knife Gang. Jean was
glad of a reprieve. The longer the rustlers put off an attack the more
time the allies of the Isbels would have to get here. Rather hazardous,
however, would it be now for anyone to attempt to get to the Isbel cabins
in the daytime. Night would be more favorable.

Twice Bill Isbel came through the kitchen to whisper to Jean. The strain
in the large room, from which the rustlers could not be seen, must have
been great. Jean told him all he had seen and what he thought about it.
"Eatin' an' drinkin'!" ejaculated Bill. "Well, I'll be--! That 'll jar
the old man. He wants to get the fight over.

"Tell him I said it'll be over too quick--for us--unless are mighty
careful," replied Jean, sharply.

Bill went back muttering to himself. Then followed a long wait, fraught
with suspense, during which Jean watched the rustlers regale themselves.
The day was hot and still. And the unnatural silence of the cabin was
broken now and then by the gay laughter of the children. The sound
shocked and haunted Jean. Playing children! Then another sound, so
faint he had to strain to hear it, disturbed and saddened him--his
father's slow tread up and down the cabin floor, to and fro, to and fro.
What must be in his father's heart this day!

At length the rustlers rose and, with rifles in hand, they moved as
one man down the slope. They came several hundred yards closer, until
Jean, grimly cocking his rifle, muttered to himself that a few more rods
closer would mean the end of several of that gang. They knew the range
of a rifle well enough, and once more sheered off at right angles with
the cabin. When they got even with the line of corrals they stooped
down and were lost to Jean's sight. This fact caused him alarm.
They were, of course, crawling up on the cabins. At the end of that
line of corrals ran a ditch, the bank of which was high enough to
afford cover. Moreover, it ran along in front of the cabins, scarcely
a hundred yards, and it was covered with grass and little clumps of
brush, from behind which the rustlers could fire into the windows and
through the clay chinks without any considerable risk to themselves.
As they did not come into sight again, Jean concluded he had discovered
their plan. Still, he waited awhile longer, until he saw faint, little
clouds of dust rising from behind the far end of the embankment. That
discovery made him rush out, and through the kitchen to the large cabin,
where his sudden appearance startled the men.

"Get back out of sight!" he ordered, sharply, and with swift steps he
reached the door and closed it. "They're behind the bank out there by
the corrals. An' they're goin' to crawl down the ditch closer to us.
. . . It looks bad. They'll have grass an' brush to shoot from.
We've got to be mighty careful how we peep out."

"Ahuh! All right," replied his father. "You women keep the kids with
you in that corner. An' you all better lay down flat."

Blaisdell, Bill Isbel, and the old man crouched at the large window,
peeping through cracks in the rough edges of the logs. Jean took his
post beside the small window, with his keen eyes vibrating like a
compass needle. The movement of a blade of grass, the flight of a
grasshopper could not escape his trained sight.

"Look sharp now!" he called to the other men. "I see dust. . . .
They're workin' along almost to that bare spot on the bank. . . .
I saw the tip of a rifle . . . a black hat . . . more dust. They're
spreadin' along behind the bank."

Loud voices, and then thick clouds of yellow dust, coming from behind
the highest and brushiest line of the embankment, attested to the truth
of Jean's observation, and also to a reckless disregard of danger.

Suddenly Jean caught a glint of moving color through the fringe of
brush. Instantly he was strung like a whipcord.

Then a tall, hatless and coatless man stepped up in plain sight.
The sun shone on his fair, ruffled hair. Daggs!

Hey, you -- --Isbels!" he bawled, in magnificent derisive boldness.
"Come out an' fight!"

Quick as lightning Jean threw up his rifle and fired. He saw tufts
of fair hair fly from Daggs's head. He saw the squirt of red blood.
Then quick shots from his, comrades rang out. They all hit the swaying
body of the rustler. But Jean knew with a terrible thrill that his
bullet had killed Daggs before the other three struck. Daggs fell
forward, his arms and half his body resting over, the embankment.
Then the rustlers dragged him back out of sight. Hoarse shouts rose.
A cloud of yellow dust drifted away from the spot.

"Daggs!" burst out Gaston Isbel. "Jean, you knocked off the top of
his haid. I seen that when I was pullin' trigger. Shore we over
heah wasted our shots."

"God! he must have been crazy or drunk--to pop up there--an' brace us
that way," said Blaisdell, breathing hard.

"Arizona is bad for Texans," replied Isbel, sardonically. "Shore it's
been too peaceful heah. Rustlers have no practice at fightin'. An' I
reckon Daggs forgot."

"Daggs made as crazy a move as that of Guy an' Jacobs," spoke up Jean.
"They were overbold, an' he was drunk. Let them be a lesson to us."

Jean had smelled whisky upon his entrance to this cabin. Bill was a
hard drinker, and his father was not immune. Blaisdell, too, drank
heavily upon occasions. Jean made a mental note that he would not
permit their chances to become impaired by liquor.

Rifles began to crack, and puffs of smoke rose all along the embankment
for the space of a hundred feet. Bullets whistled through the rude
window casing and spattered on the heavy door, and one split the clay
between the logs before Jean, narrowly missing him. Another volley
followed, then another. The rustlers had repeating rifles and they
were emptying their magazines. Jean changed his position. The other
men profited by his wise move. The volleys had merged into one
continuous rattling roar of rifle shots. Then came a sudden cessation
of reports, with silence of relief. The cabin was full of dust, mingled
with the smoke from the shots of Jean and his companions. Jean heard
the stifled breaths of the children. Evidently they were terror-stricken,
but they did not cry out. The women uttered no sound.

A loud voice pealed from behind the embankment.

"Come out an' fight! Do you Isbels want to be killed like sheep?"

This sally gained no reply. Jean returned to his post by the window and his comrades followed his example. And they exercised
extreme caution when they peeped out.

"Boys, don't shoot till you see one," said Gaston Isbel. "Maybe after
a while they'll get careless. But Jorth will never show himself."

The rustlers did not again resort to volleys. One by one, from
different angles, they began to shoot, and they were not firing at
random. A few bullets came straight in at the windows to pat into
the walls; a few others ticked and splintered the edges of the windows;
and most of them broke through the clay chinks between the logs. It
dawned upon Jean that these dangerous shots were not accident. They
were well aimed, and most of them hit low down. The cunning rustlers
had some unerring riflemen and they were picking out the vulnerable
places all along the front of the cabin. If Jean had not been lying
flat he would have been hit twice. Presently he conceived the idea
of driving pegs between the logs, high up, and, kneeling on these, he
managed to peep out from the upper edge of the window. But this
position was awkward and difficult to hold for long.

He heard a bullet hit one of his comrades. Whoever had been struck
never uttered a sound. Jean turned to look. Bill Isbel was holding
his shoulder, where red splotches appeared on his shirt. He shook his
head at Jean, evidently to make light of the wound. The women and
children were lying face down and could not see what was happening.
Plain is was that Bill did not want them to know. Blaisdell bound
up the bloody shoulder with a scarf.

Steady firing from the rustlers went on, at the rate of one shot every
few minutes. The Isbels did not return these. Jean did not fire again
that afternoon. Toward sunset, when the besiegers appeared to grow
restless or careless, Blaisdell fired at something moving behind the
brush; and Gaston Isbel's huge buffalo gun boomed out.

"Wal, what 're they goin' to do after dark, an' what 're WE goin'
to do?" grumbled Blaisdell.

"Reckon they'll never charge us," said Gaston.

"They might set fire to the cabins," added Bill Isbel. He appeared
to be the gloomiest of the Isbel faction. There was something on
his mind.

"Wal, the Jorths are bad, but I reckon they'd not burn us alive,"
replied Blaisdell.

"Hah!" ejaculated Gaston Isbel. "Much you know aboot Lee Jorth.
He would skin me alive an' throw red-hot coals on my raw flesh."

So they talked during the hour from sunset to dark. Jean Isbel had
little to say. He was revolving possibilities in his mind. Darkness
brought a change in the attack of the rustlers. They stationed men at
four points around the cabins; and every few minutes one of these
outposts would fire. These bullets embedded themselves in the logs,
causing but little anxiety to the Isbels.

"Jean, what you make of it?" asked the old rancher.

"Looks to me this way," replied Jean. "They're set for a long fight.
They're shootin' just to let us know they're on the watch."

"Ahuh! Wal, what 're you goin' to do aboot it?"

"I'm goin' out there presently. "

Gaston Isbel grunted his satisfaction at this intention of Jean's.

All was pitch dark inside the cabin. The women had water and food
at hand. Jean kept a sharp lookout from his window while he ate his
supper of meat, bread, and milk. At last the children, worn out by
the long day, fell asleep. The women whispered a little in their corner.

About nine o'clock Jean signified his intention of going out to
reconnoitre.

"Dad, they've got the best of us in the daytime," he said,
"but not after dark."

Jean buckled on a belt that carried shells, a bowie knife, and revolver,
and with rifle in hand he went out through the kitchen to the yard.
The night was darker than usual, as some of the stars were hidden by
clouds. He leaned against the log cabin, waiting for his eyes to
become perfectly adjusted to the darkness. Like an Indian, Jean could
see well at night. He knew every point around cabins and sheds and
corrals, every post, log, tree, rock, adjacent to the ranch. After
perhaps a quarter of an hour watching, during which time several shots
were fired from behind the embankment and one each from the rustlers
at the other locations, Jean slipped out on his quest.

He kept in the shadow of the cabin walls, then the line of orchard
trees, then a row of currant bushes. Here, crouching low, he halted
to look and listen. He was now at the edge of the open ground, with
the gently rising slope before him. He could see the dark patches of
cedar and juniper trees. On the north side of the cabin a streak of
fire flashed in the blackness, and a shot rang out. Jean heard the
bullet bit the cabin. Then silence enfolded the lonely ranch and the
darkness lay like a black blanket. A low hum of insects pervaded the
air. Dull sheets of lightning illumined the dark horizon to the south.
Once Jean heard voices, but could not tell from which direction they
came. To the west of him then flared out another rifle shot. The
bullet whistled down over Jean to thud into the cabin.

Jean made a careful study of the obscure, gray-black open before him
and then the background to his rear. So long as he kept the dense
shadows behind him he could not be seen. He slipped from behind his
covert and, gliding with absolutely noiseless footsteps, he gained the
first clump of junipers. Here he waited patiently and motionlessly for
another round of shots from the rustlers. After the second shot from
the west side Jean sheered off to the right. Patches of brush, clumps
of juniper, and isolated cedars covered this slope, affording Jean a
perfect means for his purpose, which was to make a detour and come up
behind the rustler who was firing from that side. Jean climbed to the
top of the ridge, descended the opposite slope, made his turn to the
left, and slowly worked. up behind the point near where he expected to
locate the rustler. Long habit in the open, by day and night, rendered
his sense of direction almost as perfect as sight itself. The first
flash of fire he saw from this side proved that he had come straight
up toward his man. Jean's intention was to crawl up on this one of
the Jorth gang and silently kill him with a knife. If the plan worked
successfully, Jean meant to work round to the next rustler. Laying
aside his rifle, he crawled forward on hands and knees, making no
more sound than a cat. His approach was slow. He had to pick his
way, be careful not to break twigs nor rattle stones. His buckskin
garments made no sound against the brush. Jean located the rustler
sitting on the top of the ridge in the center of an open space.
He was alone. Jean saw the dull-red end of the cigarette he was
smoking. The ground on the ridge top was rocky and not well adapted
for Jean's purpose. He had to abandon the idea of crawling up on the
rustler. Whereupon, Jean turned back, patiently and slowly, to get
his rifle.

Upon securing it he began to retrace his course, this time more slowly
than before, as he was hampered by the rifle. But he did not make the
slightest sound, and at length he reached the edge of the open ridge
top, once more to espy the dark form of the rustler silhouetted against
the sky. The distance was not more than fifty yards.

As Jean rose to his knee and carefully lifted his rifle round to avoid
the twigs of a juniper he suddenly experienced another emotion besides
the one of grim, hard wrath at the Jorths. It was an emotion that
sickened him, made him weak internally, a cold, shaking, ungovernable
sensation. Suppose this man was Ellen Jorth's father! Jean lowered
the rifle. He felt it shake over his knee. He was trembling all over.
The astounding discovery that he did not want to kill Ellen's father--
that he could not do it--awakened Jean to the despairing nature of his
love for her. In this grim moment of indecision, when he knew his
Indian subtlety and ability gave him a great advantage over the Jorths,
he fully realized his strange, hopeless, and irresistible love for the
girl. He made no attempt to deny it any longer. Like the night and
the lonely wilderness around him, like the inevitableness of this
Jorth-Isbel feud, this love of his was a thing, a fact, a reality.
He breathed to his own inward ear, to his soul--he could not kill
Ellen Jorth's father. Feud or no feud, Isbel or not, he could not
deliberately do it. And why not? There was no answer. Was he not
faithless to his father? He had no hope of ever winning Ellen Jorth.
He did not want the love of a girl of her character. But he loved her.
And his struggle must be against the insidious and mysterious growth
of that passion. It swayed him already. It made him a coward.
Through his mind and heart swept the memory of Ellen Jorth, her beauty
and charm, her boldness and pathos, her shame and her degradation.
And the sweetness of her outweighed the boldness. And the mystery of
her arrayed itself in unquenchable protest against her acknowledged
shame. Jean lifted his face to the heavens, to the pitiless white
stars, to the infinite depths of the dark-blue sky. He could sense
the fact of his being an atom in the universe of nature. What was he,
what was his revengeful father, what were hate and passion and strife
in comparison to the nameless something, immense and everlasting, that
he sensed in this dark moment?

But the rustlers--Daggs--the Jorths--they had killed his brother Guy--
murdered him brutally and ruthlessly. Guy had been a playmate of Jean's
--a favorite brother. Bill had been secretive and selfish. Jean had
never loved him as he did Guy. Guy lay dead down there on the meadow.
This feud had begun to run its bloody course. Jean steeled his nerve.
The hot blood crept back along his veins. The dark and masterful tide
of revenge waved over him. The keen edge of his mind then cut out sharp
and trenchant thoughts. He must kill when and where he could. This man
could hardly be Ellen Jorth's father. Jorth would be with the main
crowd, directing hostilities. Jean could shoot this rustler guard
and his shot would be taken by the gang as the regular one from their
comrade. Then swiftly Jean leveled his rifle, covered the dark form,
grew cold and set, and pressed the trigger. After the report he rose
and wheeled away. He did not look nor listen for the result of his
shot. A clammy sweat wet his face, the hollow of his hands, his breast.
A horrible, leaden, thick sensation oppressed his heart. Nature had
endowed him with Indian gifts, but the exercise of them to this end
caused a revolt in his soul.

Nevertheless, it was the Isbel blood that dominated him. The wind blew
cool on his face. The burden upon his shoulders seemed to lift. The
clamoring whispers grew fainter in his ears. And by the time he had
retraced his cautious steps back to the orchard all his physical being
was strung to the task at hand. Something had come between his
reflective self and this man of action.

Crossing the lane, he took to the west line of sheds, and passed beyond
them into the meadow. In the grass he crawled silently away to the
right, using the same precaution that had actuated him on the slope,
only here he did not pause so often, nor move so slowly. Jean aimed
to go far enough to the right to pass the end of the embankment behind
which the rustlers had found such efficient cover. This ditch had
been made to keep water, during spring thaws and summer storms, from
pouring off the slope to flood the corrals.

Jean miscalculated and found he had come upon the embankment somewhat
to the left of the end, which fact, however, caused him no uneasiness.
He lay there awhile to listen. Again he heard voices. After a time
a shot pealed out. He did not see the flash, but he calculated that
it had come from the north side of the cabins.

The next quarter of an hour discovered to Jean that the nearest guard
was firing from the top of the embankment, perhaps a hundred yards
distant, and a second one was performing the same office from a point
apparently only a few yards farther on. Two rustlers close together!
Jean had not calculated upon that. For a little while he pondered on
what was best to do, and at length decided to crawl round behind them,
and as close as the situation made advisable.

He found the ditch behind the embankment a favorable path by which to
stalk these enemies. It was dry and sandy, with borders of high weeds.
The only drawback was that it was almost impossible for him to keep
from brushing against the dry, invisible branches of the weeds. To
offset this he wormed his way like a snail, inch by inch, taking a
long time before he caught sight of the sitting figure of a man, black
against the dark-blue sky. This rustler had fired his rifle three
times during Jean's slow approach. Jean watched and listened a few
moments, then wormed himself closer and closer, until the man was
within twenty steps of him.

Jean smelled tobacco smoke, but could see no light of pipe or cigarette,
because the fellow's back was turned.

"Say, Ben," said this man to his companion sitting hunched up a few
yards distant, "shore it strikes me queer thet Somers ain't shootin'
any over thar."

Jean recognized the dry, drawling voice of Greaves, and the shock of
it seemed to contract the muscles of his whole thrilling body, like
that of a panther about to spring.

CHAPTER VIII

Was shore thinkin' thet same," said the other man. "An', say, didn't
thet last shot sound too sharp fer Somers's forty-five?"

"Come to think of it, I reckon it did," replied Greaves.

"Wal, I'll go around over thar an' see."

The dark form of the rustler slipped out of sight over the embankment.

"Better go slow an' careful," warned Greaves. "An' only go close
enough to call Somers. . . . Mebbe thet damn half-breed Isbel is
comin' some Injun on us."

Jean heard the soft swish of footsteps through wet grass. Then all
was still. He lay flat, with his cheek on the sand, and he had to
look ahead and upward to make out the dark figure of Greaves on the
bank. One way or another he meant to kill Greaves, and he had the
will power to resist the strongest gust of passion that had ever
stormed his breast. If he arose and shot the rustler, that act would
defeat his plan of slipping on around upon the other outposts who were
firing at the cabins. Jean wanted to call softly to Greaves, "You're
right about the half-breed!" and then, as he wheeled aghast, to kill him
as he moved. But it suited Jean to risk leaping upon the man. Jean did
not waste time in trying to understand the strange, deadly instinct that
gripped him at the moment. But he realized then he had chosen the most
perilous plan to get rid of Greaves.

Jean drew a long, deep breath and held it. He let go of his rifle.
He rose, silently as a lifting shadow. He drew the bowie knife.
Then with light, swift bounds he glided up the bank. Greaves must
have heard a rustling--a soft, quick pad of moccasin, for he turned
with a start. And that instant Jean's left arm darted like a striking
snake round Greaves's neck and closed tight and hard. With his right
hand free, holding the knife, Jean might have ended the deadly business
in just one move. But when his bared arm felt the hot, bulging neck
something terrible burst out of the depths of him. To kill this enemy
of his father's was not enough! Physical contact had unleashed the
savage soul of the Indian. Yet there was more, and as Jean gave the
straining body a tremendous jerk backward, he felt the same strange
thrill, the dark joy that he had known when his fist had smashed the
face of Simm Bruce. Greaves had leered--he had corroborated Bruce's
vile insinuation about Ellen Jorth. So it was more than hate that
actuated Jean Isbel.

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