And whatever was the truth of Ellen Jorth in this moment, beyond Colter's gloomy and stunted intelligence, beyond even the love of Jean Isbel, it was something that held the balance of mastery. She read Colter's mind. She dropped the torn blouse from her hand and stood there, unashamed, with the wave of her white breast pulsing, eyes black as night and full of h.e.l.l, her face white, tragic, terrible, yet strangely lovely.

"Take me away," she whispered, stretching one white arm toward him, then the other.

Colter, even as she moved, had leaped with inarticulate cry and radiant face to meet her embrace. But it seemed, just as her left arm flashed up toward his neck, that he saw her b.l.o.o.d.y hand and wrist. Strange how that checked his ardor--threw up his lean head like that striking bird of prey.

"Blood! What the h.e.l.l!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, and in one sweep he grasped her. "How'd yu do that? Are y'u cut? ... Hold still."

Ellen could not release her hand.

"I scratched myself," she said.

"Where?... All that blood!" And suddenly he flung her hand back with fierce gesture, and the gleams of his yellow eyes were like the points of leaping flames. They pierced her--read the secret falsity of her.

Slowly he stepped backward, guardedly his hand moved to his gun, and his glance circled and swept the interior of the cabin. As if he had the nose of a hound and sight to follow scent, his eyes bent to the dust of the ground before the door. He quivered, grew rigid as stone, and then moved his head with exceeding slowness as if searching through a microscope in the dust--farther to the left--to the foot of the ladder--and up one step--another--a third--all the way up to the loft.

Then he whipped out his gun and wheeled to face the girl.

"Ellen, y'u've got your half-breed heah!" he said, with a terrible smile.

She neither moved nor spoke. There was a suggestion of collapse, but it was only a change where the alluring softness of her hardened into a strange, rapt glow. And in it seemed the same mastery that had characterized her former aspect. Herein the treachery of her was revealed. She had known what she meant to do in any case.

Colter, standing at the door, reached a long arm toward the ladder, where he laid his hand on a rung. Taking it away he held it palm outward for her to see the dark splotch of blood.

"See?"

"Yes, I see," she said, ringingly.

Pa.s.sion wrenched him, transformed him. "All that--aboot leavin'

heah--with me--aboot givin' in--was a lie!"

"No, Colter. It was the truth. I'll go--yet--now--if y'u'll spare--HIM!" She whispered the last word and made a slight movement of her hand toward the loft. "Girl!" he exploded, incredulously. "Y'u love this half-breed--this ISBEL! ... Y'u LOVE him!"

"With all my heart! ... Thank G.o.d! It has been my glory.... It might have been my salvation.... But now I'll go to h.e.l.l with y'u--if y'u'll spare him."

"d.a.m.n my soul!" rasped out the rustler, as if something of respect was wrung from that sordid deep of him. "Y'u--y'u woman! ... Jorth will turn over in his grave. He'd rise out of his grave if this Isbel got y'u."

"Hurry! Hurry!" implored Ellen. "Springer may come back. I think I heard a call."

"Wal, Ellen Jorth, I'll not spare Isbel--nor y'u," he returned, with dark and meaning leer, as he turned to ascend the ladder.

Jean Isbel, too, had reached the climax of his suspense. Gathering all his muscles in a knot he prepared to leap upon Colter as he mounted the ladder. But, Ellen Jorth screamed piercingly and s.n.a.t.c.hed her rifle from its resting place and, c.o.c.king it, she held it forward and low.

"COLTER!"

Her scream and his uttered name stiffened him.

"Y'u will spare Jean Isbel!" she rang out. "Drop that gun-drop it!"

"Sh.o.r.e, Ellen.... Easy now. Remember your temper.... I'll let Isbel off," he panted, huskily, and all his body sank quiveringly to a crouch.

"Drop your gun! Don't turn round.... Colter!--I'LL KILL Y'U!"

But even then he failed to divine the meaning and the spirit of her.

"Aw, now, Ellen," he entreated, in louder, huskier tones, and as if dragged by fatal doubt of her still, he began to turn.

Crash! The rifle emptied its contents in Colter's breast. All his body sprang up. He dropped the gun. Both hands fluttered toward her.

And an awful surprise flashed over his face.

"So--help--me--G.o.d!" he whispered, with blood thick in his voice. Then darkly, as one groping, he reached for her with shaking hands.

"Y'u--y'u white-throated hussy!... I'll ..."

He grasped the quivering rifle barrel. Crash! She shot him again. As he swayed over her and fell she had to leap aside, and his clutching hand tore the rifle from her grasp. Then in convulsion he writhed, to heave on his back, and stretch out--a ghastly spectacle. Ellen backed away from it, her white arms wide, a slow horror blotting out the pa.s.sion of her face.

Then from without came a shrill call and the sound of rapid footsteps.

Ellen leaned against the wall, staring still at Colter. "Hey, Jim--what's the shootin'?" called Springer, breathlessly.

As his form darkened the doorway Jean once again gathered all his muscular force for a tremendous spring.

Springer saw the girl first and he appeared thunderstruck. His jaw dropped. He needed not the white gleam of her person to transfix him.

Her eyes did that and they were riveted in unutterable horror upon something on the ground. Thus instinctively directed, Springer espied Colter.

"Y'u--y'u shot him!" he shrieked. "What for--y'u hussy? ... Ellen Jorth, if y'u've killed him, I'll..."

He strode toward where Colter lay.

Then Jean, rising silently, took a step and like a tiger he launched himself into the air, down upon the rustler. Even as he leaped Springer gave a quick, upward look. And he cried out. Jean's moccasined feet struck him squarely and sent him staggering into the wall, where his head hit hard. Jean fell, but bounded up as the half-stunned Springer drew his gun. Then Jean lunged forward with a single sweep of his arm--and looked no more.

Ellen ran swaying out of the door, and, once clear of the threshold, she tottered out on the gra.s.s, to sink to her knees. The bright, golden sunlight gleamed upon her white shoulders and arms. Jean had one foot out of the door when he saw her and he whirled back to get her blouse. But Springer had fallen upon it. s.n.a.t.c.hing up a blanket, Jean ran out.

"Ellen! Ellen! Ellen!" he cried. "It's over!" And reaching her, he tried to wrap her in the blanket.

She wildly clutched his knees. Jean was conscious only of her white, agonized face and the dark eyes with their look of terrible strain.

"Did y'u--did y'u..." she whispered.

"Yes--it's over," he said, gravely. "Ellen, the Isbel-Jorth feud is ended."

"Oh, thank--G.o.d!" she cried, in breaking voice. "Jean--y'u are wounded... the blood on the step!"

"My arm. See. It's not bad.... Ellen, let me wrap this round you."

Folding the blanket around her shoulders, he held it there and entreated her to get up. But she only clung the closer. She hid her face on his knees. Long shudders rippled over her, shaking the blanket, shaking Jean's hands. Distraught, he did not know what to do.

And his own heart was bursting.

"Ellen, you must not kneel--there--that way," he implored.

"Jean! Jean!" she moaned, and clung the tighter.

He tried to lift her up, but she was a dead weight, and with that hold on him seemed anch.o.r.ed at his feet.

"I killed Colter," she gasped. "I HAD to--kill him! ... I offered--to fling myself away...."