“I don’t know. I don’t even know who paid for it. I was sent from the reservation when I was about eight years old. I never went back there, June. I was fourteen when I came here. I worked for Buck Priest quite a while, and then I built me a place on Trapper Creek. I was goin’ to be a cowman, and I had a good start, but Park Reber’s men killed off my cattle. I’ve been in the valley eleven years.”
“You are twenty-five years old, Jack?”
“I think so.”
“Who was your father?”
He looked queerly at her. Another bullet smashed through the kitchen window and ricocheted off the stove.
“I don’t know who he was,” said Jack. He ran his fingers along the barrel of his six-shooter. “No one would tell me after I came back from school. They said I was the son of a squaw-man.”
Jack sat up with his shoulders against the corner of the room. Some one had come on the porch and was near the door. Jack leaned sidewise and sent a bullet angling through the center panel. His shot was echoed by a yelp and a curse.
“They’re still in there!” yelled a voice.
Bullets came through the door about two feet above the floor and more came through the smashed windows. The opposite wall of the room was beginning to show signs of wear. A bullet smashed the lamp, causing a small shower of kerosene.
Some one was trying to open the kitchen door. Jack snaked along the wall to the kitchen entrance and sent a bullet through the door just above the knob. He heard a sharp cry and turned to see June, one hand across her face. She had tried to follow him.