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 corner 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.