“Who—who was killed?” interrupted Ellen, her voice breaking low and deep.
“Guy Isbel an’ Bill Jacobs on the Isbel side, an’ Daggs, Craig, an’ Greaves on your father’s side,” stated Sprague, with something of awed haste.
“Ah!” breathed Ellen, and she relaxed to sink back against the cabin wall.
Sprague seated himself on the log beside her, turning to face her, and he seemed burdened with grave and important matters.
“I heerd a good many conflictin’ stories,” he said, earnestly. “The village folks is all skeered an’ there’s no believin’ their gossip. But I got what happened straight from Jake Evarts. The fight come off day before yestiddy. Your father’s gang rode down to Isbel’s ranch. Daggs was seen to be wantin’ some of the Isbel hosses, so Evarts says. An’ Guy Isbel an’ Jacobs ran out in the pasture. Daggs an’ some others shot them down.”
“Killed them—that way?” put in Ellen, sharply.
“So Evarts says. He was on the ridge an’ swears he seen it all. They killed Guy an’ Jacobs in cold blood. No chance fer their lives—not even to fight! ... Wall, hen they surrounded the Isbel cabin. The fight last all thet day an’ all night an’ the next day. Evarts says Guy an’ Jacobs laid out thar all this time. An’ a herd of hogs broke in the pasture an’ was eatin’ the dead bodies ...”
“My God!” burst out Ellen. “Uncle John, y’u shore cain’t mean my father wouldn’t stop fightin’ long enough to drive the hogs off an’ bury those daid men?”
“Evarts says they stopped fightin’, all right, but it was to watch the hogs,” declared Sprague. “An’ then, what d’ ye think? The wimminfolks come out—the red-headed one, Guy’s wife, an’ Jacobs’s wife—they drove the hogs away an’ buried their husbands right there in the pasture. Evarts says he seen the graves.”
“It is the women who can teach these bloody Texans a lesson,” declared Ellen, forcibly.