“Was it—y’u?” asked Ellen, tremulously.
“Me? Aw, I wasn’t nowhere. Ellen, this fellar was quick as a cat in his actions an’ his words was like lightnin’.’
“Who? she whispered.
“Wal, no one else but a stranger jest come to these parts—an Isbel, too. Jean Isbel.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Ellen, faintly.
“In a barroom full of men—almost all of them in sympathy with the sheep crowd—most of them on the Jorth side—this Jean Isbel resented an insult to Ellen Jorth.”
“No!” cried Ellen. Something terrible was happening to her mind or her heart.
“Wal, he sure did,” replied the old man, “an’ it’s goin’ to be good fer you to hear all about it.”