Long ago Ellen had betrayed an indignity she had suffered at the hands of a man. Her father had nearly killed him. Since then she had taken care to keep her troubles to herself. If her father had not been blind and absorbed in his own brooding he would have seen a thousand things sufficient to inflame his Southern pride and temper.
“Daggs asked me to marry him again and I said he belonged to a bad lot,” she replied.
Jorth laughed in scorn. “Fool! My God! Ellen, I must have dragged you low—that every damned ru—er—sheepman—who comes along thinks he can marry you.”
At the break in his words, the incompleted meaning, Ellen dropped her eyes. Little things once never noted by her were now come to have a fascinating significance.
“Never mind, dad,” she replied. “They cain’t marry me.”
“Daggs said somebody had been talkin’ to you. How aboot that?”
“Old John Sprague has just gotten back from Grass Valley,” said Ellen. “I stopped in to see him. Shore he told me all the village gossip.”
“Anythin’ to interest me?” he queried, darkly.
“Yes, dad, I’m afraid a good deal,” she said, hesitatingly. Then in accordance with a decision Ellen had made she told him of the rumored war between sheepmen and cattlemen; that old Isbel had Blaisdell, Gordon, Fredericks, Blue and other well-known ranchers on his side; that his son Jean Isbel had come from Oregon with a wonderful reputation as fighter and scout and tracker; that it was no secret how Colonel Lee Jorth was at the head of the sheepmen; that a bloody war was sure to come.
“Hah!” exclaimed Jorth, with a stain of red in his sallow cheek. “Reckon none of that is news to me. I knew all that.”