Jorth chewed at his mustache and lost himself in brooding thought.
"Dad, tell me, is there goin' to be a war?" asked Ellen, presently.
What a red, strange, rolling flash blazed in his eyes! His body jerked.
"Shore. You might as well know."
"Between sheepmen and cattlemen?"
"Yes."
"With y'u, dad, at the haid of one faction and Gaston Isbel the other?"
"Daughter, you have it correct, so far as you go."
"Oh! ... Dad, can't this fight be avoided?"
"You forget you're from Texas," he replied.
"Cain't it be helped?" she repeated, stubbornly.
"No!" he declared, with deep, hoarse passion.
"Why not?"
"Wal, we sheepmen are goin' to run sheep anywhere we like on the range. An' cattlemen won't stand for that."
"But, dad, it's so foolish," declared Ellen, earnestly. "Y'u sheepmen do not have to run sheep over the cattle range."
"I reckon we do."
"Dad, that argument doesn't go with me. I know the country. For years to come there will be room for both sheep and cattle without overrunnin'. If some of the range is better in water and grass, then whoever got there first should have it. That shore is only fair. It's common sense, too."
"Ellen, I reckon some cattle people have been prejudicin' you," said Jorth, bitterly.
"Dad!" she cried, hotly.
This had grown to be an ordeal for Jorth. He seemed a victim of contending tides of feeling. Some will or struggle broke within him and the change was manifest. Haggard, shifty-eyed, with wabbling chin, he burst into speech.
"See heah, girl. You listen. There's a clique of ranchers down in the Basin, all those you named, with Isbel at their haid. They have resented sheepmen comin' down into the valley. They want it all to themselves. That's the reason. Shore there's another. All the Isbels are crooked. They're cattle an' horse thieves--have been for years. Gaston Isbel always was a maverick rustler. He's gettin' old now an' rich, so he wants to cover his tracks. He aims to blame this cattle rustlin' an' horse stealin' on to us sheepmen, an' run us out of the country."
Gravely Ellen Jorth studied her father's face, and the newly found truth-seeing power of her eyes did not fail her. In part, perhaps in all, he was telling lies. She shuddered a little, loyally battling against the insidious convictions being brought to fruition. Perhaps in his brooding over his failures and troubles he leaned toward false judgments. Ellen could not attach dishonor to her father's motives or speeches. For long, however, something about him had troubled her, perplexed her. Fearfully she believed she was coming to some revelation, and, despite her keen determination to know, she found herself shrinking.