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"Wal, I'll see to that," rejoined his father "Jean, you go out close by, where you can see all around, an' keep watch"

"Who's goin' to tell the women?" asked Guy Isbel

The silence that momentarily ensued was an eloquent testimony to the hardest and saddest aspect of this strife between men The inevitableness of it in no wise detracted from its sheer uselessness Men from time immemorial had hated, and killed one another, always to the radation of their woic realization in his lined face

"Wal, boys, I'll tell the women," he said "Shore you needn't worry none aboot theame"

Jean rode away to an open knoll a short distance from the house, and here he stationed hie back of the ranch was the one approach by which Jorth's gangdetected, but even so, Jean could see them and ride to the house in tied by, and at the end of an hour Jean was in hopes that Blaisdell would soon come These hopes ell founded Presently he heard a clatter of hoofs on hard ground to the south, and upon wheeling to look he saw the friendly neighbor co white horse Blaisdell carried a rifle in his hand, and the sight of hiloarmth He was one of the Texans ould stand by the Isbels to the lastbetween hi friend There floated out to Jean old Blaisdell's roar of rage

Then out on the green of Grass Valley, where a long, swelling plain swept away toward the village, there appeared a ht start--the shock of sudden propulsion of blood through all his veins Those horses bore riders They were coon road to Isbel's ranch No subterfuge nor secrecy nor sneaking in that advance! A hot thrill ran over Jean

"By Heaven! They mean business!" he muttered Up to the lastwould not come boldly like that The verifications of all a Texan's inherited instincts left no doubts, no hopes, no illusions--only a grim certainty that this was not conjecture nor probability, but fact For adark patch of horseround, then he hurried back to the ranch His father saw hi--strode out as before