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Jean Isbel, holding the wolf-dog Shepp in leash, was on the trail of the unman Queen Dark drops of blood on the stones and plain tracks of a rider's sharp-heeled boots behind coverts indicated the trail of a wounded, slow-traveling fugitive Therefore, Jean Isbel held in the dog and proceeded with the wary eye and watchful caution of an Indian

Queen, true to his class, and enificent effrontery and with the sa suddenness of surprise, had appeared as if by ht camp of the Isbel faction Jean had seen him first, in time to leap like a panther into the shadow But he carried in his shoulder Queen's first bullet of that terrible encounter Upon Gordon and Fredericks fell the brunt of Queen's fusillade And they, shot to pieces, staggering and falling, held passionate grip on life long enough to draw and still Queen's guns and send hi off into the darkness of the forest

Unaril near ca disclosed Gordon and Fredericks stark and ghastly beside the burned-out cauns clutched immovably in stiffened hands Jean buried theround with flat stones on their graves he knew himself to be indeed the last of the Isbel clan And all that ild and savage in his blood and desperate in his spirit rose to make him more thanthese tragic last days the wolf-dog Shepp caiven hi and burn of the lead was a constant and all-powerful rerie enough for hie of blood his father had bequeathed hiirl who had so dwarfed and obstructed his will and so bitterly defeated and reviled his poor, roe in its after effects, the pursuits and fights, and loss of one by one of his confederates--these had finally engendered in Jean Isbel a wild, unslakable thirst, these had been the cause of his retrogression, these had unalterably and ruthlessly fixed in his darkened mind one fierce passion--to live and die the last man of that Jorth-Isbel feud

At sunrise Jean left this ca with hier, wild Shepp in leash he set out on Queen's bloody trail