A thousand perplexing problems were solved in a second of whirling, revealing thought.
"Ellen Jorth, you know your father's in with this Hash Knife Gang of rustlers," thundered Isbel.
"Shore," she replied, with the cool, easy, careless defiance of a Texan.
"You know he's got this Daggs to lead his faction against the Isbels ?" "Shore." "You know this talk of sheepmen buckin' the cattlemen is all a blind ?" "Shore," reiterated Ellen.
Isbel gazed darkly down upon her.

With his anger spent for the moment, he appeared ready to end the interview.

But he seemed fascinated by the strange look of her, by the incomprehensible something she emanated.

Havoc gleamed in his pale, set face.

He shook his dark head and his broad hand went to his breast.
"To think I fell in love with such as you!" he exclaimed, and his other hand swept out in a tragic gesture of helpless pathos and impotence.
The hell Isbel had hinted at now possessed Ellen--body, mind, and soul.
Disgraced, scorned by an Isbel! Yet loved by him! In that divination there flamed up a wild, fierce passion to hurt, to rend, to flay, to fling back upon him a stinging agony.