Whereupon, Jean turned back, patiently and slowly, to get his rifle.
Upon securing it he began to retrace his course, this time more slowly than before, as he was hampered by the rifle.

But he did not make the slightest sound, and at length he reached the edge of the open ridge top, once more to espy the dark form of the rustler silhouetted against the sky.

The distance was not more than fifty yards.
As Jean rose to his knee and carefully lifted his rifle round to avoid the twigs of a juniper he suddenly experienced another emotion besides the one of grim, hard wrath at the Jorths.

It was an emotion that sickened him, made him weak internally, a cold, shaking, ungovernable sensation.

Suppose this man was Ellen Jorth's father! Jean lowered the rifle.