Groping his way into the woodshed, he entered the kitchen and, calling low, he went on into the main cabin.
"Jean! Jean!" came his father's shaking voice.
"Yes, I'm back," replied Jean.
"Are--you--all right?"
"Yes. I think I've got a bullet crease on my leg. I didn't know I had it till now.... It's bleedin' a little. But it's nothin'."
Jean heard soft steps and some one reached shaking hands for him. They belonged to his sister Ann. She embraced him. Jean felt the heave and throb of her breast.
"Why, Ann, I'm not hurt," he said, and held her close. "Now you lie down an' try to sleep."
In the black darkness of the cabin Jean led her back to the corner and his heart was full. Speech was difficult, because the very touch of Ann's hands had made him divine that the success of his venture in no wise changed the plight of the women.
"Wal, what happened out there?" demanded Blaisdell.
"I got two of them," replied Jean. "That fellow who was shootin' from the ridge west. An' the other was Greaves."
"Hah!" exclaimed his father.
"Shore then it was Greaves yellin'," declared Blaisdell. "By God, I never heard such yells! Whad 'd you do, Jean?"
"I knifed him. You see, I'd planned to slip up on one after another. An' I didn't want to make noise. But I didn't get any farther than Greaves."
"Wal, I reckon that 'll end their shootin' in the dark," muttered Gaston Isbel. "We've got to be on the lookout for somethin' else--fire, most likely."
The old rancher's surmise proved to be partially correct. Jorth's faction ceased the shooting. Nothing further was seen or heard from them. But this silence and apparent break in the siege were harder to bear than deliberate hostility. The long, dark hours dragged by. The men took turns watching and resting, but none of them slept. At last the blackness paled and gray dawn stole out of the east. The sky turned rose over the distant range and daylight came.
The children awoke hungry and noisy, having slept away their fears. The women took advantage of the quiet morning hour to get a hot breakfast.
"Maybe they've gone away," suggested Guy Isbel's wife, peering out of the window. She had done that several times since daybreak. Jean saw her somber gaze search the pasture until it rested upon the dark, prone shape of her dead husband, lying face down in the grass. Her look worried Jean.