and then she lost track of time. It dragged along, yet looked at as the
past, it seemed to have sped swiftly. The change in her, the growing
old, the revelation and responsibility of serf, as a woman, made this
experience appear to have extended over months.
Kells slowly became convalescent and then he had a relapse. Something
happened, the nature of which Joan could not tell, and he almost died.
There were days when his life hung in the balance, when he could not
talk; and then came a perceptible turn for the better.
The store of provisions grew low, and Joan began to face another serious
situation. Deer and rabbit were plentiful in the canon, but she could
not kill one with a revolver. She thought she would be forced to
sacrifice one of the horses. The fact that Kells suddenly showed a
craving for meat brought this aspect of the situation to a climax. And
that very morning while Joan was pondering the matter she saw a number
of horsemen riding up the canon toward the cabin. At the moment she was
relieved, and experienced nothing of the dread she had formerly felt
while anticipating this very event.
“Kells,” she said, quickly, “there are men riding up the trail.”
“Good,” he exclaimed, weakly, with a light on his drawn face. “They've
been long in--getting here. How many?”
Joan counted them--five riders, and several pack-animals.
“Yes. It's Gulden.”
“Gulden!” cried Joan, with a start.
Her exclamation and tone made Kells regard her attentively.
“You've heard of him? He's the toughest nut--on this border.... I never
saw his like. You won't be safe. I'm so helpless.... What to say--to
tell him!... Joan, if I should happen to croak--you want to get away
quick... or shoot yourself.”
How strange to hear this bandit warn her of peril the like of which she
had encountered through him! Joan secured the gun and hid it in a niche
between the logs. Then she looked out again.
The riders were close at hand now. The foremost one, a man of Herculean
build, jumped his mount across the brook, and leaped off while he hauled
the horse to a stop. The second rider came close behind him; the others
approached leisurely, with the gait of the pack-animals.
“Ho, Kells!” called the big man. His voice had a loud, bold, sonorous
kind of ring.
“Reckon he's here somewheres,” said the other man, presently.
“Sure. I seen his hoss. Jack ain't goin' to be far from thet hoss.”
Then both of them approached the cabin. Joan had never before seen two
such striking, vicious-looking, awesome men. The one was huge--so wide
and heavy and deep-set that he looked short--and he resembled a gorilla.
The other was tall, slim, with a face as red as flame, and an expression
of fierce keenness. He was stoop shouldered, yet he held his head erect
in a manner that suggested a wolf scenting blood.
“Someone here, Pearce,” boomed the big man.
“Why, Gul, if it ain't a girl!”
Joan moved out of the shadow of the wall of the cabin, and she pointed
to the prostrate figure on the blankets.
“Howdy boys!” said Kells, wanly.
Gulden cursed in amaze while Pearce dropped to his knee with an
exclamation of concern. Then both began to talk at once. Kells
interrupted them by lifting a weak hand.
“No, I'm not going--to cash,” he said. “I'm only starved--and in need of
stimulants. Had my back half shot off.”
“Who plugged you, Jack?”
“Gulden, it was your side-partner, Bill.”
“Bill?” Gulden's voice held a queer, coarse constraint. Then he added,
gruffly. “Thought you and him pulled together.”
“Well, we didn't.”
“And--where's Bill now?” This time Joan heard a slow, curious, cold note
in the heavy voice, and she interpreted it as either doubt or deceit.
“Bill's dead and Halloway, too,” replied Kells.
Gulden turned his massive, shaggy head in the direction of Joan. She had
not the courage to meet the gaze upon her. The other man spoke:
“Split over the girl, Jack?”
“No,” replied Kells, sharply. “They tried to get familiar with--MY
WIFE--and I shot them both.”
Joan felt a swift leap of hot blood all over her and then a coldness, a
sickening, a hateful weakness.
“Wife!” ejaculated Gulden.
“Your real wife, Jack?” queried Pearce.
“Well, I guess, I'll introduce you... Joan, here are two of my
friends--Sam Gulden and Red Pearce.”
Gulden grunted something.
“Mrs. Kells, I'm glad to meet you,” said Pearce.
Just then the other three men entered the cabin and Joan took advantage
of the commotion they made to get out into the air. She felt sick,
frightened, and yet terribly enraged. She staggered a little as she
went out, and she knew she was as pale as death. These visitors thrust
reality upon her with a cruel suddenness. There was something terrible
in the mere presence of this Gulden. She had not yet dared to take a
good look at him. But what she felt was overwhelming. She wanted to
run. Yet escape now was infinitely more of a menace than before. If she
slipped away it would be these new enemies who would pursue her, track
her like hounds. She understood why Kells had introduced her as his
wife. She hated the idea with a shameful and burning hate, but a
moment's reflection taught her that Kells had answered once more to
a good instinct. At the moment he had meant that to protect her.
And further reflection persuaded Joan that she would be wise to act
naturally and to carry out the deception as far as it was possible for
her. It was her only hope. Her position had again grown perilous. She
thought of the gun she had secreted, and it gave her strength to control
her agitation and to return to the cabin outwardly calm.
The men had Kells half turned over with the flesh of his back exposed.
“Aw, Gul, it's whisky he needs,” said one.
“If you let out any more blood he'll croak sure,” protested another.
“Look how weak he is,” said Red Pearce.
“It's a hell of a lot you know,” roared Gulden. “I served my time--but
that's none of your business.... Look here! See that blue spot!” Gulden
pressed a huge finger down upon the blue welt on Kells's back. The
bandit moaned. “That's lead--that's the bullet,” declared Gulden.
“Wall, if you ain't correct!” exclaimed Pearce.
Kells turned his head. “When you punched that place--it made me numb all
over. Gul, if you've located the bullet, cut it out.”
Joan did not watch the operation. As she went away to the seat under the
balsam she heard a sharp cry and then cheers. Evidently the grim Gulden
had been both swift and successful.
Presently the men came out of the cabin and began to attend to their
horses and the pack-train.
Pearce looked for Joan, and upon seeing her called out, “Kells wants
you.”
Joan found the bandit half propped up against a saddle with a damp and
pallid face, but an altogether different look.
“Joan, that bullet was pressing on my spine,” he said. “Now it's out,
all that deadness is gone. I feel alive. I'll get well, soon.... Gulden
was curious over the bullet. It's a forty-four caliber, and neither Bill
Bailey nor Halloway used that caliber of gun. Gulden remembered. He's
cunning. Bill was as near being a friend to this Gulden as any man I
know of. I can't trust any of these men, particularly Gulden. You stay
pretty close by me.”
“Kells, you'll let me go soon--help me to get home?” implored Joan in a
low voice.
“Girl, it'd never be safe now,” he replied.
“Then later--soon--when it is safe?”
“We'll see.... But you're my wife now!”
With the latter words the man subtly changed. Something of the power she
had felt in him before his illness began again to be manifested. Joan
divined that these comrades had caused the difference in him.
“You won't dare--!” Joan was unable to conclude her meaning. A tight
band compressed her breast and throat, and she trembled.
“Will you dare go out there and tell them you're NOT my wife?” he
queried. His voice had grown stronger and his eyes were blending shadows
of thought.
Joan knew that she dared not. She must choose the lesser of two evils.
“No man--could be such a beast to a woman--after she'd saved his life,”
she whispered.
“I could be anything. You had your chance. I told you to go. I said if I
ever got well I'd be as I was--before.”
“But you'd have died.”
“That would have been better for you..... Joan, I'll do this. Marry
you honestly and leave the country. I've gold. I'm young. I love you. I
intend to have you. And I'll begin life over again. What do you say?”
“Say? I'd die before--I'd marry you!” she panted.
“All right, Joan Randle,” he replied, bitterly. “For a moment I saw a
ghost. My old dead better self!... It's gone.... And you stay with me.”
7
After dark Kells had his men build a fire before the open side of the
cabin. He lay propped up on blankets and his saddle, while the others
lounged or sat in a half-circle in the light, facing him.
Joan drew her blankets into a corner where the shadows were thick and
she could see without being seen. She wondered how she would ever sleep
near all these wild men--if she could ever sleep again. Yet she seemed
more curious and wakeful than frightened. She had no way to explain
it, but she felt the fact that her presence in the camp had a subtle
influence, at once restraining and exciting. So she looked out upon the
scene with wide-open eyes.
And she received more strongly than ever an impression of wildness. Even
the camp-fire seemed to burn wildly; it did not glow and sputter and
pale and brighten and sing like an honest camp-fire. It blazed in red,
fierce, hurried flames, wild to consume the logs. It cast a baleful
and sinister color upon the hard faces there. Then the blackness of the
enveloping night was pitchy, without any bold outline of canon wall
or companionship of stars. The coyotes were out in force and from all
around came their wild sharp barks. The wind rose and mourned weirdly
through the balsams.
But it was in the men that Joan felt mostly that element of wildness.
Kells lay with his ghastly face clear in the play of the moving flare
of light. It was an intelligent, keen, strong face, but evil. Evil power
stood out in the lines, in the strange eyes, stranger then ever, now
in shadow; and it seemed once more the face of an alert, listening,
implacable man, with wild projects in mind, driving him to the doom he
meant for others. Pearce's red face shone redder in that ruddy light. It
was hard, lean, almost fleshless, a red mask stretched over a grinning
skull. The one they called Frenchy was little, dark, small-featured,
with piercing gimlet-like eyes, and a mouth ready to gush forth hate
and violence. The next two were not particularly individualized by any
striking aspect, merely looking border ruffians after the type of Bill
and Halloway. But Gulden, who sat at the end of the half-circle, was
an object that Joan could scarcely bring her gaze to study. Somehow her
first glance at him put into her mind a strange idea--that she was a
woman and therefore of all creatures or things in the world the farthest
removed from him. She looked away, and found her gaze returning,
fascinated, as if she were a bird and he a snake. The man was of huge
frame, a giant whose every move suggested the acme of physical power. He
was an animal--a gorilla with a shock of light instead of black hair,
of pale instead of black skin. His features might have been hewn and
hammered out with coarse, dull, broken chisels. And upon his face, in
the lines and cords, in the huge caverns where his eyes hid, and in the
huge gash that held strong, white fangs, had been stamped by nature
and by life a terrible ferocity. Here was a man or a monster in whose
presence Joan felt that she would rather be dead. He did not smoke; he
did not indulge in the coarse, good-natured raillery, he sat there like
a huge engine of destruction that needed no rest, but was forced to rest
because of weaker attachments. On the other hand, he was not sullen or
brooding. It was that he did not seem to think.
Kells had been rapidly gaining strength since the extraction of
the bullet, and it was evident that his interest was growing
proportionately. He asked questions and received most of his replies
from Red Pearce. Joan did not listen attentively at first, but presently
she regretted that she had not. She gathered that Kells's fame as
the master bandit of the whole gold region of Idaho, Nevada, and
northeastern California was a fame that he loved as much as the gold he
stole. Joan sensed, through the replies of these men and their attitude
toward Kells, that his power was supreme. He ruled the robbers and
ruffians in his bands, and evidently they were scattered from Bannack
to Lewiston and all along the border. He had power, likewise, over the
border hawks not directly under his leadership. During the weeks of his
enforced stay in the canon there had been a cessation of operations--the
nature of which Joan merely guessed--and a gradual accumulation of
idle wailing men in the main camp. Also she gathered, but vaguely, that
though Kells had supreme power, the organization he desired was yet
far from being consummated. He showed thoughtfulness and irritation by
turns, and it was the subject of gold that drew his intensest interest.
“Reckon you figgered right, Jack,” said Red Pearce, and paused as
if before a long talk, while he refilled his pipe. “Sooner or later
there'll be the biggest gold strike ever made in the West. Wagon-trains
are met every day comin' across from Salt Lake. Prospectors are workin'
in hordes down from Bannack. All the gulches an' valleys in the Bear
Mountains have their camps. Surface gold everywhere an' easy to get
where there's water. But there's diggin's all over. No big strike yet.
It's bound to come sooner or later. An' then when the news hits the
main-traveled roads an' reaches back into the mountains there's goin' to
be a rush that'll make '49 an' '51 look sick. What do you say, Bate?”
“Shore will,” replied a grizzled individual whom Kells had called Bate
Wood. He was not so young as his companions, more sober, less wild,
and slower of speech. “I saw both '49 and '51. Them was days! But I'm
agreein' with Red. There shore will be hell on this Idaho border sooner
or later. I've been a prospector, though I never hankered after the hard
work of diggin' gold. Gold is hard to dig, easy to lose, an' easy to get
from some other feller. I see the signs of a comin' strike somewhere in
this region. Mebbe it's on now. There's thousands of prospectors in twos
an' threes an' groups, out in the hills all over. They ain't a-goin' to
tell when they do make a strike. But the gold must be brought out. An'
gold is heavy. It ain't easy hid. Thet's how strikes are discovered. I
shore reckon thet this year will beat '49 an' '51. An' fer two reasons.
There's a steady stream of broken an' disappointed gold-seekers
back-trailin' from California. There's a bigger stream of hopeful an'
crazy fortune hunters travelin' in from the East. Then there's the
wimmen an' gamblers an' such thet hang on. An' last the men thet the
war is drivin' out here. Whenever an' wherever these streams meet, if
there's a big gold strike, there'll be the hellishest time the world
ever saw!”
“Boys,” said Kells, with a ring in his weak voice, “it'll be a harvest
for my Border Legion.”
“Fer what?” queried Bate Wood, curiously.
All the others except Gulden turned inquiring and interested faces
toward the bandit.
“The Border Legion,” replied Kells.
“An' what's that?” asked Red Pearce, bluntly.
“Well, if the time's ripe for the great gold fever you say is coming,
then it's ripe for the greatest band ever organized. I'll organize. I'll
call it the Border Legion.”
“Count me in as right-hand, pard,” replied Red, with enthusiasm.
“An' shore me, boss,” added Bate Wood.
The idea was received vociferously, at which demonstration the giant
Gulden raised his massive head and asked, or rather growled, in a heavy
voice what the fuss was about. His query, his roused presence, seemed to
act upon the others, even Kells, with a strange, disquieting or halting
force, as if here was a character or an obstacle to be considered. After
a moment of silence Red Pearce explained the project.
“Huh! Nothing new in that,” replied Gulden. “I belonged to one once. It
was in Algiers. They called it the Royal Legion.”
“Algiers. What's thet?” asked Bate Wood.
“Africa,” replied Gulden.
“Say, Gul, you've been around some,” said Red Pearce, admiringly. “What
was the Royal Legion?”
“Nothing but a lot of devils from all over. The border there was the
last place. Every criminal was safe from pursuit.”
“What'd you do?”
“Fought among ourselves. Wasn't many in the Legion when I left.”
“Shore thet ain't strange!” exclaimed Wood, significantly. But his
inference was lost upon Gulden.
“I won't allow fighting in my Legion,” said Kells, coolly. “I'll pick
this band myself.”
“Thet's the secret,” rejoined Wood. “The right fellers. I've been in all
kinds of bands. Why, I even was a vigilante in '51.”
This elicited a laugh from his fellows, except the wooden-faced Gulden.
“How many do we want?” asked Red Pearce.
“The number doesn't matter. But they must be men I can trust and
control. Then as lieutenants I'll need a few young fellows, like you,
Red. Nervy, daring, cool, quick of wits.”
Red Pearce enjoyed the praise bestowed upon him and gave his shoulders
a swagger. “Speakin' of that, boss,” he said, “reminds me of a chap who
rode into Cabin Gulch a few weeks ago. Braced right into Beard's place,
where we was all playin' faro, an' he asks for Jack Kells. Right off
we all thought he was a guy who had a grievance, an' some of us was for
pluggin' him. But I kinda liked him an' I cooled the gang down. Glad
I did that. He wasn't wantin' to throw a gun. His intentions were
friendly. Of course I didn't show curious about who or what he was.
Reckoned he was a young feller who'd gone bad sudden-like an' was
huntin' friends. An' I'm here to say, boss, that he was wild.”
“What's his name?” asked Kells.
“Jim Cleve, he said,” replied Pearce.
Joan Randle, hidden back in the shadows, forgotten or ignored by this
bandit group, heard the name Jim Cleve with pain and fear, but not
amaze. From the moment Pearce began his speech she had been prepared
for the revelation of her runaway lover's name. She trembled, and grew
a little sick. Jim had made no idle threat. What would she have given to
live over again the moment that had alienated him?
“Jim Cleve,” mused Kells. “Never heard of him. And I never forget a name
or a face. What's he like?”
“Clean, rangy chap, big, but not too big,” replied Pearce. “All muscle.
Not more'n twenty three. Hard rider, hard fighter, hard gambler an'
drinker--reckless as hell. If only you can steady him, boss! Ask Bate
what he thinks.”
“Well!” exclaimed Kells in surprise. “Strangers are everyday occurrences
on this border. But I never knew one to impress you fellows as this
Cleve.... Bate, what do you say? What's this Cleve done? You're an old
head. Talk, sense, now.”
“Done?” echoed Wood, scratching his grizzled head. “What in the hell
ain't he done?... He rode in brazener than any feller thet ever stacked
up against this outfit. An' straight-off he wins the outfit. I don't
know how he done it. Mebbe it was because you seen he didn't care fer
anythin' or anybody on earth. He stirred us up. He won all the money we
had in camp--broke most of us--an' give it all back. He drank more'n the
whole outfit, yet didn't get drunk. He threw his gun on Beady Jones
fer cheatin' an' then on Beady's pard, Chick Williams. Didn't shoot to
kill--jest winged 'em. But say, he's the quickest and smoothest hand to
throw a gun thet ever hit this border. Don't overlook thet.... Kells,
this Jim Cleve's a great youngster goin' bad quick. An' I'm here to add
that he'll take some company along.”
“Bate, you forgot to tell how he handled Luce,” said Red Pearee. “You
was there. I wasn't. Tell Kells that.”
“Luce. I know the man. Go ahead, Bate,” responded Kells.
“Mebbe it ain't any recommendation fer said Jim Cleve,” replied Wood.
“Though it did sorta warm me to him.... Boss, of course, you recollect
thet little Brander girl over at Bear Lake village. She's old Brander's
girl--worked in his store there. I've seen you talk sweet to her myself.
Wal, it seems the old man an' some of his boys took to prospectin' an'
fetched the girl along. Thet's how I understood it. Luce came bracin' in
over at Cabin Gulch one day. As usual, we was drinkin' an' playin'. But
young Cleve wasn't doin' neither. He had a strange, moody spell thet
day, as I recollect. Luce sprung a job on us. We never worked with him
or his outfit, but mebbe--you can't tell what'd come off if it hadn't
been for Cleve. Luce had a job put up to ride down where ole Brander was
washin' fer gold, take what he had--AN' the girl. Fact was the gold was
only incidental. When somebody cornered Luce he couldn't swear there was
gold worth goin' after. An' about then Jim Cleve woke up. He cussed Luce
somethin' fearful. An' when Luce went for his gun, natural-like, why
this Jim Cleve took it away from him. An' then he jumped Luce. He
knocked an' threw him around an' he near beat him to death before we
could interfere. Luce was shore near dead. All battered up--broken
bones--an' what-all I can't say. We put him to bed an' he's there yet,
an' he'll never be the same man he was.”
A significant silence fell upon the group at the conclusion of Wood's
narrative. Wood had liked the telling, and it made his listeners
thoughtful. All at once the pale face of Kells turned slightly toward
Gulden.
“Gulden, did you hear that?” asked Kells.
“Yes,” replied the man.
“What do you think about this Jim Cleve--and the job he prevented?”
“Never saw Cleve. I'll look him up when we get back to camp. Then I'll
go after the Brander girl.”
How strangely his brutal assurance marked a line between him and his
companions! There was something wrong, something perverse in this
Gulden. Had Kells meant to bring that point out or to get an impression
of Cleve?
Joan could not decide. She divined that there was antagonism between
Gulden and all the others. And there was something else, vague and
intangible, that might have been fear. Apparently Gulden was a
criminal for the sake of crime. Joan regarded him with a growing
terror--augmented the more because he alone kept eyes upon the corner
where she was hidden--and she felt that compared with him the
others, even Kells, of whose cold villainy she was assured, were but
insignificant men of evil. She covered her head with a blanket to shut
out sight of that shaggy, massive head and the great dark caves of eyes.
Thereupon Joan did not see or hear any more of the bandits. Evidently
the conversation died down, or she, in the absorption of new thoughts,
no longer heard. She relaxed, and suddenly seemed to quiver all over
with the name she whispered to herself. “Jim! Jim! Oh, Jim!” And the
last whisper was an inward sob. What he had done was terrible. It
tortured her. She had not believed it in him. Yet, now she thought, how
like him. All for her--in despair and spite--he had ruined himself. He
would be killed out there in some drunken brawl, or, still worse, he
would become a member of this bandit crew and drift into crime. That was
a great blow to Joan--that the curse she had put upon him. How silly,
false, and vain had been her coquetry, her indifference! She loved Jim
Cleve. She had not known that when she started out to trail him, to
fetch him back, but she knew it now. She ought to have known before.
The situation she had foreseen loomed dark and monstrous and terrible in
prospect. Just to think of it made her body creep and shudder with cold
terror. Yet there was that strange, inward, thrilling burn round her
heart. Somewhere and soon she was coming face to face with this changed
Jim Cleve--this boy who had become a reckless devil. What would he
do? What could she do? Might he not despise her, scorn her, curse her,
taking her at Kells's word, the wife of a bandit? But no! he would
divine the truth in the flash of an eye. And then! She could not think
what might happen, but it must mean blood-death. If he escaped Kells,
how could he ever escape this Gulden--this huge vulture of prey?
Still, with the horror thick upon her, Joan could not wholly give up.
The moment Jim Cleve's name and his ruin burst upon her ears, in the
gossip of these bandits, she had become another girl--a girl wholly
become a woman, and one with a driving passion to save if it cost her
life. She lost her fear of Kells, of the others, of all except Gulden.
He was not human, and instinctively she knew she could do nothing with
him. She might influence the others, but never Gulden.