one was the sweeter. Jim had become a victim of the gold fever. But,
having Joan to steady him, he did not lose his head. If he gambled
it was to help out with his part. He was generous to his comrades. He
pretended to drink, but did not drink at all. Jim seemed to regard his
good fortune as Joan's also. He believed if he struck it rich he could
buy his sweetheart's freedom. He claimed that Kells was drunk for gold
to gamble away. Joan let Jim talk, but she coaxed him and persuaded him
to follow a certain line of behavior, she planned for him, she thought
for him, she influenced him to hide the greater part of his gold-dust,
and let it be known that he wore no gold-belt. She had a growing fear
that Jim's success was likely to develop a temper in him inimical to
the cool, waiting, tolerant policy needed to outwit Kells in the end.
It seemed the more gold Jim acquired the more passionate he became, the
more he importuned Joan, the more he hated Kells. Gold had gotten into
his blood, and it was Joan's task to keep him sane. Naturally she gained
more by yielding herself to Jim's caresses than by any direct advice or
admonishment. It was her love that held Jim in check.
One night, the instant their hands met Joan knew that Jim was greatly
excited or perturbed.
“Joan,” he whispered, thrillingly, with his lips at her ear, “I've made
myself solid with Kells! Oh, the luck of it!”
“Tell me!” whispered Joan, and she leaned against those lips.
“It was early to-night at the Nugget. I dropped in as usual. Kells was
playing faro again with that gambler they call Flash. He's won a lot of
Kells's gold--a crooked gambler. I looked on. And some of the gang
were there--Pearce, Blicky, Handy Oliver, and of course Gulden, but all
separated. Kells was losing and sore. But he was game. All at once he
caught Flash in a crooked trick, and he yelled in a rage. He sure had
the gang and everybody else looking. I expected--and so did all the
gang--to see Kells pull his gun. But strange how gambling affects him!
He only cursed Flash--called him right. You know that's about as bad as
death to a professional gambler in a place like Alder Creek. Flash threw
a derringer on Kells. He had it up his sleeve. He meant to kill Kells,
and Kells had no chance. But Flash, having the drop, took time to talk,
to make his bluff go strong with the crowd. And that's where he made
a mistake. I jumped and knocked the gun out of his hand. It went
off--burned my wrist. Then I slugged Mr. Flash good--he didn't get
up.... Kells called the crowd around and, showing the cards as they lay,
coolly proved that Flash was what everybody suspected. Then Kells said
to me--I'll never forget how he looked: 'Youngster, he meant to do for
me. I never thought of my gun. You see!... I'll kill him the next time
we meet.... I've owed my life to men more than once. I never forget. You
stood pat with me before. And now you're ace high!'”
“Was it fair of you?” asked Joan.
“Yes. Flash is a crooked gambler. I'd rather be a bandit.... Besides,
all's fair in love! And I was thinking of you when I saved Kells!”
“Flash will be looking for you,” said Joan, fearfully.
“Likely. And if he finds me he wants to be quick. But Kells will drive
him out of camp or kill him. I tell you, Kells is the biggest man in
Alder Creek. There's talk of office--a mayor and all that--and if
the miners can forget gold long enough they'll elect Kells. But the
riffraff, these bloodsuckers who live off the miners, they'd rather not
have any office in Alder Creek.”
And upon another night Cleve in serious and somber mood talked about
the Border Legion and its mysterious workings. The name had found
prominence, no one knew how, and Alder Creek knew no more peaceful
sleep. This Legion was supposed to consist of a strange, secret band of
unknown bandits and road-agents, drawing its members from all that
wild and trackless region called the border. Rumor gave it a leader of
cunning and ruthless nature. It operated all over the country at the
same time, and must have been composed of numerous smaller bands,
impossible to detect. Because its victims never lived to tell how or by
whom they had been robbed! This Legion worked slowly and in the dark.
It did not bother to rob for little gain. It had strange and unerring
information of large quantities of gold-dust. Two prospectors going out
on the Bannack road, packing fifty pounds of gold, were found shot
to pieces. A miner named Black, who would not trust his gold to the
stage-express, and who left Adler Creek against advice, was never
seen or heard of again. Four other miners of the camp, known to carry
considerable gold, were robbed and killed at night on their way to their
cabins. And another was found dead in his bed. Robbers had crept to his
tent, slashed the canvas, murdered him while he slept, and made off with
his belt of gold.
An evil day of blood had fallen upon Alder Creek. There were terrible
and implacable men in the midst of the miners, by day at honest toil,
learning who had gold, and murdering by night. The camp had never been
united, but this dread fact disrupted any possible unity. Every man, or
every little group of men, distrusted the other, watched and spied and
lay awake at night. But the robberies continued, one every few days, and
each one left no trace. For dead men could not talk.
Thus was ushered in at Alder Creek a regime of wildness that had
no parallel in the earlier days of '49 and '51. Men frenzied by the
possession of gold or greed for it responded to the wildness of that
time and took their cue from this deadly and mysterious Border Legion.
The gold-lust created its own blood-lust. Daily the population of Alder
Creek grew in the new gold-seekers and its dark records kept pace. With
distrust came suspicion and with suspicion came fear, and with fear came
hate--and these, in already distorted minds, inflamed a hell. So that
the most primitive passions of mankind found outlet and held sway. The
operations of the Border Legion were lost in deeds done in the gambling
dens, in the saloons, and on the street, in broad day. Men fought for
no other reason than that the incentive was in the charged air. Men
were shot at gaming-tables--and the game went on. Men were killed in the
dance-halls, dragged out, marking a line of blood on the rude floor--and
the dance went on. Still the pursuit of gold went on, more frenzied than
ever, and still the greater and richer claims were struck. The price of
gold soared and the commodities of life were almost beyond the dreams
of avarice. It was a tune in which the worst of men's natures stalked
forth, hydra-headed and deaf, roaring for gold, spitting fire, and
shedding blood. It was a time when gold and fire and blood were one. It
was a tune when a horde of men from every class and nation, of all ages
and characters, met on a field were motives and ambitions and faiths and
traits merged into one mad instinct of gain. It was worse than the
time of the medieval crimes of religion; it made war seem a brave and
honorable thing; it robbed manhood of that splendid and noble trait,
always seen in shipwrecked men or those hopelessly lost in the barren
north, the divine will not to retrograde to the savage. It was a time,
for all it enriched the world with yellow treasure, when might was
right, when men were hopeless, when death stalked rampant. The sun rose
gold and it set red. It was the hour of Gold!
One afternoon late, while Joan was half dreaming, half dozing the hours
away, she was thoroughly aroused by the tramp of boots and loud voices
of excited men. Joan slipped to the peephole in the partition. Bate Wood
had raised a warning hand to Kells, who stood up, facing the door. Red
Pearce came bursting in, wild-eyed and violent. Joan imagined he was
about to cry out that Kells had been betrayed.
“Kells, have you--heard?” he panted.
“Not so loud, you--!” replied Kells, coolly. “My name's Blight.... Who's
with you?”
“Only Jesse an' some of the gang. I couldn't steer them away. But
there's nothin' to fear.”
“What's happened? What haven't I heard?”
“The camp's gone plumb ravin' crazy.... Jim Cleve found the biggest
nugget ever dug in Idaho!... THIRTY POUNDS!”
Kells seemed suddenly to inflame, to blaze with white passion. “Good for
Jim!” he yelled, ringingly. He could scarcely have been more elated if
he had made the strike himself.
Jesse Smith came stamping in, with a crowd elbowing their way behind
him. Joan had a start of the old panic at sight of Gulden. For once the
giant was not slow nor indifferent. His big eyes glared. He brought
back to Joan the sickening sense of the brute strength of his massive
presence. Some of his cronies were with him. For the rest, there
were Blicky and Handy Oliver and Chick Williams. The whole group bore
resemblance to a pack of wolves about to leap upon its prey. Yet,
in each man, excepting Gulden, there was that striking aspect of
exultation.
“Where's Jim?” demanded Kells.
“He's comin' along,” replied Pearce. “He's sure been runnin' a gantlet.
His strike stopped work in the diggin's. What do you think of that,
Kells? The news spread like smoke before wind. Every last miner in camp
has jest got to see thet lump of gold.”
“Maybe I don't want to see it!” exclaimed Kells. “A thirty-pounder! I
heard of one once, sixty pounds, but I never saw it. You can't believe
till you see.”
“Jim's comin' up the road now,” said one of the men near the door. “Thet
crowd hangs on.... But I reckon he's shakin' them.”
“What'll Cleve do with this nugget?”
Gulden's big voice, so powerful, yet feelingless, caused a momentary
silence. The expression of many faces changed. Kells looked startled,
then annoyed.
“Why, Gulden, that's not my affair--nor yours,” replied Kells. “Cleve
dug it and it belongs to him.”
“Dug or stole--it's all the same,” responded Gulden.
Kell's threw up his hands as if it were useless and impossible to reason
with this man.
Then the crowd surged round the door with shuffling boots and hoarse,
mingled greetings to Cleve, who presently came plunging in out of the
melee.
His face wore a flush of radiance; his eyes were like diamonds. Joan
thrilled and thrilled at sight of him. He was beautiful. Yet there was
about him a more striking wildness. He carried a gun in one hand and in
the other an object wrapped in his scarf. He flung this upon the table
in front of Kells. It made a heavy, solid thump. The ends of the scarf
flew aside, and there lay a magnificent nugget of gold, black and rusty
in parts, but with a dull, yellow glitter in others.
“Boss, what'll you bet against that?” cried Cleve, with exulting laugh.
He was like a boy.
Kells reached for the nugget as if it were not an actual object, and
when his hands closed on it he fondled it and weighed it and dug his
nails into it and tasted it.
“My God!” he ejaculated, in wondering ecstasy. Then this, and the
excitement, and the obsession all changed into sincere gladness. “Jim,
you're born lucky. You, the youngster born unlucky in love! Why, you
could buy any woman with this!”
“Could I? Find me one,” responded Cleve, with swift boldness.
Kells laughed. “I don't know any worth so much.”
“What'll I do with it?” queried Cleve.
“Why, you fool youngster! Has it turned your head, too? What'd you do
with the rest of your dust? You've certainly been striking it rich.”
“I spent it--lost it--lent it--gave some away and--saved a little.”
“Probably you'll do the same with this. You're a good fellow, Jim.”
“But this nugget means a lot of money. Between six and seven thousand
dollars.”
“You won't need advice how to spend it, even if it was a million....
Tell me, Jim, how'd you strike it?”
“Funny about that,” replied Cleve. “Things were poor for several days.
Dug off branches into my claim. One grew to be a deep hole in gravel,
hard to dig. My claim was once the bed of a stream, full of rocks that
the water had rolled down once. This hole sort of haunted me. I'd leave
it when my back got so sore I couldn't bend, but always I'd return. I'd
say there wasn't a darned grain of gold in that gravel; then like a fool
I'd go back and dig for all I was worth. No chance of finding blue dirt
down there! But I kept on. And to-day when my pick hit what felt like a
soft rock--I looked and saw the gleam of gold!... You ought to have seen
me claw out that nugget! I whooped and brought everybody around. The
rest was a parade.... Now I'm embarrassed by riches. What to do with
it?”
“Wal, go back to Montana an' make thet fool girl sick,” suggested one of
the men who had heard Jim's fictitious story of himself.
“Dug or stole is all the same!” boomed the imperturbable Gulden.
Kells turned white with rage, and Cleve swept a swift and shrewd glance
at the giant.
“Sure, that's my idea,” declared Cleve. “I'll divide as--as we planned.”
“You'll do nothing of the kind,” retorted Kells. “You dug for that gold
and it's yours.”
“Well, boss, then say a quarter share to you and the same to me--and
divide the rest among the gang.”
“No!” exclaimed Kells, violently.
Joan imagined he was actuated as much by justice to Cleve as opposition
to Gulden.
“Jim Cleve, you're a square pard if I ever seen one,” declared Pearce,
admiringly. “An' I'm here to say thet I wouldn't hev a share of your
nugget.”
“Nor me,” spoke up Jesse Smith.
“I pass, too,” said Chick Williams.
“Jim, if I was dyin' fer a drink I wouldn't stand fer thet deal,” added
Blicky, with a fine scorn.
These men, and others who spoke or signified their refusal, attested to
the living truth that there was honor even among robbers. But there was
not the slightest suggestion of change in Gulden's attitude or of those
back of him.
“Share and share alike for me!” he muttered, grimly, with those great
eyes upon the nugget.
Kells, with an agile bound, reached the table and pounded it with his
fist, confronting the giant.
“So you say!” he hissed in dark passion. “You've gone too far, Gulden.
Here's where I call you!... You don't get a gram of that gold nugget.
Jim's worked like a dog. If he digs up a million I'll see he gets it
all. Maybe you loafers haven't a hunch what Jim's done for you. He's
helped our big deal more than you or I. His honest work has made it easy
for me to look honest. He's supposed to be engaged to marry my daughter.
That more than anything was a blind. It made my stand, and I tell you
that stand is high in this camp. Go down there and swear Blight is Jack
Kells! See what you get!... That's all.... I'm dealing the cards in this
game!”
Kells did not cow Gulden--for it was likely the giant lacked the feeling
of fear--but he overruled him by sheer strength of spirit.
Gulden backed away stolidly, apparently dazed by his own movements; then
he plunged out the door, and the ruffians who had given silent but sure
expression of their loyalty tramped after him.
“Reckon thet starts the split!” declared Red Pearce.
“Suppose you'd been in Jim's place!” flashed Kells.
“Jack, I ain't sayin' a word. You was square. I'd want you to do the
same by me.... But fetchin' the girl into the deal--”
Kells's passionate and menacing gesture shut Pearce's lips. He lifted a
hand, resignedly, and went out.
“Jim,” said Kells, earnestly, “take my hunch. Hide your nugget. Don't
send it out with the stage to Bannack. It'd never get there.... And
change the place where you sleep!”
“Thanks,” replied Cleve, brightly. “I'll hide my nugget all right. And
I'll take care of myself.”
Later that night Joan waited at her window for Jim. It was so quiet that
she could hear the faint murmur of the shallow creek. The sky was dusky
blue; the stars were white, the night breeze sweet and cool. Her first
flush of elation for Jim having passed, she experienced a sinking of
courage. Were they not in peril enough without Jim's finding a fortune?
How dark and significant had been Kells's hint! There was something
splendid in the bandit. Never had Joan felt so grateful to him. He was
a villain, yet he was a man. What hatred he showed for Gulden! These
rivals would surely meet in a terrible conflict--for power--for gold.
And for her!--she added, involuntarily, with a deep, inward shudder.
Once the thought had flashed through her mind, it seemed like a word of
revelation.
Then she started as a dark form rose out of the shadow under her and a
hand clasped hers. Jim! and she lifted her face.
“Joan! Joan! I'm rich! rich!” he babbled, wildly.
“Ssssh!” whispered Joan, softly, in his ear. “Be careful. You're wild
to-night.... I saw you come in with the nugget. I heard you.... Oh, you
lucky Jim! I'll tell you what to do with it!”
“Darling! It's all yours. You'll marry me now?”
“Sir! Do you take me for a fortune-hunter? I marry you for your gold?
Never!”
“Joan!”
“I've promised,” she said.
“I won't go away now. I'll work my claim,” he began, excitedly. And he
went on so rapidly that Joan could not keep track of his words. He
was not so cautious as formerly. She remonstrated with him, all to
no purpose. Not only was he carried away by possession of gold
and assurance of more, but he had become masterful, obstinate, and
illogical. He was indeed hopeless to-night--the gold had gotten into his
blood. Joan grew afraid he would betray their secret and realized there
had come still greater need for a woman's wit. So she resorted to a
never-failing means of silencing him, of controlling him--her lips on
his.
15
For several nights these stolen interviews were apparently the safer
because of Joan's tender blinding of her lover. But it seemed that in
Jim's condition of mind this yielding of her lips and her whispers of
love had really been a mistake. Not only had she made the situation
perilously sweet for herself, but in Jim's case she had added the spark
to the powder. She realized her blunder when it was too late. And the
fact that she did not regret it very much, and seemed to have lost
herself in a defiant, reckless spell, warned her again that she, too,
was answering to the wildness of the time and place. Joan's intelligence
had broadened wonderfully in this period of her life, just as all
her feelings had quickened. If gold had developed and intensified and
liberated the worst passions of men, so the spirit of that atmosphere
had its baneful effect upon her. Joan deplored this, yet she had the
keenness to understand that it was nature fitting her to survive.
Back upon her fell that weight of suspense--what would happen next?
Here in Alder Creek there did not at present appear to be the same peril
which had menaced her before, but she would suffer through fatality to
Cleve or Kells. And these two slept at night under a shadow that held
death, and by day they walked on a thin crust over a volcano. Joan grew
more and more fearful of the disclosures made when Kells met his men
nightly in the cabin. She feared to hear, but she must hear, and even
if she had not felt it necessary to keep informed of events, the
fascination of the game would have impelled her to listen. And gradually
the suspense she suffered augmented into a magnified, though vague,
assurance of catastrophe, of impending doom. She could not shake off
the gloomy presentiment. Something terrible was going to happen. An
experience begun as tragically as hers could only end in a final and
annihilating stroke. Yet hope was unquenchable, and with her fear kept
pace a driving and relentless spirit.
One night at the end of a week of these interviews, when Joan attempted
to resist Jim, to plead with him, lest in his growing boldness he betray
them, she found him a madman.
“I'll pull you right out of this window,” he said, roughly, and then
with his hot face pressed against hers tried to accomplish the thing he
threatened.
“Go on--pull me to pieces!” replied Joan, in despair and pain. “I'd be
better off dead! And--you--hurt me--so!”
“Hurt you!” he whispered, hoarsely, as if he had never dreamed of such
possibility. And then suddenly he was remorseful. He begged her to
forgive him. His voice was broken, husky, pleading. His remorse, like
every feeling of his these days, was exaggerated, wild, with that raw
tinge of gold-blood in it. He made so much noise that Joan, more fearful
than ever of discovery, quieted him with difficulty.
“Does Kells see you often--these days?” asked Jim, suddenly.
Joan had dreaded this question, which she had known would inevitably
come. She wanted to lie; she knew she ought to lie; but it was
impossible.
“Every day,” she whispered. “Please--Jim--never mind that. Kells
is good--he's all right to me.... And you and I have so little time
together.”
“Good!” exclaimed Cleve. Joan felt the leap of his body under her touch.
“Why, if I'd tell you what he sends that gang to do--you'd--you'd kill
him in his sleep.”
“Tell me,” replied Joan. She had a morbid, irresistible desire to learn.
“No.... And WHAT does Kells do--when he sees you every day?”
“He talks.”
“What about?”
“Oh, everything except about what holds him here. He talks to me to
forget himself.”
“Does he make love to you?”
Joan maintained silence. What would she do with this changed and
hopeless Jim Cleve?
“Tell me!” Jim's hands gripped her with a force that made her wince.
And now she grew as afraid of him as she had been for him. But she had
spirit enough to grow angry, also.
“Certainly he does.”
Jim Cleve echoed her first word, and then through grinding teeth he
cursed. “I'm going to--stop it!” he panted, and his eyes looked big and
dark and wild in the starlight.
“You can't. I belong to Kells. You at least ought to have sense enough
to see that.”
“Belong to him!... For God's sake! By what right?”
“By the right of possession. Might is right here on the border. Haven't
you told me that a hundred times? Don't you hold your claim--your
gold--by the right of your strength? It's the law of this border. To be
sure Kells stole me. But just now I belong to him. And lately I see his
consideration--his kindness in the light of what he could do if he held
to that border law.... And of all the men I've met out here Kells is the
least wild with this gold fever. He sends his men out to do murder for
gold; he'd sell his soul to gamble for gold; but just the same, he's
more of a man than---”
“Joan!” he interrupted, piercingly. “You love this bandit!”
“You're a fool!” burst out Joan.
“I guess--I--am,” he replied in terrible, slow earnestness. He raised
himself and appeared to loom over her and released his hold.
But Joan fearfully retained her clasp on his arm, and when he surged to
get away she was hard put to it to hold him.
“Jim! Where are you going?”
He stood there a moment, a dark form against the night shadow, like an
outline of a man cut from black stone.
“I'll just step around--there.”
“Oh, what for?” whispered Joan.
“I'm going to kill Kells.”
Joan got both arms round his neck and with her head against him she
held him tightly, trying, praying to think how to meet this long-dreaded
moment. After all, what was the use to try? This was the hour of Gold!
Sacrifice, hope, courage, nobility, fidelity--these had no place here
now. Men were the embodiment of passion--ferocity. They breathed only
possession, and the thing in the balance was death. Women were creatures
to hunger and fight for, but womanhood was nothing. Joan knew all this
with a desperate hardening certainty, and almost she gave in. Strangely,
thought of Gulden flashed up to make her again strong! Then she raised
her face and began the old pleading with Jim, but different this time,
when it seemed that absolutely all was at stake. She begged him, she
importuned him, to listen to reason, to be guided by her, to fight the
wildness that had obsessed him, to make sure that she would not be left
alone. All in vain! He swore he would kill Kells and any other bandit
who stood in the way of his leading her free out of that cabin. He was
wild to fight. He might never have felt fear of these robbers. He would
not listen to any possibility of defeat for himself, or the possibility
that in the event of Kells's death she would be worse off. He laughed at
her strange, morbid fears of Gulden. He was immovable.
“Jim!... Jim! You'll break my heart!” she whispered, wailingly. “Oh!
WHAT can I do?”
Then Joan released her clasp and gave up to utter defeat. Cleve was
silent. He did not seem to hear the shuddering little sobs that shook
her. Suddenly he bent close to her.
“There's one thing you can do. If you'll do it I won't kill Kells. I'll
obey your every word.”
“What is it? Tell me!”
“Marry me!” he whispered, and his voice trembled.
“MARRY YOU!” exclaimed Joan. She was confounded. She began to fear Jim
was out of his head.