difference. That'll steady me. Don't you want to?”
“Jim, I'd be the happiest girl in the world if--if I only COULD marry
you!” she breathed, passionately.
“But will you--will you? Say yes! Say yes!”
“YES!” replied Joan in her desperation. “I hope that pleases you. But
what on earth is the use to talk about it now?”
Cleve seemed to expand, to grow taller, to thrill under her nervous
hands. And then he kissed her differently. She sensed a shyness,
a happiness, a something hitherto foreign to his attitude. It was
spiritual, and somehow she received an uplift of hope.
“Listen,” he whispered. “There's a preacher down in camp. I've seen
him--talked with him. He's trying to do good in that hell down there.
I know I can trust him. I'll confide in him--enough. I'll fetch him up
here tomorrow night--about this time. Oh, I'll be careful--very careful.
And he can marry us right here by the window. Joan, will you do it?...
Somehow, whatever threatens you or me--that'll be my salvation!... I've
suffered so. It's been burned in my heart that YOU would never marry me.
Yet you say you love me!... Prove it!... MY WIFE!... Now, girl, a word
will make a man of me!”
“Yes!” And with the word she put her lips to his with all her heart in
them. She felt him tremble. Yet almost instantly he put her from him.
“Look for me to-morrow about this time,” he whispered. “Keep your
nerve.... Good night.”
That night Joan dreamed strange, weird, unremembered dreams. The next
day passed like a slow, unreal age. She ate little of what was brought
to her. For the first time she denied Kells admittance and she only
vaguely sensed his solicitations. She had no ear for the murmur of
voices in Kells's room. Even the loud and angry notes of a quarrel
between Kells and his men did not distract her.
At sunset she leaned out of the little window, and only then, with the
gold fading on the peaks and the shadow gathering under the bluff, did
she awaken to reality. A broken mass of white cloud caught the glory
of the sinking sun. She had never seen a golden radiance like that. It
faded and dulled. But a warm glow remained. At twilight and then at dusk
this glow lingered.
Then night fell. Joan was exceedingly sensitive to the sensations of
light and shadow, of sound and silence, of dread and hope, of sadness
and joy.
That pale, ruddy glow lingered over the bold heave of the range in
the west. It was like a fire that would not go out, that would live
to-morrow, and burn golden. The sky shone with deep, rich blue color
fired with a thousand stars, radiant, speaking, hopeful. And there was a
white track across the heavens. The mountains flung down their shadows,
impenetrable, like the gloomy minds of men; and everywhere under
the bluffs and slopes, in the hollows and ravines, lay an enveloping
blackness, hiding its depth and secret and mystery.
Joan listened. Was there sound or silence? A faint and indescribably
low roar, so low that it might have been real or false, came on the soft
night breeze. It was the roar of the camp down there--the strife, the
agony, the wild life in ceaseless action--the strange voice of gold,
roaring greed and battle and death over the souls of men. But above
that, presently, rose the murmur of the creek, a hushed and dreamy flow
of water over stones. It was hurrying to get by this horde of wild men,
for it must bear the taint of gold and blood. Would it purge itself and
clarify in the valleys below, on its way to the sea? There was in its
murmur an imperishable and deathless note of nature, of time; and this
was only a fleeting day of men and gold.
Only by straining her ears could Joan hear these sounds, and when she
ceased that, then she seemed to be weighed upon and claimed by silence.
It was not a silence like that of Lost Canon, but a silence of solitude
where her soul stood alone. She was there on earth, yet no one could
hear her mortal cry. The thunder of avalanches or the boom of the sea
might have lessened her sense of utter loneliness.
And that silence fitted the darkness, and both were apostles of dread.
They spoke to her. She breathed dread on that silent air and it filled
her breast. There was nothing stable in the night shadows. The ravine
seemed to send forth stealthy, noiseless shapes, specter and human, man
and phantom, each on the other's trail.
If Jim would only come and let her see that he was safe for the hour! A
hundred times she imagined she saw him looming darker than the shadows.
She had only to see him now, to feel his hand, and dread might be lost.
Love was something beyond the grasp of mind. Love had confounded Jim
Cleve; it had brought up kindness and honor from the black depths of a
bandit's heart; it had transformed her from a girl into a woman. Surely
with all its greatness it could not be lost; surely in the end it must
triumph over evil.
Joan found that hope was fluctuating, but eternal. It took no stock of
intelligence. It was a matter of feeling. And when she gave rein to
it for a moment, suddenly it plunged her into sadness. To hope was to
think! Poor Jim! It was his fool's paradise. Just to let her be his
wife! That was the apex of his dream. Joan divined that he might yield
to her wisdom, he might become a man, but his agony would be greater.
Still, he had been so intense, so strange, so different that she could
not but feel joy in his joy.
Then at a soft footfall, a rustle, and a moving shadow Joan's mingled
emotions merged into a poignant sense of the pain and suspense and
tenderness of the actual moment.
“Joan--Joan,” came the soft whisper.
She answered, and there was a catch in her breath.
The moving shadow split into two shadows that stole closer, loomed
before her. She could not tell which belonged to Jim till he touched
her. His touch was potent. It seemed to electrify her.
“Dearest, we're here--this is the parson,” said Jim, like a happy boy.
“I--”
“Ssssh!” whispered Joan. “Not so loud.... Listen!”
Kells was holding a rendezvous with members of his Legion. Joan even
recognized his hard and somber tone, and the sharp voice of Red Pearce,
and the drawl of Handy Oliver.
“All right. I'll be quiet,” responded Cleve, cautiously. “Joan, you're
to answer a few questions.”
Then a soft hand touched Joan, and a voice differently keyed from any
she had heard on the border addressed her.
“What is your name?” asked the preacher.
Joan told him.
“Can you tell anything about yourself? This young man is--is almost
violent. I'm not sure. Still I want to--”
“I can't tell much,” replied Joan, hurriedly. “I'm an honest girl. I'm
free to--to marry him. I--I love him!... Oh, I want to help him. We--we
are in trouble here. I daren't say how.”
“Are you over eighteen?” “Yes, sir.”
“Do your parents object to this young man?”
“I have no parents. And my uncle, with whom I lived before I was brought
to this awful place, he loves Jim. He always wanted me to marry him.”
“Take his hand, then.”
Joan felt the strong clasp of Jim's fingers, and that was all which
seemed real at the moment. It seemed so dark and shadowy round these two
black forms in front of her window. She heard a mournful wail of a lone
wolf and it intensified the weird dream that bound her. She heard her
shaking, whispered voice repeating the preacher's words. She caught a
phrase of a low-murmured prayer. Then one dark form moved silently away.
She was alone with Jim.
“Dearest Joan!” he whispered. “It's over! It's done!... Kiss me!”
She lifted her lips and Jim seemed to kiss her more sweetly, with less
violence.
“Oh, Joan, that you'd really have me! I can't believe it.... Your
HUSBAND.”
That word dispelled the dream and the pain which had held Joan, leaving
only the tenderness, magnified now a hundredfold.
And that instant when she was locked in Cleve's arms, when the silence
was so beautiful and full, she heard the heavy pound of a gun-butt upon
the table in Kells's room.
“Where is Cleve?” That was the voice of Kells, stern, demanding.
Joan felt a start, a tremor run over Jim. Then he stiffened.
“I can't locate him,” replied Red Pearce. “It was the same last night
an' the one before. Cleve jest disappears these nights--about this
time.... Some woman's got him!”
“He goes to bed. Can't you find where he sleeps?”
“No.”
“This job's got to go through and he's got to do it.”
“Bah!” taunted Pearce. “Gulden swears you can't make Cleve do a job. And
so do I!”
“Go out and yell for Cleve!... Damn you all! I'll show you!”
Then Joan heard the tramp of heavy boots, then a softer tramp on the
ground outside the cabin. Joan waited, holding her breath. She felt
Jim's heart beating. He stood like a post. He, like Joan, was listening,
as if for a trumpet of doom.
“HALLO, JIM!” rang out Pearce's stentorian call. It murdered the
silence. It boomed under the bluff, and clapped in echo, and wound away,
mockingly. It seemed to have shrieked to the whole wild borderland the
breaking-point of the bandit's power.
So momentous was the call that Jim Cleve seemed to forget Joan, and she
let him go without a word. Indeed, he was gone before she realized it,
and his dark form dissolved in the shadows. Joan waited, listening with
abated breathing. On this side of the cabin there was absolute silence.
She believed that Jim would slip around under cover of night and return
by the road from camp. Then what would he do? The question seemed to
puzzle her.
Joan leaned there at her window for moments greatly differing from those
vaguely happy ones just passed. She had sustained a shock that had left
her benumbed with a dull pain. What a rude, raw break the voice of Kells
had made in her brief forgetfulness! She was returning now to reality.
Presently she would peer through the crevice between the boards into the
other room, and she shrank from the ordeal. Kells, and whoever was with
him, maintained silence. Occasionally she heard the shuffle of a boot
and a creak of the loose floor boards. She waited till anxiety and fear
compelled her to look.
The lamps were burning; the door was wide open. Apparently Kells's rule
of secrecy had been abandoned. One glance at Kells was enough to show
Joan that he was sick and desperate. Handy Oliver did not wear his usual
lazy good humor. Red Pearce sat silent and sullen, a smoking, unheeded
pipe in his hand. Jesse Smith was gloomy. The only other present was
Bate Wood, and whatever had happened had in no wise affected him. These
bandits were all waiting. Presently quick footsteps on the path outside
caused them all to look toward the door. That tread was familiar to
Joan, and suddenly her mouth was dry, her tongue stiff. What was Jim
Cleve coming to meet? How sharp and decided his walk! Then his dark
form crossed the bar of light outside the door, and he entered, bold and
cool, and with a weariness that must have been simulated.
“Howdy boys!” he said.
Only Kells greeted him in response. The bandit eyed him curiously. The
others added suspicion to their glances.
“Did you hear Red's yell?” queried Kells, presently.
“I'd have heard that roar if I'd been dead,” replied Cleve, bluntly.
“And I didn't like it!... I was coming up the road and I heard Pearce
yell. I'll bet every man in camp heard it.”
“How'd you know Pearce yelled for you?”
“I recognized his voice.”
Cleve's manner recalled to Joan her first sight of him over in Cabin
Gulch. He was not so white or haggard, but his eyes were piercing,
and what had once been recklessness now seemed to be boldness. He
deliberately studied Pearce. Joan trembled, for she divined what none of
these robbers knew, and it was that Pearce was perilously near death. It
was there for Joan to read in Jim's dark glance.
“Where've you been all these nights?” queried the bandit leader.
“Is that any of your business--when you haven't had need of me?”
returned Cleve.
“Yes, it's my business. And I've sent for you. You couldn't be found.”
“I've been here for supper every night.”
“I don't talk to any men in daylight. You know my hours for meeting. And
you've not come.”
“You should have told me. How was I to know?”
“I guess you're right. But where've you been?”
“Down in camp. Faro, most of the time. Bad luck, too.”
Red Pearce's coarse face twisted into a scornful sneer. It must have
been a lash to Kells.
“Pearce says you're chasing a woman,” retorted the bandit leader.
“Pearce lies!” flashed Cleve. His action was as swift. And there he
stood with a gun thrust hard against Pearce's side.
“JIM! Don't kill him!” yelled Kells, rising.
Pearce's red face turned white. He stood still as a stone, with his gaze
fixed in fascinated fear upon Cleve's gun.
A paralyzing surprise appeared to hold the group.
“Can you prove what you said?” asked Cleve, low and hard.
Joan knew that if Pearce did have the proof which would implicate her he
would never live to tell it.
“Cleve--I don't--know nothin',” choked out Pearce. “I jest figgered--it
was a woman!”
Cleve slowly lowered the gun and stepped back. Evidently that satisfied
him. But Joan had an intuitive feeling that Pearce lied.
“You want to be careful how you talk about me,” said Cleve.
Kells purled out a suspended breath and he flung the sweat from
his brow. There was about him, perhaps more than the others, a dark
realization of how close the call had been for Pearce.
“Jim, you're not drunk?”
“No.”
“But you're sore?”
“Sure I'm sore. Pearce put me in bad with you, didn't he?”
“No. You misunderstood me. Red hasn't a thing against you. And neither
he nor anybody else could put you in bad with me.”
“All right. Maybe I was hasty. But I'm not wasting time these days,”
replied Cleve. “I've no hard feelings.... Pearce, do you want to shake
hands--or hold that against me?”
“He'll shake, of course,” said Kells.
Pearce extended his hand, but with a bad grace. He was dominated. This
affront of Cleve's would rankle in him.
“Kells, what do you want with me?” demanded Cleve.
A change passed over Kells, and Joan could not tell just what it was,
but somehow it seemed to suggest a weaker man.
“Jim, you've been a great card for me,” began Kells, impressively.
“You've helped my game--and twice you saved my life. I think a lot
of you.... If you stand by me now I swear I'll return the trick some
day.... Will you stand by me?”
“Yes,” replied Cleve, steadily, but he grew pale. “What's the trouble?”
“By--, it's bad enough!” exclaimed Kells, and as he spoke the shade
deepened in his haggard face. “Gulden has split my Legion. He has drawn
away more than half my men. They have been drunk and crazy ever since.
They've taken things into their own hands. You see the result as well as
I. That camp down there is fire and brimstone. Some one of that drunken
gang has talked. We're none of us safe any more. I see suspicion
everywhere. I've urged getting a big stake and then hitting the trail
for the border. But not a man sticks to me in that. They all want the
free, easy, wild life of this gold-camp. So we're anchored till--till...
But maybe it's not too late. Pearce, Oliver, Smith--all the best of my
Legion--profess loyalty to me. If we all pull together maybe we can
win yet. But they've threatened to split, too. And it's all on your
account!”
“Mine?” ejaculated Cleve.
“Yes. Now it's nothing to make you flash your gun. Remember you said
you'd stand by me.... Jim, the fact is--all the gang to a man believe
you're double-crossing me!”
“In what way?” queried Cleve, blanching.
“They think you're the one who has talked. They blame you for the
suspicion that's growing.”
“Well, they're absolutely wrong,” declared Cleve, in a ringing voice.
“I know they are. Mind you I'm not hinting I distrust you. I don't. I
swear by you. But Pearce--”
“So it's Pearce,” interrupted Cleve, darkly. “I thought you said he
hadn't tried to put me in bad with you.”
“He hasn't. He simply spoke his convictions. He has a right to them.
So have all the men. And, to come to the point, they all think you're
crooked because you're honest!”
“I don't understand,” replied Cleve, slowly.
“Jim, you rode into Cabin Gulch, and you raised some trouble. But you
were no bandit. You joined my Legion, but you've never become a bandit.
Here you've been an honest miner. That suited my plan and it helped.
But it's got so it doesn't suit my men. You work every day hard. You've
struck it rich. You're well thought of in Alder Creek. You've never done
a dishonest thing. Why, you wouldn't turn a crooked trick in a card game
for a sack full of gold. This has hurt you with my men. They can't see
as I see, that you're as square as you are game. They see you're an
honest miner. They believe you've got into a clique--that you've given
us away. I don't blame Pearce or any of my men. This is a time when
men's intelligence, if they have any, doesn't operate. Their brains
are on fire. They see gold and whisky and blood, and they feel gold
and whisky and blood. That's all. I'm glad that the gang gives you the
benefit of a doubt and a chance to stand by me.”
“A chance!”
“Yes. They've worked out a job for you alone. Will you undertake it?”
“I'll have to,” replied Cleve.
“You certainly will if you want the gang to justify my faith in you.
Once you pull off a crooked deal, they'll switch and swear by you. Then
we'll get together, all of us, and plan what to do about Gulden and
his outfit. They'll run our heads, along with their own, right into the
noose.”
“What is this--this job?” labored Cleve. He was sweating now and his
hair hung damp over his brow. He lost that look which had made him a
bold man and seemed a boy again, weak, driven, bewildered.
Kells averted his gaze before speaking again. He hated to force this
task upon Cleve. Joan felt, in the throbbing pain of the moment, that if
she never had another reason to like this bandit, she would like him for
the pity he showed.
“Do you know a miner named Creede?” asked Kells, rapidly.
“A husky chap, short, broad, something like Gulden for shape, only not
so big--fellow with a fierce red beard?” asked Cleve.
“I never saw him,” replied Kells. “But Pearce has. How does Cleve's
description fit Creede?”
“He's got his man spotted,” answered Pearce.
“All right, that's settled,” went on Kells, warming to his subject.
“This fellow Creede wears a heavy belt of gold. Blicky never makes a
mistake. Creede's partner left on yesterday's stage for Bannack.
He'll be gone a few days. Creede is a hard worker-one of the hardest.
Sometimes he goes to sleep at his supper. He's not the drinking kind.
He's slow, thick-headed. The best time for this job will be early in the
evening--just as soon as his lights are out. Locate the tent. It stands
at the head of a little wash and there's a bleached pine-tree right by
the tent. To-morrow night as soon as it gets dark crawl up this wash--be
careful--wait till the right time--then finish the job quick!”
“How--finish--it?” asked Cleve, hoarsely.
Kells was scintillating now, steely, cold, radiant. He had forgotten the
man before him in the prospect of the gold.
“Creede's cot is on the side of the tent opposite the tree. You won't
have to go inside. Slit the canvas. It's a rotten old tent. Kill Creede
with your knife.... Get his belt.... Be bold, cautious, swift! That's
your job. Now what do you say?”
“All right,” responded Cleve, somberly, and with a heavy tread he left
the room.
After Jim had gone Joan still watched and listened. She was in distress
over his unfortunate situation, but she had no fear that he meant to
carry out Kells's plan. This was a critical time for Jim, and therefore
for her. She had no idea what Jim could do; all she thought was what he
would not do.
Kells gazed triumphantly at Pearce. “I told you the youngster would
stand by me. I never put him on a job before.”
“Reckon I figgered wrong, boss,” replied Pearce.
“He looked sick to me, but game,” said Handy Oliver. “Kells is right,
Red, an' you've been sore-headed over nothin'!”
“Mebbe. But ain't it good figgerin' to make Cleve do some kind of a job,
even if he is on the square?”
They all acquiesced to this, even Kells slowly nodding his head.
“Jack, I've thought of another an' better job for young Cleve,” spoke up
Jesse Smith, with his characteristic grin.
“You'll all be setting him jobs now,” replied Kells. “What's yours?”
“You spoke of plannin' to get together once more--what's left of us. An'
there's thet bull-head Gulden.”
“You're sure right,” returned the leader, grimly, and he looked at Smith
as if he would welcome any suggestion.
“I never was afraid to speak my mind,” went on Smith. Here he lost his
grin and his coarse mouth grew hard. “Gulden will have to be killed if
we're goin' to last!”
“Wood, what do you say?” queried Kells, with narrowing eyes.
Bate Wood nodded as approvingly as if he had been asked about his bread.
“Oliver, what do you say?”
“Wal, I'd love to wait an' see Gul hang, but if you press me, I'll agree
to stand pat with the cards Jesse's dealt,” replied Handy Oliver.
Then Kells turned with a bright gleam upon his face. “And you--Pearce?”
“I'd say yes in a minute if I'd not have to take a hand in thet job,”
replied Pearce, with a hard laugh. “Gulden won't be so easy to kill.
He'll pack a gunful of lead. I'll gamble if the gang of us cornered him
in this cabin he'd do for most of us before we killed him.”
“Gul sleep alone, no one knows where,” said Handy Oliver. “An' he can't
be surprised. Red's correct. How're we goin' to kill him?”
“If you gents will listen you'll find out,” rejoined Jesse Smith.
“Thet's the job for young Cleve. He can do it. Sure Gulden never was
afraid of any man. But somethin' about Cleve bluffed him. I don't
know what. Send Cleve out after Gulden. He'll call him face to face,
anywhere, an' beat him to a gun!... Take my word for it.”
“Jesse, that's the grandest idea you ever had,” said Kells, softly. His
eyes shone. The old power came back to his face. “I split on Gulden.
With him once out of the way--!”
“Boss, are you goin' to make thet Jim Cleve's second job?” inquired
Pearce, curiously.
“I am,” replied Kells, with his jaw corded and stiff. “If he pulls thet
off you'll never hear a yap from me so long as I live. An' I'll eat out
of Cleve's hand.”
Joan could bear to hear no more. She staggered to her bed and fell
there, all cramped as if in a cold vise. However Jim might meet the
situation planned for murdering Creede, she knew he would not shirk
facing Gulden with deadly intent. He hated Gulden because she had a
horror of him. Would these hours of suspense never end? Must she pass
from one torture to another until--?
Sleep did not come for a long time. And when it did she suffered with
nightmares from which it seemed she could never awaken.
The day, when at last it arrived, was no better than the night. It
wore on endlessly, and she who listened so intently found it one of the
silent days. Only Bate Wood remained at the cabin. He appeared kinder
than usual, but Joan did not want to talk. She ate her meals, and passed
the hours watching from the window and lying on the bed. Dusk brought
Kells and Pearce and Smith, but not Jim Cleve. Handy Oliver and Blicky
arrived at supper-time.
“Reckon Jim's appetite is pore,” remarked Bate Wood, reflectively. “He
ain't been in to-day.”
Some of the bandits laughed, but Kells had a twinge, if Joan ever saw a
man have one. The dark, formidable, stern look was on his face. He alone
of the men ate sparingly, and after the meal he took to his bent posture
and thoughtful pacing. Joan saw the added burden of another crime upon
his shoulders. Conversation, which had been desultory, and such as any
miners or campers might have indulged in, gradually diminished to a
word here and there, and finally ceased. Kells always at this hour had
a dampening effect upon his followers. More and more he drew aloof from
them, yet he never realized that. He might have been alone. But often he
glanced out of the door, and appeared to listen. Of course he expected
Jim Cleve to return, but what did he expect of him? Joan had a blind
faith that Jim would be cunning enough to fool Kells and Pearce. So much
depended upon it!
Some of the bandits uttered an exclamation. Then silently, like a
shadow, Jim Cleve entered.
Joan's heart leaped and seemed to stand still. Jim could not have locked
more terrible if he were really a murderer. He opened his coat. Then
he flung a black object upon the table and it fell with a soft, heavy,
sodden thud. It was a leather belt packed with gold.