Apparently to Kells that nugget did not accuse Jim Cleve of treachery. Not only did this possibility seem lost upon the bandit leader, but also the sinister intent of Gulden and his associates.
“Then Jim didn't kill Creede!” cried Kells.
A strange light flashed across his face. It fitted the note of gladness in his exclamation. How strange that in his amaze there should be relief instead of suspicion! Joan thought she understood Kells. He was glad that he had not yet made a murderer out of Cleve.
Gulden appeared slow in rejoining. “I told you I got Creede,” he said. “And we want to know if this says to you what it says to us.”
His huge, hairy hand tapped the nugget. Then Kells caught the implication.
“What does it say to you?” he queried, coolly, and he eyed Gulden and then the grim men behind him.
“Somebody in the gang is crooked. Somebody's giving you the double-cross. We've known that for long. Jim Cleve goes out to kill Creede. He comes in with Creede's gold-belt--and a lie!... We think Cleve is the crooked one.”
“No! You're way off, Gulden,” replied Kells, earnestly. “That boy is absolutely square. He's lied to me about Creede. But I can excuse that. He lost his nerve. He's only a youngster. To knife a man in his sleep--that was too much for Jim!... And I'm glad! I see it all now. Jim's swapped his big nugget for Creede's belt. And in the bargain he exacted that Creede hit the trail out of camp. You happened to see Creede and went after him yourself.... Well, I don't see where you've any kick coming. For you've ten times the money in Cleve's nugget that there was in a share of Creede's gold.”
“That's not my kick,” declared Gulden. “What you say about Cleve may be true. But I don't believe it. And the gang is sore. Things have leaked out. We're watched. We're not welcome in the gambling-places any more. Last night I was not allowed to sit in the game at Belcher's.”
“You think Cleve has squealed?” queried Kells.
“Yes.”
“I'll bet you every ounce of dust I've got that you're wrong,” declared Kells. “A straight, square bet against anything you want to put up!”
Kells's ringing voice was nothing if not convincing.
“Appearances are against Cleve,” growled Gulden, dubiously. Always he had been swayed by the stronger mind of the leader.
“Sure they are,” agreed Kells.
“Then what do you base your confidence on?”
“Just my knowledge of men. Jim Cleve wouldn't squeal.... Gulden, did anybody tell you that?”
“Yes,” replied Gulden, slowly. “Red Pearce.”
“Pearce was a liar,” said Kells, bitterly. “I shot him for lying to me.”
Gulden stared. His men muttered and gazed at one another and around the cabin.
“Pearce told me you set Cleve to kill me,” suddenly spoke up the giant.
If he expected to surprise Kells he utterly failed.
“That's another and bigger lie,” replied the bandit leader, disgustedly. “Gulden, do you think my mind's gone?”
“Not quite,” replied Gulden, and he seemed as near a laugh as was possible for him.
“Well, I've enough mind left not to set a boy to kill such a man as you.”
Gulden might have been susceptible to flattery. He turned to his men. They, too, had felt Kells's subtle influence. They were ready to veer round like weather-vanes.
“Red Pearce has cashed, an' he can't talk for himself,” said Beady Jones, as if answering to the unspoken thought of all.
“Men, between you and me, I had more queer notions about Pearce than Cleve,” announced Gulden, gruffly. “But I never said so because I had no proof.”
“Red shore was sore an' strange lately,” added Chick Williams. “Me an' him were pretty thick once--but not lately.”
The giant Gulden scratched his head and swore. Probably he had no sense of justice and was merely puzzled.
“We're wastin' a lot of time,” put in Beard, anxiously. “Don't fergit there's somethin' comin' off down in camp, an' we ain't sure what.”
“Bah! Haven't we heard whispers of vigilantes for a week?” queried Gulden.
Then some one of the men looked out of the door and suddenly whistled.
“Who's thet on a hoss?”
Gulden's gang crowded to the door.
“Thet's Handy Oliver.”
“No!”
“Shore is. I know him. But it ain't his hoss.... Say, he's hurryin'.”
Low exclamations of surprise and curiosity followed. Kells and his men looked attentively, but no one spoke. The clatter of hoofs on the stony road told of a horse swiftly approaching--pounding to a halt before the cabin.
“Handy!... Air you chased?... What's wrong?... You shore look pale round the gills.” These and other remarks were flung out the door.
“Where's Kells? Let me in,” replied Oliver, hoarsely.
The crowd jostled and split to admit the long, lean Oliver. He stalked straight toward Kells, till the table alone stood between them. He was gray of face, breathing hard, resolute and stern.
“Kells, I throwed--you--down!” he said, with outstretched hand. It was a gesture of self-condemnation and remorse.
“What of that?” demanded Kells, with his head leaping like the strike of an eagle.
“I'm takin' it back!”
Kells met the outstretched hand with his own and wrung it. “Handy, I never knew you to right--about--face. But I'm glad.... What's changed you so quickly?”
“VIGILANTES!”
Kells's animation and eagerness suddenly froze. “VIGILANTES!” he ground out.
“No rumor, Kells, this time. I've sure some news.... Come close, all you fellows. You, Gulden, come an' listen. Here's where we git together closer'n ever.”
Gulden surged forward with his group. Handy Oliver was surrounded by pale, tight faces, dark-browed and hardeyed.
He gazed at them, preparing them for a startling revelation. “Men, of all the white-livered traitors as ever was Red Pearce was the worst!” he declared, hoarsely.
No one moved or spoke.
“AN' HE WAS A VIGILANTE!”
A low, strange sound, almost a roar, breathed through the group.
“Listen now an' don't interrupt. We ain't got a lot of time.... So never mind how I happened to find out about Pearce. It was all accident, an' jest because I put two an' two together.... Pearce was approached by one of this secret vigilante band, an' he planned to sell the Border Legion outright. There was to be a big stake in it for him. He held off day after day, only tippin' off some of the gang. There's Dartt an' Singleton an' Frenchy an' Texas all caught red-handed at jobs. Pearce put the vigilantes to watchin' them jest to prove his claim.... Aw! I've got the proofs! Jest wait. Listen to me!... You all never in your lives seen a snake like Red Pearce. An' the job he had put up on us was grand. To-day he was to squeal on the whole gang. You know how he began on Kells--an' how with his oily tongue he asked a guarantee of no gun-play. But he figgered Kells wrong for once. He accused Kells's girl an' got killed for his pains. Mebbe it was part of his plan to git the girl himself. Anyway, he had agreed to betray the Border Legion to-day. An' if he hadn't been killed by this time we'd all be tied up, ready for the noose!... Mebbe thet wasn't a lucky shot of the boss's. Men, I was the first to declare myself against Kells, an' I'm here now to say thet I was a fool. So you've all been fools who've bucked against him. If this ain't provin' it, what can!
“But I must hustle with my story.... They was havin' a trial down at the big hall, an' thet place was sure packed. No diggin' gold to-day!... Think of what thet means for Alder Creek. I got inside where I could stand on a barrel an' see. Dartt an' Singleton an' Frenchy an' Texas was bein' tried by a masked court. A man near me said two of them had been proved guilty. It didn't take long to make out a case against Texas an' Frenchy. Miners there recognized them an' identified them. They was convicted an' sentenced to be hung!.. Then the offer was made to let them go free out of the border if they'd turn state's evidence an' give away the leader an' men of the Border Legion. Thet was put up to each prisoner. Dartt he never answered at all. An' Singleton told them to go to hell. An' Texas he swore he was only a common an' honest road-agent, an' never heard of the Legion. But the Frenchman showed a yellow streak. He might have taken the offer. But Texas cussed him tumble, an' made him ashamed to talk. But if they git Frenchy away from Texas they'll make him blab. He's like a greaser. Then there was a delay. The big crowd of miners yelled for ropes. But the vigilantes are waitin', an' it's my hunch they're waitin' for Pearce.”
“So! And where do we stand?” cried Kells, clear and cold.
“We're not spotted yet, thet's certain,” replied Oliver, “else them masked vigilantes would have been on the job before now. But it's not sense to figger we can risk another day.... I reckon it's hit the trail back to Cabin Gulch.”
“Gulden, what do you say?” queried Kells, sharply.
“I'll go or stay--whatever you want,” replied the giant. In this crisis he seemed to be glad to have Kells decide the issue. And his followers resembled sheep ready to plunge after the leader.
But though Kells, by a strange stroke, had been made wholly master of the Legion, he did not show the old elation or radiance. Perhaps he saw more clearly than ever before. Still he was quick, decisive, strong, equal to the occasion.
“Listen--all of you,” he said. “Our horses and outfits are hidden in a gulch several miles below camp. We've got to go that way. We can't pack any grub or stuff from here. We'll risk going through camp. Now leave here two or three at a time, and wait down there on the edge of the crowd for me. When I come we'll stick together. Then all do as I do.”
Gulden put the nugget under his coat and strode out, accompanied by Budd and Jones. They hurried away. The others went in couples. Soon only Bate Wood and Handy Oliver were left with Kells.
“Now you fellows go,” said Kells. “Be sure to round up the gang down there and wait for me.”
When they had gone he called for Jim and Joan to come out.
All this time Joan's hand had been gripped in Jim's, and Joan had been so absorbed that she had forgotten the fact. He released her and faced her, silent, pale. Then he went out. Joan swiftly followed.
Kells was buckling on his spurs. “You heard?” he said, the moment he saw Jim's face.
“Yes,” replied Jim.
“So much the better. We've got to rustle.... Joan, put on that long coat of Cleve's. Take off your mask.... Jim, get what gold you have, and hurry. If we're gone when you come back hurry down the road. I want you with me.”
Cleve stalked out, and Joan ran into her room and put on the long coat. She had little time to choose what possessions she could take; and that choice fell upon the little saddle-bag, into which she hurriedly stuffed comb and brush and soap--all it would hold. Then she returned to the larger room.
Kells had lifted a plank of the floor, and was now in the act of putting small buckskin sacks of gold into his pockets. They made his coat bulge at the sides.
“Joan, stick some meat and biscuits in your pockets,” he said. “I'd never get hungry with my pockets full of gold. But you might.”
Joan rummaged around in Bate Wood's rude cupboard.
“These biscuits are as heavy as gold--and harder,” she said.
Kells flashed a glance at her that held pride, admiration, and sadness. “You are the gamest girl I ever knew! I wish I'd--But that's too late!... Joan, if anything happens to me stick close to Cleve. I believe you can trust him. Come on now.”
Then he strode out of the cabin. Joan had almost to run to keep up with him. There were no other men now in sight. She knew that Jim would follow soon, because his gold-dust was hidden in the cavern back of her room, and he would not need much time to get it. Nevertheless, she anxiously looked back. She and Kells had gone perhaps a couple of hundred yards before Jim appeared, and then he came on the run. At a point about opposite the first tents he joined Kells.
“Jim, how about guns?” asked the bandit.
“I've got two,” replied Cleve.
“Good! There's no telling--Jim, I'm afraid of the gang. They're crazy. What do you think?”
“I don't know. It's a hard proposition.”
“We'll get away, all right. Don't worry about that. But the gang will never come together again.” This singular man spoke with melancholy. “Slow up a little now,” he added. “We don't want to attract attention.... But where is there any one to see us?... Jim, did I have you figured right about the Creede job?”
“You sure did. I just lost my nerve.”
“Well, no matter.”
Then Kells appeared to forget that. He stalked on with keen glances searching everywhere, until suddenly, when he saw round a bend of the road, he halted with grating teeth. That road was empty all the way to the other end of camp, but there surged a dark mob of men. Kells stalked forward again. The Last Nugget appeared like an empty barn. How vacant and significant the whole center of camp! Kells did not speak another word.
Joan hurried on between Kells and Cleve. She was trying to fortify herself to meet what lay at the end of the road. A strange, hoarse roar of men and an upflinging of arms made her shudder. She kept her eyes lowered and clung to the arms of her companions.
Finally they halted. She felt the crowd before she saw it. A motley assemblage with what seemed craned necks and intent backs! They were all looking forward and upward. But she forced her glance down.
Kells stood still. Jim's grip was hard upon her arm. Presently men grouped round Kells. She heard whispers. They began to walk slowly, and she was pushed and led along. More men joined the group. Soon she and Kells and Jim were hemmed in a circle. Then she saw the huge form of Gulden, the towering Oliver, and Smith and Blicky, Beard, Jones, Williams, Budd, and others. The circle they formed appeared to be only one of many groups, all moving, whispering, facing from her. Suddenly a sound like the roar of a wave agitated that mass of men. It was harsh, piercing, unnatural, yet it had a note of wild exultation. Then came the stamp and surge, and then the upflinging of arms, and then the abrupt strange silence, broken only by a hiss or an escaping breath, like a sob. Beyond all Joan's power to resist was a deep, primitive desire to look.
There over the heads of the mob--from the bench of the slope--rose grotesque structures of new-hewn lumber. On a platform stood black, motionless men in awful contrast with a dangling object that doubled up and curled upon itself in terrible convulsions. It lengthened while it swayed; it slowed its action while it stretched. It took on the form of a man. He swung by a rope round his neck. His head hung back. His hands beat. A long tremor shook the body; then it was still, and swayed to and fro, a dark, limp thing.
Joan's gaze was riveted in horror. A dim, red haze made her vision imperfect. There was a sickening riot within her.
There were masked men all around the platform--a solid phalanx of them on the slope above. They were heavily armed. Other masked men stood on the platform. They seemed rigid figures--stiff, jerky when they moved. How different from the two forms swaying below!
The structure was a rude scaffold and the vigilantes had already hanged two bandits.
Two others with hands bound behind their backs stood farther along the platform under guard. Before each dangled a noose.
Joan recognized Texas and Frenchy. And on the instant the great crowd let out a hard breath that ended in silence.
The masked leader of the vigilantes was addressing Texas: “We'll spare your life if you confess. Who's the head of this Border Legion?”
“Shore it's Red Pearce!... Haw! Haw! Haw!”
“We'll give you one more chance,” came the curt reply.
Texas appeared to become serious and somber. “I swear to God it's Pearce!” he declared.
“A lie won't save you. Come, the truth! We think we know, but we want proof! Hurry!”
“You can go where it's hot!” responded Texas.
The leader moved his hand and two other masked men stepped forward.
“Have you any message to send any one--anything to say?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“Have you any request to make?”
“Hang that Frenchman before me! I want to see him kick.”
Nothing more was said. The two men adjusted the noose round the doomed man's neck. Texas refused the black cap. And he did not wait for the drop to be sprung. He walked off the platform into space as Joan closed her eyes.
Again that strange, full, angry, and unnatural roar waved through the throng of watchers. It was terrible to hear. Joan felt the violent action of that crowd, although the men close round her were immovable as stones. She imagined she could never open her eyes to see Texas hanging there. Yet she did--and something about his form told her that he had died instantly. He had been brave and loyal even in dishonor. He had more than once spoken a kind word to her. Who could tell what had made him an outcast? She breathed a prayer for his soul.
The vigilantes were bolstering up the craven Frenchy. He could not stand alone. They put the rope round his neck and lifted him off the platform--then let him down. He screamed in his terror. They cut short his cries by lifting him again. This time they held him up several seconds. His face turned black. His eyes bulged. His breast heaved. His legs worked with the regularity of a jumping-jack. They let him down and loosened the noose. They were merely torturing him to wring a confession from him. He had been choked severely and needed a moment to recover. When he did it was to shrink back in abject terror from that loop of rope dangling before his eyes.
The vigilante leader shook the noose in his face and pointed to the swaying forms of the dead bandits.
Frenchy frothed at the mouth as he shrieked out words in his native tongue, but any miner there could have translated their meaning.
The crowd heaved forward, as if with one step, then stood in a strained silence.
“Talk English!” ordered the vigilante.
“I'll tell! I'll tell!”
Joan became aware of a singular tremor in Kells's arm, which she still clasped. Suddenly it jerked. She caught a gleam of blue. Then the bellow of a gun almost split her ears. Powder burned her cheek. She saw Frenchy double up and collapse on the platform.
For an instant there was a silence in which every man seemed petrified. Then burst forth a hoarse uproar and the stamp of many boots. All in another instant pandemonium broke out. The huge crowd split in every direction. Joan felt Cleve's strong arm around her--felt herself borne on a resistless tide of yelling, stamping, wrestling men. She had a glimpse of Kells's dark face drawing away from her; another of Gulden's giant form in Herculean action, tossing men aside like ninepins; another of weapons aloft. Savage, wild-eyed men fought to get into the circle whence that shot had come. They broke into it, but did not know then whom to attack or what to do. And the rushing of the frenzied miners all around soon disintegrated Kells's band and bore its several groups in every direction. There was not another shot fired.
Joan was dragged and crushed in the melee. Not for rods did her feet touch the ground. But in the clouds of dust and confusion of struggling forms she knew Jim still held her, and she clasped him with all her strength. Presently her feet touched the earth; she was not jostled and pressed; then she felt free to walk; and with Jim urging her they climbed a rock-strewn slope till a cabin impeded further progress. But they had escaped the stream.
Below was a strange sight. A scaffold shrouded in dust-clouds; a band of bewildered vigilantes with weapons drawn, waiting for they knew not what; three swinging, ghastly forms and a dead man on the platform; and all below, a horde of men trying to escape from one another. That shot of Kells's had precipitated a rush. No miner knew who the vigilantes were nor the members of the Border Legion. Every man there expected a bloody battle--distrusted the man next to him--and had given way to panic. The vigilantes had tried to crowd together for defense and all the others had tried to escape. It was a wild scene, born of wild justice and blood at fever-heat, the climax of a disordered time where gold and violence reigned supreme. It could only happen once, but it was terrible while it lasted. It showed the craven in men; it proved the baneful influence of gold; it brought, in its fruition, the destiny of Alder Creek Camp. For it must have been that the really brave and honest men in vast majority retraced their steps while the vicious kept running. So it seemed to Joan.
She huddled against Jim there in the shadow of the cabin wall, and not for long did either speak. They watched and listened. The streams of miners turned back toward the space around the scaffold where the vigilantes stood grouped, and there rose a subdued roar of excited voices. Many small groups of men conversed together, until the vigilante leader brought all to attention by addressing the populace in general. Joan could not hear what he said and had no wish to hear.
“Joan, it all happened so quickly, didn't it?” whispered Jim, shaking his head as if he was not convinced of reality.
“Wasn't he--terrible!” whispered Joan in reply.
“He! Who?”
“Kells.” In her mind the bandit leader dominated all that wild scene.
“Terrible, if you like. But I'd say great!... The nerve of him! In the face of a hundred vigilantes and thousands of miners! But he knew what that shot would do!”
“Never! He never thought of that,” declared Joan, earnestly. “I felt him tremble. I had a glimpse of his face.... Oh!... First in his mind was his downfall, and, second, the treachery of Frenchy. I think that shot showed Kells as utterly desperate, but weak. He couldn't have helped it--if that had been the last bullet in his gun.”
Jim Cleve looked strangely at Joan, as if her eloquence was both persuasive and incomprehensible.
“Well, that was a lucky shot for us--and him, too.”
“Do you think he got away?” she asked, eagerly.
“Sure. They all got away. Wasn't that about the maddest crowd you ever saw?”
“No wonder. In a second every man there feared the man next to him would shoot. That showed the power of Kells's Border Legion. If his men had been faithful and obedient he never would have fallen.”
“Joan! You speak as if you regret it!”
“Oh, I am ashamed,” replied Joan. “I don't mean that. I don't know what I do mean. But still I'm sorry for Kells. I suffered so much.... Those long, long hours of suspense.... And his fortunes seemed my fortunes--my very life--and yours, too, Jim.”
“I think I understand, dear,” said Jim, soberly.
“Jim, what'll we do now? Isn't it strange to feel free?”
“I feel as queer as you. Let me think,” replied Jim.
They huddled there in comparative seclusion for a long time after that. Joan tried to think of plans, but her mind seemed, unproductive. She felt half dazed. Jim, too, appeared to be laboring under the same kind of burden. Moreover, responsibility had been added to his.
The afternoon waned till the sun tipped the high range in the west. The excitement of the mining populace gradually wore away, and toward sunset strings of men filed up the road and across the open. The masked vigilantes disappeared, and presently only a quiet and curious crowd was left round the grim scaffold and its dark swinging forms. Joan's one glance showed that the vigilantes had swung Frenchy's dead body in the noose he would have escaped by treachery. They had hanged him dead. What a horrible proof of the temper of these newborn vigilantes! They had left the bandits swinging. What sight was so appalling as these limp, dark, swaying forms? Dead men on the ground had a dignity--at least the dignity of death. And death sometimes had a majesty. But here both life and death had been robbed and there was only horror. Joan felt that all her life she would be haunted.
“Joan, we've got to leave Alder Creek,” declared Cleve, finally. He rose to his feet. The words seemed to have given him decision. “At first I thought every bandit in the gang would run as far as he could from here. But--you can't tell what these wild men will do. Gulden, for instance! Common sense ought to make them hide for a spell. Still, no matter what's what, we must leave.... Now, how to go?”
“Let's walk. If we buy horses or wait for the stage we'll have to see men here--and I'm afraid--”
“But, Joan, there'll be bandits along the road sure. And the trails, wherever they are, would be less safe.”
“Let's travel by night and rest by day.”
“That won't do, with so far to go and no pack.”
“Then part of the way.”
“No. We'd better take the stage for Bannack. If it starts at all it'll be under armed guard. The only thing is--will it leave soon?... Come, Joan, we'll go down into camp.”
Dusk had fallen and lights had begun to accentuate the shadows. Joan kept close beside Jim, down the slope, and into the road. She felt like a guilty thing and every passing man or low-conversing group frightened her. Still she could not help but see that no one noticed her or Jim, and she began to gather courage. Jim also acquired confidence. The growing darkness seemed a protection. The farther up the street they passed, the more men they met. Again the saloons were in full blast. Alder Creek had returned to the free, careless tenor of its way. A few doors this side of the Last Nugget was the office of the stage and express company. It was a wide tent with the front canvas cut out and a shelf-counter across the opening. There was a dim, yellow lamplight. Half a dozen men lounged in front, and inside were several more, two of whom appeared to be armed guards. Jim addressed no one in particular.
“When does the next stage leave for Bannack?”
A man looked up sharply from the papers that littered a table before him. “It leaves when we start it,” he replied, curtly.
“Well, when will that be?”
“What's that to you?” he replied, with a question still more curt.
“I want to buy seats for two.”
“That's different. Come in and let's look you over.... Hello! it's young Cleve. I didn't recognize you. Excuse me. We're a little particular these days.”
The man's face lighted. Evidently he knew Jim and thought well of him. This reassured Joan and stilled the furious beating of her heart. She saw Jim hand over a sack of gold, from which the agent took the amount due for the passage. Then he returned the sack and whispered something in Jim's ear. Jim rejoined her and led her away, pressing her arm close to his side.
“It's all right,” he whispered, excitedly. “Stage leaves just before daylight. It used to leave in the middle of the fore-noon. But they want a good start to-morrow.”
“They think it might be held up?”
“He didn't say so. But there's every reason to suspect that.... Joan, I sure hope it won't. Me with all this gold. Why, I feel as if I weighed a thousand pounds.”
“What'll we do now?” she inquired.
Jim halted in the middle of the road. It was quite dark now. The lights of the camp were flaring; men were passing to and fro; the loose boards on the walks rattled to their tread; the saloons had begun to hum; and there was a discordant blast from the Last Nugget.
“That's it--what'll we do?” he asked in perplexity.
Joan had no idea to advance, but with the lessening of her fear and the gradual clearing of her mind she felt that she would not much longer be witless.
“We've got to eat and get some rest,” said Jim, sensibly.
“I'll try to eat--but I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight,” replied Joan.
Jim took her to a place kept by a Mexican. It appeared to consist of two tents, with opening in front and door between. The table was a plank resting upon two barrels, and another plank, resting upon kegs, served as a seat. There was a smoking lamp that flickered. The Mexican's tableware was of a crudeness befitting his house, but it was clean and he could cook--two facts that Joan appreciated after her long experience of Bate Wood. She and Jim were the only customers of the Mexican, who spoke English rather well and was friendly. Evidently it pleased him to see the meal enjoyed. Both the food and the friendliness had good effect upon Jim Cleve. He ceased to listen all the time and to glance furtively out at every footstep.
“Joan, I guess it'll turn out all right,” he said, clasping her hand as it rested upon the table. Suddenly he looked bright-eyed and shy. He leaned toward her. “Do you remember--we are married?” he whispered.
Joan was startled. “Of course,” she replied hastily. But had she forgotten?
“You're my wife.”
Joan looked at him and felt her nerves begin to tingle. A soft, warm wave stole over her.
Like a boy he laughed. “This was our first meal together--on our honeymoon!”
“Jim!” The blood burned in Joan's face.
“There you sit--you beautiful... But you're not a girl now. You're Dandy Dale.”
“Don't call me that!” exclaimed Joan.
“But I shall--always. We'll keep that bandit suit always. You can dress up sometimes to show off--to make me remember--to scare the--the kids--”
“Jim Cleve!”
“Oh, Joan, I'm afraid to be happy. But I can't help it. We're going to get away. You belong to me. And I've sacks and sacks of gold-dust. Lord! I've no idea how much! But you can never spend all the money. Isn't it just like a dream?”
Joan smiled through tears, and failed trying to look severe.
“Get me and the gold away--safe--before you crow,” she said.
That sobered him. He led her out again into the dark street with its dark forms crossing to and fro before the lights.
“It's a long time before morning. Where can I take you--so you can sleep a little?” he muttered.
“Find a place where we can sit down and wait,” she suggested.
“No.” He pondered a moment. “I guess there's no risk.”
Then he led her up the street and through that end of camp out upon the rough, open slope. They began to climb. The stars were bright, but even so Joan stumbled often over the stones. She wondered how Jim could get along so well in the dark and she clung to his arm. They did not speak often, and then only in whispers. Jim halted occasionally to listen or to look up at the bold, black bluff for his bearings. Presently he led her among broken fragments of cliff, and half carried her over rougher ground, into a kind of shadowy pocket or niche.
“Here's where I slept,” he whispered.
He wrapped a blanket round her, and then they sat down against the rock, and she leaned upon his shoulder.
“I have your coat and the blanket, too,” she said. “Won't you be cold?”
He laughed. “Now don't talk any more. You're white and fagged-out. You need to rest--to sleep.”
“Sleep? How impossible!” she murmured.
“Why, your eyes are half shut now.... Anyway, I'll not talk to you. I want to think.”
“Jim!... kiss me--good night,” she whispered.
He bent over rather violently, she imagined. His head blotted out the light of the stars. He held her tightly for a moment. She felt him shake. Then he kissed her on the cheek and abruptly drew away. How strange he seemed!
For that matter, everything was strange. She had never seen the stars so bright, so full of power, so close. All about her the shadows gathered protectingly, to hide her and Jim. The silence spoke. She saw Jim's face in the starlight and it seemed so keen, so listening, so thoughtful, so beautiful. He would sit there all night, wide-eyed and alert, guarding her, waiting for the gray of dawn. How he had changed! And she was his wife! But that seemed only a dream. It needed daylight and sight of her ring to make that real.
A warmth and languor stole over her; she relaxed comfortably; after all, she would sleep. But why did that intangible dread hang on to her soul? The night was so still and clear and perfect--a radiant white night of stars--and Jim was there, holding her--and to-morrow they would ride away. That might be, but dark, dangling shapes haunted her, back in her mind, and there, too, loomed Kells. Where was he now? Gone--gone on his bloody trail with his broken fortunes and his desperate bitterness! He had lost her. The lunge of that wild mob had parted them. A throb of pain and shame went through her, for she was sorry. She could not understand why, unless it was because she had possessed some strange power to instil or bring up good in him. No woman could have been proof against that. It was monstrous to know that she had power to turn him from an evil life, yet she could not do it. It was more than monstrous to realize that he had gone on spilling blood and would continue to go on when she could have prevented it--could have saved many poor miners who perhaps had wives or sweethearts somewhere. Yet there was no help for it. She loved Jim Cleve. She might have sacrificed herself, but she would not sacrifice him for all the bandits and miners on the border.
Joan felt that she would always be haunted and would always suffer that pang for Kells. She would never lie down in the peace and quiet of her home, wherever that might be, without picturing Kells, dark and forbidding and burdened, pacing some lonely cabin or riding a lonely trail or lying with his brooding face upturned to the lonely stars. Sooner or later he would meet his doom. It was inevitable. She pictured over that sinister scene of the dangling forms; but no--Kells would never end that way. Terrible as he was, he had not been born to be hanged. He might be murdered in his sleep, by one of that band of traitors who were traitors because in the nature of evil they had to be. But more likely some gambling-hell, with gold and life at stake, would see his last fight. These bandits stole gold and gambled among themselves and fought. And that fight which finished Kells must necessarily be a terrible one. She seemed to see into a lonely cabin where a log fire burned low and lamps flickered and blue smoke floated in veils and men lay prone on the floor--Kells, stark and bloody, and the giant Gulden, dead at last and more terrible in death, and on the rude table bags of gold and dull, shining heaps of gold, and scattered on the floor, like streams of sand and useless as sand, dust of gold--the Destroyer.
