All Joan's fancies and dreams faded into obscurity, and when she was aroused it seemed she had scarcely closed her eyes. But there was the gray gloom of dawn. Jim was shaking her gently.
“No, you weren't sleepy--it's just a mistake,” he said, helping her to arise. “Now we'll get out of here.”
They threaded a careful way out of the rocks, then hurried down the slope. In the grayness Joan saw the dark shape of a cabin and it resembled the one Kells had built. It disappeared. Presently when Jim led her into a road she felt sure that this cabin had been the one where she had been a prisoner for so long. They hurried down the road and entered the camp. There were no lights. The tents and cabins looked strange and gloomy. The road was empty. Not a sound broke the stillness. At the bend Joan saw a stage-coach and horses looming up in what seemed gray distance. Jim hurried her on.
They reached the stage. The horses were restive. The driver was on the seat, whip and reins in hand. Two men sat beside him with rifles across their knees. The door of the coach hung open. There were men inside, one of whom had his head out of the window. The barrel of a rifle protruded near him. He was talking in a low voice to a man apparently busy at the traces.
“Hello, Cleve! You're late,” said another man, evidently the agent. “Climb aboard. When'll you be back?”
“I hardly know,” replied Cleve, with hesitation.
“All right. Good luck to you.” He closed the coach door after Joan and Jim. “Let 'em go, Bill.”
The stage started with a jerk. To Joan what an unearthly creak and rumble it made, disturbing the silent dawn! Jim squeezed her hand with joy. They were on the way!
Joan and Jim had a seat to themselves. Opposite sat three men--the guard with his head half out of the window, a bearded miner who appeared stolid or drowsy, and a young man who did not look rough and robust enough for a prospector. None of the three paid any particular attention to Joan and Jim.
The road had a decided slope down-hill, and Bill, the driver, had the four horses on a trot. The rickety old stage appeared to be rattling to pieces. It lurched and swayed, and sometimes jolted over rocks and roots. Joan was hard put to it to keep from being bumped off the seat. She held to a brace on one side and to Jim on the other. And when the stage rolled down into the creek and thumped over boulders Joan made sure that every bone in her body would be broken. This crossing marked the mouth of the gulch, and on the other side the road was smooth.
“We're going the way we came,” whispered Jim in her ear.
This was surprising, for Joan had been sure that Bannack lay in the opposite direction. Certainly this fact was not reassuring to her. Perhaps the road turned soon.
Meanwhile the light brightened, the day broke, and the sun reddened the valley. Then it was as light inside the coach as outside. Joan might have spared herself concern as to her fellow-passengers. The only one who noticed her was the young man, and he, after a stare and a half-smile, lapsed into abstraction. He looked troubled, and there was about him no evidence of prosperity. Jim held her hand under a fold of the long coat, and occasionally he spoke of something or other outside that caught his eye. And the stage rolled on rapidly, seemingly in pursuit of the steady roar of hoofs.
Joan imagined she recognized the brushy ravine out of which Jesse Smith had led that day when Kells's party came upon the new road. She believed Jim thought so, too, for he gripped her hand unusually hard. Beyond that point Joan began to breathe more easily. There seemed no valid reason now why every mile should not separate them farther from the bandits, and she experienced relief.
Then the time did not drag so. She wanted to talk to Jim, yet did not, because of the other passengers. Jim himself appeared influenced by their absorption in themselves. Besides, the keen, ceaseless vigilance of the guard was not without its quieting effect. Danger lurked ahead in the bends of that road. Joan remembered hearing Kells say that the Bannack stage had never been properly held up by road-agents, but that when he got ready for the job it would be done right. Riding grew to be monotonous and tiresome. With the warmth of the sun came the dust and flies, and all these bothered Joan. She did not have her usual calmness, and as the miles steadily passed her nervousness increased.
The road left the valley and climbed between foot-hills and wound into rockier country. Every dark gulch brought to Joan a trembling, breathless spell. What places for ambush! But the stage bowled on.
At last her apprehensions wore out and she permitted herself the luxury of relaxing, of leaning back and closing her eyes. She was tired, drowsy, hot. There did not seem to be a breath of air.
Suddenly Joan's ears burst to an infernal crash of guns. She felt the whip and sting of splinters sent flying by bullets. Harsh yells followed, then the scream of a horse in agony, the stage lurching and slipping to a halt, and thunder of heavy guns overhead.
Jim yelled at her--threw her down on the seat. She felt the body of the guard sink against her knees. Then she seemed to feel, to hear through an icy, sickening terror.
A scattering volley silenced the guns above. Then came the pound of hoofs, the snort of frightened horses.
“Jesse Smith! Stop!” called Jim, piercingly.
“Hold on thar, Beady!” replied a hoarse voice. “Damn if it ain't Jim Cleve!”
“Ho, Gul!” yelled another voice, and Joan recognized it as Blicky's.
Then Jim lifted her head, drew her up. He was white with fear.
“Dear--are--you--hurt?”
“No. I'm only--scared,” she replied.
Joan looked out to see bandits on foot, guns in hand, and others mounted, all gathering near the coach. Jim opened the door, and, stepping out, bade her follow. Joan had to climb over the dead guard. The miner and the young man huddled down on their seat.
“If it ain't Jim an' Kells's girl--Dandy Dale!” ejaculated Smith. “Fellers, this means somethin'.... Say, youngster, hope you ain't hurt--or the girl?”
“No. But that's not your fault,” replied Cleve. “Why did you want to plug the coach full of lead?”
“This beats me,” said Smith. “Kells sent you out in the stage! But when he gave us the job of holdin' it up he didn't tell us you'd be in there.... When an' where'd you leave him?”
“Sometime last night--in camp--near our cabin,” replied Jim, quick as a flash. Manifestly he saw his opportunity “He left Dandy Dale with me. Told us to take the stage this morning. I expected him to be in it or to meet us.”
“Didn't you have no orders?”
“None, except to take care of the girl till he came. But he did tell me he'd have more to say.”
Smith gazed blankly from Cleve to Blicky, and then at Gulden, who came slowly forward, his hair ruffed, his gun held low. Joan followed the glance of his great gray eyes, and she saw the stage-driver hanging dead over his seat, and the guards lying back of him. The off-side horse of the leaders lay dead in his traces, with his mate nosing at him.
“Who's in there?” boomed Gulden, and he thrust hand and gun in at the stage door. “Come out!”
The young man stumbled out, hands above his head, pallid and shaking, so weak he could scarcely stand.
Gulden prodded the bearded miner. “Come out here, you!”
The man appeared to be hunched forward in a heap.
“Guess he's plugged,” said Smith. “But he ain't cashed. Hear him breathe?... Heaves like a sick hoss.”
Gulden reached with brawny arm and with one pull he dragged the miner off the seat and out into the road, where he flopped with a groan. There was blood on his neck and hands. Gulden bent over him, tore at his clothes, tore harder at something, and then, with a swing, he held aloft a broad, black belt, sagging heavy with gold.
“Hah!” he boomed. It was just an exclamation, horrible to hear, but it did not express satisfaction or exultation. He handed the gold-belt to the grinning Budd, and turned to the young man.
“Got any gold?”
“No. I--I wasn't a miner,” replied the youth huskily.
Gulden felt for a gold-belt, then slapped at his pockets. “Turn round!” ordered the giant.
“Aw, Gul let him go!” remonstrated Jesse Smith.
Blicky laid a restraining hand upon Gulden's broad shoulder.
“Turn round!” repeated Gulden, without the slightest sign of noticing his colleagues.
But the youth understood and he turned a ghastly livid hue.
Gulden spun him round like a top and pushed him forward. They went half a dozen paces, then the youth staggered, and turning, he fell on his knees.
“Don't--kill--me!” he entreated.
Joan, seeing Jim Cleve stiffen and crouch, thought of him even in that horrible moment; and she gripped his arm with all her might. They must endure.
The other bandits muttered, but none moved a hand.
Gulden thrust out the big gun. His hair bristled on his head, and his huge frame seemed instinct with strange vibration, like some object of tremendous weight about to plunge into resistless momentum.
Even the stricken youth saw his doom. “Let--me--pray!” he begged.
Joan did not fault, but a merciful unclamping of muscle-bound rigidity closed her eyes.
“Gul!” yelled Blicky, with passion. “I ain't a-goin' to let you kill this kid! There's no sense in it. We're spotted back in Alder Creek.... Run, kid! Run!”
Then Joan opened her eyes to see the surly Gulden's arm held by Blicky, and the youth running blindly down the road. Joan's relief and joy were tremendous. But still she answered to the realizing shock of what Gulden had meant to do. She leaned against Cleve, all within and without a whirling darkness of fire. The border wildness claimed her then. She had the spirit, though not the strength, to fight. She needed the sight and sound of other things to restore her equilibrium. She would have welcomed another shock, an injury. And then she was looking down upon the gasping miner. He was dying. Hurriedly Joan knelt beside him to lift his head. At her call Cleve brought a canteen. But the miner could not drink and he died with some word unspoken.
Dizzily Joan arose, and with Cleve half supporting her she backed off the road to a seat on the bank. She saw the bandits now at business-like action. Blicky and Smith were cutting the horses out of their harness: Beady Jones, like a ghoul, searched the dead men; the three bandits whom Joan knew only by sight were making up a pack; Budd was standing beside the stage with his, expectant grin; and Gulden, with the agility of the gorilla he resembled, was clambering over the top of the stage. Suddenly from under the driver's seat he hauled a buckskin sack. It was small, but heavy. He threw it down to Budd, almost knocking over that bandit. Budd hugged the sack and yelled like an Indian. The other men whooped and ran toward him. Gulden hauled out another sack. Hands to the number of a dozen stretched clutchingly. When he threw the sack there was a mad scramble. They fought, but it was only play. They were gleeful. Blicky secured the prize and he held it aloft in triumph. Assuredly he would have waved it had it not been so heavy. Gulden drew out several small sacks, which he provokingly placed on the seat in front of him. The bandits below howled in protest. Then the giant, with his arm under the seat, his huge frame bowed, heaved powerfully upon something, and his face turned red. He halted in his tugging to glare at his bandit comrades below. If his great cavernous eyes expressed any feeling it was analogous to the reluctance manifest in his posture--he regretted the presence of his gang. He would rather have been alone. Then with deep-muttered curse and mighty heave he lifted out a huge buckskin sack, tied and placarded and marked.
“ONE HUNDRED POUNDS!” he boomed.
It seemed to Joan then that a band of devils surrounded the stage, all roaring at the huge, bristling demon above, who glared and bellowed down at them.
Finally Gulden stilled the tumult, which, after all, was one of frenzied joy.
“Share and share alike!” he thundered, now black in the face. “Do you fools want to waste time here on the road, dividing up this gold?”
“What you say goes,” shouted Budd.
There was no dissenting voice.
“What a stake!” ejaculated Blicky. “Gul, the boss had it figgered. Strange, though, he hasn't showed up!”
“Where'll we go?” queried Gulden. “Speak up, you men.”
The unanimous selection was Cabin Gulch. Plainly Gulden did not like this, but he was just.
“All right. Cabin Gulch it is. But nobody outside of Kells and us gets a share in this stake.”
Many willing hands made short work of preparation. Gulden insisted on packing all the gold upon his saddle, and had his will. He seemed obsessed; he never glanced at Joan. It was Jesse Smith who gave the directions and orders. One of the stage-horses was packed. Another, with a blanket for a saddle, was given Cleve to ride. Blicky gallantly gave his horse to Joan, shortened his stirrups to fit her, and then whistled at the ridgy back of the stage-horse he elected to ride. Gulden was in a hurry, and twice he edged off, to be halted by impatient calls. Finally the cavalcade was ready; Jesse Smith gazed around upon the scene with the air of a general overlooking a vanquished enemy.
“Whoever fust runs acrost this job will have blind staggers, don't you forgit thet!”
“What's Kells goin' to figger?” asked Blicky, sharply.
“Nothin' fer Kells! He wasn't in at the finish!” declared Budd.
Blicky gazed darkly at him, but made no comment.
“I tell you Blick, I can't git this all right in my head,” said Smith.
“Say, ask Jim again. Mebbe, now the job's done, he can talk,” suggested Blicky.
Jim Cleve heard and appeared ready for that question.
“I don't know much more than I told you. But I can guess. Kells had this big shipment of gold spotted. He must have sent us in the stage for some reason. He said he'd tell me what to expect and do. But he didn't come back. Sure he knew you'd do the job. And just as sure he expected to be on hand. He'll turn up soon.”
This ruse of Jim's did not sound in the least logical or plausible to Joan, but it was readily accepted by the bandits. Apparently what they knew of Kells's movements and plans since the break-up at Alder Creek fitted well with Cleve's suggestions.
“Come on!” boomed Gulden, from the fore. “Do you want to rot here?”
Then without so much as a backward glance at the ruin they left behind the bandits fell into line. Jesse Smith led straight off the road into a shallow brook and evidently meant to keep in it. Gulden followed; next came Beady Jones; then the three bandits with the pack-horse and the other horses; Cleve and Joan, close together, filed in here; and last came Budd and Blicky. It was rough, slippery traveling and the riders spread out. Cleve, however, rode beside Joan. Once, at an opportune moment, he leaned toward her.
“We'd better run for it at the first chance,” he said, somberly.
“No!... GULDEN!” Joan had to moisten her lips to speak the monster's name.
“He'll never think of you while he has all that gold.”
Joan's intelligence grasped this, but her morbid dread, terribly augmented now, amounted almost to a spell. Still, despite the darkness of her mind, she had a flash of inspiration and of spirit.
“Kells is my only hope!... If he doesn't join us soon--then we'll run!... And if we can't escape that”--Joan made a sickening gesture toward the fore--“you must kill me before--before--”
Her voice trailed off, failing.
“I will!” he promised through locked teeth.
And then they rode on, with dark, faces bent over the muddy water and treacherous stones.
When Jesse Smith led out of that brook it was to ride upon bare rock. He was not leaving any trail. Horses and riders were of no consideration. And he was a genius for picking hard ground and covering it. He never slackened his gait, and it seemed next to impossible to keep him in sight.
For Joan the ride became toil and the toil became pain. But there was no rest. Smith kept mercilessly onward. Sunset and twilight and night found the cavalcade still moving. Then it halted just as Joan was about to succumb. Jim lifted her off her horse and laid her upon the grass. She begged for water, and she drank and drank. But she wanted no food. There was a heavy, dull beating in her ears, a band tight round her forehead. She was aware of the gloom, of the crackling of fires, of leaping shadows, of the passing of men to and fro near her, and, most of all, rendering her capable of a saving shred of self-control, she was aware of Jim's constant companionship and watchfulness. Then sounds grew far off and night became a blur.
Morning when it came seemed an age removed from that hideous night. Her head had cleared, and but for the soreness of body and limb she would have begun the day strong. There appeared little to eat and no time to prepare it. Gulden was rampant for action. Like a miser he guarded the saddle packed with gold. This tune his comrades were as eager as he to be on the move. All were obsessed by the presence of gold. Only one hour loomed in their consciousness--that of the hour of division. How fatal and pitiful and terrible! Of what possible use or good was gold to them?
The ride began before sunrise. It started and kept on at a steady trot. Smith led down out of the rocky slopes and fastnesses into green valleys. Jim Cleve, riding bareback on a lame horse, had his difficulties. Still he kept close beside or behind Joan all the way. They seldom spoke, and then only a word relative to this stern business of traveling in the trail of a hard-riding bandit. Joan bore up better this day, as far as her mind was concerned. Physically she had all she could do to stay in the saddle. She learned of what steel she was actually made--what her slender frame could endure. That day's ride seemed a thousand miles long, and never to end. Yet the implacable Smith did finally halt, and that before dark.
Camp was made near water. The bandits were a jovial lot, despite a lack of food. They talked of the morrow. All--the world--lay beyond the next sunrise. Some renounced their pipes and sought their rest just to hurry on the day. But Gulden, tireless, sleepless, eternally vigilant, guarded the saddle of gold and brooded over it, and seemed a somber giant carved out of the night. And Blicky, nursing some deep and late-developed scheme, perhaps in Kells's interest or his own, kept watch over Gulden and all.
Jim cautioned Joan to rest, and importuned her and promised to watch while she slept.
Joan saw the stars through her shut eyelids. All the night seemed to press down and softly darken.
The sun was shining red when the cavalcade rode up Cabin Gulch. The grazing cattle stopped to watch and the horses pranced and whistled. There were flowers and flitting birds, and glistening dew on leaves, and a shining swift flow of water--the brightness of morning and nature smiled in Cabin Gulch.
Well indeed Joan remembered the trail she had ridden so often. How that clump of willow where first she had confronted Jim thrilled her now! The pines seemed welcoming her. The gulch had a sense of home in it for her, yet it was fearful. How much had happened there! What might yet happen!
Then a clear, ringing call stirred her pulse. She glanced up the slope. Tall and straight and dark, there on the bench, with hand aloft, stood the bandit Kells.
