It was afternoon before Joan could trust herself sufficiently to go
out again, and when she did she saw that she attracted very little
attention from the bandits.
Kells had a springy step, a bright eye, a lifted head, and he seemed
to be listening. Perhaps he was--to the music of his sordid dreams.
Joan watched him sometimes with wonder. Even a bandit--plotting gold
robberies, with violence and blood merely means to an end--built
castles in the air and lived with joy!
All that afternoon the bandits left camp in twos and threes, each
party with pack burros and horses, packed as Joan had not seen them
before on the border. Shovels and picks and old sieves and pans,
these swinging or tied in prominent places, were evidence that the
bandits meant to assume the characters of miners and prospectors.
They whistled and sang. It was a lark. The excitement had subsided
and the action begun. Only in Kells, under his radiance, could be
felt the dark and sinister plot. He was the heart of the machine.
By sundown Kells, Pearce, Wood, Jim Cleve, and a robust, grizzled
bandit, Jesse Smith, were left in camp. Smith was lame from his
ride, and Joan gathered that Kells would have left camp but for the
fact that Smith needed rest. He and Kells were together all the
time, talking endlessly. Joan heard them argue a disputed point--
would the men abide by Kells's plan and go by twos and threes into
the gold-camp, and hide their relations as a larger band? Kells
contended they would and Smith had his doubts.
"Jack, wait till you see Alder Creek!" ejaculated Smith, wagging his
grizzled head. "Three thousand men, old an' young, of all kinds--
gone gold--crazy! Alder Creek has got California's '49 and' '51
cinched to the last hole!" And the bandit leader rubbed his palms in
great glee.
That evening they all had supper together in Kell's cabin. Bate Wood
grumbled because he had packed most of his outfit. It so chanced
that Joan sat directly opposite Jim Cleve, and while he ate he
pressed her foot with his under the table. The touch thrilled Joan.
Jim did not glance at her, but there was such a change in him that
she feared it might rouse Kells's curiosity. This night, however,
the bandit could not have seen anything except a gleam of yellow. He
talked, he sat at table, but did not eat. After supper he sent Joan
to her cabin, saying they would be on the trail at daylight. Joan
watched them awhile from her covert. They had evidently talked
themselves out, and Kells grew thoughtful. Smith and Pearce went
outside, apparently to roll their beds on the ground under the porch
roof. Wood, who said he was never a good sleeper, smoked his pipe.
And Jim Cleve spread blankets along the wall in the shadow and and
lay down. Joan could see his eyes shining toward the door. Of course
he was thinking of her. But could he see her eyes? Watching her
chance, she slipped a hand from behind the curtain, and she knew
Cleve saw it. What a comfort that was! Joan's heart swelled. All
might yet be well. Jim Cleve would be near her while she slept. She
could sleep now without those dark dreams--without dreading to
awaken to the light. Again she saw Kells pacing the room, silent,
bent, absorbed, hands behind his back, weighted with his burden. It
was impossible not to feel sorry for him. With all his intelligence
and cunning power, his cause was hopeless. Joan knew that as she
knew so many other things without understanding why. She had not yet
sounded Jesse Smith, but not a man of all the others was true to
Kells. They would be of his Border Legion, do his bidding, revel in
their ill-gotten gains, and then, when he needed them most, be false
to him.