The Border Legion

Kells led Joan and Cleve from one part of the smoky hall to another,

and they looked on at the games and the strange raw life manifested

there. The place was getting packed with men. Kells's party

encountered Blicky and Beady Jones together. They passed by as

strangers. Then Joan saw Beard and Chick Williams arm in arm,

strolling about, like roystering miners. Williams telegraphed a

keen, fleeting glance at Kells, then went on, to be lost in the

crowd. Handy Oliver brushed by Kells, jostled him, apparently by

accident, and he said, "Excuse me, mister!" There were other

familiar faces. Kells's gang were all in Alder Creek and the dark

machinations of the bandit leader had been put into operation. What

struck Joan forcibly was that, though there were hilarity and

comradeship, they were not manifested in any general way. These

miners were strangers to one another; the groups were strangers; the

gamblers were strangers; the newcomers were strangers; and over all

hung an atmosphere of distrust. Good fellowship abided only in the

many small companies of men who stuck together. The mining-camps

that Joan had visited had been composed of an assortment of

prospectors and hunters who made one big, jolly family. This was a

gold strike, and the difference was obvious. The hunting for gold

was one thing, in its relation to the searchers; after it had been

found, in a rich field, the conditions of life and character

changed. Gold had always seemed wonderful and beautiful to Joan; she

absorbed here something that was the nucleus of hate. Why could not

these miners, young and old, stay in their camps and keep their

gold? That was the fatality. The pursuit was a dream--a glittering

allurement; the possession incited a lust for more, and that was

madness. Joan felt that in these reckless, honest miners there was a

liberation of the same wild element which was the driving passion of

Kells's Border Legion. Gold, then, was a terrible thing.

"Take me in there," said Joan, conscious of her own excitement, and

she indicated the dance-hall.

Kells laughed as if at her audacity. But he appeared reluctant.

"Please take me--unless--" Joan did not know what to add, but she

meant unless it was not right for her to see any more. A strange

curiosity had stirred in her. After all, this place where she now

stood was not greatly different from the picture imagination had

conjured up. That dance-hall, however, was beyond any creation of

Joan's mind.

"Let me have a look first," said Kells, and he left Joan with Cleve.