The Border Legion

When he had gone Joan spoke without looking at Cleve, though she

held fast to his arm.

"Jim, it could be dreadful here--all in a minute!" she whispered.

"You've struck it exactly," he replied. "All Alder Creek needed to

make it hell was Kells and his gang."

"Thank Heaven I turned you back in time! ... Jim, you'd have--have

gone the pace here."

He nodded grimly. Then Kells returned and led them back through the

room to another door where spectators were fewer. Joan saw perhaps a

dozen couples of rough, whirling, jigging dancers in a half-circle

of watching men. The hall was a wide platform of boards with posts

holding a canvas roof. The sides, were open; the lights were

situated at each end-huge, round, circus tent lamps. There were rude

benches and tables where reeling men surrounded a woman. Joan saw a

young miner in dusty boots and corduroys lying drunk or dead in the

sawdust. Her eyes were drawn back to the dancers, and to the dance

that bore some semblance to a waltz. In the din the music could

scarcely be heard. As far as the men were concerned this dance was a

bold and violent expression of excitement on the part of some, and

for the rest a drunken, mad fling. Sight of the women gave Joan's

curiosity a blunt check. She felt queer. She had not seen women like

these, and their dancing, their actions, their looks, were beyond

her understanding. Nevertheless, they shocked her, disgusted her,

sickened her. And suddenly when it dawned upon her in unbelievable

vivid suggestion that they were the wildest and most terrible

element of this dark stream of humanity lured by gold, then she was

appalled.

"Take me out of here!" she besought Kells, and he led her out

instantly. They went through the gambling-hall and into the crowded

street, back toward camp.

"You saw enough," said Kells, "but nothing to what will break out by

and by. This camp is new. It's rich. Gold is the cheapest thing. It

passes from hand to hand. Ten dollars an ounce. Buyers don't look at

the scales. Only the gamblers are crooked. But all this will

change."

Kells did not say what that change might be, but the click of his

teeth was expressive. Joan did not, however, gather from it, and the

dark meaning of his tone, that the Border Legion would cause this

change. That was in the nature of events. A great strike of gold

might enrich the world, but it was a catastrophe.