That day the rude cabin was completed. It contained one long room;
and at the back a small compartment partitioned off from the rest,
and built against and around a shallow cavern in the huge rock. This
compartment was for Joan. There were a rude board door with padlock
and key, a bench upon which blankets had been flung, a small square
hole cut in the wall to serve as a window. What with her own few
belongings and the articles of furniture that Kells bought for her,
Joan soon had a comfortable room, even a luxury compared to what she
had been used to for weeks. Certain it was that Kells meant to keep
her a prisoner, or virtually so. Joan had no sooner spied the little
window than she thought that it would be possible for Jim Cleve to
talk to her there from the outside.
Kells verified Joan's suspicion by telling her that she was not to
leave the cabin of her own accord, as she had been permitted to do
back in Cabin Gulch; and Joan retorted that there she had made him a
promise not to run away, which promise she now took back. That
promise had worried her. She was glad to be honest with Kells. He
gazed at her somberly.
"You'll be worse off it you do--and I'll be better off," he said.
And then as an afterthought he added: "Gulden might not think you--a
white elephant on his hands! ... Remember his way, the cave and the
rope!"
So, instinctively or cruelly he chose the right name to bring
shuddering terror into Joan's soul.