The Border Legion

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.