The Border Legion

Thus was ushered in at Alder Creek a regime of wildness that had no

parallel in the earlier days of '49 and '51. Men frenzied by the

possession of gold or greed for it responded to the wildness of that

time and took their cue from this deadly and mysterious Border

Legion. The gold-lust created its own blood-lust. Daily the

population of Alder Creek grew in the new gold-seekers and its dark

records kept pace. With distrust came suspicion and with suspicion

came fear, and with fear came hate--and these, in already distorted

minds, inflamed a hell. So that the most primitive passions of

mankind found outlet and held sway. The operations of the Border

Legion were lost in deeds done in the gambling dens, in the saloons,

and on the street, in broad day. Men fought for no other reason than

that the incentive was in the charged air. Men were shot at gaming-

tables--and the game went on. Men were killed in the dance-halls,

dragged out, marking a line of blood on the rude floor--and the

dance went on. Still the pursuit of gold went on, more frenzied than

ever, and still the greater and richer claims were struck. The price

of gold soared and the commodities of life were almost beyond the

dreams of avarice. It was a tune in which the worst of men's natures

stalked forth, hydra-headed and deaf, roaring for gold, spitting

fire, and shedding blood. It was a time when gold and fire and blood

were one. It was a tune when a horde of men from every class and

nation, of all ages and characters, met on a field were motives and

ambitions and faiths and traits merged into one mad instinct of

gain. It was worse than the time of the medieval crimes of religion;

it made war seem a brave and honorable thing; it robbed manhood of

that splendid and noble trait, always seen in shipwrecked men or

those hopelessly lost in the barren north, the divine will not to

retrograde to the savage. It was a time, for all it enriched the

world with yellow treasure, when might was right, when men were

hopeless, when death stalked rampant. The sun rose gold and it set

red. It was the hour of Gold!

One afternoon late, while Joan was half dreaming, half dozing the

hours away, she was thoroughly aroused by the tramp of boots and

loud voices of excited men. Joan slipped to the peephole in the

partition. Bate Wood had raised a warning hand to Kells, who stood

up, facing the door. Red Pearce came bursting in, wild-eyed and

violent. Joan imagined he was about to cry out that Kells had been

betrayed.