"Kells, have you--heard?" he panted.
"Not so loud, you--!" replied Kells, coolly. "My name's Blight. ...
Who's with you?"
"Only Jesse an' some of the gang. I couldn't steer them away. But
there's nothin' to fear."
"What's happened? What haven't I heard?"
"The camp's gone plumb ravin' crazy. ... Jim Cleve found the biggest
nugget ever dug in Idaho! ... THIRTY POUNDS!"
Kells seemed suddenly to inflame, to blaze with white passion. "Good
for Jim!" he yelled, ringingly. He could scarcely have been more
elated if he had made the strike himself.
Jesse Smith came stamping in, with a crowd elbowing their way behind
him. Joan had a start of the old panic at sight of Gulden. For once
the giant was not slow nor indifferent. His big eyes glared. He
brought back to Joan the sickening sense of the brute strength of
his massive presence. Some of his cronies were with him. For the
rest, there were Blicky and Handy Oliver and Chick Williams. The
whole group bore resemblance to a pack of wolves about to leap upon
its prey. Yet, in each man, excepting Gulden, there was that
striking aspect of exultation.
"Where's Jim?" demanded Kells.
"He's comin' along," replied Pearce. "He's sure been runnin' a
gantlet. His strike stopped work in the diggin's. What do you think
of that, Kells? The news spread like smoke before wind. Every last
miner in camp has jest got to see thet lump of gold."
"Maybe I don't want to see it!" exclaimed Kells. "A thirty-pounder!
I heard of one once, sixty pounds, but I never saw it. You can't
believe till you see."
"Jim's comin' up the road now," said one of the men near the door.
"Thet crowd hangs on. ... But I reckon he's shakin' them."
"What'll Cleve do with this nugget?"
Gulden's big voice, so powerful, yet feelingless, caused a momentary
silence. The expression of many faces changed. Kells looked
startled, then annoyed.
"Why, Gulden, that's not my affair--nor yours," replied Kells.
"Cleve dug it and it belongs to him."
"Dug or stole--it's all the same," responded Gulden.
Kell's threw up his hands as if it were useless and impossible to
reason with this man.
Then the crowd surged round the door with shuffling boots and
hoarse, mingled greetings to Cleve, who presently came plunging in
out of the melee.
His face wore a flush of radiance; his eyes were like diamonds. Joan
thrilled and thrilled at sight of him. He was beautiful. Yet there
was about him a more striking wildness. He carried a gun in one hand
and in the other an object wrapped in his scarf. He flung this upon
the table in front of Kells. It made a heavy, solid thump. The ends
of the scarf flew aside, and there lay a magnificent nugget of gold,
black and rusty in parts, but with a dull, yellow glitter in others.