The Border Legion

"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.