The Border Legion

For several nights these stolen interviews were apparently the safer

because of Joan's tender blinding of her lover. But it seemed that

in Jim's condition of mind this yielding of her lips and her

whispers of love had really been a mistake. Not only had she made

the situation perilously sweet for herself, but in Jim's case she

had added the spark to the powder. She realized her blunder when it

was too late. And the fact that she did not regret it very much, and

seemed to have lost herself in a defiant, reckless spell, warned her

again that she, too, was answering to the wildness of the time and

place. Joan's intelligence had broadened wonderfully in this period

of her life, just as all her feelings had quickened. If gold had

developed and intensified and liberated the worst passions of men,

so the spirit of that atmosphere had its baneful effect upon her.

Joan deplored this, yet she had the keenness to understand that it

was nature fitting her to survive.

Back upon her fell that weight of suspense--what would happen next?

Here in Alder Creek there did not at present appear to be the same

peril which had menaced her before, but she would suffer through

fatality to Cleve or Kells. And these two slept at night under a

shadow that held death, and by day they walked on a thin crust over

a volcano. Joan grew more and more fearful of the disclosures made

when Kells met his men nightly in the cabin. She feared to hear, but

she must hear, and even if she had not felt it necessary to keep

informed of events, the fascination of the game would have impelled

her to listen. And gradually the suspense she suffered augmented

into a magnified, though vague, assurance of catastrophe, of

impending doom. She could not shake off the gloomy presentiment.

Something terrible was going to happen. An experience begun as

tragically as hers could only end in a final and annihilating

stroke. Yet hope was unquenchable, and with her fear kept pace a

driving and relentless spirit.

One night at the end of a week of these interviews, when Joan

attempted to resist Jim, to plead with him, lest in his growing

boldness he betray them, she found him a madman.

"I'll pull you right out of this window," he said, roughly, and then

with his hot face pressed against hers tried to accomplish the thing

he threatened.

"Go on--pull me to pieces!" replied Joan, in despair and pain. "I'd

be better off dead! And--you--hurt me--so!"

"Hurt you!" he whispered, hoarsely, as if he had never dreamed of

such possibility. And then suddenly he was remorseful. He begged her

to forgive him. His voice was broken, husky, pleading. His remorse,

like every feeling of his these days, was exaggerated, wild, with

that raw tinge of gold-blood in it. He made so much noise that Joan,

more fearful than ever of discovery, quieted him with difficulty.