The Border Legion

Joan listened. Was there sound or silence? A faint and indescribably

low roar, so low that it might have been real or false, came on the

soft night breeze. It was the roar of the camp down there--the

strife, the agony, the wild life in ceaseless action--the strange

voice of gold, roaring greed and battle and death over the souls of

men. But above that, presently, rose the murmur of the creek, a

hushed and dreamy flow of water over stones. It was hurrying to get

by this horde of wild men, for it must bear the taint of gold and

blood. Would it purge itself and clarify in the valleys below, on

its way to the sea? There was in its murmur an imperishable and

deathless note of nature, of time; and this was only a fleeting day

of men and gold.

Only by straining her ears could Joan hear these sounds, and when

she ceased that, then she seemed to be weighed upon and claimed by

silence. It was not a silence like that of Lost Canon, but a silence

of solitude where her soul stood alone. She was there on earth, yet

no one could hear her mortal cry. The thunder of avalanches or the

boom of the sea might have lessened her sense of utter loneliness.

And that silence fitted the darkness, and both were apostles of

dread. They spoke to her. She breathed dread on that silent air and

it filled her breast. There was nothing stable in the night shadows.

The ravine seemed to send forth stealthy, noiseless shapes, specter

and human, man and phantom, each on the other's trail.

If Jim would only come and let her see that he was safe for the

hour! A hundred times she imagined she saw him looming darker than

the shadows. She had only to see him now, to feel his hand, and

dread might be lost. Love was something beyond the grasp of mind.

Love had confounded Jim Cleve; it had brought up kindness and honor

from the black depths of a bandit's heart; it had transformed her

from a girl into a woman. Surely with all its greatness it could not

be lost; surely in the end it must triumph over evil.

Joan found that hope was fluctuating, but eternal. It took no stock

of intelligence. It was a matter of feeling. And when she gave rein

to it for a moment, suddenly it plunged her into sadness. To hope

was to think! Poor Jim! It was his fool's paradise. Just to let her

be his wife! That was the apex of his dream. Joan divined that he

might yield to her wisdom, he might become a man, but his agony

would be greater. Still, he had been so intense, so strange, so

different that she could not but feel joy in his joy.