The Border Legion

And while her mind was thus thronged the morning hours passed

swiftly, the miles of foot-hills were climbed and descended. A green

gap of canon, wild and yellow-walled, yawned before her, opening

into the mountain.

Kells halted on the grassy bank of a shallow brook. "Get down. We'll

noon here and rest the horses," he said to Joan. "I can't say that

you're anything but game. We've done perhaps twenty-five miles this

morning."

The mouth of this canon was a wild, green-flowered, beautiful place.

There were willows and alders and aspens along the brook. The green

bench was like a grassy meadow. Joan caught a glimpse of a brown

object, a deer or bear, stealing away through spruce-trees on the

slope. She dismounted, aware now that her legs ached and it was

comfortable to stretch them. Looking backward across the valley

toward the last foot-hill, she saw the other men, with horses and

packs, coming. She had a habit of close observation, and she thought

that either the men with the packs had now one more horse than she

remembered, or else she had not seen the extra one. Her attention

shifted then. She watched Kells unsaddle the horses. He was wiry,

muscular, quick with his hands. The big, blue-cylindered gun swung

in front of him. That gun had a queer kind of attraction for her.

The curved black butt made her think of a sharp grip of hand upon

it. Kells did not hobble the horses. He slapped his bay on the

haunch and drove him down toward the brook. Joan's pony followed.

They drank, cracked the stones, climbed the other bank, and began to

roll in the grass. Then the other men with the packs trotted up.

Joan was glad. She had not thought of it before, but now she felt

she would rather not be alone with Kells. She remarked then that

there was no extra horse in the bunch. It seemed strange, her

thinking that, and she imagined she was not clear-headed.

"Throw the packs, Bill," said Kells.

Another fire was kindled and preparations made toward a noonday

meal. Bill and Halloway appeared loquacious, and inclined to steal

glances at Joan when Kells could not notice. Halloway whistled a

Dixie tune. Then Bill took advantage of the absence of Kells, who

went down to the brook, and he began to leer at Joan and make bold

eyes at her. Joan appeared not to notice him, and thereafter

averted; her gaze. The men chuckled.

"She's the proud hussy! But she ain't foolin' me. I've knowed a heap

of wimmen." Whereupon Halloway guffawed, and between them, in lower

tones, they exchanged mysterious remarks. Kells returned with a

bucket of water.