The Border Legion

Presently Beady Jones and Braverman bustled in, carrying the packs.

Then Budd jumped up and ran to them. He returned to the table,

carrying a demijohn, which he banged upon the table.

"Whisky!" exclaimed Kells. "Take that away. We can't drink and

gamble."

"Watch me!" replied Blicky.

"Let them drink, Kells," declared Gulden. "We'll get their dust

quicker. Then we can have our game."

Kells made no more comment. The game went on and the aspect of it

changed. When Kells himself began to drink, seemingly unconscious of

the fact, Joan's dread increased greatly, and, leaving the peep-

hole, she lay back upon the bed. Always a sword had hung over her

head. Time after time by some fortunate circumstance or by courage

or wit or by an act of Providence she had escaped what strangely

menaced. Would she escape it again? For she felt the catastrophe

coming. Did Jim recognize that fact? Remembering the look on his

face, she was assured that he did. Then he would be quick to seize

upon any possible chance to get her away; and always he would be

between her and those bandits. At most, then, she had only death to

fear--death that he would mercifully deal to her if the worst came.

And as she lay there listening to the slow-rising murmur of the

gamblers, with her thought growing clearer, she realized it was love

of Jim and fear for him--fear that he would lose her--that caused

her cold dread and the laboring breath and the weighted heart. She

had cost Jim this terrible experience and she wanted to make up to

him for it, to give him herself and all her life.

Joan lay there a long time, thinking and suffering, while the

strange, morbid desire to watch Kells and Gulden grew stronger and

stronger, until it was irresistible. Her fate, her life, lay in the

balance between these two men. She divined that.

She returned to her vantage-point, and as she glanced through she

vibrated to a shock. The change that had begun subtly, intangibly,

was now a terrible and glaring difference. That great quantity of

gold, the equal chance of every gambler, the marvelous possibilities

presented to evil minds, and the hell that hid in that black bottle

--these had made playthings of every bandit except Gulden. He was

exactly the same as ever. But to see the others sent a chill of ice

along Joan's veins. Kells was white and rapt. Plain to see--he had

won! Blicky was wild with rage. Jesse Smith sat darker, grimmer, but

no longer cool. There was hate in the glance he fastened upon Kells

as he bet. Beady Jones and Braverman showed an inflamed and impotent

eagerness to take their turn. Budd sat in the game now, and his face

wore a terrible look. Joan could not tell what passion drove him,

but she knew he was a loser. Pike and Bossert likewise were losers,

and stood apart, sullen, watching with sick, jealous rage. Jim Cleve

had reacted to the strain, and he was white, with nervous, clutching

hands and piercing glances. And the game went on with violent slap

of card or pound of fist upon the table, with the slide of a bag of

gold or the little, sodden thump of its weight, with savage curses

at loss and strange, raw exultation at gain, with hurry and

violence--more than all, with the wildness of the hour and the

wildness of these men, drawing closer and closer to the dread climax

that from the beginning had been foreshadowed.