The Border Legion

Joan recognized it. Roberts was not on his way home. Kells had lied.

Kells had killed him. How plain and fearful the proof! It verified

Roberts's gloomy prophecy. Joan suddenly grew sick and dizzy. She

reeled in her saddle. It was only by dint of the last effort of

strength and self-control that she kept her seat. She fought the

horror as if it were a beast. Hanging over the pommel, with shut

eyes, letting her pony find the way, she sustained this shock of

discovery and did not let it utterly overwhelm her. And as she

conquered the sickening weakness her mind quickened to the changed

aspect of her situation. She understood Kells and the appalling

nature of her peril. She did not know how she understood him now,

but doubt had utterly fled. All was clear, real, grim, present. Like

a child she had been deceived, for no reason she could see. That

talk of ransom was false. Likewise Kells's assertion that he had

parted company with Halloway and Bill because he would not share the

ransom--that, too, was false. The idea of a ransom, in this light,

was now ridiculous. From that first moment Kells had wanted her; he

had tried to persuade Roberts to leave her, and, failing, had killed

him; he had rid himself of the other two men--and now Joan knew she

had heard shots back there. Kells's intention loomed out of all his

dark brooding, and it stood clear now to her, dastardly, worse than

captivity, or torture, or death--the worst fate that could befall a

woman.

The reality of it now was so astounding. True--as true as those

stories she had deemed impossible! Because she and her people and

friends had appeared secure in their mountain camp and happy in

their work and trustful of good, they had scarcely credited the

rumors of just such things as had happened to her. The stage held up

by roadagents, a lonely prospector murdered and robbed, fights in

the saloons and on the trails, and useless pursuit of hardriding men

out there on the border, elusive as Arabs, swift as Apaches--these

facts had been terrible enough, without the dread of worse. The

truth of her capture, the meaning of it, were raw, shocking spurs to

Joan Randle's intelligence and courage. Since she still lived, which

was strange indeed in the illuminating light of her later insight

into Kells and his kind, she had to meet him with all that was

catlike and subtle and devilish at the command of a woman. She had

to win him, foil him, kill him--or go to her death. She was no girl

to be dragged into the mountain fastness by a desperado and made a

plaything. Her horror and terror had worked its way deep into the

depths of her and uncovered powers never suspected, never before

required in her scheme of life. She had no longer any fear. She

matched herself against this man. She anticipated him. And she felt

like a woman who had lately been a thoughtless girl, who, in turn,

had dreamed of vague old happenings of a past before she was born,

of impossible adventures in her own future. Hate and wrath and

outraged womanhood were not wholly the secret of Joan Randle's

flaming spirit.