The Border Legion

That night the crescent moon hung over the canon. In the faint light

Joan could see the blanched face of Kells, strange and sad, no

longer seeming evil. The time came when his lips stirred. He tried

to talk. She moistened his lips and gave him a drink. He murmured

incoherently, sank again into a stupor, to rouse once more and

babble tike a madman. Then he lay quietly for long--so long that

sleep was claiming Joan. Suddenly he startled her by calling very

faintly but distinctly: "Water! Water!"

Joan bent over him, lifting his head, helping him to drink. She

could see his eyes, like dark holes in something white.

"Is--that--you--mother?" he whispered.

"Yes," replied Joan.

He sank immediately into another stupor or sleep, from which he did

not rouse. That whisper of his--mother--touched Joan. Bad men had

mothers just the same as any other kind of men. Even this Kells had

a mother. He was still a young man. He had been youth, boy, child,

baby. Some mother had loved him, cradled him, kissed his rosy baby

hands, watched him grow with pride and glory, built castles in her

dreams of his manhood, and perhaps prayed for him still, trusting he

was strong and honored among men. And here he lay, a shattered

wreck, dying for a wicked act, the last of many crimes. It was a

tragedy. It made Joan think of the hard lot of mothers, and then of

this unsettled Western wild, where men flocked in packs like wolves,

and spilled blood like water, and held life nothing.

Joan sought her rest and soon slept. In the morning she did not at

once go to Kells. Somehow she dreaded finding him conscious, almost

as much as she dreaded the thought of finding him dead. When she did

bend over him he was awake, and at sight of her he showed a faint

amaze.

"Joan!" he whispered.

"Yes," she replied.

"Are you--with me still?"

"Of course, I couldn't leave you."

The pale eyes shadowed strangely, darkly. "I'm alive yet. And you

stayed! ... Was it yesterday--you threw my gun--on me?"

"No. Four days ago."

"Four! Is my back broken?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. It's a terrible wound. I--I did all

I could."

"You tried to kill me--then tried to save me?"

She was silent to that.

"You're good--and you've been noble," he said. "But I wish--you'd

only been bad. Then I'd curse you--and strangle you--presently."