The Border Legion

Kells had been rapidly gaining strength since the extraction of the

bullet, and it was evident that his interest was growing

proportionately. He asked questions and received most of his replies

from Red Pearce. Joan did not listen attentively at first, but

presently she regretted that she had not. She gathered that Kells's

fame as the master bandit of the whole gold region of Idaho, Nevada,

and northeastern California was a fame that he loved as much as the

gold he stole. Joan sensed, through the replies of these men and

their attitude toward Kells, that his power was supreme. He ruled

the robbers and ruffians in his bands, and evidently they were

scattered from Bannack to Lewiston and all along the border. He had

power, likewise, over the border hawks not directly under his

leadership. During the weeks of his enforced stay in the canon there

had been a cessation of operations--the nature of which Joan merely

guessed--and a gradual accumulation of idle wailing men in the main

camp. Also she gathered, but vaguely, that though Kells had supreme

power, the organization he desired was yet far from being

consummated. He showed thoughtfulness and irritation by turns, and

it was the subject of gold that drew his intensest interest.

"Reckon you figgered right, Jack," said Red Pearce, and paused as if

before a long talk, while he refilled his pipe. "Sooner or later

there'll be the biggest gold strike ever made in the West. Wagon-

trains are met every day comin' across from Salt Lake. Prospectors

are workin' in hordes down from Bannack. All the gulches an' valleys

in the Bear Mountains have their camps. Surface gold everywhere an'

easy to get where there's water. But there's diggin's all over. No

big strike yet. It's bound to come sooner or later. An' then when

the news hits the main-traveled roads an' reaches back into the

mountains there's goin' to be a rush that'll make '49 an' '51 look

sick. What do you say, Bate?"

"Shore will," replied a grizzled individual whom Kells had called

Bate Wood. He was not so young as his companions, more sober, less

wild, and slower of speech. "I saw both '49 and '51. Them was days!

But I'm agreein' with Red. There shore will be hell on this Idaho

border sooner or later. I've been a prospector, though I never

hankered after the hard work of diggin' gold. Gold is hard to dig,

easy to lose, an' easy to get from some other feller. I see the

signs of a comin' strike somewhere in this region. Mebbe it's on

now. There's thousands of prospectors in twos an' threes an' groups,

out in the hills all over. They ain't a-goin' to tell when they do

make a strike. But the gold must be brought out. An' gold is heavy.

It ain't easy hid. Thet's how strikes are discovered. I shore reckon

thet this year will beat '49 an' '51. An' fer two reasons. There's a

steady stream of broken an' disappointed gold-seekers back-trailin'

from California. There's a bigger stream of hopeful an' crazy

fortune hunters travelin' in from the East. Then there's the wimmen

an' gamblers an' such thet hang on. An' last the men thet the war is

drivin' out here. Whenever an' wherever these streams meet, if

there's a big gold strike, there'll be the hellishest time the world

ever saw!"