The Border Legion

A significant silence fell upon the group at the conclusion of

Wood's narrative. Wood had liked the telling, and it made his

listeners thoughtful. All at once the pale face of Kells turned

slightly toward Gulden.

"Gulden, did you hear that?" asked Kells.

"Yes," replied the man.

"What do you think about this Jim Cleve--and the job he prevented?"

"Never saw Cleve. I'll look him up when we get back to camp. Then

I'll go after the Brander girl."

How strangely his brutal assurance marked a line between him and his

companions! There was something wrong, something perverse in this

Gulden. Had Kells meant to bring that point out or to get an

impression of Cleve?

Joan could not decide. She divined that there was antagonism between

Gulden and all the others. And there was something else, vague and

intangible, that might have been fear. Apparently Gulden was a

criminal for the sake of crime. Joan regarded him with a growing

terror--augmented the more because he alone kept eyes upon the

corner where she was hidden--and she felt that compared with him the

others, even Kells, of whose cold villainy she was assured, were but

insignificant men of evil. She covered her head with a blanket to

shut out sight of that shaggy, massive head and the great dark caves

of eyes.

Thereupon Joan did not see or hear any more of the bandits.

Evidently the conversation died down, or she, in the absorption of

new thoughts, no longer heard. She relaxed, and suddenly seemed to

quiver all over with the name she whispered to herself. "Jim! Jim!

Oh, Jim!" And the last whisper was an inward sob. What he had done

was terrible. It tortured her. She had not believed it in him. Yet,

now she thought, how like him. All for her--in despair and spite--he

had ruined himself. He would be killed out there in some drunken

brawl, or, still worse, he would become a member of this bandit crew

and drift into crime. That was a great blow to Joan--that the curse

she had put upon him. How silly, false, and vain had been her

coquetry, her indifference! She loved Jim Cleve. She had not known

that when she started out to trail him, to fetch him back, but she

knew it now. She ought to have known before.

The situation she had foreseen loomed dark and monstrous and

terrible in prospect. Just to think of it made her body creep and

shudder with cold terror. Yet there was that strange, inward,

thrilling burn round her heart. Somewhere and soon she was coming

face to face with this changed Jim Cleve--this boy who had become a

reckless devil. What would he do? What could she do? Might he not

despise her, scorn her, curse her, taking her at Kells's word, the

wife of a bandit? But no! he would divine the truth in the flash of

an eye. And then! She could not think what might happen, but it must

mean blood-death. If he escaped Kells, how could he ever escape this

Gulden--this huge vulture of prey?