The Border Legion

"He made me think of a gorrilla," said Joan.

"There's only one man I know who's not afraid of Gulden. He's a new-

comer here on the border. Jim Cleve he calls himself. A youngster I

can't figure! But he'd slap the devil himself in the face. Cleve

won't last long out here. Yet you can never tell. Men like him, who

laugh at death, sometimes avert it for long. I was that way once. ...

Cleve heard me talking to Pearce about Gulden. And he said,

'Kells, I'll pick a fight with this Gulden and drive him out of the

camp or kill him.'"

"What did you say?" queried Joan, trying to steady her voice as she

averted her eyes.

"I said 'Jim, that wins me. But I don't want you killed.' ... It

certainly was nervy of the youngster. Said it just the same as--as

he'd offer to cinch my saddle. Gulden can whip a roomful of men.

He's done it. And as for a killer--I've heard of no man with his

record."

"And that's why you fear him?"

"It's not," replied Kells, passionately, as if his manhood had been

affronted. "It's because he's Gulden. There's something uncanny

about him. ... Gulden's a cannibal!"

Joan looked as if she had not heard aright.

"It's a cold fact. Known all over the border. Gulden's no braggart.

But he's been known to talk. He was a sailor--a pirate. Once he was

shipwrecked. Starvation forced him to be a cannibal. He told this in

California, and in Nevada camps. But no one believed him. A few

years ago he got snowed-up in the mountains back of Lewiston. He had

two companions with him. They all began to starve. It was absolutely

necessary to try to get out. They started out in the snow. Travel

was desperately hard. Gulden told that his companions dropped. But

he murdered them--and again saved his life by being a cannibal.

After this became known his sailor yarns were no longer doubted. ...

There's another story about him. Once he got hold of a girl and took

her into the mountains. After a winter he returned alone. He told

that he'd kept her tied in a cave, without any clothes, and she

froze to death."

"Oh, horrible!" moaned Joan.

"I don't know how true it is. But I believe it. Gulden is not a man.

The worst of us have a conscience. We can tell right from wrong. But

Gulden can't. He's beneath morals. He has no conception of manhood,

such as I've seen in the lowest of outcasts. That cave story with

the girl--that betrays him. He belongs back in the Stone Age. He's a

thing. ... And here on the border, if he wants, he can have all the

more power because of what he is."