"Where're Pearce and Gulden? Do they know?" he demanded.
"Reckon no one knows but who's right here," replied Blicky.
"Red an' Gul are sleepin' off last night's luck," said Bate Wood.
"Have any of you seen young Cleve?" Kells went on. His voice rang
quick and sharp.
No one spoke, and presently Kells cracked his fist into his open
hand.
"Come on. Get the gang together at Beard's. ... Boys, the time we've
been gambling on has come. Jesse Smith saw '49 and '51. He wouldn't
send me word like this--unless there was hell to pay. ... Come on!"
He strode off down the slope with the men close around him, and they
met other men on the way, all of whom crowded into the group,
jostling, eager, gesticulating.
Joan was left alone. She felt considerably perturbed, especially at
Kells's sharp inquiry for Jim Cleve. Kells might persuade him to
join that bandit legion. These men made Joan think of wolves, with
Kells the keen and savage leader. No one had given a thought to
Blicky's horse and that neglect in border men was a sign of unusual
preoccupation. The horse was in bad shape. Joan took off his saddle
and bridle, and rubbed the dust-caked lather from his flanks, and
led him into the corral. Then she fetched a bucket of water and let
him drink sparingly, a little at a time.
Joan did not take her ride that morning. Anxious and curious, she
waited for the return of Kells. But he did not come. All afternoon
Joan waited and watched, and saw no sign of him or any of the other
men. She knew Kells was forging with red-hot iron and blood that
organization which she undesignedly had given a name--the Border
Legion. It would be a terrible legion, of that she was assured.
Kells was the evil genius to create an unparalleled scheme of crime;
this wild and remote border, with its inaccessible fastness for
hiding-places, was the place; all that was wanting was the time,
which evidently had arrived. She remembered how her uncle had always
claimed that the Bear Mountain range would see a gold strike which
would disrupt the whole West and amaze the world. And Blicky had
said a big strike had been on for weeks. Kells's prophecy of the
wild life Joan would see had not been without warrant. She had
already seen enough to whiten her hair, she thought, yet she divined
her experience would shrink in comparison with what was to come.
Always she lived in the future. She spent sleeping and waking hours
in dreams, thoughts, actions, broodings, over all of which hung an
ever-present shadow of suspense. When would she meet Jim Cleve
again? When would he recognize her? What would he do? What could she
do? Would Kells be a devil or a man at the end? Was there any
justification of her haunting fear of Gulden--of her suspicion that
she alone was the cause of his attitude toward Kells--of her horror
at the unshakable presentiment and fancy that he was a gorilla and
meant to make off with her? These, and a thousand other fears, some
groundless, but many real and present, besieged Joan and left her
little peace. What would happen next?