The Border Legion

Joan stumbled in the darkness up the rude steps to her room, and,

softly placing the poles in readiness to close her door, she

composed herself to watch and wait. The keen edge of her nerves,

almost amounting to pain, told her that this night of such moment

for Kells would be one of singular strain and significance for her.

But why she could not fathom. She felt herself caught by the

changing tide of events--a tide that must sweep her on to flood.

Kells had gone outside. The strong, deep voices' grew less distinct.

Evidently the men were walking away. In her suspense Joan was

disappointed. Presently, however, they returned; they had been

walking to and fro. After a few moments Kells entered alone. The

cabin was now so dark that Joan could barely distinguish the bandit.

Then he lighted the lanterns. He hung up several on the wall and

placed two upon the table. From somewhere among his effects he

produced a small book and a pencil; these, with a heavy, gold-

mounted gun, he laid on the table before the seat he manifestly

meant to occupy. That done, he began a slow pacing up and down the

room, his hands behind his back, his head bent in deep and absorbing

thought. What a dark, sinister, plotting figure! Joan had seen many

men in different attitudes of thought, but here was a man whose mind

seemed to give forth intangible yet terrible manifestations of evil.

The inside of that gloomy cabin took on another aspect; there was a

meaning in the saddles and bridles and weapons on the wall; that

book and pencil and gun seemed to contain the dark deeds of wild

men; and all about the bandit hovered a power sinister in its menace

to the unknown and distant toilers for gold.

Kells lifted his head, as if listening, and then the whole manner of

the man changed. The burden that weighed upon him was thrown aside.

Like a general about to inspect a line of soldiers Kells faced the

door, keen, stern, commanding. The heavy tread of booted men, the

clink of spurs, the low, muffled sound of voices, warned Joan that

the gang had arrived. Would Jim Cleve be among them?

Joan wanted a better position in which to watch and listen. She

thought a moment, and then carefully felt her way around to the

other side of the steps, and here, sitting down with her feet

hanging over the drop, she leaned against the wall and through a

chink between the logs had a perfect view of the large cabin. The

men were filing in silent and intense. Joan counted twenty-seven in

all. They appeared to fall into two groups, and it was significant

that the larger group lined up on the side nearest Kells, and the

smaller back of Gulden. He had removed the bandage, and with a raw,

red blotch where his right ear had been shot away, he was hideous.

There was some kind of power emanating from him, but it was not that

which, was so keenly vital and impelling in Kells. It was brute

ferocity, dominating by sheer physical force. In any but muscular

clash between Kells and Gulden the latter must lose. The men back of

Gulden were a bearded, check-shirted, heavily armed group, the worst

of that bad lot. All the younger, cleaner-cut men like Red Pearce

and Frenchy and Beady Jones and Williams and the scout Blicky, were

on the other side. There were two factions here, yet scarcely an

antagonism, except possibly in the case of Kells. Joan felt that the

atmosphere was supercharged with suspense and fatality and

possibility--and anything might happen. To her great joy, Jim Cleve

was not present.