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"Blicky!" exclaimed the tall man. "Kells, there's news. I seen Jesse's hoss." Kells let out a strange, exultant cry. The excited talk among the men gave place, to a subdued murmur, then subsided. Blicky was running a horse up the road, hanging low over him, like an Indian. He clattered to the bench, scattered the men in all directions. The fiery horse plunged and pounded.
"Here, Gulden," he said, and handed the giant a bag. Jesse.... Bossert.... Pike.... Beady.... Braverman... "Blicky." "Here, Jim Cleve, get in the game," he added, throwing a bag at Jim. It was heavy. It hit Jim with a thud and dropped to the ground. He stooped to reach it. "That leaves one for Handy and one for me," went on Kells. "Blicky, spill out the big bag."
Blicky lasted only a few more deals of the cards, then he rose, loser of all his share, a passionate and venomous bandit, ready for murder. But he kept his mouth shut and looked wary. "Boss, can't we set in now?" demanded Beady Jones. "Say, Beady, you're in a hurry to lose your gold," replied Kells. "Wait till I beat Gulden and Smith." Luck turned against Jesse Smith.
Dicky lets out a roar, makes a plunge for him, hammers him on the back, works the pump handle, and talks a blue streak. "Well, Skiddy, old man, here we are!" says he. "Thought you'd given us the shake for good, eh? But we heard you'd gone in with the Corrugated, saw Blicky in Venice and he told us, so when we came ashore we wired father to hold the car over one train for us while we hunted you up.
Blicky darted through the door and his footsteps thudded out of hearing. "You can't force me to marry you," said Joan. "I I won't open my lips." "That's your affair. I've no mind to coax you," he replied, bitterly. "But if you don't I'll try Gulden's way with a woman.... You remember. Gulden's way! A cave and a rope!" Joan's legs gave out under her and she sank upon a pile of blankets.
But Gulden, tireless, sleepless, eternally vigilant, guarded the saddle of gold and brooded over it, and seemed a somber giant carved out of the night. And Blicky, nursing some deep and late-developed scheme, perhaps in Kells's interest or his own, kept watch over Gulden and all. Jim cautioned Joan to rest, and importuned her and promised to watch while she slept.
"I tell you Blick, I can't git this all right in my head," said Smith. "Say, ask Jim again. Mebbe, now the job's done, he can talk," suggested Blicky. Jim Cleve heard and appeared ready for that question. "I don't know much more than I told you. But I can guess. Kells had this big shipment of gold spotted. He must have sent us in the stage for some reason.
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.
It might have been a quarter of an hour, though to Joan it seemed an endless time, until footsteps and voices outside announced the return of Blicky. He held by the arm a slight man whom he was urging along with no gentle force. This stranger's face presented as great a contrast to Blicky's as could have been imagined. His apparel proclaimed his calling.
Joan did not fault, but a merciful unclamping of muscle-bound rigidity closed her eyes. "Gul!" yelled Blicky, with passion. "I ain't a-goin' to let you kill this kid! There's no sense in it. We're spotted back in Alder Creek.... Run, kid! Run!" Then Joan opened her eyes to see the surly Gulden's arm held by Blicky, and the youth running blindly down the road. Joan's relief and joy were tremendous.
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