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Updated: May 24, 2025
He swore he would kill Kells and any other bandit who stood in the way of his leading her free out of that cabin. He was wild to fight. He might never have felt fear of these robbers. He would not listen to any possibility of defeat for himself, or the possibility that in the event of Kells's death she would be worse off. He laughed at her strange, morbid fears of Gulden. He was immovable.
She stopped to listen. Only the babble of swift water and the sough of wind in the spruces greeted her ears. She went on, beginning to collect her thoughts, to conjecture on the significance of Kells's behavior. But had that been the spring of his motive?
She pressed the gun against his side and pulled the trigger. A thundering, muffled, hollow boom! The odor of burned powder stung her nostrils. Kells's hold on her tightened convulsively, loosened with strange, lessening power. She swayed back free of him, still with tight-shut eyes. A horrible cry escaped him a cry of mortal agony. It wrenched her.
That showed the power of Kells's Border Legion. If his men had been faithful and obedient he never would have fallen." "Joan! You speak as if you regret it!" "Oh, I am ashamed," replied Joan. "I don't mean that. I don't know what I do mean. But still I'm sorry for Kells.
And she dropped the blanket. Kells's gloom and that iron hardness vanished. He smiled as she had never seen him smile. In that and his speechless delight she read his estimate of her appearance; and, notwithstanding the unwomanliness of her costume, and the fact of his notorious character, she knew she had never received so great a compliment. Finally he found his voice.
Joan spent most of that day in sitting beside Kells. The whole day seemed only an hour. Sometimes she would look down the canon trail, half expecting to see horsemen riding up. If any of Kells's comrades happened to come, what could she tell them? They would be as bad as he, without that one trait which had kept him human for a day. Joan pondered upon this.
Joan wore the dress she had made, to the evident pleasure of Bate Wood and Pearce. They had conceived as strong an interest in her fortunes as she had in Kells's. Wood nodded his approval and Pearce said she was a lady once more. Strange it was to Joan that this villain Pearce, whom she could not have dared trust, grew open in his insinuating hints of Kells's blackguardism.
Joan was about to spy up on them when Kells's step approached her door. He rapped and spoke: "Put on Dandy Dale's suit and mask, and come out here," he said. The tone of his voice as much as the content of his words startled Joan so that she did not at once reply. "Do you hear?" he called, sharply. "Yes," replied Joan. Then he went back to his men, and the low, earnest conversation was renewed.
From the fleeting expression on Kells's face Joan read that he knew Gulden's project would defeat his own and render both enterprises fatal. "Gulden, I don't want to lose you," he said. "You won't lose me if you see this thing right," replied Gulden. "You've got the brains to direct us. But, Kells, you're losing your nerve.... It's this girl you've got here!"
I'd want you to do the same by me.... But fetchin' the girl into the deal " Kells's passionate and menacing gesture shut Pearce's lips. He lifted a hand, resignedly, and went out. "Jim," said Kells, earnestly, "take my hunch. Hide your nugget. Don't send it out with the stage to Bannack. It'd never get there.... And change the place where you sleep!" "Thanks," replied Cleve, brightly.
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