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."

"Kells, don't let him see me!" entreated Joan.

The bandit appeared not to catch the fear in Joan's tone and look. She
had been only a listener. Presently with preoccupied and gloomy mien, he
left her alone.

Joan did not see him again, except for glimpses under the curtain, for
three days. She kept the door barred and saw no one except Bate Wood,
who brought her meals. She paced her cabin like a caged creature. During
this period few men visited Kells's cabin, and these few did not remain
long. Joan was aware that Kells was not always at