e was
inscrutable, but a bitterness in his tone gave the lie to all he said
and looked.

Pearce caught the broader inference and laughed as if at a great joke.
Kells shook his head doubtfully, as if Cleve's transparent speech only
added to the complexity. And Cleve turned away, as if in an instant he
had forgotten his comrades.

Afterward, in the silence and darkness of night, Joan Randle lay
upon her bed sleepless, haunted by Jim's white face, amazed at the
magnificent madness of him, thrilled to her soul by the meaning of his
attack on Gulden, and tortured by a love that had grown immeasurably
full of the strength of these hours of suspense and the passion of this
wild border.

Even in her dreams Joan seemed to be bending all her will toward that
inevitable and fateful moment when she must stand before Jim Cleve. It
had to be. Therefore she would absolutely compel herself to meet it,
regardless of the tumult that must rise within her. When all had been
said, her experience so far among the bandits, in spite of the shocks
and suspense that had made her a different girl, had been infinitely
more fortunate than might have been expected. She prayed for this luck
to continue and forced herself into a belief that it would.

That night she had slept in Dandy Dale's clothes, except for the boots;
and sometimes while turning in restless slumber she had been awakened by
rolling on the heavy gun, which she had not removed from the belt. And
at such moments, she had to ponder in the darkness, to realize that
she, Joan Randle, lay a captive in a bandit's camp, dressed in a dead
bandit's garb, and packing his gun--even while she slept. It was such an
improbable, impossible thing. Yet the cold feel of the polished gun sent
a thrill of certainty through her.

In the morning she at least did not have to suffer the shame of getting
into Dandy Dale's clothes, for she was already in them. She found a
grain of comfort even in that. When she had put on the mask and sombrero
she studied the effect in her little mirror. And she again decided
that no one, not even Jim Cleve, could recognize her in that disguise.
Likewise she gathered courage from the fact that even her best girl
friend would have found her figure unfamiliar and striking where once
it had been merely tall and slender and strong, ordinarily dressed. Then
how would Jim Cleve ever recognize her? She remembered her voice that
had been called a contralto, low and deep; and ho