at
her wild and furious rush from the spot where she had faced Jim Cleve,
at the storm of shame ending in her collapse. She realized that if she
had met Jim Cleve here in the dress in which she had left home there
would have been the same shock of surprise and fear and love. She owed
part of that breakdown to the suspense she had been under and then the
suddenness of the meeting. Looking back at her agitation, she felt that
it had been natural--that if she could only tell the truth to Jim Cleve
the situation was not impossible. But the meeting, and all following it,
bore tremendous revelation of how through all this wild experience she
had learned to love Jim Cleve. But for his reckless flight and her blind
pursuit, and then the anxiety, fear, pain, toil, and despair, she would
never have known her woman's heart and its capacity for love.

11

Following that meeting, with all its power to change and strengthen
Joan, there were uneventful days in which she rode the gulch trails
and grew able to stand the jests and glances of the bandit's gang. She
thought she saw and heard everything, yet insulated her true self in a
callous and unreceptive aloofness from all that affronted her.

The days were uneventful because, while always looking for Jim Cleve,
she never once saw him. Several times she heard his name mentioned. He
was here and there--at Beard's off in the mountains. But he did not come
to Kells's cabin, which fact, Joan gathered, had made Kells anxious. He
did not want to lose Cleve. Joan peered from her covert in the evenings,
and watched for Jim, and grew weary of the loud talk and laughter, the
gambling and smoking and drinking. When there seemed no more chance of
Cleve's coming, then Joan went to bed.

On these occasions Joan learned that Kells was passionately keen to
gamble, that he was a weak hand at cards, an honest gambler, and,
strangely enough, a poor loser. Moreover, when he lost he drank heavily,
and under the influence of drink he was dangerous. There were quarrels
when curses rang throughout the cabin, when guns were drawn, but
whatever Kells's weaknesses might be, he was strong and implacable in
the governing of these men.

That night when Gulden strode into the cabin was certainly not
uneventful for Joan. Sight of him sent a chill to her marrow while a
strange thrill of fire inflamed her. Was that great hulk of a gorilla
prowling about to meet Jim Cleve? Joan thought that it might be the