r on the road to drink,
to gaming, and to crime.

Joan got to her feet, and with all her woman's soul uplifting and
inflaming her she stood ready to meet the moment that portended.

Kells made a gesture of savage violence. "Show your nerve!... Join
with me!... You'll make a name on this border that the West will never
forget!"

That last hint of desperate fame was the crafty bandit's best trump. And
it won. Cleve swept up a weak and nervous hand to brush the hair from
his damp brow. The keenness, the fire, the aloofness had departed from
him. He looked shaken as if by something that had been pointed out as
his own cowardice.

"Sure, Kells," he said, recklessly. "Let me in the game.... And--by
God--I'll play--the hand out!" He reached for the pencil and bent over
the book.

"Wait!... Oh, WAIT!" cried Joan. The passion of that moment, the
consciousness of its fateful portent and her situation, as desperate
as Cleve's, gave her voice a singularly high and piercingly sweet
intensity. She glided from behind the blanket--out of the shadow--into
the glare of the lanterns--to face Kells and Cleve.

Kells gave one astounded glance at her, and then, divining her purpose,
he laughed thrillingly and mockingly, as if the sight of her was a spur,
as if her courage was a thing to admire, to permit, and to regret.

"Cleve, my wife, Dandy Dale," he said, suave and cool. "Let her persuade
you--one way or another!"

The presence of a woman, however disguised, following her singular
appeal, transformed Cleve. He stiffened erect and the flush died out of
his face, leaving it whiter than ever, and the eyes that had grown dull
quickened and began to burn. Joan felt her cheeks blanch. She all but
fainted under that gaze. But he did not recognize her, though he was
strangely affected.

"Wait!" she cried again, and she held to that high voice, so different
from her natural tone. "I've been listening. I've heard all that's been
said. Don't join this Border Legion.... You're young--and still, honest.
For God's sake--don't go the way of these men! Kells will make you a
bandit.... Go home--boy--go home!"

"Who are you--to speak to me of honesty--of home?" Cleve demanded.

"I'm only a--a woman.... But I can feel how wrong you are.... Go back
to that girl--who--who drove you to the border.... She must repent. In
a day you'll be too late.... Oh, boy, go home! Girls never know their
minds--their hearts. Maybe your girl--loved you!... Oh, m