to join
Kells's Legion. Since then Joan felt that she had lived years. She could
not remember a single thought she might have had during those black
hours; nevertheless, a decision had been formed in her mind, and it was
that to-day she would reveal herself to Jim Cleve if it cost both their
lives. Death was infinitely better than the suspense and fear and agony
she had endured; and as for Jim, it would at least save him from crime.

Joan got up, a little dizzy and unsteady upon her feet. Her hands
appeared clumsy and shaky. All the blood in her seemed to surge from
heart to brain and it hurt her to breathe. Removing her mask, she bathed
her face and combed her hair. At first she conceived an idea to go out
without her face covered, but she thought better of it. Cleve's reckless
defiance had communicated itself to her. She could not now be stopped.

Kells was gay and excited that morning. He paid her compliments. He said
they would soon be out of this lonely gulch and she would see the sight
of her life--a gold strike. She would see men wager a fortune on the
turn of a card, lose, laugh, and go back to the digging. He said he
would take her to Sacramento and 'Frisco and buy her everything any
girl could desire. He was wild, voluble, unreasoning--obsessed by the
anticipated fulfilment of his dream.

It was rather late in the morning and there were a dozen or more men in
and around the cabin, all as excited as Kells. Preparations were already
under way for the expected journey to the gold-field. Packs were being
laid out, overhauled, and repacked; saddles and bridles and weapons
were being worked over; clothes were being awkwardly mended. Horses
were being shod, and the job was as hard and disagreeable for men as for
horses. Whenever a rider swung up the slope, and one came every now and
then, all the robbers would leave off their tasks and start eagerly for
the newcomer. The name Jesse Smith was on everybody's lips. Any hour he
might be expected to arrive and corroborate Blicky's alluring tale.

Joan saw or imagined she saw that the glances in the eyes of these men
were yellow, like gold fire. She had seen miners and prospectors whose
eyes shone with a strange glory of light that gold inspired, but never
as those of Kells's bandit Legion. Presently Joan discovered that,
despite the excitement, her effect upon them was more marked then ever,
and by a difference that she was quick to feel. But she could not tell
what th