g came fleeting out of the depths--and it was
respect for a woman. To Joan it was a flash of light. Yesterday these
ruffians despised her; to-day they respected her. So they had believed
what she had so desperately flung at Jim Cleve. They believed her good,
they pitied her, they respected her, they responded to her effort
to turn a boy back from a bad career. They were bandits, desperados,
murderers, lost, but each remembered in her a mother or a sister. What
each might have felt or done had he possessed her, as Kells possessed
her, did not alter the case as it stood. A strange inconsistency of
character made them hate Kells for what they might not have hated in
themselves. Her appeal to Cleve, her outburst of truth, her youth
and misfortune, had discovered to each a human quality. As in Kells
something of nobility still lingered, a ghost among his ruined ideals,
so in the others some goodness remained. Joan sustained an uplifting
divination--no man was utterly bad. Then came the hideous image of the
giant Gulden, the utter absence of soul in him, and she shuddered.
Then came the thought of Jim Cleve, who had not believed her, who had
bitterly made the fatal step, who might in the strange reversion of his
character be beyond influence.

And it was at the precise moment when this thought rose to counteract
the hope revived by the changed attitude of the men that Joan looked out
to see Jim Cleve sauntering up, careless, untidy, a cigarette between
his lips, blue blotches on his white face, upon him the stamp of
abandonment. Joan suffered a contraction of heart that benumbed her
breast. She stood a moment battling with herself. She was brave enough,
desperate enough, to walk straight up to Cleve, remove her mask and say,
"I am Joan!" But that must be a last resource. She had no plan, yet she
might force an opportunity to see Cleve alone.

A shout rose above the hubbub of voices. A tall man was pointing across
the gulch where dust-clouds showed above the willows. Men crowded round
him, all gazing in the direction of his hand, all talking at once.

"Jesse Smith's hoss, I swear!" shouted the tall man. "Kells, come out
here!"

Kells appeared, dark and eager, at the door, and nimbly he leaped to the
excited group. Pearce and Wood and others followed.

"What's up?" called the bandit. "Hello! Who's that riding bareback?"

"He's shore cuttin' the wind," said Wood.

"Blicky!" exclaimed the tall man. "Kells, there's news. I