e easily lamed in a descent. It took
two hours to descend the distance that had consumed all the morning to
ascend. Smith led through valley after valley between foot-hills, and
late in the afternoon halted by a spring in a timbered spot.

Joan ached in every muscle and she was too tired to care what happened
round the camp-fire. Jim had been close to her all day and that had kept
up her spirit. It was not yet dark when she lay down for the night.

"Sleep well, Dandy Dale," said Kells, cheerfully, yet not without
pathos. "Alder Creek to-morrow!... Then you'll never sleep again!"

At times she seemed to feel that he regretted her presence, and always
this fancy came to her with mocking or bantering suggestion that the
costume and mask she wore made her a bandit's consort, and she could not
escape the wildness of this gold-seeking life. The truth was that Kells
saw the insuperable barrier between them, and in the bitterness of his
love he lied to himself, and hated himself for the lie.

About the middle of the afternoon of the next day the tired cavalcade
rode down out of the brush and rock into a new, broad, dusty road. It
was so new that the stems of the cut brush along the borders were still
white. But that road had been traveled by a multitude.

Out across the valley in the rear Joan saw a canvas-topped wagon, and
she had not ridden far on the road when she saw a bobbing pack-burros to
the fore. Kells had called Wood and Smith and Pearce and Cleve together,
and now they went on in a bunch, all driving the pack-train. Excitement
again claimed Kells; Pearce was alert and hawk-eyed; Smith looked like a
hound on a scent; Cleve showed genuine feeling. Only Bate Wood remained
proof to the meaning of that broad road.

All along, on either side, Joan saw wrecks of wagons, wheels, harness,
boxes, old rags of tents blown into the brush, dead mules and burros.
It seemed almost as if an army had passed that way. Presently the road
crossed a wide, shallow brook of water, half clear and half muddy; and
on the other side the road followed the course of the brook. Joan heard
Smith call the stream Alder Creek, and he asked Kells if he knew what
muddied water meant. The bandit's eyes flashed fire. Joan thrilled, for
she, too, knew that up-stream there were miners washing earth for gold.

A couple of miles farther on creek and road entered the mouth of a wide
spruce-timbered gulch. These trees hid any view of the slopes or floor
o