t late next morning, and was awakened by the unloading of
lumber. Teams were drawing planks from the sawmill. Already a skeleton
framework for Kells's cabin had been erected. Jim Cleve was working with
the others, and they were sacrificing thoroughness to haste. Joan had
to cook her own breakfast, which task was welcome, and after it had been
finished she wished for something more to occupy her mind. But nothing
offered. Finding a comfortable seat among some rocks where she would be
inconspicuous, she looked on at the building of Kells's cabin. It seemed
strange, and somehow comforting, to watch Jim Cleve work. He had never
been a great worker. Would this experience on the border make a man of
him? She felt assured of that.

If ever a cabin sprang up like a mushroom, that bandit rendezvous was
the one. Kells worked himself, and appeared no mean hand. By noon the
roof of clapboards was on, and the siding of the same material had been
started. Evidently there was not to a be a fireplace inside.

Then a teamster drove up with a wagon-load of purchases Kells had
ordered. Kells helped unload this and evidently was in search of
articles. Presently he found them, and then approached Joan, to deposit
before her an assortment of bundles little and big.

"There Miss Modestly," he said. "Make yourself some clothes. You can
shake Dandy Dale's outfit, except when we're on the trail.... And, say,
if you knew what I had to pay for this stuff you'd think there was a
bigger robber in Alder Creek than Jack Kells.... And, come to think of
it, my name's now Blight. You're my daughter, if any one asks." Joan was
so grateful to him for the goods and the permission to get out of Dandy
Dale's suit as soon as possible, that she could only smile her thanks.
Kells stared at her, then turned abruptly away. Those little unconscious
acts of hers seemed to affect him strangely. Joan remembered that he
had intended to parade her in Dandy Dale's costume to gratify some vain
abnormal side of his bandit's proclivities. He had weakened. Here was
another subtle indication of the deterioration of the evil of him. How
far would it go? Joan thought dreamily, and with a swelling heart, of
her influence upon this hardened bandit, upon that wild boy, Jim Cleve.

All that afternoon, and part of the evening in the campfire light, and
all of the next day Joan sewed, so busy that she scarcely lifted her
eyes from her work. The following day she finished her dress,