s. No one took notice of the dead Pearce. Here was
somber and terrible sign of the wildness of the border clan--that Kells
could send out for a parson to marry him to a woman he hopelessly loved,
there in the presence of murder and death, with Pearce's distorted face
upturned in stark and ghastly significance.

It might have been a quarter of an hour, though to Joan it seemed an
endless time, until footsteps and voices outside announced the return of
Blicky.

He held by the arm a slight man whom he was urging along with no gentle
force. This stranger's face presented as great a contrast to Blicky's as
could have been imagined. His apparel proclaimed his calling. There were
consternation and bewilderment in his expression, but very little fear.

"He was preachin' down there in a tent," said Blicky, "an I jest waltzed
him up without explainin'."

"Sir, I want to be married at once," declared Kells, peremptorily.

"Certainly. I'm at your service," replied the preacher. "But I deplore
the--the manner in which I've been approached."

"You'll excuse haste," rejoined the bandit. "I'll pay you well." Kells
threw a small buckskin sack of gold-dust upon the table, and then he
turned to Joan. "Come, Joan," he said, in the tone that brooked neither
resistance nor delay.

It was at that moment that the preacher first noticed Joan. Was her
costume accountable for his start? Joan had remembered his voice and she
wondered if he would remember hers. Certainly Jim had called her Joan
more than once on the night of the marriage. The preacher's eyes grew
keener. He glanced from Joan to Kells, and then at the other men, who
had come in. Jim Cleve stood behind Jesse Smith's broad person, and
evidently the preacher did not see him. That curious gaze, however, next
discovered the dead man on the floor. Then to the curiosity and anxiety
upon the preacher's face was added horror.

"A minister of God is needed here, but not in the capacity you name," he
said. "I'll perform no marriage ceremony in the presence of--murder."

"Mr. Preacher, you'll marry me quick or you'll go along with him,"
replied Kells, deliberately.

"I cannot be forced." The preacher still maintained some dignity, but he
had grown pale.

"_I_ can force you. Get ready now!... Joan, come here!"

Kells spoke sternly, yet something of the old, self-mocking spirit was
in his tone. His intelligence was deriding the flesh and blood of him,
the beast, the fool. It spoke t