t be, without picturing Kells, dark and
forbidding and burdened, pacing some lonely cabin or riding a lonely
trail or lying with his brooding face upturned to the lonely stars.
Sooner or later he would meet his doom. It was inevitable. She pictured
over that sinister scene of the dangling forms; but no--Kells would
never end that way. Terrible as he was, he had not been born to be
hanged. He might be murdered in his sleep, by one of that band of
traitors who were traitors because in the nature of evil they had to be.
But more likely some gambling-hell, with gold and life at stake,
would see his last fight. These bandits stole gold and gambled among
themselves and fought. And that fight which finished Kells must
necessarily be a terrible one. She seemed to see into a lonely cabin
where a log fire burned low and lamps flickered and blue smoke floated
in veils and men lay prone on the floor--Kells, stark and bloody, and
the giant Gulden, dead at last and more terrible in death, and on the
rude table bags of gold and dull, shining heaps of gold, and scattered
on the floor, like streams of sand and useless as sand, dust of
gold--the Destroyer.

18

All Joan's fancies and dreams faded into obscurity, and when she was
aroused it seemed she had scarcely closed her eyes. But there was the
gray gloom of dawn. Jim was shaking her gently.

"No, you weren't sleepy--it's just a mistake," he said, helping her to
arise. "Now we'll get out of here."

They threaded a careful way out of the rocks, then hurried down the
slope. In the grayness Joan saw the dark shape of a cabin and it
resembled the one Kells had built. It disappeared. Presently when Jim
led her into a road she felt sure that this cabin had been the one where
she had been a prisoner for so long. They hurried down the road and
entered the camp. There were no lights. The tents and cabins looked
strange and gloomy. The road was empty. Not a sound broke the stillness.
At the bend Joan saw a stage-coach and horses looming up in what seemed
gray distance. Jim hurried her on.

They reached the stage. The horses were restive. The driver was on the
seat, whip and reins in hand. Two men sat beside him with rifles across
their knees. The door of the coach hung open. There were men inside, one
of whom had his head out of the window. The barrel of a rifle protruded
near him. He was talking in a low voice to a man apparently busy at the
traces.

"Hello, Cleve! You're late,"