said another man, evidently the agent.
"Climb aboard. When'll you be back?"

"I hardly know," replied Cleve, with hesitation.

"All right. Good luck to you." He closed the coach door after Joan and
Jim. "Let 'em go, Bill."

The stage started with a jerk. To Joan what an unearthly creak and
rumble it made, disturbing the silent dawn! Jim squeezed her hand with
joy. They were on the way!

Joan and Jim had a seat to themselves. Opposite sat three men--the
guard with his head half out of the window, a bearded miner who appeared
stolid or drowsy, and a young man who did not look rough and robust
enough for a prospector. None of the three paid any particular attention
to Joan and Jim.

The road had a decided slope down-hill, and Bill, the driver, had the
four horses on a trot. The rickety old stage appeared to be rattling
to pieces. It lurched and swayed, and sometimes jolted over rocks and
roots. Joan was hard put to it to keep from being bumped off the seat.
She held to a brace on one side and to Jim on the other. And when the
stage rolled down into the creek and thumped over boulders Joan made
sure that every bone in her body would be broken. This crossing marked
the mouth of the gulch, and on the other side the road was smooth.

"We're going the way we came," whispered Jim in her ear.

This was surprising, for Joan had been sure that Bannack lay in the
opposite direction. Certainly this fact was not reassuring to her.
Perhaps the road turned soon.

Meanwhile the light brightened, the day broke, and the sun reddened the
valley. Then it was as light inside the coach as outside. Joan might
have spared herself concern as to her fellow-passengers. The only
one who noticed her was the young man, and he, after a stare and a
half-smile, lapsed into abstraction. He looked troubled, and there was
about him no evidence of prosperity. Jim held her hand under a fold of
the long coat, and occasionally he spoke of something or other outside
that caught his eye. And the stage rolled on rapidly, seemingly in
pursuit of the steady roar of hoofs.

Joan imagined she recognized the brushy ravine out of which Jesse Smith
had led that day when Kells's party came upon the new road. She believed
Jim thought so, too, for he gripped her hand unusually hard. Beyond that
point Joan began to breathe more easily. There seemed no valid reason
now why every mile should not separate them farther from the bandits,
and she experienced relief.