youth staggered, and turning, he fell on his
knees.

"Don't--kill--me!" he entreated.

Joan, seeing Jim Cleve stiffen and crouch, thought of him even in that
horrible moment; and she gripped his arm with all her might. They must
endure.

The other bandits muttered, but none moved a hand.

Gulden thrust out the big gun. His hair bristled on his head, and his
huge frame seemed instinct with strange vibration, like some object of
tremendous weight about to plunge into resistless momentum.

Even the stricken youth saw his doom. "Let--me--pray!" he begged.

Joan did not fault, but a merciful unclamping of muscle-bound rigidity
closed her eyes.

"Gul!" yelled Blicky, with passion. "I ain't a-goin' to let you kill
this kid! There's no sense in it. We're spotted back in Alder Creek....
Run, kid! Run!"

Then Joan opened her eyes to see the surly Gulden's arm held by Blicky,
and the youth running blindly down the road. Joan's relief and joy were
tremendous. But still she answered to the realizing shock of what Gulden
had meant to do. She leaned against Cleve, all within and without a
whirling darkness of fire. The border wildness claimed her then. She had
the spirit, though not the strength, to fight. She needed the sight
and sound of other things to restore her equilibrium. She would have
welcomed another shock, an injury. And then she was looking down upon
the gasping miner. He was dying. Hurriedly Joan knelt beside him to lift
his head. At her call Cleve brought a canteen. But the miner could not
drink and he died with some word unspoken.

Dizzily Joan arose, and with Cleve half supporting her she backed off
the road to a seat on the bank. She saw the bandits now at business-like
action. Blicky and Smith were cutting the horses out of their harness:
Beady Jones, like a ghoul, searched the dead men; the three bandits whom
Joan knew only by sight were making up a pack; Budd was standing beside
the stage with his, expectant grin; and Gulden, with the agility of the
gorilla he resembled, was clambering over the top of the stage. Suddenly
from under the driver's seat he hauled a buckskin sack. It was small,
but heavy. He threw it down to Budd, almost knocking over that bandit.
Budd hugged the sack and yelled like an Indian. The other men whooped
and ran toward him. Gulden hauled out another sack. Hands to the number
of a dozen stretched clutchingly. When he threw the sack there was a mad
scramble. They fought, but it was