n! You know why I brought you here?"

"Yes, of course; you told me," she replied, steadily. "You want to
ransom me for gold.... And I'm afraid you'll have to take me home
without getting any."

"You know what I mean to do to you," he went on, thickly.

"Do to me?" she echoed, and she never quivered a muscle. "You--you
didn't say.... I haven't thought.... But you won't hurt me, will you?
It's not my fault if there's no gold to ransom me."

He shook her. His face changed, grew darker. "You KNOW what I mean."

"I don't." With some show of spirit she essayed to slip out of his
grasp. He held her the tighter.

"How old are you?"

It was only in her height and development that Joan looked anywhere near
her age. Often she had been taken for a very young girl.

"I'm seventeen," she replied. This was not the truth. It was a lie that
did not falter on lips which had scorned falsehood.

"Seventeen!" he ejaculated in amaze. "Honestly, now?"

She lifted her chin scornfully and remained silent.

"Well, I thought you were a woman. I took you to be twenty-five--at
least twenty-two. Seventeen, with that shape! You're only a girl--a kid.
You don't know anything."

Then he released her, almost with violence, as if angered at her or
himself, and he turned away to the horses. Joan walked toward the little
cabin. The strain of that encounter left her weak, but once from under
his eyes, certain that she had carried her point, she quickly regained
her poise. There might be, probably would be, infinitely more trying
ordeals for her to meet than this one had been; she realized, however,
that never again would she be so near betrayal of terror and knowledge
and self.

The scene of her isolation had a curious fascination for her.
Something--and she shuddered--was to happen to her here in this lonely,
silent gorge. There were some flat stones made into a rude seat under
the balsam-tree, and a swift, yard-wide stream of clear water ran by.
Observing something white against the tree, Joan went closer. A card,
the ace of hearts, had been pinned to the bark by a small cluster of
bullet-holes, every one of which touched the red heart, and one of them
had obliterated it. Below the circle of bulletholes, scrawled in rude
letters with a lead-pencil, was the name "Gulden." How little, a few
nights back, when Jim Cleve had menaced Joan with the names of Kells and
Gulden, had she imagined they were actual men she was to meet and fear!
And here