d him, making him seem a
huge, gloomy ape of a man. So far as Joan could tell, Gulden never cast
his eyes in her direction. That was a difference which left cause for
reflection. Had that hulk of brawn and bone begun to think? Bate Wood's
overtures to Joan were rough, but inexplicable to her because she dared
not wholly trust him.

"An' shore, miss," he had concluded, in a hoarse whisper, "we-all know
you ain't Kells's wife. Thet bandit wouldn't marry no woman. He's a
woman-hater. He was famous fer thet over in California. He's run off
with you--kidnapped you, thet's shore.... An' Gulden swears he shot his
own men an' was in turn shot by you. Thet bullet-hole in his back was
full of powder. There's liable to be a muss-up any time.... Shore, miss,
you'd better sneak off with me tonight when they're all asleep. I'll git
grub an' hosses, an' take you off to some prospector's camp. Then you
can git home."

Joan only shook her head. Even if she could have felt trust in Wood--and
she was of half a mind to believe him--it was too late. Whatever befell
her mattered little if in suffering it she could save Jim Cleve from the
ruin she had wrought.

Since this wild experience of Joan's had begun she had been sick so
many times with raw and naked emotions hitherto unknown to her, that
she believed she could not feel another new fear or torture. But these
strange sensations grew by what they had been fed upon.

The man called Frenchy, was audacious, persistent, smiling,
amorous-eyed, and rudely gallant. He cared no more for his companions
than if they had not been there. He vied with Pearce in his attention,
and the two of them discomfited the others. The situation might have
been amusing had it not been so terrible. Always the portent was a
shadow behind their interest and amiability and jealousy. Except for
that one abrupt and sinister move of Gulden's--that of a natural man
beyond deceit--there was no word, no look, no act at which Joan could
have been offended. They were joking, sarcastic, ironical, and sullen
in their relation to each other; but to Joan each one presented what was
naturally or what he considered his kindest and most friendly front. A
young and attractive woman had dropped into the camp of lonely wild men;
and in their wild hearts was a rebirth of egotism, vanity, hunger
for notice. They seemed as foolish as a lot of cock grouse preening
themselves and parading before a single female. Surely in some heart wa