and with
no little pride, for she had both taste and skill. Of the men, Bate Wood
had been most interested in her task; and he would let things burn on
the fire to watch her.

That day the rude cabin was completed. It contained one long room; and
at the back a small compartment partitioned off from the rest, and built
against and around a shallow cavern in the huge rock. This compartment
was for Joan. There were a rude board door with padlock and key, a bench
upon which blankets had been flung, a small square hole cut in the wall
to serve as a window. What with her own few belongings and the articles
of furniture that Kells bought for her, Joan soon had a comfortable
room, even a luxury compared to what she had been used to for weeks.
Certain it was that Kells meant to keep her a prisoner, or virtually
so. Joan had no sooner spied the little window than she thought that it
would be possible for Jim Cleve to talk to her there from the outside.

Kells verified Joan's suspicion by telling her that she was not to leave
the cabin of her own accord, as she had been permitted to do back in
Cabin Gulch; and Joan retorted that there she had made him a promise not
to run away, which promise she now took back. That promise had worried
her. She was glad to be honest with Kells. He gazed at her somberly.

"You'll be worse off it you do--and I'll be better off," he said. And
then as an afterthought he added: "Gulden might not think you--a white
elephant on his hands!... Remember his way, the cave and the rope!"

So, instinctively or cruelly he chose the right name to bring shuddering
terror into Joan's soul.

14

Joan's opportunity for watching Kells and his men and overhearing
their colloquies was as good as it had been back in Cabin Gulch. But it
developed that where Kells had been open and frank he now became secret
and cautious. She was aware that men, singly and in couples, visited him
during the early hours of the night, and they had conferences in low,
earnest tones. She could peer out of her little window and see dark,
silent forms come up from the ravine at the back of the cabin, and leave
the same way. None of them went round to the front door, where Bate
Wood smoked and kept guard. Joan was able to hear only scraps of these
earnest talks; and from part of one she gathered that for some reason
or other Kells desired to bring himself into notice. Alder Creek must
be made to know that a man of importance had arri