“Bill's dead and Halloway, too,” replied Kells.
Gulden turned his massive, shaggy head in the direction of Joan. She had not the courage to meet the gaze upon her. The other man spoke:
“Split over the girl, Jack?”
“No,” replied Kells, sharply. “They tried to get familiar with—MY WIFE—and I shot them both.”
Joan felt a swift leap of hot blood all over her and then a coldness, a sickening, a hateful weakness.
“Wife!” ejaculated Gulden.
“Your real wife, Jack?” queried Pearce.
“Well, I guess, I'll introduce you... Joan, here are two of my friends—Sam Gulden and Red Pearce.”
Gulden grunted something.
“Mrs. Kells, I'm glad to meet you,” said Pearce.
Just then the other three men entered the cabin and Joan took advantage of the commotion they made to get out into the air. She felt sick, frightened, and yet terribly enraged. She staggered a little as she went out, and she knew she was as pale as death. These visitors thrust reality upon her with a cruel suddenness. There was something terrible in the mere presence of this Gulden. She had not yet dared to take a good look at him. But what she felt was overwhelming. She wanted to run. Yet escape now was infinitely more of a menace than before. If she slipped away it would be these new enemies who would pursue her, track her like hounds. She understood why Kells had introduced her as his wife. She hated the idea with a shameful and burning hate, but a moment's reflection taught her that Kells had answered once more to a good instinct. At the moment he had meant that to protect her. And further reflection persuaded Joan that she would be wise to act naturally and to carry out the deception as far as it was possible for her. It was her only hope. Her position had again grown perilous. She thought of the gun she had secreted, and it gave her strength to control her agitation and to return to the cabin outwardly calm.
The men had Kells half turned over with the flesh of his back exposed.
“Aw, Gul, it's whisky he needs,” said one.
“If you let out any more blood he'll croak sure,” protested another.
“Look how weak he is,” said Red Pearce.
“It's a hell of a lot you know,” roared Gulden. “I served my time—but that's none of your business.... Look here! See that blue spot!” Gulden pressed a huge finger down upon the blue welt on Kells's back. The bandit moaned. “That's lead—that's the bullet,” declared Gulden.
“Wall, if you ain't correct!” exclaimed Pearce.
Kells turned his head. “When you punched that place—it made me numb all over. Gul, if you've located the bullet, cut it out.”
Joan did not watch the operation. As she went away to the seat under the balsam she heard a sharp cry and then cheers. Evidently the grim Gulden had been both swift and successful.
Presently the men came out of the cabin and began to attend to their horses and the pack-train.
Pearce looked for Joan, and upon seeing her called out, “Kells wants you.”
Joan found the bandit half propped up against a saddle with a damp and pallid face, but an altogether different look.
“Joan, that bullet was pressing on my spine,” he said. “Now it's out, all that deadness is gone. I feel alive. I'll get well, soon.... Gulden was curious over the bullet. It's a forty-four caliber, and neither Bill Bailey nor Halloway used that caliber of gun. Gulden remembered. He's cunning. Bill was as near being a friend to this Gulden as any man I know of. I can't trust any of these men, particularly Gulden. You stay pretty close by me.”
“Kells, you'll let me go soon—help me to get home?” implored Joan in a low voice.
“Girl, it'd never be safe now,” he replied.
“Then later—soon—when it is safe?”
“We'll see.... But you're my wife now!”
With the latter words the man subtly changed. Something of the power she had felt in him before his illness began again to be manifested. Joan divined that these comrades had caused the difference in him.
“You won't dare—!” Joan was unable to conclude her meaning. A tight band compressed her breast and throat, and she trembled.
“Will you dare go out there and tell them you're NOT my wife?” he queried. His voice had grown stronger and his eyes were blending shadows of thought.
Joan knew that she dared not. She must choose the lesser of two evils. “No man—could be such a beast to a woman—after she'd saved his life,” she whispered.
“I could be anything. You had your chance. I told you to go. I said if I ever got well I'd be as I was—before.”
“But you'd have died.”
“That would have been better for you..... Joan, I'll do this. Marry you honestly and leave the country. I've gold. I'm young. I love you. I intend to have you. And I'll begin life over again. What do you say?”
“Say? I'd die before—I'd marry you!” she panted.
“All right, Joan Randle,” he replied, bitterly. “For a moment I saw a ghost. My old dead better self!... It's gone.... And you stay with me.”
7
After dark Kells had his men build a fire before the open side of the cabin. He lay propped up on blankets and his saddle, while the others lounged or sat in a half-circle in the light, facing him.
Joan drew her blankets into a corner where the shadows were thick and she could see without being seen. She wondered how she would ever sleep near all these wild men—if she could ever sleep again. Yet she seemed more curious and wakeful than frightened. She had no way to explain it, but she felt the fact that her presence in the camp had a subtle influence, at once restraining and exciting. So she looked out upon the scene with wide-open eyes.
And she received more strongly than ever an impression of wildness. Even the camp-fire seemed to burn wildly; it did not glow and sputter and pale and brighten and sing like an honest camp-fire. It blazed in red, fierce, hurried flames, wild to consume the logs. It cast a baleful and sinister color upon the hard faces there. Then the blackness of the enveloping night was pitchy, without any bold outline of cañon wall or companionship of stars. The coyotes were out in force and from all around came their wild sharp barks. The wind rose and mourned weirdly through the balsams.
