At this juncture Joan was at once thrilled and frightened to see Jim Cleve enter the cabin. He appeared whiter of face, almost ghastly, and his piercing eyes swept the room, from Kells to Gulden, from men to men. Then he leaned against the wall, indistinct in the shadow. Kells gave no sign that he had noted the advent of Cleve.
“I'm the leader,” replied Kells, deliberately. “I'll make the plans. I'll issue orders. No jobs without my knowledge. Equal shares in gold—man to man.... Your word to stand by me!”
A muttering of approval ran through the listening group.
“Reckon I'll join,” said the man who had wished the conditions repeated. With that he advanced to the table and, apparently not being able to write, he made his mark in the book. Kells wrote the name below. The other men of this contingent one by one complied with Kells's requirements. This action left Gulden and his group to be dealt with.
“Gulden, are you still on the fence?” demanded Kells, coolly.
The giant strode stolidly forward to the table. As always before to Joan, he seemed to be a ponderous hulk, slow, heavy, plodding, with a mind to match.
“Kells, if we can agree I'll join,” he said in his sonorous voice.
“You can bet you won't join unless we do agree,” snapped Kells. “But—see here, Gulden. Let's be friendly. The border is big enough for both of us. I want you. I need you. Still, if we can't agree, let's not split and be enemies. How about it?”
Another muttering among the men attested to the good sense and good will of Kells's suggestion.
“Tell me what you're going to do—how you'll operate,” replied Gulden.
Keils had difficulty in restraining his impatience and annoyance.
“What's that to you or any of you?” he queried. “You all know I'm the man to think of things. That's been proved. First it takes brains. I'll furnish them. Then it takes execution. You and Pearce and the gang will furnish that. What more do you need to know?”
“How're you going to operate?” persisted Gulden.
Kells threw up both hands as if it was useless to argue or reason with this desperado.
“All right, I'll tell you,” he replied. “Listen.... I can't say what definite plans I'll make till Jesse Smith reports, and then when I get on the diggings. But here's a working basis. Now don't miss a word of this, Gulden—nor any of you men. We'll pack our outfits down to this gold strike. We'll build cabins on the outskirts of the town, and we won't hang together. The gang will be spread out. Most of you must make a bluff at digging gold. Be like other miners. Get in with cliques and clans. Dig, drink, gamble like the rest of them. Beard will start a gambling-place. Red Pearce will find some other kind of work. I'll buy up claims—employ miners to work them. I'll disguise myself and get in with the influential men and have a voice in matters. You'll all be scouts. You'll come to my cabin at night to report. We'll not tackle any little jobs. Miners going out with fifty or a hundred pounds of gold—the wagons—the stage-coach—these we'll have timed to rights, and whoever I detail on the job will hold them up. You must all keep sober, if that's possible. You must all absolutely trust to my judgment. You must all go masked while on a job. You must never speak a word that might direct suspicion to you. In this way we may work all summer without detection. The Border Legion will become mysterious and famous. It will appear to be a large number of men, operating all over. The more secretive we are the more powerful the effect on the diggings. In gold-camps, when there's a strike, all men are mad. They suspect each other. They can't organize. We shall have them helpless.... And in short, if it's as rich a strike as looks due here in these hills, before winter we can pack out all the gold our horses can carry.”
Kells had begun under restraint, but the sound of his voice, the liberation of his great idea, roused him to a passion. The man radiated with passion. This, then, was his dream—the empire he aspired to.
He had a powerful effect upon his listeners, except Gulden; and it was evident to Joan that the keen bandit was conscious of his influence. Gulden, however, showed nothing that he had not already showed. He was always a strange, dominating figure. He contested the relations of things. Kells watched him—the men watched him—and Jim Cleve's piercing eyes glittered in the shadow, fixed upon that massive face. Manifestly Gulden meant to speak, but in his slowness there was no laboring, no pause from emotion. He had an idea and it moved like he moved.
“DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES!” The words boomed deep from his cavernous chest, a mutter that was a rumble, with something almost solemn in its note and certainly menacing, breathing murder. As Kells had propounded his ideas, revealing his power to devise a remarkable scheme and his passion for gold, so Gulden struck out with the driving inhuman blood-lust that must have been the twist, the knot, the clot in his brain. Kells craved notoriety and gold; Gulden craved to kill. In the silence that followed his speech these wild border ruffians judged him, measured him, understood him, and though some of them grew farther aloof from him, more of them sensed the safety that hid in his terrible implication.
But Kells rose against him.
“Gulden, you mean when we steal gold—to leave only dead men behind?” he queried, with a hiss in his voice.
The giant nodded grimly.
“But only fools kill—unless in self-defense,” declared Kells, passionately.
“We'd last longer,” replied Gulden, imperturbably.
“No—no. We'd never last so long. Killings rouse a mining-camp after a while—gold fever or no. That means a vigilante band.”
“We can belong to the vigilantes, just as well as to your Legion,” said Gulden.
The effect of this was to make Gulden appear less of a fool than Kells supposed him. The ruffians nodded to one another. They stirred restlessly. They were animated by a strange and provocative influence. Even Red Pearce and the others caught its subtlety. It was evil predominating in evil hearts. Blood and death loomed like a shadow here. The keen Kells saw the change working toward a transformation and he seemed craftily fighting something within him that opposed this cold ruthlessness of his men.
“Gulden, suppose I don't see it your way?” he asked.
“Then I won't join your Legion.”
“What WILL you do?”
“I'll take the men who stand by me and go clean up that gold-camp.”
From the fleeting expression on Kells's face Joan read that he knew Gulden's project would defeat his own and render both enterprises fatal.
“Gulden, I don't want to lose you,” he said.
“You won't lose me if you see this thing right,” replied Gulden. “You've got the brains to direct us. But, Kells, you're losing your nerve.... It's this girl you've got here!”
Gulden spoke without rancor or fear or feeling of any kind. He merely spoke the truth. And it shook Kells with an almost ungovernable fury.
Joan saw the green glare of his eyes—his gray working face—the flutter of his hand. She had an almost superhuman insight into the workings of his mind. She knew that then—he was fighting whether or not to kill Gulden on the spot. And she recognized that this was the time when Kells must kill Gulden or from that moment see a gradual diminishing of his power on the border. But Kells did not recognize that crucial height of his career. His struggle with his fury and hate showed that the thing uppermost in his mind was the need of conciliating Gulden and thus regaining a hold over the men.
“Gulden, suppose we waive the question till we're on the grounds?” he suggested.
“Waive nothing. It's one or the other with me,” declared Gulden.
“Do you want to be leader of this Border Legion?” went on Kells, deliberately.
“No.”
“Then what do you want?”
