“Ssssh!” whispered Joan, softly, in his ear. “Be careful. You're wild to-night.... I saw you come in with the nugget. I heard you.... Oh, you lucky Jim! I'll tell you what to do with it!”

“Darling! It's all yours. You'll marry me now?”

“Sir! Do you take me for a fortune-hunter? I marry you for your gold? Never!”

“Joan!”

“I've promised,” she said.

“I won't go away now. I'll work my claim,” he began, excitedly. And he went on so rapidly that Joan could not keep track of his words. He was not so cautious as formerly. She remonstrated with him, all to no purpose. Not only was he carried away by possession of gold and assurance of more, but he had become masterful, obstinate, and illogical. He was indeed hopeless to-night—the gold had gotten into his blood. Joan grew afraid he would betray their secret and realized there had come still greater need for a woman's wit. So she resorted to a never-failing means of silencing him, of controlling him—her lips on his.

15

For several nights these stolen interviews were apparently the safer because of Joan's tender blinding of her lover. But it seemed that in Jim's condition of mind this yielding of her lips and her whispers of love had really been a mistake. Not only had she made the situation perilously sweet for herself, but in Jim's case she had added the spark to the powder. She realized her blunder when it was too late. And the fact that she did not regret it very much, and seemed to have lost herself in a defiant, reckless spell, warned her again that she, too, was answering to the wildness of the time and place. Joan's intelligence had broadened wonderfully in this period of her life, just as all her feelings had quickened. If gold had developed and intensified and liberated the worst passions of men, so the spirit of that atmosphere had its baneful effect upon her. Joan deplored this, yet she had the keenness to understand that it was nature fitting her to survive.

Back upon her fell that weight of suspense—what would happen next? Here in Alder Creek there did not at present appear to be the same peril which had menaced her before, but she would suffer through fatality to Cleve or Kells. And these two slept at night under a shadow that held death, and by day they walked on a thin crust over a volcano. Joan grew more and more fearful of the disclosures made when Kells met his men nightly in the cabin. She feared to hear, but she must hear, and even if she had not felt it necessary to keep informed of events, the fascination of the game would have impelled her to listen. And gradually the suspense she suffered augmented into a magnified, though vague, assurance of catastrophe, of impending doom. She could not shake off the gloomy presentiment. Something terrible was going to happen. An experience begun as tragically as hers could only end in a final and annihilating stroke. Yet hope was unquenchable, and with her fear kept pace a driving and relentless spirit.

One night at the end of a week of these interviews, when Joan attempted to resist Jim, to plead with him, lest in his growing boldness he betray them, she found him a madman.

“I'll pull you right out of this window,” he said, roughly, and then with his hot face pressed against hers tried to accomplish the thing he threatened.

“Go on—pull me to pieces!” replied Joan, in despair and pain. “I'd be better off dead! And—you—hurt me—so!”

“Hurt you!” he whispered, hoarsely, as if he had never dreamed of such possibility. And then suddenly he was remorseful. He begged her to forgive him. His voice was broken, husky, pleading. His remorse, like every feeling of his these days, was exaggerated, wild, with that raw tinge of gold-blood in it. He made so much noise that Joan, more fearful than ever of discovery, quieted him with difficulty.

“Does Kells see you often—these days?” asked Jim, suddenly.

Joan had dreaded this question, which she had known would inevitably come. She wanted to lie; she knew she ought to lie; but it was impossible.

“Every day,” she whispered. “Please—Jim—never mind that. Kells is good—he's all right to me.... And you and I have so little time together.”

“Good!” exclaimed Cleve. Joan felt the leap of his body under her touch. “Why, if I'd tell you what he sends that gang to do—you'd—you'd kill him in his sleep.”

“Tell me,” replied Joan. She had a morbid, irresistible desire to learn.

“No.... And WHAT does Kells do—when he sees you every day?”

“He talks.”

“What about?”

“Oh, everything except about what holds him here. He talks to me to forget himself.”

“Does he make love to you?”

Joan maintained silence. What would she do with this changed and hopeless Jim Cleve?

“Tell me!” Jim's hands gripped her with a force that made her wince. And now she grew as afraid of him as she had been for him. But she had spirit enough to grow angry, also.

“Certainly he does.”

Jim Cleve echoed her first word, and then through grinding teeth he cursed. “I'm going to—stop it!” he panted, and his eyes looked big and dark and wild in the starlight.

“You can't. I belong to Kells. You at least ought to have sense enough to see that.”

“Belong to him!... For God's sake! By what right?”

“By the right of possession. Might is right here on the border. Haven't you told me that a hundred times? Don't you hold your claim—your gold—by the right of your strength? It's the law of this border. To be sure Kells stole me. But just now I belong to him. And lately I see his consideration—his kindness in the light of what he could do if he held to that border law.... And of all the men I've met out here Kells is the least wild with this gold fever. He sends his men out to do murder for gold; he'd sell his soul to gamble for gold; but just the same, he's more of a man than—-”

“Joan!” he interrupted, piercingly. “You love this bandit!”

“You're a fool!” burst out Joan.

“I guess—I—am,” he replied in terrible, slow earnestness. He raised himself and appeared to loom over her and released his hold.

But Joan fearfully retained her clasp on his arm, and when he surged to get away she was hard put to it to hold him.

“Jim! Where are you going?”

He stood there a moment, a dark form against the night shadow, like an outline of a man cut from black stone.

“I'll just step around—there.”

“Oh, what for?” whispered Joan.

“I'm going to kill Kells.”

Joan got both arms round his neck and with her head against him she held him tightly, trying, praying to think how to meet this long-dreaded moment. After all, what was the use to try? This was the hour of Gold! Sacrifice, hope, courage, nobility, fidelity—these had no place here now. Men were the embodiment of passion—ferocity. They breathed only possession, and the thing in the balance was death. Women were creatures to hunger and fight for, but womanhood was nothing. Joan knew all this with a desperate hardening certainty, and almost she gave in. Strangely, thought of Gulden flashed up to make her again strong! Then she raised her face and began the old pleading with Jim, but different this time, when it seemed that absolutely all was at stake. She begged him, she importuned him, to listen to reason, to be guided by her, to fight the wildness that had obsessed him, to make sure that she would not be left alone. All in vain! He swore he would kill Kells and any other bandit who stood in the way of his leading her free out of that cabin. He was wild to fight. He might never have felt fear of these robbers. He would not listen to any possibility of defeat for himself, or the possibility that in the event of Kells's death she would be worse off. He laughed at her strange, morbid fears of Gulden. He was immovable.

“Jim!... Jim! You'll break my heart!” she whispered, wailingly. “Oh! WHAT can I do?”

Then Joan released her clasp and gave up to utter defeat. Cleve was silent. He did not seem to hear the shuddering little sobs that shook her. Suddenly he bent close to her.

“There's one thing you can do. If you'll do it I won't kill Kells. I'll obey your every word.”

“What is it? Tell me!”

“Marry me!” he whispered, and his voice trembled.

“MARRY YOU!” exclaimed Joan. She was confounded. She began to fear Jim was out of his head.

“I mean it. Marry me. Oh, Joan, will you—will you? It'll make the difference. That'll steady me. Don't you want to?”

“Jim, I'd be the happiest girl in the world if—if I only COULD marry you!” she breathed, passionately.

“But will you—will you? Say yes! Say yes!”

“YES!” replied Joan in her desperation. “I hope that pleases you. But what on earth is the use to talk about it now?”