“Who?... I'll kill him!”

“No—no. I won't tell. I won't let you kill another man on my account.”

“I'll choke it out of you.”

“You can't. There's no use to threaten me, or hurt me, either.”

Kells seemed dazed. “Whisper! For hours! In the dark!... But, Joan, what for? Why such a risk?”

Joan shook her head.

“Were you just unhappy—lonesome? Did some young miner happen to see you there in daylight—then come at night? Wasn't it only accident? Tell me.”

“I won't—and I won't because I don't want you to spill more blood.”

“For my sake,” he queried, with the old, mocking tone. Then he grew dark with blood in his face, fierce with action of hands and body as he bent nearer her. “Maybe you like him too well to see him shot?... Did you—whisper often to this stranger?”

Joan felt herself weakening. Kells was so powerful in spirit and passion that she seemed unable to fight him. She strove to withhold her reply, but it burst forth, involuntarily.

“Yes—often.”

That roused more than anger and passion. Jealousy flamed from him and it transformed him into a devil.

“You held hands out of that window—and kissed—in the dark?” he cried, with working lips.

Joan had thought of this so fearfully and intensely—she had battled so to fortify herself to keep it secret—that he had divined it, had read her mind. She could not control herself. The murder of Pearce had almost overwhelmed her. She had not the strength to bite her tongue. Suggestion alone would have drawn her then—and Kells's passionate force was hypnotic.

“Yes,” she whispered.

He appeared to control a developing paroxysm of rage.

“That settles you,” he declared darkly. “But I'll do one more decent thing by you. I'll marry you.” Then he wheeled to his men. “Blicky, there's a parson down in camp. Go on the run. Fetch him back if you have to push him with a gun.”

Blicky darted through the door and his footsteps thudded out of hearing.

“You can't force me to marry you,” said Joan. “I—I won't open my lips.”

“That's your affair. I've no mind to coax you,” he replied, bitterly. “But if you don't I'll try Gulden's way with a woman.... You remember. Gulden's way! A cave and a rope!”

Joan's legs gave out under her and she sank upon a pile of blankets. Then beyond Kells she saw Jim Cleve. With all that was left of her spirit she flashed him a warning—a meaning—a prayer not to do the deed she divined was his deadly intent. He caught it and obeyed. And he flashed back a glance which meant that, desperate as her case was, it could never be what Kells threatened.

“Men, see me through this,” said Kells to the silent group. “Then any deal you want—I'm on. Stay here or—sack the camp! Hold up the stage express with gold for Bannack! Anything for a big stake! Then the trail and the border.”

He began pacing the floor. Budd and Smith strolled outside. Bate Wood fumbled in his pockets for pipe and tobacco. Cleve sat down at the table and leaned on his hands. No one took notice of the dead Pearce. Here was somber and terrible sign of the wildness of the border clan—that Kells could send out for a parson to marry him to a woman he hopelessly loved, there in the presence of murder and death, with Pearce's distorted face upturned in stark and ghastly significance.

It might have been a quarter of an hour, though to Joan it seemed an endless time, until footsteps and voices outside announced the return of Blicky.

He held by the arm a slight man whom he was urging along with no gentle force. This stranger's face presented as great a contrast to Blicky's as could have been imagined. His apparel proclaimed his calling. There were consternation and bewilderment in his expression, but very little fear.

“He was preachin' down there in a tent,” said Blicky, “an I jest waltzed him up without explainin'.”

“Sir, I want to be married at once,” declared Kells, peremptorily.

“Certainly. I'm at your service,” replied the preacher. “But I deplore the—the manner in which I've been approached.”

“You'll excuse haste,” rejoined the bandit. “I'll pay you well.” Kells threw a small buckskin sack of gold-dust upon the table, and then he turned to Joan. “Come, Joan,” he said, in the tone that brooked neither resistance nor delay.

It was at that moment that the preacher first noticed Joan. Was her costume accountable for his start? Joan had remembered his voice and she wondered if he would remember hers. Certainly Jim had called her Joan more than once on the night of the marriage. The preacher's eyes grew keener. He glanced from Joan to Kells, and then at the other men, who had come in. Jim Cleve stood behind Jesse Smith's broad person, and evidently the preacher did not see him. That curious gaze, however, next discovered the dead man on the floor. Then to the curiosity and anxiety upon the preacher's face was added horror.

“A minister of God is needed here, but not in the capacity you name,” he said. “I'll perform no marriage ceremony in the presence of—murder.”

“Mr. Preacher, you'll marry me quick or you'll go along with him,” replied Kells, deliberately.

“I cannot be forced.” The preacher still maintained some dignity, but he had grown pale.

“I can force you. Get ready now!... Joan, come here!”

Kells spoke sternly, yet something of the old, self-mocking spirit was in his tone. His intelligence was deriding the flesh and blood of him, the beast, the fool. It spoke that he would have his way and that the choice was fatal for him.

Joan shook her head. In one stride Kells reached her and swung her spinning before him. The physical violence acted strangely upon Joan—roused her rage.

“I wouldn't marry you to save my life—even if I could!” she burst out.

At her declaration the preacher gave a start that must have been suspicion or confirmation, or both. He bent low to peer into the face of the dead Pearce. When he arose he was shaking his head. Evidently he had decided that Pearce was not the man to whom he had married Joan.

“Please remove your mask,” he said to Joan.

She did so, swiftly, without a tremor. The preacher peered into her face again, as he had upon the night he had married her to Jim. He faced Kells again.

“I am beyond your threats,” he said, now with calmness. “I can't marry you to a woman who already has a husband.... But I don't see that husband here.”

“You don't see that husband here!” echoed the bewildered Kells. He stared with open mouth. “Say, have you got a screw loose?”

The preacher, in his swift glance, had apparently not observed the half-hidden Cleve. Certainly it appeared now that he would have no attention for any other than Kells. The bandit was a study. His astonishment was terrific and held him like a chain. Suddenly he lurched.

“What did you say?” he roared, his face flaming.

“I can't marry you to a woman who already has a husband.”

Swift as light the red flashed out of Kells's face. “Did you ever see her before?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied the preacher.

“Where and when?”

“Here—at the back of this cabin—a few nights ago.”

It hurt Joan to look at Kells now, yet he seemed wonderful to behold. She felt as guilty as if she had really been false to him. Her heart labored high in her breast. This was the climax—the moment of catastrophe. Another word and Jim Cleve would be facing Kells. The blood pressure in Joan's throat almost strangled her.