“I'll tell! I'll tell!”
Joan became aware of a singular tremor in Kells's arm, which she still clasped. Suddenly it jerked. She caught a gleam of blue. Then the bellow of a gun almost split her ears. Powder burned her cheek. She saw Frenchy double up and collapse on the platform.
For an instant there was a silence in which every man seemed petrified. Then burst forth a hoarse uproar and the stamp of many boots. All in another instant pandemonium broke out. The huge crowd split in every direction. Joan felt Cleve's strong arm around her—felt herself borne on a resistless tide of yelling, stamping, wrestling men. She had a glimpse of Kells's dark face drawing away from her; another of Gulden's giant form in Herculean action, tossing men aside like ninepins; another of weapons aloft. Savage, wild-eyed men fought to get into the circle whence that shot had come. They broke into it, but did not know then whom to attack or what to do. And the rushing of the frenzied miners all around soon disintegrated Kells's band and bore its several groups in every direction. There was not another shot fired.
Joan was dragged and crushed in the melee. Not for rods did her feet touch the ground. But in the clouds of dust and confusion of struggling forms she knew Jim still held her, and she clasped him with all her strength. Presently her feet touched the earth; she was not jostled and pressed; then she felt free to walk; and with Jim urging her they climbed a rock-strewn slope till a cabin impeded further progress. But they had escaped the stream.
Below was a strange sight. A scaffold shrouded in dust-clouds; a band of bewildered vigilantes with weapons drawn, waiting for they knew not what; three swinging, ghastly forms and a dead man on the platform; and all below, a horde of men trying to escape from one another. That shot of Kells's had precipitated a rush. No miner knew who the vigilantes were nor the members of the Border Legion. Every man there expected a bloody battle—distrusted the man next to him—and had given way to panic. The vigilantes had tried to crowd together for defense and all the others had tried to escape. It was a wild scene, born of wild justice and blood at fever-heat, the climax of a disordered time where gold and violence reigned supreme. It could only happen once, but it was terrible while it lasted. It showed the craven in men; it proved the baneful influence of gold; it brought, in its fruition, the destiny of Alder Creek Camp. For it must have been that the really brave and honest men in vast majority retraced their steps while the vicious kept running. So it seemed to Joan.
She huddled against Jim there in the shadow of the cabin wall, and not for long did either speak. They watched and listened. The streams of miners turned back toward the space around the scaffold where the vigilantes stood grouped, and there rose a subdued roar of excited voices. Many small groups of men conversed together, until the vigilante leader brought all to attention by addressing the populace in general. Joan could not hear what he said and had no wish to hear.
“Joan, it all happened so quickly, didn't it?” whispered Jim, shaking his head as if he was not convinced of reality.
“Wasn't he—terrible!” whispered Joan in reply.
“He! Who?”
“Kells.” In her mind the bandit leader dominated all that wild scene.
“Terrible, if you like. But I'd say great!... The nerve of him! In the face of a hundred vigilantes and thousands of miners! But he knew what that shot would do!”
“Never! He never thought of that,” declared Joan, earnestly. “I felt him tremble. I had a glimpse of his face.... Oh!... First in his mind was his downfall, and, second, the treachery of Frenchy. I think that shot showed Kells as utterly desperate, but weak. He couldn't have helped it—if that had been the last bullet in his gun.”
Jim Cleve looked strangely at Joan, as if her eloquence was both persuasive and incomprehensible.
“Well, that was a lucky shot for us—and him, too.”
“Do you think he got away?” she asked, eagerly.
“Sure. They all got away. Wasn't that about the maddest crowd you ever saw?”
“No wonder. In a second every man there feared the man next to him would shoot. That showed the power of Kells's Border Legion. If his men had been faithful and obedient he never would have fallen.”
“Joan! You speak as if you regret it!”
“Oh, I am ashamed,” replied Joan. “I don't mean that. I don't know what I do mean. But still I'm sorry for Kells. I suffered so much.... Those long, long hours of suspense.... And his fortunes seemed my fortunes—my very life—and yours, too, Jim.”
“I think I understand, dear,” said Jim, soberly.
“Jim, what'll we do now? Isn't it strange to feel free?”
“I feel as queer as you. Let me think,” replied Jim.
They huddled there in comparative seclusion for a long time after that. Joan tried to think of plans, but her mind seemed, unproductive. She felt half dazed. Jim, too, appeared to be laboring under the same kind of burden. Moreover, responsibility had been added to his.
The afternoon waned till the sun tipped the high range in the west. The excitement of the mining populace gradually wore away, and toward sunset strings of men filed up the road and across the open. The masked vigilantes disappeared, and presently only a quiet and curious crowd was left round the grim scaffold and its dark swinging forms. Joan's one glance showed that the vigilantes had swung Frenchy's dead body in the noose he would have escaped by treachery. They had hanged him dead. What a horrible proof of the temper of these newborn vigilantes! They had left the bandits swinging. What sight was so appalling as these limp, dark, swaying forms? Dead men on the ground had a dignity—at least the dignity of death. And death sometimes had a majesty. But here both life and death had been robbed and there was only horror. Joan felt that all her life she would be haunted.
“Joan, we've got to leave Alder Creek,” declared Cleve, finally. He rose to his feet. The words seemed to have given him decision. “At first I thought every bandit in the gang would run as far as he could from here. But—you can't tell what these wild men will do. Gulden, for instance! Common sense ought to make them hide for a spell. Still, no matter what's what, we must leave.... Now, how to go?”
“Let's walk. If we buy horses or wait for the stage we'll have to see men here—and I'm afraid—”
“But, Joan, there'll be bandits along the road sure. And the trails, wherever they are, would be less safe.”
“Let's travel by night and rest by day.”
“That won't do, with so far to go and no pack.”
“Then part of the way.”
“No. We'd better take the stage for Bannack. If it starts at all it'll be under armed guard. The only thing is—will it leave soon?... Come, Joan, we'll go down into camp.”
Dusk had fallen and lights had begun to accentuate the shadows. Joan kept close beside Jim, down the slope, and into the road. She felt like a guilty thing and every passing man or low-conversing group frightened her. Still she could not help but see that no one noticed her or Jim, and she began to gather courage. Jim also acquired confidence. The growing darkness seemed a protection. The farther up the street they passed, the more men they met. Again the saloons were in full blast. Alder Creek had returned to the free, careless tenor of its way. A few doors this side of the Last Nugget was the office of the stage and express company. It was a wide tent with the front canvas cut out and a shelf-counter across the opening. There was a dim, yellow lamplight. Half a dozen men lounged in front, and inside were several more, two of whom appeared to be armed guards. Jim addressed no one in particular.
“When does the next stage leave for Bannack?”
A man looked up sharply from the papers that littered a table before him. “It leaves when we start it,” he replied, curtly.
“Well, when will that be?”
“What's that to you?” he replied, with a question still more curt.
“I want to buy seats for two.”
“That's different. Come in and let's look you over.... Hello! it's young Cleve. I didn't recognize you. Excuse me. We're a little particular these days.”
The man's face lighted. Evidently he knew Jim and thought well of him. This reassured Joan and stilled the furious beating of her heart. She saw Jim hand over a sack of gold, from which the agent took the amount due for the passage. Then he returned the sack and whispered something in Jim's ear. Jim rejoined her and led her away, pressing her arm close to his side.
“It's all right,” he whispered, excitedly. “Stage leaves just before daylight. It used to leave in the middle of the fore-noon. But they want a good start to-morrow.”
