by Zane Grey
“At the back of this cabin!… At her window?”
“Yes.”
“What were you there for?”
“In my capacity as minister. I was summoned to marry her.”
“To marry her?” gasped Kells.
“Yes. She is Joan Randle, from Hoadley, Idaho. She is over eighteen. I understood she was detained here against her will. She loved an honest young miner of the camp. He brought me up here one night. And I married them.”
“You—married—them!”
“Yes.”
Kells was slow in assimilating the truth and his action corresponded with his mind. Slowly his hand moved toward his gun. He drew it, threw it aloft. And then all the terrible evil in the man flamed forth. But as he deliberately drew down on the preacher Blicky leaped forward and knocked up the gun. Flash and report followed; the discharge went into the roof. Blicky grasped Kells’s arm and threw his weight upon it to keep it down.
“I fetched thet parson here,” he yelled, “an you ain’t a-goin’ to kill him!… Help, Jesse!… He’s crazy! He’ll do it!”
Jesse Smith ran to Blicky’s aid and tore the gun out of Kells’s hand. Jim Cleve grasped the preacher by the shoulders and, whirling him around, sent him flying out of the door.
“Run for your life!” he shouted.
Blicky and Jesse Smith were trying to hold the lunging Kells.
“Jim, you block the door,” called Jesse. “Bate, you grab any loose guns an’ knives.… Now, boss, rant an’ be damned!”
They released Kells and backed away, leaving him the room. Joan’s limbs seemed unable to execute her will.
“Joan! It’s true,” he exclaimed, with whistling breath.
“Yes.”
“Who?” he bellowed.
“I’ll never tell.”
He reached for her with hands like claws, as if he meant to tear her, rend her. Joan was helpless, weak, terrified. Those shaking, clutching hands reached for her throat and yet never closed round it. Kells wanted to kill her, but he could not. He loomed over her, dark, speechless, locked in his paroxysm of rage. Perhaps then came a realization of ruin through her. He hated her because he loved her. He wanted to kill her because of that hate, yet he could not harm her, even hurt her. And his soul seemed in conflict with two giants—the evil in him that was hate, and the love that was good. Suddenly he flung her aside. She stumbled over Pearce’s body, almost falling, and staggered back to the wall. Kells had the center of the room to himself. Like a mad steer in a corral he gazed about, stupidly seeking some way to escape. But the escape Kells longed for was from himself. Then either he let himself go or was unable longer to control his rage. He began to plunge around. His actions were violent, random, half insane. He seemed to want to destroy himself and everything. But the weapons were guarded by his men and the room contained little he could smash. There was something magnificent in his fury, yet childish and absurd. Even under its influence and his abandonment he showed a consciousness of its futility. In a few moments the inside of the cabin was in disorder and Kells seemed a disheveled, sweating, panting wretch. The rapidity and violence of his action, coupled with his fury, soon exhausted him. He fell from plunging here and there to pacing the floor. And even the dignity of passion passed from him. He looked a hopeless, beaten, stricken man, conscious of defeat.
Jesse Smith approached the bandit leader. “Jack, here’s your gun,” he said. “I only took it because you was out of your head.… An’ listen, boss. There’s a few of us left.”
That was Smith’s expression of fidelity, and Kells received it with a pallid, grateful smile.
“Bate, you an’ Jim clean up this mess,” went on Smith. “An’, Blicky, come here an’ help me with Pearce. We’ll have to plant him.”
The stir begun by the men was broken by a sharp exclamation from Cleve.
“Kells, here comes Gulden—Beady Jones, Williams, Beard!”
The bandit raised his head and paced back to where he could look out.
Bate Wood made a violent and significant gesture. “Somethin’ wrong,” he said, hurriedly. “An’ it’s more’n to do with Gul!… Look down the road. See thet gang. All excited an’ wavin’ hands an’ runnin’. But they’re goin’ down into camp.”
Jesse Smith turned a gray face toward Kells. “Boss, there’s hell to pay! I’ve seen thet kind of excitement before.”
Kells thrust the men aside and looked out. He seemed to draw upon a reserve strength, for he grew composed even while he gazed. “Jim, get in the other room,” he ordered, sharply. “Joan—you go, too. Keep still.”
Joan hurried to comply. Jim entered after her and closed the door. Instinctively they clasped hands, drew close together.
“Jim, what does it mean?” she whispered, fearfully. “Gulden!”
“He must be looking for me,” replied Jim. “But there’s more doing. Did you see that crowd down the road?”
“No. I couldn’t see out.”
“Listen.”
Heavy tramp boots sounded without. Silently Joan led Jim to the crack between the boards through which she had spied upon the bandits. Jim peeped through, and Joan saw his hand go to his gun. Then she looked.
Gulden was being crowded into the cabin by fierce, bulging-jawed men who meant some kind of dark business. The strangest thing about that entrance was its silence. In a moment they were inside, confronting Kells with his little group. Beard, Jones, Williams, former faithful allies of Kells, showed a malignant opposition. And the huge Gulden resembled an enraged gorilla. For an instant his great, pale, cavernous eyes glared. He had one hand under his coat and his position had a sinister suggestion. But Kells stood cool and sure. When Gulden moved Kells’s gun was leaping forth. But he withheld his fire, for Gulden had only a heavy round object wrapped in a handkerchief.
“Look there!” he boomed, and he threw the object on the table.
The dull, heavy, sodden thump had a familiar ring. Joan heard Jim gasp and his hand tightened spasmodically upon hers.
Slowly the ends of the red scarf slid down to reveal an irregularly round, glinting lump. When Joan recognized it her heart seemed to burst.
“Jim Cleve’s nugget!” ejaculated Kells. “Where’d you get that?”
Gulden leaned across the table, his massive jaw working. “I found it on the miner Creede,” replied the giant, stridently.
Then came a nervous shuffling of boots on the creaky boards. In the silence a low, dull murmur of distant voices could be heard, strangely menacing. Kells stood transfixed, white as a sheet.
“On Creede!”
“Yes.”
“Where was his—his body?”
“I left it out on the Bannack trail.”
The bandit leader appeared mute.
“Kells, I followed Creede out of camp last night,” fiercely declared Gulden.… “I killed him!… I found this nugget on him!”
CHAPTER 17
Apparently to Kells that nugget did not accuse Jim Cleve of treachery. Not only did this possibility seem lost upon the bandit leader, but also the sinister intent of Gulden and his associates.
“Then Jim didn’t kill Creede!” cried Kells.
A strange light flashed across his face. It fitted the note of gladness in his exclamation. How strange that in his amaze there should be relief instead of suspicion! Joan thought she understood Kells. He was glad that he had not yet made a murderer out of Cleve.
Gulden appeared slow in rejoining. “I told you I got Creede,” he said. “And we want to know if this says to you what it says to us.”
His huge, hairy hand tapped the nugget. Then Kells caught the implication.
“What does it say to you?” he queried, coolly, and he eyed Gulden and then the grim men behind him.
“Somebody in the gang is crooked. Somebody’s giving you the double-cross. We’ve known that for long. Jim Cleve goes out to kill Creede. He comes in with Creede’s gold-belt—and a lie!… We think Cleve is the crooked one.”
&nb
sp; “No! You’re way off, Gulden,” replied Kells, earnestly. “That boy is absolutely square. He’s lied to me about Creede. But I can excuse that. He lost his nerve. He’s only a youngster. To knife a man in his sleep—that was too much for Jim!… And I’m glad! I see it all now. Jim’s swapped his big nugget for Creede’s belt. And in the bargain he exacted that Creede hit the trail out of camp. You happened to see Creede and went after him yourself.… Well, I don’t see where you’ve any kick coming. For you’ve ten times the money in Cleve’s nugget that there was in a share of Creede’s gold.”
“That’s not my kick,” declared Gulden. “What you say about Cleve may be true. But I don’t believe it. And the gang is sore. Things have leaked out. We’re watched. We’re not welcome in the gambling-places any more. Last night I was not allowed to sit in the game at Belcher’s.”
“You think Cleve has squealed?” queried Kells.
“Yes.”
“I’ll bet you every ounce of dust I’ve got that you’re wrong,” declared Kells. “A straight, square bet against anything you want to put up!”
Kells’s ringing voice was nothing if not convincing.
“Appearances are against Cleve,” growled Gulden, dubiously. Always he had been swayed by the stronger mind of the leader.
“Sure they are,” agreed Kells.
“Then what do you base your confidence on?”
“Just my knowledge of men. Jim Cleve wouldn’t squeal.… Gulden, did anybody tell you that?”
“Yes,” replied Gulden, slowly. “Red Pearce.”
“Pearce was a liar,” said Kells, bitterly. “I shot him for lying to me.”
Gulden stared. His men muttered and gazed at one another and around the cabin.
“Pearce told me you set Cleve to kill me,” suddenly spoke up the giant.
If he expected to surprise Kells he utterly failed.
“That’s another and bigger lie,” replied the bandit leader, disgustedly. “Gulden, do you think my mind’s gone?”
“Not quite,” replied Gulden, and he seemed as near a laugh as was possible for him.
“Well, I’ve enough mind left not to set a boy to kill such a man as you.”
Gulden might have been susceptible to flattery. He turned to his men. They, too, had felt Kells’s subtle influence. They were ready to veer round like weather-vanes.
“Red Pearce has cashed, an’ he can’t talk for himself,” said Beady Jones, as if answering to the unspoken thought of all.
“Men, between you and me, I had more queer notions about Pearce than Cleve,” announced Gulden, gruffly. “But I never said so because I had no proof.”
“Red shore was sore an’ strange lately,” added Chick Williams. “Me an’ him were pretty thick once—but not lately.”
The giant Gulden scratched his head and swore. Probably he had no sense of justice and was merely puzzled.
“We’re wastin’ a lot of time,” put in Beard, anxiously. “Don’t fergit there’s somethin’ comin’ off down in camp, an’ we ain’t sure what.”
“Bah! Haven’t we heard whispers of vigilantes for a week?” queried Gulden.
Then someone of the men looked out of the door and suddenly whistled.
“Who’s thet on a hoss?”
Gulden’s gang crowded to the door.
“Thet’s Handy Oliver.”
“No!”
“Shore is. I know him. But it ain’t his hoss.… Say, he’s hurryin’.”
Low exclamations of surprise and curiosity followed. Kells and his men looked attentively, but no one spoke. The clatter of hoofs on the stony road told of a horse swiftly approaching—pounding to a halt before the cabin.
“Handy!… Air you chased?… What’s wrong?… You shore look pale round the gills.” These and other remarks were flung out the door.
“Where’s Kells? Let me in,” replied Oliver, hoarsely.
The crowd jostled and split to admit the long, lean Oliver. He stalked straight toward Kells, till the table alone stood between them. He was gray of face, breathing hard, resolute and stern.
“Kells, I throwed—you—down!” he said, with outstretched hand. It was a gesture of self-condemnation and remorse.
“What of that?” demanded Kells, with his head leaping like the strike of an eagle.
“I’m takin’ it back!”
Kells met the outstretched hand with his own and wrung it. “Handy, I never knew you to right—about—face. But I’m glad.… What’s changed you so quickly?”
“Vigilantes!”
Kells’s animation and eagerness suddenly froze. “Vigilantes!” he ground out.
“No rumor, Kells, this time. I’ve sure some news.… Come close, all you fellows. You, Gulden, come an’ listen. Here’s where we git together closer’n ever.”
Gulden surged forward with his group. Handy Oliver was surrounded by pale, tight faces, dark-browed and hardeyed.
He gazed at them, preparing them for a startling revelation. “Men, of all the white-livered traitors as ever was Red Pearce was the worst!” he declared, hoarsely.
No one moved or spoke.
“An’ he was a vigilante!”
A low, strange sound, almost a roar, breathed through the group.
“Listen now an’ don’t interrupt. We ain’t got a lot of time.… So never mind how I happened to find out about Pearce. It was all accident, an’ jest because I put two an’ two together.… Pearce was approached by one of this secret vigilante band, an’ he planned to sell the Border Legion outright. There was to be a big stake in it for him. He held off day after day, only tippin’ off some of the gang. There’s Dartt an’ Singleton an’ Frenchy an’ Texas all caught red-handed at jobs. Pearce put the vigilantes to watchin’ them jest to prove his claim.… Aw! I’ve got the proofs! Jest wait. Listen to me!… You all never in your lives seen a snake like Red Pearce. An’ the job he had put up on us was grand. Today he was to squeal on the whole gang. You know how he began on Kells—an’ how with his oily tongue he asked a guarantee of no gun-play. But he figgered Kells wrong for once. He accused Kells’s girl an’ got killed for his pains. Mebbe it was part of his plan to git the girl himself. Anyway, he had agreed to betray the Border Legion today. An’ if he hadn’t been killed by this time we’d all be tied up, ready for the noose!… Mebbe thet wasn’t a lucky shot of the boss’s. Men, I was the first to declare myself against Kells, an’ I’m here now to say thet I was a fool. So you’ve all been fools who’ve bucked against him. If this ain’t provin’ it, what can!
“But I must hustle with my story.… They was havin’ a trial down at the big hall, an’ thet place was sure packed. No diggin’ gold today!… Think of what thet means for Alder Creek. I got inside where I could stand on a barrel an’ see. Dartt an’ Singleton an’ Frenchy an’ Texas was bein’ tried by a masked court. A man near me said two of them had been proved guilty. It didn’t take long to make out a case against Texas an’ Frenchy. Miners there recognized them an’ identified them. They was convicted an’ sentenced to be hung!… Then the offer was made to let them go free out of the border if they’d turn state’s evidence an’ give away the leader an’ men of the Border Legion. Thet was put up to each prisoner. Dartt he never answered at all. An’ Singleton told them to go to hell. An’ Texas he swore he was only a common an’ honest road-agent, an’ never heard of the Legion. But the Frenchman showed a yellow streak. He might have taken the offer. But Texas cussed him tumble, an’ made him ashamed to talk. But if they git Frenchy away from Texas they’ll make him blab. He’s like a greaser. Then there was a delay. The big crowd of miners yelled for ropes. But the vigilantes are waitin’, an’ it’s my hunch they’re waitin’ for Pearce.”
“So! And where do we stand?” cried Kells, clear and cold.
“We’re not spotted yet, thet’s certain,” replied Oliver, “else them masked vigilantes would have been on the job before now. But it’s not sense to figger we can risk another day.… I reckon it’s hit the trail back to Cabin G
ulch.”
“Gulden, what do you say?” queried Kells, sharply.
“I’ll go or stay—whatever you want,” replied the giant. In this crisis he seemed to be glad to have Kells decide the issue. And his followers resembled sheep ready to plunge after the leader.
But though Kells, by a strange stroke, had been made wholly master of the Legion, he did not show the old elation or radiance. Perhaps he saw more clearly than ever before. Still he was quick, decisive, strong, equal to the occasion.
“Listen—all of you,” he said. “Our horses and outfits are hidden in a gulch several miles below camp. We’ve got to go that way. We can’t pack any grub or stuff from here. We’ll risk going through camp. Now leave here two or three at a time, and wait down there on the edge of the crowd for me. When I come we’ll stick together. Then all do as I do.”
Gulden put the nugget under his coat and strode out, accompanied by Budd and Jones. They hurried away. The others went in couples. Soon only Bate Wood and Handy Oliver were left with Kells.
“Now you fellows go,” said Kells. “Be sure to round up the gang down there and wait for me.”
When they had gone he called for Jim and Joan to come out.
All this time Joan’s hand had been gripped in Jim’s, and Joan had been so absorbed that she had forgotten the fact. He released her and faced her, silent, pale. Then he went out. Joan swiftly followed.
Kells was buckling on his spurs. “You heard?” he said, the moment he saw Jim’s face.
“Yes,” replied Jim.
“So much the better. We’ve got to rustle.… Joan, put on that long coat of Cleve’s. Take off your mask.… Jim, get what gold you have, and hurry. If we’re gone when you come back hurry down the road. I want you with me.”
Cleve stalked out, and Joan ran into her room and put on the long coat. She had little time to choose what possessions she could take; and that choice fell upon the little saddle-bag, into which she hurriedly stuffed comb and brush and soap—all it would hold. Then she returned to the larger room.