When he had gone Joan spoke without looking at Cleve, though she
held fast to his arm.
"Jim, it could be dreadful here--all in a minute!" she whispered.
"You've struck it exactly," he replied. "All Alder Creek needed to
make it hell was Kells and his gang."
"Thank Heaven I turned you back in time! ... Jim, you'd have--have
gone the pace here."
He nodded grimly. Then Kells returned and led them back through the
room to another door where spectators were fewer. Joan saw perhaps a
dozen couples of rough, whirling, jigging dancers in a half-circle
of watching men. The hall was a wide platform of boards with posts
holding a canvas roof. The sides, were open; the lights were
situated at each end-huge, round, circus tent lamps. There were rude
benches and tables where reeling men surrounded a woman. Joan saw a
young miner in dusty boots and corduroys lying drunk or dead in the
sawdust. Her eyes were drawn back to the dancers, and to the dance
that bore some semblance to a waltz. In the din the music could
scarcely be heard. As far as the men were concerned this dance was a
bold and violent expression of excitement on the part of some, and
for the rest a drunken, mad fling. Sight of the women gave Joan's
curiosity a blunt check. She felt queer. She had not seen women like
these, and their dancing, their actions, their looks, were beyond
her understanding. Nevertheless, they shocked her, disgusted her,
sickened her. And suddenly when it dawned upon her in unbelievable
vivid suggestion that they were the wildest and most terrible
element of this dark stream of humanity lured by gold, then she was
appalled.
"Take me out of here!" she besought Kells, and he led her out
instantly. They went through the gambling-hall and into the crowded
street, back toward camp.
"You saw enough," said Kells, "but nothing to what will break out by
and by. This camp is new. It's rich. Gold is the cheapest thing. It
passes from hand to hand. Ten dollars an ounce. Buyers don't look at
the scales. Only the gamblers are crooked. But all this will
change."
Kells did not say what that change might be, but the click of his
teeth was expressive. Joan did not, however, gather from it, and the
dark meaning of his tone, that the Border Legion would cause this
change. That was in the nature of events. A great strike of gold
might enrich the world, but it was a catastrophe.