"Have I any real friends among you?" asked Joan.
"Wal, I reckon."
"Are you my friend, Bate Wood?" she went on in sweet wistfulness.
The grizzled old bandit removed his pipe and looked at her with a
glint in his bloodshot eyes, "I shore am. I'll sneak you off now if you'll go. I'll stick a knife
in Kells if you say so."
"Oh, no, I'm afraid to run off--and you needn't harm Kells. After
all, he's good to me."
"Good to you! ... When he keeps you captive like an Indian would?
When he's given me orders to watch you--keep you locked up?"
Wood's snort of disgust and wrath was thoroughly genuine. Still Joan
knew that she dared not trust him, any more than Pearce or the
others. Their raw emotions would undergo a change if Kells's
possession of her were transferred to them. It occurred to Joan,
however, that she might use Wood's friendliness to some advantage.
"So I'm to be locked up?" she asked.
"You're supposed to be."
"Without any one to talk to?"
"Wal, you'll hev me, when you want. I reckon thet ain't much to look
forward to. But I can tell you a heap of stories. An' when Kells
ain't around, if you're careful not to get me ketched, you can do as
you want."
"Thank you, Bate. I'm going to like you," replied Joan, sincerely,
and then she went back to her room. There was sewing to do, and
while she worked she thought, so that the hours sped. When the light
got so poor that she could sew no longer she put the work aside and
stood at her little window, watching the sunset. From the front of
the cabin came the sound of subdued voices. Probably Kells and his
men had returned, and she was sure of this when she heard the ring
of Bate Wood's ax.
All at once an object darker than the stones arrested Joan's gaze.
There was a man sitting on the far side of the little ravine.
Instantly she recognized Jim Cleve. He was looking at the little
window--at her. Joan believed he was there for just that purpose.
Making sure that no one else was near to see, she put out her hand
and waved it. Jim gave a guarded perceptible sign that he had
observed her action, and almost directly got up and left. Joan
needed no more than that to tell her how Jim's idea of communicating
with her corresponded with her own. That night she would talk with
him and she was thrilled through. The secrecy, the peril, somehow
lent this prospect a sweetness, a zest, a delicious fear. Indeed,
she was not only responding to love, but to daring, to defiance, to
a wilder nameless element born of her environment and the needs of
the hour.