Thus was ushered in at Alder Creek a regime of wildness that had no
parallel in the earlier days of '49 and '51. Men frenzied by the
possession of gold or greed for it responded to the wildness of that
time and took their cue from this deadly and mysterious Border
Legion. The gold-lust created its own blood-lust. Daily the
population of Alder Creek grew in the new gold-seekers and its dark
records kept pace. With distrust came suspicion and with suspicion
came fear, and with fear came hate--and these, in already distorted
minds, inflamed a hell. So that the most primitive passions of
mankind found outlet and held sway. The operations of the Border
Legion were lost in deeds done in the gambling dens, in the saloons,
and on the street, in broad day. Men fought for no other reason than
that the incentive was in the charged air. Men were shot at gaming-
tables--and the game went on. Men were killed in the dance-halls,
dragged out, marking a line of blood on the rude floor--and the
dance went on. Still the pursuit of gold went on, more frenzied than
ever, and still the greater and richer claims were struck. The price
of gold soared and the commodities of life were almost beyond the
dreams of avarice. It was a tune in which the worst of men's natures
stalked forth, hydra-headed and deaf, roaring for gold, spitting
fire, and shedding blood. It was a time when gold and fire and blood
were one. It was a tune when a horde of men from every class and
nation, of all ages and characters, met on a field were motives and
ambitions and faiths and traits merged into one mad instinct of
gain. It was worse than the time of the medieval crimes of religion;
it made war seem a brave and honorable thing; it robbed manhood of
that splendid and noble trait, always seen in shipwrecked men or
those hopelessly lost in the barren north, the divine will not to
retrograde to the savage. It was a time, for all it enriched the
world with yellow treasure, when might was right, when men were
hopeless, when death stalked rampant. The sun rose gold and it set
red. It was the hour of Gold!
One afternoon late, while Joan was half dreaming, half dozing the
hours away, she was thoroughly aroused by the tramp of boots and
loud voices of excited men. Joan slipped to the peephole in the
partition. Bate Wood had raised a warning hand to Kells, who stood
up, facing the door. Red Pearce came bursting in, wild-eyed and
violent. Joan imagined he was about to cry out that Kells had been
betrayed.