"Bill," called Kells to the man standing there with a grin on his
coarse red face, "you go back and help Halloway pack. Then take my
trail."
Bill nodded, and was walking away when Kells called after him: "And
say, Bill, don't say anything to Roberts. He's easily riled."
"Haw! Haw! Haw!" laughed Bill.
His harsh laughter somehow rang jarringly in Joan's ears. But she
was used to violent men who expressed mirth over mirthless jokes.
"Get up, Miss Randle," said Kells as he mounted. "We've a long ride.
You'll need all your strength. So I advise you to come quietly with
me and not try to get away. It won't be any use trying."
Joan climbed into her saddle and rode after him. Once she looked
back in hope of seeing Roberts, of waving a hand to him. She saw his
horse standing saddled, and she saw Bill struggling under a pack,
but there was no sign of Roberts. Then more cedars intervened and
the camp site was lost to view. When she glanced ahead her first
thought was to take in the points of Kells's horse. She had been
used to horses all her life. Kells rode a big rangy bay--a horse
that appeared to snort speed and endurance. Her pony could never run
away from that big brute. Still Joan had the temper to make an
attempt to escape, if a favorable way presented.
The morning was rosy, clear, cool; there was a sweet, dry tang in
the air; white-tailed deer bounded out of the open spaces; and the
gray-domed, glistening mountains, with their bold, black-fringed
slopes, overshadowed the close foot-hills.
Joan was a victim to swift vagaries of thought and conflicting
emotions. She was riding away with a freebooter, a road-agent, to be
held for ransom. The fact was scarcely credible. She could not shake
the dread of nameless peril. She tried not to recall Roberts's
words, yet they haunted her. If she had not been so handsome, he had
said! Joan knew she possessed good looks, but they had never caused
her any particular concern. That Kells had let that influence him--
as Roberts had imagined--was more than absurd. Kells had scarcely
looked at her. It was gold such men wanted. She wondered what her
ransom would be, where her uncle would get it, and if there really
was a likelihood of that rich strike. Then she remembered her
mother, who had died when she was a little girl, and a strange,
sweet sadness abided with her. It passed. She saw her uncle--that
great, robust, hearty, splendid old man, with his laugh and his
kindness, and his love for her, and his everlasting unquenchable
belief that soon he would make a rich gold-strike. What a roar and a
stampede he would raise at her loss! The village camp might be
divided on that score, she thought, because the few young women in
that little settlement hated her, and the young men would have more
peace without her. Suddenly her thought shifted to Jim Cleve, the
cause of her present misfortune. She had forgotten Jim. In the
interval somehow he had grown. Sweet to remember how he had fought
for her and kept it secret! After all, she had misjudged him. She
had hated him because she liked him. Maybe she did more! That gave
her a shock. She recalled his kisses and then flamed all over. If
she did not hate him she ought to. He had been so useless; he ran
after her so; he was the laughing-stock of the village; his actions
made her other admirers and friends believe she cared for him, was
playing fast-and-loose with him. Still, there was a difference now.
He had terribly transgressed. He had frightened her with threats of
dire ruin to himself. And because of that she had trailed him, to
fall herself upon a hazardous experience. Where was Jim Cleve now?
Like a flash then occurred to her the singular possibility. Jim had
ridden for the border with the avowed and desperate intention of
finding Kells and Gulden and the bad men of that trackless region.
He would do what he had sworn he would. And here she was, the cause
of it all, a captive of this notorious Kells! She was being led into
that wild border country. Somewhere out there Kells and Jim Cleve
would meet. Jim would find her in Kells's hands. Then there would be
hell, Joan thought. The possibility, the certainty, seemed to strike
deep into her, reviving that dread and terror. Yet she thrilled
again; a ripple that was not all cold coursed through her. Something
had a birth in her then, and the part of it she understood was that
she welcomed the adventure with a throbbing heart, yet looked with
awe and shame and distrust at this new, strange side of her nature.