Joan felt herself weakening. Kells was so powerful in spirit and
passion that she seemed unable to fight him. She strove to withhold
her reply, but it burst forth, involuntarily.
"Yes--often."
That roused more than anger and passion. Jealousy flamed from him
and it transformed him into a devil.
"You held hands out of that window--and kissed--in the dark?" he
cried, with working lips.
Joan had thought of this so fearfully and intensely--she had battled
so to fortify herself to keep it secret--that he had divined it, had
read her mind. She could not control herself. The murder of Pearce
had almost overwhelmed her. She had not the strength to bite her
tongue. Suggestion alone would have drawn her then--and Kells's
passionate force was hypnotic.
"Yes," she whispered.
He appeared to control a developing paroxysm of rage.
"That settles you," he declared darkly. "But I'll do one more decent
thing by you. I'll marry you." Then he wheeled to his men. "Blicky,
there's a parson down in camp. Go on the run. Fetch him back if you
have to push him with a gun."
Blicky darted through the door and his footsteps thudded out of
hearing.
"You can't force me to marry you," said Joan. "I--I won't open my
lips."
"That's your affair. I've no mind to coax you," he replied,
bitterly. "But if you don't I'll try Gulden's way with a woman. ...
You remember. Gulden's way! A cave and a rope!"
Joan's legs gave out under her and she sank upon a pile of blankets.
Then beyond Kells she saw Jim Cleve. With all that was left of her
spirit she flashed him a warning--a meaning--a prayer not to do the
deed she divined was his deadly intent. He caught it and obeyed. And
he flashed back a glance which meant that, desperate as her case
was, it could never be what Kells threatened.
"Men, see me through this," said Kells to the silent group. "Then
any deal you want--I'm on. Stay here or--sack the camp! Hold up the
stage express with gold for Bannack! Anything for a big stake! Then
the trail and the border."
He began pacing the floor. Budd and Smith strolled outside. Bate
Wood fumbled in his pockets for pipe and tobacco. Cleve sat down at
the table and leaned on his hands. No one took notice of the dead
Pearce. Here was somber and terrible sign of the wildness of the
border clan--that Kells could send out for a parson to marry him to
a woman he hopelessly loved, there in the presence of murder and
death, with Pearce's distorted face upturned in stark and ghastly
significance.