"No! ... GULDEN!" Joan had to moisten her lips to speak the
monster's name.
"He'll never think of you while he has all that gold."
Joan's intelligence grasped this, but her morbid dread, terribly
augmented now, amounted almost to a spell. Still, despite the
darkness of her mind, she had a flash of inspiration and of spirit.
"Kells is my only hope! ... If he doesn't join us soon--then we'll
run! ... And if we can't escape that"--Joan made a sickening gesture
toward the fore--"you must kill me before--before--"
Her voice trailed off, failing.
"I will!" he promised through locked teeth.
And then they rode on, with dark, faces bent over the muddy water
and treacherous stones.
When Jesse Smith led out of that brook it was to ride upon bare
rock. He was not leaving any trail. Horses and riders were of no
consideration. And he was a genius for picking hard ground and
covering it. He never slackened his gait, and it seemed next to
impossible to keep him in sight.
For Joan the ride became toil and the toil became pain. But there
was no rest. Smith kept mercilessly onward. Sunset and twilight and
night found the cavalcade still moving. Then it halted just as Joan
was about to succumb. Jim lifted her off her horse and laid her upon
the grass. She begged for water, and she drank and drank. But she
wanted no food. There was a heavy, dull beating in her ears, a band
tight round her forehead. She was aware of the gloom, of the
crackling of fires, of leaping shadows, of the passing of men to and
fro near her, and, most of all, rendering her capable of a saving
shred of self-control, she was aware of Jim's constant companionship
and watchfulness. Then sounds grew far off and night became a blur.
Morning when it came seemed an age removed from that hideous night.
Her head had cleared, and but for the soreness of body and limb she
would have begun the day strong. There appeared little to eat and no
time to prepare it. Gulden was rampant for action. Like a miser he
guarded the saddle packed with gold. This tune his comrades were as
eager as he to be on the move. All were obsessed by the presence of
gold. Only one hour loomed in their consciousness--that of the hour
of division. How fatal and pitiful and terrible! Of what possible
use or good was gold to them?
The ride began before sunrise. It started and kept on at a steady
trot. Smith led down out of the rocky slopes and fastnesses into
green valleys. Jim Cleve, riding bareback on a lame horse, had his
difficulties. Still he kept close beside or behind Joan all the way.
They seldom spoke, and then only a word relative to this stern
business of traveling in the trail of a hard-riding bandit. Joan
bore up better this day, as far as her mind was concerned.
Physically she had all she could do to stay in the saddle. She
learned of what steel she was actually made--what her slender frame
could endure. That day's ride seemed a thousand miles long, and
never to end. Yet the implacable Smith did finally halt, and that
before dark.