"A rope!"

"Yes, I mean a halter, a hangman's noose. But I balked her!"

"Oh! ... A good girl?"

"Bad! Bad to the core of her black heart--bad as I am!" he

exclaimed, with fierce, low passion.

Joan trembled. The man, in an instant, seemed transformed, somber as

death. She could not look at him, but she must keep on talking.

"Bad? You don't seem bad to me--only violent, perhaps, or wild. ...

Tell me about yourself."

She had stirred him. His neglected pipe fell from his hand. In the

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gloom of the camp-fire he must have seen faces or ghosts of his

past.

"Why not?" he queried, strangely. "Why not do what's been impossible

for years--open my lips? It'll not matter--to a girl who can never

tell! ... Have I forgotten? God!--I have not! Listen, so that you'll

KNOW I'm bad. My name's not Kells. I was born in the East, and went

to school there till I ran away. I was young, ambitious, wild. I

stole. I ran away--came West in 'fifty-one to the gold-fields in

California. There I became a prospector, miner, gambler, robber--and

road-agent. I had evil in me, as all men have, and those wild years

brought it out. I had no chance. Evil and gold and blood--they are

one and the same thing. I committed every crime till no place, bad

as it might be, was safe for me. Driven and hunted and shot and

starved--almost hanged! ... And now I'm--Kells! of that outcast crew

you named 'the Border Legion!' Every black crime but one--the

blackest--and that haunting me, itching my hands to-night."

"Oh, you speak so--so dreadfully!" cried Joan. "What can I say? I'm

sorry for you. I don't believe it all. What--what black crime haunts

you? Oh! what could be possible tonight--here in this lonely canon--

with only me?"

Dark and terrible the man arose.

"Girl," he said, hoarsely. "To-night--to-night--I'll. ... What have

you done to me? One more day--and I'll be mad to do right by you--

instead of WRONG. ... Do you understand that?"

Joan leaned forward in the camp-fire light with outstretched hands

and quivering lips, as overcome by his halting confession of one

last remnant of honor as she was by the dark hint of his passion.

"No--no--I don't understand--nor believe!" she cried. "But you

frighten me--so! I am all--all alone with you here. You said I'd be

safe. Don't--don't--"

Her voice broke then and she sank back exhausted in her seat.

Probably Kells had heard only the first words of her appeal, for he

took to striding back and forth in the circle of the camp-fire

light. The scabbard with the big gun swung against his leg. It grew

to be a dark and monstrous thing in Joan's sight. A marvelous

intuition born of that hour warned her of Kells's subjection to the

beast in him, even while, with all the manhood left to him, he still

battled against it. Her girlish sweetness and innocence had availed

nothing, except mock him with the ghost of dead memories. He could

not be won or foiled. She must get her hands on that gun--kill him--

or--! The alternative was death for herself. And she leaned there,

slowly gathering all the unconquerable and unquenchable forces of a

woman's nature, waiting, to make one desperate, supreme, and final

effort.




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