A significant silence fell upon the group at the conclusion of
Wood's narrative. Wood had liked the telling, and it made his
listeners thoughtful. All at once the pale face of Kells turned
slightly toward Gulden.
"Gulden, did you hear that?" asked Kells.
"Yes," replied the man.
"What do you think about this Jim Cleve--and the job he prevented?"
"Never saw Cleve. I'll look him up when we get back to camp. Then
I'll go after the Brander girl."
How strangely his brutal assurance marked a line between him and his
companions! There was something wrong, something perverse in this
Gulden. Had Kells meant to bring that point out or to get an
impression of Cleve?
Joan could not decide. She divined that there was antagonism between
Gulden and all the others. And there was something else, vague and
intangible, that might have been fear. Apparently Gulden was a
criminal for the sake of crime. Joan regarded him with a growing
terror--augmented the more because he alone kept eyes upon the
corner where she was hidden--and she felt that compared with him the
others, even Kells, of whose cold villainy she was assured, were but
insignificant men of evil. She covered her head with a blanket to
shut out sight of that shaggy, massive head and the great dark caves
of eyes.
Thereupon Joan did not see or hear any more of the bandits.
Evidently the conversation died down, or she, in the absorption of
new thoughts, no longer heard. She relaxed, and suddenly seemed to
quiver all over with the name she whispered to herself. "Jim! Jim!
Oh, Jim!" And the last whisper was an inward sob. What he had done
was terrible. It tortured her. She had not believed it in him. Yet,
now she thought, how like him. All for her--in despair and spite--he
had ruined himself. He would be killed out there in some drunken
brawl, or, still worse, he would become a member of this bandit crew
and drift into crime. That was a great blow to Joan--that the curse
she had put upon him. How silly, false, and vain had been her
coquetry, her indifference! She loved Jim Cleve. She had not known
that when she started out to trail him, to fetch him back, but she
knew it now. She ought to have known before.
The situation she had foreseen loomed dark and monstrous and
terrible in prospect. Just to think of it made her body creep and
shudder with cold terror. Yet there was that strange, inward,
thrilling burn round her heart. Somewhere and soon she was coming
face to face with this changed Jim Cleve--this boy who had become a
reckless devil. What would he do? What could she do? Might he not
despise her, scorn her, curse her, taking her at Kells's word, the
wife of a bandit? But no! he would divine the truth in the flash of
an eye. And then! She could not think what might happen, but it must
mean blood-death. If he escaped Kells, how could he ever escape this
Gulden--this huge vulture of prey?