"Then you're not calling my hand?" queried Cleve, with his dark,
piercing glance on Kells.
"I pass, Jim," replied the bandit, easily.
Cleve began to roll another cigarette. Joan saw his strong, brown
hands tremble, and she realized that this came from his nervous
condition, not from agitation. Her heart ached for him. What a
white, somber face, so terribly expressive of the overthrow of his
soul! He had fled to the border in reckless fury at her--at himself.
There in its wildness he had, perhaps, lost thought of himself and
memory of her. He had plunged into the unrestrained border life. Its
changing, raw, and fateful excitement might have made him forget,
but behind all was the terrible seeking to destroy and be destroyed.
Joan shuddered when she remembered how she had mocked this boy's
wounded vanity--how scathingly she had said he did not possess
manhood and nerve enough even to be bad.
"See here, Red," said Kells to Pearce, "tell me what happened--what
you saw. Jim can't object to that."
"Sure," replied Pearce, thus admonished. "We was all over at Beard's
an' several games was on. Gulden rode into camp last night. He's
always sore, but last night it seemed more'n usual. But he didn't
say much an' nothin' happened. We all reckoned his trip fell
through. Today he was restless. He walked an' walked just like a
cougar in a pen. You know how Gulden has to be on the move. Well, we
let him alone, you can bet. But suddenlike he comes up to our table
--me an' Cleve an' Beard an' Texas was playin' cards--an' he nearly
kicks the table over. I grabbed the gold an' Cleve he saved the
whisky. We'd been drinkin' an' Cleve most of all. Beard was white at
the gills with rage an' Texas was soffocatin'. But we all was afraid
of Gulden, except Cleve, as it turned out. But he didn't move or
look mean. An' Gulden pounded on the table an' addressed himself to
Cleve.
"'I've a job you'll like. Come on.' "'Job? Say, man, you couldn't have a job I'd like,' replied Cleve,
slow an' cool.
"You know how Gulden gets when them spells come over him. It's just
plain cussedness. I've seen gunfighters lookin' for trouble--for
someone to kill. But Gulden was worse than that. You all take my
hunch--he's got a screw loose in his nut.
"'Cleve,' he said, 'I located the Brander gold-diggin's--an' the
girl was there.' "Some kind of a white flash went over Cleve. An' we all, rememberin'
Luce, began to bend low, ready to duck. Gulden didn't look no
different from usual. You can't see any change in him. But I for one
felt all hell burnin' in him.