Even in her dreams Joan seemed to be bending all her will toward
that inevitable and fateful moment when she must stand before Jim
Cleve. It had to be. Therefore she would absolutely compel herself
to meet it, regardless of the tumult that must rise within her. When
all had been said, her experience so far among the bandits, in spite
of the shocks and suspense that had made her a different girl, had
been infinitely more fortunate than might have been expected. She
prayed for this luck to continue and forced herself into a belief
that it would.
That night she had slept in Dandy Dale's clothes, except for the
boots; and sometimes while turning in restless slumber she had been
awakened by rolling on the heavy gun, which she had not removed from
the belt. And at such moments, she had to ponder in the darkness, to
realize that she, Joan Randle, lay a captive in a bandit's camp,
dressed in a dead bandit's garb, and packing his gun--even while she
slept. It was such an improbable, impossible thing. Yet the cold
feel of the polished gun sent a thrill of certainty through her.
In the morning she at least did not have to suffer the shame of
getting into Dandy Dale's clothes, for she was already in them. She
found a grain of comfort even in that. When she had put on the mask
and sombrero she studied the effect in her little mirror. And she
again decided that no one, not even Jim Cleve, could recognize her
in that disguise. Likewise she gathered courage from the fact that
even her best girl friend would have found her figure unfamiliar and
striking where once it had been merely tall and slender and strong,
ordinarily dressed. Then how would Jim Cleve ever recognize her? She
remembered her voice that had been called a contralto, low and deep;
and how she used to sing the simple songs she knew. She could not
disguise that voice. But she need not let Jim hear it. Then there
was a return of the idea that he would instinctively recognize her--
that no disguise could be proof to a lover who had ruined himself
for her. Suddenly she realized how futile all her worry and shame.
Sooner or later she must reveal her identity to Jim Cleve. Out of
all this complexity of emotion Joan divined that what she yearned
most for was to spare Cleve the shame consequent upon recognition of
her and then the agony he must suffer at a false conception of her
presence there. It was a weakness in her. When death menaced her
lover and the most inconceivably horrible situation yawned for her,
still she could only think of her passionate yearning to have him
know, all in a flash, that she loved him, that she had followed him
in remorse, that she was true to him and would die before being
anything else.