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

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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.




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