Joan stumbled in the darkness up the rude steps to her room, and,
softly placing the poles in readiness to close her door, she
composed herself to watch and wait. The keen edge of her nerves,
almost amounting to pain, told her that this night of such moment
for Kells would be one of singular strain and significance for her.
But why she could not fathom. She felt herself caught by the
changing tide of events--a tide that must sweep her on to flood.
Kells had gone outside. The strong, deep voices' grew less distinct.
Evidently the men were walking away. In her suspense Joan was
disappointed. Presently, however, they returned; they had been
walking to and fro. After a few moments Kells entered alone. The
cabin was now so dark that Joan could barely distinguish the bandit.
Then he lighted the lanterns. He hung up several on the wall and
placed two upon the table. From somewhere among his effects he
produced a small book and a pencil; these, with a heavy, gold-
mounted gun, he laid on the table before the seat he manifestly
meant to occupy. That done, he began a slow pacing up and down the
room, his hands behind his back, his head bent in deep and absorbing
thought. What a dark, sinister, plotting figure! Joan had seen many
men in different attitudes of thought, but here was a man whose mind
seemed to give forth intangible yet terrible manifestations of evil.
The inside of that gloomy cabin took on another aspect; there was a
meaning in the saddles and bridles and weapons on the wall; that
book and pencil and gun seemed to contain the dark deeds of wild
men; and all about the bandit hovered a power sinister in its menace
to the unknown and distant toilers for gold.
Kells lifted his head, as if listening, and then the whole manner of
the man changed. The burden that weighed upon him was thrown aside.
Like a general about to inspect a line of soldiers Kells faced the
door, keen, stern, commanding. The heavy tread of booted men, the
clink of spurs, the low, muffled sound of voices, warned Joan that
the gang had arrived. Would Jim Cleve be among them?
Joan wanted a better position in which to watch and listen. She
thought a moment, and then carefully felt her way around to the
other side of the steps, and here, sitting down with her feet
hanging over the drop, she leaned against the wall and through a
chink between the logs had a perfect view of the large cabin. The
men were filing in silent and intense. Joan counted twenty-seven in
all. They appeared to fall into two groups, and it was significant
that the larger group lined up on the side nearest Kells, and the
smaller back of Gulden. He had removed the bandage, and with a raw,
red blotch where his right ear had been shot away, he was hideous.
There was some kind of power emanating from him, but it was not that
which, was so keenly vital and impelling in Kells. It was brute
ferocity, dominating by sheer physical force. In any but muscular
clash between Kells and Gulden the latter must lose. The men back of
Gulden were a bearded, check-shirted, heavily armed group, the worst
of that bad lot. All the younger, cleaner-cut men like Red Pearce
and Frenchy and Beady Jones and Williams and the scout Blicky, were
on the other side. There were two factions here, yet scarcely an
antagonism, except possibly in the case of Kells. Joan felt that the
atmosphere was supercharged with suspense and fatality and
possibility--and anything might happen. To her great joy, Jim Cleve
was not present.