as her head.  Then there were excited shouting groups round gambling games.  There were men in clusters, sitting on upturned kegs, round a box for a table, and dirty bags of gold-dust were in evidence.  The gamblers at the cards were silent, in strange contrast with the others; and in each group was at least one dark-garbed, hard-eyed gambler who was not a miner.  Joan saw boys not yet of age, flushed and haggard, wild with the frenzy of winning and cast down in defeat.  There were jovial, grizzled, old prospectors to whom this scene and company were pleasant reminders of bygone days.  There were desperados whose glittering eyes showed they had no gold with which to gamble.

Joan suddenly felt Kells start and she believed she heard a low, hissing exclamation.  And she looked for the cause.  Then she saw familiar dark faces; they belonged to men of Kells’s Legion.  And with his broad back to her there sat the giant Gulden.  Already he and his allies had gotten together in defiance of or indifference to Kells’s orders.  Some of them were already under the influence of drink, but, though they saw Kells, they gave no sign of recognition.  Gulden did not see Joan, and for that she was thankful.  And whether or not his presence caused it, the fact was that she suddenly felt as much of a captive as she had in Cabin Gulch, and feared that here escape would be harder because in a community like this Kells would watch her closely.

Kells led Joan and Cleve from one part of the smoky hall to another, and they looked on at the games and the strange raw life manifested there.  The place was getting packed with men.  Kells’s party encountered Blicky and Beady Jones together.  They passed by as strangers.  Then Joan saw Beard and Chick Williams arm in arm, strolling about, like roystering miners.  Williams telegraphed a keen, fleeting glance at Kells, then went on, to be lost in the crowd.  Handy Oliver brushed by Kells, jostled him, apparently by accident, and he said, “Excuse me, mister!” There were other familiar faces.  Kells’s gang were all in Alder Creek and the dark machinations of the bandit leader had been put into operation.  What struck Joan forcibly was that, though there were hilarity and comradeship, they were not manifested in any general way.  These miners were strangers to one another; the groups were strangers; the gamblers were strangers; the newcomers were strangers; and over all hung an atmosphere of distrust.  Good fellowship abided only in the many small companies of men who stuck together.  The mining-camps that Joan had visited had been composed of an assortment of prospectors and hunters who made one big, jolly family.  This was a gold strike, and the difference was obvious.  The hunting for gold was one thing, in its relation to the searchers; after it had been found, in a rich field, the conditions of life and character changed.  Gold had always seemed wonderful and beautiful to Joan; she absorbed here something that was the nucleus of