“Was it fair of you?” asked Joan.

“Yes.  Flash is a crooked gambler.  I’d rather be a bandit. ...  Besides, all’s fair in love!  And I was thinking of you when I saved Kells!”

“Flash will be looking for you,” said Joan, fearfully.

“Likely.  And if he finds me he wants to be quick.  But Kells will drive him out of camp or kill him.  I tell you, Kells is the biggest man in Alder Creek.  There’s talk of office—­a mayor and all that—­ and if the miners can forget gold long enough they’ll elect Kells.  But the riffraff, these bloodsuckers who live off the miners, they’d rather not have any office in Alder Creek.”

And upon another night Cleve in serious and somber mood talked about the Border Legion and its mysterious workings.  The name had found prominence, no one knew how, and Alder Creek knew no more peaceful sleep.  This Legion was supposed to consist of a strange, secret band of unknown bandits and road-agents, drawing its members from all that wild and trackless region called the border.  Rumor gave it a leader of cunning and ruthless nature.  It operated all over the country at the same time, and must have been composed of numerous smaller bands, impossible to detect.  Because its victims never lived to tell how or by whom they had been robbed!  This Legion worked slowly and in the dark.  It did not bother to rob for little gain.  It had strange and unerring information of large quantities of gold-dust.  Two prospectors going out on the Bannack road, packing fifty pounds of gold, were found shot to pieces.  A miner named Black, who would not trust his gold to the stage-express, and who left Adler Creek against advice, was never seen or heard of again.  Four other miners of the camp, known to carry considerable gold, were robbed and killed at night on their way to their cabins.  And another was found dead in his bed.  Robbers had crept to his tent, slashed the canvas, murdered him while he slept, and made off with his belt of gold.

An evil day of blood had fallen upon Alder Creek.  There were terrible and implacable men in the midst of the miners, by day at honest toil, learning who had gold, and murdering by night.  The camp had never been united, but this dread fact disrupted any possible unity.  Every man, or every little group of men, distrusted the other, watched and spied and lay awake at night.  But the robberies continued, one every few days, and each one left no trace.  For dead men could not talk.

Thus was ushered in at Alder Creek a regime of wildness that had no parallel in the earlier days of ’49 and ’51.  Men frenzied by the possession of gold or greed for it responded to the wildness of that time and took their cue from this deadly and mysterious Border Legion.  The gold-lust created its own blood-lust.  Daily the population of Alder Creek grew in the new gold-seekers and its dark records kept pace.  With distrust came suspicion and with suspicion came fear, and with fear came hate—­and