“An’ shore, miss,” he had concluded, in a hoarse whisper, “we-all know you ain’t Kells’s wife.  Thet bandit wouldn’t marry no woman.  He’s a woman-hater.  He was famous fer thet over in California.  He’s run off with you—­kidnapped you, thet’s shore. ...  An’ Gulden swears he shot his own men an’ was in turn shot by you.  Thet bullet-hole in his back was full of powder.  There’s liable to be a muss-up any time. ...  Shore, miss, you’d better sneak off with me tonight when they’re all asleep.  I’ll git grub an’ hosses, an’ take you off to some prospector’s camp.  Then you can git home.”

Joan only shook her head.  Even if she could have felt trust in Wood—­and she was of half a mind to believe him—­it was too late.  Whatever befell her mattered little if in suffering it she could save Jim Cleve from the ruin she had wrought.

Since this wild experience of Joan’s had begun she had been sick so many times with raw and naked emotions hitherto unknown to her, that she believed she could not feel another new fear or torture.  But these strange sensations grew by what they had been fed upon.

The man called Frenchy, was audacious, persistent, smiling, amorous-eyed, and rudely gallant.  He cared no more for his companions than if they had not been there.  He vied with Pearce in his attention, and the two of them discomfited the others.  The situation might have been amusing had it not been so terrible.  Always the portent was a shadow behind their interest and amiability and jealousy.  Except for that one abrupt and sinister move of Gulden’s—­that of a natural man beyond deceit—­there was no word, no look, no act at which Joan could have been offended.  They were joking, sarcastic, ironical, and sullen in their relation to each other; but to Joan each one presented what was naturally or what he considered his kindest and most friendly front.  A young and attractive woman had dropped into the camp of lonely wild men; and in their wild hearts was a rebirth of egotism, vanity, hunger for notice.  They seemed as foolish as a lot of cock grouse preening themselves and parading before a single female.  Surely in some heart was born real brotherhood for a helpless girl in peril.  Inevitably in some of them would burst a flame of passion as it had in Kells.

Between this amiable contest for Joan’s glances and replies, with its possibility of latent good to her, and the dark, lurking, unspoken meaning, such as lay in Gulden’s brooding, Joan found another new and sickening torture.

“Say, Frenchy, you’re no lady’s man,” declared Red Pearce, “an’ you, Bate, you’re too old.  Move—­pass by—­sashay!” Pearce, good-naturedly, but deliberately, pushed the two men back.

“Shore she’s Kells’s lady, ain’t she?” drawled Wood.  “Ain’t you all forgettin’ thet?”

“Kells is asleep or dead,” replied Pearce, and he succeeded in getting the field to himself.

“Where’d you meet Kells anyway?” he asked Joan, with his red face bending near hers.