“Sure. ...  But I remember what you asked me the other day—­about Gulden.  Was that why?”

“Nope,” replied Cleve.  “This was my affair.”

“All right.  But I’d like to know.  Pearce says you’re in bad with Gulden’s friends.  If I can’t make peace between you I’ll have to take sides.”

“Kells, I don’t need any one on my side,” said Cleve, and he flung the cigarette away.

“Yes, you do,” replied Kells, persuasively.  “Every man on this border needs that.  And he’s lucky when he gets it.”

“Well, I don’t ask for it; I don’t want it.”

“That’s your own business, too.  I’m not insisting or advising.”

Kells’s force and ability to control men manifested itself in his speech and attitude.  Nothing could have been easier than to rouse the antagonism of Jim Cleve, abnormally responding as he was to the wild conditions of this border environment.

“Then you’re not calling my hand?” queried Cleve, with his dark, piercing glance on Kells.

“I pass, Jim,” replied the bandit, easily.

Cleve began to roll another cigarette.  Joan saw his strong, brown hands tremble, and she realized that this came from his nervous condition, not from agitation.  Her heart ached for him.  What a white, somber face, so terribly expressive of the overthrow of his soul!  He had fled to the border in reckless fury at her—­at himself.  There in its wildness he had, perhaps, lost thought of himself and memory of her.  He had plunged into the unrestrained border life.  Its changing, raw, and fateful excitement might have made him forget, but behind all was the terrible seeking to destroy and be destroyed.  Joan shuddered when she remembered how she had mocked this boy’s wounded vanity—­how scathingly she had said he did not possess manhood and nerve enough even to be bad.

“See here, Red,” said Kells to Pearce, “tell me what happened—­what you saw.  Jim can’t object to that.”

“Sure,” replied Pearce, thus admonished.  “We was all over at Beard’s an’ several games was on.  Gulden rode into camp last night.  He’s always sore, but last night it seemed more’n usual.  But he didn’t say much an’ nothin’ happened.  We all reckoned his trip fell through.  Today he was restless.  He walked an’ walked just like a cougar in a pen.  You know how Gulden has to be on the move.  Well, we let him alone, you can bet.  But suddenlike he comes up to our table —­me an’ Cleve an’ Beard an’ Texas was playin’ cards—­an’ he nearly kicks the table over.  I grabbed the gold an’ Cleve he saved the whisky.  We’d been drinkin’ an’ Cleve most of all.  Beard was white at the gills with rage an’ Texas was soffocatin’.  But we all was afraid of Gulden, except Cleve, as it turned out.  But he didn’t move or look mean.  An’ Gulden pounded on the table an’ addressed himself to Cleve.

“‘I’ve a job you’ll like.  Come on.’

“‘Job?  Say, man, you couldn’t have a job I’d like,’ replied Cleve, slow an’ cool.