“Well, you take it sort of hard,” growled Kells.  Then presently he brightened.  “I seem always to forget that you’re only a kid.  Listen!  Now you do as you like.  But I want to warn you that you’ve got to get back the same kind of nerve”—­here he lowered his voice and glanced at Bate Wood—­“that you showed when you shot me.  You’re going to see some sights. ...  A great gold strike!  Men grown gold-mad!  Woman of no more account than a puff of cottonseed! ...  Hunger, toil, pain, disease, starvation, robbery, blood, murder, hanging, death—­all nothing, nothing!  There will be only gold.  Sleepless nights—­days of hell—­rush and rush—­all strangers with greedy eyes!  The things that made life will be forgotten and life itself will be cheap.  There will be only that yellow stuff—­gold—­over which men go mad and women sell their souls!”

After breakfast Kells had Joan’s horse brought out of the corral and saddled.

“You must ride some every day.  You must keep in condition,” he said.  “Pretty soon we may have a chase, and I don’t want it to tear you to pieces.”

“Where shall I ride?” asked Joan.

“Anywhere you like up and down the gulch.”

“Are you going to have me watched?”

“Not if you say you won’t run off.”

“You trust me?”

“Yes.”

“All right.  I promise.  And if I change my mind I’ll tell you.”

“Lord! don’t do it, Joan.  I—­I—­Well, you’ve come to mean a good deal to me.  I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”  As she mounted the horse Kells added, “Don’t stand any raw talk from any of the gang.”

Joan rode away, pondering in mind the strange fact that though she hated this bandit, yet she had softened toward him.  His eyes lit when he saw her; his voice mellowed; his manner changed.  He had meant to tell her again that he loved her, yet he controlled it.  Was he ashamed?  Had he seen into the depths of himself and despised what he had imagined love?  There were antagonistic forces at war within him.

It was early morning and a rosy light tinged the fresh green.  She let the eager horse break into a canter and then a gallop; and she rode up the gulch till the trail started into rough ground.  Then turning, she went back, down under the pines and by the cabins, to where the gulch narrowed its outlet into the wide valley.  Here she met several dusty horsemen driving a pack-train.  One, a jovial ruffian, threw up his hands in mock surrender.

“Hands up, pards!” he exclaimed.  “Reckon we’ve run agin’ Dandy Dale come to life.”

His companions made haste to comply and then the three regarded her with bold and roguish eyes.  Joan had run square into them round a corner of slope and, as there was no room to pass, she had halted.

“Shore it’s the Dandy Dale we heerd of,” vouchsafed another.

“Thet’s Dandy’s outfit with a girl inside,” added the third.