The days were uneventful because, while always looking for Jim Cleve, she never once saw him.  Several times she heard his name mentioned.  He was here and there—­at Beard’s off in the mountains.  But he did not come to Kells’s cabin, which fact, Joan gathered, had made Kells anxious.  He did not want to lose Cleve.  Joan peered from her covert in the evenings, and watched for Jim, and grew weary of the loud talk and laughter, the gambling and smoking and drinking.  When there seemed no more chance of Cleve’s coming, then Joan went to bed.

On these occasions Joan learned that Kells was passionately keen to gamble, that he was a weak hand at cards, an honest gambler, and, strangely enough, a poor loser.  Moreover, when he lost he drank heavily, and under the influence of drink he was dangerous.  There were quarrels when curses rang throughout the cabin, when guns were drawn, but whatever Kells’s weaknesses might be, he was strong and implacable in the governing of these men.

That night when Gulden strode into the cabin was certainly not uneventful for Joan.  Sight of him sent a chill to her marrow while a strange thrill of fire inflamed her.  Was that great hulk of a gorilla prowling about to meet Jim Cleve?  Joan thought that it might be the worse for him if he were.  Then she shuddered a little to think that she had already been influenced by the wildness around her.

Gulden appeared well and strong, and but for the bandage on his head would have been as she remembered him.  He manifested interest in the gambling of the players by surly grunts.  Presently he said something to Kells.

“What?” queried the bandit, sharply, wheeling, the better to see Gulden.

The noise subsided.  One gamester laughed knowingly.

“Lend me a sack of dust?” asked Gulden.

Kells’s face showed amaze and then a sudden brightness.

“What!  You want gold from me?”

“Yes.  I’ll pay it back.”

“Gulden, I wasn’t doubting that.  But does your asking mean you’ve taken kindly to my proposition?”

“You can take it that way,” growled Gulden.  “I want gold.”  “I’m mighty glad, Gulden,” replied Kells, and he looked as if he meant it.  “I need you.  We ought to get along. ...  Here.”

He handed a small buckskin sack to Gulden.  Someone made room for him on the other side of the table, and the game was resumed.  It was interesting to watch them gamble.  Red Pearce had a scale at his end of the table, and he was always measuring and weighing out gold-dust.  The value of the gold appeared to be fifteen dollars to the ounce, but the real value of money did not actuate the gamblers.  They spilled the dust on the table and ground as if it were as common as sand.  Still there did not seem to be any great quantity of gold in sight.  Evidently these were not profitable times for the bandits.  More than once Joan heard them speak of a gold strike as honest people spoke of good fortune.