12

Those bitter words of Cleve’s, as if he mocked himself, were the last Joan heard, and they rang in her ears and seemed to reverberate through her dazed mind like a knell of doom.  She lay there, all blackness about her, weighed upon by an insupportable burden; and she prayed that day might never dawn for her; a nightmare of oblivion ended at last with her eyes opening to the morning light.

She was cold and stiff.  She had lain uncovered all the long hours of night.  She had not moved a finger since she had fallen upon the bed, crushed by those bitter words with which Cleve had consented to join Kells’s Legion.  Since then Joan felt that she had lived years.  She could not remember a single thought she might have had during those black hours; nevertheless, a decision had been formed in her mind, and it was that to-day she would reveal herself to Jim Cleve if it cost both their lives.  Death was infinitely better than the suspense and fear and agony she had endured; and as for Jim, it would at least save him from crime.

Joan got up, a little dizzy and unsteady upon her feet.  Her hands appeared clumsy and shaky.  All the blood in her seemed to surge from heart to brain and it hurt her to breathe.  Removing her mask, she bathed her face and combed her hair.  At first she conceived an idea to go out without her face covered, but she thought better of it.  Cleve’s reckless defiance had communicated itself to her.  She could not now be stopped.

Kells was gay and excited that morning.  He paid her compliments.  He said they would soon be out of this lonely gulch and she would see the sight of her life—­a gold strike.  She would see men wager a fortune on the turn of a card, lose, laugh, and go back to the digging.  He said he would take her to Sacramento and ’Frisco and buy her everything any girl could desire.  He was wild, voluble, unreasoning—­obsessed by the anticipated fulfilment of his dream.

It was rather late in the morning and there were a dozen or more men in and around the cabin, all as excited as Kells.  Preparations were already under way for the expected journey to the gold-field.  Packs were being laid out, overhauled, and repacked; saddles and bridles and weapons were being worked over; clothes were being awkwardly mended.  Horses were being shod, and the job was as hard and disagreeable for men as for horses.  Whenever a rider swung up the slope, and one came every now and then, all the robbers would leave off their tasks and start eagerly for the newcomer.  The name Jesse Smith was on everybody’s lips.  Any hour he might be expected to arrive and corroborate Blicky’s alluring tale.