“He’s a cannibal.  I hate the sight of him.  I tried to kill him.  I wish I had killed him.”

“I’m never safe while he’s near.”

“Then I will kill him.”

“Hush! you’ll not be desperate unless you have to be. ...  Listen.  I’m safe with Kells for the present.  And he’s friendly to you.  Let us wait.  I’ll keep trying to influence him.  I have won the friendship of some of his men.  We’ll stay with him—­travel with him.  Surely we’d have a better chance to excape after we reach that gold-camp.  You must play your part.  But do it without drinking and fighting.  I couldn’t bear that.  We’ll see each other somehow.  We’ll plan.  Then we’ll take the first chance to get away.”

“We might never have a better chance than we’ve got right now,” he remonstrated.

“It may seem so to you.  But I know.  I haven’t watched these ruffians for nothing.  I tell you Gulden has split with Kells because of me.  I don’t know how I know.  And I think I’d die of terror out on the trail with two hundred miles to go—­and that gorilla after me.”

“But, Joan, if we once got away Gulden would never take you alive,” said Jim, earnestly.  “So you needn’t fear that.”

“I’ve uncanny horror of him.  It’s as if he were a gorilla—­and would take me off even if I were dead! ...  No, Jim, let us wait.  Let me select the time.  I can do it.  Trust me.  Oh, Jim, now that I’ve saved you from being a bandit, I can do anything.  I can fool Kells or Pearce or Wood—­any of them, except Gulden.”

“If Kells had to choose now between trailing you and rushing for the gold-camp, which would he do?”

“He’d trail me,” she said.

“But Kells is crazy over gold.  He has two passions.  To steal gold, and to gamble with it.”

“That may be.  But he’d go after me first.  So would Gulden.  We can’t ride these hills as they do.  We don’t know the trails—­the water.  We’d get lost.  We’d be caught.  And somehow I know that Gulden and his gang would find us first.”

“You’re probably right, Joan,” replied Cleve.  “But you condemn me to a living death. ...  To let you out of my sight with Kells or any of them!  It’ll be worse almost than my life was before.”

“But, Jim, I’ll be safe,” she entreated.  “It’s the better choice of two evils.  Our lives depend on reason, waiting, planning.  And, Jim, I want to live for you.”

“My brave darling, to hear you say that!” he exclaimed, with deep emotion.  “When I never expected to see you again! ...  But the past is past.  I begin over from this hour.  I’ll be what you want—­do what you want.”

Joan seemed irresistibly drawn to him again, and the supplication, as she lifted her blushing face, and the yielding, were perilously sweet.

“Jim, kiss me and hold me—­the way—­you did that night!”

And it was not Joan who first broke that embrace.

“Find my mask,” she said.