THE BORDER LEGION. Zane Grey
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are we?"
"This is Lost Canon. Only a few men know of it. And they are—attached to me. I intend to keep you here."
"How long?" She felt the intensity of his gaze.
"Why—as long as—" he replied, slowly, "till I get my ransom."
"What amount will you ask?"
"You're worth a hundred thousand in gold right now... Maybe later I might let you go for less."
Joan's keen-wrought perception registered his covert, scarcely veiled implication. He was studying her.
"Oh, poor uncle. He'll never, never get so much."
"Sure he will," replied Kells, bluntly.
Then he helped her out of the saddle. She was stiff and awkward, and she let herself slide. Kells handled her gently and like a gentleman, and for Joan the first agonizing moment of her ordeal was past. Her intuition had guided her correctly. Kells might have been and probably was the most depraved of outcast men; but the presence of a girl like her, however it affected him, must also have brought up associations of a time when by family and breeding and habit he had been infinitely different. His action here, just like the ruffian Bill's, was instinctive, beyond his control. Just this slight thing, this frail link that joined Kells to his past and better life, immeasurably inspirited Joan and outlined the difficult game she had to play.
"You're a very gallant robber," she said.
He appeared not to hear that or to note it; he was eying her up and down; and he moved closer, perhaps to estimate her height compared to his own.
"I didn't know you were so tall. You're above my shoulder."
"Yes, I'm very lanky."
"Lanky! Why you're not that. You've a splendid figure—tall, supple, strong; you're like a Nez Perce girl I knew once.... You're a beautiful thing. Didn't you know that?"
"Not particularly. My friends don't dare flatter me. I suppose I'll have to stand it from you. But I didn't expect compliments from Jack Kells of the Border Legion."
"Border Legion? Where'd you hear that name?"
"I didn't hear it. I made it up—thought of it myself."
"Well, you've invented something I'll use.... And what's your name—your first name? I heard Roberts use it."
Joan felt a cold contraction of all her internal being, but outwardly she never so much as nicked an eyelash. "My name's Joan."
"Joan!" He placed heavy, compelling hands on her shoulders and turned her squarely toward him.
Again she felt his gaze, strangely, like the reflection of sunlight from ice. She had to look at him. This was her supreme test. For hours she had prepared for it, steeled herself, wrought upon all that was sensitive in her; and now she prayed, and swiftly looked up into his eyes. They were windows of a gray hell. And she gazed into that naked abyss, at that dark, uncovered soul, with only the timid anxiety and fear and the unconsciousness of an innocent, ignorant girl.
"Joan! You know why I brought you here?"
"Yes, of course; you told me," she replied, steadily. "You want to ransom me for gold.... And I'm afraid you'll have to take me home without getting any."
"You know what I mean to do to you," he went on, thickly.
"Do to me?" she echoed, and she never quivered a muscle. "You—you didn't say.... I haven't thought.... But you won't hurt me, will you? It's not my fault if there's no gold to ransom me."
He shook her. His face changed, grew darker. "You KNOW what I mean."
"I don't." With some show of spirit she essayed to slip out of his grasp. He held her the tighter.
"How old are you?"
It was only in her height and development that Joan looked anywhere near her age. Often she had been taken for a very young girl.
"I'm seventeen," she replied. This was not the truth. It was a lie that did not falter on lips which had scorned falsehood.
"Seventeen!" he ejaculated in amaze. "Honestly, now?"
She lifted her chin scornfully and remained silent.
"Well, I thought you were a woman. I took you to be twenty-five—at least twenty-two. Seventeen, with that shape! You're only a girl—a kid. You don't know anything."
Then he released her, almost with violence, as if angered at her or himself, and he turned away to the horses. Joan walked toward the little cabin. The strain of that encounter left her weak, but once from under his eyes, certain that she had carried her point, she quickly regained her poise. There might be, probably would be, infinitely more trying ordeals for her to meet than this one had been; she realized, however, that never again would she be so near betrayal of terror and knowledge and self.
The scene of her isolation had a curious fascination for her. Something—and she shuddered—was to happen to her here in this lonely, silent gorge. There were some flat stones made into a rude seat under the balsam-tree, and a swift, yard-wide stream of clear water ran by. Observing something white against the tree, Joan went closer. A card, the ace of hearts, had been pinned to the bark by a small cluster of bullet-holes, every one of which touched the red heart, and one of them had obliterated it. Below the circle of bulletholes, scrawled in rude letters with a lead-pencil, was the name "Gulden." How little, a few nights back, when Jim Cleve had menaced Joan with the names of Kells and Gulden, had she imagined they were actual men she was to meet and fear! And here she was the prisoner of one of them. She would ask Kells who and what this Gulden was. The log cabin was merely a shed, without fireplace or window, and the floor was a covering of balsam boughs, long dried out and withered. A dim trail led away from it down the canon. If Joan was any judge of trails, this one had not seen the imprint of a horse track for many months. Kells had indeed brought her to a hiding place, one of those, perhaps, that camp gossip said was inaccessible to any save a border hawk. Joan knew that only an Indian could follow the tortuous and rocky trail by which Kells had brought her in. She would never be tracked there by her own people.
The long ride had left her hot, dusty, scratched, with tangled hair and torn habit. She went over to her saddle, which Kells had removed from her pony, and, opening the saddlebag, she took inventory of her possessions. They were few enough, but now, in view of an unexpected and enforced sojourn in the wilds, beyond all calculation of value. And they included towel, soap, toothbrush, mirror and comb and brush, a red scarf, and gloves. It occurred to her how seldom she carried that bag on her saddle, and, thinking back, referred the fact to accident, and then with honest amusement owned that the motive might have been also a little vanity. Taking the bag, she went to a flat stone by the brook and, rolling up her sleeves, proceeded to improve her appearance. With deft fingers she rebraided her hair and arranged it as she had worn it when only sixteen. Then, resolutely, she got up and crossed over to where Kells was unpacking.
"I'll help you get supper," she said.
He was on his knees in the midst of a jumble of camp duffle that had been hastily thrown together. He looked up at her—from her shapely, strong, brown arms to the face she had rubbed rosy.
"Say, but you're a pretty girl!"
He said it enthusiastically, in unstinted admiration, without the slightest subtlety or suggestion; and if he had been the devil himself it would have been no less a compliment, given spontaneously to youth and beauty.
"I'm glad if it's so, but please don't tell me," she rejoined, simply.
Then with swift and business-like movements she set to helping him with the mess the inexperienced pack-horse had made of that particular pack. And when that was straightened out she began with the biscuit dough while he lighted a fire. It appeared to be her skill, rather than her willingness, that he yielded to. He said very little, but he looked at her often. And he had little periods of abstraction. The situation was novel, strange to him. Sometimes Joan read his mind and sometimes he was an enigma. But she divined when he was thinking what a picture she