She answered, and there was a catch in her breath.
The moving shadow split into two shadows that stole closer, loomed before her. She could not tell which belonged to Jim till he touched her. His touch was potent. It seemed to electrify her.
"Dearest, we"re here--this is the parson," said Jim, like a happy boy.
"I--"
"Ssssh!" whispered Joan. "Not so loud.... Listen!"
Kells was holding a rendezvous with members of his Legion. Joan even recognized his hard and somber tone, and the sharp voice of Red Pearce, and the drawl of Handy Oliver.
"All right. I"ll be quiet," responded Cleve, cautiously. "Joan, you"re to answer a few questions."
Then a soft hand touched Joan, and a voice differently keyed from any she had heard on the border addressed her.
"What is your name?" asked the preacher.
Joan told him.
"Can you tell anything about yourself? This young man is--is almost violent. I"m not sure. Still I want to--"
"I can"t tell much," replied Joan, hurriedly. "I"m an honest girl. I"m free to--to marry him. I--I love him!... Oh, I want to help him. We--we are in trouble here. I daren"t say how."
"Are you over eighteen?" "Yes, sir."
"Do your parents object to this young man?"
"I have no parents. And my uncle, with whom I lived before I was brought to this awful place, he loves Jim. He always wanted me to marry him."
"Take his hand, then."
Joan felt the strong clasp of Jim"s fingers, and that was all which seemed real at the moment. It seemed so dark and shadowy round these two black forms in front of her window. She heard a mournful wail of a lone wolf and it intensified the weird dream that bound her. She heard her shaking, whispered voice repeating the preacher"s words. She caught a phrase of a low-murmured prayer. Then one dark form moved silently away.
She was alone with Jim.
"Dearest Joan!" he whispered. "It"s over! It"s done!... Kiss me!"
She lifted her lips and Jim seemed to kiss her more sweetly, with less violence.
"Oh, Joan, that you"d really have me! I can"t believe it.... Your HUSBAND."
That word dispelled the dream and the pain which had held Joan, leaving only the tenderness, magnified now a hundredfold.
And that instant when she was locked in Cleve"s arms, when the silence was so beautiful and full, she heard the heavy pound of a gun-b.u.t.t upon the table in Kells"s room.
"Where is Cleve?" That was the voice of Kells, stern, demanding.
Joan felt a start, a tremor run over Jim. Then he stiffened.
"I can"t locate him," replied Red Pearce. "It was the same last night an" the one before. Cleve jest disappears these nights--about this time.... Some woman"s got him!"
"He goes to bed. Can"t you find where he sleeps?"
"No."
"This job"s got to go through and he"s got to do it."
"Bah!" taunted Pearce. "Gulden swears you can"t make Cleve do a job. And so do I!"
"Go out and yell for Cleve!... d.a.m.n you all! I"ll show you!"
Then Joan heard the tramp of heavy boots, then a softer tramp on the ground outside the cabin. Joan waited, holding her breath. She felt Jim"s heart beating. He stood like a post. He, like Joan, was listening, as if for a trumpet of doom.
"HALLO, JIM!" rang out Pearce"s stentorian call. It murdered the silence. It boomed under the bluff, and clapped in echo, and wound away, mockingly. It seemed to have shrieked to the whole wild borderland the breaking-point of the bandit"s power.
So momentous was the call that Jim Cleve seemed to forget Joan, and she let him go without a word. Indeed, he was gone before she realized it, and his dark form dissolved in the shadows. Joan waited, listening with abated breathing. On this side of the cabin there was absolute silence.
She believed that Jim would slip around under cover of night and return by the road from camp. Then what would he do? The question seemed to puzzle her.
Joan leaned there at her window for moments greatly differing from those vaguely happy ones just pa.s.sed. She had sustained a shock that had left her benumbed with a dull pain. What a rude, raw break the voice of Kells had made in her brief forgetfulness! She was returning now to reality.
Presently she would peer through the crevice between the boards into the other room, and she shrank from the ordeal. Kells, and whoever was with him, maintained silence. Occasionally she heard the shuffle of a boot and a creak of the loose floor boards. She waited till anxiety and fear compelled her to look.
The lamps were burning; the door was wide open. Apparently Kells"s rule of secrecy had been abandoned. One glance at Kells was enough to show Joan that he was sick and desperate. Handy Oliver did not wear his usual lazy good humor. Red Pearce sat silent and sullen, a smoking, unheeded pipe in his hand. Jesse Smith was gloomy. The only other present was Bate Wood, and whatever had happened had in no wise affected him. These bandits were all waiting. Presently quick footsteps on the path outside caused them all to look toward the door. That tread was familiar to Joan, and suddenly her mouth was dry, her tongue stiff. What was Jim Cleve coming to meet? How sharp and decided his walk! Then his dark form crossed the bar of light outside the door, and he entered, bold and cool, and with a weariness that must have been simulated.
"Howdy boys!" he said.
Only Kells greeted him in response. The bandit eyed him curiously. The others added suspicion to their glances.
"Did you hear Red"s yell?" queried Kells, presently.
"I"d have heard that roar if I"d been dead," replied Cleve, bluntly.
"And I didn"t like it!... I was coming up the road and I heard Pearce yell. I"ll bet every man in camp heard it."
"How"d you know Pearce yelled for you?"
"I recognized his voice."
Cleve"s manner recalled to Joan her first sight of him over in Cabin Gulch. He was not so white or haggard, but his eyes were piercing, and what had once been recklessness now seemed to be boldness. He deliberately studied Pearce. Joan trembled, for she divined what none of these robbers knew, and it was that Pearce was perilously near death. It was there for Joan to read in Jim"s dark glance.
"Where"ve you been all these nights?" queried the bandit leader.
"Is that any of your business--when you haven"t had need of me?"
returned Cleve.
"Yes, it"s my business. And I"ve sent for you. You couldn"t be found."
"I"ve been here for supper every night."
"I don"t talk to any men in daylight. You know my hours for meeting. And you"ve not come."
"You should have told me. How was I to know?"