What do you think?"
"I don"t know. It"s a hard proposition."
"We"ll get away, all right. Don"t worry about that. But the gang will never come together again." This singular man spoke with melancholy.
"Slow up a little now," he added. "We don"t want to attract attention.... But where is there any one to see us?... Jim, did I have you figured right about the Creede job?"
"You sure did. I just lost my nerve."
"Well, no matter."
Then Kells appeared to forget that. He stalked on with keen glances searching everywhere, until suddenly, when he saw round a bend of the road, he halted with grating teeth. That road was empty all the way to the other end of camp, but there surged a dark mob of men. Kells stalked forward again. The Last Nugget appeared like an empty barn. How vacant and significant the whole center of camp! Kells did not speak another word.
Joan hurried on between Kells and Cleve. She was trying to fortify herself to meet what lay at the end of the road. A strange, hoa.r.s.e roar of men and an upflinging of arms made her shudder. She kept her eyes lowered and clung to the arms of her companions.
Finally they halted. She felt the crowd before she saw it. A motley a.s.semblage with what seemed craned necks and intent backs! They were all looking forward and upward. But she forced her glance down.
Kells stood still. Jim"s grip was hard upon her arm. Presently men grouped round Kells. She heard whispers. They began to walk slowly, and she was pushed and led along. More men joined the group. Soon she and Kells and Jim were hemmed in a circle. Then she saw the huge form of Gulden, the towering Oliver, and Smith and Blicky, Beard, Jones, Williams, Budd, and others. The circle they formed appeared to be only one of many groups, all moving, whispering, facing from her. Suddenly a sound like the roar of a wave agitated that ma.s.s of men. It was harsh, piercing, unnatural, yet it had a note of wild exultation. Then came the stamp and surge, and then the upflinging of arms, and then the abrupt strange silence, broken only by a hiss or an escaping breath, like a sob. Beyond all Joan"s power to resist was a deep, primitive desire to look.
There over the heads of the mob--from the bench of the slope--rose grotesque structures of new-hewn lumber. On a platform stood black, motionless men in awful contrast with a dangling object that doubled up and curled upon itself in terrible convulsions. It lengthened while it swayed; it slowed its action while it stretched. It took on the form of a man. He swung by a rope round his neck. His head hung back. His hands beat. A long tremor shook the body; then it was still, and swayed to and fro, a dark, limp thing.
Joan"s gaze was riveted in horror. A dim, red haze made her vision imperfect. There was a sickening riot within her.
There were masked men all around the platform--a solid phalanx of them on the slope above. They were heavily armed. Other masked men stood on the platform. They seemed rigid figures--stiff, jerky when they moved.
How different from the two forms swaying below!
The structure was a rude scaffold and the vigilantes had already hanged two bandits.
Two others with hands bound behind their backs stood farther along the platform under guard. Before each dangled a noose.
Joan recognized Texas and Frenchy. And on the instant the great crowd let out a hard breath that ended in silence.
The masked leader of the vigilantes was addressing Texas: "We"ll spare your life if you confess. Who"s the head of this Border Legion?"
"Sh.o.r.e it"s Red Pearce!... Haw! Haw! Haw!"
"We"ll give you one more chance," came the curt reply.
Texas appeared to become serious and somber. "I swear to G.o.d it"s Pearce!" he declared.
"A lie won"t save you. Come, the truth! We think we know, but we want proof! Hurry!"
"You can go where it"s hot!" responded Texas.
The leader moved his hand and two other masked men stepped forward.
"Have you any message to send any one--anything to say?" he asked.
"Nope."
"Have you any request to make?"
"Hang that Frenchman before me! I want to see him kick."
Nothing more was said. The two men adjusted the noose round the doomed man"s neck. Texas refused the black cap. And he did not wait for the drop to be sprung. He walked off the platform into s.p.a.ce as Joan closed her eyes.
Again that strange, full, angry, and unnatural roar waved through the throng of watchers. It was terrible to hear. Joan felt the violent action of that crowd, although the men close round her were immovable as stones. She imagined she could never open her eyes to see Texas hanging there. Yet she did--and something about his form told her that he had died instantly. He had been brave and loyal even in dishonor. He had more than once spoken a kind word to her. Who could tell what had made him an outcast? She breathed a prayer for his soul.
The vigilantes were bolstering up the craven Frenchy. He could not stand alone. They put the rope round his neck and lifted him off the platform--then let him down. He screamed in his terror. They cut short his cries by lifting him again. This time they held him up several seconds. His face turned black. His eyes bulged. His breast heaved. His legs worked with the regularity of a jumping-jack. They let him down and loosened the noose. They were merely torturing him to wring a confession from him. He had been choked severely and needed a moment to recover.
When he did it was to shrink back in abject terror from that loop of rope dangling before his eyes.
The vigilante leader shook the noose in his face and pointed to the swaying forms of the dead bandits.
Frenchy frothed at the mouth as he shrieked out words in his native tongue, but any miner there could have translated their meaning.
The crowd heaved forward, as if with one step, then stood in a strained silence.
"Talk English!" ordered the vigilante.
"I"ll tell! I"ll tell!"
Joan became aware of a singular tremor in Kells"s arm, which she still clasped. Suddenly it jerked. She caught a gleam of blue. Then the bellow of a gun almost split her ears. Powder burned her cheek. She saw Frenchy double up and collapse on the platform.
For an instant there was a silence in which every man seemed petrified.
Then burst forth a hoa.r.s.e uproar and the stamp of many boots. All in another instant pandemonium broke out. The huge crowd split in every direction. Joan felt Cleve"s strong arm around her--felt herself borne on a resistless tide of yelling, stamping, wrestling men. She had a glimpse of Kells"s dark face drawing away from her; another of Gulden"s giant form in Herculean action, tossing men aside like ninepins; another of weapons aloft. Savage, wild-eyed men fought to get into the circle whence that shot had come. They broke into it, but did not know then whom to attack or what to do. And the rushing of the frenzied miners all around soon disintegrated Kells"s band and bore its several groups in every direction. There was not another shot fired.
Joan was dragged and crushed in the melee. Not for rods did her feet touch the ground. But in the clouds of dust and confusion of struggling forms she knew Jim still held her, and she clasped him with all her strength. Presently her feet touched the earth; she was not jostled and pressed; then she felt free to walk; and with Jim urging her they climbed a rock-strewn slope till a cabin impeded further progress. But they had escaped the stream.
Below was a strange sight. A scaffold shrouded in dust-clouds; a band of bewildered vigilantes with weapons drawn, waiting for they knew not what; three swinging, ghastly forms and a dead man on the platform; and all below, a horde of men trying to escape from one another. That shot of Kells"s had precipitated a rush. No miner knew who the vigilantes were nor the members of the Border Legion. Every man there expected a b.l.o.o.d.y battle--distrusted the man next to him--and had given way to panic. The vigilantes had tried to crowd together for defense and all the others had tried to escape. It was a wild scene, born of wild justice and blood at fever-heat, the climax of a disordered time where gold and violence reigned supreme. It could only happen once, but it was terrible while it lasted. It showed the craven in men; it proved the baneful influence of gold; it brought, in its fruition, the destiny of Alder Creek Camp. For it must have been that the really brave and honest men in vast majority retraced their steps while the vicious kept running. So it seemed to Joan.
She huddled against Jim there in the shadow of the cabin wall, and not for long did either speak. They watched and listened. The streams of miners turned back toward the s.p.a.ce around the scaffold where the vigilantes stood grouped, and there rose a subdued roar of excited voices. Many small groups of men conversed together, until the vigilante leader brought all to attention by addressing the populace in general.
Joan could not hear what he said and had no wish to hear.
"Joan, it all happened so quickly, didn"t it?" whispered Jim, shaking his head as if he was not convinced of reality.
"Wasn"t he--terrible!" whispered Joan in reply.
"He! Who?"
"Kells." In her mind the bandit leader dominated all that wild scene.
"Terrible, if you like. But I"d say great!... The nerve of him! In the face of a hundred vigilantes and thousands of miners! But he knew what that shot would do!"
"Never! He never thought of that," declared Joan, earnestly. "I felt him tremble. I had a glimpse of his face.... Oh!... First in his mind was his downfall, and, second, the treachery of Frenchy. I think that shot showed Kells as utterly desperate, but weak. He couldn"t have helped it--if that had been the last bullet in his gun."
Jim Cleve looked strangely at Joan, as if her eloquence was both persuasive and incomprehensible.
"Well, that was a lucky shot for us--and him, too."
"Do you think he got away?" she asked, eagerly.