"I guess you"re right. But where"ve you been?"
"Down in camp. Faro, most of the time. Bad luck, too."
Red Pearce"s coa.r.s.e face twisted into a scornful sneer. It must have been a lash to Kells.
"Pearce says you"re chasing a woman," retorted the bandit leader.
"Pearce lies!" flashed Cleve. His action was as swift. And there he stood with a gun thrust hard against Pearce"s side.
"JIM! Don"t kill him!" yelled Kells, rising.
Pearce"s red face turned white. He stood still as a stone, with his gaze fixed in fascinated fear upon Cleve"s gun.
A paralyzing surprise appeared to hold the group.
"Can you prove what you said?" asked Cleve, low and hard.
Joan knew that if Pearce did have the proof which would implicate her he would never live to tell it.
"Cleve--I don"t--know nothin"," choked out Pearce. "I jest figgered--it was a woman!"
Cleve slowly lowered the gun and stepped back. Evidently that satisfied him. But Joan had an intuitive feeling that Pearce lied.
"You want to be careful how you talk about me," said Cleve.
Kells purled out a suspended breath and he flung the sweat from his brow. There was about him, perhaps more than the others, a dark realization of how close the call had been for Pearce.
"Jim, you"re not drunk?"
"No."
"But you"re sore?"
"Sure I"m sore. Pearce put me in bad with you, didn"t he?"
"No. You misunderstood me. Red hasn"t a thing against you. And neither he nor anybody else could put you in bad with me."
"All right. Maybe I was hasty. But I"m not wasting time these days,"
replied Cleve. "I"ve no hard feelings.... Pearce, do you want to shake hands--or hold that against me?"
"He"ll shake, of course," said Kells.
Pearce extended his hand, but with a bad grace. He was dominated. This affront of Cleve"s would rankle in him.
"Kells, what do you want with me?" demanded Cleve.
A change pa.s.sed over Kells, and Joan could not tell just what it was, but somehow it seemed to suggest a weaker man.
"Jim, you"ve been a great card for me," began Kells, impressively.
"You"ve helped my game--and twice you saved my life. I think a lot of you.... If you stand by me now I swear I"ll return the trick some day.... Will you stand by me?"
"Yes," replied Cleve, steadily, but he grew pale. "What"s the trouble?"
"By--, it"s bad enough!" exclaimed Kells, and as he spoke the shade deepened in his haggard face. "Gulden has split my Legion. He has drawn away more than half my men. They have been drunk and crazy ever since.
They"ve taken things into their own hands. You see the result as well as I. That camp down there is fire and brimstone. Some one of that drunken gang has talked. We"re none of us safe any more. I see suspicion everywhere. I"ve urged getting a big stake and then hitting the trail for the border. But not a man sticks to me in that. They all want the free, easy, wild life of this gold-camp. So we"re anch.o.r.ed till--till...
But maybe it"s not too late. Pearce, Oliver, Smith--all the best of my Legion--profess loyalty to me. If we all pull together maybe we can win yet. But they"ve threatened to split, too. And it"s all on your account!"
"Mine?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Cleve.
"Yes. Now it"s nothing to make you flash your gun. Remember you said you"d stand by me.... Jim, the fact is--all the gang to a man believe you"re double-crossing me!"
"In what way?" queried Cleve, blanching.
"They think you"re the one who has talked. They blame you for the suspicion that"s growing."
"Well, they"re absolutely wrong," declared Cleve, in a ringing voice.
"I know they are. Mind you I"m not hinting I distrust you. I don"t. I swear by you. But Pearce--"
"So it"s Pearce," interrupted Cleve, darkly. "I thought you said he hadn"t tried to put me in bad with you."
"He hasn"t. He simply spoke his convictions. He has a right to them.
So have all the men. And, to come to the point, they all think you"re crooked because you"re honest!"
"I don"t understand," replied Cleve, slowly.
"Jim, you rode into Cabin Gulch, and you raised some trouble. But you were no bandit. You joined my Legion, but you"ve never become a bandit.
Here you"ve been an honest miner. That suited my plan and it helped.
But it"s got so it doesn"t suit my men. You work every day hard. You"ve struck it rich. You"re well thought of in Alder Creek. You"ve never done a dishonest thing. Why, you wouldn"t turn a crooked trick in a card game for a sack full of gold. This has hurt you with my men. They can"t see as I see, that you"re as square as you are game. They see you"re an honest miner. They believe you"ve got into a clique--that you"ve given us away. I don"t blame Pearce or any of my men. This is a time when men"s intelligence, if they have any, doesn"t operate. Their brains are on fire. They see gold and whisky and blood, and they feel gold and whisky and blood. That"s all. I"m glad that the gang gives you the benefit of a doubt and a chance to stand by me."
"A chance!"
"Yes. They"ve worked out a job for you alone. Will you undertake it?"
"I"ll have to," replied Cleve.
"You certainly will if you want the gang to justify my faith in you.
Once you pull off a crooked deal, they"ll switch and swear by you. Then we"ll get together, all of us, and plan what to do about Gulden and his outfit. They"ll run our heads, along with their own, right into the noose."
"What is this--this job?" labored Cleve. He was sweating now and his hair hung damp over his brow. He lost that look which had made him a bold man and seemed a boy again, weak, driven, bewildered.
Kells averted his gaze before speaking again. He hated to force this task upon Cleve. Joan felt, in the throbbing pain of the moment, that if she never had another reason to like this bandit, she would like him for the pity he showed.
"Do you know a miner named Creede?" asked Kells, rapidly.
"A husky chap, short, broad, something like Gulden for shape, only not so big--fellow with a fierce red beard?" asked Cleve.
"I never saw him," replied Kells. "But Pearce has. How does Cleve"s description fit Creede?"