Part 51 (2/2)

”Joan, won't it be strange if Uncle Bill really is the Overland of Alder Creek? We've packed out every pound of Overland's gold. Oh! I hope--I believe he's your uncle.... Wouldn't it be great, Joan?”

But Joan could not answer. The word gold was a stab. Besides, she saw Aunt Jane and two neighbors standing before a log cabin, beginning to show signs of interest in the approaching procession.

Joan fell back a little, trying to screen herself behind Jim. Then Jim halted with a cheery salute.

”For the land's sake!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed a sweet-faced, gray-haired woman.

”If it isn't Jim Cleve!” cried another.

Jim jumped off and hugged the first speaker. She seemed overjoyed to see him and then overcome. Her face began to work.

”Jim! We always hoped you'd--you'd fetch Joan back!”

”Sure!” shouted Jim, who had no heart now for even an instant's deception. ”There she is!”

”Who?... What?”

Joan slipped out of her saddle and, tearing off the mask, she leaped forward with a little sob.

”Auntie! Auntie!... It's Joan--alive--well!... Oh, so glad to be home!... Don't look at my clothes--look at me!”

Aunt Jane evidently sustained a shock of recognition, joy, amaze, consternation, and shame, of which all were subservient to the joy.

She cried over Joan and murmured over her. Then, suddenly alive to the curious crowd, she put Joan from her.

”You--you wild thing! You desperado! I always told Bill you'd run wild some day!... March in the house and get out of that indecent rig!”

That night under the spruces, with the starlight piercing the lacy shadows, Joan waited for Jim Cleve. It was one of the white, silent, mountain nights. The brook murmured over the stones and the wind rustled the branches.

The wonder of Joan's home-coming was in learning that Uncle Bill Hoadley was indeed Overland, the discoverer of Alder Creek. Years and years of profitless toil had at last been rewarded in this rich gold strike.

Joan hated to think of gold. She had wanted to leave the gold back in Cabin Gulch, and she would have done so had Jim permitted it. And to think that all that gold which was not Jim Cleve's belonged to her uncle! She could not believe it.

Fatal and terrible forever to Joan would be the significance of gold.

Did any woman in the world or any man know the meaning of gold as well as she knew it? How strange and enlightening and terrible had been her experience! She had grown now not to blame any man, honest miner or b.l.o.o.d.y bandit. She blamed only gold. She doubted its value. She could not see it a blessing. She absolutely knew its driving power to change the souls of men. Could she ever forget that vast ant-hill of toiling diggers and washers, blind and deaf and dumb to all save gold?

Always limned in figures of fire against the black memory would be the forms of those wild and violent bandits! Gulden, the monster, the gorilla, the cannibal! Horrible as was the memory of him, there was no horror in thought of his terrible death. That seemed to be the one memory that did not hurt.

But Kells was indestructible--he lived in her mind. Safe out of the border now and at home, she could look back clearly. Still all was not clear and never would be. She saw Kells the ruthless bandit, the organizer, the planner, and the blood-spiller. He ought have no place in a good woman's memory. Yet he had. She never condoned one of his deeds or even his intentions. She knew her intelligence was not broad enough to grasp the vastness of his guilt. She believed he must have been the worst and most terrible character on that wild border. That border had developed him. It had produced the time and the place and the man. And therein lay the mystery. For over against this bandit's weakness and evil she could contrast strength and n.o.bility. She alone had known the real man in all the strange phases of his nature, and the darkness of his crime faded out of her mind. She suffered remorse--almost regret.

Yet what could she have done? There had been no help for that impossible situation as, there was now no help for her in a right and just placing of Kells among men. He had stolen her--wantonly murdering for the sake of lonely, fruitless hours with her; he had loved her--and he had changed; he had gambled away her soul and life--a last and terrible proof of the evil power of gold; and in the end he had saved her--he had gone from her white, radiant, cool, with strange, pale eyes and his amiable, mocking smile, and all the ruthless force of his life had expended itself in one last magnificent stand. If only he had known her at the end--when she lifted his head! But no--there had been only the fading light--the strange, weird look of a retreating soul, already alone forever.

A rustling of leaves, a step thrilled Joan out of her meditation.

Suddenly she was seized from behind, and Jim Cleve showed that though he might be a joyous and grateful lover, he certainly would never be an actor. For if he desired to live over again that fatal meeting and quarrel which had sent them out to the border, he failed utterly in his part. There was possession in the gentle grasp of his arms and bliss in the trembling of his lips.

”Jim, you never did it that way!” laughed Joan. ”If you had--do you think I could ever have been furious?”

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