Joan sat motionless, watching the door where he had disappeared,
listening to the mounting beats of her heart. She had only been
frank and earnest with Kells. But he had taken a meaning from her
last few words that she had not intended to convey. All that was
woman in her--mounting, righting, hating--leaped to the power she
sensed in herself. If she could be deceitful, cunning, shameless in
holding out to Kells a possible return of his love, she could do
anything with him. She knew it. She did not need to marry him or
sacrifice herself. Joan was amazed that the idea remained an instant
before her consciousness. But something had told her this was
another kind of life than she had known, and all that was precious
to her hung in the balance. Any falsity was justifiable, even
righteous, under the circumstances. Could she formulate a plan that
this keen bandit would not see through? The remotest possibility of
her even caring for Kells--that was as much as she dared hint. But
that, together with all the charm and seductiveness she could
summon, might be enough. Dared she try it? If she tried and failed
Kells would despise her, and then she was utterly lost. She was
caught between doubt and hope. All that was natural and true in her
shrank from such unwomanly deception; all that had been born of her
wild experience inflamed her to play the game, to match Kells's
villainy with a woman's unfathomable duplicity.

And while Joan was absorbed in thought the sun set, the light
failed, twilight stole into the cabin, and then darkness. All this
hour there had been a continual sound of men's voices in the large
cabin, sometimes low and at other times loud. It was only when Joan
distinctly heard the name Jim Cleve that she was startled out of her
absorption, thrilling and flushing. In her eagerness she nearly fell