there. Like a woman, she weakened. She lay on the bed and writhed.
Doubt, hopelessness, despair, again seized upon her, and some
strange, yearning maddening emotion. What had she sacrificed? His
happiness and her own--and both their lives!

The clamor in the other cabin grew so boisterous that suddenly when
it stilled Joan was brought sharply to the significance of it. Again
she drew aside the curtain and peered out.

Gulden, huge, stolid, gloomy, was entering the cabin. The man fell
into the circle and faced Kell with the fire-light dancing in his
cavernous eyes.

"Hello, Gulden!" said Kells, coolly. "What ails you?"

"Anybody tell you about Bill Bailey?" asked Gulden, heavily.

Kells did not show the least concern. "Tell me what?"

"That he died in a cabin, down in the valley?"

Kells gave a slight start and his eyes narrowed and shot steely
glints. "No. It's news to me."

"Kells, you left Bailey for dead. But he lived. He was shot through,
but he got there somehow--nobody knows. He was far gone when Beady
Jones happened along. Before he died he sent word to me by Beady. ...
Are you curious to know what it was?"

"Not the least," replied Kells. "Bailey was--well, offensive to my