captivity, or torture, or death--the worst fate that could befall a
woman.

The reality of it now was so astounding. True--as true as those
stories she had deemed impossible! Because she and her people and
friends had appeared secure in their mountain camp and happy in
their work and trustful of good, they had scarcely credited the
rumors of just such things as had happened to her. The stage held up
by roadagents, a lonely prospector murdered and robbed, fights in
the saloons and on the trails, and useless pursuit of hardriding men
out there on the border, elusive as Arabs, swift as Apaches--these
facts had been terrible enough, without the dread of worse. The
truth of her capture, the meaning of it, were raw, shocking spurs to
Joan Randle's intelligence and courage. Since she still lived, which
was strange indeed in the illuminating light of her later insight
into Kells and his kind, she had to meet him with all that was
catlike and subtle and devilish at the command of a woman. She had
to win him, foil him, kill him--or go to her death. She was no girl
to be dragged into the mountain fastness by a desperado and made a
plaything. Her horror and terror had worked its way deep into the
depths of her and uncovered powers never suspected, never before
required in her scheme of life. She had no longer any fear. She
matched herself against this man. She anticipated him. And she felt
like a woman who had lately been a thoughtless girl, who, in turn,
had dreamed of vague old happenings of a past before she was born,
of impossible adventures in her own future. Hate and wrath and
outraged womanhood were not wholly the secret of Joan Randle's
flaming spirit.