Joan trembled. The man, in an instant, seemed transformed, somber as
death. She could not look at him, but she must keep on talking.

"Bad? You don't seem bad to me--only violent, perhaps, or wild. ...
Tell me about yourself."

She had stirred him. His neglected pipe fell from his hand. In the
gloom of the camp-fire he must have seen faces or ghosts of his
past.

"Why not?" he queried, strangely. "Why not do what's been impossible
for years--open my lips? It'll not matter--to a girl who can never
tell! ... Have I forgotten? God!--I have not! Listen, so that you'll
KNOW I'm bad. My name's not Kells. I was born in the East, and went
to school there till I ran away. I was young, ambitious, wild. I
stole. I ran away--came West in 'fifty-one to the gold-fields in
California. There I became a prospector, miner, gambler, robber--and
road-agent. I had evil in me, as all men have, and those wild years
brought it out. I had no chance. Evil and gold and blood--they are
one and the same thing. I committed every crime till no place, bad
as it might be, was safe for me. Driven and hunted and shot and
starved--almost hanged! ... And now I'm--Kells! of that outcast crew
you named 'the Border Legion!' Every black crime but one--the
blackest--and that haunting me, itching my hands to-night."

"Oh, you speak so--so dreadfully!" cried Joan. "What can I say? I'm
sorry for you. I don't believe it all. What--what black crime haunts
you? Oh! what could be possible tonight--here in this lonely canon--
with only me?"