removed from him. She looked away, and found her gaze returning,
fascinated, as if she were a bird and he a snake. The man was of
huge frame, a giant whose every move suggested the acme of physical
power. He was an animal--a gorilla with a shock of light instead of
black hair, of pale instead of black skin. His features might have
been hewn and hammered out with coarse, dull, broken chisels. And
upon his face, in the lines and cords, in the huge caverns where his
eyes hid, and in the huge gash that held strong, white fangs, had
been stamped by nature and by life a terrible ferocity. Here was a
man or a monster in whose presence Joan felt that she would rather
be dead. He did not smoke; he did not indulge in the coarse, good-
natured raillery, he sat there like a huge engine of destruction
that needed no rest, but was forced to rest because of weaker
attachments. On the other hand, he was not sullen or brooding. It
was that he did not seem to think.

Kells had been rapidly gaining strength since the extraction of the
bullet, and it was evident that his interest was growing
proportionately. He asked questions and received most of his replies
from Red Pearce. Joan did not listen attentively at first, but
presently she regretted that she had not. She gathered that Kells's
fame as the master bandit of the whole gold region of Idaho, Nevada,
and northeastern California was a fame that he loved as much as the
gold he stole. Joan sensed, through the replies of these men and
their attitude toward Kells, that his power was supreme. He ruled
the robbers and ruffians in his bands, and evidently they were
scattered from Bannack to Lewiston and all along the border. He had
power, likewise, over the border hawks not directly under his
leadership. During the weeks of his enforced stay in the canon there
had been a cessation of operations--the nature of which Joan merely