save Jim Cleve from the ruin she had wrought.

Since this wild experience of Joan's had begun she had been sick so
many times with raw and naked emotions hitherto unknown to her, that
she believed she could not feel another new fear or torture. But
these strange sensations grew by what they had been fed upon.

The man called Frenchy, was audacious, persistent, smiling, amorous-
eyed, and rudely gallant. He cared no more for his companions than
if they had not been there. He vied with Pearce in his attention,
and the two of them discomfited the others. The situation might have
been amusing had it not been so terrible. Always the portent was a
shadow behind their interest and amiability and jealousy. Except for
that one abrupt and sinister move of Gulden's--that of a natural man
beyond deceit--there was no word, no look, no act at which Joan
could have been offended. They were joking, sarcastic, ironical, and
sullen in their relation to each other; but to Joan each one
presented what was naturally or what he considered his kindest and
most friendly front. A young and attractive woman had dropped into
the camp of lonely wild men; and in their wild hearts was a rebirth
of egotism, vanity, hunger for notice. They seemed as foolish as a
lot of cock grouse preening themselves and parading before a single
female. Surely in some heart was born real brotherhood for a
helpless girl in peril. Inevitably in some of them would burst a
flame of passion as it had in Kells.

Between this amiable contest for Joan's glances and replies, with
its possibility of latent good to her, and the dark, lurking,
unspoken meaning, such as lay in Gulden's brooding, Joan found
another new and sickening torture.