"Say, Frenchy, you're no lady's man," declared Red Pearce, "an' you,
Bate, you're too old. Move--pass by--sashay!" Pearce, good-
naturedly, but deliberately, pushed the two men back.

"Shore she's Kells's lady, ain't she?" drawled Wood. "Ain't you all
forgettin' thet?"

"Kells is asleep or dead," replied Pearce, and he succeeded in
getting the field to himself.

"Where'd you meet Kells anyway?" he asked Joan, with his red face
bending near hers.

Joan had her part to play. It was difficult, because she divined
Pearce's curiosity held a trap to catch her in a falsehood. He knew--
they all knew she was not Kells's wife. But if she were a prisoner
she seemed a willing and contented one. The query that breathed in
Pearce's presence was how was he to reconcile the fact of her
submission with what he and his comrades had potently felt as her
goodness?

"That doesn't concern anybody," replied Joan.

"Reckon not," said Pearce. Then he leaned nearer with intense face.
"What I want to know--is Gulden right? Did you shoot Kells?"

In the dusk Joan reached back and clasped Kells hand.

For a man as weak and weary as he had been, it was remarkable how