Zane Grey (38 page)

The wonder of Joan's home-coming was in learning that Uncle Bill Hoadley
was indeed Overland, the discoverer of Alder Creek. Years and years of
profitless toil had at last been rewarded in this rich gold strike.

Joan hated to think of gold. She had wanted to leave the gold back in
Cabin Gulch, and she would have done so had Jim permitted it. And to
think that all that gold which was not Jim Cleve's belonged to her
uncle! She could not believe it.

Fatal and terrible forever to Joan would be the significance of gold.
Did any woman in the world or any man know the meaning of gold as well
as she knew it? How strange and enlightening and terrible had been her
experience! She had grown now not to blame any man, honest miner or
bloody bandit. She blamed only gold. She doubted its value. She could
not see it a blessing. She absolutely knew its driving power to change
the souls of men. Could she ever forget that vast ant-hill of toiling
diggers and washers, blind and deaf and dumb to all save gold?

Always limned in figures of fire against the black memory would be
the forms of those wild and violent bandits! Gulden, the monster, the
gorilla, the cannibal! Horrible as was the memory of him, there was
no horror in thought of his terrible death. That seemed to be the one
memory that did not hurt.

But Kells was indestructible—he lived in her mind. Safe out of the
border now and at home, she could look back clearly. Still all was
not clear and never would be. She saw Kells the ruthless bandit, the
organizer, the planner, and the blood-spiller. He ought have no place in
a good woman's memory. Yet he had. She never condoned one of his deeds
or even his intentions. She knew her intelligence was not broad enough
to grasp the vastness of his guilt. She believed he must have been the
worst and most terrible character on that wild border. That border had
developed him. It had produced the time and the place and the man. And
therein lay the mystery. For over against this bandit's weakness and
evil she could contrast strength and nobility. She alone had known the
real man in all the strange phases of his nature, and the darkness of
his crime faded out of her mind. She suffered remorse—almost regret.
Yet what could she have done? There had been no help for that impossible
situation as, there was now no help for her in a right and just placing
of Kells among men. He had stolen her—wantonly murdering for the
sake of lonely, fruitless hours with her; he had loved her—and he had
changed; he had gambled away her soul and life—a last and terrible
proof of the evil power of gold; and in the end he had saved her—he
had gone from her white, radiant, cool, with strange, pale eyes and
his amiable, mocking smile, and all the ruthless force of his life had
expended itself in one last magnificent stand. If only he had known her
at the end—when she lifted his head! But no—there had been only the
fading light—the strange, weird look of a retreating soul, already
alone forever.

A rustling of leaves, a step thrilled Joan out of her meditation.

Suddenly she was seized from behind, and Jim Cleve showed that though
he might be a joyous and grateful lover, he certainly would never be
an actor. For if he desired to live over again that fatal meeting and
quarrel which had sent them out to the border, he failed utterly in his
part. There was possession in the gentle grasp of his arms and bliss in
the trembling of his lips.

"Jim, you never did it that way!" laughed Joan. "If you had—do you
think I could ever have been furious?"

Jim in turn laughed happily. "Joan, that's exactly the way I stole upon
you and mauled you!".

"You think so! Well, I happen to remember. Now you sit here and make
believe you are Joan. And let me be Jim Cleve!... I'll show you!"

Joan stole away in the darkness, and noiselessly as a shadow she stole
back—to enact that violent scene as it lived in her memory.

Jim was breathless, speechless, choked.

"That's how you treated me," she said.

"I—I don't believe I could have—been such a—a bear!" panted Jim.

"But you were. And consider—I've not half your strength."

"Then all I say is—you did right to drive me off.... Only you should
never have trailed me out to the border."

"Ah!... But, Jim, in my fury I discovered my love!"