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Kells, bluntly.
    Then he helped her out of the saddle. She was stiff and awkward, and she let herself slide. Kells handled her gently and like a gentleman, and for Joan the first agonizing moment of her ordeal was past. Her intuition had guided her correctly. Kells might have been and probably was the most depraved of outcast men; but the presence of a girl like her, however it affected him, must also have brought up associations of a time when by family and breeding and habit he had been infinitely different. His action here, just like the ruffian Bill's, was instinctive, beyond his control. Just this slight thing, this frail link that joined Kells to his past and better life, immeasurably inspirited Joan and outlined the difficult game she had to play.
    "You're a very gallant robber," she said.
    He appeared not to hear that or to note it; he was eying her up and down; and he moved closer, perhaps to estimate her height compared to his own.
    "I didn't know you were so tall. You're above my shoulder."
    "Yes, I'm very lanky."
    "Lanky! Why you're not that. You've a splendid figure--tall, supple, strong; you're like a Nez Perce girl I knew once. ... You're a beautiful thing. Didn't you know that?"
    "Not particularly. My friends don't dare flatter me. I suppose I'll have to stand it from you. But I didn't expect compliments from Jack Kells of the Border Legion."
    "Border Legion? Where'd you hear that name?"
    "I didn't hear it. I made it up--thought of it myself."
    "Well, you've invented something I'll use. ... And what's your name-
    -your first name? I heard Roberts use it."
    Joan felt a cold contraction of all her internal being, but outwardly she never so much as nicked an eyelash. "My name's Joan."
    "Joan!" He placed heavy, compelling hands on her shoulders and turned her squarely toward him.
    Again she felt his gaze, strangely, like the reflection of sunlight from ice. She had to look at him. This was her supreme test. For hours she had prepared for it, steeled herself, wrought upon all that was sensitive in her; and now she prayed, and swiftly looked up into his eyes. They were windows of a gray hell. And she gazed into that naked abyss, at that dark, uncovered soul, with only the timid anxiety and fear and the unconsciousness of an innocent, ignorant girl.
    "Joan! You know why I brought you here?"
    "Yes, of course; you told me," she replied, steadily. "You want to ransom me for gold. ... And I'm afraid you'll have to take me home without getting any."
    "You know what I mean to do to you," he went on, thickly.
    "Do to me?" she echoed, and she never quivered a muscle. "You--you didn't say. ... I haven't thought. ... But you won't hurt me, will you? It's not my fault if there's no gold to ransom me."
    He shook her. His face changed, grew darker. "You KNOW what I mean."
    "I don't." With some show of spirit she essayed to slip out of his grasp. He held her the tighter.
    "How old are you?"
    It was only in her height and development that Joan looked anywhere near her age. Often she had been taken for a very young girl.
    "I'm seventeen," she replied. This was not the truth. It was a lie that did not falter on lips which had scorned falsehood.
    "Seventeen!" he ejaculated in amaze. "Honestly, now?"
    She lifted her chin scornfully and remained silent.
    "Well, I thought you were a woman. I took you to be twenty-five--at least twenty-two. Seventeen, with that shape! You're only a girl--a kid. You don't know anything."
    Then he released her, almost with violence, as if angered at her or himself, and he turned away to the horses. Joan walked toward the little cabin. The strain of that encounter left her weak, but once from under his eyes, certain that she had carried her point, she quickly regained her poise. There might be, probably would be, infinitely more trying ordeals for her to meet than this one had been; she realized, however, that never again would she be so near betrayal of terror and knowledge and self.
    The scene of her