Next morning at breakfast he was himself again, and if he had any
knowledge whatever of his actions while he was drunk, he effectually
concealed it from Joan.
Later, when Joan went outside to take her usual morning exercise,
she was interested to see a rider tearing up the slope on a foam-
flecked horse. Men shouted at him from the cabins and then followed
without hats or coats. Bate Wood dropped Joan's saddle and called to
Kells. The bandit came hurriedly out.
"Blicky!" he exclaimed, and then he swore under his breath in
elation.
"Shore is Blicky!" said Wood, and his unusually mild eyes snapped
with a glint unpleasant for Joan to see.
The arrival of this Blicky appeared to be occasion for excitement
and Joan recalled the name as belonging to one of Kells's trusted
men. He swung his leg and leaped from his saddle as the horse
plunged to a halt. Blicky was a lean, bronzed young man, scarcely
out of his teens, but there were years of hard life in his face. He
slapped the dust in little puffs from his gloves. At sight of Kells
he threw the gloves aloft and took no note of them when they fell.
"STRIKE!" he called, piercingly.
"No!" ejaculated Kells, intensely.
Bate Wood let out a whoop which was answered by the men hurrying up
the slope.
"Been on--for weeks!" panted Blicky. "It's big. Can't tell how big.
Me an' Jesse Smith an' Handy Oliver hit a new road--over here fifty
miles as a crow flies--a hundred by trail. We was plumb surprised.
An' when we met pack-trains an' riders an' prairie-schooners an' a
stage-coach we knew there was doin's over in the Bear Mountain
range. When we came to the edge of the diggin's an' seen a whalin'
big camp--like a beehive--Jesse an' Handy went on to get the lay of
the land an' I hit the trail back to you. I've been a-comin' on an'
off since before sundown yesterday. ... Jesse gave one look an' then
hollered. He said, 'Tell Jack it's big an' he wants to plan big.
We'll be back there in a day or so with all details.'"
Joan watched Kells intently while he listened to this breathless
narrative of a gold strike, and she was repelled by the singular
flash of brightness--a radiance--that seemed to be in his eyes and
on his face. He did not say a word, but his men shouted hoarsely
around Blicky. He walked a few paces to and fro with hands strongly
clenched, his lips slightly parted, showing teeth close-shut like
those of a mastiff. He looked eager, passionate, cunning, hard as
steel, and that strange brightness of elation slowly shaded to a
dark, brooding menace. Suddenly he wheeled to silence the noisy men.