“Sir, I want to be married at once,” declared Kells, peremptorily.
“Certainly. I'm at your service,” replied the preacher. “But I deplore the—the manner in which I've been approached.”
“You'll excuse haste,” rejoined the bandit. “I'll pay you well.” Kells threw a small buckskin sack of gold-dust upon the table, and then he turned to Joan. “Come, Joan,” he said, in the tone that brooked neither resistance nor delay.
It was at that moment that the preacher first noticed Joan. Was her costume accountable for his start? Joan had remembered his voice and she wondered if he would remember hers. Certainly Jim had called her Joan more than once on the night of the marriage. The preacher's eyes grew keener. He glanced from Joan to Kells, and then at the other men, who had come in. Jim Cleve stood behind Jesse Smith's broad person, and evidently the preacher did not see him. That curious gaze, however, next discovered the dead man on the floor. Then to the curiosity and anxiety upon the preacher's face was added horror.
“A minister of God is needed here, but not in the capacity you name,” he said. “I'll perform no marriage ceremony in the presence of—murder.”
“Mr. Preacher, you'll marry me quick or you'll go along with him,” replied Kells, deliberately.
“I cannot be forced.” The preacher still maintained some dignity, but he had grown pale.
“I can force you. Get ready now!... Joan, come here!”
Kells spoke sternly, yet something of the old, self-mocking spirit was in his tone. His intelligence was deriding the flesh and blood of him, the beast, the fool. It spoke that he would have his way and that the choice was fatal for him.
Joan shook her head. In one stride Kells reached her and swung her spinning before him. The physical violence acted strangely upon Joan—roused her rage.