“Yes.”
“WHO?” he bellowed.
“I'll never tell.”
He reached for her with hands like claws, as if he meant to tear her, rend her. Joan was helpless, weak, terrified. Those shaking, clutching hands reached for her throat and yet never closed round it. Kells wanted to kill her, but he could not. He loomed over her, dark, speechless, locked in his paroxysm of rage. Perhaps then came a realization of ruin through her. He hated her because he loved her. He wanted to kill her because of that hate, yet he could not harm her, even hurt her. And his soul seemed in conflict with two giants—the evil in him that was hate, and the love that was good. Suddenly he flung her aside. She stumbled over Pearce's body, almost falling, and staggered back to the wall. Kells had the center of the room to himself. Like a mad steer in a corral he gazed about, stupidly seeking some way to escape. But the escape Kells longed for was from himself. Then either he let himself go or was unable longer to control his rage. He began to plunge around. His actions were violent, random, half insane. He seemed to want to destroy himself and everything. But the weapons were guarded by his men and the room contained little he could smash. There was something magnificent in his fury, yet childish and absurd. Even under its influence and his abandonment he showed a consciousness of its futility. In a few moments the inside of the cabin was in disorder and Kells seemed a disheveled, sweating, panting wretch. The rapidity and violence of his action, coupled with his fury, soon exhausted him. He fell from plunging here and there to pacing the floor. And even the dignity of passion passed from him. He looked a hopeless, beaten, stricken man, conscious of defeat.
Jesse Smith approached the bandit leader. “Jack, here's your gun,” he said. “I only took it because you was out of your head.... An' listen, boss. There's a few of us left.”
That was Smith's expression of fidelity, and Kells received it with a pallid, grateful smile.
“Bate, you an' Jim clean up this mess,” went on Smith. “An', Blicky, come here an' help me with Pearce. We'll have to plant him.”
The stir begun by the men was broken by a sharp exclamation from Cleve.
“Kells, here comes Gulden—Beady Jones, Williams, Beard!”
The bandit raised his head and paced back to where he could look out.