Kells was buckling on his spurs. “You heard?” he said, the moment he saw Jim's face.
“Yes,” replied Jim.
“So much the better. We've got to rustle.... Joan, put on that long coat of Cleve's. Take off your mask.... Jim, get what gold you have, and hurry. If we're gone when you come back hurry down the road. I want you with me.”
Cleve stalked out, and Joan ran into her room and put on the long coat. She had little time to choose what possessions she could take; and that choice fell upon the little saddle-bag, into which she hurriedly stuffed comb and brush and soap—all it would hold. Then she returned to the larger room.
Kells had lifted a plank of the floor, and was now in the act of putting small buckskin sacks of gold into his pockets. They made his coat bulge at the sides.
“Joan, stick some meat and biscuits in your pockets,” he said. “I'd never get hungry with my pockets full of gold. But you might.”
Joan rummaged around in Bate Wood's rude cupboard.
“These biscuits are as heavy as gold—and harder,” she said.
Kells flashed a glance at her that held pride, admiration, and sadness. “You are the gamest girl I ever knew! I wish I'd—But that's too late!... Joan, if anything happens to me stick close to Cleve. I believe you can trust him. Come on now.”
Then he strode out of the cabin. Joan had almost to run to keep up with him. There were no other men now in sight. She knew that Jim would follow soon, because his gold-dust was hidden in the cavern back of her room, and he would not need much time to get it. Nevertheless, she anxiously looked back. She and Kells had gone perhaps a couple of hundred yards before Jim appeared, and then he came on the run. At a point about opposite the first tents he joined Kells.