to the sill of the window-opening, and dropped inside the room.
“Say–Jessie,” he breathed hotly. “You’re–you’re fine.”
His words were almost involuntary. It was as though they were a mere verbal expression of what was passing through his mind, and made without thought of addressing her. He was almost powerless in his self-control before her beauty. And Jessie’s conscience in its weakly life could not hold out before the ardor of his assault. Her eyelids lowered. She stood waiting, and in a moment the bold invader held her crushed in his arms.
She lay passive, yielding to his caresses for some moments. Then of a sudden she stirred restlessly. She struggled weakly to free herself. Then, as his torrential kisses continued, sweeping her lips, her eyes, her cheeks, her hair, something like fear took hold of her. Her struggles suddenly became real, and at last she stood back panting, but with her young heart mutely stirred to a passionate response.
Nor was it difficult, as they stood thus, to understand how nature rose dominant over all that belonged to the higher spiritual side of the woman. The wonderful virility in her demanded life in the full flood of its tide, and here, standing before her, was the embodiment of all her natural, if baser, ideals.
The man was a handsome, picturesque creature bred on lines of the purer strains. He had little enough about him of the rough camp in which she lived. He brought with him an atmosphere of cities, an atmosphere she yearned for. It was in his dress, in his speech, in the bold daring of his handsome eyes. She saw in his face the high breeding of an ancient lineage. There was such a refinement in the delicate chiseling of his well-molded features. His brows were widely expressive of a strong intellect. His nose possessed that wonderful aquilinity associated with the highest type of Indian. His cheeks were smooth, and of a delicacy which threw into relief the perfect model of the frame beneath them. His clean-shaven mouth and chin suggested all that which a woman most desires to behold in a man. His figure was tall and muscular, straight-limbed and spare; while in his glowing eyes shone an irresistible courage, a fire of passion, and such a purpose as few women could withstand. And so the wife of Scipio admitted her defeat and yielded the play of all her puny arts, that she might appear sightly in his eyes.
But she only saw him as he wished her to see him. He showed her the outward man. The inner man was something not yet for her to probe. He was one of Nature’s anachronisms. She had covered a spirit which was of the hideous stock from which he sprang with a gilding of superlative manhood.
His name was James, a name which, in years long past, the Western world of America had learned to hate with a bitterness rarely equaled. But all that was almost forgotten, and this man, by reason of his manner, which was genial, open-handed, even somewhat magnificent, rarely failed, at first, to obtain the good-will of those with whom he came into contact.
It was nearly nine months since he first appeared on Suffering Creek. Apparently he had just drifted there in much the same way that most of the miners had drifted, possibly drawn thither out of curiosity at the reports of the gold strike. So unobtrusive had been his coming that even in that small community he at first passed almost unobserved. Yet he was full of interest in the place, and contrived to learn much of its affairs and prospects. Having acquired all the information he desired, he suddenly set out to make himself popular. And his popularity was brought about by a free-handed dispensation of a liberal supply of money. Furthermore, he became a prominent devotee at the poker table in Minky’s store, and, by reason of the fact that he usually lost, as most men did who joined in a game in which Wild Bill was taking a hand, his popularity increased rapidly, and the simple-minded diggers dubbed him with the dazzling sobriquet of “Lord James.”
It was during this time that he made the acquaintance of Jessie and her husband, and it was astonishing how swiftly his friendship for the unsuspicious little man ripened.
This first visit lasted just three weeks. Then, without warning, and in the same unobtrusive way as he had come, he vanished from the scene. For the moment Suffering Creek wondered; then, as is the way of such places, it ceased to wonder. It was too busy with its own affairs to concern itself to any great extent with the flotsam that drifted its way. Scipio wondered a little more than the rest, but his twins and his labors occupied him so closely that he, too, dismissed the matter from his mind. As for Jessie, she said not a word, and gave no sign except that her discontent with her lot became more pronounced.
But Suffering Creek was not done with James yet. The next time he came was nearly a month later, just as the monthly gold stage was preparing for the road, carrying with it a shipment of gold-dust bound for Spawn City, the nearest banking town, eighty miles distant.
He at once took up his old position in the place, stayed two weeks, staked out a claim for himself, and pursued his intimacy with Scipio and his wife with redoubled ardor.
Before those two weeks were over somehow his popularity began to wane. This intimacy with Scipio began to carry an ill-flavor with the men of the place. Somehow it did not ring pleasantly. Besides, he showed a fresh side to his character. He drank heavily, and when under the influence of spirits abandoned his well-polished manners, and displayed a coarseness, a savage truculence, such as he had been careful never to show before. Then, too, his claim remained unworked.
The change in public opinion was subtle, and no one spoke of it. But there was no regret when, finally, he vanished again from their midst in the same quiet manner in which he had gone before.
Then came the catastrophe. Two weeks later a gold stage set out on its monthly journey. Sixty miles out it was held up and plundered. Its two guards were shot dead, and the driver mortally wounded. But fortunately the latter lived long enough to tell his story. He had been attacked by a gang of eight well-armed horsemen. They were all masked, and got clear away with nearly thirty thousand dollars’ worth of gold.
In the first rush of despairing rage Suffering Creek was unable to even surmise at the identity of the authors of the outrage. Then Wild Bill, the gambler, demanded an accounting for every man of the camp on the day of the tragedy. In a very short time this was done, and the process turned attention upon Lord James. Where was he? The question remained unanswered. Suspicions grew into swift conviction. Men asked each other who he was, and whence he came. There was no answer to any of their inquiries at first. Then, suddenly, news came to hand that the gang, no longer troubling at concealment, was riding roughshod over the country. It was a return to the régime of the “bad man,” and stock-raiding and “hold-ups,” of greater or less degree, were being carried on in many directions with absolute impunity; and the man James was at the head of it.
It was a rude awakening. All the old peace and security were gone. The camp was in a state of ferment. Every stranger that came to the place was eyed askance, and unless he could give a satisfactory account of himself he had a poor chance with the furious citizens. The future dispatch of gold became a problem that exercised every mind, and for two months none left the place. And this fact brought about a further anxiety. The gang of robbers was a large one. Was it possible they might attempt a raid on the place? And, if so, what were their chances of success?
Such was the position at Suffering Creek, and the nature of the threat which hung over it. One man’s name was in everybody’s mind. His personality and doings concerned them almost as nearly as their search for the elusive gold which was as the breath of life to them.
And yet Lord James was in no way deterred from visiting the neighborhood. He knew well enough the position he was in. He knew well enough all its possibilities. Yet he came again and again. His visits were paid in daylight, carefully calculated, even surreptitiously made. He sought the place secretly, but he came, careless of all consequences to himself. His contempt for the men of Suffering Creek was profound and unaffected. He probably feared no man.
And the reason of his visits was not far to seek. There was something infinitely more alluring to him at the house on the
