Kells dismounted and offered his hand.  Roberts took it and shook it constrainedly.

“Where did we meet last?” asked Kells.

“Reckon it was out of Fresno,” replied Roberts, and it was evident that he tried to hide the effect of a memory.

Then Kells touched his hat to Joan, giving her the fleetest kind of a glance.  “Rather off the track aren’t you?” he asked Roberts.

“Reckon we are,” replied Roberts, and he began to lose some of his restraint.  His voice sounded clearer and did not halt.  “Been trailin’ Miss Randle’s favorite hoss.  He’s lost.  An’ we got farther ’n we had any idee.  Then my hoss went lame.  ’Fraid we can’t start home to-night.”

“Where are you from?”

“Hoadley.  Bill Hoadley’s town, back thirty miles or so.”

“Well, Roberts, if you’ve no objection we’ll camp here with you,” continued Kells.  “We’ve got some fresh meat.”

With that he addressed a word to his comrades, and they repaired to a cedar-tree near-by, where they began to unsaddle and unpack.

Then Roberts, bending nearer Joan, as if intent on his own pack, began to whisper, hoarsely:  “That’s Jack Kells, the California road-agent.  He’s a gun fighter—­a hell-bent rattlesnake.  When I saw him last he had a rope round his neck an’ was bein’ led away to be hanged.  I heerd afterward he was rescued by pals.  Joan, if the idee comes into his head he’ll kill me.  I don’t know what to do.  For God’s sake think of somethin’! ...  Use your woman’s wits! ...  We couldn’t be in a wuss fix!”

Joan felt rather unsteady on her feet, so that it was a relief to sit down.  She was cold and sick inwardly, almost stunned.  Some great peril menaced her.  Men like Roberts did not talk that way without cause.  She was brave; she was not unused to danger.  But this must be a different kind, compared with which all she had experienced was but insignificant.  She could not grasp Roberts’s intimation.  Why should he be killed?  They had no gold, no valuables.  Even their horses were nothing to inspire robbery.  It must be that there was peril to Roberts and to her because she was a girl, caught out in the wilds, easy prey for beasts of evil men.  She had heard of such things happening.  Still, she could not believe it possible for her.  Roberts could protect her.  Then this amiable, well-spoken Kells, he was no Western rough—­he spoke like an educated man; surely he would not harm her.  So her mind revolved round fears, conjectures, possibilities; she could not find her wits.  She could not think how to meet the situation, even had she divined what the situation was to be.

While she sat there in the shade of a cedar the men busied themselves with camp duties.  None of them appeared to pay any attention to Joan.  They talked while they worked, as any other group of campers might have talked, and jested and laughed.  Kells made a fire, and carried water, then broke cedar boughs for later camp-fire use; one of the strangers whom they called Bill hobbled the horses; the other unrolled the pack, spread a tarpaulin, and emptied the greasy sacks; Roberts made biscuit dough for the oven.