_CHAPTER SIX_
When he arrived at the hotel Ben Connor found the following telegramawaiting him:
Lady Fay in with ninety-eight Trickster did mile and furlong in one fifty-four with one hundred twenty Caledonian stale mile in one thirty-nine Billy Jones looks good track fast.
HARRY SLOCUM.
That message blotted all other thoughts from the mind of Connor. Fromhis traveling bag he brought out a portfolio full of wrinkled papers andpamphlets crowded with lists of names and figures; there followed a timeof close work. Page after page of calculations scribbled with a softpencil and in a large, sprawling hand, were torn from a pad, flutteredthrough the air and lay where they fell. When the hour was ended hepushed away the pamphlets of "dope" and picked up his notes. After thathe sat in deep thought and drove puff after puff of cigarette-smoke atthe ceiling.
As his brown study progressed, he began crumpling the slips in his moistfingers until only two remained. These he balanced on his finger-tips asthough their weight might speak to his finely attuned nerves. At length,one hand closed slowly over the paper it held and crushed it to a ball.He flicked this away with his thumb and rose. On the remaining paper waswritten "Trickster." Connor had made his choice.
That done, his expression softened as men relax after a day of mentalstrain and he loitered down the stairs and into the street. Passingthrough the lobby he heard the voice of Jack Townsend raised obviouslyto attract his attention.
"There he goes now. And nothing but the weight kept him from bettin' onthe gray."
Connor heard sounds, not words, for his mind was already far away in aclub house, waiting for the "ponies" to file past. On the way to thetelegraph office he saw neither street nor building nor face, until hehad written on one of the yellow blanks, "A thousand on Trickster," andaddressed it to Harry Slocum. Not until he shoved the telegram acrossthe counter did he see Ruth Manning.
She was half-turned from the key, but her head was canted toward thechattering sounder with a blank, inward look.
"Do you hear?" she cried happily. "Bjornsen is back!"
"Who?" asked Connor.
"Sveynrod Bjornsen. Lost three men out of eight, but he got within ahundred and fifty miles of the pole. Found new land, too."
"Lucky devil, eh?"
But the girl frowned at him.
"Lucky, nothing! Bjornsen is a fighter; he lost his father and his olderbrother up there three years ago and then he went back to make up fortheir deaths. Luck?"
Connor, wondering, nodded. "Slipped my mind, that story of Bjornsen. Anyother news?"
She made a little gesture, palms up, as though she gathered somethingfrom the air.
"News? The old wire has been pouring it at me all morning. HenryLevateur went up thirty-two thousand feet yesterday and the Admiral Barrwas launched."
Connor kept fairly abreast of the times, but now he was at sea.
"That's the new liner, isn't it?"
"Thirty thousand tons of liner at that. She took the water like a duck.Well, that's the stuff for Uncle Sam to give them; a few more like theAdmiral Barr and we'll have the old colors in every port that callsitself a town. Europe will have to wake up."
She counted the telegram with a sweep of her pencil and flipped thechange to Connor out of the coin-box. The rattle of the sounder meantnew things to Connor; the edges of the world crowded close, for when thenoise stopped, in the thick silence he watched her features relax andthe light go out of her eyes. It enabled him to glance into her life inLukin, with only the chattering wire for a companion. A moment beforeshe had been radiant--now she was a tired girl with purple shadowsbeneath her eyes making them look ghostly large.
"Oh, Bobby," she called. A tall youth came out of an inner room. "Takethe key, please; I'm going out for lunch."
"Come to the hotel with me," suggested Connor.
"Lunch at Townsend's?" She laughed with a touch of excitement. "That's atreat."
Already she gained color and her eyes brightened. She was like a motor,Connor decided, nothing in itself, but responding to every electriccurrent.
"This lunch is on me, by the way," she added.
"Why is that?"
"Because I like to pay on my winning days. I cashed in on the Indian'shorse this morning."
In Connor's own parlance--it brought him up standing.
"_You_ bet on it? You know horse-flesh, then. I like the little fellow,but the weight stopped me."
He smiled at her with a new friendliness.
"Don't pin any flowers on me," she answered. "Oh, I know enough abouthorses to look at their hocks and see how they stand; and I don'tsuppose I'd buy in on a pony that points the toe of a fore-foot--but I'mno judge. I bet on the gray because I know the blood."
She had stopped at the door of the hotel and she did not see the changein Connor's face as they entered.
"Queer thing about horses," she continued. "They show their strain,though the finest man that ever stepped might have a son that's aquitter. Not that way with horses. Why, any scrubby pinto that has adrop of Eden Gray blood in him will run till his heart breaks. You canbet on that."
Lunch at Townsend's, Connor saw, must be the fashionable thing in Lukin.The "masses" of those who came to town for the day ate at thelunch-counters in the old saloons while the select went to the hotel.Mrs. Townsend, billowing about the room in a dress of blue with whitepolka-dots, when she was not making hurried trips into the kitchen, castone glance of approval at Ben Connor and another of surprise at thegirl. Other glances followed, for the room was fairly well filled, and awhisper went trailing about them, before and behind.
It was easy to see that Ruth Manning was being accused of "scraping"acquaintance with the stranger, but she bore up beautifully, and Connorgauging her with an accurate eye, admired and wondered where she hadlearned. Yet when they found a table and he drew out a chair for her, hecould tell from the manner in which she lowered herself into it that shewas not used to being seated. That observation gave him a feeling ofpower over her.
"You liked the gray, too?" she was saying, as he took his place.
"I lost a hundred betting against him," said the gambler quietly. "Ihope you made a killing."
He saw by the slight widening of her eyes that a hundred dollars was agood deal of money to her; and she flushed as she answered:
"I got down a bet with Jud Alison; it was only five dollars, but I hadodds of ten to one. Fifty dollars looks pretty big to me," she added,and he liked her frankness.
"But does everybody know about these grays?"
"Not so many. They only come from one outfit, you see. Dad knew horses,and he told me an Eden Gray was worth any man's money. Poor Dad!"
Connor watched her eyes turn dark and dull, but he tossed sympathy asideand stepped forward in the business.
"I've been interested since I saw that little streak of gray shoot overthe finish. Eighteen years old. Did you know that?"
"Really? Well, Dad said an Eden Gray was good to twenty-five."
"What else did he say?"
"He didn't know a great deal about them, after all, but he said that nowand then a deaf and dumb Negro comes. He's a regular giant. Whenever hemeets a man he gets off the horse and puts a paper into the hand of theother. On the paper it says: Fifty dollars in gold coin! Always that."
It was like a fairy tale to Connor.
"Jude Harper of Collinsville met him once. He had only ten dollars ingold, but he had three hundred in paper. He offered the whole threehundred and ten to the deaf-mute but he only shook his head."
"How often does he come out of the valley?"
"Once a year--once in two years--nobody knows how often. Of course itdoesn't take him long to find a man who'll buy a horse like one of thegrays for fifty dollars. The minute the horse is sold he turns aroundand starts walking back. Pete Ricks tried to follow him. He turned backon Pete, jumped on him from behind a rock, and jerked him off his horse.Then he got him by the hair and bent his head back. P
ete says heexpected to have his neck broken--he was like a child in the arms ofthat giant. But it seemed that the mute was only telling him indeaf-and-dumb talk that he mustn't follow. After he'd frightened thelife out of Pete the big mute went away again, and Pete came home asfast as his horse could carry him."
Connor swallowed. "Where do they get the name Eden Gray?"
"I don't know. Dad said that three things were true about every gray.It's always a gelding; it's always one price, and it always has a flaw.I looked the one over that ran to-day and couldn't see anything wrong,though."
"Cow-hocked," said Connor, breathing hard. "Go on!"
"Dad made up his mind that the reason they didn't sell more horses wasbecause the owner only sold to weed out his stock."
"Wait," said Connor, tapping on the table to make his point. "Do Igather that the only Eden Grays that are sold are the poorest of thelot?"
"That was Dad's idea."
"Go on," said Connor.
"You're excited?"
But he answered quickly: "Well, one of those grays beat me out of ahundred dollars. I can't help being interested."
He detached his watch-charm from its catch and began to finger itcarelessly; it was the head of an ape carved in ivory yellowed with age.
The girl watched, fascinated, but she made no mention of it, for the jawof the gambler was set in a hard line, and she felt, subconsciously, awidening distance between them.
"Does the deaf-mute own the horses?" he was asking.
"I suppose so."
"This sounds like a regular catechism, doesn't it?"
"I don't mind. Come to think of it, everything about the grays is queer.Well, I've never seen this man, but do you know what I think? That helives off there in the mountains by himself because he's a sort ofreligious fanatic."
"Religion? Crazy, maybe."
"Maybe."
"What's his religion?"
"I don't know," said the girl coldly. "After you jerk lightning for awhile, you aren't interested much in religion."
He nodded, not quite sure of her position, but now her face darkened andshe went on, gathering interest in the subject.
"Oh, I've heard 'em rave about the God that made the earth and the starsand all that stuff; the mountains, too. I've heard 'em die asking formercy and praising God. That's the way Dad went. It was drink that gothim. But I'm for facts only. Far as I can see, when people come upagainst a thing they can't understand they just close their eyes andsay, God! And when they're due to die, sometimes they're afraid and theysay, God--because they think they're going out like a snuffed lanternand never will be lighted again."
The gambler sat with his chin buried in his palm, and from beneath aheavy frown he studied the girl.
"I don't hold malice more than the next one," said the girl, "but I sawDad; and I've been sick of religion ever since. Besides, how do youexplain the rotten things that happen in the world? Look at yesterday!The King of the Sea goes down with all on board. Were they all crooks?Were they all ready to die? They can tell me about God, but I say, 'Giveme the proofs!'"
She looked at Connor defiantly. "There's just one thing I believe in,"she said, "that's luck!"
He did not stir, but still studied her, and she flushed under thescrutiny.
"Not that I've had enough luck to make me fond of it. I've been stuck uphere on the edge of the world all my life. And how I've wanted to getaway! How I've wanted it! I've begged for a chance--to cut out the work.If it doesn't make callouses on a girl's hands it will make them on herheart. I've been waiting all my life for a chance, and the chance hasnever come." Something flared in her.
"Sometimes I think," she whispered, "that I can't stand it! That I'd doanything! Anything--just to get away."
She stopped, and as her passion ebbed she was afraid she had said toomuch.
"Shake," he said, stretching his hand across the table, "I'm with you.Luck! That's all there is running things!"
His fingers closed hard over hers and she winced, for he had forgottento remove the ivory image from his hand, and the ape-head cut into herflesh.