She was trembling with his excitement.
"I see. It"s the sure thing you were talking about. The horse that can"t be beat--that makes the betting safe?"
But Connor grew gloomy at once.
"What do you mean by sure thing? If I could ever get her safely away from the post in a stake race, yes; sure as anything on earth. But suppose the train is wrecked? Suppose she puts a foot in a hole? Suppose at the post some rotten, cheap-selling plater kicks her and lays her up!"
He pa.s.sed a trembling hand along the neck of Shakra.
"G.o.d, suppose!"
"But you only brought one; nothing else worth while in the valley?"
"Nothing else? I tell you, the place is full of "em! And there"s a stallion as much finer than Shakra as she"s finer than that broken-down, low-headed, ewe-necked, straight-shouldered, roach-backed skate you have out yonder!"
"Mr. Connor, that"s the best little pony in Lukin! But I know--compared with this--oh, to see her run, just once!"
She sighed, and as her glance fell Connor noted her pallor and her weariness. She looked up again, and the great eyes filled her face with loveliness. Color, too, came into her cheeks and into her parted lips.
"You beauty!" she murmured. "You perfect, perfect beauty!"
Shakra was nervous under the fluttering hands, but in spite of her uneasiness she seemed to enjoy the light-falling touches until the finger-tips trailed across her forehead; then she tossed her head high, and the girl stood beneath, laughing, delighted. Connor found himself smiling in sympathy. The two made a harmonious picture. As harmonious, say, as the strength of Glani and the strength of David Eden. His face grew tense with it when he drew the girl away.
"Would you like to have a horse like that--half a dozen like it?"
The first leap of hope was followed by a wan smile at this cruel mockery.
He went on with brutal tenseness, jabbing the points at her with his raised finger.
"And everything else you"ve ever wanted: beautiful clothes? Manhattan? A limousine as big as a house. A butler behind your chair and a maid in your dressing room? A picture in the papers every time you turn around?
You want "em?"
"Do I want heaven?"
"How much will you pay?"
He urged it on her, towering over her as he drew close.
"What"s it worth? Is it worth a fight?"
"It"s worth--everything."
"I"m talking shop. I"m talking business. Will you play partners with me?"
"To the very end."
"The big deaf-mute doesn"t own the grays in that valley they call the Garden of Eden. They"re owned by a white man. They call him David Eden.
And David Eden has never been out in the world. It"s part of his creed not to. It"s part of his creed, however, to go out just once, find a woman for his wife, and bring her back with him. Is that clear?"
"I--"
"You"re to go up there. That old gray gelding we saw in Lukin the day of the race. I"ll finance you to the sky. Ride it to the gates of the Garden of Eden. Tell the guards that you"ve got to have another horse because the one you own is old. Insist on seeing David. Smile at "em; win "em over. Make them let you see David. And the minute you see him, he"s ours! You understand? I don"t mean marriage. One smile will knock him stiff. Then play him. Get him to follow you out of the valley. Tell him you have to go back home. He"ll follow you. Once we have him outside you can keep him from going back and you can make him bring out his horses, too. Easy? It"s a sure thing! We don"t rob him, you see? We simply use his horses. I race them and play them. I split the winnings with you and David. Millions, I tell you; millions. Don"t answer. Gimme a chance to talk!"
There was a rickety old box leaning against the wall; he made her sit on it, and dropping upon one knee, he poured out plan, reason, hopes, ambitions in fierce confusion. It ended logically enough. David was under what he considered a divine order to marry, and he would be clay in the hands of the first girl who met him. She would be a fool indeed if she were not able to lead him out of the valley.
"Think it over for one minute before you answer," concluded Connor, and then rose and folded his arms. He controlled his very breathing for fear of breaking in on the dream which he saw forming in her eyes.
Then she shook herself clear of the temptation.
"Ben, it"s crooked! I"m to lie to him--live a lie until we have what we want!"
"G.o.d A"mighty, girl! Don"t you see that we"d be doing the poor fathead a good turn by getting him out of his hermitage and letting him live in the world? A lie? Call it that if you want. Aren"t there such things as white lies? If there are, this is one of "em or I"m not Ben Connor."
His voice softened. "Why, Ruth, you know d.a.m.ned well that I wouldn"t put the thing up to you if I didn"t figure that in the end it would be the best thing in the world for you? I"m giving you your chance. To save Dave Eden from being a fossil. To earn your own freedom. To get everything you"ve longed for. Think!"
"I"m trying to think--but I only keep feeling, inside, "It"s wrong! It"s wrong! It"s wrong!" I"m not a moralizer, but--tell me about David Eden!"
Connor saw his opening.
"Think of a horse that"s four years old and never had a bit in his teeth. That"s David Eden. The minute you see him you"ll want to tame him. But you"ll have to go easy. Keep gloves on. He"s as proud as a sulky kid. Kind of a chap you can"t force a step, but you could coax him over a cliff. Why, he"d be thread for you to wind around your little finger if you worked him right. But it wouldn"t be easy. If he had a single suspicion he"d smash everything in a minute, and he"s strong enough to tear down a house. Put the temper of a panther in the size of a bear and you get a small idea of David Eden."
He was purposely making the task difficult and he saw that she was excited. His own work with Ruth Manning was as difficult as hers would be with David. The fickle color left her all at once and he found her looking wistfully at him.
She returned neither answer, argument, nor comment. In vain he detailed each step of her way into the Garden and how she could pa.s.s the gate.
Sometimes he was not even sure that she heard him, as she listened to the silent voice which spoke against him. He had gathered all his energy for a last outburst, he was training his tongue for a convincing storm of eloquence, when Shakra, as though she wearied of all this human chatter, pushed in between them her beautiful head and went slowly toward Ruth with p.r.i.c.king ears, inquisitive, searching for those light, caressing touches.
The voice of Connor became an insidious whisper.
"Look at her, Ruth. Look at her. She"s begging you to come. You can have her. She"ll be a present to you. Quick! What"s the answer!"
A strange answer! She threw her arms around the shoulder of the beautiful gray, buried her face in the mane, and burst into tears.
For a moment Connor watched her, dismayed, but presently, as one satisfied, he withdrew to the open air and mopped his forehead. It had been hard work, but it had paid. He looked over the distant blue waves of mountains with the eye of possession.
_CHAPTER TWENTY_
"The evil at heart, when they wish to take, seem to give," said Abraham, mouthing the words with his withered lips, and he came to one of his prophetic pauses.
The master of the Garden permitted it to the privileged old servant, who added now: "Benjamin is evil at heart."
"He did not ask for the horse," said David, who was plainly arguing against his own conviction.
"Yet he knew." The ancient face of Abraham puckered. "Po" white trash!"
he muttered. Now and then one of these quaint phrases would break through his acquired diction, and they always bore home to David a sense of that great world beyond the mountains. Matthew had often described that world, but one of Abraham"s odd expressions carried him in a breath into cities filled with men.