""How could I harm you?" I asked him.
"And then you should have seen his face change and the anger break up like a cloud. I knew I was safe, then, but I was still dizzy--just as if I"d looked over a cliff--you know?"
"And yet you rode up the hill after that laughing down to him! Ruth, you"re the gamest sport and the best pal in the world. The finest little act I ever saw on the stage or off. It was Big Time stuff. My hat"s off, but--where"d you get the nerve?"
"I was frightened almost to death. Too much frightened for it to show.
When I saw you, my strength came back."
"But what do you think of him?"
"He"s--simply a savage. What do I think of an Indian?"
"No more than that?"
"Ben, can you pet a tiger after you"ve seen his claws?"
He looked at her with anxiety.
"You"re not going to break down later on--feeling as if he"s dynamite about to explode all the time?"
"I"m going to play the game through," she said with a sort of fierce happiness. "I"ve felt like a sneak thief about this. But now it"s different. He"s more of a wolf than a man. Ben, I saw murder in his face, I swear! And if it isn"t wrong to tame wild beasts it isn"t wrong to tame him. I"m going to play the game, lead him as far as I can until we get the horses--and then it"ll be easy enough to make up by being good the rest of my life."
"Ruth--girl--you"ve covered the whole ground. And when you have the coin--" He broke off with laughter that was filled with drunken excitement. "But what did you think of my game?"
She did not hear him, and standing with her hands clasped lightly behind her she looked beyond the roof of the house and over the tops of the western mountains, with the sun-haze about them.
"I feel as if I were on the top of the world," she said at last. "And I wouldn"t have one thing changed. We"re playing for big stakes, but we"re taking a chance that makes the game worth while. What we win we"ll earn--because he"s a devil. Isn"t it what you"d call a fair bet?"
"The squarest in the world," said Connor stoutly.
_CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR_
They had no means of knowing when David would return and the ominous shadow of Joseph, lingering near the patio, determined Connor on a walk out of any possible earshot. They went down to the lake with the singing of the men on the other side of the hill growing dim as they descended.
The cool of the day was beginning, and they walked close to the edge of the water with the brown treetrunks on one side and the green images floating beyond. Peace lay over Eden valley and the bright river that ran through it, but Ben Connor had no mind to dwell on unessentials.
He had found in the girl an ally of unexpected strength. He expected only a difficult tool filled with scruples, drawing back, imperiling his plans with her hesitation. Instead, she was on fire with the plan. He thought well to fan that fire and keep it steadily blazing.
"It"s better for David; better for him than it is for us. Look at the poor fool! He"s in prison here and doesn"t know it. He thinks he"s happy, but he"s simply kidding himself. In six months I"ll have him chatting with millionaires."
"Let a barber do a day"s work on him first."
"No. It"s just the long-haired nuts like that who get by with the high-steppers. He has a lingo about flowers and trees that"ll knock their eye out. I know the gang. Always on edge for something different--music that sounds like a riot in a junk shop and poetry that reads like a drunken printing-press. Well, David ought to be different enough to suit "em. I"ll boost him, though: "The Man that Brought Out the Eden Grays!" He"ll be headline stuff!"
He laughed so heartily that he did not notice the quick glance of criticism which the girl cast at him.
"I"m not taking anything from him, really," went on Connor. "I"m simply sneaking around behind him so"s I can pour his pockets full of the coin.
That"s all there is to it. Outside of the looks, tell me if there"s anything crooked you can see?"
"I don"t think there is," she murmured. "I almost hope that there isn"t!"
She was so dubious about it that Connor was alarmed. He was fond of Ruth Manning, but she was just "different" enough to baffle him. Usually he divided mankind into three or four categories for the sake of fast thinking. There were the "b.o.o.bs," the "regular guys," the "high steppers," and the "nuts." Sometimes he came perilously close to including Ruth in the last cla.s.s--with David Eden. And if he did not do so, it was mainly because she had given such an exhibition of cool courage only a few moments before. He had finished his peroration, now, with a feeling of actual virtue, but the shadow on her face made him change his tactics and his talk.
He confined himself, thereafter, strictly to the future. First he outlined his plans for raising the cash for the big "killing." He told of the men to whom he could go for backing. There were "hard guys" who would take a chance. "Wise ones" who would back his judgment. "Fall guys" who would follow him blindly. For ten percent he would get all the cash he could place. Then it remained to try out the grays in secret, and in public let them go through the paces ridden under wraps and heavily weighted. He described the means of placing the big money before the great race.
And as he talked his figures mounted from tens to hundreds to thousands, until he was speaking in millions. In all of this profit she and David and Connor would share dollar for dollar. At the first corner of the sh.o.r.e they turned she had arrived at a snug apartment in New York. She would have a housekeeper-companion. There would be a cosy living room and a paneled dining room. In the entrance hall of the apartment house, imitation of encrusted marble, no doubt.
But as they came opposite a little wooded island in the lake she had added a maid to the housekeeper. Also, there was now a guest room. Some one from Lukin would be in that room; some one from Lukin would go through the place with her, marveling at her good fortune.
And clothes! They made all the difference. Dressed as she would be dressed, when she came into a room that queer, cold gleam of envy would be in the eyes of the women and the men would sit straighter!
Yet when they reached the place where the sh.o.r.e line turned north and west her imagination, spurred by Connor"s talk, was stumbling along dizzy heights. Her apartment occupied a whole floor. Her butler was a miracle of dignity and her chef a genius in the kitchen. On the great table the silver and gla.s.s were things of frosted light. Her chauffeur drove a monster automobile with a great purring engine that whipped her about the city with the color blown into her cheeks. In her box at the opera she was allowing the deep, soft luxury of the fur collar to slide down from her throat, while along the boxes, in the galleries, there was a ripple of light as the thousand gla.s.ses turned upon her. Then she found that Connor was smiling at her. She flushed, but snapped her fingers.
"This thing is going through," she declared.
"You won"t weaken?"
"I"m as cold as steel. Let"s go back. He"ll probably be in the house by this time."
Time had slipped past her unnoticed, and the lake was violet and gold with the sunset as they turned away; under the trees along the terraces the brilliant wild flowers were dimmed by a blue shadow.
"But I never saw wild flowers like those," she said to Connor.
"n.o.body else ever did. But old Matthew, whoever he was, grew "em and kept crossing "em until he got those big fellows with all the colors of the rainbow."
"Hurry! We"re late!"
"No, David"s probably on top of that hill, now; always goes up there to watch the sun rise and the sun set. Can you beat that?"
He chuckled, but a shade had darkened the face of the girl for a moment.
Then she lifted her head resolutely.
"I"m not going to try to understand him. The minute you understand a thing you stop being afraid of it; and as soon as I stop being afraid of David Eden I might begin to like him--which is what I don"t want."
"What"s that?" cried Connor, breaking in on her last words. When Ruth began to think aloud he always stopped listening; it was a maxim of his to never listen when a woman became serious.
"It"s that strange giant."
"Joseph!" exclaimed Connor heavily. "Whipping did him no good. He"ll need killing one of these days."
But she had already reverted to another thing.
"Do you think he worships the sun?"
"I don"t think. Try to figure out a fellow like that and you get to be just as much of a nut as he is. Go on toward the house and I"ll follow you in a minute. I want to talk to big Joe."