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The Garden of Eden

by Max Brand · English · Gutenberg #33066 · 421,417 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Garden of Eden

Author: Max Brand


        
Release date: July 3, 2010 [eBook #33066]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33066

Credits: E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GARDEN OF EDEN ***


E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)



THE GARDEN OF EDEN

by

MAX BRAND







Dodd, Mead & Company
New York

Copyright 1922 by Popular Publications, Inc.
Copyright renewed 1950 by Dorothy Faust
All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
without permission in writing from the publisher

First published in book form October, 1963

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-20473

Printed in the United States of America
by Vail-Ballou Press, Inc., Binghamton, N.Y.


     The characters, places, incidents, and situations in this book
     are imaginary and have no relation to any person, place, or
     actual happening.




_CHAPTER ONE_


By careful tailoring the broad shoulders of Ben Connor were made to
appear fashionably slender, and he disguised the depth of his chest by a
stoop whose model slouched along Broadway somewhere between sunset and
dawn. He wore, moreover, the first or second pair of spats that had ever
stepped off the train at Lukin Junction, a glowing Scotch tweed, and a
Panama hat of the color and weave of fine old linen. There was a
skeleton at this Feast of Fashion, however, for only tight gloves could
make the stubby fingers and broad palms of Connor presentable. At
ninety-five in the shade gloves were out of the question, so he held a
pair of yellow chamois in one hand and in the other an amber-headed
cane. This was the end of the little spur-line, and while the train
backed off down the track, staggering across the switch, Ben Connor
looked after it, leaning upon his cane just forcibly enough to feel the
flection of the wood. This was one of his attitudes of elegance, and
when the train was out of sight, and only the puffs of white vapor
rolled around the shoulder of the hill, he turned to look the town over,
having already given Lukin Junction ample time to look over Ben Connor.

The little crowd was not through with its survey, but the eye of the
imposing stranger abashed it. He had one of those long somber faces
which Scotchmen call "dour." The complexion was sallow, heavy pouches of
sleeplessness lay beneath his eyes, and there were ridges beside the
corners of his mouth which came from an habitual compression of the
lips. Looked at in profile he seemed to be smiling broadly so that the
gravity of the full face was always surprising. It was this that made
the townsfolk look down. After a moment, they glanced back at him
hastily. Somewhere about the corners of his lips or his eyes there was a
glint of interest, a touch of amusement--they could not tell which, but
from that moment they were willing to forget the clothes and look at the
man.

While Ben Connor was still enjoying the situation, a rotund fellow bore
down on him.

"You're Mr. Connor, ain't you? You wired for a room in the hotel? Come
on, then. My rig is over here. These your grips?"

He picked up the suit case and the soft leather traveling bag, and led
the way to a buckboard at which stood two downheaded ponies.

"Can't we walk?" suggested Ben Connor, looking up and down the street at
the dozen sprawling frame houses; but the fat man stared at him with
calm pity. He was so fat and so good-natured that even Ben Connor did
not impress him greatly.

"Maybe you think this is Lukin?" he asked.

When the other raised his heavy black eyebrows he explained: "This ain't
nothing but Lukin Junction. Lukin is clear round the hill. Climb in, Mr.
Connor."

Connor laid one hand on the back of the seat, and with a surge of his
strong shoulders leaped easily into his place; the fat man noted this
with a roll of his little eyes, and then took his own place, the old
wagon careening toward him as he mounted the step. He sat with his right
foot dangling over the side of the buckboard, and a plump shoulder
turned fairly upon his passenger so that when he spoke he had to throw
his head and jerk out the words; but this was apparently his
time-honored position in the wagon, and he did not care to vary it for
the sake of conversation. A flap of the loose reins set the horses
jog-trotting out of Lukin Junction down a gulch which aimed at the side
of an enormous mountain, naked, with no sign of a village or even a
single shack among its rocks. Other peaks crowded close on the right and
left, with a loftier range behind, running up to scattered summits white
with snow and blue with distance. The shadows of the late afternoon were
thick as fog in the gulch, and all the lower mountains were already dim
so that the snow-peaks in the distance seemed as detached, and high as
clouds. Ben Connor sat with his cane between his knees and his hands
draped over its amber head and watched those shining places until the
fat man heaved his head over his shoulder.

"Most like somebody told you about Townsend's Hotel?"

His passenger moved his attention from the mountain to his companion. He
was so leisurely about it that it seemed he had not heard.

"Yes," he said, "I was told of the place."

"Who?" said the other expectantly.

"A friend of mine."

The fat man grunted and worked his head around so far that a great
wrinkle rolled up his neck close to his ear. He looked into the eye of
the stranger.

"Me being Jack Townsend, I'm sort of interested to know things like
that; the ones that like my place and them that don't."

Connor nodded, but since he showed no inclination to name his friend,
Jack Townsend swung on a new tack to come to the windward of this
uncommunicative guest. Lukin was a fairly inquisitive town, and the
hotel proprietor usually contributed his due portion and more to the
gossips.

"Some comes for one reason and some for another," went on Townsend,
"which generally it's to hunt and fish. That ain't funny come to think
of it, because outside of liars nobody ever hooked finer trout than what
comes out of the Big Sandy. Some of 'em comes for the mining--they was a
strike over to South Point last week--and some for the cows, but mostly
it's the fishing and the hunting."

He paused, but having waited in vain he said directly: "I can show you
the best holes in the Big Sandy."

There was another of those little waits with which, it seemed, the
stranger met every remark; not a thoughtful pause, but rather as though
he wondered if it were worth while to make any answer.

"I've come here for the silence," he said.

"Silence," repeated Townsend, nodding in the manner of one who does not
understand.

Then he flipped the roan with the butt of his lines and squinted down
the gulch, for he felt there might be a double meaning in the last
remark. Filled with the gloomy conviction that he was bringing a silent
man to his hotel, he gloomily surveyed the mountain sides. There was
nothing about them to cheer him. The trees were lost in shadows and all
the slopes seemed quite barren of life. He vented a little burst of
anger by yanking at the rein of the off horse, a dirty gray.

"Giddap, Kitty, damn your eyes!"

The mare jumped, struck a stone with a fore foot, and stumbled heavily.
Townsend straightened her out again with an expert hand and cursed.

"Of all the no-good hosses I ever see," he said, inviting the stranger
to share in his just wrath, "this Kitty is the outbeatingest, no good
rascal. Git on, fool."

He clapped the reins along her back, and puffed his disgust.

"And yet she has points. Now, I ask you, did you ever see a truer
Steeldust? Look at that high croup and that straight rump. Look at them
hips, I say, and a chest to match 'em. But they ain't any heart in her.
Take a hoss through and through," he went on oracularly, "they're pretty
much like men, mostly, and if a man ain't got the heart inside, it don't
make no difference how big around the chest he measures."

Ben Connor had leaned forward, studying the mare.

"Your horse would be all right in her place," he said. "Of course, she
won't do up here in the mountains."

Like any true Westerner of the mountain-desert, Jack Townsend would far
rather have been discovered with his hand in the pocket of another man
than be observed registering surprise. He looked carefully ahead until
his face was straight again. Then he turned.

"Where d'you make out her place to be?" he asked carelessly.

"Down below," said the other without hesitation, and he waved his arm.
"Down in soft, sandy irrigation country she'd be a fine animal."

Jack Townsend blinked. "You know her?" he asked.

The other shook his head.

"Well, damn my soul!" breathed the hotel proprietor. "This beats me.
Maybe you read a hoss's mind, partner?"

Connor shrugged his shoulders, but Townsend no longer took offense at
the taciturnity of his companion; he spoke now in a lower confiding
voice which indicated an admission of equality.

"You're right. They said she was good, and she was good! I seen her run;
I saddled her up and rode her thirty miles through sand that would of
broke the heart of anything but a Steeldust, and she come through
without battin' an eye. But when I got her up here she didn't do no
good. But"--he reverted suddenly to his original surprise--"how'd you
know her? Recognize the brand, maybe?"

"By her trot," said the other, and he looked across the hills.

They had turned an angle of the gulch, and on a shelf of level ground,
dishing out from the side of the mountain, stretched the town.

"Isn't it rather odd," said Connor, "for people to build a town over
here when they could have it on the railroad?"

"Maybe it looks queer to some," nodded Townsend.

He closed his lips firmly, determined to imitate the terseness of his
guest; but when he observed with a side-glance that Connor would not
press the inquiry, talk suddenly overflowed. Indeed, Townsend was a
running well of good nature, continually washing all bad temper over the
brim.

"I'll show you how it was," he went on. "You see that shoulder of the
mountain away off up there? If the light was clearer you'd be able to
make out some old shacks up there, half standin' up and half fallin'
down. That's where Lukin used to be. Well, the railroad come along and
says: 'We're goin' to run a spur into the valley, here. You move down
and build your town at the end of the track and we'll give you a hand
bringing up new timber for the houses.' That's the way with railroads;
they want to dictate; they're too used to handlin' folks back East
that'll let capital walk right over their backs."

Here Townsend sent a glance at Connor to see if he stirred under the
spur, but there was no sign of irritation.

"Out here we're different; nobody can't step in here and run us unless
he's asked. See? We said, you build the railroad halfway and we'll come
the other half, but we won't come clear down into the valley."

"Why?" asked Connor. "Isn't Lukin Junction a good place for a village?"

"Fine. None better. But it's the principle of the thing, you see? Them
railroad magnates says to us: 'Come all the way.' 'Go to the devil,'
says we. And so we come halfway to the new railroad and built our town;
it'd be a pile more agreeable to have Lukin over where the railroad
ends--look at the way I have to drive back and forth for my trade? But
just the same, we showed that railroad that it couldn't talk us down."

He struck his horses savagely with the lines; they sprang from the
jog-trot into a canter, and the buckboard went bumping down the main
street of Lukin.




_CHAPTER TWO_


Ben Connor sat in his room overlooking the crossing of the streets. It
was by no means the ramshackle huddle of lean-to's that he had expected,
for Lukin was built to withstand a siege of January snows and
storm-winds which were scooped by the mountains into a funnel that
focused straight on the village. Besides, Lukin was no accidental,
crossroads town, but the bank, store, and amusement center of a big
country. The timber was being swept from the Black Mountain; there were
fairly prosperous mines in the vicinity; and cattlemen were ranging
their cows over the plateaus more and more during the spring and summer.
Therefore, Lukin boasted two parallel main streets, and a cross street,
looking forward to the day when it should be incorporated and have a
mayor of its own. At present it had a moving-picture house and a dance
hall where a hundred and fifty couples could take the floor at once;
above all, it had Jack Townsend's hotel. This was a stout, timber
building of two stories, the lower portion of which was occupied by the
restaurant, the drug store, the former saloon now transformed into an
ice-cream parlor, and other public places.

It was dark, but the night winds had not yet commenced, and Lukin
sweltered with a heat more unbearable than full noon.

It was nothing to Ben Connor, however, for he was fresh from the choking
summer nights of Manhattan, and in Lukin, no matter how hot it became,
the eye could always find a cool prospect. It had been unpleasant
enough when the light was burning, for the room was done in a hot,
orange-colored paper, but when he blew out the lamp and sat down before
the window he forgot the room and let his glance go out among the
mountains. A young moon drifted across the corner of his window, a
sickle of light with a dim, phosphorescent line around the rest of the
circle. It was bright enough to throw the peaks into strong relief, and
dull enough to let the stars live.

His upward vision had as a rule been limited by the higher stories of
some skyscraper, and now his eye wandered with a pleasant sense of
freedom over the snow summits where he could imagine a cold wind blowing
through reach after reach of the blue-gray sky. It pleased and troubled
Ben Connor very much as one is pleased and troubled by the first study
of a foreign language, with new prospects opening, strange turns of
thought, and great unknown names like stars. But after a time Ben Connor
relaxed. The first cool puff moved across his forehead and carried him
halfway to a dreamless sleep.

Here a chorus of mirth burst up at him from the street, men's voices
pitched high and wild, the almost hysterical laughter of people who are
much alone. In Manhattan only drunken men laughed like this. Among the
mountains it did not irritate Ben Connor; in tune with the rest, it was
full of freedom. He looked down to the street, and seeing half a dozen
bearded fellows frolic in the shaft of light from a window, he decided
that people kept their youth longer in Lukin.

All things seemed in order to Connor, this night. He rolled his sleeves
higher to let all the air that stirred get at his bulky forearms, and
then lighted a cigar. It was a dark, oily Havana--it had cost him a
great deal in money and nerves to acquire that habit--and he breathed
the scent deep while he waited for the steady wind which Jack Townsend
had promised. There was just enough noise to give the silence that
waiting quality which cannot be described; below him voices murmured,
and lifted now and then, rhythmically. Ben Connor thought the sounds
strangely musical, and he began to brim with the same good nature which
puffed the cheeks of Jack Townsend. There was a substantial basis for
that content in the broiled trout which he had had for dinner. It was
while his thoughts drifted back to those browned fish that the first
wind struck him. Dust with an acrid scent whirled up from the
street--then a steady stream of air swept his face and arms.

It was almost as if another personality had stepped into the room. The
sounds from the street fell away, and there was the rustling of cloth
somewhere, the cool lifting of hair from his forehead, and an odd sense
of motion--as if the wind were blowing through him. But something else
came with the breeze, and though he noted it at first with only a
subconscious discontent, it beat gradually into his mind, a light
ticking, very rapid, and faint, and sounding in an irregular rhythm. He
wanted to straighten out that rhythm and make the flutter of tapping
regular. Then it began to take on a meaning; it framed words.

"Philip Lord, jailed for embezzlement."

"Hell!" burst out Ben Connor. "The telegraph!"

He started up from his chair, feeling betrayed, for that light,
irregular tapping was the voice of the world from which he had fled. A
hard, cool mind worked behind the gray eyes of Ben Connor, but as he
fingered the cigar his brain was fumbling at a large idea. Forty-Second
and Broadway was calling him back.

When he looked out the window, now, the mountains were flat shapes
against a flat sky, with no more meaning than a picture.

The sounder was chattering: "Kid Lane wins title in eighth round. Lucky
punch dethrones lightweight champion." Ben Connor swallowed hard and
found that his throat was dry. He was afraid of himself--afraid that he
would go back. He was recalled from his ugly musing by the odor of the
cigar, which had burned out and was filling the room with a rank smell;
he tossed the crumbled remnants through the window, crushed his hat upon
his head, and went down, collarless, coatless, to get on the street in
the sound of men's voices. If he had been in Manhattan he would have
called up a pal; they would have planned an evening together; but in
Lukin--

At the door below he glared up and down the street. There was nothing to
see but a light buggy which rolled noiselessly through the dust. A dog
detached itself from behind the vehicle and came to bark furiously at
his feet. The kicking muscles in Connor's leg began to twitch, but a
voice shouted and the mongrel trotted away, growling a challenge over
its shoulder. The silence fell once more. He turned and strode back to
the desk of the hotel, behind which Jack Townsend sat tilted back in his
chair reading a newspaper.

"What's doing in this town of yours to-night?" he asked.

The proprietor moistened a fat thumb to turn the page and looked over
his glasses at Connor.

"Appears to me there ain't much stirrin' about," he said. "Except for
the movies down the street. You see, everybody's there."

"Movies," muttered Connor under his breath, and looked savagely around
him.

What his eyes fell on was a picture of an old, old man on the wall, and
the rusted stove which stood in the center of the room with a pipe
zigzagging uncertainly toward the ceiling. Everything was out of order,
broken down--like himself.

"Looks to me like you're kind of off your feet," said Jack Townsend, and
he laid down his paper and looked wistfully at his guest. He made up his
mind. "If you're kind of dry for a drink," he said, "I might rustle you
a flask of red-eye--"

"Whisky?" echoed Connor, and moistened his lips. Then he shook his head.
"Not that."

He went back to the door with steps so long and heavy that Jack Townsend
rose from his chair, and spreading his hands on the desk, peered after
the muscular figure.

"That gent is a bad hombre," pronounced Jack to himself. He sat down
again with a sigh, and added: "Maybe."

At the door Connor was snarling: "Quiet? Sure; like a grave!"

The wind freshened, fell away, and the light, swift ticking sounded
again more clearly. It mingled with the alkali scent of the
dust--Manhattan and the desert together. He felt a sense of persecuted
virtue. But one of his maxims was: "If anything bothers you, go and find
out about it."

Ben Connor largely used maxims and epigrams; he met crises by
remembering what some one else had said. The ticking of the sounder was
making him homesick and dangerously nervous, so he went to find the
telegrapher and see the sounder which brought the voice of the world
into Lukin.

A few steps carried him to a screen door through which he looked upon a
long, narrow office.

In a corner, an electric fan swung back and forth through a hurried arc
and fluttered papers here and there. Its whining almost drowned the
ticking of the sounder, and Ben Connor wondered with dull irritation how
a tapping which was hardly audible at the door of the office could carry
to his room in the hotel. He opened the door and entered.




_CHAPTER THREE_


It was a room not more than eight feet wide, very long, with the floor,
walls, and ceiling of the same narrow, unpainted pine boards; the
flooring was worn ragged and the ceiling warped into waves. Across the
room a wide plank with a trapdoor at one end served as a counter, and
now it was littered with yellow telegraph blanks, and others, crumpled
up, were scattered about Connor's feet. No sooner had the screen door
squeaked behind him and shut him fairly into the place than the staccato
rattling of the sounder multiplied, and seemed to chatter from the wall
behind him. It left an echoing in the ear of Ben Connor which formed
into the words of his resolution, "I've made my stake and I'm going to
beat it. I'm going to get away where I can forget the worries. To-day I
beat 'em. Tomorrow the worries will beat me."

That was why he was in Lukin--to forget. And here the world had sneaked
up on him and whispered in his ear. Was it fair?

It was a woman who "jerked lightning" for Lukin. With that small finger
on the key she took the pulse of the world.

"Belmont returns--" chattered the sounder.

Connor instinctively covered his ears. Then, feeling that he was acting
like a silly child, he lowered his hands.

Another idea had come to him that this was fate--luck--his luck. Why not
take another chance?

He wavered a moment, fighting the temptation and gloomily studying the
back of the operator. The cheapness of her white cotton dress fairly
shouted at him. Also her hair straggled somewhat about the nape of her
neck. All this irritated Connor absurdly.

"Fifth race," said the sounder: "Lady Beck, first; Conqueror, second--"

Certainly this was fate tempting tune.

Connor snatched a telegraph blank and scribbled a message to Harry
Slocum, his betting commissioner during this unhappy vacation.

"Send dope on Murray handicaps time--trials of Trickster and Caledonian.
Hotel Townsend."

This done, having tapped sharply on the counter to call the operator's
attention, he dropped his elbows on the plank and scowled downward in
profound reverie. They were pouring out of Belmont Park, now, many a
grim face and many a joyous face. Money had come easy and gone easy. Ah,
the reckless bonhomie of that crowd, living for to-day only, because
"to-morrow the ponies may have it!" A good day for the bookies if that
old cripple, Lady Beck, had found her running legs. What a trimming they
must have given the wise ones!

At this point another hand came into the circle of his vision and turned
the telegram about. A pencil flicked across the words, checking them
swiftly. Connor was fascinated by that hand, it was so cool, so slender
and deft. He glanced up to her face and saw a resolute chin, a smiling
mouth which was truly lovely, and direct eyes as dark as his own. She
carried her head buoyantly, in a way that made Connor think, with a
tingle, of some clean-blooded filly at the post.

The girl made his change, and shoving it across, she bent her head
toward the sounder. The characters came through too swiftly for even Ben
Connor's sharp ear, but the girl, listening, smiled slowly.

"Something about soft pine?" queried Connor.

She brightened at this unexpected meeting-point. Her eyes widened as she
studied him and listened to the message at the same time, and she
accomplished this double purpose with such calm that Connor felt a
trifle abashed. Then the shadow of listening vanished, and she
concentrated on Connor.

"Soft pine is up," she nodded. "I knew it would climb as soon as old
Lucas bought in."

"Speculator in Lukin, is he?"

"No. California. The one whose yacht burned at Honolulu last year. Sold
pine like wild fire two months ago; down goes the price. Then he bought
a little while ago, and now the pine skyrockets. He can buy a new yacht
with what he makes, I suppose!"

The shade of listening darkened her eyes again. "Listen!" She raised a
hushing forefinger that seemed tremulous in rhythm with the ticking.

"Wide brims are in again," exclaimed the operator, "and wide hats are
awful on me; isn't that the luck?"

She went back to her key with the message in her hand, and Connor,
dropping his elbows on the counter, watched her send it with swift
almost imperceptible flections of her wrist.

Then she sat again with her hands folded in her lap, listening. Connor
turned his head and glanced through the door; by squinting he could look
over the roof just across the street and see the shadowy mountains
beyond; then he looked back again and watched the girl listening to the
voice of the outer world. The shock of the contrast soothed. He began to
forget about Ben Connor and think of her.

The girl turned in her chair and directly faced him, and he saw that she
moved her whole body just as she moved her hand, swiftly, but without a
jerk; she considered him gravely.

"Lonely?" she inquired. "Or worried?"

She spoke with such a commonplace intonation that one might have thought
it her business to attend to loneliness and worries.

"As a matter of fact," answered Ben Connor, instinctively dodging the
direct query, "I've been wondering how they happened to stick a
number-one artist on this wire.

"I'm not kidding," he explained hastily. "You see, I used to jerk
lightning myself."

For the first time she really smiled, and he discovered what a rare
thing a smile may be. Up to that point he had thought she lacked
something, just as the white dress lacked a touch of color.

"Oh," she nodded. "Been off the wire long?"

Ben Connor grinned. It began with his lips; last of all the dull gray
eyes lighted.

"Ever since a hot day in July at Aqueduct. The Lorrimer Handicap on the
11th of July, to be exact. I tossed up my job the next day."

"I see," she said, becoming aware of him again. "You played Tip-Top
Second."

"The deuce! Were you at Aqueduct that day?"

"I was here--on the wire." He restrained himself with an effort, for a
series of questions was Connor's idea of a dull conversation. He merely
rubbed his knuckles against his chin and looked at her wistfully.

"He nipped King Charles and Miss Lazy at the wire and squeezed home by a
nose--paid a fat price, I remember," went on the girl. "I suppose you
had something down on him?"

"Did a friend of yours play that race?"

"Oh, no; but I was new to the wire, then, and I used to cut in and
listen to everything that came by."

"I know. It's like having some one whisper secrets in your ear, at
first, isn't it? But you remember the Lorrimer, eh? That was a race!"

The sounder stopped chattering, and by an alternation in her eyes he
knew that up to that moment she had been giving two-thirds of her
attention to the voice of the wire and the other fraction to him; but
now she centered upon him, and he wanted to talk. As if, mysteriously,
he could share some of the burden of his unrest with the girl. Most of
all he wished to talk because this office had lifted him back to the old
days of "lightning jerking," when he worked for a weekly pay-check. The
same nervous eagerness which had been his in that time was now in this
girl, and he responded to it like a call of blood to blood.

"A couple of wise ones took me out to Aqueduct that day: I had all that
was coming to me for a month in my pocket, and I kept saying to myself:
'They think I'll fall for this game and drop my wad; here's where I fool
'em!'"

He chuckled as he remembered.

"Go on," said the girl. "You make me feel as if I were about to make a
clean-up!"

"Really interested?"

She fixed an eager glance on him, as though she were judging how far she
might let herself go. Suddenly she leaned closer to Connor.

"Interested? I've been taking the world off the wire for six years--and
you've been where things happen."

"That's the way I felt at Aqueduct when I saw the ponies parade past the
grand stand the first time," he nodded. "They came dancing on the bitt,
and even I could see that they weren't made for use; legs that never
pulled a wagon, and backs that couldn't weight. Just toys; speed
machines; all heart and fire and springy muscles. It made my pulse jump
to the fever point to watch them light-foot it along the rail with the
groom in front on a clod of a horse. I felt that I'd lived the way that
horse walked--downheaded, and I decided to change."

He stopped short and locked his stubby fingers together, frowning at her
so that the lines beside his mouth deepened.

"I seem to be telling you the story of my life," he said. Then he saw
that she was studying him, not with idle curiosity, but rather as one
turns the pages of an absorbing book, never knowing what the next moment
will reveal or where the characters will be taken.

"You want to talk; I want to hear you," she said gravely. "Go ahead.
Besides--I don't chatter afterward. They paraded past the grand stand,
then what?"

Ben Connor sighed.

"I watched four races. The wise guys with me were betting ten bucks on
every race and losing on red-hot tips; and every time I picked out the
horse that looked good to me, that horse ran in the money. Then they
came out for the Lorrimer. One of my friends was betting on King Charles
and the other on Miss Lazy. Both of them couldn't win, and the chance
was that neither of them would. So I looked over the line as it went by
the stand. King Charles was a little chestnut, one of those long fellows
that stretch like rubber when they commence running; Miss Lazy was a
gangling bay. Yes, they were both good horses, but I looked over the
rest, and pretty soon I saw a rangy chestnut with a white foreleg and a
midget of a boy up in the saddle. 'No. 7--Tip-Top Second,' said the wise
guy on my right when I asked him; 'a lame one.' Come to look at him
again, he was doing a catch step with his front feet, but I had an idea
that when he got going he'd forget all about that catch and run like the
wind. Understand?"

"Just a hunch," said the girl. "Yes!"

She stepped closer to the counter and leaned across it. Her eyes were
bright. Connor knew that she was seeing that picture of the hot day, the
crowd of straw hats stirring wildly, the murmur and cry that went up as
the string of racers jogged past.

"They went to the post," said Connor, "and I got down my bet--a hundred
dollars, my whole wad--on Tip-Top Second. The bookie looked just once at
me, and I'll never forget how his eyebrows went together. I went back to
my seat."

"You were shaking all over, I guess," suggested the girl, and her hands
were quivering.

"I was not," said Ben Connor, "I was cold through and through, and never
moved my eyes off Tip-Top Second. His jockey had a green jacket with two
stripes through it, and the green was easy to watch. I saw the crowd go
off, and I saw Tip-Top left flat-footed at the post."

The girl drew a breath. Connor smiled at her. The hot evening had
flushed his face, but now a small spot of white appeared in either
cheek, and his dull eyes had grown expressionless. She knew what he
meant when he said that he was cold when he saw the string go to the
post.

"It--it must have made you sick!" said the girl.

"Not a bit. I knew the green jacket was going to finish ahead of the
rest as well as I knew that my name was Ben Connor. I said he was left
at the post. Well, it wasn't exactly that, but when the bunch came
streaking out of the shoot, he was half a dozen lengths behind. It was a
mile and an eighth race. They went down the back stretch, eight horses
all bunched together, and the green jacket drifting that half dozen
lengths to the rear. The wise guys turned and grinned at me; then they
forgot all about me and began to yell for King Charles and Miss Lazy.

"The bunch were going around the turn and the two favorites were
fighting it out together. But I had an eye for the green jacket, and
halfway around the turn I saw him move up."

The girl sighed.

"No," Connor continues, "he hadn't won the race yet. And he never should
have won it at all, but King Charles was carrying a hundred and
thirty-eight pounds, and Miss Lazy a hundred and thirty-three, while
Tip-Top Second came in as a fly-weight eighty-seven pounds! No horse in
the world could give that much to him when he was right, but who guessed
that then?

"They swung around the turn and hit the stretch. Tip-Top took the curve
like a cart horse. Then the bunch straightened out, with King Charles
and Miss Lazy fighting each other in front and the rest streaking out
behind like the tail of a flag. They did that first mile in 1.38, but
they broke their hearts doing it, with that weight up.

"They had an eighth to go--one little measly furlong, with Tip-Top in
the ruck, and the crowd screaming for King Charles and Miss Lazy; but
just exactly at the mile post the leaders flattened. I didn't know it,
but the man in front of me dropped his glasses and his head. 'Blown!' he
said, and that was all. It seemed to me that the two in front were
running as strongly as ever, but Tip-Top was running better. He came
streaking, with the boy flattening out along his neck and the whip going
up and down. But I didn't stir. I couldn't; my blood was turned to ice
water.

"Tip-Top walked by the ruck and got his nose on the hip of King Charles.
Somebody was yelling behind me in a squeaky voice: 'There is something
wrong! There's something wrong!' There was, too, and it was the
eighty-seven pounds that a fool handicapper had put on Tip-Top. At the
sixteenth Miss Lazy threw up her head like a swimmer going down and
dropped back, and Tip-Top was on the King's shoulder. Fifty yards to the
finish; twenty-five--then the King staggered as if he'd been hit between
the ears, and Tip-Top jumped out to win by a neck.

"There was one big breath of silence in the grand stand--then a groan. I
turned my head and saw the two wise guys looking at me with sick grins.
Afterward I collected two thousand bucks from a sicker looking bookie."

He paused and smiled at the girl.

"That was the 11th of July. First real day of my life."

She gathered her mind out of that scene.

"You stepped out of a telegraph office, with your finger on the key all
day, every day, and you jumped into two thousand dollars?"

After she had stopped speaking her thoughts went on, written in her
eyes.

"You'd like to try it, eh?" said Ben Connor.

"Haven't you had years of happiness out of it?"

He looked at her with a grimace.

"Happiness?" he echoed. "Happiness?"

She stepped back so that she put his deeply-marked face in a better
light.

"You're a queer one for a winner."

"Sure, the turf is crowded with queer ones like me."

"Winners, all of 'em?"

His eye had been gradually brightening while he talked to her. He felt
that the girl rang true, as men ring true, yet there was nothing
masculine about her.

"You've heard racing called the sport of kings? That's because only
kings can afford to follow the ponies. Kings and Wall Street. But a
fellow can't squeeze in without capital. I've made a go of it for a
while; pretty soon we all go smash. Sooner or later I'll do what
everybody else does--put up my cash on a sure thing and see my money go
up in smoke."

"Then why don't you pull out with what you have?"

"Why does the earth keep running around the sun? Because there's a pull.
Once you've followed the ponies you'll keep on following 'em. No hope
for it. Oh, I've seen the boys come up one after another, make their
killings, hit a streak of bad luck, plunge, and then watch their
sure-thing throw up its tail in the stretch and fade into the ruck."

He was growing excited as he talked; he was beginning to realize that he
must make his break from the turf now or never. And he spoke more to
himself than to the girl.

"We all hang on. We play the game till it breaks us and still we stay
with it. Here I am, two thousand miles away from the tracks--and sending
for dope to make a play! Can you beat that? Well, so-long."

He turned away gloomily.

"Good night, Mr. Connor."

He turned sharply.

"Where'd you get that name?" he asked with a trace of suspicion.

"Off the telegram."

He nodded, but said: "I've an idea I've been chattering to much."

"My name is Ruth Manning," answered the girl. "I don't think you've said
too much."

He kept his eyes steadily on her while he shook hands.

"I'm glad I know some one in Lukin," said Connor. "Good night, again."




_CHAPTER FOUR_


When Connor wakened the next morning, after his first impression of
blinding light, he closed his eyes and waited for the sense of unhappy
doom which usually comes to men of tense nerves and active life after
sleep; but, with slow and pleasant wonder, he realized that the old
numbness of brain and fever of pulse was gone. Then he looked up and
lazily watched the shadow of the vine at his window move across the
ceiling, a dim-bordered shadow continually changing as the wind gathered
the leaves in solid masses and shook them out again. He pored upon this
for a time, and next he watched a spider spinning a web in the corner;
she worked in a draft which repeatedly lifted her from her place before
she had fastened her thread, and dropped her a foot or more into space.
Connor sat up to admire the artisan's skill and courage. Compared to men
and insects, the spider really worked over an abyss two hundred feet
deep, suspended by a silken thread. Connor slipped out of bed and stood
beneath the growing web while the main cross threads were being
fastened. He had been there for some time when, turning away to rub the
ache out of the back of his neck, he again met the contrast between the
man of this morning and the man of other days.

This time it was his image in the mirror, meeting him as he turned. That
deep wrinkle in the middle of the forehead was half erased. The lips
were neither compressed nor loose and shaking, and the eye was calm--it
rested him to meet that glance in the mirror.

A mood of idle content always brings one to the window: Connor looked
out on the street. A horseman hopped past like a day shadow, the
hoofbeats muffled by thick sand, and the wind, moving at an exactly
equal pace, carried a mist of dust just behind the horse's tail.
Otherwise there was neither life nor color in the street of
weather-beaten, low buildings, and the eye of Connor went beyond the
roofs and began to climb the mountains. Here was a bald bright cliff,
there a drift of trees, and again a surface of raw clay from which the
upper soil had recently slipped; but these were not stopping
points--they were rather the steps which led the glance to a sky of pale
and transparent blue, and Connor felt a great desire to have that sky
over him in place of a ceiling.

He splashed through a hasty bath, dressed, and ran down the stairs,
humming. Jack Townsend stood on a box in the corner of the room, probing
at a spider web in the corner.

"Too late for breakfast?" asked Connor.

The fat shoulders of the proprietor quivered, but he did not turn.

"Too late," he snapped. "Breakfast over at nine. No favorites up here."

Connor waited for the wave of irritation to rise in him, but to his own
surprise he found himself saying:

"All right; you can't throw a good horse off his feed by cutting out one
meal."

Jack Townsend faced his guest, rubbing his many-folded chin.

"Don't take long for this mountain air to brace up a gent, does it?" he
asked rather pointedly.

"I'll tell you what," said Connor. "It isn't the air so much; it's the
people that do a fellow good."

"Well," admitted the proprietor modestly, "they may be something in
that. Kind of heartier out here, ain't they? More than in the city, I
guess. I'll tell you what," he added. "I'll go out and speak to the
missus about a snack for you. It's late, but we like to be obligin'."

He climbed carefully down from the box and started away.

"That girl again," thought Connor, and snapped his fingers. His spirits
continued to rise, if that were possible, during the breakfast of ham
and eggs, and coffee of a taste so metallic that only a copious use of
cream made it drinkable. Jack Townsend, recovering to the full his
customary good nature, joined his guest in a huge piece of toast with a
layer of ham on it--simply to keep a stranger from eating alone, he
said--and while he ate he talked about the race. Connor had noticed that
the lobby was almost empty.

"They're over lookin' at the hosses," said Townsend, "and gettin' their
bets down."

Connor laid down knife and fork, and resumed them hastily, but
thereafter his interest in his food was entirely perfunctory. From the
corner of his eye a gleam kept steadily upon the face of Townsend, who
continued:

"Speaking personal, Mr. Connor, I'd like to have you look over them
hosses yourself."

Connor, on the verge of speech, checked himself with a quick effort.

"Because," continued Townsend, "if I had your advice I might get down a
little stake on one of 'em. You see?"

Ben Connor paused with a morsel of ham halfway toward his lips.

"Who told you I know anything about horses?" he asked.

"You told me yourself," grinned the proprietor, "and I'd like to figure
how you knew the mare come from the Ballor Valley."

"From which?"

"From the Ballor Valley. You even named the irrigation and sand and all
that. But you'd seen her brand before, I s'pose?"

"Hoofs like hers never came out of these mountains," smiled Ben Connor.
"See the way she throws them and how flat they are."

"Well, that's true," nodded Jack Townsend. "It seems simple, now you say
what it was, but it had me beat up to now. That is the way with most
things. Take a fine hand with a rope. He daubs it on a cow so dead easy
any fool thinks he can do the same. No, Mr. Connor, I'd still like to
have you come out and take a look at them hosses. Besides"--he lowered
his voice--"you might pick up a bit of loose change yourself. They's a
plenty rolling round to-day."

Connor laughed, but there was excitement behind his mirth.

"The fact is, Townsend," he said, "I'm not interested in racing now. I'm
up here for the air."

"Sure--sure," said the hotel man. "I know all that. Well, if you're dead
set it ain't hardly Christian to lure you into betting on a hoss race, I
suppose."

He munched at his sandwich in savage silence, while Connor looked out
the window and began to whistle.

"They race very often up here?" he asked carelessly.

"Once in a while."

"A pleasant sport," sighed Connor.

"Ain't it, now?" argued Townsend. "But these gents around here take it
so serious that it don't last long."

"That so?"

"Yep. They bet every last dollar they can rake up, and about the second
or third race in the year the money's all pooled in two or three
pockets. Then the rest go gunnin' for trouble, and most generally find a
plenty. Any six races that's got up around here is good for three
shooting scrapes, and each shooting's equal to one corpse and half a
dozen put away for repairs." He touched his forehead, marked with a
white line. "I used to be considerable," he said.

"H-m," murmured Connor, grown absentminded again.

"Yes, sir," went on the other. "I've seen the boys come in from the
mines with enough dust to choke a mule, and slap it all down on the
hoss. I've seen twenty thousand cold bucks lost and won on a dinky
little pinto that wasn't worth twenty dollars hardly. That's how crazy
they get."

Connor wiped his forehead.

"Where do they race?" he asked.

"Right down Washington Avenue. That is the main street, y'see. Gives 'em
about half a mile of runnin'."

A cigarette appeared with magic speed between the fingers of Connor, and
he began to smoke, with deep inhalations, expelling his breath so
strongly that the mist shot almost to the ceiling before it flattened
into a leisurely spreading cloud. Townsend, fascinated, seemed to have
forgotten all about the horse race, but there was in Connor a suggestion
of new interest, a certain businesslike coldness.

"Suppose we step over and give the ponies a glance?" he queried.

"That's the talk!" exclaimed Townsend. "And I'll take any tip you have!"

This made Connor look at his host narrowly, but, dismissing a suspicion
from his mind, he shrugged his shoulders, and they went out together.

The conclave of riders and the betting public had gathered at the
farther end of the street, and it included the majority of Lukin. Only
the center of the street was left religiously clear, and in this space
half a dozen men led horses up and down with ostentatious indifference,
stopping often to look after cinches which they had already tested many
times. As Connor came up he saw a group of boys place their wagers with
a stakeholder--knives, watches, nickels and dimes. That was a fair token
of the spirit of the crowd. Wherever Connor looked he saw hands raised,
brandishing greenbacks, and for every raised hand there were half a
dozen clamorous voices.

"Quite a bit of sporting blood in Lukin, eh?" suggested Townsend.

"Sure," sighed Connor. He looked at the brandished money. "A field of
wheat," he murmured, "waiting for the reaper. That's me."

He turned to see his companion pull out a fat wallet.

"Which one?" gasped Townsend. "We ain't got hardly any time."

Connor observed him with a smile that tucked up the corners of his
mouth.

"Wait a while, friend. Plenty of time to get stung where the ponies are
concerned. We'll look them over."

Townsend began to chatter in his ear: "It's between Charlie Haig's roan
and Cliff Jones's Lightning--You see that bay? Man, he can surely get
across the ground. But the roan ain't so bad. Oh, no!"

"Sure they are."

The gambler frowned. "I was about to say that there was only one horse
in the race, but--" He shook his head despairingly as he looked over the
riders. He was hunting automatically for the fleshless face and angular
body of a jockey; among them all Charlie Haig came the closest to this
light ideal. He was a sun-dried fellow, but even Charlie must have
weighed well over a hundred and forty pounds; the others made no
pretensions toward small poundage, and Cliff Jones must have scaled two
hundred.

"Which was the one hoss in your eyes?" asked the hotel man eagerly.

"The gray. But with that weight up the little fellow will be anchored."

He pointed to a gray gelding which nosed confidently at the back hip
pockets of his master.

"Less than fifteen hands," continued Connor, "and a hundred and eighty
pounds to break his back. It isn't a race; it's murder to enter a horse
handicapped like that."

"The gray?" repeated Jack Townsend, and he glanced from the corner of
his eyes at his companion, as though he suspected mockery. "I never seen
the gray before," he went on. "Looks sort of underfed, eh?"

Connor apparently did not hear. He had raised his head and his nostrils
trembled, so that Townsend did not know whether the queer fellow was
about to break into laughter or a trade.

"Yet," muttered Connor, "he might carry it. God, what a horse!"

He still looked at the gelding, and Townsend rubbed his eyes and stared
to make sure that he had not overlooked some possibilities in the
gelding. But he saw again only a lean-ribbed pony with a long neck and a
high croup. The horse wheeled, stepping as clumsily as a gangling
yearling. Townsend's amazement changed to suspicion and then to
indifference.

"Well," he said, smiling covertly, "are you going to bet on that?"

Connor made no answer. He stepped up to the owner of the gray, a swarthy
man of Indian blood. His half sleepy, half sullen expression cleared
when Connor shook hands and introduced himself as a lover of fast
horse-flesh.

He even congratulated the Indian on owning so fine a specimen, at which
apparently subtle mockery Townsend, in the rear, set his teeth to keep
from smiling; and the big Indian also frowned, to see if there were any
hidden insult. But Connor had stepped back and was looking at the
forelegs of the gelding.

"There's bone for you," he said exultantly. "More than eight inches,
eh--that Cannon?"

"Huh," grunted the owner, "I dunno."

But his last shred of suspicion disappeared as Connor, working his
fingers along the shoulder muscles of the animal, smiled with pleasure
and admiration.

"My name's Bert Sims," said the Indian, "and I'm glad to know you. Most
of the boys in Lukin think my hoss ain't got a chance in this race."

"I think they're right," answered Connor without hesitation.

The eyes of the Indian flashed.

"I think you're putting fifty pounds too much weight on him," explained
Connor.

"Yeh?"

"Can't another man ride your horse?"

"Anybody can ride him."

"Then let that fellow yonder--that youngster--have the mount. I'll back
the gray to the bottom of my pocket if you do."

"I wouldn't feel hardly natural seeing another man on him," said the
Indian. "If he's rode I'll do the riding. I've done it for fifteen
years."

"What?"

"Fifteen years."

"Is that horse fifteen years old?" asked Connor, prepared to smile.

"He is eighteen," answered Bert Sims quietly.

The gambler cast a quick glance at Sims and a longer one at the gray. He
parted the lips of the horse, and then cursed softly.

"You're right," said Connor. "He is eighteen."

He was frowning in deadly earnestness now.

"Accident, I suppose?"

The Indian merely stared at him.

"Is the horse a strain of blood or an accident? What's his breed?"

"He's an Eden gray."

"Are there more like him?"

"The valley's full of 'em, they say," answered Bert Sims.

"What valley?" snapped the gambler.

"I ain't been in it. If I was I wouldn't talk."

"Why not?"

In reply Sims rolled the yellow-stained whites of his eyes slowly toward
his interlocutor. He did not turn his head, but a smile gradually began
on his lips and spread to a sinister hint at mirth. It put a grim end to
the conversation, and Connor turned reluctantly to Townsend. The latter
was clamoring.

"They're getting ready for the start. Are you betting on that runt of a
gray?"




_CHAPTER FIVE_


Conner shook his head almost sadly. "A horse that stands not a hair more
than fourteen-three, eighteen years old, with a hundred and eighty
pounds up--No, I'm not a fool."

"Which is it--the roan or the bay?" gasped Townsend. "Which d'you say?
I'll tell you about the valley after the race. Which hoss, Mr. Connor?"

Thus appealed to, the gambler straightened and clasped his hands behind
his back. He looked coldly at the horses.

"How old is that brown yonder--the one the boy is just mounting?"

"Three. But what's he got to do with the race?"

"He's a shade too young, or he'd win it. That's what he has to do with
it. Back Haig's horse, then. The roan is the best bet."

"Have you had a good look at Lightnin'?"

"He won't last in this going with that weight up."

"You're right," panted Townsend. "And I'm going to risk a hundred on
him. Hey, Joe, how d'you bet on Charlie Haig?"

"Two to one."

"Take you for a hundred. Joe, meet Mr. Connor."

"A hundred it is, Jack. Can I do anything for you, Mr. Connor?"

"I'll go a hundred on the roan, sir."

"Have I done it right?" asked Townsend fiercely, a little later. "I
wonder do you know?"

"Ask that after the race is over," smiled Connor. "After all, you have
only one horse to be afraid of."

"Sure; Lightnin'--but he's enough."

"Not Lightning, I tell you. The gray is the only horse to be afraid of
though the brown stallion might do if he has enough seasoning."

For a moment panic brightened the eyes of Townsend, and then he shook
the fear away.

"I've done it now," he said huskily, "and they's no use talking. Let's
get down to the finish."

The crowd was streaming away from the start, and headed toward the
finish half a mile down the street beyond the farther end of Lukin. Most
of this distance Townsend kept his companion close to a run; then he
suddenly appealed for a slower pace.

"It's my heart," he explained. "Nothin' else bothers it, but during a
hoss race it sure stands on end. I get to thinkin' of what my wife will
say if I lose; and that always plumb upsets me."

He was, in fact, spotted white and purple when they joined the mob which
packed both sides of the street at the finish posts; already the choice
positions were taken.

"We won't get a look," groaned Townsend.

But Connor chuckled: "You tie on to me and we'll get to the front in a
squeeze." And he ejected himself into the mob. How it was done Townsend
could never understand. They oozed through the thickest of the crowd,
and when roughly pressed men ahead of them turned around, ready to
fight, Connor was always looking back, apparently forced along by the
pressure from the rear. He seemed, indeed, to be struggling to keep his
footing, but in a few minutes Townsend found himself in the front rank.
He mopped his brow and smiled up into the cool face of Connor, but there
was no time for comments. Eight horses fretted in a ragged line far down
the street, and as they frisked here and there the brims of the
sombreros of the riders flapped up and down; only the Eden gray stood
with downward head, dreaming.

"No heart," said Townsend, "in that gray hoss. Look at him!"

"Plenty of head, though," replied Connor; "here they go!"

His voice was lost in a yell that went up wailing, shook into a roar,
and then died off, as though a gust of wind had cut the sounds away. A
murmur of voices followed, and then an almost womanish yell, for
Lightning, the favorite, was out in front, and his rider leaned in the
saddle with arm suspended and a quirt which never fell. The rest were a
close group where whips worked ceaselessly, except that in the rear of
all the rest the little gray horse ran without urge, smoothly, as if his
rider had given up all hope of winning and merely allowed his horse to
canter through.

"D'you see?" screamed Townsend. "Is that what you know about hosses, Mr.
Connor? Look at Cliff Jones's Lightning! What do you--"

He cut his upbraidings short, for Connor's was a grisly face, white
about the mouth and with gathered brows, as though, with intense effort,
he strove to throw the influence of his will into that mass of
horse-flesh. The hotel-keeper turned in time to see Lightning, already
buckling under the strain, throw up his head.

The heavy burdens, the deep, soft going, and the fact that none of the
horses were really trained to sprint, made the half-mile course a very
real test, and now the big leader perceptibly weakened. Out of the pack
shot a slender brown body, and came to the girth--to the neck of the
bay.

"The stallion!" shouted Townsend. "By God, you do know hosses! Who'd of
thought that skinny fellow had it in him?"

"He'll die," said Connor calmly.

The bay and the brown went back into the pack together, even as Connor
spoke, though the riders were flogging hard, and now the roan drew to
the front. It was plain to see that he had the foot of the rest, for he
came away from the crowd with every leap.

"Look! Look! Look!" moaned Townsend. "Two for one! Look!" He choked with
pleasure and gripped Connor's arm in both his hands in token of
gratitude.

Now the race bore swiftly down the finish, the horses looming bigger;
their eyes could be seen, and their straining nostrils now, and the
desperate face of each rider, trying to lift his horse into a great
burst.

"He's got it," sobbed Townsend, hysterical. "Nothin' can catch him now."

But his companion, in place of answer, stiffened and pointed. His voice
was a tone of horror, almost, as he said: "I knew, by God, I knew all
the time and wouldn't believe my eyes."

For far from the left, rounding the pack, came a streak of gray. It
caught the brown horse and passed him in two leaps; it shot by the
laboring bay; and only the roan of Charlie Haig remained in front. That
rider, confident of victory, had slipped his quirt over his wrist and
was hand-riding his horse when a brief, deep yell of dismay from the
crowd made him jerk a glance over his shoulder. He cut the quirt into
the flank of the roan, but it was too late. Five lengths from the finish
the little gray shoved his nose in front; and from that point, settling
toward the earth, as he stretched into a longer and longer stride, every
jump increased his margin. The nose of the roan was hardly on the rump
of the gelding at the finish.

A bedlam roar came from the crowd. Townsend was cursing and beating time
to his oaths with a fat fist. Townsend found so many companion losers
that his feelings were readily salved, and he turned to Connor, smiling
wryly.

"We can't win every day," he declared, "but I'll tell you this, partner;
of all the men I ever seen, you get the medal for judgin' a hoss. You
can pick my string any day."

"Eighteen years old," Connor was saying in the monotonous tone of one
hypnotized.

"Hey, there," protested Townsend, perceiving that he was on the verge of
being ignored.

"A hundred and eighty pounds," sighed the big man.

Townsend saw for the first time that a stop-watch was in the hand of his
companion, and now, as Connor began to pace off the distance, the hotel
proprietor tagged behind, curious. Twenty steps from the starting point
the larger man stopped abruptly, shook his head, and then went on. When
he came to the start he paused again, and Townsend found him staring
with dull eyes at the face of the watch.

"What'd they make it in?" asked the little man.

The other did not hear.

"They ran from this line?" he queried in a husky voice.

"Sure. Line between them posts."

"Fifty-nine seconds!" he kept repeating. "Fifty-nine seconds!
Fifty-nine!"

"What about the fifty-nine seconds?" asked Townsend, and receiving no
answer he murmured to himself: "The heat has got to his head."

Connor asked quietly: "Know anything about these gray horses and where
they came from?"

"Sure. As much as anybody. Come from yonder in the mountains. A Negro
raises 'em. A deaf mute. Ain't ever been heard to say a word."

"And he raises horses like that?"

"Sure."

"And nobody's been up there to try to buy 'em?"

"Too far to go, you see? Long ride and a hard trail. Besides, they's
plenty of good hoss-flesh right around Lukin, here."

"Of course," nodded Connor genially. "Of course there is."

"Besides, them grays is too small. Personally, I don't hanker after a
runt of a hoss. I look like a fool on one of em."

The voice of Connor was full of hearty agreement.

"So do I. Yes, they're small, if they're all like that one. Too small.
Much too small."

He looked narrowly at Townsend from the corner of his eyes to make sure
that the hotel proprietor suspected nothing.

"This deaf-mute sells some, now and then?"

"Yep. He comes down once in a while and sells a hoss to the first gent
he meets--and then walks back to the garden. Always geldings that he
sells, I understand. Stand up under work pretty well, those little
hosses. Harry Macklin has got one. Harry lives at Fort Andrew. There's a
funny yarn out about how Harry--"

"What price does the mute ask?"

"Thinking of getting one of 'em?"

"Me? Of course not! What do I want with a runt of a horse like that? But
I was wondering what they pay around here for little horses."

"I dunno."

"What's that story you were going to tell me about Harry Macklin?"

"You see, it was this way--"

And he poured forth the stale anecdote while they strolled back to the
hotel. Connor smiled and nodded at appropriate places, but his absent
eyes were seeing, once more, the low-running form of the little gray
gelding coming away from the rest of the pack.




_CHAPTER SIX_


When he arrived at the hotel Ben Connor found the following telegram
awaiting 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. From
his traveling bag he brought out a portfolio full of wrinkled papers and
pamphlets crowded with lists of names and figures; there followed a time
of close work. Page after page of calculations scribbled with a soft
pencil and in a large, sprawling hand, were torn from a pad, fluttered
through the air and lay where they fell. When the hour was ended he
pushed away the pamphlets of "dope" and picked up his notes. After that
he sat in deep thought and drove puff after puff of cigarette-smoke at
the ceiling.

As his brown study progressed, he began crumpling the slips in his moist
fingers until only two remained. These he balanced on his finger-tips as
though 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 was
written "Trickster." Connor had made his choice.

That done, his expression softened as men relax after a day of mental
strain and he loitered down the stairs and into the street. Passing
through the lobby he heard the voice of Jack Townsend raised obviously
to attract his attention.

"There he goes now. And nothing but the weight kept him from bettin' on
the gray."

Connor heard sounds, not words, for his mind was already far away in a
club house, waiting for the "ponies" to file past. On the way to the
telegraph office he saw neither street nor building nor face, until he
had written on one of the yellow blanks, "A thousand on Trickster," and
addressed it to Harry Slocum. Not until he shoved the telegram across
the counter did he see Ruth Manning.

She was half-turned from the key, but her head was canted toward the
chattering 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 a
hundred 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 older
brother up there three years ago and then he went back to make up for
their deaths. Luck?"

Connor, wondering, nodded. "Slipped my mind, that story of Bjornsen. Any
other news?"

She made a little gesture, palms up, as though she gathered something
from the air.

"News? The old wire has been pouring it at me all morning. Henry
Levateur went up thirty-two thousand feet yesterday and the Admiral Barr
was 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 the
Admiral Barr and we'll have the old colors in every port that calls
itself a town. Europe will have to wake up."

She counted the telegram with a sweep of her pencil and flipped the
change to Connor out of the coin-box. The rattle of the sounder meant
new things to Connor; the edges of the world crowded close, for when the
noise stopped, in the thick silence he watched her features relax and
the light go out of her eyes. It enabled him to glance into her life in
Lukin, with only the chattering wire for a companion. A moment before
she had been radiant--now she was a tired girl with purple shadows
beneath her eyes making them look ghostly large.

"Oh, Bobby," she called. A tall youth came out of an inner room. "Take
the 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 a
treat."

Already she gained color and her eyes brightened. She was like a motor,
Connor decided, nothing in itself, but responding to every electric
current.

"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's
horse 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 about
horses to look at their hocks and see how they stand; and I don't
suppose I'd buy in on a pony that points the toe of a fore-foot--but I'm
no 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 change
in 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 a
quitter. Not that way with horses. Why, any scrubby pinto that has a
drop of Eden Gray blood in him will run till his heart breaks. You can
bet 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 the
lunch-counters in the old saloons while the select went to the hotel.
Mrs. Townsend, billowing about the room in a dress of blue with white
polka-dots, when she was not making hurried trips into the kitchen, cast
one glance of approval at Ben Connor and another of surprise at the
girl. Other glances followed, for the room was fairly well filled, and a
whisper 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 Connor
gauging her with an accurate eye, admired and wondered where she had
learned. Yet when they found a table and he drew out a chair for her, he
could tell from the manner in which she lowered herself into it that she
was not used to being seated. That observation gave him a feeling of
power 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. "I
hope you made a killing."

He saw by the slight widening of her eyes that a hundred dollars was a
good 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 had
odds 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 aside
and stepped forward in the business.

"I've been interested since I saw that little streak of gray shoot over
the 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 now
and then a deaf and dumb Negro comes. He's a regular giant. Whenever he
meets a man he gets off the horse and puts a paper into the hand of the
other. 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 in
gold, but he had three hundred in paper. He offered the whole three
hundred 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 it
doesn't take him long to find a man who'll buy a horse like one of the
grays for fifty dollars. The minute the horse is sold he turns around
and starts walking back. Pete Ricks tried to follow him. He turned back
on 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. Pete says he
expected to have his neck broken--he was like a child in the arms of
that giant. But it seemed that the mute was only telling him in
deaf-and-dumb talk that he mustn't follow. After he'd frightened the
life out of Pete the big mute went away again, and Pete came home as
fast 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 was
because the owner only sold to weed out his stock."

"Wait," said Connor, tapping on the table to make his point. "Do I
gather that the only Eden Grays that are sold are the poorest of the
lot?"

"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 a
hundred dollars. I can't help being interested."

He detached his watch-charm from its catch and began to finger it
carelessly; 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 jaw
of the gambler was set in a hard line, and she felt, subconsciously, a
widening 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 he
lives off there in the mountains by himself because he's a sort of
religious fanatic."

"Religion? Crazy, maybe."

"Maybe."

"What's his religion?"

"I don't know," said the girl coldly. "After you jerk lightning for a
while, you aren't interested much in religion."

He nodded, not quite sure of her position, but now her face darkened and
she went on, gathering interest in the subject.

"Oh, I've heard 'em rave about the God that made the earth and the stars
and all that stuff; the mountains, too. I've heard 'em die asking for
mercy and praising God. That's the way Dad went. It was drink that got
him. But I'm for facts only. Far as I can see, when people come up
against a thing they can't understand they just close their eyes and
say, God! And when they're due to die, sometimes they're afraid and they
say, God--because they think they're going out like a snuffed lantern
and never will be lighted again."

The gambler sat with his chin buried in his palm, and from beneath a
heavy frown he studied the girl.

"I don't hold malice more than the next one," said the girl, "but I saw
Dad; and I've been sick of religion ever since. Besides, how do you
explain 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, 'Give
me 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 the
scrutiny.

"Not that I've had enough luck to make me fond of it. I've been stuck up
here on the edge of the world all my life. And how I've wanted to get
away! 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 her
heart. I've been waiting all my life for a chance, and the chance has
never come." Something flared in her.

"Sometimes I think," she whispered, "that I can't stand it! That I'd do
anything! Anything--just to get away."

She stopped, and as her passion ebbed she was afraid she had said too
much.

"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 forgotten
to remove the ivory image from his hand, and the ape-head cut into her
flesh.




_CHAPTER SEVEN_


That evening Ruth sent a boy over to the hotel with a telegram for
Connor. It announced that Trickster, at six to one, came home a winner
in the Murray. But Connor had time for only a grunt and a nod; he was
too busy composing a letter to Harry Slocum, which read as follows:

     DEAR HARRY:

     I'm about to put my head in the lion's mouth; and in case you
     don't hear from me again, say within three months, this is to
     ask you to look for my bones. I'm starting out to nail a
     thousand-to-one shot. Working a hunch for the biggest clean-up
     we ever made. I'm going into the mountains to find a deaf mute
     Negro who raises the finest horses I've ever seen. Do you get
     that? No white man has gone into that valley; at least, no one
     has come out talking. But I'm going to bring something with me.
     If I don't come out it'll be because I've been knocked on the
     head inside the valley. I'm not telling any one around here
     where I'm bound, but I've made inquiries, and this is what I
     gather: No one is interested in the mute's valley simply
     because it's so far away. The mute doesn't bother them and they
     won't bother him. That's the main reason for letting him alone.
     The other reasons are that he's suspected of being a bad actor.

     But the distance is the chief thing that fences people away.
     The straight cut is bad going. The better way around is a slow
     journey. It leads west out of Lukin and down into the valley of
     the Girard River; then along the Girard to its headwaters. Then
     through the mountains again to the only entrance to the valley.
     I'm telling you all this so that you'll know what you may have
     ahead of you. If I'm mum for three months come straight for
     Lukin; go to a telegraph operator named Ruth Manning, and tell
     her that you've come to get track of me. She'll give you the
     names of the best dozen men in Lukin, and you start for the
     valley with the posse.

     Around Lukin they have a sort of foggy fear of the valley, bad
     medicine, they call it.

     I have a hard game ahead of me and I'm going to stack the
     cards. I've got to get into the Garden by a trick and get out
     again the same way. I start this afternoon.

     I've got a horse and a pack mule, and I'm going to try my hand
     at camping out. If I come back it will be on something that
     will carry both the pack and me, I think, and it won't take
     long to make the trip. Our days of being rich for ten days and
     poor for thirty will be over.

     Hold yourself ready; sharp at the end of ninety days, come West
     if I'm still silent.

     As ever,

     BEN.

Before the mail took that letter eastward, Ben Connor received his final
advice from Jack Townsend. It was under the hotel man's supervision that
he selected his outfit of soft felt hat, flannel shirts, heavy socks,
and Napatan boots; Townsend, too, went with him to pick out the pack
mule and all the elements of the pack, from salt to canned tomatoes.

As for the horse, Townsend merely stood by to admire while Ben Connor
went through a dozen possibilities and picked a solidly built chestnut
with legs enough for speed in a pinch, and a flexible fetlock--joints
that promised an easy gait.

"You won't have no trouble," said Townsend, as Connor sat the saddle,
working the stirrups back and forth and frowning at the creaking new
leather. "Wherever you go you'll find gents ready to give you a hand on
your way."

"Why's that? Don't I look like an old hand at this game?"

"Not with that complexion; it talks city a mile off. If you'd tell me
where you're bound for--"

"But I'm not bound anywhere," answered Connor. "I'm out to follow my
nose."

"With that gun you ought to get some game."

Connor laid his hand on the butt of the rifle which was slung in a case
under his leg. He had little experience with a gun, but he said
nothing.

"All trim," continued Townsend, stepping back to look. "Not a flaw in
the mule; no sign of ringbone or spavin, and when a mule ain't got them,
he's got nothin' wrong. Don't treat him too well. When you feel like
pattin' him, cuss him instead. It's mule nature to like a beatin' once
in a while; they spoil without it, like kids. He'll hang back for two
days, but the third day he'll walk all over your hoss; never was a hoss
that could walk with a mule on a long trip. Well, Mr. Connor, I guess
you're all fixed, but I'd like to send a boy along to see you get
started right."

"Don't worry," smiled Connor. "I've written down all your suggestions."

"Here's what you want to tie on to special," said the fat man. "Don't
move your camp on Fridays or the thirteenth; if you come nigh a town and
a black cat crosses your trail, you camp right there and don't move on
to that town till the next morning. And wait a minute--if you start out
and find you've left something in camp, make a cross in the trail before
you go back."

He frowned to collect his thoughts.

"Well, if you don't do none of them three things, you can't come out far
wrong. S'long, and good luck, Mr. Connor."

Connor waved his hand, touched the chestnut with his heel and the horse
broke into a trot, while the rope, coming taut, first stretched the neck
of the mule and then tugged him into a dragging amble. In this manner
Connor went out of Lukin. He smiled to himself, as he thought
confidently of the far different fashion in which he would return.

The first day gave Connor a raw nose, a sunburned neck and wrists, and
his supper was charred bacon and tasteless coffee; but the next morning
he came out of the choppy mountains and went down a long, easy slope
into the valley of the Girard. There was always water here, and fine
grass for the horse and mule, with a cool wind off the snows coming down
the ravine. By the third day he was broken into the routine of his work
and knew the most vulnerable spot on the ribs of the mule, and had a pet
name for the chestnut. Thereafter the camping trip was pleasant enough.
It took him longer than he had expected, for he would not press the
horse as the pitch of the ravine grew steeper; later he saw his wisdom
in keeping the chestnut fresh for the final burst, for when he reached
the head-spring of the Girard, he faced a confusion of difficult, naked
mountains. He was daunted but determined, and the next morning he filled
his canteens and struck into the last stage of his journey.

Luck gave him cool weather, with high moving clouds, which curtained the
sun during the middle of the day, but even then it was hard work. He had
not the vestige of a trail to follow; the mountain sides were bare rock.
A scattering of shrubs and dwarfed trees found rooting in crevices, but
on the whole Connor was journeying through a sea of stone, and
sometimes, when the sun glinted on smooth surface, the reflection
blinded him. By noon the chestnut was hobbling, and before nightfall
even the mule showed signs of distress. And though Connor traveled now
by compass, he was haunted by a continual fear that he might have
mistaken his way, or that the directions he had picked up at Lukin might
be entirely wrong. Evening was already coming over the mountains when he
rounded a slope of black rock and found below him a picture that tallied
in every detail with all he had heard of the valley.

The first look was like a glance into a deep well of stone with a flash
of water in the bottom; afterward he sat on a boulder and arranged the
details of that big vista. Nothing led up to the Garden from any
direction; it was a freak of nature. Some convulsion of the earth, when
these mountains were first rising, perhaps, had split the rocks, or as
the surface strata rolled up, they parted over the central lift and left
this ragged fissure. Through the valley ran a river, but water could
never have cut those saw-tooth cliffs; and Connor noted this strange
thing: that the valley came to abrupt ends both north and south. By the
slant sunlight, and at that distance--for he judged the place to be some
ten or fifteen miles in length--it seemed as if the cliff fronts to the
north and south were as solid and lofty as a portion of the sides; yet
this could not be unless the river actually disappeared under the face
of the wall. Still, he could not make out details from the distance,
only the main outline of the place, the sheen of growing things, whether
trees or grass, and the glitter of the river which swelled toward the
center of the valley into a lake. He could discover only one natural
entrance; in the nearest cliff wall appeared a deep, narrow cleft, which
ran to the very floor of the valley, and the only approach was through a
difficult ravine. The sore-footed chestnut had caught the flash of
green, and now he pricked his ears and whinnied as if he saw home.
Connor started down the rocks toward the entrance, leading the horse,
while the mule trailed wearily behind. As he turned, the wind blew to
him out of the valley a faint rhythmical chiming. When he paused to
listen the sound disappeared.

He dipped out of the brighter level into a premature night below;
evening was gathering quickly, and with each step Connor felt the misty
darkness closing above his head. He was stumbling over the boulders,
downheaded, hardly able to see the ground at his feet, yet when he
reached the bottom of the little ravine which ran toward the entrance,
he looked up to a red sky, and the higher mountains rolled off in waves
of light. Distances were magnified; he seemed to look from the bottom of
the world to the top of it; he turned, a little dizzy, and between the
edges of the cleft that rose straight as Doric pillars, he saw a fire
burning at the entrance to the Garden of Eden. The sunset was above
them, but the fire sent a long ray through the night of the lower
valley. Connor pointed it out to his horse, and the little cavalcade
went slowly forward.




_CHAPTER EIGHT_


With every step that he took into the darkness the feeling of awe
deepened upon Connor, until he went frowning toward the fire as though
it were an eye that watched his coming. He was quite close when the
chestnut threw up its head with a snort and stopped, listening; Connor
listened as well, and he heard a music of men's voices singing together,
faint with distance; the sound traveled so far that he caught the pulse
of the rhythm and the fiber of the voices rather than the tune itself,
yet the awe which had been growing in Connor gathered suddenly in his
throat. He had to close his hands hard to keep from being afraid.

As though the chestnut felt the strangeness also, he neighed suddenly;
the rock walls of the ravine caught up the sound and trumpeted it back.
Connor, recovering from the shock, buried his fingers in the nostrils of
the horse and choked the sound away; but the echo still went faintly
before them and behind. The alarm had been given. The fire winked once
and went out. Connor was left without a light to guide him; he looked up
and saw that the sunset flush had fallen away to a dead gray.

He looked ahead to where the fire had been. Just then the horse jerked
his nose away and gasped in a new breath. Even that slight sound
flurried Connor, for it might guide the unknown danger to him. Connor
remembered that after all he was not a bandit stealing upon a peaceful
town; he composed his mind and his nerves with an effort, and was about
to step forward again when he saw in the night just before him a deeper
shade among the shadows. Peering, he discovered the dim outlines of a
man.

Ben Connor was not a coward, but he was daunted by this apparition. His
first impulse was to flee; his second was to leap at the other's throat.
It spoke much for his steadiness in a crisis that he did neither, but
called instead: "Who's there?"

Metal gritted on metal, and a shaft of light poured into Connor's face
so unexpectedly that he shrank. The chestnut reared, and turning to
control the horse, Connor saw his eyes and the eyes of the mule shining
like phosphorus. When he had quieted the gelding he saw that it was a
hooded lantern which had been uncovered. Not a ray fell on the bearer of
the light.

"I saw a light down here," said Connor, after he had tried in vain to
make out the features of the other. "It looked like a fire, and I
started for it; I've lost my bearing in these mountains."

Without answering, the bearer of the lantern kept the shaft staring into
Connor's face for another moment; then it was as suddenly hooded and
welcome darkness covered the gambler. With a gesture which he barely
could make out, the silent man waved him forward down the ravine. It
angered Connor, this mummery of speechlessness, but with his anger was
an odd feeling of helplessness as though the other had a loaded gun at
his head.

The man walked behind him as they went forward, and presently the fire
shone out at them from the entrance to the valley; thus Connor saw the
blanket which had screened the fire removed, and caught a glimpse of a
second form.

Even the zenith was dark now, and it was double night in the ravine.
With the chestnut stumbling behind him, Connor entered the circle of the
fire and was stopped by the raised hand of the second man.

"Why are you here?" said the guard.

The voice was thin, but the articulation thick and soft, and as the
questioner stepped into the full glow of the fire, Connor saw a Negro
whose head was covered by white curls. He was very old; it seemed as
though time had faded his black pigment, and now his skin, a dark
bronze, was puckered at the corners of his mouth, about his eyes, and in
the center of his forehead, seeming to have dried in wrinkles like
parchment. While he talked his expression never varied from the weary
frown; yet years had not bowed him, for he stood straight as a youth,
and though his neck was dried away until it was no thicker than a strong
man's forearm, he kept his head high and looked at Connor.

The man who had gone out to stop Connor now answered for him, and
turning to the voice the gambler saw that this fellow was a Negro
likewise; as erect as the one by the fire, but hardly less ancient.

"He is lost in the mountains, and he saw the fire at the gate, Ephraim."

Ephraim considered Connor wistfully.

"This way is closed," he said; "you cannot pass through the gate."

The gambler looked up; a wall of rock on either side rose so high that
the firelight failed to carry all the distance, and the darkness arched
solidly above him. The calm dignity of the men stripped him of an
advantage which he felt should be his, but he determined to appear at
ease.

"Your best way," continued Ephraim, "is toward that largest mountain.
You see where its top is still lighted in the west, while the rest of
the range is black.

"Jacob can take you up from the ravine and show you the beginning of the
way. But do not pass beyond the sight of the fire, Jacob."

"Good advice," nodded Connor, forcing himself to smile, "if it weren't
that my horse is too sore-footed to carry me. Even the mule can hardly
walk--you see."

He waved his hand and the chestnut threw up its head and took one or two
halting steps to the side.

"In the meantime, I suppose you've no objection if I sit down here for a
moment or two?"

Ephraim, bowing as though he ushered the other into an apartment of
state, waved to a smooth-topped boulder comfortably near the fire.

"I wish to serve you," he went on, "in anything I can do without leaving
the valley. We have a tank just inside the gate, and Jacob will fill
your canteen and water the horse and mule as well."

"Kind of you," said Connor. "Cigarette?"

The proffered smoke brought a wrinkling of amazed delight into the face
of Ephraim and his withered hand stretched tentatively forth. Jacob
forestalled him with a cry and snatched the cigarette from the open palm
of Connor. He held it in both his cupped hands.

"Tobacco--again!" He turned to Ephraim. "I have not forgotten!"

Ephraim had folded his arms with dignity, and now he turned a reproving
glance upon his companion.

"Is it permitted?" he asked coldly.

The joy went out of the face of Jacob.

"What harm?"

"Is it permitted?" insisted Ephraim.

"He will not ask," argued Jacob dubiously.

"He knows without asking."

At this, very slowly and unwillingly, Jacob put the cigarette back into
the hand of Ben Connor. A dozen curious questions came into the mind of
the gambler, but he decided wisely to change the subject.

"The boss gives you orders not to leave, eh?" he went on. "Not a step
outside the gate? What's the idea?"

"This thing was true in the time of the old masters. Only Joseph can
leave the valley," Ephraim answered.

"And you don't know why no one is allowed inside the valley?"

"I have never asked," said Ephraim.

Connor smoked fiercely, peering into the fire.

"Well," he said at length, "you see my troubles? I can't get into the
valley to rest up. I have to turn around and try to cross those
mountains."

"Yes," nodded Ephraim.

"But the horse and mule will never make it over the rocks. I'll have to
leave them behind or stay and starve with them."

"That is true."

"Rather than do that," said Connor, fencing for an opening, "I'd leave
the poor devils here to live in the valley."

"That cannot be. No animals are allowed to enter."

"What? You'd allow this pair to die at the gate of the valley?"

"No; I should lead them first into the mountains."

"This is incredible! But I tell you, this horse is my friend--I can't
desert him!"

He fumbled in his coat pocket and then stretched out his hand toward the
chestnut; the horse hobbled a few steps nearer and nosed the palm of it
expectantly.

"So!" muttered Ephraim, and shaded his eyes with his hand to look. He
settled back and said in a different voice: "The horse loves you; it is
said."

"I put the matter squarely up to you," said Connor. "You see how I
stand. Give me your advice!"

Ephraim protested. "No, no! I cannot advise you. I know nothing of what
goes on out yonder. Nevertheless--"

He broke off, for Connor was lighting another cigarette from the butt of
the first one, and Ephraim paused to watch, nodding with a sort of
vicarious pleasure as he saw Connor inhale deeply and then blow out a
thin drift of smoke.

"You were about to say something else when I lighted this."

"Yes, I was about to say that I could not advise you, but I can send to
Joseph. He is near us now."

"By all means send to Joseph."

"Jacob," ordered the keeper of the gate, "go to Joseph and tell him what
has happened."

The other nodded, and then whistled a long note that drifted up the
ravine. Afterward there was no answer, but Jacob remained facing
expectantly toward the inside of the valley and presently Connor heard a
sound that made his heart leap, the rhythmic hoofbeats of a galloping
horse; and even in the darkness the long interval between impacts told
him something of the animal's gait. Then into the circle of the
firelight broke a gray horse with his tail high, his mane fluttering. He
brought his gallop to a mincing trot and came straight toward Jacob, but
a yard away he stopped and leaped catlike to one side; with head tossed
high he stared at Connor.

Cold sweat stood on the forehead of the gambler, for it was like
something he had seen, something he remembered; all his dreams of what a
horse should be, come true.

Ephraim was saying sternly:

"In my household the colts are taught better manners, Jacob."

And Jacob answered, greatly perturbed: "There is a wild spirit in all
the sons of Harith."

"It is Cassim, is it not?" asked Ephraim.

"Peace, fool!" said Jacob to the stallion, and the horse came and stood
behind him, still watching the stranger over the shoulder of his master.

"Years dim your eyes, Ephraim," he continued. "This is not Cassim and he
is not the height of Cassim by an inch. No, it is Abra, the son of Hira,
who was the daughter of Harith."

He smiled complacently upon Ephraim, nodding his ancient head, and
Ephraim frowned.

"It is true that my eyes are not as young as yours, Jacob; but the
horses of my household are taught to stand when they are spoken to and
not dance like foolish children."

This last reproof was called forth by the continual weaving back and
forth of the stallion as he looked at Connor, first from one side of
Jacob and then from the other. The old man now turned with a raised
hand.

"Stand!" he ordered.

The stallion jerked up his head and became rigid.

"A sharp temper makes a horse without heart," said the oracular Ephraim.

Jacob scowled, and rolling his eyes angrily, searched for a reply; but
he found none. Ephraim clasped one knee tightly in both hands, and
weaving his head a little from side to side, delighted in his triumph.

"And the hand which is raised," went on the tormentor, "should always
fall."

He was apparently quoting from an authority against which there was no
appeal; now he concluded:

"Threats are for children, and yearlings; but a grown horse is above
them."

"The spirit of Harith has returned in Abra," said Jacob gloomily. "From
that month of April when he was foaled he has been a trial and a burden;
yes, if even a cloud blows over the moon he comes to my window and calls
me. There was never such a horse since Harith. However, he shall make
amends. Abra!"

The stallion stepped nearer and halted, alert.

"Go to him, fool. Go to the stranger and give him your head. Quick!"

The gray horse turned, hesitated, and then came straight to Connor, very
slowly; there he bowed his head and dropped his muzzle on the knee of
the white man, but all the while his eyes flared at the strange face in
terror. Jacob turned a proud smile upon Ephraim, and the latter nodded.

"It is a good colt," he admitted. "His heart is right, and in time he
may grow to some worth."

Once more Connor fumbled in his pocket.

"Steady," he said, looking squarely into the great, bright eyes.
"Steady, boy."

He put his hand under the nose of the stallion.

"It's a new smell, but little different."

Abra snorted softly, but though he shook he dared not move. The gambler,
with a side glance, saw the two men watching intently.

"Ah," said Connor, "you have pulled against a headstall here, eh?"

He touched an old scar on the cheek of the horse, and Abra closed his
eyes, but opened them again when he discovered that no harm was done to
him by the tips of those gentle fingers.

"You may let him have his head again," said Connor. "He will not leave
me now until he is ordered."

"So?" exclaimed Jacob. "We shall see! Enough Abra!"

The gray tossed up his head at that word, but after he had taken one
step he returned and touched the back of the white man's hand, snuffed
at his shoulder and at his hat and then stood with pricking ears. A soft
exclamation came in unison from Jacob and Ephraim.

"I have never seen it before," muttered Jacob. "To see it, one would say
he was a son of Julanda."

"It is my teaching and not the blood of Julanda that gives my horses
manners," corrected Ephraim. "However, if I might look in the hand of
the stranger--"

"There is nothing in it," answered Connor, smiling, and he held out both
empty palms. "All horses are like this with me."

"Is it true?" they murmured together.

"Yes; I don't know why. But you were going to bring Joseph."

"Ah," said Ephraim, shaking his head. "I had almost forgotten. Hurry,
Jacob; but if you will take my advice in the matter you will teach your
colts fewer tricks and more sound sense."

The other grunted, and putting his hand on the withers of Abra, he
leaped to the back with the lightness of a strong youth. A motion of his
hand sent the gray into a gallop that shot them through the gate into
darkness.




_CHAPTER NINE_


That faint and rhythmic chiming which Connor had heard from the mountain
when he first saw the valley now came again through the gate, more
clearly. There was something familiar about the sound--yet Connor could
not place it.

"Did you mark?" said Ephraim, shaking his head. "Did you see the colt
shy at the white rock as he ran? In my household that could never
happen; and yet Jacob does well enough, for the blood of Harith is as
stubborn as old oak and wild as a wolf. But your gift, sir"--and here he
turned with much respect toward Connor--"is a great one. I have never
seen Harith's sons come to a man as Abra came to you."

He was surprised to see the stranger staring toward the gate as if he
watched a ghost.

"He did not gallop," said Connor presently, and his voice faltered. "He
flowed. He poured himself through the air."

He swept a hand across his forehead and with great effort calmed the
muscles of his face.

"Are there more horses like that in the valley?"

Ephraim hesitated, for there was such a glittering hunger in the eyes of
this stranger that it abashed him. Vanity, however, brushed scruple
away.

"More like Abra in the valley? So!"

He seemed to hunt for superlatives with which to overwhelm his
questioner.

"The worst in my household is Tabari, the daughter of Numan, and she was
foaled lame in the left foreleg. But if ten like Abra were placed in
one corral and Tabari in the other, a wise man would give the ten and
take the one and render thanks that such good fortune had come his way."

"Is it possible?" exclaimed Connor in that same, small, choked voice.

"I speak calmly," said Ephraim gravely. He added with some hesitation:
"But if I must tell the whole truth, I shall admit that my household is
not like the household of the blood of Rustir. Just as she was the queen
of horses, so those of her blood are above other horses as the master is
above me. Yet, if ten like Tabari were placed in one corral and the
stallion Glani were placed in another, I suppose that a wise man would
give the ten for the one."

He added with a sigh: "But I should not have such wisdom."

Connor smiled.

"And at that rate it would require a hundred like Abra to buy Glani?" he
asked.

"A thousand," said the old man instantly, "and then the full price would
not be paid. I have already asked the master to cross him with Hira. He
will answer me soon; one touch of Glani's blood will lift the strain in
my household. My colts are good mettle--but the fire, the soul of
Glani!"

He bowed his head.

"Ah, they are coming, Jacob and Joseph."

His keen ear heard a sound which was not audible to Connor for several
moments; then two gray horses swept into the circle of the firelight,
and from the mare which led Abra by several yards, a huge Negro
dismounted.

"If you are Joseph," the gambler said, "I suppose Jacob has already told
you about me. My name is Connor. I've been hunting up the Girard River,
struck across the mountains yonder, and here I've brought up with a lame
mule and a lamer horse. The point is that I want to rest up in your
valley until my animals can go on. Is it possible?"

While he spoke the giant watched him with eyes which squinted in their
intensity, but when he ended Joseph answered not a word. Connor
remembered now what he had heard of the deaf mute who alone went back
and forth from the Garden of Eden, and his heart fell. It was talking to
a face of stone.

In the meantime Joseph continued to examine the stranger. From head to
foot the little, bright eyes moved, leisurely, and Connor grew hot as he
endured it. When the survey was completed to his own satisfaction,
Joseph went first to the mule and next to the horse, lifting their feet
one by one, then running his hands over their legs. After this he turned
to Jacob and his great fingers glided through the characters of the
language of the mute, bunching, knotting, darting out in a fluid
swiftness.

"Joseph says," translated Ephraim, "that your horse is lame, but that he
can climb the hills if you go on foot; the mule is not lame at all, but
is pretending, because he is tired."

An oath rose up in the throat of Connor, but he checked it against his
teeth and smiled at Joseph. The big man hissed through his teeth and his
mare sprang to his side. She was not more than fourteen two, and
slenderly made compared with Abra, yet she had borne the great bulk of
Joseph with ease before, and now she was apparently ready to carry him
again. He dropped his hand upon her withers, and facing Connor, swept
his arm out in a broad gesture of dismissal. Vaguely the gambler noticed
this, but his real interest centered on the form of the mare. He was
seeing her not with that unwieldy bulk crushing her back, but with a
fly-weight jockey mounted on a racing pad riding her past the grand
stand. He was hearing the odds which the bookies offered; he was
watching those odds drop by leaps and bounds as he hammered away at
them, betting in lumps of hundreds and five hundreds, staking his
fortune on his first "sure thing." Even as she stood passive, tossing
her nose, he knew her speed, and it took his breath. Abra himself would
walk away from ordinary company, but this gray mare--slowly Connor
looked back to the face of Joseph and saw that the giant was waiting to
see his command obeyed. For the first time he noted the cartridge belt
strung across the fellow's gaunt middle and the holster in which pulled
the weight of a forty-five. In case of doubt, here was a cogent reason
to hurry a loiterer. To persuade the giant would never have been easy,
but to persuade him through an interpreter made the affair impossible.
Struggling for a loophole of escape, he absentmindedly unsnapped from
his watch chain the little ivory talisman, the ape head, and commenced
to finger it. It had been his constant companion for years and in a
measure he connected his luck with it.

"My friend," said Connor to Ephraim, "you see my position? But if I
can't do better is there any objection to my using this fire of yours
for cooking? The fire, at least, is outside the valley."

Even this question Ephraim apparently did not feel qualified to answer.
He turned first to the gigantic mute and conversed with him at some
length; his own fluent signals were answered by single movements on the
part of Joseph, and Connor recognized the signs of dissent.

"I have told him everything," said Ephraim, turning again to Connor and
shaking his head in sympathy. "And how Abra came to you, but though the
horse trusted you, Joseph does not wish you to stay. I am sorry."

Connor looked through the gate into the darkness of the Garden of Eden;
at the entrance to his promised land he was to be turned back. In his
despair he opened his palm and looked down absently at the little
grinning ape head of ivory. Even while he was deep in thought he felt
the silence which settled over the three men, and when he looked up he
saw the glittering eyes of Joseph fixed upon the trinket. That instant
new hope came to Connor; he closed his hand over the ape head, and
turning to Ephraim he said:

"Very well. If there's nothing else for me to do, I'll take the chance
of getting through the mountains with my lame nags."

As he spoke he threw the reins over the neck of the chestnut; but before
he could put his foot in the stirrup Joseph was beside him and touched
his shoulder.

"Wait!" said he, and the gambler paused with astonishment. The mask of
the mute which he had hitherto kept on his face now fell from it.

"Let me see," the giant was saying, and held out his hand for the ivory
image.

The pulse of Connor doubled its beat--but with his fingers still closed
he said:

"The ivory head is an old companion of mine and has brought me a great
deal of luck."

The torchlight changed in the eyes of Joseph as the sun glints and
glimmers on watered silk.

"I would not hurt it," he said, and made a gingerly motion to show how
light and deft his fingers could be.

"Very well," said Connor, "but I rarely let it out of my hand."

He stepped closer to the firelight and exposed the little carving again.
It was a curious bit of work, with every detail nicely executed;
pinpoint emeralds were inset for eyes, the lips grinned back from tiny
fangs of gold, and the swelling neck suggested the powerful ape body of
the model. In the firelight the teeth and eyes flashed.

Joseph grinned in sympathy. Ephraim and Jacob also had drawn close, and
the white man saw in the three faces one expression: they had become
children before a master, and when Connor placed the trinket in the
great paw of Joseph the other two flashed at him glances of envy. As for
the big man, he was transformed.

"Speak truth," he said suddenly. "Why do you wish to enter the Garden?"

"I've already told you, I think," said Connor. "It's to rest up until
the horse and mule are well again."

The glance of the huge man, which had hitherto wandered from the trinket
to Connor's face, now steadied brightly upon the latter.

"There must be another reason."

Connor felt himself pressed to the wall.

"Look at the thing you have in your hand, Joseph. You are asking
yourself: 'What is it? Who made it? See how the firelight glitters on
it--perhaps there is life in it!'"

"Ah!" sighed the three in one breath.

"Perhaps there is power in it. I have used it well and it has brought me
a great deal of good luck. But you would like to know all those things,
Joseph. Now look at the gate to the Garden!"

He waved to the lofty and dark cleft before them.

"It is like a face to me. People live behind it. Who are they? Who is
the master? What does he do? What is his power? That is another reason
why I wish to go in; and why should you fear me? I am alone; I am
unarmed."

It seemed that Joseph learned more from Connor's expression than from
his words.

"The law is the will of David."

The Garden became to Connor as the forbidden room to Bluebeard's wife;
it tempted him as a high cliff tempts the climber toward a fall. He
mustered a calm air and voice.

"That is a matter I can arrange with your master. He may have laws to
keep out thieves, but certainly he has nothing against honest men."

Joseph shrugged his big shoulders, but Ephraim answered: "The will of
David never changes. I am no longer young, but since I have been old
enough to remember, I have never seen a man either come into the valley
or leave it except Joseph."

The solemnity of the old man staggered Connor. He felt his resolution to
enter at any cost waver, and then Abra, the young stallion, came to his
side and looked in his face.

It was the decisive touch. The life which the devotee would risk for his
God, or the patriot for his country, the gambler was willing to venture
for the sake of a "sure thing."

"Let us exchange gifts," said Connor; "I give you the ivory head. It may
bring you good luck. You give me the right to enter the valley and I
accept any good or evil that comes to me."

The huge fingers of Joseph curled softly over the image.

"Beware of the law!" cried Ephraim. "And the hand of the master!"

The giant shrank, but he looked at Ephraim with sullen defiance.

"Come," he said to Connor. "This is on your own head."




_CHAPTER TEN_


"It is a long ride to the house of David," said Jacob. "Your horse is
footsore; take Abra."

But Ephraim broke in: "If you care for speed and wise feet beneath you,
Tabari herself is there."

He whistled as Jacob had done before, but with another grace-note at the
end.

"Those of my household answer when they are called," continued the old
man proudly. "Listen!"

A soft whinny out of the darkness, and Tabari galloped into the
firelight, and stopped at the side of her master motionless.

"Choose," said Ephraim.

He smiled at Jacob, who in return was darkly silent.

The mare tugged at the heartstrings of Connor, but he answered, slipping
carefully into the formal language which apparently was approved most in
the valley.

"She is worthy of a king, but Abra was offered to me first. But will he
carry a saddle?"

"He will carry anything but a whip," said Jacob, casting a glance of
triumph at Ephraim. "You will see!" He was already busy at the knot
under the flap of Connor's saddle, and presently he slipped the saddle
from the back of the chestnut. "Come!" he called.

Abra came, but he came like a fighter into the ring, dancing, ready for
trouble.

"Fool!" shouted Jacob, stamping. "Fool, and grandson of a fool, stand!"

The ears of Abra flicked back along his neck and he trembled as the
saddle was swung over him. Under its impact he crouched and shuddered,
but the outbreak of bucking for which Connor waited did not come. The
jerk on the cinch brought a snort from him, but that was all.

"We may not put iron in his mouth," said Jacob, as Connor came up with
the bridle, "but a touch on this will turn him or stop him, as you
wish."

As he spoke he picked up a small rope, which he knotted around the neck
of Abra close to the ears, and handed the end to Connor.

"Look!" he said to the horse, pointing to Connor. "This is your master
to-night. Bear him as you would bear me, Abra, without leaping or
stumbling, smoothly, as son of Khalissa should do. And hark," he added
in the ear of the young stallion; "if the mare of Joseph outruns you,
you are no horse of my household, but a mongrel, a bloodless knave."

Joseph was already trotting through the gate and growing dim beyond, so
Connor put his foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle. He landed
as upon springs, all the lithe body of the stallion giving under the
shock; and Connor felt a quivering power beneath him like the vibration
of a racing motor. Abra's eyes glinted as he threw his head high to take
stock of the new master.

"Go," commanded Jacob; "and remember your speed, for the honor of him
who trained you!"

The last words were whipped away from the ear of Connor and trailed into
a murmur behind him, for without a preliminary step Abra sprang from a
stand into a full gallop. That forward lurch swayed Connor far back; he
lost touch with his stirrups, but, clinging desperately with his knees,
he was presently able to right himself. There was hard gravel beneath
them, but the gait was as soft as if Abra ran in deep sand without
labor; there was no more wrench and shock than the ghost of a man
riding a ghost of a horse.

A column of black shot by on either hand; Connor was through the gate to
the Garden of Eden and rushing down the slope beyond. He knew this
dimly, but chiefly he was aware only of the whipping of the wind.
Something Ephraim had said came into his memory: "If there were ten like
Abra in one corral, and one like Tabari in another, a wise man--" But,
no doubt, Ephraim had jested.

For, glancing up, he saw the tops of tall trees rushing past him against
the sky, and for the first time he knew the speed of that gallop. In his
exultation he threw up his hand, and his shout rang before him and
behind. That taught him a lesson he would never forget when he sat the
saddle on an Eden Gray; for Abra lurched into a run with a suddenness
that swayed Connor against the cantle again.

He steadied himself quickly and called to Abra; the first word cut down
that racing gait to the long, free stride, but the brief rush had taken
the breath of the rider, and now he looked about him.

He had been in California years before, and now he recognized the
peculiar, clean perfume of the trees which lined the road; they were the
eucalyptus, and they fenced the way with a gigantic hedge several rows
deep. It was a winding road that they followed, dipping over a rolling
ground and swinging leisurely from side to side to avoid high places, so
that the vista of the trees was continually in motion, twisting back and
forth; or when he looked straight up he saw the slender tree-points
brushing past the stars. So he galloped into a long, straight stretch
with a pale gleam of water beyond it; and between he saw Joseph.

It was strange that in spite of the speed of Abra, Joseph's mare had not
been overtaken; for no matter what quality the mare might have, she
carried in the gigantic Negro an impost of some two hundred and fifty
pounds. A suspicion of discourtesy on his part must have come to Joseph,
for now he brought his horse back to a canter that allowed Connor to
come close, so close indeed that he saw Joseph laughing in a horrible
soundless way and beckoning him on, very much as though he challenged
Abra. Surely the fellow must know that no horse could concede such
weight to Abra, but Connor waved his arm to signify that he accepted the
challenge, and called on Abra.

There followed the breathless lunge forward, the sinking of the body as
the stride lengthened, the whir of wind against his face; Connor sat the
saddle erect, smiling, and waited for Joseph to come back to him.

But Joseph did not come, and as the mare reached the river and her hoofs
rang on the bridge Connor saw with unspeakable wonder that he had
actually lost ground. Once more he called on Abra, and as they struck
the bridge in turn the young stallion was fully extended, while Connor
swung forward in the saddle to throw more weight on the withers and take
the strain from the long back muscles. Leaning close to the neck of
Abra, with the mane whipping his face, he squinted down the road at
Joseph, and growled with savage satisfaction as he saw the mare drift
back to him. If he could reach her with a sprint she was beaten, for she
bore the extra burden. Once more he called on Abra, and heard a slight
grunt as the stallion gave the last burst of his strength; the hoofs of
the two roared on the hard road, and Joseph came back hand over hand.
Connor, laughing exultantly, squinted into the wind.

"Good boy!" he muttered. "Good old Abra! If he had Salvator under him
we'd get him at this rate. We're on his hip--Now!"

He was indeed in touch with the flying mare, and, looking through the
dimness, he marveled at her long, free swing, the level drive of the
croup, and--he saw with astonishment--her pricking ears! Not as if she
were racing, but merely galloping. He flattened himself along the neck
of Abra and called on him again, slapped his shoulder with the flat of
his hand, flicked him along the flank with the butt of the rope; but the
mare held him invincibly; he could not gain the breadth of a hair, and
by the pounding of Abra's forefeet he knew that the stallion was running
himself out. At that moment, to crown his bewilderment, Joseph turned,
laughing again in that soundless way. Only for a moment; then he turned,
and, leaning over the withers of his mount, the mare lengthened, it
seemed to Connor, and moved away.

Her hips went past him, then her tail, flying out straight behind, a
streak of silver; and last of all, there was the hiss of derision from
Joseph whistling back to him.

Connor threw himself back into the saddle and brought the stallion down
to a moderate pace. One hand was clutched at his throat, for it seemed
to him that his heart was beating there. Before him raced a vision of
Ben Connor, king of the racetracks of the world, with horses no
handicapper could measure.




_CHAPTER ELEVEN_


A Second thought made him lean a little, listening closely, and then he
discovered that after this terrific trial Abra was breathing deep and
free. Connor sat straight again and smiled. They must be close to the
lake he had seen from the mountain, for among the trees to his left was
a faint gleam of water. A moment later this glimmer went out, and the
hoofbeats of Abra were muffled on turf. They had left the road and
headed for a scattering of lights. Joseph had drawn the mare back to a
hand-gallop, and Abra followed the example; at this rocking gait they
swept through the grove between two long, low buildings, always
climbing, and came suddenly upon a larger house. On three sides Connor
looked down upon water; the building was behind him. Not a light showed
in it, but he made out the low, single story, the sense of weight, and
crude arches of the Mission style. Through an opening in the center of
the facade he looked into darkness which he knew must be the patio.

Following the example of Joseph, he dismounted, and while the big man,
with his waddling, difficult walk, disappeared into the court, Connor
stepped back and looked over Abra. Starlight was enough to see him by,
for he glimmered with running sweat even in the semidarkness, but it was
plain from his high head and inquisitive muzzle that he was neither
winded nor down-hearted. He followed Connor like a dog when the gambler
went in turn to the mare. She turned about nervously to watch the
newcomer. Not until Abra had touched noses with her and perhaps spoken
to her the dumb horse-talk would she allow Connor to come close, and
even then he could not see her as clearly as the stallion. By running
his finger-tips over her he discovered the reason--only on the flanks
and across the breast was she wet with perspiration, and barely moist on
the thighs and belly. The race had winded her no more than a six-furlong
canter.

He was still marveling at this discovery when Joseph appeared under the
arch carrying a lantern and beckoned him in, leading the way to a large
patio, surrounded by a continuous arcade. In the center a fountain was
alternately silver and shadow in the swinging lantern light. The floor
of the patio was close-shaven turf.

Joseph hung the lantern on the inside of one of the arches and turned to
Connor, apparently to invite him to take one of the chairs under the
arcade. Instead, he raised his hand to impose silence. Connor heard,
from some distance, a harsh sound of breathing of inconceivable
strength. For though it was plainly not close to them, he could mark
each intake and expulsion of breath. And the noise created for him the
picture of a monster.

"Let us go to the master," said Joseph, and turned straight across the
patio in the direction of that sonorous breathing.

Connor followed, by no means at ease. From the withered old men to huge
Joseph had been a long step. How far would be the reach between Joseph
himself and the omnipotent master?

He passed in the track of Joseph toward the rear of the patio. Presently
the big man halted, removed his hat, and faced a door beneath the
arcade. It was only a momentary interruption. He went on again at once,
replacing his hat, but the thrill of apprehension was still tingling in
the blood of the gambler. Now they went under the arcade, through an
open door, and issued in the rear of the house, Connor's imaginary
"monster" dissolved.

For they stood in front of a blacksmith shop, the side toward them being
entirely open so that Connor could see the whole of the interior. Two
sooty lanterns hung from the rafters, the light tangling among wreaths
of smoke above and showing below a man whose back was turned toward them
as he worked a great snoring bellows with one hand.

That bellows was the source of the mysterious breathing. Connor
chuckled; all mysteries dissolved as this had done the moment one
confronted them. He left off chuckling to admire the ease with which the
blacksmith handled the bellows. A massive angle of iron was buried in
the forge, the white flames spurting around it as the bellows blew,
casting the smith into high relief at every pulse of the fire. Sometimes
it ran on the great muscles of the arm that kept the bellows in play;
sometimes it ran a dazzling outline around his entire body, showing the
leather apron and the black hair which flooded down about his shoulders.

"Who--" began Connor.

"Hush," cautioned Joseph in a whisper. "David speaks when he
chooses--not sooner."

Here the smith laid hold on the iron with long pincers, and, raising it
from the coals, at once the shop burst with white light as David placed
the iron on the anvil and caught up a short-handled sledge. He whirled
it and brought it down with a clangor. The sparks spurted into the
night, dropping to the ground and turning red at the very feet of
Connor. Slowly David turned the iron, the steady shower of blows bending
it, changing it, molding it under the eye of the gambler. This was that
clangor which had floated through the clear mountain air to him when he
first gazed down on the valley; this was the bell-like murmur which had
washed down to him through the gates of the valley.

At least it was easy to understand why the servants feared him. A full
fourteen pounds was in the head of that sledge, Connor guessed, yet
David whirled it with a light and deft precision. Only the shuddering of
the anvil told the weight of those blows. Meantime, with every leap of
the spark-showers the gambler studied the face of the master. They were
features of strength rather than beauty from the frowning forehead to
the craggy jaw. A sort of fierce happiness lived in that face now, the
thought of the craftsman and the joy of the laborer in his strength.

As the white heat passed from the iron and it no longer flowed into a
shape so readily under the hammer of the smith, a change came in him.
Connor knew nothing of ironcraft, but he guessed shrewdly that another
man would have softened the metal with fire again at this point.
Instead, David chose to soften it with strength. The steady patter of
blows increased to a thundering rain as the iron turned a dark and
darker red.

The rhythm of the worker grew swifter, did not break, and Connor watched
with a keen eye of appreciation. Just as a great thoroughbred makes its
supreme effort in the stretch by a lengthening and slight quickening of
stride, but never a dropping into the choppy pace of unskilled labor at
speed, so the man at the anvil was now rocking steadily back and forth
from heel to toe, the knees unflexing a little as he struck and
stiffening as he swung up the hammer. The greater effort was told only
by the greater ring of the hammer face on the hardening iron--by that
and by the shudder of the arm of the smith as the fourteen pounds went
clanging home to the stroke.

And now the iron was quite dark--the smith stood with the ponderous
sledge poised above his head and turned the bar swiftly, with study, to
see that the angle was exactly what he wished. The hammer did not
descend again on the iron; the smith was content, and plunging the big
angle iron into the tempering tub, his burly shoulders were obscured for
a moment by a rising cloud of steam.

He stepped out of this and came directly to them. Now the lantern was
behind him, he was silhouetted in black, a mighty figure. He was panting
from his labor, and the heavy sound of his breathing disturbed the
gambler. He had expected to find a wise and simple old man in David.
Instead, he was face to face with a Hercules.

His attention was directed entirely to Joseph.

"I come from my work unclean," he said. "Joseph, take the stranger
within and wait."

Joseph led back into the patio to a plain wooden table beside which
Connor, at the gesture of invitation, sat down. Here Joseph left him
hurriedly, and the gambler looked about. The arcade was lightened by a
flagging of crystalline white stone, and the ceiling was inlaid with the
same material. But the arches and the wall of the building were of
common dobe, massive, but roughly built.

Beyond the fountain nodded like a ghost in the patio, and now and then,
when the lantern was swayed by the wind, the pool glinted and was black
again. The silence was beginning to make him feel more than ever like an
unwelcome guest when another old Negro came, and Connor noted with
growing wonder the third of these ancients. Each of them must have been
in youth a fine specimen of manhood. Even in white-headed age they
retained some of that noble countenance which remains to those who have
once been strong. This fellow bore a tray upon his arm, and in the free
hand carried a large yellow cloth of a coarse weave.

He placed on the table a wooden trencher with a great loaf of white
bread, a cone of clear honey, and an earthen pitcher of milk. Next he
put a wooden bowl on a chair beside Connor, and when the latter
obediently extended his hands, the old man poured warm water over them
and dried them with a napkin.

There was a ceremony about this that fitted perfectly with the
surroundings, and Connor became thoughtful. He was to tempt the master
with the wealth of the world, but what could he give the man to replace
his Homeric comfort?

In the midst of these reflections soft steps approached him, and he saw
the brown-faced David coming in a shapeless blouse and trousers of rough
cloth, with moccasins on his feet. Rising to meet his host, he was
surprised to find that David had no advantage in height and a small one
in breadth of shoulder; in the blacksmith shop he had seemed a giant.
The brown man stopped beside the table. He seemed to be around thirty,
but because of the unwrinkled forehead Connor decided that he was
probably five years older.

"I am David," he said, without offering his hand.

"I," said the gambler, "am Benjamin."

There was a flash that might have been either pleasure or suspicion in
the face of David.

"Joseph has told me what has passed between you," he said.

"I hope he's broken no law by letting me come in."

"My will is the law; in disregarding me he has broken a law."

He made a sign above his shoulder that brought Joseph hurrying out of
the gloom, his keen little eyes fastened upon the face of the master
with intolerable anxiety. There was another sign from David, and Joseph,
without a glance at Connor, snatched the ivory head out of his pocket,
thrust it upon the table, and stood back, watching the brown man with
fascination.

"You see," went on David, "that he returns to you the price which you
paid him. Therefore you have no longer a right to remain in the Garden
of Eden."

Connor flushed. "If this were a price," he answered, clinging as closely
as he could to language as simple and direct as that of David, "it could
be returned to me. But it is not a price. It is a gift, and gifts cannot
be returned."

He held out the ape-head, and when Joseph could see nothing save the
face of David, he pushed the trinket back toward the huge man.

"Then," said the brown man, "the fault which was small before is now
grown large."

He looked calmly upon Joseph, and the giant quailed. By the table hung a
gong on which the master tapped; one of the ancient servants appeared
instantly.

"Go to my room," said David, "and bring me the largest nugget from the
chest."

The old man disappeared, and while they waited for his return the little
bright eyes of Joseph went to and fro on the face of the master; but
David was staring into the darkness of the patio. The servant brought a
nugget of gold, as large as the doubled fist of a child, and the master
rolled it across the table to Connor.

A tenseness about his mouth told the gambler that much was staked on
this acceptance. He turned the nugget in his hand, noting the
discoloration of the ore from which it had been taken.

"It is a fine specimen," he said.

"You will see," said David, "both its size and weight."

And Connor knew; it was an exchange for the ivory head. He laid the
nugget carelessly back upon the table, thankful that the gift had been
offered with such suspicious bluntness.

"It is a fine specimen," he repeated, "but I am not collecting."

There was a heavy cloud on the face of David as he took up the nugget
and passed it into the hand of the waiting servant; but his glance was
for Joseph, not Connor.

Joseph burst into speech for the first time, and the words tumbled out.

"I do not want it. I shall not keep it. See, David; I give it up to
him!" He made a gesture with both hands as though he would push away the
ape-head forever.

The master looked earnestly at Connor.

"You hear?"

The latter shrugged his shoulders, saying: "I've never taken back a
gift, and I can't begin now."

Connor's heart was beating rapidly, from the excitement of the strange
interview and the sense of his narrow escape from banishment. Because he
had made the gift to Joseph he had an inalienable right, it seemed, to
expect some return from Joseph's master--even permission to stay in the
valley, if he insisted.

There was another of those uncomfortable pauses, with the master looking
sternly into the night.

"Zacharias," he said.

The servant stepped beside him.

"Bring the whip--and the cup."

The eyes of Zacharias rolled once toward Joseph and then he was gone,
running; he returned almost instantly with a seven foot blacksnake,
oiled until it glistened. He put it in the hand of David, but only when
Joseph stepped back, shuddering, and then turned and kneeled before
David, the significance of that whip came home to Connor, sickening him.
The whites of Joseph's eyes rolled at him and Connor stepped between
Joseph and the whip.

"Do you mean this?" he gasped. "Do you mean to say that you are going to
flog that poor fellow because he took a gift from me?"

"From you it was a gift," answered the master, perfectly calm, "but to
him it was a price. And to me it is a great trouble."

"God!" murmured Connor.

"Do you call on him?" asked the brown man severely. "He is only here in
so far as I am the agent of his justice. Yet I trust it is not more His
will than it is the will of David. Also, the heart of Joseph is stubborn
and must be humbled. Tears are the sign of contrition, and the whip
shall not cease to fall until Joseph weeps."

His glance pushed Connor back; the gambler saw the lash whirled, and he
turned his back sharply before it fell. Even so, the impact of the lash
on flesh cut into Connor, for he had only to take back the gift to end
the flogging. He set his teeth. Could he give up his only hold on David
and the Eden Grays? By the whizzing of the lash he knew that it was laid
on with the full strength of that muscular arm. Now a horrible murmur
from the throat of Joseph forced him to turn against his will.

The face of David was filled, not with anger, but with cruel disdain;
under his flying lash the welts leaped up on the back of Joseph, but he,
with his eyes shut and his head strained far back, endured. Only through
his teeth, each time he drew breath, came that stifled moan, and he
shuddered at each impact of the whip. Now his eyes opened, and through
the mist of pain a brutal hatred glimmered at Connor. That flare of rage
seemed to sap the last of his strength, for now his face convulsed,
tears flooded down, and his head dropped. Instantly the hand of David
paused.

Something had snapped in Connor at the same time that the head of Joseph
fell, and while he wiped the wet from his face he only vaguely saw
Joseph hurry down the corridor, with Zacharias carrying the whip behind.

But the master? There was neither cruelty nor anger in his face as he
turned to the table and filled with milk the wooden cup which Zacharias
had brought.

"This is my prayer," he said quietly, "that in the justice of David
there may never be the poison of David's wrath." 79

He drained the cup, broke a morsel of bread from the loaf and ate it.
Next he filled the second cup and handed it to the gambler.

"Drink."

Automatically Connor obeyed.

"Eat."

In turn he tasted the bread.

"And now," said the master, in the deep, calm voice, "you have drunk
with David in his house, and he has broken bread with you. Hereafter may
there be peace and good will between us. You have given a free gift to
one of my people, and he who gives clothes to David's people keeps David
from the shame of nakedness; and he who puts bread in the mouths of
David's servants feeds David himself. Stay with me, therefore, Benjamin,
until you find in the Garden the thing you desire, then take it and go
your way. But until that time, what is David's is Benjamin's; your will
be my will, and my way be your way."

He paused.

"And now, Benjamin, you are weary?"

"Very tired."

"Follow me."

It seemed well to Connor to remove himself from the eye of the master as
soon as possible. Not that the host showed signs of anger, but just as
one looks at a clear sky and forebodes hard weather because of misty
horizons, so the gambler guessed the frown behind David's eyes. He was
glad to turn into the door which was opened for him. But even though he
guessed the danger, Connor could not refrain from tempting Providence
with a speech of double meaning.

"You are very kind," he said. "Good night, David."

"May God keep you until the morning, Benjamin."




_CHAPTER TWELVE_


From the house of David, Joseph skulked down the terraces until he came
to the two long buildings and entered the smaller of these. He crossed a
patio, smaller than the court of David's house; but there, too, was the
fountain in the center and the cool flooring of turf. Across this, and
running under the dimly lighted arcade, Joseph reached a door which he
tore open, slammed behind him again, and with his great head fallen upon
his chest, stared at a little withered Negro who sat on a stool opposite
the door. It was rather a low bench of wood than a stool; for it stood
not more than six inches above the level of the floor. His shoes off,
and his bare feet tucked under his legs, he sat tailorwise and peered up
at the giant. The sudden opening of the door had set his loose blouse
fluttering about the old man's skeleton body. The sleeves fell back from
bony forearms with puckered skin. He was less a man than a receptacle of
time. His temples sank in like the temples of a very old horse; his
toothless mouth was crushed together by the pressure of the long bony
jaw, below which the skin hung in a flap. But the fire still glimmered
in the hollows of his eyes. A cheerful spirit lived in the grasshopper
body. He was knitting with a pair of slender needles, never looking at
his work, nor during the interview with Joseph did he once slacken his
pace. The needles clicked with such swift precision that the work grew
perceptibly, flowing slowly under his hands.

Meanwhile this death's head looked at the giant so steadily that Joseph
seemed to regret his unceremonious entrance. He stood back against the
door, fumbling its knob for a moment, but then his rage mastered him
once more, and he burst into the tale of Connor's coming and the ivory
head. He brought his story to an end by depositing the trinket before
the ancient man and then stood back, his face still working, and waited
with every show of confident curiosity.

As for the antique, his knitting needles continued to fly, but to view
the little carving more closely he craned his skinny neck. At that
moment, with his fallen features, his fleshless nose, he was a grinning
mummy head. He remained gloating over the little image so long that
Joseph stirred uneasily; but finally the grotesque lifted his head. It
at once fell far back, the neck muscles apparently unable to support its
weight. He looked more at the ceiling than at Joseph. His speech was a
writhing of the lips and the voice a hollow murmur.

"This," he said, "is the face of a great suhman. It is the face of the
great suhman, Haneemar. It was many years ago that I knew him. It was a
time so long ago that I do not know how to tell you. It was before your
birth and the birth of your father. It was when I lived in a green
country where the air is thick and sweet and the sun burns. There I knew
Haneemar. He is a strong suhman. You see, his eyes are green; that is
because he has the strength of the great snake that ties its tail around
a branch and hangs down with its head as high as the breast of a man.
Those snakes kill an antelope and eat it at a mouthful. Their eyes are
green and so are the eyes of Haneemar. And you see that Haneemar has
golden teeth. That is because he has eaten wisdom. He knows the meat of
all things like a nut he can crack between his teeth. He is as strong as
the snake which eats monkeys, and he is as wise as the monkeys that run
from the snake and throw sticks from the tops of the trees. That is
Haneemar.

"There is no luck for the man who carries the face of Haneemar with him.
That is why David used the whip. He knew Haneemar. Also, in the other
days I remember that when a child was sick in the village they tied a
goat in the forest and Haneemar came and ate the goat. If he ate the
goat like a lion and left tooth marks on the bones then the child got
well and lived. If he ate the goat like a panther and left the guts the
child died. But if the goat was not eaten for one day then Haneemar came
and ate the child instead. I remember this. There will be no luck for
you while you carry Haneemar."

The big man had heard this speech with eyes that grew rounder and
rounder. Now he caught up the little image and raised his arm to throw
it through the window. But the old man hissed, and Joseph turned with a
shudder.

"You cannot throw Haneemar away," said the other. "Only when some one
takes him freely will you be rid of him."

"It is true," answered Joseph. "I remember the visitor would not take
him back."

"Then," said the old sage, "if the stranger will not take him back, bad
luck has come into the Garden, for only the stranger would carry
Haneemar out again. But do not give Haneemar to one of our friends, for
then he will stay with us all. If you dig a deep hole and bury him in
it, Haneemar may not be able to get out."

Joseph was beginning to swell with wrath.

"The stranger has put a curse on me," he said. "Abraham, what shall I do
to him? Teach me a curse to put on him!"

"Hush!" answered Abraham. "Those who pray to evil spirits are the slaves
of the powers they pray to."

"Then I shall take this Benjamin in my hands!"

He made a gesture as though he were snapping a stick of dry wood.

"You are the greater fool. Is not this Benjamin, this stranger, a guest
of the master?"

"I shall steal him away by night in such a manner that he shall not make
even the noise of a mouse when the cat breaks its back. I shall steal
him away and David will never know."

The loose eyelids of the old man puckered and his glance became a ray of
light.

"The curse already works; Haneemar already is in your mind, Joseph.
David will not know? Child, there is nothing that he does not know. He
uses us. We are his tools. My mind is to him as my hand is to me. He
comes inside my eyes; he knows what I think. And if old Abraham is
nothing before David, what is Joseph? Hush! Let not a whisper go out! Do
not even dare to think it. You have felt the whip of David, but you have
not felt his hand when he is in anger. A wounded mountain lion is not so
terrible as the rage of David; he would be to you as an ax at the root
of a sapling. These things have happened before. I remember. Did not
Boram once anger John? And was not Boram as great as Joseph? And did not
John take Boram in his hands and conquer him and break him? Yes, and
David is a greater body and a stronger hand than John. Also, his anger
is as free as the running of an untaught colt. Remember, my son!"

Joseph stretched out his enormous arms and his voice was a broken wail.

"Oh, Abraham, Abraham, what shall I do?"

"Wait," said the old man quietly. "For waiting makes the spirit strong.
Look at Abraham! His body has been dead these twenty years, but still
his spirit lives."

"But the curse of Haneemar, Abraham?"

"Haneemar is patient. Let Joseph be patient also."




_CHAPTER THIRTEEN_


Connor wakened in the gray hour of the morning, but beyond the window
the world was much brighter than his room. The pale terraces went down
to scattered trees, and beyond the trees was the water of the lake.
Farther still the mountains rolled up into a brighter morning. A horse
neighed out of the dawn; the sound came ringing to Connor, and he was
suddenly eager to be outside.

In the patio the fountain was still playing. As for the house, he found
it far less imposing than it had been when lantern light picked out
details here and there. The walls and the clumsy arches were the
disagreeable color of dried mud and all under the arcade was dismal
shadow. But the lawn was already a faintly shining green, and the
fountain went up above the ground shadow in a column of light. He passed
on. The outside wall had that squat, crumbling appearance which every
one knows who has been in Mexico--and through an avenue of trees he saw
the two buildings between which he had ridden the night before. From the
longer a man was leading one of the gray horses. This, then, was the
stable; the building opposite it was a duplicate on a smaller scale of
the house of David, and must be the servants' quarters.

Connor went on toward a hilltop which alone topped the site of the
master's house; the crest was naked of trees, and over the tops of the
surrounding ones Connor found that he commanded a complete view of the
valley. The day before, looking from the far-off mountaintop, it had
seemed to be a straight line very nearly, from the north to the south;
now he saw that from the center both ends swung westward. The valley
might be twelve miles long, and two or three wide, fenced by an unbroken
wall of cliffs. Over the northern barrier poured a white line of water,
which ran on through the valley in a river that widened above David's
house into a spacious lake three or four miles long. The river began
again from the end of the lake and continued straight to the base of the
southern cliffs. Roads followed the swing of the river closely on each
side, and the stream was bridged at each end of the lake. His angle of
vision was so small that both extremities of the valley seemed a solid
forest, but in the central portion he made out broad meadow lands and
plowed fields checkering the groves. The house, as he had guessed the
evening before, stood into the lake on a slender peninsula. And due west
a narrow slit of light told of the gate into the Garden. It gave him a
curiously confused emotion, as of a prisoner and spy in one.

He had walked back almost to the edge of the clearing when David, from
the other side went up to the crest of the hill. Connor was already
among the trees and he watched unobserved. The master of the Garden, at
the top of the hill, paused and turned toward Connor. The gambler
flushed; he was about to step out and hail his host when a second
thought assured him that he could not have been noticed behind that
screen of shrubbery and trunks; moreover the glance of David Eden passed
high above him. It might have been the cry of a hawk that made him turn
so sharply; but through several minutes he remained without moving
either hand or head, and as though he were waiting. Even in the distance
Connor marked the smile of happy expectation. If it had been another
place and another man Connor would have thought it a lover waiting for
his mistress.

But, above all, he was glad of the opportunity to see David and remain
unseen. He realized that the evening before it had been difficult to
look directly into David's face. He had carried away little more than
impressions; of strength, dignity, a surface calm and strong passions
under it; but now he was able to see the face. It was full of
contradiction; a profile irregular and deeply cut, but the full face had
a touch of nobility that made it almost handsome.

As he watched, Connor thought he detected a growing excitement in
David--his head was raised, his smile had deepened. Perhaps he came here
to rejoice in his possessions; but a moment later Connor realized that
this could not be the case, for the gaze of the other must be fixed as
high as the mountain peaks.

At that instant came the revelation; there was a stiffening of the whole
body of David; his breast filled and he swayed forward and raised almost
on tiptoe. Connor, by sympathy, grew tense--and then the miracle
happened. Over the face of David fell a sudden radiance. His hair, dull
black the moment before, now glistened with light, and the swarthy skin
became a shining bronze; his lips parted as though he drank in strength
and happiness out of that miraculous light.

The hard-headed Connor was staggered. Back on his mind rushed a score of
details, the background of this picture. He remembered the almost
superhuman strength of Joseph; he saw again the old servants withering
with many years, but still bright-eyed, straight and agile. Perhaps
they, too, knew how to stand here and drink in a mysterious light which
filled their outworn bodies with youth of the spirit, at least. And
David? Was not this the reason that he scorned the world? Here was his
treasure past reckoning, this fountain of youth. Here was the
explanation, too, of that intolerable brightness of his eye.

The gambler bowed his head.

When he looked up again his soul had traveled higher and lower in one
instant than it had ever moved before; he was staring like a child.
Above all, he wanted to see the face of David again, to examine that
mysterious change, but the master was already walking down the hill and
had almost reached the circle of the trees on the opposite side of the
slope. But now Connor noted a difference everywhere surrounding him. The
air was warmer; the wind seemed to have changed its fiber; and then he
saw that the treetops opposite him were shaking and glistening in a
glory of light. Connor went limp and leaned against a tree, laughing
weakly, silently.

"Hell," he said at length, recovering himself. "It was only the sunrise!
And me--I thought--"

He began to laugh again, aloud, and the sound was caught up by the
hillside and thrown back at him in a sharp echo. Connor went
thoughtfully back to the house. In the patio he found the table near the
fountain laid with a cloth, the wood scrubbed white, and on it the heavy
earthenware. David Eden came in with the calm, the same eye, difficult
to meet. Indeed, then and thereafter when he was with David, he found
himself continually looking away, and resorting to little maneuvers to
divert the glance of his host.

"Good morrow," said David.

"I have kept you waiting?" asked Connor.

The master paused to make sure that he had understood the speech, then
replied:

"If I had been hungry I should have eaten."

There was no rebuff in that quiet statement, but it opened another door
to Connor's understanding.

"Take this chair," said David, moving it from the end of the table to
the side. "Sitting here you can look through the gate of the patio and
down to the lake. It is not pleasant to have four walls about one; but
that is a thing which Isaac cannot understand."

The gambler nodded, and to show that he could be as unceremonious as his
host, sat down without further words. He immediately felt awkward, for
David remained standing. He broke a morsel from the loaf of bread, which
was yet the only food on the table, and turned to the East with a solemn
face.

"Out of His hands from whom I take this food," said the master--"into
His hands I give myself."

He sat down in turn, and Isaac came instantly with the breakfast. It was
an astonishing menu to one accustomed to toast and coffee for the
morning meal. On a great wooden platter which occupied half the surface
of the table, Isaac put down two chickens, roasted brown. A horn-handled
hunting knife, razor sharp, was the only implement at each place, and
fingers must serve as forks. To David that was a small impediment. Under
the deft edge of his knife the breast of one chicken divided rapidly; he
ate the white slices like bread. Indeed, the example was easy to follow;
the mountain air had given him a vigorous appetite, and when Connor next
looked up it was at the sound of glass tinkling. He saw Isaac holding
toward the master a bucket of water in which a bottle was immersed
almost to the cork; David tried the temperature of the water with his
fingers with a critical air, and then nodded to Isaac, who instantly
drew the cork. A moment later red wine was trickling into Connor's cup.
He viewed it with grateful astonishment, but David, poising his cup,
looked across at his guest with a puzzled air.

"In the old days," he said gravely, "when my masters drank they spoke to
one another in a kindly fashion. It is now five years since a man has
sat at my table, and I am moved to say this to you, Benjamin: it is
pleasant to speak to another not as a master who must be obeyed, but as
an equal who may be answered, and this is my wish, that if I have doubts
of Benjamin, and unfriendly thoughts, they may disappear with the wine
we drink."

"Thank you," said Connor, and a thrill went through him as he met the
eye of David. "That wish is my wish also--and long life to you, David."

There was a glint of pleasure in the face of David, and they drank
together.

"By Heaven," cried Connor, putting down the cup, "it is Medoc! It is
Chateau Lafite, upon my life!"

He tasted it again.

"And the vintage of '96! Is that true?"

David shook his head.

"I have never heard of Medoc or Chateau Lafite."

"At least," said Connor, raising his cup and breathing the delicate
bouquet, "this wine is Bordeaux you imported from France? The grapes
which made this never grew outside of the Gironde!"

But David smiled.

"In the north of the Garden," he said, "there are some low rolling
hills, Benjamin; and there the grapes grow from which we make this
wine."

Connor tasted the claret again. His respect for David had suddenly
mounted; the hermit seemed nearer to him.

"You grew these grapes in your valley?" he repeated softly.

"This very bottle we are drinking," said David, warming to the talk. "I
remember when the grapes of this vintage were picked; I was a boy,
then."

"I believe it," answered Connor solemnly, and he raised the cup with a
reverent hand, so that the sun filtered into the red and filled the
liquid with dancing points of light.

"It is a full twenty years old."

"It is twenty-five years old," said David calmly, "and this is the best
vintage in ten years." He sighed. "It is now in its perfect prime and
next year it will not be the same. You shall help me finish the stock,
Benjamin."

"You need not urge me," smiled Connor.

He shook his head again.

"But that is one wine I could have vowed I knew--Medoc. At least, I can
tell you the soil it grows in."

The brows of the host raised; he began to listen intently.

"It is a mixture of gravel, quartz and sand," continued Connor.

"True!" exclaimed David, and looked at his guest with new eyes.

"And two feet underneath there is a stone for subsoil which is a sort of
sand or fine gravel cemented together."

David struck his hands together, frankly delighted.

"This is marvelous," he said, "I would say you have seen the hills."

"I paid a price for what I know," said Connor rather gloomily. "But
north of Bordeaux in France there is a strip of land called the
Medoc--the finest wine soil in the world, and there I learned what
claret may be--there I tasted Chateau Lafite and Chateau Datour. They
are both grown in the commune of Pauillac."

"France?" echoed David, with the misty eyes of one who speaks of a lost
world. "Ah, you have traveled?"

"Wherever fine horses race," said Connor, and turned back to the
chicken.

"Think," said David suddenly, "for five years I have lived in silence.
There have been voices about me, but never mind; and now you here, and
already you have taken me at a step halfway around the world.

"Ah, Benjamin, it is possible for an emptiness to be in a manlike
hunger, you understand, and yet different--and nothing but a human voice
can fill the space."

"Have you no wish to leave your valley for a little while and see the
world?" said Connor, carelessly.

He watched gloomily, while an expression of strong distaste grew on the
face of David. He was still frowning when he answered:

"We will not speak of it again."

He jerked his head up and cleared away his frown with an effort.

"To speak with one man in the Garden--that is one thing," he
went on, "but to hear the voices of two jabbering and gibbering
together--grinning like mindless creatures--throwing their hands out to
help their words, as poor Joseph does--bah, it is like drinking new
wine; it makes one sick. It made me so five times."

"Five times?" said Connor. "You have traveled a good deal, then?"

"Too much," sighed David. "And each time I returned from Parkin Crossing
I have cared less for what lies outside the valley."

"Parkin Crossing?"

"I have been told that there are five hundred people in the city," said
David, pronouncing the number slowly. "But when I was there, I was never
able to count more than fifty, I believe."

Connor found it necessary to cough.

"And each time you have left the valley you have gone no farther than
Parkin Crossing?" he asked mildly, his spirits rising.

"And is not that far enough?" replied the master, frowning. "It is a
ride between dawn and dark."

"What is that in miles?"

"A hundred and thirty miles," said David, "or thereabout."

Connor closed his eyes twice and then: "You rode that distance between
dawn and dark?"

"Yes."

"Over these mountains most of the way?" he continued gently.

"About half the distance," answered David.

"And how long"--queried Connor hoarsely--"how long before your horse was
able to make the trip back after you had ridden a hundred and thirty
miles in twelve hours?"

"The next day," said David, "I always return."

"In the same time?"

"In the same time," said David.

To doubt that simple voice was impossible. But Connor knew horses, and
his credence was strained to the breaking point.

"I should like very much," he said, "to see a horse that had covered two
hundred and sixty miles within forty-eight hours."

"Thirty-six," corrected David.

Connor swallowed.

"Thirty-six," he murmured faintly.

"I shall send for him," said the master, and struck the little gong
which stood on one side of the table. Isaac came hurrying with that
light step which made Connor forget his age.

"Bring Glani," said David.

Isaac hurried across the patio, and David continued talking to his
guest.

"Glani is not friendly; but you can see him from a distance."

"And yet," said Connor, "the other horses in the Garden seem as friendly
as pet dogs. Is Glani naturally vicious?"

"His is of other blood," replied David. "He is the blood of the great
mare Rustir, and all in her line are meant for one man only. He is more
proud than all the rest."

He leaned back in his chair and his face, naturally stern, grew tender.

"Since he was foaled no hand has touched him except mine; no other has
ridden him, groomed him, fed him."

"I'll be glad to see him," said Connor quietly. "For I have never yet
found a horse which would not come to my hand."

As he spoke, he looked straight into the eyes of David, with an effort,
and at the same time took from the pocket of his coat a little bulbous
root which was always with him. A Viennese who came from a life half
spent in the Orient had given him a small box of those herbs as a
priceless present. For the secret was that when the root was rubbed over
the hands it left a faint odor on the skin, like freshly cut apples; and
to a horse that perfume was irresistible. They seemed to find in it a
picture of sweet clover, blossoming, and clean oats finely headed; yet
to the nostrils of a man the scent was barely perceptible. Under cover
of the table the gambler rubbed his hands swiftly with the little root
and dropped it back into his pocket. That was the secret of the power
over Abra which had astonished the two old men at the gate. A hundred
times, in stable and paddock, Connor had gone up to the most intractable
race horses and looked them over at close hand, at his leisure. The
master seemed in nowise disturbed by the last remark of Connor.

"That is true of old Abraham, also," he said. "There was never a colt
foaled in the valley which Abraham had not been able to call away from
its mother; he can read the souls of them all with a touch of his
withered hands. Yes, I have seen that twenty times. But with Glani it is
different. He is as proud as a man; he is fierce as a wolf; and Abraham
himself cannot touch the neck of my horse. Look!"




_CHAPTER FOURTEEN_


Under the arch of the entrance Connor saw a gray stallion, naked of
halter or rope, with his head raised. From the shadow he came shining
into the sunlight; the wind raised his mane and tail in ripples of
silver. Ben Connor rose slowly from his chair. Horses were religion to
him; he felt now that he had stepped into the inner shrine.

When he was able to speak he turned slowly toward David. "Sir," he said
hoarsely, "that is the greatest horse ever bred."

It was far more than a word of praise; it was a confession of faith
which surrounded the moment and the stallion with solemnity, and David
flushed like a proud boy.

"There he stands," he said. "Now make him come to your hand."

It recalled Connor to his senses, that challenge, and feeling that his
mind had been snatched away from him for a moment, almost that he had
been betrayed, he looked at David with a pale face.

"He is too far away," he said. "Bring him closer."

There was one of those pauses which often come before crises, and Connor
knew that by the outcome of this test he would be judged either a man
or a cheap boaster.

"I shall do this thing," said the master of the Garden of Eden. "If you
bring Glani to your hand I shall give him to you to ride while you stay
in the valley. Listen! No other man had so much as laid a hand on the
withers of Glani, but if you can make him come to you of his own free
will--"

"No," said Connor calmly. "I shall make him come because my will is
stronger than his."

"Impossible!" burst out David.

He controlled himself and looked at Connor with an almost wistful
defiance.

"I hold to this," he said. "If you can bring Glani to your hand, he is
yours while you stay in the Garden--for my part, I shall find another
mount."

Connor slipped his right hand into his pocket and crushed the little
root against the palm.

"Come hither, Glani," commanded the master. The stallion came up behind
David's chair, looking fearlessly at the stranger.

"Now," said David with scorn. "This is your time."

"I accept it," replied Connor.

He drew his hand from his pocket, and leaning over the table, he looked
straight into the eye of the stallion. But in reality, it was only to
bring that right hand closer; the wind was stirring behind him, and he
knew that it wafted the scent of the mysterious root straight to Glani.

"That is impossible," said David, following the glance of Connor with a
frown. "A horse has no reasoning brain. Silence cannot make him come to
you."

"However," said Connor carelessly, "I shall not speak."

The master set his teeth over unuttered words, and glancing up to
reassure himself, his face altered swiftly, and he whispered:

"Now, you four dead masters, bear witness to this marvel! Glani feels
the influence!"

For the head of Glani had raised as he scented the wind. Then he circled
the table and came straight toward Connor. Within a pace, the scent of
strange humanity must have drowned the perfume of the root; he sprang
away, catlike and snorted his suspicion.

David heaved a great sigh of relief.

"You fail!" he cried, and snatching up a bottle of wine, he poured out a
cup. "Brave Glani! I drink this in your honor!"

Every muscle in David's strong body was quivering, as though he were
throwing all the effort of his will on the side of the stallion.

"You think I have failed?" asked Connor softly.

"Admit it," said David.

His flush was gone and he was paler than Connor now; he seemed to desire
with all his might that the test should end; there was a fiber of
entreaty in his voice.

"Admit it, Benjamin, as I admit your strange power."

"I have hardly begun. Give me quiet."

David flung himself into his chair, his attention jerking from Glani to
Connor and back. It was at this critical moment that a faint breeze
puffed across the patio, carrying the imperceptible fragrance of the
root straight to Glani. Connor watched the stallion prick his ears, and
he blessed the quaint old Viennese with all his heart.

The first approach of Glani had been in the nature of a feint, but now
that he was sure, he went with all the directness of unspoiled courage
straight to the stranger. He lowered the beautiful head and thrust out
his nose until it touched the hand of Connor. The gambler saw David
shudder.

"You have conquered," he said, forcing out the words.

"Take Glani; to me he is now a small thing. He is yours while you stay
in the Garden. Afterward I shall give him to one of my servants."

Connor stood up, and though at his rising Glani started back, he came to
Connor again, following that elusive scent. To David it seemed the last
struggle of the horse before completely submitting to the rule of a new
master. He rose in turn, trembling with shame and anger, while Connor
stood still, for about this stranger drifted a perfume of broad green
fields with flowering tufts of grass, the heads well-seeded and sweet.
And when a hand touched his withers, the stallion merely turned his head
and nuzzled the shoulder of Connor inquisitively.

With his hand on the back of the horse, the gambler realized for the
first time Glani's full stature. He stood at least fifteen-three, though
his perfect proportions made him seem smaller at a distance. No doubt he
was a giant among the Eden Grays, Connor thought to himself. The gallop
on Abra the night before had been a great moment, but a ride on Glani
was a prospect that took his breath. He paused. Perhaps it was the
influence of a forgotten Puritan ancestor, casting a shade on every hope
of happiness. With his weight poised for the leap to the back of the
stallion, Connor looked at David. The master was in a silent agony, and
the hand of Connor fell away from the horse. He was afraid.

"I can't do it," he said frankly.

"Jump on his back," urged David bitterly. "He's no more to you than a
yearling to the hands of Abraham."

Connor realized now how far he had gone; he set about retracing the
wrong steps.

"It may appear that way, but I can't trust myself on his back. You
understand?"

He stepped back with a gesture that sent Glani bounding away.

"You see," went on Connor, "I never could really understand him."

The master seized with eagerness upon this gratifying suggestion.

"It is true," he said, "that you are a little afraid of Glani. That is
why none of the rest can handle him."

He stopped in the midst of his self-congratulation and directed at
Connor one of those glances which the gambler could never learn to meet.

"Also," said David, "you make me happy. If you had sat on his back I
should have felt your weight on my own shoulders and spirit."

He laid a hand on Connor's shoulder, but the gambler had won and lost
too often with an impenetrable face to quail now. He even managed to
smile.

"Hearken," said David. "My masters taught me many things, and everything
they taught me must be true, for they were only voices of a mind out of
another world. Yet, in spite of them," he went on kindly, "I begin to
feel a kinship with you, Benjamin. Come, we will walk and talk together
in the cool of the morning. Glani!"

The gray had wandered off to nibble at the turf; he whirled and came
like a thrown lance.

"Glani," said David, "is usually the only living thing that walks with
me in the morning; but now, my friend, we are three."




_CHAPTER FIFTEEN_


In the mid-afternoon of that day Connor rested in his room, and David
rested in the lake, floating with only his nose and lips out of water.
Toward the center of the lake even the surface held the chill of the
snows, but David floated in the warm shallows and looked up to the sky
through a film of water. The tiny ripples became immense air waves that
rushed from mountain to mountain, dashed the clouds up and down, and
then left the heavens placid and windless.

He grew weary of this placidity, and as he turned upon one side he heard
a prolonged hiss from the shore. David rolled with the speed of a water
moccasin and headed in with his arm flashing in a powerful stroke that
presently brought him to the edge of the beach. He rose in front of old
Abraham.

A painter should have seen them together--the time-dried body of the old
man and the exuberant youth of the master. He looked on the servant with
a stern kindness.

"What are you doing here without a covering for your head while the sun
is hot? Did they let you come of their own accord, Abraham?"

"I slipped away," chuckled Abraham. "Isaac was in the patio, but I went
by him like a hawk-shadow. Then I ran among the trees. Hat? Well, no
more have you a hat, David."

The master frowned, but his displeasure passed quickly and he led the
way to the lowest terrace. They sat on the soft thick grass, with their
feet in the hot sand of the beach, and as the wind stirred the tree
above them a mottling of shadow moved across them.

"You have come to speak privately with me," said David. "What is it?"

But Abraham embraced his skinny knees and smiled at the lake, his jaw
falling.

"It's not what it was," he said, and wagged his head. "It's a sad lake
compared to what it was."

David controlled his impatience.

"Tell me how it is changed."

"The color," said the old man. "Why, once, with a gallon of that blue
you could have painted the whole sky." He shaded his face to look up,
but so doing his glance ventured through the branches and close to the
white-hot circle of the sun. His head dropped and he leaned on one arm.

"Look at the green of the grass," suggested David. "It will rest your
eyes."

"Do you think my eyes are weak? No, I dropped my head to think how the
world has fallen off in the last fifty years. It was all different in
the days of John. But that was before you came to the valley."

"The sky was not the same?" queried the master.

"And men, also," said Abraham instantly. "Ho, yes! John was a man; you
will not see his like in these days."

David flushed, but he held back his first answer. "Perhaps."

"There is no 'perhaps.'"

Abraham spoke with a decision that brought his jaw close up under his
nose.

"He is my master," insisted Abraham, and, smiling suddenly, he
whispered: "Mah ol' Marse Johnnie Cracken!"

"What's that?" called David.

Abraham stared at him with unseeing eyes. A mist of years drifted
between them, and now the old man came slowly out of the past and found
himself seated on the lawn in a lonely valley with great, naked
mountains piled around it.

"What did you say?" repeated David.

Abraham hastily changed the subject.

"In those days if a stranger came to the Garden of Eden he did not stay.
Aye, and in those days Abraham could have taken the strongest by the
neck and pitched him through the gates. I remember when the men came
over the mountains--long before you were born. Ten men at the gate, I
remember, and they had guns. But when my master told them to go away
they looked at him and they looked at each other, but after a while they
went away."

Abraham rocked in an ecstasy.

"No man could face my master. I remember how he sat on his horse that
day."

"It was Rustir?" asked David eagerly.

"She was the queen of horses," replied the old man indirectly, "and he
was the king of men; there are no more men like my master, and there are
no more horses like Rustir."

There was a pause, then David spoke.

"John was a good man and a strong man," he said, looking down at his own
brown hands. "And Rustir was a fine mare, but it is foolish to call her
the best."

"There was never a horse like Rustir," said the old man monotonously.

"Bah! What of Glani?"

"Yes, that is a good colt."

"A good colt! Come, Abraham! Have you ever opened your dim eyes and
really looked at him? Name one fault."

"I have said Glani is a good colt," repeated Abraham, worried.

"Come, come! You have said Rustir was better."

"Glani is a good colt, but too heavy in the forehand. Far too heavy
there."

The restraint of David snapped.

"It is false! Ephraim, Jacob, they all say that Glani is the greatest."

"They change like the masters," grumbled Abraham. "The servants change.
They flatter and the master believes. But my master had an eye--he
looked through a man like an eagle through mist. When I stood before my
master my soul was naked; a wind blew through me. But I say John was one
man; and there are no other horses like his mare Rustir. My master is
silent; other men have words as heavy as their hands."

"Peace, Abraham, peace. You shame me. The Lord was far from me, and I
spoke in anger, and I retract it."

"A word is a bullet that strikes men down, David. Let the wind blow on
your face when your heart is hot."

"I confess my sin," said David, but his jaw was set.

"Confess your sins in silence."

"It is true."

He looked at Abraham as if he would be rid of him.

"You are angry to-day, Abraham."

"The law of the Garden has been broken."

"By whom?"

"David has unbarred the gate."

"Yes, to one man."

"It is enough."

"Peace, Abraham. You are old and look awry. This one man is no danger. I
could break him in my hands--so!"

"A strong man may be hopeless against words," said the oracular old man.
"With a word he may set you on fire."

"Do you think me a tinder and dry grass? Set me on fire with a word?"

"An old man who looks awry had done it with a word. And see--again!"

There was a silence filled only by the sound of David's breathing and
the slow curling of the ripples on the beach.

"You try me sorely, Abraham."

"Good steel will bend, but not break."

"Say no more of this man. He is harmless."

"Is that a command, David?"

"No--but at least be brief."

"Then I say to you, David, that he has brought evil into the valley."

The master burst into sudden laughter that carried away his anger.

"He brought no evil, Abraham. He brought only the clothes on his back."

"The serpent brought into the first Garden only his skin and his forked
tongue."

"There was a devil in that serpent."

"Aye, and what of Benjamin?"

"Tell me your proofs, and let them be good ones, Abraham."

"I am old," said Abraham sadly, "but I am not afraid."

"I wait."

"Benjamin brought an evil image with him. It is the face of a great
suhman, and he tempted Joseph with it, and Joseph fell."

"The trinket of carved bone?" asked David.

"The face of a devil! Who was unhappy among us until Benjamin came? But
with his charm he bought Joseph, and now Joseph walks alone and thinks
unholy thoughts, and when he is spoken to he looks up first with a
snake's eye before he answers. Is not this the work of Benjamin?"

"What would you have me do? Joseph has already paid for his fault with
the pain of the whip."

"Cast out the stranger, David."

David mused. At last he spoke. "Look at me, Abraham!"

The other raised his head and peered into the face of David, but
presently his glance wavered and turned away.

"See," said David. "After Matthew died there was no one in the Garden
who could meet my glance. But Benjamin meets my eye and I feel his
thoughts before he speaks them. He is pleasant to me, Abraham."

"The voice of the serpent was pleasant to Eve," said Abraham.

The nostrils of David quivered.

"What is it that you call the trinket?"

"A great suhman. My people feared and worshiped him in the old days. A
strong devil!"

"An idol!" said David. "What! Abraham, do you still worship sticks and
stones? Have you been taught no more than that? Do you put a mind in the
handiwork of a man?"

The head of Abraham fell.

"I am weak before you, David," he said. "I have no power to speak except
the words of my master, which I remember. Now I feel you rise against
me, and I am dust under your feet. Think of Abraham, then, as a voice in
the wind, but hear that voice. I know, but I know not why I know, or how
I know, there is evil in the valley, David. Cast it out!"

"I have broken bread and drunk milk with Benjamin. How can I drive him
out of the valley?"

"Let him stay in the valley if you can keep him out of your mind. He is
in your thoughts. He is with you like a shadow."

"He is not stronger than I," said the master.

"Evil is stronger than the greatest."

"It is cowardly to shrink from him before I know him."

"Have no fear of him--but of yourself. A wise man trembleth at his own
strength."

"Tell me, Abraham--does the seed of Rustir know men? Do they know good
and evil?"

"Yes, for Rustir knew my master."

"And has Glani ever bowed his head for any man saving for me?"

"He is a stubborn colt. Aye, he troubled me!"

"But I tell you, Abraham, he came to the hand of Benjamin!"

The old man blinked at the master.

"Then there was something in that hand," he said at last.

"There was nothing," said David in triumph. "I saw the bare palm."

"It is strange."

"You are wrong. Admit it."

"I must think, David."

"Yes," said the master kindly. "Here is my hand. Rise, and come with me
to your house."

They went slowly, slowly up the terrace, Abraham clinging to the arm of
the master.

"Also," said David, "he has come for only a little time. He will soon be
gone. Speak no more of Benjamin."

"I have already spoken almost enough," said Abraham. "You will not
forget."




_CHAPTER SIXTEEN_


Although David was smiling when he left Abraham, he was serious when he
turned from the door of the old man. He went to Connor's room, it was
empty. He summoned Zacharias.

"The men beyond the mountains are weak," said David, "and when I left
him a little time since Benjamin was sighing and sleepy. But now he is
not in his room. Where is he, Zacharias?"

"Shakra came into the patio and neighed," Zacharias answered, "and at
that Benjamin came out, rubbing his eyes. 'My friend,' said he to me,
and his voice was smooth--not like those voices--"

"Peace, Zacharias," said David. "Leave this talk of his voice and tell
me where he is gone."

"Away from the house," said the old man sullenly.

The master knitted his brows.

"You old men," he said, "are like yearlings who feel the sap running in
their legs in the spring. You talk as they run--around and around.
Continue."

Zacharias sulked as if he were on the verge of not speaking at all. But
presently his eye lighted with his story.

"Benjamin," he went on, "said to me, 'My friend, that is a noble mare.'

"'She is a good filly,' said I.

"'With a hundred and ten up,' said Benjamin, 'she would make a fast
track talk.'"

"What?" said David.

"I do not know the meaning of his words," said the old servant, "but I
have told them as he said them."

"He is full of strange terms," murmured David. "Continue."

"He went first to one side of Shakra and then to the other. He put his
hand into his coat and seemed to think. Presently he stretched out his
hand and called her. She came to him slowly."

"Wonderful!"

"That was my thought," nodded Zacharias.

"Why do you stop?" cried David.

"Because I am talking around and around, like a running yearling," said
Zacharias ironically. "However, he stood back at length and combed the
forelock of Shakra with his fingers. 'Tell me, Zacharias,' he said, 'if
this is not the sister of Glani?'"

"He guessed so much? It is strange!"

"Then he looked in her mouth and said that she was four years old."

"He is wise in horses, indeed."

"When he turned away Shakra followed him; he went to his room and came
out again, carrying the saddle with which he rode Abra. He put this on
her back and a rope around her neck. 'Will the master be angry if I ride
her?' he asked.

"I told him that she was first ridden only three months before to-day,
and that she must not be ridden more than fifty miles now in a day.

"He looked a long time at me, then said he would not ride farther than
that. Then he went galloping down the road to the south."

"Good!" said the master, and sent a long whistle from the patio; it was
pitched as shrill and small as the scream of a hawk when the hawk itself
cannot be seen in the sky.

Zacharias ran into the house, and when he came out again bringing a pad
Glani was already in the patio.

David took the pad and cinched it on the back of the stallion.

"And when Shakra began to gallop," said Zacharias, "Benjamin cried out."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing."

"Zacharias, men do not cry out without speaking."

"Nevertheless," said Zacharias, "it was like the cry of a wolf when they
hunt along the cliffs in winter and see the young horses and the cattle
in the Garden below them. It was a cry, and there was no spoken word in
it."

The master bit his lip.

"Abraham has been talking folly to you," he said; and, springing on the
back of the stallion, he raced out of the patio and on to the south road
with his long, black hair whipping straight out behind his head.

At length the southern wall rose slowly over the trees, and a deep
murmur which had begun about them as soon as they left the house, light
as the humming of bees, increasing as they went down the valley, now
became a great rushing noise. It was like a great wind in sound; one
expected the push of a gale, coming out from the trees, but there was
only the river which ran straight at the cliff, split solid rock, and
shot out of sunlight into a black cavern. Beside this gaping mouth of
rock stood Connor with Shakra beside him. Twice the master called, but
Connor could not hear.

The tumbling river would have drowned a volley of musketry. Only when
David touched his shoulder did Connor turn a gloomy face. They took
their horses across the bridge which passed over the river a little
distance from the cliff, and rode down the farther side of the valley
until the roar sank behind them. A few barriers of trees reduced it to
the humming which on windless days was picked up by echoes and reached
the house of David with a solemn murmur.

"I thought you would rest," said David, when they were come to a place
of quiet, and the horses cantered lightly over the road with that
peculiar stride, at once soft and reaching, which Connor was beginning
to see as the chief characteristic of the Eden Gray.

"I have rested more in two minutes on the back of Shakra than I could
rest in two hours on my bed."

It was like disarming a father by praise of his son.

"She has a gentle gait," smiled David.

"I tell you, man, she's a knockout!"

"A knockout?"

The gambler added hastily: "Next to Glani the best horse I have seen."

"You are right. Next to Glani the best in the valley."

"In the world," said Connor, and then gave a cry of wonder.

They had come through an avenue of the eucalyptus trees, and now they
reached an open meadow, beyond which aspens trembled and flashed silver
under a shock from the wind. Half the meadow was black, half green; for
one of the old men was plowing. He turned a rich furrow behind him, and
the blackbirds followed in chattering swarms in their hunt for worms.
The plow team was a span of slender-limbed Eden Grays. They walked
lightly with plow, shaking their heads at the blackbirds, and sometimes
they touched noses in that cheery, dumb conversation of horses. The plow
turned down the field with the sod curling swiftly behind. The
blackbirds followed. There were soldier-wings among them making flashes
of red, and all the swarm scolded.

"David," said Connor when he could speak, "you might as well harness
lightning to your plow. Why in the name of God, man, don't you get mules
for this work?"

The master looked to the ground, for he was angered.

"It is not against His will that I work them at the plow," he answered.
"He has not warned me against it."

"Who hasn't?"

"Our Father whose name you spoke. Look! They are not unhappy, Jurith and
Rajima, of the blood of Aliriz."

He whistled, whereat the off mare tossed her head and whinnied.

"By Heaven, she knows you at this distance!" gasped Connor.

"Which is only to say that she is not a fool. Did I not sit with her
three days and three nights when she was first foaled? That was
twenty-five years ago; I was a child then."

Connor, staring after the high, proud head of Jurith, sighed. The horses
started on at a walk which was the least excellent gait in the Eden
Grays. Their high croups and comparatively low withers, their long
hindlegs and the shorter forelegs, gave them a waddling motion with the
hind quarters apparently huddling the forehand along.

Indeed, they seemed designed in every particular for the gallop alone.
But Glani was an exception. Just as in size he appeared a freak among
the others, so in his gaits all things were perfectly proportioned.
Connor, with a deep, quiet delight, watched the big stallion stepping
freely. Shakra had to break into a soft trot now and then to catch up.

"Let us walk," said David. "The run is for when a man feels with the
hawk in the sky; the gallop is for idle pleasure; the trot is an ugly
gait, for distance only; but a walk is the gait when two men speak
together. In this manner Matthew and I went up and down the valley
roads. Alas, it is five years since I have walked my horse! Is it not,
Glani, my king? And now, Benjamin, tell me your trouble."

"There is no trouble," said Connor.

But David smiled, saying: "We are brothers in Glani, Benjamin. To us
alone he has given his head. Therefore speak freely."

"Look back," said Connor, feeling that the crisis had come and that he
must now put his fortune to the touch.

David turned on the stallion. "What do you see?"

"I see old Elijah. He drives the two mares, and the furrow follows
them--the blackbirds also."

"Do you see nothing else?"

"I see the green meadow and the sky with a cloud in it; I see the river
yonder and the aspens flash as the wind strikes them."

"And do you hear nothing?"

"I hear the falling of the Jordan and the cry of the birds. Also, Elijah
has just spoken to Rajima. Ah, she is lazy for a daughter of Aliriz!"

"Do you wish to know what I see and hear, David?"

"If it is your pleasure, brother."

"I see a blue sky like this, with the wind and the clouds in it and all
that stuff--"

"All of what?"

"And I see also," continued Connor, resolving to watch his tongue,
"thousands of people, acres of men and women."

David was breathless with interest. He had a way of opening his eyes and
his mind like a child.

"We are among them; they jostle us; we can scarcely breathe. There is a
green lawn below us; we cannot see the green, it is so thickly covered
with men. They have pulled out their wallets and they have money in
their hands."

"What is it?" muttered David. "For my thoughts swim in those waves of
faces."

"I see," went on Connor, "a great oval road fenced on each side, with
colored posts at intervals. I see horses in a line, dancing up and down,
turning about--"

"Ah, horses!"

"Kicking at each other."

"So? Are there such bad manners among them?"

"But what each man is trembling for, and what each man has risked his
money upon, is this question: Which of all those is the fastest horse?
Think! The horses which fret in that line are the finest money can buy.
Their blood lines are longer than the blood lines of kings. They are
all fine muscles and hair-trigger nerves. They are poised for the start.
And now--"

"Benjamin, is there such love of horses over the mountains? Listen!
Fifty thousand men and women breathe with those racers."

"I know." There was a glint in the eyes of David. "When two horses match
their speed--"

"Some men have wagered all their money. They have borrowed, they have
stolen, to get what they bet. But there are two men only who bet on one
of the horses. You, David, and I!"

"Ha? But money is hard to come by."

"We ask them the odds," continued Connor. "For one dollar we shall take
a hundred if our horse wins--odds of a hundred to one! And we wager. We
wager the value of all we have. We wager the value of the Garden of Eden
itself!"

"It is madness, Benjamin!"

"Look closer! See them at the post. There's the Admiral. There's
Fidgety--that tall chestnut. There's Glorious Polly--the little bay. The
greatest stake horses in the country. The race of the year. But the
horse we bet on, David, is a horse which none of the rest in that crowd
knows. It is a horse whose pedigree is not published. It is a small
horse, not more than fourteen-three. It stands perfectly still in the
midst of that crowd of nervous racers. On its back is an old man."

"But can the horse win? And who is the old man?"

"On the other horses are boys who have starved until they are wisps with
only hands for the reins of a horse and knees to keep on his back. They
have stirrups so short that they seem to be floating above the racers.
But on the back of the horse on which we are betting there is only an
old, old man, sitting heavily."

"His name! His name!" David cried.

"Elijah! And the horse is Jurith!"

"No, no! Withdraw the bets! She is old."

"They are off! The gray mare is not trained for the start. She is left
standing far behind."

"Ah!" David groaned.

"Fifty thousand people laughing at the old gray mare left at the post!"

"I see it! I hear it!"

"She's too short in front; too high behind. She's a joke horse. And see
the picture horses! Down the back stretch! The fifty thousand have
forgotten the gray, even to laugh at her. The pack drives into the home
stretch. There's a straight road to the finish. They straighten out.
They get their feet. They're off for the wire!"

The voice of Connor had risen to a shrill cry. "But look! Look! There's
a streak of gray coming around the turn. It's the mare! It's old
Jurith!"

"Jurith!"

"No awkwardness now! She spreads herself out and the posts disappear
beside her. She stretches down low and the rest come back to her. Fine
horses; they run well. But Jurith is a racing machine. She's on the hip
of the pack! Look at the old man all the thousand were laughing at. He
sits easily in the saddle. He has no whip. His reins are loose. And then
he uses the posts ahead of him. He leans over and speaks one word in the
ear of the gray mare.

"By the Lord, she was walking before; she was cantering! Now she runs!
Now she runs! And the fifty thousand are dumb, white. A solid wall of
faces covered with white-wash! D'you see? They're sick! And then all at
once they know they're seeing a miracle. They have been standing up
ever since the horses entered the home-stretch. Now they climb on one
another's shoulders. They forget all about thousands--the hundreds of
thousands of dollars which they are going to lose. They only know that
they are seeing a great horse. And they love that new, great horse. They
scream as they see her come. Women break into tears as the old man
shoots past the grand stand. Men shriek and hug each other. They dance.

"The gray streak shoots on. She is past the others. She is rushing for
the finish wire as no horse ever ran before. She is away. One length,
two lengths, six lengths of daylight show between her and the rest. She
gallops past the finish posts with Elijah looking back at the others!

"She has won! You have won, David. I have won. We are rich. Happy. The
world's before us. David, do you see?"

"Is it possible? But no, Benjamin, not Jurith. Some other, perhaps,
Shakra--Glani--"

"No, we would take Jurith--twenty-five years old!"

Connor's last words trailed off into hysterical laughter.




_CHAPTER SEVENTEEN_


David was still flushed with the excitement of the tale, and he was
perplexed and troubled when Connor's strange, high laughter brought to
an abrupt end the picture they had both lived in.

The gambler saw the frown on David's brow, and with an effort he made
himself suddenly grave, though he was still pale and shaking.

"David, this is the reason Jurith can win. Somewhere in the past there
was a freak gray horse. There are other kinds of freaks; oranges had
seeds in 'em; all at once up pops a tree that has seedless fruit. People
plant shoots from it. There you have the naval orange, all out of one
tree. It's the same way with that gray horse. It was a freak; had a high
croup and muscles as stretchy as India-rubber, and strong--like the
difference between the muscles of a mule and the muscles of most horses.
That's what that first horse was. He was bred and the get came into this
valley. They kept improving--and the result is Glani! The Eden Gray,
David, is the finest horse in the world because it's a _different_ and a
better horse!"

The master paused for some time, and Connor knew he was deep in thought.
Finally he spoke:

"But if we know the speed of the Eden Grays, why should we go out into
the world and take the money of other men because they do not know how
fast our horses run?"

Connor made sure the master was serious and nerved himself for the
second effort.

"What do you wish, David?"

"In what measure, Benjamin?"

"The sky's the limit! I say, what do you wish? The last wish that was in
your head."

"Shakra stumbled a little while ago; I wished for a smoother road."

"David, with the money we win on the tracks we'll tear up these roads,
cut trenches, fill 'em with solid blocks of rock, lay 'em over with
asphalt, make 'em as smooth as glass! What else?"

"You jest, Benjamin. That is a labor for a thousand men."

"I say, it's nothing to what we'll do. What else do you want? Turn your
mind loose--open up your eyes and see something that's hard to get."

"Every wish is a regret, and why should I fail of gratitude to God by
making my wishes? Yet, I have been weak, I confess. I have sometimes
loathed the crumbling walls of my house. I have wished for a tall
chamber--on the floor a covering which makes no sound, colors about
me--crystal vases for my flowers--music when I come--"

"Stop there! You see that big white cliff? I'll have that stone cut in
chunks as big as you and your horse put together. I'll have 'em piled on
a foundation as strong as the bottom of those hills. You see the way
those mountain-tops walk into the sky? That's how the stairways will
step up to the front of your house and put you out on a big terrace with
columns scooting up fifty feet, and when you walk across the terrace a
couple of great big doors weighing about a ton apiece will drift open
and make a whisper when you mosey in. And when you get inside you'll
start looking up and up, but you'll get dizzy before your eyes hit the
ceiling; and up there you'll see a lighting stunt that looks like a
million icicles with the sun behind 'em."

He paused an instant for breath and saw David smiling in a hazy
pleasure.

"I follow you," he said softly. "Go on!" And his hand stretched out as
though to open a door.

"What I've told you about is only a beginning. Turn yourself loose;
dream, and I'll turn your dream into stone and color, and fill up your
windows with green and gold and red glass till you'll think a rainbow
has got all tangled up there! I'll give you music that'll make you
forget to think, and when you think I'll give you a room so big that
you'll have silence with an echo to it."

"All this for my horses?"

"Send one of the grays--just one, and let me place the wagers. You don't
even have to risk your own money. I've made a slough of it betting on
things that weren't lead pipe cinches like this. I made on Fidgety
Midget at fifty to one. I made on Gosham at eight to one. Nobody told me
how to bet on 'em. I know a horse--that's all! You stay in the Garden; I
take one of the grays; I bring her back in six months with more coin
than she can pack, and we split it fifty-fifty. You furnish the horse. I
furnish the jack. Is it a go?"

A bird stopped above them, whistled and dipped away over the treetops.
David turned his head to follow the trailing song, and Connor realized
with a sick heart that he had failed to sweep his man off his feet.

"Would you have me take charity?" asked David at length.

It seemed to Connor that there was a smile behind this. He himself burst
into a roar of laughter.

"Sure, it sounds like charity. They'll be making you a gift right
enough. There isn't a horse on the turf that has a chance with one of
the grays! But they'll bet their money like fools."

"Would it not be a sin, then?"

"What sin?" asked Connor roughly. "Don't they grab the coin of other
people? Does the bookie ask you how much coin you have and if you can
afford to lose it? No, he's out to get all that he can grab. And we'll
go out and do some grabbing in turn. Oh, they'll squeal when we turn the
screw, but they'll kick through with the jack. No fear, Davie!"

"Whatever sins may be theirs, Benjamin, those sins need not be mine."

Connor was dumb.

"Because they are foolish," said David, "should I take advantage of
their folly? A new man comes into the valley. He sees Jurith, and
notices that she runs well in spite of her years. He says to me: 'This
mare will run faster than your stallion. I have money and this ring
upon my finger which I will risk against one dollar of your money; If
the mare beats Glani I take your dollar. If Glani beats the mare, you
take my purse and my ring; I have no other wealth. It will ruin me, but
I am willing to be ruined if Jurith is not faster than Glani.

"Suppose such foolish man were to come to me, Benjamin, would I not say
to him: 'No, my friend. For I understand better than you, both Jurith
and Glani!' Tell me therefore, Benjamin, that you have tempted me toward
a sin, unknowing."

It made Connor think of the stubbornness of a woman, or of a priest. It
was a quiet assurance which could only be paralleled from a basis of
religion or instinct. He knew the danger of pressing too hard upon this
instinct or blind faith. He swallowed an oath, and answered, remembering
dim lessons out of his childhood:

"Tell me, David, my brother, is there no fire to burn fools? Is there no
rod for the shoulders of the proud? Should not such men be taught?"

"And I say to you, Benjamin," said the master of the Garden: "what wrong
have these fools done to me with their folly?"

Connor felt that he was being swept beyond his depth. The other went on,
changing his voice to gentleness:

"No, no! I have even a kindness for men with such blind faith in their
horses. When Jacob comes to me and says privately in my ear: 'David,
look at Hira. Is she not far nobler and wiser than Ephraim's horse,
Numan?' When he says this to me, do I shake my head and frown and say:
'Risk the clothes on your back and the food you eat to prove what you
say.' No, assuredly I do neither of these things, but I put my hand on
his shoulder and I say: 'He who has faith shall do great things; and a
tender master makes a strong colt.' In this manner I speak to him,
knowing that truth is good, but the whole truth is sometimes a fire that
purifies, perhaps, but it also destroys. So Jacob goes smiling on his
way and gives kind words and fine oats to Hira."

Connor turned the flank of this argument.

"These men are blind. You say that your horses can run a mile in such
and such a time, and they shrug their shoulders and answer that they
have heard such chatter before--from trainers and stable boys. But you
put your horse on a race track and prove what you say, and they pay for
knowledge. Once they see the truth they come to value your horses. You
open a stud and your breed is crossed with theirs. The blood of Rustir,
passing through the blood of Glani, goes among the best horses of the
world. A hundred years from now there will be no good horse in the
world, of which men do not ask: 'Is the blood of Glani in him? Is he of
the line of the Eden Grays?' Consider that, David!"

He found the master of the Garden frowning. He pressed home the point
with renewed vigor.

"If you live in this valley, David, what will men know of you?"

"Have you come to take me out of the Garden of Eden?"

"I have come to make your influence pass over the mountains while you
stay here. A hundred years from now who will know David of the Garden of
Eden? Of the men who used to live here, who remains? Not one! Where do
they live now? Inside your head, inside your head, David, and no other
place!"

"They live with God," said David hoarsely.

"But here on earth they don't live at all except in your mind. And when
you die, they die with you. But if you let me do what I say, a thousand
years from to-day, people will be saying: 'There was a man named David,
and he had these gray horses, which were the finest in the world, and he
gave their blood to the world.' They'll pick up every detail of your
life, and they'll trace back the horses--"

"Do I live for the sake of a horse?" cried David, in a voice unnaturally
high.

"No, but because of your horses the world will ask what sort of a man
you are. People will follow your example. They'll build a hundred
Gardens of Eden. Every one of those valleys will be full of the memories
of David and the men who went before him. Then, David, you'll never
die!"

It was the highest flight to which Connor's eloquence ever attained. The
results were alarming. David spoke, without facing his companion,
thoughtfully.

"Benjamin, I have been warned. By sin the gate to the Garden was opened,
and perhaps sin has entered in you. For why did the first men withdraw
to this valley, led by John, save to live apart, perfect lives? And you,
Benjamin, wish to undo all that they accomplished."

"Only the horses," said the gambler. "Who spoke of taking you out of the
Garden?"

Still David would not look at him.

"God grant me His light," said the master sadly. "You have stirred and
troubled me. If the horses go, my mind goes with them. Benjamin, you
have tempted me. Yet another thing is in my mind. When Matthew came to
die he took me beside him and said:

"'David, it is not well that you should lead a lonely life. Man is made
to live, and not to die. Take to yourself a woman, when I am gone, wed
her, and have children, so that the spirit of John and Matthew and Luke
and Paul shall not die. And do this in your youth, before five years
have passed you by.'

"So spoke Matthew, and this is the fifth year. And perhaps the Lord
works in you to draw me out, that I may find this woman. Or perhaps it
is only a spirit of evil that speaks in you. How shall I judge? For my
mind whirls!"

As if to flee from his thoughts, the master of the Garden called on
Glani, and the stallion broke into a full gallop. Shakra followed at a
pace that took the breath of Connor, but instantly she began to fall
behind; before they had reached the lake Glani was out of sight across
the bridge.

Full of alarm--full of hope also--Connor reached the house. In the patio
he found Zacharias standing with folded arms before a door.

"I must find David at once," he told Zacharias. "Where has he gone?"

"Up," said the servant, and pointed solemnly above him.

"Nonsense!" He added impatiently: "Where shall I find him, Zacharias?"

But again Zacharias waved to the blue sky.

"His body is in this room, but his mind is with Him above the world."

There was something in this that made Connor uneasy as he had never been
before.

"You may go into any room save the Room of Silence," continued
Zacharias, "but into this room only David and the four before him have
been. This is the holy place."




_CHAPTER EIGHTEEN_


Glani waited in the patio for the reappearance of the master, and as
Connor paced with short, nervous steps on the grass at every turn he
caught the flash of the sun on the stallion. Above his selfish greed he
had one honest desire: he would have paid with blood to see the great
horse face the barrier. That, however was beyond the reach of his
ambition, and therefore the beauty of Glani was always a hopeless
torment.

The quiet in the patio oddly increased his excitement. It was one of
those bright, still days when the wind stirs only in soft breaths,
bringing a sense of the open sky. Sometimes the breeze picked up a
handful of drops from the fountain and showered it with a cool rustling
on the grass. Sometimes it flared the tail of Glani; sometimes the
shadow of the great eucalyptus which stood west of the house quivered on
the turf.

Connor found himself looking minutely at trivial things, and in the
meantime David Eden in his room was deciding the fate of the American
turf. Even Glani seemed to know, for his glance never 

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