1 files changed, 7439 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/11880-8.txt b/old/11880-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3ca0bf8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11880-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7439 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ronicky Doone, by Max Brand
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Ronicky Doone
+
+Author: Max Brand
+
+Release Date: April 3, 2004 [EBook #11880]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RONICKY DOONE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Nicolas Hayes, Dorota Sidor and PG
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+MAX BRAND
+
+RONICKY DOONE
+
+
+1921
+
+
+Chapter One
+
+
+_A Horse in Need_
+
+He came into the town as a solid, swiftly moving dust cloud. The wind
+from behind had kept the dust moving forward at a pace just equal to
+the gallop of his horse. Not until he had brought his mount to a halt
+in front of the hotel and swung down to the ground did either he or
+his horse become distinctly visible. Then it was seen that the animal
+was in the last stages of exhaustion, with dull eyes and hanging head
+and forelegs braced widely apart, while the sweat dripped steadily
+from his flanks into the white dust on the street. Plainly he had been
+pushed to the last limit of his strength.
+
+The rider was almost as far spent as his mount, for he went up the
+steps of the hotel with his shoulders sagging with weariness, a
+wide-shouldered, gaunt-ribbed man. Thick layers of dust had turned his
+red kerchief and his blue shirt to a common gray. Dust, too, made
+a mask of his face, and through that mask the eyes peered out,
+surrounded by pink skin. Even at its best the long, solemn face could
+never have been called handsome. But, on this particular day, he
+seemed a haunted man, or one fleeing from an inescapable danger.
+
+The two loungers at the door of the hotel instinctively stepped aside
+and made room for him to pass, but apparently he had no desire to
+enter the building. Suddenly he became doubly imposing, as he stood on
+the veranda and stared up and down at the idlers. Certainly his throat
+must be thick and hot with dust, but an overmastering purpose made him
+oblivious of thirst.
+
+"Gents," he said huskily, while a gust of wind fanned a cloud of dust
+from his clothes, "is there anybody in this town can gimme a hoss to
+get to Stillwater, inside three hours' riding?"
+
+He waited a moment, his hungry eyes traveling eagerly from face to
+face. Naturally the oldest man spoke first, since this was a matter of
+life and death.
+
+"Any hoss in town can get you there in that time, if you know the
+short way across the mountain."
+
+"How do you take it? That's the way for me."
+
+But the old fellow shook his head and smiled in pity. "Not if you
+ain't rode it before. I used to go that way when I was a kid, but
+nowadays nobody rides that way except Doone. That trail is as tricky
+as the ways of a coyote; you'd sure get lost without a guide."
+
+The stranger turned and followed the gesture of the speaker. The
+mountain rose from the very verge of the town, a ragged mass of sand
+and rock, with miserable sagebrush clinging here and there, as dull
+and uninteresting as the dust itself. Then he lowered the hand from
+beneath which he had peered and faced about with a sigh. "I guess it
+ain't much good trying that way. But I got to get to Stillwater inside
+of three hours."
+
+"They's one hoss in town can get you there," said the old man. "But
+you can't get that hoss today."
+
+The stranger groaned. "Then I'll make another hoss stretch out and
+do."
+
+"Can't be done. Doone's hoss is a marvel. Nothing else about here can
+touch him, and he's the only one that can make the trip around the
+mountain, inside of three hours. You'd kill another hoss trying to do
+it, what with your weight."
+
+The stranger groaned again and struck his knuckles against his
+forehead. "But why can't I get the hoss? Is Doone out of town with
+it?"
+
+"The hoss ain't out of town, but Doone is."
+
+The traveler clenched his fists. This delay and waste of priceless
+time was maddening him. "Gents," he called desperately, "I got to
+get to Martindale today. It's more than life or death to me. Where's
+Doone's hoss?"
+
+"Right across the road," said the old man who had spoken first. "Over
+yonder in the corral--the bay."
+
+The traveler turned and saw, beyond the road, a beautiful mare, not
+very tall, but a mare whose every inch of her fifteen three proclaimed
+strength and speed. At that moment she raised her head and looked
+across to him, and the heart of the rider jumped into his throat. The
+very sight of her was an omen of victory, and he made a long stride in
+her direction, but two men came before him. The old fellow jumped from
+the chair and tapped his arm.
+
+"You ain't going to take the bay without getting leave from Doone?"
+
+"Gents, I got to," said the stranger. "Listen! My name's Gregg, Bill
+Gregg. Up in my country they know I'm straight; down here you ain't
+heard of me. I ain't going to keep that hoss, and I'll pay a hundred
+dollars for the use of her for one day. I'll bring or send her back
+safe and sound, tomorrow. Here's the money. One of you gents, that's a
+friend of Doone, take it for him."
+
+Not a hand was stretched out; every head shook in negation.
+
+"I'm too fond of the little life that's left to me," said the old
+fellow. "I won't rent out that hoss for him. Why, he loves that mare
+like she was his sister. He'd fight like a flash rather than see
+another man ride her."
+
+But Bill Gregg had his eyes on the bay, and the sight of her was
+stealing his reason. He knew, as well as he knew that he was a man,
+that, once in the saddle on her, he would be sure to win. Nothing
+could stop him. And straight through the restraining circle he broke
+with a groan of anxiety.
+
+Only the old man who had been the spokesman called after him: "Gregg,
+don't be a fool. Maybe you don't recognize the name of Doone, but the
+whole name is Ronicky Doone. Does that mean anything to you?"
+
+Into the back of Gregg's mind came several faint memories, but they
+were obscure and uncertain. "Blast your Ronicky Doone!" he replied. "I
+got to have that hoss, and, if none of you'll take money for her rent,
+I'll take her free and pay her rent when I come through this way
+tomorrow, maybe. S'long!"
+
+While he spoke he had been undoing the cinches of his own horse. Now
+he whipped the saddle and bridle off, shouted to the hotel keeper
+brief instructions for the care of the weary animal and ran across the
+road with the saddle on his arm.
+
+In the corral he had no difficulty with the mare. She came straight to
+him in spite of all the flopping trappings. With prickly ears and eyes
+lighted with kindly curiosity she looked the dusty fellow over.
+
+He slipped the bridle over her head. When he swung the saddle over her
+back she merely turned her head and carelessly watched it fall. And
+when he drew up the cinches hard, she only stamped in mock anger. The
+moment he was in the saddle she tossed her head eagerly, ready to be
+off.
+
+He looked across the street to the veranda of the hotel, as he passed
+through the gate of the corral. The men were standing in a long and
+awe-stricken line, their eyes wide, their mouths agape. Whoever
+Ronicky Doone might be, he was certainly a man who had won the respect
+of this town. The men on the veranda looked at Bill Gregg as though
+he were already a ghost. He waved his hand defiantly at them and the
+mare, at a word from him, sprang into a long-striding gallop that
+whirled them rapidly down the street and out of the village.
+
+The bay mare carried him with amazing speed over the ground. They
+rounded the base of the big mountain, and, glancing up at the ragged
+canyons which chopped the face of the peak, he was glad that he had
+not attempted that short cut. If Ronicky Doone could make that trail
+he was a skillful horseman.
+
+Bill Gregg swung up over the left shoulder of the mountain and found
+himself looking down on the wide plain which held Stillwater. The air
+was crystal-clear and dry; the shoulder of the mountain was high above
+it; Gregg saw a breathless stretch of the cattle country at one sweep
+of his eyes.
+
+Stillwater was still a long way off, and far away across the plain he
+saw a tiny moving dot that grew slowly. It was the train heading for
+Stillwater, and that train he must beat to the station. For a moment
+his heart stood still; then he saw that the train was distant indeed,
+and, by the slightest use of the mare's speed, he would be able to
+reach the town, two or three minutes ahead of it.
+
+But, just as he was beginning to exult in the victory, after all the
+hard riding of the past three days, the mare tossed up her head and
+shortened her stride. The heart of Gregg stopped, and he went cold. It
+was not only the fear that his journey might be ruined, but the fear
+that something had happened to this magnificent creature beneath him.
+He swung to the side in the saddle and watched her gallop. Certain she
+went laboring, very much as though she were trying to run against a
+mighty pull on the reins.
+
+He looked at her head. It was thrown high, with pricking ears. Perhaps
+she was frightened by some foolish thing near the road. He touched her
+with the spurs, and she increased her pace to the old length and
+ease of stride; but, just as he had begun to be reassured, her step
+shortened and fell to laboring again, and this time she threw her head
+higher than before. It was amazing to Bill Gregg; and then it seemed
+to him that he heard a faint, far whistling, floating down from high
+above his head.
+
+Again that thin, long-drawn sound, and this time, glancing over his
+right shoulder, he saw a horseman plunging down the slope of the
+mountain. He knew instantly that it was Ronicky Doone. The man had
+come to recapture his horse and had taken the short cut across the
+mountain to come up with her. Just by a fraction of a minute Doone
+would be too late, for, by the time he came down onto the trail,
+the bay would be well ahead, and certainly no horse lived in those
+mountains capable of overtaking her when she felt like running. Gregg
+touched her again with the spurs, but this time she reared straight up
+and, whirling to the side, faced steadily toward her onrushing master.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Two
+
+
+_Friendly Enemies_
+
+Again and again Gregg spurred the bay cruelly.
+
+She winced from the pain and snorted, but, apparently having not the
+slightest knowledge of bucking, she could only shake her head and send
+a ringing whinny of appeal up the slope of the mountain, toward the
+approaching rider.
+
+In spite of the approaching danger, in spite of this delay which was
+ruining his chances of getting to Stillwater before the train, Bill
+Gregg watched in marvel and delight the horsemanship of the stranger.
+Ronicky Doone, if this were he, was certainly the prince of all wild
+riders.
+
+Even as the mare stopped in answer to the signal of her owner, Ronicky
+Doone sent his mount over the edge of a veritable cliff, flung him
+back on his haunches and slid down the gravelly slope, careening
+from side to side. With a rush of pebbles about him and a dust cloud
+whirling after, Ronicky Doone broke out into the road ahead of the
+mare, and she whinnied softly again to greet him.
+
+Bill Gregg found himself looking not into the savage face of such
+a gunfighter as he had been led to expect, but a handsome fellow,
+several years younger than he, a high-headed, straight-eyed, buoyant
+type. In his seat in the saddle, in the poise of his head and the play
+of his hand on the reins Bill Gregg recognized a boundless nervous
+force. There was nothing ponderous about Ronicky Doone. Indeed he was
+not more than middle size, but, as he reined his horse in the middle
+of the road and looked with flashing eyes at Bill Gregg, he appeared
+very large indeed.
+
+Gregg was used to fighting or paying his way, or doing both at the
+same time, as occasion offered. He decided that this was certainly an
+occasion for much money and few words.
+
+"You're Doone, I guess," he said, "and you know that I've played a
+pretty bad trick on you, taking your hoss this way. But I wanted to
+pay for it, Doone, and I'll pay now. I've got to get to Stillwater
+before that train. Look at her! I haven't hurt her any. Her wind isn't
+touched. She's pretty wet, but sweat never hurt nothing on four feet,
+eh?"
+
+"I dunno," returned Ronicky Doone. "I'd as soon run off with a man's
+wife as his hoss."
+
+"Partner," said Bill Gregg desperately, "I have to get there!"
+
+"Then get there on your own feet, not the feet of another gent's
+hoss."
+
+Gregg controlled his rising anger. Beyond him the train was looming
+larger and larger in the plain, and Stillwater seemed more and more
+distant. He writhed in the saddle.
+
+"I tell you I'll pay--I'll pay the whole value of the hoss, if you
+want."
+
+He was about to say more when he saw the eyes of Ronicky Doone widen
+and fix.
+
+"Look," said the other suddenly, "you've been cutting her up with the
+spurs!"
+
+Gregg glanced down to the flank of the bay to discover that he had
+used the spurs more recklessly than he thought. A sharp rowel had
+picked through the skin, and, though it was probably only a slight
+wound indeed, it had brought a smear of red to the surface.
+
+Ronicky Doone trembled with anger.
+
+"Confound you!" he said furiously. "Any fool would have known that you
+didn't need a spur on that hoss! What part d'you come from where they
+teach you to kill a hoss when you ride it? Can you tell me that?"
+
+"I'll tell you after I get to Stillwater."
+
+"I'll see you hung before I see you in Stillwater."
+
+"You've talked too much, Doone," Gregg said huskily.
+
+"I've just begun," said Doone.
+
+"Then take this and shut up," exclaimed Bill Gregg.
+
+Ordinarily he was the straightest and the squarest man in the world in
+a fight. But a sudden anger had flared up in him. He had an impulse to
+kill; to get rid of this obstacle between him and everything he wanted
+most in life. Without more warning than that he snatched out his
+revolver and fired point blank at Ronicky Doone. Certainly all the
+approaches to a fight had been made, and Doone might have been
+expecting the attack. At any rate, as the gun shot out of Gregg's
+holster, the other swung himself sidewise in his own saddle and,
+snapping out his revolver, fired from the hip.
+
+That swerve to the side saved him, doubtless, from the shot of Gregg;
+his own bullet plowed cleanly through the thigh of the other rider.
+The whole leg of Gregg went numb, and he found himself slumping
+helplessly to one side. He dropped his gun, and he had to cling with
+both hands to lower himself out of the saddle. Now he sat in the dust
+of the trail and stared stupidly, not at his conqueror, but at the
+train that was flashing into the little town of Stillwater, just below
+them.
+
+He hardly heeded Ronicky Doone, as the latter started forward with an
+oath, knelt beside him and examined the wound. "It's clean," Doone
+said, as he started ripping up his undershirt to make bandages. "I'll
+have you fixed so you can be gotten into Stillwater."
+
+He began to work rapidly, twisting the clothes around Gregg's thigh,
+which he had first laid bare by some dexterous use of a hunting knife.
+
+Then Gregg turned his eyes to those of Doone. The train had pulled out
+of Stillwater. The sound of the coughing of the engine, as it started
+up, came faintly to them after a moment.
+
+"Of all the darned fools!" said the two men in one voice.
+
+And then they grinned at each other. Certainly it was not the first
+fight or the first wound for either of them.
+
+"I'm sorry," they began again, speaking together in chorus.
+
+"Matter of fact," said Ronicky Doone, "that bay means a pile to me.
+When I seen the red on her side--"
+
+"Can't be more than a chance prick."
+
+"I know," said Ronicky, "but I didn't stop to think."
+
+"And I should of give you fair warning before I went for the gat."
+
+"Look here," said Ronicky, "you talk like a straight sort of a gent to
+me."
+
+"And you thought I was a cross between a hoss thief and a gunfighter?"
+
+"I dunno what I thought, except that I wanted the mare back. Stranger,
+I'm no end sorry this has happened. Maybe you'd lemme know why you was
+in such a hurry to get to Stillwater. If they's any trouble coming
+down the road behind you, maybe I can help take care of it for you."
+And he smiled coldly and significantly at Bill Gregg.
+
+The latter eyed with some wonder the man who had just shot him down
+and was now offering to fight for his safety. "Nothing like that,"
+said Bill. "I was going to Stillwater to meet a girl."
+
+"As much of a rush as all that to see a girl?"
+
+"On that train."
+
+Ronicky Doone whistled softly. "And I messed it up! But why didn't you
+tell me what you wanted?"
+
+"I didn't have a chance. Besides I could not waste time in talking and
+explaining to everybody along the road."
+
+"Sure you couldn't, but the girl'll forgive you when she finds out
+what happened."
+
+"No, she won't, because she'll never find out."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"I don't know where she is."
+
+"Riding all that way just to see a girl--"
+
+"It's a long story, partner, and this leg is beginning to act up. Tell
+you the best thing would be for you to jump on your mare and jog into
+Stillwater for a buckboard and then come back and get me. What d'you
+say?"
+
+Twenty minutes after Ronicky Doone had swung into the saddle and raced
+down the road, the buckboard arrived and the wounded man was helped on
+to a pile of blankets in the body of the wagon.
+
+The shooting, of course, was explained by the inevitable gun accident.
+Ronicky Doone happened to be passing along that way and saw Bill Gregg
+looking over his revolver as he rode along. At that moment the gun
+exploded and--
+
+The two men who had come out in the buckboard listened to the tale
+with expressionless faces. As a matter of fact they had already heard
+in Stillwater that no less a person than Ronicky Doone was on his way
+toward that village in pursuit of a man who had ridden off on the
+famous bay mare, Lou. But they accepted Ronicky's bland version of the
+accident with perfect calm and with many expressions of sympathy. They
+would have other things to say after they had deposited the wounded
+man in Stillwater.
+
+The trip in was a painful one for Bill Gregg. For one thing the
+exhaustion of the long three days' trip was now causing a wave of
+weariness to sweep over him. The numbness, which had come through the
+leg immediately after the shooting, was now replaced by a steady and
+continued aching. And more than all he was unnerved by the sense of
+utter failure, utter loss. Never in his life had he fought so bitterly
+and steadily for a thing, and yet he had lost at the very verge of
+success.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Three
+
+
+_At Stillwater_
+
+The true story was, of course, known almost at once, but, since
+Ronicky Doone swore that he would tackle the first man who accused him
+of having shot down Bill Gregg, the talk was confined to whispers. In
+the meantime Stillwater rejoiced in its possession of Ronicky Doone.
+Beyond one limited section of the mountain desert he was not as
+yet known, but he had one of those personalities which are called
+electric. Whatever he did seemed greater because he, Ronicky Doone,
+had done it.
+
+Not that he had done a great many things as yet. But there was a
+peculiar feeling in the air that Ronicky Doone was capable of great
+and strange performances. Men older than he were willing to accept him
+as their leader; men younger than he idolized him.
+
+Ronicky Doone, then, the admired of all beholders, is leaning in the
+doorway of Stillwater's second and best hotel. His bandanna today is
+a terrific yellow, set off with crimson half-moon and stars strewn
+liberally on it. His shirt is merely white, but it is given some
+significance by having nearly half of a red silk handkerchief falling
+out of the breast pocket. His sombrero is one of those works of art
+which Mexican families pass from father to son, only his was new and
+had not yet received that limp effect of age. And, like the gaudiest
+Mexican head piece, the band of this sombrero was of purest gold,
+beaten into the forms of various saints. Ronicky Doone knew nothing at
+all about saints, but he approved very much of the animation of the
+martyrdom scenes and felt reasonably sure that his hatband could not
+be improved upon in the entire length and breadth of Stillwater, and
+the young men of the town agreed with him, to say nothing of the
+girls.
+
+They also admired his riding gloves which, a strange affectation in a
+country of buckskin, were always the softest and the smoothest and the
+most comfortable kid that could be obtained.
+
+Truth to tell, he did not handle a rope. He could not tell the noose
+end of a lariat from the straight end, hardly. Neither did Ronicky
+Doone know the slightest thing about barbed wire, except how to cut
+it when he wished to ride through. Let us look closely at the hands
+themselves, as Ronicky stands in the door of the hotel and stares at
+the people walking by. For he has taken off his gloves and he now
+rolls a cigarette.
+
+They are very long hands. The fingers are extremely slender and
+tapering. The wrists are round and almost as innocent of sinews as the
+wrists of a woman, save when he grips something, and then how they
+stand out. But, most remarkable of all, the skin of the palms of those
+hands is amazingly soft. It is truly as soft as the skin of the hand
+of a girl.
+
+There were some who shook their heads when they saw those hands. There
+were some who inferred that Ronicky Doone was little better than a
+scapegrace, and that, in reality, he had never done a better or more
+useful thing than handle cards and swing a revolver. In both of which
+arts it was admitted that he was incredibly dexterous. As a matter
+of fact, since there was no estate from which he drew an income, and
+since he had never been known in the entire history of his young life
+to do a single stroke of productive work of any kind, the bitter
+truth was that Ronicky Doone was no better and no worse than a common
+gambler.
+
+Indeed, if to play a game of chance is to commit a sin, Ronicky Doone
+was a very great sinner. Yet it should be remarked that he lacked the
+fine art of taking the money of other less clever fellows when they
+were intoxicated, and he also lacked the fine hardness of mind which
+enables many gamblers to enjoy taking the last cent from an opponent.
+Also, though he knew the entire list of tricks in the repertoire of
+a crooked gambler, he had never been known to employ tricking.
+He trusted in a calm head, a quick judgment, an ability to read
+character. And, though he occasionally met with crooked professionals
+who were wolves in the guise of sheep, no one had ever been known to
+play more than one crooked trick at cards when playing against Ronicky
+Doone. So, on the whole, he made a very good living.
+
+What he had he gave or threw away in wild spending or loaned to
+friends, of whom he had a vast number. All of which goes to explain
+the soft hands of Ronicky Doone and his nervous, swift-moving fingers,
+as he stood at the door of the hotel. For he who plays long with cards
+or dice begins to have a special sense developed in the tips of his
+fingers, so that they seem to be independent intelligences.
+
+He crossed his feet. His boots were the finest leather, bench-made by
+the best of bootmakers, and they fitted the high-arched instep with
+the elastic smoothness of gloves. The man of the mountain desert
+dresses the extremities and cares not at all for the mid sections.
+The moment Doone was off his horse those boots had to be dressed and
+rubbed and polished to softness and brightness before this luxurious
+gambler would walk about town. From the heels of the boots extended a
+long pair of spurs--surely a very great vanity, for never in her life
+had his beautiful mare, Lou, needed even the touch of a spur.
+
+But Ronicky Doone could not give up this touch of luxury. The spurs
+were plated heavily with gold, and they swept up and out in a long,
+exquisite curve, the hub of the rowel set with diamonds.
+
+In a word Ronicky Doone was a dandy, but he had this peculiarity,
+that he seemed to dress to please himself rather than the rest of the
+world. His glances never roved about taking account of the admiration
+of others. As he leaned there in the door of the hotel he was the type
+of the young, happy, genuine and carefree fellow, whose mind is no
+heavier with a thousand dollars or a thousand cents in his pocket.
+
+Suddenly he started from his lounging place, caught his hat more
+firmly over his eyes, threw away his unlighted cigarette and hurried
+across the veranda of the hotel. Had he seen an enemy to chastise,
+or an old friend to greet, or a pretty girl? No, it was only old Jud
+Harding, the blacksmith, whose hand had lost its strength, but who
+still worked iron as others mold putty, simply because he had the
+genius for his craft. He was staggering now under a load of boards
+which he had shouldered to carry to his shop. In a moment that load
+was shifted to the shoulder of Ronicky Doone, and they went on down
+the street, laughing and talking together until the load was dropped
+on the floor of Harding's shop.
+
+"And how's the sick feller coming?" asked Harding.
+
+"Coming fine," answered Ronicky. "Couple of days and I'll have him out
+for a little exercise. Lucky thing it was a clean wound and didn't
+nick the bone. Soon as it's healed over he'll never know he was
+plugged."
+
+Harding considered his young friend with twinkling eyes. "Queer thing
+to me," he said, "is how you and this gent Gregg have hit it off so
+well together. Might almost say it was like you'd shot Gregg and now
+was trying to make up for it. But, of course, that ain't the truth."
+
+"Of course not," said Ronicky gravely and met the eye of Harding
+without faltering.
+
+"Another queer thing," went on the cunning old smith. "He was fooling
+with that gun while he was in the saddle, which just means that the
+muzzle must of been pretty close to his skin. But there wasn't any
+sign of a powder burn, the doc says."
+
+"But his trousers was pretty bad burned, I guess," said Ronicky.
+
+"H-m," said the blacksmith, "that's the first time I've heard about
+it." He went on more seriously: "I got something to tell you, Ronicky.
+Ever hear the story about the gent that took pity on the snake that
+was stiff with cold and brought the snake in to warm him up beside the
+fire? The minute the snake come to life he sunk his fangs in the gent
+that had saved him."
+
+"Meaning," said Ronicky, "that, because I've done a good turn for
+Gregg, I'd better look out for him?"
+
+"Meaning nothing," said Harding, "except that the reason the snake bit
+the gent was because he'd had a stone heaved at him by the same man
+one day and hadn't forgot it."
+
+But Ronicky Doone merely laughed and turned back toward the hotel.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Four
+
+
+_His Victim's Trouble_
+
+Yet he could not help pondering on the words of old Harding. Bill
+Gregg had been a strange patient. He had never repeated his first
+offer to tell his story. He remained sullen and silent, with his
+brooding eyes fixed on the blank wall before him, and nothing could
+permanently cheer him. Some inward gloom seemed to possess the man.
+
+The first day after the shooting he had insisted on scrawling a
+painfully written letter, while Ronicky propped a writing board in
+front of him, as he lay flat on his back in the bed, but that was his
+only act. Thereafter he remained silent and brooding. Perhaps it
+was hatred for Ronicky that was growing in him, as the sense of
+disappointment increased, for Ronicky, after all, had kept him from
+reaching that girl when the train passed through Stillwater. Perhaps,
+for all Ronicky knew, his bullet had ruined the happiness of two
+lives. He shrugged that disagreeable thought away, and, reaching the
+hotel, he went straight up to the room of the sick man.
+
+"Bill," he said gently, "have you been spending all your time hating
+me? Is that what keeps you thin and glum? Is it because you sit here
+all day blaming me for all the things that have happened to you?"
+
+The dark flush and the uneasy flicker of Gregg's glance gave a
+sufficient answer. Ronicky Doone sighed and shook his head, but not in
+anger.
+
+"You don't have to talk," he said. "I see that I'm right. And I don't
+blame you, Bill, because, maybe, I've spoiled things pretty generally
+for you."
+
+At first the silence of Bill Gregg admitted that he felt the same way
+about the matter, yet he finally said aloud: "I don't blame you. Maybe
+you thought I was a hoss thief. But the thing is done, Ronicky, and it
+won't never be undone!"
+
+"Gregg," said Ronicky, "d'you know what you're going to do now?"
+
+"I dunno."
+
+"You're going to sit there and roll a cigarette and tell me the whole
+yarn. You ain't through with this little chase. Not if I have to drag
+you along with me. But first just figure that I'm your older brother
+or something like that and get rid of the whole yarn. Got to have the
+ore specimens before you can assay 'em. Besides, it'll help you a pile
+to get the poison out of your system. If you feel like cussing me
+hearty when the time comes go ahead and cuss, but I got to hear that
+story."
+
+"Maybe it would help," said Gregg, "but it's a fool story to tell."
+
+"Leave that to me to say whether it's a fool story or not. You start
+the talking."
+
+Gregg shifted himself to a more comfortable position, as is the
+immemorial custom of story tellers, and his glance misted a little
+with the flood of recollections.
+
+"Started along back about a year ago," he said. "I was up to the
+Sullivan Mountains working a claim. There wasn't much to it, just
+enough to keep me going sort of comfortable. I pegged away at it
+pretty steady, leading a lonely life and hoping every day that I'd cut
+my way down to a good lead. Well, the fine ore never showed up.
+
+"Meantime I got pretty weary of them same mountains, staring me in the
+face all the time. I didn't have even a dog with me for conversation,
+so I got to thinking. Thinking is a bad thing, mostly, don't you
+agree, Ronicky?"
+
+"It sure is," replied Ronicky Doone instantly. "Not a bit of a doubt
+about it."
+
+"It starts you doubting things," went on Gregg bitterly, "and pretty
+soon you're even doubting yourself." Here he cast an envious glance at
+the smooth brow of his companion. "But I guess that never happened to
+you, Ronicky?"
+
+"You'd be surprised if I told you," said Ronicky.
+
+"Well," went on Bill Gregg, "I got so darned tired of my own thoughts
+and of myself that I decided something had ought to be done; something
+to give me new things to think about. So I sat down and went over the
+whole deal.
+
+"I had to get new ideas. Then I thought of what a gent had told me
+once. He'd got pretty interested in mining and figured he wanted to
+know all about how the fancy things was done. So he sent off to some
+correspondence schools. Well, they're a great bunch. They say: 'Write
+us a lot of letters and ask us your questions. Before you're through
+you'll know something you want to know.' See?"
+
+"I see."
+
+"I didn't have anything special I wanted to learn except how to use
+myself for company when I got tired of solitaire. So I sat down and
+wrote to this here correspondence school and says: 'I want to do
+something interesting. How d'you figure that I had better begin?' And
+what d'you think they answered back?"
+
+"I dunno," said Ronicky, his interest steadily increasing.
+
+"Well, sir, the first thing they wrote back was: 'We have your letter
+and think that in the first place you had better learn how to write.'
+That was a queer answer, wasn't it?"
+
+"It sure was." Ronicky swallowed a smile.
+
+"Every time I looked at that letter it sure made me plumb mad. And I
+looked at it a hundred times a day and come near tearing it up every
+time. But I didn't," continued Bill.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because it was a woman that wrote it. I told by the hand, after a
+while!"
+
+"A woman? Go on, Bill. This story sure sounds different from most."
+
+"It ain't even started to get different yet," said Bill gloomily.
+"Well, that letter made me so plumb mad that I sat down and wrote
+everything I could think of that a gent would say to a girl to let her
+know what I thought about her. And what d'you think happened?"
+
+"She wrote you back the prettiest letter you ever seen," suggested
+Ronicky, "saying as how she'd never meant to make you mad and that if
+you--"
+
+"Say," broke in Bill Gregg, "did I show that letter to you?"
+
+"Nope; I just was guessing at what a lot of women would do. You see?"
+
+"No, I don't. I could never figure them as close as that. Anyway
+that's the thing she done, right enough. She writes me a letter that
+was smooth as oil and suggests that I go on with a composition course
+to learn how to write."
+
+"Going to have you do books, Bill?"
+
+"I ain't a plumb fool, Ronicky. But I thought it wouldn't do me no
+harm to unlimber my pen and fire out a few words a day. So I done it.
+I started writing what they told me to write about, the things that
+was around me, with a lot of lessons about how you can't use the same
+word twice on one page, and how terrible bad it is to use too many
+passive verbs."
+
+"What's a passive verb, Bill?"
+
+"I didn't never figure it out, exactly. However, it seems like they're
+something that slows you up the way a muddy road slows up a hoss.
+And then she begun talking about the mountains, and then she begun
+asking--
+
+"About you!" suggested Ronicky with a grin.
+
+"Confound you," said Bill Gregg. "How come you guessed that?"
+
+"I dunno. I just sort of scented what was coming."
+
+"Well, anyways, that's what she done. And pretty soon she sent me a
+snapshot of herself. Well--"
+
+"Lemme see it," said Ronicky Doone calmly.
+
+"I dunno just where it is, maybe," replied Bill Gregg.
+
+"Ill tell you. It's right around your neck, in that nugget locket you
+wear there."
+
+For a moment Bill Gregg hated the other with his eyes, and then he
+submitted with a sheepish grin, took off the locket, which was made of
+one big nugget rudely beaten into shape, and opened it for the benefit
+of Ronicky Doone. It showed the latter not a beautiful face, but a
+pretty one with a touch of honesty and pride that made her charming.
+
+"Well, as soon as I got that picture," said Bill Gregg, as he took
+back the locket, "I sure got excited. Looked to me like that girl was
+made for me. A lot finer than I could ever be, you see, but simple; no
+fancy frills, no raving beauty, maybe, but darned easy to look at.
+
+"First thing I done I went in and got a copy of my face made and
+rushed it right back at her and then--" He stopped dolefully. "What
+d'you think, Ronicky?"
+
+"I dunno," said Ronicky; "what happened then?"
+
+"Nothing, not a thing. Not a word came back from her to answer that
+letter I'd sent along."
+
+"Maybe you didn't look rich enough to suit her, Bill."
+
+"I thought that, and I thought it was my ugly face that might of made
+her change her mind. I thought of pretty near everything else that was
+bad about me and that she might of read in my face. Sure made me sick
+for a long time. Somebody else was correcting my lessons, and that
+made me sicker than ever.
+
+"So I sat down and wrote a letter to the head of the school and told
+him I'd like to get the address of that first girl. You see, I didn't
+even know her name. But I didn't get no answer."
+
+Ronicky groaned. "It don't look like the best detective in the world
+could help you to find a girl when you don't know her name." He added
+gently: "But maybe she don't want you to find her?"
+
+"I thought that for a long time. Then, a while back, I got a letter
+from San Francisco, saying that she was coming on a train through
+these parts and could I be in Stillwater because the train stopped
+there a couple of minutes. Most like she thought Stillwater was just
+sort of across the street from me. Matter of fact, I jumped on a hoss,
+and it took me three days of breaking my neck to get near Stillwater
+and then--" He stopped and cast a gloomy look on his companion.
+
+"I know," said Ronicky. "Then I come and spoiled the whole party. Sure
+makes me sick to think about it."
+
+"And now she's plumb gone," muttered Bill Gregg. "I thought maybe the
+reason I didn't have her correcting my lessons any more was because
+she'd had to leave the schools and go West. So, right after I got this
+drilling through the leg, you remember, I wrote a letter?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"It was to her at the schools, but I didn't get no answer. I guess she
+didn't go back there after all. She's plumb gone, Ronicky."
+
+The other was silent for a moment. "How much would you give to find
+her?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"Half my life," said Bill Gregg solemnly.
+
+"Then," said Ronicky, "we'll make a try at it. I got an idea how we
+can start on the trail. I'm going to go with you, partner. I've messed
+up considerable, this little game of yours; now I'm going to do what
+I can to straighten it out. Sometimes two are better than one. Anyway
+I'm going to stick with you till you've found her or lost her for
+good. You see?"
+
+Bill Gregg sighed. "You're pretty straight, Ronicky," he said, "but
+what good does it do for two gents to look for a needle in a haystack?
+How could we start to hit the trail?"
+
+"This way. We know the train that she took. Maybe we could find the
+Pullman conductor that was on it, and he might remember her. They got
+good memories, some of those gents. We'll start to find him, which had
+ought to be pretty easy."
+
+"Ronicky, I'd never of thought of that in a million years!"
+
+"It ain't thinking that we want now, it's acting. When can you start
+with me?"
+
+"I'll be fit tomorrow."
+
+"Then tomorrow we start."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Five
+
+
+_Macklin's Library_
+
+Robert Macklin, Pullman conductor, had risen to that eminent position
+so early in life that the glamour of it had not yet passed away. He
+was large enough to have passed for a champion wrestler or a burly
+pugilist, and he was small enough to glory in the smallest details of
+his work. Having at the age of thirty, through a great deal of luck
+and a touch of accident, secured his place, he possessed, at least,
+sufficient dignity to fill it.
+
+He was one of those rare men who carry their dignity with them past
+the doors of their homes. Robert Macklin's home, during the short
+intervals when he was off the trains, was in a tiny apartment. It was
+really one not overly large room, with a little alcove adjoining; but
+Robert Macklin had seized the opportunity to hang a curtain across
+the alcove, and, since it was large enough to contain a chair and a
+bookshelf, he referred to it always as his "library."
+
+He was this morning seated in his library, with his feet protruding
+through the curtains and resting on the foot of his bed, when the
+doorbell rang. He surveyed himself in his mirror before he answered
+it. Having decided that, in his long dressing gown, he was imposing
+enough, he advanced to the door and slowly opened it.
+
+He saw before him two sun-darkened men whose soft gray hats proclaimed
+that they were newly come out of the West. The one was a fellow whose
+face had been made stern by hard work and few pleasures in life. The
+other was one who, apparently, had never worked at all. There was
+something about him that impressed Robert Macklin. He might be a young
+Western millionaire, for instance. Aside from his hat he was dressed
+with elaborate care. He wore gray spats, and his clothes were
+obviously well tailored, and his necktie was done in a bow. On the
+whole he was a very cool, comfortable looking chap. The handkerchief,
+which protruded from his breast pocket and showed an edging of red,
+was a trifle noisy; and the soft gray hat was hardly in keeping, but,
+on the whole, he was a dashing-looking chap. The bagging trousers
+and the blunt-toed shoes of his companion were to Robert Macklin a
+distinct shock. He centered all of his attention instantly on the
+younger of his two visitors.
+
+"You're Mr. Macklin, I guess," said the handsome man.
+
+"I am," said Macklin, and, stepping back from his door, he invited
+them in with a sweeping gesture.
+
+There were only two chairs, but the younger of the strangers
+immediately made himself comfortable on the bed.
+
+"My name's Doone," he said, "and this is Mr. William Gregg. We think
+that you have some information which we can use. Mind if we fire a few
+questions?"
+
+"Certainly not," said Robert Macklin. At the same time he began to arm
+himself with caution. One could never tell.
+
+"Matter of fact," went on Ronicky smoothly, lighting a tailor-made
+cigarette, while his companion rolled one of his own making, "we are
+looking for a lady who was on one of your trains. We think you may
+possibly remember her. Here's the picture."
+
+And, as he passed the snapshot to the Pullman conductor, he went on
+with the details of the date and the number of the train.
+
+Robert Macklin in the meantime studied the picture carefully. He had a
+keen eye for faces, but when it came to pretty faces his memory was a
+veritable lion. He had talked a few moments with this very girl, and
+she had smiled at him. The memory made Robert Macklin's lips twitch
+just a trifle, and Ronicky Doone saw it.
+
+Presently the dignitary returned the picture and raised his head from
+thought. "It is vaguely behind my mind, something about this lady," he
+said. "But I'm sorry to say, gentlemen, I really don't know you and--"
+
+"Why, don't you know us!" broke in Bill Gregg. "Ain't my partner here
+just introduced us?"
+
+"Exactly," said Robert Macklin. And his opinion of the two sank a full
+hundred points. Such grammar proclaimed a ruffian.
+
+"You don't get his drift," Ronicky was explaining to his companion. "I
+introduced us, but he doesn't know who I am. We should have brought
+along a letter of introduction." He turned to Macklin. "I am mighty
+sorry I didn't get one," he said.
+
+It came to Macklin for the fraction of a second that he was being
+mocked, but he instantly dismissed the foolish thought. Even the rough
+fellows must be able to recognize a man when they saw one.
+
+"The point is," went on Ronicky gently, "that my friend is very eager
+for important reasons to see this lady, to find her. And he doesn't
+even know her name." Here his careful grammar gave out with a crash.
+"You can't beat a deal like that, eh, Macklin? If you can remember
+anything about her, her name first, then, where she was bound, who was
+with her, how tall she is, the color of her eyes, we'd be glad to know
+anything you know. What can you do for us?"
+
+Macklin cleared his throat thoughtfully. "Gentlemen," he said gravely,
+"if I knew the purpose for which you are seeking the lady I--"
+
+"The purpose ain't to kidnap her, if that's your drift," said Ronicky.
+"We ain't going to treat her wrong, partner. Out in our part of
+the land they don't do it. Just shake up your thoughts and see if
+something about that girl doesn't pop right into your head."
+
+Robert Macklin smiled and carefully shook his head. "It seems to be
+impossible for me to remember a thing," he asserted.
+
+"Not even the color of her eyes?" asked Ronicky, as he grinned. He
+went on more gravely: "I'm pretty dead sure that you do remember
+something about her."
+
+There was just the shade of a threat in the voice of this slender
+youngster, and Robert Macklin had been an amateur pugilist of much
+brawn and a good deal of boxing skill. He cast a wary eye on Ronicky;
+one punch would settle that fellow. The man Gregg might be a harder
+nut to crack, but it would not take long to finish them both. Robert
+Macklin thrust his shoulders forward.
+
+"Friends," he said gruffly, "I don't have much time off. This is my
+day for rest. I have to say good-by."
+
+Ronicky Doone stood up with a yawn. "I thought so," he said to his
+companion. "Mind the door, Gregg, and see that nobody steps in and
+busts up my little party."
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"Going to argue with this gent in a way he'll understand a pile better
+than the chatter we've been making so far." He stepped a long light
+pace forward. "Macklin, you know what we want to find out. Will you
+talk?"
+
+A cloud of red gathered before the eyes of Macklin. It was impossible
+that he must believe his ears, and yet the words still rang there.
+
+"Why, curse your little rat-face!" burst out Robert Macklin, and,
+stepping in, he leaned forward with a perfect straight left.
+
+Certainly his long vacation from boxing had not ruined his eye or
+stiffened his muscles. With delight he felt all the big sinews about
+his shoulders come into play. Straight and true the big fist drove
+into the face of the smaller man, but Robert Macklin found that he had
+punched a hole in thin air. It was as if the very wind of the blow had
+brushed the head of Ronicky Doone to one side, and at the same time he
+seemed to sway and stagger forward.
+
+A hard lean fist struck Robert Macklin's body. As he gasped and
+doubled up, clubbing his right fist to land the blow behind the ear
+of Ronicky Doone, the latter bent back, stepped in and, rising on the
+toes of both feet, whipped a perfect uppercut that, in ring parlance,
+rang the bell.
+
+The result was that Robert Macklin, his mouth agape and his eyes dull,
+stood wobbling slowly from side to side.
+
+"Here!" called Ronicky to his companion at the door. "Grab him on one
+side, and I'll take the other. He's out on his feet. Get him to that
+chair." With Gregg's assistance he dragged the bulk of the man there.
+Macklin was still stunned.
+
+Presently the dull eyes cleared and filled immediately with horror.
+Big Robert Macklin sank limply back in the chair.
+
+"I've no money," he said. "I swear I haven't a cent in the place. It's
+in the bank, but if a check will--"
+
+"We don't want your money this trip," said Ronicky. "We want talk,
+Macklin. A lot of talk and a lot of true talk. Understand? It's about
+that girl. I saw you grin when you saw the picture; you remember her
+well enough. Now start talking, and remember this, if you lie, I'll
+come back here and find out and use this on you."
+
+The eyes of Robert Macklin started from his head, as his gaze
+concentrated on the black muzzle of the gun. He moistened his white
+lips and managed to gasp: "Everything I know, of course. Ill tell you
+everything, word for word. She--she--her name I mean--"
+
+"You're doing fine," said Ronicky. "Keep it up, and you keep away,
+Bill. When you come at him with that hungry look he thinks you're
+going to eat him up. Fire away, Macklin."
+
+"What first?"
+
+"What's she look like?"
+
+"Soft brown hair, blue eyes, her mouth--"
+
+"Is a little big. That's all right. You don't have to be polite and
+lie. We want the truth. How big is she?"
+
+"About five feet and five inches, must weigh around a hundred and
+thirty pounds."
+
+"You sure are an expert on the ladies, Macklin, and I'll bet you
+didn't miss her name?"
+
+"Her name?"
+
+"Don't tell me you missed out on that!"
+
+"No. It was--Just a minute!"
+
+"Take your time."
+
+"Caroline."
+
+"Take your time now, Macklin, you're doing fine. Don't get confused.
+Get the last name right. It's the most important to us."
+
+"I have it, I'm sure. The whole name is Caroline Smith."
+
+There was a groan from Ronicky Doone and another from Bill Gregg.
+
+"That's a fine name to use for trailing a person. Did she say anything
+more, anything about where she expected to be living in New York?"
+
+"I don't remember any more," said Macklin sullenly, for the spot where
+Ronicky's fist landed on his jaw was beginning to ache. "I didn't sit
+down and have any chats with her. She just spoke to me once in a while
+when I did something for her. I suppose you fellows have some crooked
+work on hand for her?"
+
+"We're bringing her good news," said Ronicky calmly. "Now see if you
+can't remember where she said she lived in New York." And he gave
+added point to his question by pressing the muzzle of the revolver
+a little closer to the throat of the Pullman conductor. The latter
+blinked and swallowed hard.
+
+"The only thing I remember her saying was that she could see the East
+River from her window, I think."
+
+"And that's all you know?"
+
+"Yes, not a thing more about her to save my life."
+
+"Maybe what you know has saved it," said Ronicky darkly.
+
+His victim eyed him with sullen malevolence. "Maybe there'll be a new
+trick or two in this game before it's finished. I'll never forget you,
+Doone, and you, Gregg."
+
+"You haven't a thing in the world on us," replied Ronicky.
+
+"I have the fact that you carry concealed weapons."
+
+"Only this time."
+
+"Always! Fellows like you are as lonesome without a gun as they are
+without a skin."
+
+Ronicky turned at the door and laughed back at the gloomy face, and
+then they were gone down the steps and into the street.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Six
+
+
+_The New York Trail_
+
+On the train to New York that night they carefully summed up their
+prospects and what they had gained.
+
+"We started at pretty near nothing," said Ronicky. He was a
+professional optimist. "We had a picture of a girl, and we knew she
+was on a certain train bound East, three or four weeks ago. That's all
+we knew. Now we know her name is Caroline Smith, and that she lives
+where she can see the East River out of her back window. I guess that
+narrows it down pretty close, doesn't it, Bill?"
+
+"Close?" asked Bill. "Close, did you say?" "Well, we know the trail,"
+said Ronicky cheerily. "All we've got to do is to locate the shack
+that stands beside that trail. For old mountain men like us that ought
+to be nothing. What sort of a stream is this East River, though?"
+
+Bill Gregg looked at his companion in disgust. He had become so
+used to regarding Doone as entirely infallible that it amazed and
+disheartened him to find that there was one topic so large about which
+Ronicky knew nothing. Perhaps the whole base for the good cheer of
+Ronicky was his ignorance of everything except the mountain desert.
+
+"A river's a river," went on Ronicky blandly. "And it's got a town
+beside it, and in the town there's a house that looks over the water.
+Why, Bill, she's as good as found!"
+
+"New York runs about a dozen miles along the shore of that river,"
+groaned Bill Gregg.
+
+"A dozen miles!" gasped Ronicky. He turned in his seat and stared at
+his companion. "Bill, you sure are making a man-sized joke. There
+ain't that much city in the world. A dozen miles of houses, one right
+next to the other?"
+
+"Yep, and one on top of the other. And that ain't all. Start about the
+center of that town and swing a twenty-mile line around it, and the
+end of the line will be passing through houses most of the way."
+
+Ronicky Doone glared at him in positive alarm. "Well," he said,
+"that's different."
+
+"It sure is. I guess we've come on a wild-goose chase, Ronicky,
+hunting for a girl named Smith that lives on the bank of the East
+River!" He laughed bitterly.
+
+"How come you know so much about New York?" asked Ronicky, eager to
+turn the subject of conversation until he could think of something to
+cheer his friend.
+
+"Books," said Bill Gregg.
+
+After that there was a long lull in the conversation. That night
+neither of them slept long, for every rattle and sway of the train was
+telling them that they were rocking along toward an impossible task.
+Even the cheer of Ronicky had broken down the next morning, and,
+though breakfast in the diner restored some of his confidence, he was
+not the man of the day before.
+
+"Bill," he confided, on the way back to their seats from the diner,
+"there must be something wrong with me. What is it?"
+
+"I dunno," said Bill. "Why?"
+
+"People been looking at me."
+
+"Ain't they got a right to do that?"
+
+"Sure they have, in a way. But, when they don't seem to see you when
+you see them, and when they begin looking at you out of the corner
+of their eyes the minute you turn away, why then it seems to me that
+they're laughing at you, Bill."
+
+"What they got to laugh about? I'd punch a gent in the face that
+laughed at me!"
+
+But Ronicky fell into a philosophical brooding. "It can't be done,
+Bill. You can punch a gent for cussing you, or stepping on your foot,
+or crowding you, or sneering at you, or talking behind your back, or
+for a thousand things. But back here in a crowd you can't fight a gent
+for laughing at you. Laughing is outside the law most anywheres, Bill.
+It's the one thing you can't answer back except with more laughing.
+Even a dog gets sort of sick inside when you laugh at him, and a man
+is a pile worse. He wants to kill the gent that's laughing, and he
+wants to kill himself for being laughed at. Well, Bill, that's a good
+deal stronger than the way they been laughing at me, but they
+done enough to make me think a bit. They been looking at three
+things--these here spats, the red rim of my handkerchief sticking out
+of my pocket, and that soft gray hat, when I got it on."
+
+"Derned if I see anything wrong with your outfit. Didn't they tell you
+that that was the style back East, to have spats like that on?"
+
+"Sure," said Ronicky, "but maybe they didn't know, or maybe they go
+with some, but not with me. Maybe I'm kind of too brown and outdoors
+looking to fit with spats and handkerchiefs like this."
+
+"Ronicky," said Bill Gregg in admiration, "maybe you ain't read a
+pile, but you figure things out just like a book."
+
+Their conversation was cut short by the appearance of a drift of
+houses, and then more and more. From the elevated line on which they
+ran presently they could look down on block after block of roofs
+packed close together, or big business structures, as they reached the
+uptown business sections, and finally Ronicky gasped, as they plunged
+into utter darkness that roared past the window.
+
+"We go underground to the station," Bill Gregg explained. He was
+a little startled himself, but his reading had fortified him to a
+certain extent.
+
+"But is there still some more of New York?" asked Ronicky humbly.
+
+"More? We ain't seen a corner of it!" Bill's superior information made
+him swell like a frog in the sun. "This is kinder near One Hundredth
+Street where we dived down. New York keeps right on to First Street,
+and then it has a lot more streets below that. But that's just the
+Island of Manhattan. All around there's a lot more. Manhattan is
+mostly where they work. They live other places."
+
+It was not very long before the train slowed down to make Grand
+Central Station. On the long platform Ronicky surrendered his suit
+case to the first porter. Bill Gregg was much alarmed. "What'd you do
+that for?" he asked, securing a stronger hold on his own valise and
+brushing aside two or three red caps.
+
+"He asked me for it," explained Ronicky. "I wasn't none too set on
+giving it to him to carry, but I hated to hurt his feelings. Besides,
+they're all done up in uniforms. Maybe this is their job."
+
+"But suppose that feller got away out of sight, what would you do?
+Your brand-new pair of Colts is lying away in it!"
+
+"He won't get out of sight none," Ronicky assured his friend grimly.
+"I got another Colt with me, and, no matter how fast he runs, a
+forty-five slug can run a pile faster. But come on, Bill. The word in
+this town seems to be to keep right on moving."
+
+They passed under an immense, brightly lighted vault and then wriggled
+through the crowds in pursuit of the astonishingly agile porter. So
+they came out of the big station to Forty-second Street, where they
+found themselves confronted by a taxi driver and the question:
+"Where?"
+
+"I dunno," said Ronicky to Bill. "Your reading tell you anything about
+the hotels in this here town?"
+
+"Not a thing," said Bill, "because I never figured that I'd be fool
+enough to come this far away from my home diggings. But here I am, and
+we don't know nothing."
+
+"Listen, partner," said Ronicky to the driver. "Where's a
+fair-to-medium place to stop at?"
+
+The taxi driver swallowed a smile that left a twinkle about his eyes
+which nothing could remove. "What kind of a place? Anywhere from fifty
+cents to fifty bucks a night."
+
+"Fifty dollars!" exclaimed Bill Gregg. "Can you lay over that,
+Ronicky? Our wad won't last a week."
+
+"Say, pal," said the taxi driver, becoming suddenly friendly, "I can
+fix you up. I know a neat little joint where you'll be as snug as you
+want. They'll stick you about one-fifty per, but you can't beat that
+price in this town and keep clean."
+
+"Take us there," said Bill Gregg, and they climbed into the machine.
+
+The taxi turned around, shot down Park Avenue, darted aside into the
+darker streets to the east of the district and came suddenly to a
+halt.
+
+"Did you foller that trail?" asked Bill Gregg in a chuckling whisper.
+
+"Sure! Twice to the left, then to the right, and then to the left
+again. I know the number of blocks, too. Ain't no reason for getting
+rattled just because a joint is strange to us. New York may be
+tolerable big, but it's got men in it just like we are, and maybe a
+lot worse kinds."
+
+As they got out of the little car they saw that the taxi driver had
+preceded them, carrying their suit cases. They followed up a steep
+pitch of stairs to the first floor of the hotel, where the landing had
+been widened to form a little office.
+
+"Hello, Bert," said their driver. "I picked up these gentlemen at
+Grand Central. They ain't wise to the town, so I put 'em next to you.
+Fix 'em up here?"
+
+"Sure," said Bert, lifting a huge bulk of manhood from behind the
+desk. He placed his fat hands on the top of it and observed his guests
+with a smile. "Ill make you right to home here, friends. Thank you,
+Joe!"
+
+Joe grinned, nodded and, receiving his money from Bill Gregg, departed
+down the stairs, humming. Their host, in the meantime, had picked up
+their suit cases and led the way down a hall dimly lighted by two
+flickering gas jets. Finally he reached a door and led them into a
+room where the gas had to be lighted. It showed them a cheerless
+apartment in spite of the red of wall paper and carpet.
+
+"Only three bucks," said the proprietor with the air of one bestowing
+charity out of the fullness of his heart. "Bathroom only two doors
+down. I guess you can't beat this layout, gents?"
+
+Bill Gregg glanced once about him and nodded.
+
+"You come up from the South, maybe?" asked the proprietor, lingering
+at the door.
+
+"West," said Bill Gregg curtly.
+
+"You don't say! Then you boys must be used to your toddy at night,
+eh?"
+
+"It's a tolerable dry country out there," said Ronicky without
+enthusiasm.
+
+"All the more reason you need some liquor to moisten it up. Wait till
+I get you a bottle of rye I got handy." And he disappeared in spite of
+their protests.
+
+"I ain't a drinking man," said Gregg, "and I know you ain't, but it's
+sure insulting to turn down a drink in these days!"
+
+Ronicky nodded, and presently the host returned with two glasses,
+rattling against a tall bottle on a tray.
+
+"Say, when," he said, filling the glasses and keeping on, in spite of
+their protests, until each glass was full.
+
+"I guess it looks pretty good to you to see the stuff again," he
+said, stepping back and rubbing his hands like one warmed by the
+consciousness of a good deed. "It ain't very plentiful around here."
+
+"Well," said Gregg, swinging up his glass, "here's in your eye,
+Ronicky, and here's to you, sir!"
+
+"Wait," replied Ronicky Doone. "Hold on a minute, Bill. Looks to me
+like you ain't drinking," he said to the proprietor.
+
+The fat man waved the suggestion aside. "Never touch it," he assured
+them. "Used to indulge a little in light wines and beers when the
+country was wet, but when it went dry the stuff didn't mean enough to
+me to make it worth while dodging the law. I just manage to keep a
+little of it around for old friends and men out of a dry country."
+
+"But we got a funny habit out in our country. We can't no ways drink
+unless the gent that's setting them out takes something himself. It
+ain't done that way in our part of the land," said Ronicky.
+
+"It ain't?"
+
+"Never!"
+
+"Come, come! That's a good joke. But, even if I can't be with you,
+boys, drink hearty."
+
+Ronicky Doone shook his head. "No joke at all," he said firmly.
+"Matter of politeness that a lot of gents are terrible hard set on out
+where we come from."
+
+"Why, Ronicky," protested Bill Gregg, "ain't you making it a little
+strong? For my part I've drunk twenty times without having the gent
+that set 'em up touch a thing. I reckon I can do it again. Here's
+how!"
+
+"Wait!" declared Ronicky Doone. And there was a little jarring ring
+in his voice that arrested the hand of Bill Gregg in the very act of
+raising the glass.
+
+Ronicky crossed the room quickly, took a glass from the washstand and,
+returning to the center table, poured a liberal drink of the whisky
+into it.
+
+"I dunno about my friend," he went on, almost sternly, to the
+bewildered hotel keeper. "I dunno about him, but some gents feel so
+strong about not drinking alone that they'd sooner fight. Well, sir,
+I'm one of that kind. So I say, there's your liquor. Get rid of it!"
+
+The fat man reached the center table and propped himself against it,
+gasping. His whole big body seemed to be wilting, as though in a
+terrific heat. "I dunno!" he murmured. "I dunno what's got into you
+fellers. I tell you, I never drink."
+
+"You lie, you fat fool!" retorted Ronicky. "Didn't I smell your
+breath?"
+
+Bill Gregg dropped his own glass on the table and hurriedly came to
+confront his host by the side of Ronicky.
+
+"Breath?" asked the fat man hurriedly, still gasping more and more
+heavily for air. "I--I may have taken a small tonic after dinner. In
+fact, think I did. That's all. Nothing more, I assure you. I--I have
+to be a sober man in my work."
+
+"You got to make an exception this evening," said Ronicky, more
+fiercely than ever. "I ought to make you drink all three drinks for
+being so slow about drinking one!"
+
+"Three drinks!" exclaimed the fat man, trembling violently. "It--it
+would kill me!"
+
+"I think it would," said Ronicky. "I swear I think it would. And maybe
+even one will be a sort of a shock, eh?"
+
+He commanded suddenly: "Drink! Drink that glass and clean out the last
+drop of it, or we'll tie you and pry your mouth open and pour the
+whole bottle down your throat. You understand?"
+
+A feeble moan came from the throat of the hotel keeper. He cast
+one frantic glance toward the door and a still more frantic appeal
+centered on Ronicky Doone, but the face of the latter was as cold as
+stone.
+
+"Then take your own glasses, boys," he said, striving to smile, as he
+picked up his own drink.
+
+"You drink first, and you drink alone," declared Ronicky. "Now!"
+
+The movement of his hand was as ominous as if he had whipped out a
+revolver. The fat man tossed off the glass of whisky and then stood
+with a pudgy hand pressed against his breast and the upward glance of
+one who awaits a calamity. Under the astonished eyes of Bill Gregg he
+turned pale, a sickly greenish pallor. His eyes rolled, and his hand
+on the table shook, and the arm that supported him sagged.
+
+"Open the window," he said. "The air--there ain't no air. I'm
+choking--and--"
+
+"Get him some water," cried Bill Gregg, "while I open the window."
+
+"Stay where you are, Bill."
+
+"But he looks like he's dying!"
+
+"Then he's killed himself."
+
+"Gents," began the fat man feebly and made a short step toward them.
+The step was uncompleted. In the middle of it he wavered, put out his
+arms and slumped upon his side on the floor.
+
+Bill Gregg cried out softly in astonishment and horror, but Ronicky
+Doone knelt calmly beside the fallen bulk and felt the beating of his
+heart.
+
+"He ain't dead," he said quietly, "but he'll be tolerably sick for a
+while. Now come along with me."
+
+"But what's all this mean?" asked Bill Gregg in a whisper, as he
+picked up his suit case and hurried after Ronicky.
+
+"Doped booze," said Ronicky curtly.
+
+They hurried down the stairs and came out onto the dark street. There
+Ronicky Doone dropped his suit case and dived into a dark nook beside
+the entrance. There was a brief struggle. He came out again, pushing
+a skulking figure before him, with the man's arm twisted behind his
+back.
+
+"Take off this gent's hat, will you?" asked Ronicky.
+
+Bill Gregg obeyed, too dumb with astonishment to think. "It's the taxi
+driver!" he exclaimed.
+
+"I thought so!" muttered Ronicky. "The skunk came back here to wait
+till we were fixed right now. What'll we do with him?"
+
+"I begin to see what's come off" said Bill Gregg, frowning into the
+white, scowling face of the taxi driver. The man was like a rat, but,
+in spite of his fear, he did not make a sound.
+
+"Over there!" said Bill Gregg, nodding toward a flight of cellar
+steps.
+
+They caught the man between them, rushed him to the steps and flung
+him headlong down. There was a crashing fall, groans and then silence.
+
+"He'll have a broken bone or two, maybe," said Ronicky, peering calmly
+into the darkness, "but he'll live to trap somebody else, curse him!"
+And, picking up their suit cases again, they started to retrace their
+steps.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Seven
+
+
+_The First Clue_
+
+They did not refer to the incidents of that odd reception in New York
+until they had located a small hotel for themselves, not three blocks
+away. It was no cheaper, but they found a pleasant room, clean and
+with electric lights. It was not until they had bathed and were
+propped up in their beds for a good-night smoke, which cow-punchers
+love, that Bill Gregg asked: "And what gave you the tip, Ronicky?"
+
+"I dunno. In my business you got to learn to watch faces, Bill.
+Suppose you sit in at a five-handed game of poker. One gent says
+everything with his face, while he's picking up his cards. Another
+gent don't say a thing, but he shows what he's got by the way he moves
+in his chair, or the way he opens and shuts his hands. When you said
+something about our wad I seen the taxi driver blink. Right after that
+he got terrible friendly and said he could steer us to a friend of his
+that could put us up for the night pretty comfortable. Well, it wasn't
+hard to put two and two together. Not that I figured anything out.
+Just was walking on my toes, ready to jump in any direction."
+
+As for Bill Gregg, he brooded for a time on what he had heard, then he
+shook his head and sighed. "I'd be a mighty helpless kid in this here
+town if I didn't have you along, Ronicky," he said.
+
+"Nope," insisted Ronicky. "Long as you use another gent for a sort of
+guide you feel kind of helpless. But, when you step off for yourself,
+everything is pretty easy. You just were waiting for me to take the
+lead, or you'd have done just as much by yourself."
+
+Again Bill Gregg sighed, as he shook his head. "If this is what New
+York is like," he said, "we're in for a pretty bad time. And this is
+what they call a civilized town? Great guns, they need martial law and
+a thousand policemen to the block to keep a gent's life and pocketbook
+safe in this town! First gent we meet tries to bump us off or get our
+wad. Don't look like we're going to have much luck, Ronicky."
+
+"We saved our hides, I guess."
+
+"That's about all."
+
+"And we learned something."
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Then I figure it was a pretty good night.
+
+"Another thing, Bill. I got an idea from that taxi gent. I figure that
+whole gang of taxi men are pretty sharp in the eye. What I mean is
+that we can tramp up and down along this here East River, and now
+and then we'll talk to some taxi men that do most of their work from
+stands in them parts of the town. Maybe we can get on her trail that
+way. Anyways, it's an opening."
+
+"Maybe," said Bill Gregg dubiously. He reached under his pillow. "But
+I'm sure going to sleep with a gun under my head in this town!" With
+this remark he settled himself for repose and presently was snoring
+loudly.
+
+Ronicky presented a brave face to the morning and at once started
+with Bill Gregg to tour along the East River. That first day Ronicky
+insisted that they simply walk over the whole ground, so as to become
+fairly familiar with the scale of their task. They managed to make the
+trip before night and returned to the hotel, footsore from the hard,
+hot pavements. There was something unkindly and ungenerous in those
+pavements, it seemed to Ronicky. He was discovering to his great
+amazement that the loneliness of the mountain desert is nothing at all
+compared to the loneliness of the Manhattan crowd.
+
+Two very gloomy and silent cow-punchers ate their dinner that night
+and went to bed early. But in the morning they began the actual work
+of their campaign. It was an arduous labor. It meant interviewing in
+every district one or two storekeepers, and asking the mail carriers
+for "Caroline Smith," and showing the picture to taxi drivers. These
+latter were the men, insisted Ronicky, who would eventually bring them
+to Caroline Smith. "Because, if they've ever drove a girl as pretty as
+that, they'll remember for quite a while."
+
+"But half of these gents ain't going to talk to us, even if they
+know," Bill Gregg protested, after he had been gruffly refused an
+answer a dozen times in the first morning.
+
+"Some of 'em won't talk," admitted Ronicky, "but that's probably
+because they don't know. Take 'em by and large, most gents like to
+tell everything they know, and then some!"
+
+As a matter of fact they met with rather more help than they wanted.
+In spite of all their efforts to appear casual there was something
+too romantic in this search for a girl to remain entirely unnoticed.
+People whom they asked became excited and offered them a thousand
+suggestions. Everybody, it seemed, had, somewhere, somehow, heard of a
+Caroline Smith living in his own block, and every one remembered dimly
+having passed a girl on the street who looked exactly like Caroline
+Smith. But they went resolutely on, running down a thousand false
+clues and finding at the end of each something more ludicrous than
+what had gone before. Maiden ladies with many teeth and big glasses
+they found; and they discovered, at the ends of the trails on which
+they were advised to go, young women and old, ugly girls and pretty
+ones, but never any one who in the slightest degree resembled Caroline
+Smith.
+
+In the meantime they were working back and forth, in their progress
+along the East River, from the slums to the better residence
+districts. They bought newspapers at little stationery stores and
+worked up chance conversations with the clerks, particularly girl
+clerks, whenever they could find them.
+
+"Because women have the eye for faces," Ronicky would say, "and, if a
+girl like Caroline Smith came into the shop, she'd be remembered for a
+while."
+
+But for ten days they labored without a ghost of a success. Then
+they noticed the taxi stands along the East Side and worked them as
+carefully as they could, and it was on the evening of the eleventh day
+of the search that they reached the first clue.
+
+They had found a taxi drawn up before a saloon, converted into an
+eating place, and when they went inside they found the driver alone in
+the restaurant. They worked up the conversation, as they had done a
+hundred times before. Gregg produced the picture and began showing it
+to Ronicky.
+
+"Maybe the lady's around here," said Ronicky, "but I'm new in this
+part of town." He took the picture and turned to the taxi driver.
+"Maybe you've been around this part of town and know the folks here.
+Ever see this girl around?" And he passed the picture to the other.
+
+The taxi driver bowed his head over it in a close scrutiny. When he
+looked up his face was a blank.
+
+"I don't know. Lemme see. I think I seen a girl like her the other
+day, waiting for the traffic to pass at Seventy-second and Broadway.
+Yep, she sure was a ringer for this picture." He passed the picture
+back, and a moment later he finished his meal, paid his check and went
+sauntering through the door.
+
+"Quick!" said Ronicky, the moment the chauffeur had disappeared. "Pay
+the check and come along. That fellow knows something."
+
+Bill Gregg, greatly excited, obeyed, and they hurried to the door of
+the place. They were in time to see the taxicab lurch away from the
+curb and go humming down the street, while the driver leaned out to
+the side and looked back.
+
+"He didn't see us," said Ronicky confidently.
+
+"But what did he leave for?"
+
+"He's gone to tell somebody, somewhere, that we're looking for
+Caroline Smith. Come on!" He stepped out to the curb and stopped a
+passing taxi. "Follow that machine and keep a block away from it," he
+ordered.
+
+"Bootlegger?" asked the taxi driver cheerily.
+
+"I don't know, but just drift along behind him till he stops. Can you
+do that?"
+
+"Watch me!"
+
+And, with Ronicky and Bill Gregg installed in his machine, he started
+smoothly on the trail.
+
+Straight down the cross street, under the roaring elevated tracks of
+Second and Third Avenues, they passed, and on First Avenue they turned
+and darted sharply south for a round dozen blocks, then went due east
+and came, to a halt after a brief run.
+
+"He's stopped in Beekman Place," said the driver, jerking open the
+door. "If I run in there he'll see me."
+
+Ronicky stepped from the machine, paid him and dismissed him with
+a word of praise for his fine trailing. Then he stepped around the
+corner.
+
+What he saw was a little street closed at both ends and only two or
+three blocks long. It had the serene, detached air of a village a
+thousand miles from any great city, with its grave rows of homely
+houses standing solemnly face to face. Well to the left, the
+Fifty-ninth Street Bridge swung its great arch across the river, and
+it led, Ronicky knew, to Long Island City beyond, but here everything
+was cupped in the village quiet.
+
+The machine which they had been pursuing was drawn up on the
+right-hand side of the street, looking south, and, even as Ronicky
+glanced around the corner, he saw the driver leave his seat, dart up a
+flight of steps and ring the bell.
+
+Ronicky could not see who opened the door, but, after a moment of
+talk, the chauffeur from the car they had pursued was allowed to
+enter. And, as he stepped across the threshold, he drew off his cap
+with a touch of reverence which seemed totally out of keeping with his
+character as Ronicky had seen it.
+
+"Bill," he said to Gregg, "we've got something. You seen him go up
+those steps to that house?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+Bill Gregg's eyes were flashing with the excitement. "That house has
+somebody in it who knows Caroline Smith, and that somebody is excited
+because we're hunting for her," said Bill. "Maybe it holds Caroline
+herself. Who can tell that? Let's go see."
+
+"Wait till that taxi driver goes. If he'd wanted us to know about
+Caroline he'd of told us. He doesn't want us to know and he'd maybe
+take it pretty much to heart if he knew we'd followed him."
+
+"What he thinks don't worry me none. I can tend to three like him."
+
+"Maybe, but you couldn't handle thirty, and coyotes like him hunt in
+packs, always. The best fighting pair of coyotes that ever stepped
+wouldn't have no chance against a lofer wolf, but no lofer wolf could
+stand off a dozen or so of the little devils. So keep clear of these
+little rat-faced gents, Bill. They hunt in crowds."
+
+Presently they saw the chauffeur coming down the steps. Even at that
+distance it could be seen that he was smiling broadly, and that he was
+intensely pleased with himself and the rest of the world.
+
+Starting up his machine, he swung it around dexterously, as only New
+York taxi drivers can, and sped down the street by the way he had
+come, passing Gregg and Ronicky, who had flattened themselves against
+the fence to keep from being seen. They observed that, while he
+controlled the car with one hand, with the other he was examining the
+contents of his wallet.
+
+"Money for him!" exclaimed Ronicky, as soon as the car was out of
+sight around the corner. "This begins to look pretty thick, Bill.
+Because he goes and tells them that he's taken us off the trail they
+not only thank him, but they pay him for it. And, by the face of him,
+as he went by, they pay him pretty high. Bill, it's easy to figure
+that they don't want any friend near Caroline Smith, and most like
+they don't even want us near that house."
+
+"I only want to go near once," said Bill Gregg. "I just want to find
+out if the girl is there."
+
+"Go break in on 'em?"
+
+"Break in! Ronicky, that's burglary!"
+
+"Sure it is."
+
+"Ill just ask for Caroline Smith at the door."
+
+"Try it."
+
+The irony made Bill Gregg stop in the very act of leaving and glance
+back. But he went on again resolutely and stamped up the steps to the
+front door of the house.
+
+It was opened to him almost at once by a woman, for Bill's hat come
+off. For a moment he was explaining. Then there was a pause in his
+gestures, as she made the reply. Finally he spoke again, but was cut
+short by the loud banging of the door.
+
+Bill Gregg drew himself up rigidly and slowly replaced the hat on his
+head. If a man had turned that trick on him, a .45-caliber slug would
+have gone crashing through the door in search of him to teach him a
+Westerner's opinion of such manners.
+
+Ronicky Doone could not help smiling to himself, as he saw Bill Gregg
+stump stiffly down the stairs, limping a little on his wounded leg,
+and come back with a grave dignity to the starting point. He was still
+crimson to the roots of his hair.
+
+"Let's start," he said. "If that happens again I'll be doing a couple
+of murders in this here little town and getting myself hung."
+
+"What happened?"
+
+"An old hag jerked open the door after I rang the bell. I asked her
+nice and polite if a lady named Caroline Smith was in the house? 'No,'
+says she, 'and if she was, what's that to you?' I told her I'd come a
+long ways to see Caroline. 'Then go a long ways back without seeing
+Caroline,' says this withered old witch, and she banged the door right
+in my face. Man, I'm still seeing red. Them words of the old woman
+were whips, and every one of them sure took off the hide. I used to
+think that old lady Moore in Martindale was a pretty nasty talker, but
+this one laid over her a mile. But we're beat, Ronicky. You couldn't
+get by that old woman with a thousand men."
+
+"Maybe not," said Ronicky Doone, "but we're going to try. Did you look
+across the street and see a sign a while ago?"
+
+"Which side?"
+
+"Side right opposite Caroline's house."
+
+"Sure. 'Room To Rent.'"
+
+"I thought so. Then that's our room."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"That's our room, partner, and right at the front window over the
+street one of us is going to keep watch day and night, till we make
+sure that Caroline Smith don't live in that house. Is that right?"
+
+"That's a great idea!" He started away from the fence.
+
+"Wait!" Ronicky caught him by the shoulder and held him back. "We'll
+wait till night and then go and get that room. If Caroline is in the
+house yonder, and they know we're looking for her, it's easy that she
+won't be allowed to come out the front of the house so long as we're
+perched up at the window, waiting to see her. We'll come back tonight
+and start waiting."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Eight
+
+
+_Two Apparitions_
+
+They found that the room in the house on Beekman Place, opposite that
+which they felt covered their quarry, could be secured, and they were
+shown to it by a quiet old gentlewoman, found a big double room that
+ran across the whole length of the house. From the back it looked down
+on the lights glimmering on the black East River and across to the
+flare of Brooklyn; to the left the whole arc of the Fifty-ninth Street
+Bridge was exposed. In front the windows overlooked Beekman Place
+and were directly opposite, the front of the house to which the taxi
+driver had gone that afternoon.
+
+Here they took up the vigil. For four hours one of the two sat with
+eyes never moving from the street and the windows of the house across
+the street; and then he left the post, and the other took it.
+
+It was vastly wearying work. Very few vehicles came into the light of
+the street lamp beneath them, and every person who dismounted from one
+of them had to be scrutinized with painful diligence.
+
+Once a girl, young and slender and sprightly, stepped out of a taxi,
+about ten o'clock at night, and ran lightly up the steps of the house.
+Ronicky caught his friend by the shoulders and dragged him to the
+window. "There she is now!" he exclaimed.
+
+But the eye of the lover, even though the girl was in a dim light,
+could not he deceived. The moment he caught her profile, as she turned
+in opening the door, Bill Gregg shook his head. "That's not the one.
+She's all different, a pile different, Ronicky."
+
+Ronicky sighed. "I thought we had her," he said. "Go on back to sleep.
+I'll call you again if anything happens."
+
+But nothing more happened that night, though even in the dull, ghost
+hours of the early morning they did not relax their vigil. But all the
+next day there was still no sign of Caroline Smith in the house across
+the street; no face like hers ever appeared at the windows. Apparently
+the place was a harmless rooming house of fairly good quality. Not a
+sign of Caroline Smith appeared even during the second day. By this
+time the nerves of the two watchers were shattered by the constant
+strain, and the monotonous view from the front window was beginning to
+madden them.
+
+"It's proof that she ain't yonder," said Bill Gregg. "Here's two days
+gone, and not a sign of her yet. It sure means that she ain't in that
+house, unless she's sick in bed." And he grew pale at the thought.
+
+"Partner," said Ronicky Doone, "if they are trying to keep her away
+from us they sure have the sense to keep her under cover for as long
+as two days. Ain't that right? It looks pretty bad for us, but I'm
+staying here for one solid week, anyway. It's just about our last
+chance, Bill. We've done our hunting pretty near as well as we could.
+If we don't land her this trip, I'm about ready to give up."
+
+Bill Gregg sadly agreed that this was their last chance and they must
+play it to the limit. One week was decided on as a fair test. If, at
+the end of that time, Caroline Smith did not come out of the house
+across the street they could conclude that she did not stay there. And
+then there would be nothing for it but to take the first train back
+West.
+
+The third day passed and the fourth, dreary, dreary days of
+unfaltering vigilance on the part of the two watchers. And on the
+fifth morning even Ronicky Doone sat with his head in his hands at
+the window, peering through the slit between the drawn curtains which
+sheltered him from being observed at his spying. When he called out
+softly, the sound brought Gregg, with one long leap out of the chair
+where he was sleeping, to the window. There could be no shadow of a
+doubt about it. There stood Caroline Smith in the door of the house!
+
+She closed the door behind her and, walking to the top of the steps,
+paused there and looked up and down the street.
+
+Bill Gregg groaned, snatched his hat and plunged through the door, and
+Ronicky heard the brief thunder of his feet down the first flight of
+stairs, then the heavy thumps, as he raced around the landing. He was
+able to trace him down all the three flights of steps to the bottom.
+
+And so swift was that descent that, when the girl, idling down the
+steps across the street, came onto the sidewalk, Bill Gregg rushed out
+from the other side and ran toward her.
+
+They made a strange picture as they came to a halt at the same
+instant, the girl shrinking back in apparent fear of the man, and Bill
+Gregg stopping by that same show of fear, as though by a blow in the
+face. There was such a contrast between the two figures that Ronicky
+Doone might have laughed, had he not been shaking his head with
+sympathy for Bill Gregg.
+
+For never had the miner seemed so clumsily big and gaunt, never had
+his clothes seemed so unpressed and shapeless, while his soft gray
+hat, to which he still clung religiously, appeared hopelessly out of
+place in contrast with the slim prettiness of the girl. She wore a
+black straw hat, turned back from her face, with a single big red
+flower at the side of it; her dress was a tailored gray tweed. The
+same distinction between their clothes was in their faces, the finely
+modeled prettiness of her features and the big, careless chiseling of
+the features of Bill Gregg.
+
+Ronicky Doone did not wonder that, after her first fear, her gesture
+was one of disdain and surprise.
+
+Bill Gregg had dragged the hat from his head, and the wind lifted his
+long black hair and made it wild. He went a long, slow step closer to
+her, with both his hands outstretched.
+
+A strange scene for a street, and Ronicky Doone saw the girl flash a
+glance over her shoulder and back to the house from which she had just
+come. Ronicky Doone followed that glance, and he saw, all hidden save
+the profile of the face, a man standing at an opposite window and
+smiling scornfully down at that picture in the street.
+
+What a face it was! Never in his life had Ronicky Doone seen a man
+who, in one instant, filled him with such fear and hatred, such
+loathing and such dread, such scorn and such terror. The nose was
+hooked like the nose of a bird of prey; the eyes were long and
+slanting like those of an Oriental. The face was thin, almost
+fleshless, so that the bony jaw stood out like the jaw of a
+death's-head.
+
+As for the girl, the sight of that onlooker seemed to fill her with a
+new terror. She shrank back from Bill Gregg until her shoulders were
+almost pressed against the wall of the house. And Ronicky saw her head
+shake, as she denied Bill the right of advancing farther. Still he
+pleaded, and still she ordered him away. Finally Bill Gregg drew
+himself up and bowed to her and turned on his heel.
+
+The girl hesitated a moment. It seemed to Ronicky, in spite of the
+fact that she had just driven Bill Gregg away, as if she were on
+the verge of following him to bring him back. For she made a slight
+outward gesture with one hand.
+
+If this were in her mind, however, it vanished instantly. She turned
+with a shudder and hurried away down the street.
+
+As for Bill Gregg he bore himself straight as a soldier and came back
+across the pavement, but it was the erectness of a soldier who has met
+with a crushing defeat and only preserves an outward resolution, while
+all the spirit within is crushed.
+
+Ronicky Doone turned gloomily away from the window and listened to the
+progress of Gregg up the stairs. What a contrast between the ascent
+and the descent! He had literally flown down. Now his heels clumped
+out a slow and regular death march, as he came back to the room.
+
+When Gregg opened the door Ronicky Doone blinked and drew in a deep
+breath at the sight of the poor fellow's face. Gregg had known before
+that he truly loved this girl whom he had never seen, but he had never
+dreamed what the strength of that love was. Now, in the very moment of
+seeing his dream of the girl turned into flesh and blood, he had lost
+her, and there was something like death in the face of the big miner
+as he dropped his hat on the floor and sank into a chair.
+
+After that he did not move so much as a finger from the position into
+which he had fallen limply. His legs were twisted awkwardly, sprawling
+across the floor in front of him; one long arm dragged down toward the
+floor, as if there was no strength in it to support the weight of the
+labor-hardened hands; his chin was fallen against his breast.
+
+When Ronicky Doone crossed to him and laid a kind hand on his shoulder
+he did not look up. "It's ended," said Bill Gregg faintly. "Now we
+hit the back trail and forget all about this." He added with a faint
+attempt at cynicism: "I've just wasted a pile of good money-making
+time from the mine, that's all."
+
+"H'm!" said Ronicky Doone. "Bill, look me in the eye and tell me, man
+to man, that you're a liar!" He added: "Can you ever be happy without
+her, man?"
+
+The cruelty of that speech made Gregg flush and look up sharply. This
+was exactly what Ronicky Doone wanted.
+
+"I guess they ain't any use talking about that part of it," said Gregg
+huskily.
+
+"Ain't there? That's where you and me don't agree! Why, Bill, look at
+the way things have gone! You start out with a photograph of a girl.
+Now you've followed her, found her name, tracked her clear across the
+continent and know her street address, and you've given her a chance
+to see your own face. Ain't that something done? After you've done all
+that are you going to give up now? Not you, Bill! You're going to buck
+up and go ahead full steam. Eh?"
+
+Bill Gregg smiled sourly. "D'you know what she said when I come
+rushing up and saying: 'I'm Bill Gregg!' D'you know what she said?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"'Bill Gregg?' she says. 'I don't remember any such name!'
+
+"That took the wind out of me. I only had enough left to say: 'The
+gent that was writing those papers to the correspondence school to you
+from the West, the one you sent your picture to and--'
+
+"'Sent my picture to!' she says and looks as if the ground had opened
+under her feet. 'You're mad!' she says. And then she looks back over
+her shoulder as much as to wish she was safe back in her house!"
+
+"D'you know why she looked back over her shoulder?"
+
+"Just for the reason I told you."
+
+"No, Bill. There was a gent standing up there at a window watching her
+and how she acted. He's the gent that kept her from writing to you and
+signing her name. He's the one who's kept her in that house. He's the
+one that knew we were here watching all the time, that sent out the
+girl with exact orders how she should act if you was to come out and
+speak to her when you seen her! Bill, what that girl told you didn't
+come out of her own head. It come out of the head of the gent across
+the way. When you turned your back on her she looked like she'd run
+after you and try to explain. But the fear of that fellow up in the
+window was too much for her, and she didn't dare. Bill, to get at the
+girl you got to get that gent I seen grinning from the window."
+
+"Grinning?" asked Bill Gregg, grinding his teeth and starting from his
+chair. "Was the skunk laughing at me?"
+
+"Sure! Every minute."
+
+Bill Gregg groaned. "I'll smash every bone in his ugly head."
+
+"Shake!" said Ronicky Doone. "That's the sort of talk I wanted to
+hear, and I'll help, Bill. Unless I'm away wrong, it'll take the best
+that you and me can do, working together, to put that gent down!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Nine
+
+
+_A Bold Venture_
+
+But how to reach that man of the smile and the sneer, how, above all,
+to make sure that he was really the power controlling Caroline Smith,
+were problems which could not be solved in a moment.
+
+Bill Gregg contributed one helpful idea. "We've waited a week to see
+her; now that we've seen her let's keep on waiting," he said, and
+Ronicky agreed.
+
+They resumed the vigil, but it had already been prolonged for such a
+length of time that it was impossible to keep it as strictly as it had
+been observed before. Bill Gregg, outworn by the strain of the long
+watching and the shock of the disappointment of that day, went
+completely to pieces and in the early evening fell asleep. But Ronicky
+Doone went out for a light dinner and came back after dark, refreshed
+and eager for action, only to find that Bill Gregg was incapable of
+being roused. He slept like a dead man.
+
+Ronicky went to the window and sat alone. Few of the roomers were home
+in the house opposite. They were out for the evening, or for dinner,
+at least, and the face of the building was dark and cold, the light
+from the street lamp glinting unevenly on the windowpanes. He had sat
+there staring at the old house so many hours in the past that it was
+beginning to be like a face to him, to be studied as one might study
+a human being. And the people it sheltered, the old hag who kept the
+door, the sneering man and Caroline Smith, were to the house like the
+thoughts behind a man's face, an inscrutable face. But, if one cannot
+pry behind the mask of the human, at least it is possible to enter a
+house and find--
+
+At this point in his thoughts Ronicky Doone rose with a quickening
+pulse. Suppose he, alone, entered that house tonight by stealth, like
+a burglar, and found what he could find?
+
+He brushed the idea away. Instantly it returned to him. The danger of
+the thing, and danger there certainly would be in the vicinity of
+him of the sardonic profile, appealed to him more and more keenly.
+Moreover, he must go alone. The heavy-footed Gregg would be a poor
+helpmate on such an errand of stealth.
+
+Ronicky turned away from the window, turned back to it and looked once
+more at the tall front of the building opposite; then he started to
+get ready for the expedition.
+
+The preparations were simple. He put on a pair of low shoes, very
+light and with rubber heels. In them he could move with the softness
+and the speed of a cat. Next he dressed in a dark-gray suit, knowing
+that this is the color hardest to see at night. His old felt hat he
+had discarded long before in favor of the prevailing style of the
+average New Yorker. For this night expedition he put on a cap which
+drew easily over his ears and had a long visor, shadowing the upper
+part of his face. Since it might be necessary to remain as invisible
+as possible, he obscured the last bit of white that showed in his
+costume, with a black neck scarf.
+
+Then he looked in the glass. A lean face looked back at him, the eyes
+obscured under the cap, a stern, resolute face, with a distinct threat
+about it. He hardly recognized himself in the face in the glass.
+
+He went to his suit case and brought out his favorite revolver. It was
+a long and ponderous weapon to be hidden beneath his clothes, but to
+Ronicky Doone that gun was a friend well tried in many an adventure.
+His fingers went deftly over it. It literally fell to pieces at his
+touch, and he examined it cautiously and carefully in all its parts,
+looking to the cartridges before he assembled the weapon again. For,
+if it became necessary to shoot this evening, it would be necessary to
+shoot to kill.
+
+He then strolled down the street, passing the house opposite, with a
+close scrutiny. A narrow, paved sidewalk ran between it and the house
+on its right, and all the windows opening on this small court were
+dark. Moreover, the house which was his quarry was set back several
+feet from the street, an indentation which would completely hide him
+from anyone who looked from the street. Ronicky made up his mind at
+once. He went to the end of the block, crossed over and, turning back
+on the far side of the street, slipped into the opening between the
+houses.
+
+Instantly he was in a dense darkness. For five stories above him the
+two buildings towered, shutting out the starlight. Looking straight up
+he found only a faint reflection of the glow of the city lights in the
+sky.
+
+At last he found a cellar window. He tried it and found it locked, but
+a little maneuvering with his knife enabled him to turn the catch at
+the top of the lower sash. Then he raised it slowly and leaned into
+the blackness. Something incredibly soft, tenuous, clinging, pressed
+at once against his face. He started back with a shudder and brushed
+away the remnants of a big spider web.
+
+Then he leaned in again. It was an intense blackness. The moment his
+head was in the opening the sense of listening, which is ever in a
+house, came to him. There were the strange, musty, underground odors
+which go with cellars and make men think of death.
+
+However, he must not stay here indefinitely. To be seen leaning in at
+this window was as bad as to be seen in the house itself. He slipped
+through the opening at once, and beneath his feet there was a soft
+crunching of coal. He had come directly into the bin. Turning, he
+closed the window, for that would be a definite clue to any one who
+might pass down the alley.
+
+As he stood surrounded by that hostile silence, that evil darkness,
+he grew somewhat accustomed to the dimness, and he could make out not
+definite objects, but ghostly outlines. Presently he took out the
+small electric torch which he carried and examined his surroundings.
+
+The bin had not yet received the supply of winter coal and was almost
+empty. He stepped out of it into a part of the basement which had been
+used apparently for storing articles not worth keeping, but too good
+to be thrown away--an American habit of thrift. Several decrepit
+chairs and rickety cabinets and old console tables were piled together
+in a tangled mass. Ronicky looked at them with an unaccountable
+shudder, as if he read in them the history of the ruin and fall and
+death of many an old inhabitant of this house. It seemed to his
+excited imagination that the man with the sneer had been the cause of
+all the destruction and would be the cause of more.
+
+He passed back through the basement quickly, eager to be out of the
+musty odors and his gloomy thoughts. He found the storerooms, reached
+the kitchen stairs and ascended at once. Halfway up the stairs, the
+door above him suddenly opened and light poured down at him. He saw
+the flying figure of a cat, a broom behind it, a woman behind the
+broom.
+
+"Whisht! Out of here, dirty beast!"
+
+The cat thudded against Ronicky's knee, screeched and disappeared
+below; the woman of the broom shaded her eyes and peered down the
+steps. "A queer cat!" she muttered, then slammed the door.
+
+It seemed certain to Ronicky that she must have seen him, yet he
+knew that the blackness of the cellar had probably half blinded her.
+Besides, he had drawn as far as possible to one side of the steps, and
+in this way she might easily have overlooked him.
+
+In the meantime it seemed that this way of entering the house was
+definitely blocked. He paused a moment to consider other plans, but,
+while he stayed there in thought, he heard the rattle of pans. It
+decided him to stay a while longer. Apparently she was washing the
+cooking utensils, and that meant that she was near the close of her
+work for the evening. In fact, the rim of light, which showed between
+the door frame and the door, suddenly snapped out, and he heard her
+footsteps retreating.
+
+Still he delayed a moment or two, for fear she might return to take
+something which she had forgotten. But the silence deepened above him,
+and voices were faintly audible toward the front of the house.
+
+That decided Ronicky. He opened the door, blessing the well-oiled
+hinges which kept it from making any noise, and let a shaft from his
+pocket lantern flicker across the kitchen floor. The light glimmered
+on the newly scrubbed surface and showed him a door to his right,
+opening into the main part of the house.
+
+He passed through it at once and sighed with relief when his foot
+touched the carpet on the hall beyond. He noted, too, that there was
+no sign of a creak from the boards beneath his tread. However old
+that house might be, he was a noble carpenter who laid the flooring,
+Ronicky thought, as he slipped through the semi-gloom. For there was
+a small hall light toward the front, and it gave him an uncertain
+illumination, even at the rear of the passage.
+
+Now that he was definitely committed to the adventure he wondered more
+and more what he could possibly gain by it. But still he went on, and,
+in spite of the danger, it is doubtful if Ronicky would have willingly
+changed places with any man in the world at that moment.
+
+At least there was not the slightest sense in remaining on the lower
+floor of the house. He slipped down the shadow of the main stairs,
+swiftly circled through the danger of the light of the lower hall lamp
+and started his ascent. Still the carpet muffled every sound which
+he made in climbing, and the solid construction of the house did not
+betray him with a single creaking noise.
+
+He reached the first hall. This, beyond doubt, was where he would find
+the room of the man who sneered--the archenemy, as Ronicky Doone was
+beginning to think of him. A shiver passed through his lithe, muscular
+body at the thought of that meeting.
+
+He opened the first door to his left. It was a small closet for brooms
+and dust cloths and such things. Determining to be methodical he went
+to the extreme end of the hall and tried that door. It was
+locked, but, while his hand was still on the knob, turning it in
+disappointment, a door, higher up in the house, opened and a hum
+of voices passed out to him. They grew louder, they turned to the
+staircase from the floor above and commenced to descend at a running
+pace. Three or four men at least, there must be, by the sound, and
+perhaps more!
+
+Ronicky started for the head of the stairs to make his retreat,
+but, just as he reached there, the party turned into the hall and
+confronted him.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Ten
+
+
+_Mistaken Identity_
+
+To flee down the stairs now would be rank folly. If there happened to
+be among these fellows a man of the type of him who sneered, a bullet
+would catch the fugitive long before he reached the bottom of the
+staircase. And, since he could not retreat, Ronicky went slowly and
+steadily ahead, for, certainly, if he stood still, he would be spoken
+to. He would have to rely now on the very dim light in this hall and
+the shadow of his cap obscuring his face. If these were roomers,
+perhaps he would be taken for some newcomer.
+
+But he was hailed at once, and a hand was laid on his shoulder.
+
+"Hello, Pete. What's the dope?"
+
+Ronicky shrugged the hand away and went on.
+
+"Won't talk, curse him. That's because the plant went fluey."
+
+"Maybe not; Pete don't talk much, except to the old man."
+
+"Lemme get at him," said a third voice. "Beat it down to Rooney's. I'm
+going up with Pete and get what he knows."
+
+And, as Ronicky turned onto the next flight of the stairway, he was
+overtaken by hurrying feet. The other two had already scurried down
+toward the front door of the house.
+
+"I got some stuff in my room, Pete," said the friendly fellow who
+had overtaken him. "Come up and have a jolt, and we can have a talk.
+'Lefty' and Monahan think you went flop on the job, but I know better,
+eh? The old man always picks you for these singles; he never gives me
+a shot at 'em." Then he added: "Here we are!" And, opening a door in
+the first hall, he stepped to the center of the room and fumbled at
+a chain that broke loose and tinkled against glass; eventually he
+snapped on an electric light. Ronicky Doone saw a powerfully built,
+bull-necked man, with a soft hat pulled far down on his head. Then the
+man turned.
+
+It was much against the grain for Ronicky Doone to attack a man by
+surprise, but necessity is a stern ruler. And the necessity which made
+him strike made him hit with the speed of a snapping whiplash and the
+weight of a sledge hammer. Before the other was fully turned that
+iron-hard set of knuckles crashed against the base of his jaw.
+
+He fell without a murmur, without a struggle, Ronicky catching him in
+his arms to break the weight of the fall. It was a complete knock-out.
+The dull eyes, which looked up from the floor, saw nothing. The
+square, rather brutal, face was relaxed as if in sleep, but here was
+the type of man who would recuperate with great speed.
+
+Ronicky set about the obvious task which lay before him, as fast as he
+could. In the man's coat pocket he found a handkerchief which, hard
+knotted, would serve as a gag. The window curtain was drawn with a
+stout, thick cord. Ronicky slashed off a convenient length of it and
+secured the hands and feet of his victim, before he turned the fellow
+on his face.
+
+Next he went through the pockets of the unconscious man who was only
+now beginning to stir slightly, as life returned after that stunning
+blow.
+
+It was beginning to come to Ronicky that there was a strange relation
+between the men of this house. Here were three who apparently started
+out to work at night, and yet they were certainly not at all the type
+of night clerks or night-shift engineers or mechanics. He turned over
+the hand of the man he had struck down. The palm was as soft as his
+own.
+
+No, certainly not a laborer. But they were all employed by "the old
+man." Who was he? And was there some relation between all of these and
+the man who sneered?
+
+At least Ronicky determined to learn all that could be read in
+the pockets of his victim. There was only one thing. That was a
+stub-nosed, heavy automatic.
+
+It was enough to make Ronicky Doone sigh with relief. At least he had
+not struck some peaceful, law-abiding fellow. Any man might carry a
+gun--Ronicky himself would have been uncomfortable without some sort
+of weapon about him but there are guns and guns. This big, ugly
+automatic seemed specially designed to kill swiftly and surely.
+
+He was considering these deductions when a tap came on the door.
+Ronicky groaned. Had they come already to find out what kept the
+senseless victim so long?
+
+"Morgan, oh, Harry Morgan!" called a girl's voice.
+
+Ronicky Doone started. Perhaps--who could tell--this might be Caroline
+Smith herself, come to tap at the door when he was on the very verge
+of abandoning the adventure. Suppose it were someone else?
+
+If he ventured out expecting to find Gregg's lady and found instead
+quite another person--well, women screamed at the slightest
+provocation, and, if a woman screamed in this house, it seemed
+exceedingly likely that she would rouse a number of men carrying just
+such short-nosed, ugly automatics as that which he had just taken from
+the pocket of Harry Morgan.
+
+In the meantime he must answer something. He could not pretend that
+the room was empty, for the light must be showing around the door.
+
+"Harry!" called the voice of the girl again. "Do you hear me? Come
+out! The chief wants you!" And she rattled the door.
+
+Fear that she might open it and, stepping in, see the senseless figure
+on the floor, alarmed Ronicky. He came close to the door.
+
+"Well?" he demanded, keeping his voice deep, like the voice of Harry
+Morgan, as well as he could remember it.
+
+"Hurry! The chief, I tell you!"
+
+He snapped out the light and turned resolutely to the door. He felt
+his faithful Colt, and the feel of the butt was like the touch of a
+friendly hand before he opened the door.
+
+She was dressed in white and made a glimmering figure in the darkness
+of the hall, and her hair glimmered, also, almost as if it possessed
+a light and a life of its own. Ronicky Doone saw that she was a very
+pretty girl, indeed. Yes, it must be Caroline Smith. The very perfume
+of young girlhood breathed from her, and very sharply and suddenly he
+wondered why he should be here to fight the battle of Bill Gregg in
+this matter--Bill Gregg who slept peacefully and stupidly in the room
+across the street!
+
+She had turned away, giving him only a side glance, as he came out.
+"I don't know what's on, something big. The chief's going to give you
+your big chance--with me."
+
+Ronicky Doone grunted.
+
+"Don't do that," exclaimed the girl impatiently. "I know you think
+Pete is the top of the world, but that doesn't mean that you can make
+a good imitation of him. Don't do it, Harry. You'll pass by yourself.
+You don't need a make-up, and not Pete's on a bet."
+
+They reached the head of the stairs, and Ronicky Doone paused. To go
+down was to face the mysterious chief whom he had no doubt was the old
+man to whom Harry Morgan had already referred. In the meantime the
+conviction grew that this was indeed Caroline Smith. Her free-and-easy
+way of talk was exactly that of a girl who might become interested in
+a man whom she had never seen, merely by letters.
+
+"I want to talk to you," said Ronicky, muffling his voice. "I want to
+talk to you alone."
+
+"To me?" asked the girl, turning toward him. The light from the hall
+lamp below gave Ronicky the faintest hint of her profile.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But the chief?"
+
+"He can wait."
+
+She hesitated, apparently drawn by curiosity in one direction, but
+stopped by another thought. "I suppose he can wait, but, if he gets
+stirred up about it--oh, we'll, I'll talk to you--but nothing foolish,
+Harry. Promise me that?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Slip into my room for a minute." She led the way a few steps down
+the hall, and he followed her through the door, working his mind
+frantically in an effort to find words with which to open his speech
+before she should see that he was not Harry Morgan and cry out to
+alarm the house. What should he say? Something about Bill Gregg at
+once, of course. That was the thing.
+
+The electric light snapped on at the far side of the room. He saw
+a dressing table, an Empire bed covered with green-figured silk, a
+pleasant rug on the floor, and, just as he had gathered an impression
+of delightful femininity from these furnishings, the girl turned from
+the lamp on the dressing table, and he saw--not Caroline Smith, but a
+bronze-haired beauty, as different from Bill Gregg's lady as day is
+from night.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Eleven
+
+
+_A Cross-Examination_
+
+He was conscious then only of green-blue eyes, very wide, very bright,
+and lips that parted on a word and froze there in silence. The heart
+of Ronicky Doone leaped with joy; he had passed the crisis in safety.
+She had not cried out.
+
+"You're not--" he had said in the first moment.
+
+"I am not who?" asked the girl with amazing steadiness. But he saw her
+hand go back to the dressing table and open, with incredible deftness
+and speed, the little top drawer behind her.
+
+"Don't do that!" said Ronicky softly, but sharply. "Keep your hand off
+that table, lady, if you don't mind."
+
+She hesitated a fraction of a second. In that moment she seemed to see
+that he was in earnest, and that it would be foolish to tamper with
+him.
+
+"Stand away from that table; sit down yonder."
+
+Again she obeyed without a word. Her eyes, to be sure, flickered here
+and there about the room, as though they sought some means of sending
+a warning to her friends, or finding some escape for herself. Then her
+glance returned to Ronicky Doone.
+
+"Well," she said, as she settled in the chair. "Well?"
+
+A world of meaning in those two small words--a world of dread
+controlled. He merely stared at her thoughtfully.
+
+"I hit the wrong trail, lady," he said quietly. "I was looking for
+somebody else."
+
+She started. "You were after--" She stopped.
+
+"That's right, I guess," he admitted.
+
+"How many of you are there?" she asked curiously, so curiously that
+she seemed to be forgetting the danger. "Poor Carry Smith with a
+mob--" She stopped suddenly again. "What did you do to Harry Morgan?"
+
+"I left him safe and quiet," said Ronicky Doone.
+
+The girl's face hardened strangely. "What you are, and what your game
+is I don't know," she said. "But I'll tell you this: I'm letting you
+play as if you had all the cards in the deck. But you haven't. I've
+got one ace that'll take all your trumps. Suppose I call once what'll
+happen to you, pal?"
+
+"You don't dare call," he said.
+
+"Don't dare me," said the girl angrily. "I hate a dare worse than
+anything in the world, almost." For a moment her green-blue eyes were
+pools of light flashing angrily at him.
+
+Into the hand of Ronicky Doone, with that magic speed and grace for
+which his fame was growing so great in the mountain desert, came the
+long, glimmering body of the revolver, and, holding it at the hip, he
+threatened her.
+
+She shrank back at that, gasping. For there was an utter surety about
+this man's handling of the weapon. The heavy gun balanced and steadied
+in his slim fingers, as if it were no more than a feather's weight.
+
+"I'm talking straight, lady," said Ronicky Doone. "Sit down--pronto!"
+
+In the very act of obedience she straightened again. "It's bluff," she
+said. "I'm going through that door!" Straight for the door she went,
+and Ronicky Doone set his teeth.
+
+"Go back!" he commanded. He glided to the door and blocked her way,
+but the gun hung futile in his hand.
+
+"It's easy to pull a gun, eh?" said the girl, with something of a
+sneer. "But it takes nerve to use it. Let me through this door!"
+
+"Not in a thousand years," said Ronicky.
+
+She laid her hand on the door and drew it back--it struck his
+shoulder--and Ronicky gave way with a groan and stood with his head
+bowed. Inwardly he cursed himself. Doubtless she was used to men who
+bullied her, as if she were another man of an inferior sort. Doubtless
+she despised him for his weakness. But, though he gritted his teeth,
+he could not make himself firm. Those old lessons which sink into a
+man's soul in the West came back to him and held him. In the helpless
+rage which possessed him he wanted battle above all things in the
+world. If half a dozen men had poured through the doorway he would
+have rejoiced. But this one girl was enough to make him helpless.
+
+He looked up in amazement. She had not gone; in fact, she had closed
+the door slowly and stood with her back against it, staring at him in
+a speechless bewilderment.
+
+"What sort of a man are you?" asked the girl at last.
+
+"A fool," said Ronicky slowly. "Go out and round up your friends; I
+can't stop you."
+
+"No," said the girl thoughtfully, "but that was a poor bluff at
+stopping me."
+
+He nodded. And she hesitated still, watching his face closely.
+
+"Listen to me," she said suddenly. "I have two minutes to talk to you,
+and I'll give you those two minutes. You can use them in getting out
+of the house--I'll show you a way--or you can use them to tell me just
+why you've come."
+
+In spite of himself Ronicky smiled. "Lady," he said, "if a rat was in
+a trap d'you think he'd stop very long between a chance of getting
+clear and a chance to tell how he come to get into the place?"
+
+"I have a perfectly good reason for asking," she answered. "Even if
+you now get out of the house safely you'll try to come back later on."
+
+"Lady," said Ronicky, "do I look as plumb foolish as that?"
+
+"You're from the West," she said in answer to his slang.
+
+"Yes."
+
+She considered the straight-looking honesty of his eyes. "Out West,"
+she said, "I know you men are different. Not one of the men I know
+here would take another chance as risky as this, once they were out of
+it. But out there in the mountains you follow long trails, trails that
+haven't anything but a hope to lead you along them? Isn't that so?"
+
+"Maybe," admitted Ronicky. "It's the fever out of the gold days, lady.
+You start out chipping rocks to find the right color; maybe you never
+find the right color; maybe you never find a streak of pay stuff, but
+you keep on trying. You're always just sort of around the corner from
+making a big strike."
+
+She nodded, smiling again, and the smiles changed her pleasantly, it
+seemed to Ronicky Doone. At first she had impressed him almost as a
+man, with her cold, steady eyes, but now she was all woman, indeed.
+
+"That's why I say that you'll come back. You won't give up with one
+failure. Am I right?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "I dunno. If the trail fever hits me
+again--maybe I would come back."
+
+"You started to tell me. It's because of Caroline Smith?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You don't have to talk to me," said the girl. "As a matter of fact I
+shouldn't be here listening to you. But, I don't know why, I want to
+help you. You--you are in love with Caroline?"
+
+"No," said Ronicky.
+
+Her expression grew grave and cold again. "Then why are you here
+hunting for her? What do you want with her?"
+
+"Lady," said Ronicky, "I'm going to show you the whole layout of the
+cards. Maybe you'll take what I say right to headquarters--the man
+that smiles--and block my game."
+
+"You know him?" she asked sharply.
+
+Apparently that phrase, "the man who smiles," was enough to identify
+him.
+
+"I've seen him. I dunno what he is, I dunno what you are, lady, but I
+figure that you and Caroline Smith and everybody else in this house is
+under the thumb of the gent that smiles."
+
+Her eyes darkened with a shadow of alarm. "Go on," she said curtly.
+
+"I'm not going on to guess about what you all are. All I know is what
+I'm here trying to do. I'm not working for myself. I'm working for a
+partner."
+
+She started. "That's the second man, the one who stopped her on the
+street today?"
+
+"You're pretty well posted," replied Ronicky. "Yes, that's the one. He
+started after Caroline Smith, not even knowing her name--with just
+a picture of her. We found out that she lived in sight of the East
+River, and pretty soon we located her here."
+
+"And what are you hoping to do?"
+
+"To find her and talk to her straight from the shoulder and tell her
+what a pile Bill has done to get to her--and a lot of other things."
+
+"Can't he find her and tell her those things for himself?"
+
+"He can't talk," said Ronicky. "Not that I'm a pile better, but I
+could talk better for a friend than he could talk for himself, I
+figure. If things don't go right then I'll know that the trouble is
+with the gent with the smile."
+
+"And then?" asked the girl, very excited and grave.
+
+"I'll find him," said Ronicky Doone.
+
+"And--"
+
+"Lady," he replied obliquely, "because I couldn't use a gun on a girl
+ain't no sign that I can't use it on a gent!"
+
+"I've one thing to tell you," she said, breaking in swiftly on him.
+"Do what you want--take all the chances you care to--but, if you value
+your life and the life of your friend, keep away from the man who
+smiles."
+
+"I'll have a fighting chance, I guess," said Ronicky quietly."
+
+"You'll have no chance at all. The moment he knows your hand is
+against him, I don't care how brave or how clever you are, you're
+doomed!"
+
+She spoke with such a passion of conviction that she flushed, and a
+moment later she was shivering. It might have been the draft from the
+window which made her gather the hazy-green mantle closer about her
+and glance over her shoulder; but a grim feeling came to Ronicky Doone
+that the reason why the girl trembled and her eyes grew wide, was that
+the mention of "the man who smiles" had brought the thought of him
+into the room like a breath of cold wind.
+
+"Don't you see," she went on gently, "that I like you? It's the first
+and the last time that I'm going to see you, so I can talk. I know
+you're honest, and I know you're brave. Why, I can see your whole
+character in the way you've stayed by your friend; and, if there's a
+possible way of helping you, I'll do it. But you must promise me first
+that you'll never cross the man with the sneer, as you call him."
+
+"There's a sort of a fate in it," said Ronicky slowly. "I don't think
+I could promise. There's a chill in my bones that tells me I'm going
+to meet up with him one of these days."
+
+She gasped at that, and, stepping back from him, she appeared to be
+searching her mind to discover something which would finally and
+completely convince him. At length she found it.
+
+"Do I look to you like a coward?" she said. "Do I seem to be
+weak-kneed?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"And what will a woman fight hardest for?"
+
+"For the youngsters she's got," said Ronicky after a moment's thought.
+"And, outside of that, I suppose a girl will fight the hardest to
+marry the gent she loves."
+
+"And to keep from marrying a man she doesn't love, as she'd try to
+keep from death?"
+
+"Sure," said Ronicky. "But these days a girl don't have to marry that
+way."
+
+"I am going to marry the man with the sneer," she said simply enough,
+and with dull, patient eyes she watched the face of Ronicky wrinkle
+and grow pale, as if a heavy fist had struck him.
+
+"You?" he asked. "You marry him?"
+
+"Yes," she whispered.
+
+"And you hate the thought of him!"
+
+"I--I don't know. He's kind--"
+
+"You hate him," insisted Ronicky. "And he's to have you, that
+cold-eyed snake, that devil of a man?" He moved a little, and she
+turned toward him, smiling faintly and allowing the light to come more
+clearly and fully on her face. "You're meant for a king o' men, lady;
+you got the queen in you--it's in the lift of your head. When you find
+the gent you can love, why, lady, he'll be pretty near the richest man
+in the world!"
+
+The ghost of a flush bloomed in her cheeks, but her faint smile did
+not alter, and she seemed to be hearing him from far away. "The man
+with the sneer," she said at length, "will never talk to me like that,
+and still--I shall marry him."
+
+"Tell me your name," said Ronicky Doone bluntly.
+
+"My name is Ruth Tolliver."
+
+"Listen to me, Ruth Tolliver: If you was to live a thousand years, and
+the gent with the smile was to keep going for two thousand, it'd never
+come about that he could ever marry you."
+
+She shook her head, still watching him as from a distance.
+
+"If I've crossed the country and followed a hard trail and come here
+tonight and stuck my head in a trap, as you might say, for the sake of
+a gent like Bill Gregg--fine fellow though he is--what d'you think I
+would do to keep a girl like you from life-long misery?"
+
+And he dwelt on the last word until the girl shivered.
+
+"It's what it means," said Ronicky Doone, "life-long misery for you.
+And it won't happen--it can't happen."
+
+"Are you mad--are you quite mad?" asked the girl. "What on earth have
+I and my affairs got to do with you? Who are you?"
+
+"I dunno," said Ronicky Doone. "I suppose you might say I'm a champion
+of lost causes, lady. Why have I got something to do with you? I'll
+tell you why: Because, when a girl gets past being just pretty and
+starts in being plumb beautiful, she lays off being the business of
+any one gent--her father or her brother--she starts being the business
+of the whole world. You see? They come like that about one in ten
+million, and I figure you're that one, lady."
+
+The far away smile went out. She was looking at him now with a sort of
+sad wonder. "Do you know what I am?" she said gravely.
+
+"I dunno," said Ronicky, "and I don't care. What you do don't count.
+It's the inside that matters, and the inside of you is all right.
+Lady, so long as I can sling a gun, and so long as my name is Ronicky
+Doone, you ain't going to marry the gent with the smile."
+
+If he expected an outbreak of protest from her he was mistaken. For
+what she said was: "Ronicky Doone! Is that the name? Ronicky Doone!"
+Then she smiled up at him. "I'm within one ace of being foolish and
+saying--But I won't."
+
+She made a gesture of brushing a mist away from her and then stepped
+back a little. "I'm going down to see the man with the smile, and I'm
+going to tell him that Harry Morgan is not in his room, that he didn't
+answer my knock, and then that I looked around through the house and
+didn't find him. After that I'm coming back here, Ronicky Doone, and
+I'm going to try to get an opportunity for you to talk to Caroline
+Smith."
+
+"I knew you'd change your mind," said Ronicky Doone.
+
+"I'll even tell you why," she said. "It isn't for your friend who's
+asleep, but it's to give you a chance to finish this business and come
+to the end of this trail and go back to your own country. Because,
+if you stay around here long, there'll be trouble, a lot of trouble,
+Ronicky Doone. Now stay here and wait for me. If anyone taps at the
+door, you'd better slip into that closet in the corner. Will you
+wait?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you'll trust me?"
+
+"To the end of the trail, lady."
+
+She smiled at him again and was gone.
+
+Now the house was perfectly hushed. He went to the window and looked
+down to the quiet street with all its atmosphere of some old New
+England village and eternal peace. It seemed impossible that in the
+house behind him there were--
+
+He caught his breath. Somewhere in the house the muffled sound of a
+struggle rose. He ran to the door, thinking of Ruth Tolliver at once,
+and then he shrank back again, for a door was slammed open, and a
+voice shouted--the voice of a man: "Help! Harrison! Lefty! Jerry!"
+
+Other voices answered far away; footfalls began to sound. Ronicky
+Doone knew that Harry Morgan, his victim, had at last recovered and
+managed to work the cords off his feet or hands, or both.
+
+Ronicky stepped back close to the door of the closet and waited. It
+would mean a search, probably, this discovery that Morgan had been
+struck down in his own room by an unknown intruder. And a search
+certainly would be started at once. First there was confusion, and
+then a clear, musical man's voice began to give orders: "Harrison,
+take the cellar. Lefty, go up to the roof. The rest of you take the
+rooms one by one."
+
+The search was on.
+
+"Don't ask questions," was the last instruction. "When you see someone
+you don't know, shoot on sight, and shoot to kill. I'll do the
+explaining to the police--you know that. Now scatter, and the man who
+brings him down I'll remember. Quick!"
+
+There was a new scurry of footfalls. Ronicky Doone heard them approach
+the door of the girl's room, and he slipped into the closet. At once a
+cloud of soft, cool silks brushed about him, and he worked back until
+his shoulders had touched the wall at the back of the closet. Luckily
+the enclosure was deep, and the clothes were hanging thickly from the
+racks. It was sufficient to conceal him from any careless searcher,
+but it would do no good if any one probed; and certainly these men
+were not the ones to search carelessly.
+
+In the meantime it was a position which made Ronicky grind his teeth.
+To be found skulking among woman's clothes in a closet--to be dragged
+out and stuck in the back, no doubt, like a rat, and thrown into the
+river, that was an end for Ronicky Doone indeed!
+
+He was on the verge of slipping out and making a mad break for the
+door of the house and trying to escape by taking the men by surprise,
+when he heard the door of the girl's room open.
+
+"Some ex-pugilist," he heard a man's voice saying, and he recognized
+it at once as belonging to him who had given the orders. He
+recognized, also, that it must be the man with the sneer.
+
+"You think he was an amateur robber and an expert prize fighter?"
+asked Ruth Tolliver.
+
+It seemed to Ronicky Doone that her voice was perfectly controlled
+and calm. Perhaps it was her face that betrayed emotion, for after a
+moment of silence, the man answered.
+
+"What's the matter? You're as nervous as a child tonight, Ruth?"
+
+"Isn't there reason enough to make me nervous?" she demanded. "A
+robber--Heaven knows what--running at large in the house?"
+
+"H'm!" murmured the man. "Devilish queer that you should get so
+excited all at once. No, it's something else. I've trained you too
+well for you to go to pieces like this over nothing. What is it,
+Ruth?"
+
+There was no answer. Then the voice began again, silken-smooth and
+gentle, so gentle and kindly that Ronicky Doone started. "In the old
+days you used to keep nothing from me; we were companions, Ruth. That
+was when you were a child. Now that you are a woman, when you feel
+more, think more, see more, when our companionship should be like a
+running stream, continually bringing new things into my life, I find
+barriers between us. Why is it, my dear?"
+
+Still there was no answer. The pulse of Ronicky Doone began to
+quicken, as though the question had been asked him, as though he
+himself were fumbling for the answer.
+
+"Let us talk more freely," went on the man. "Try to open your mind to
+me. There are things which you dislike in me; I know it. Just what
+those things are I cannot tell, but we must break down these foolish
+little barriers which are appearing more and more every day. Not
+that I mean to intrude myself on you every moment of your life. You
+understand that, of course?"
+
+"Of course," said the girl faintly.
+
+"And I understand perfectly that you have passed out of childhood into
+young womanhood, and that is a dreamy time for a girl. Her body is
+formed at last, but her mind is only half formed. There is a pleasant
+mist over it. Very well, I don't wish to brush the mist away. If I
+did that I would take half that charm away from you--that elusive
+incompleteness which Fragonard and Watteau tried to imitate, Heaven
+knows with how little success. No, I shall always let you live your
+own life. All that I ask for, my dear, are certain meeting places. Let
+us establish them before it is too late, or you will find one day that
+you have married an old man, and we shall have silent dinners. There
+is nothing more wretched than that. If it should come about, then you
+will begin to look on me as a jailer. And--"
+
+"Don't!"
+
+"Ah," said he very tenderly, "I knew that I was feeling toward the
+truth. You are shrinking from me, Ruth, because you feel that I am too
+old."
+
+"No, no!"
+
+Here a hand pounded heavily on the door.
+
+"The idiots have found something," said the man of the sneer. "And now
+they have come to talk about their cleverness, like a rooster crowing
+over a grain of corn." He raised his voice. "Come in!"
+
+And Ronicky Doone heard a panting voice a moment later exclaim: "We've
+got him!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Twelve
+
+
+_The Strange Bargain_
+
+Ronicky drew his gun and waited. "Good," said the man of the sneer.
+"Go ahead."
+
+"It was down in the cellar that we found the first tracks. He came in
+through the side window and closed it after him."
+
+"That dropped him into the coal bin. Did he get coal dust on his
+shoes?"
+
+"Right; and he didn't have sense enough to wipe it off."
+
+"An amateur--a rank amateur! I told you!" said the man of the sneer,
+with satisfaction. "You followed his trail?"
+
+"Up the stairs to the kitchen and down the hall and up to Harry's
+room."
+
+"We already knew he'd gone there."
+
+"But he left that room again and came down the hall."
+
+"Yes. The coal dust was pretty well wiped off by that time, but we
+held a light close to the carpet and got the signs of it."
+
+"And where did it lead?"
+
+"Right to this room!"
+
+Ronicky stepped from among the smooth silks and pressed close to the
+door of the closet, his hand on the knob. The time had almost come for
+one desperate attempt to escape, and he was ready to shoot to kill.
+
+A moment of pause had come, a pause which, in the imagination of
+Ronicky, was filled with the approach of both the men toward the door
+of the closet.
+
+Then the man of the sneer said: "That's a likely story!"
+
+"I can show you the tracks."
+
+"H'm! You fool, they simply grew dim when they got to this door. I've
+been here for some time. Go back and tell them to hunt some more. Go
+up to the attic and search there. That's the place an amateur would
+most likely hide."
+
+The man growled some retort and left, closing the door heavily behind
+him, while Ronicky Doone breathed freely again for the first time.
+
+"Now," said the man of the sneer, "tell me the whole of it, Ruth."
+
+Ronicky set his teeth. Had the clever devil guessed at the truth so
+easily? Had he sent his follower away, merely to avoid having it known
+that a man had taken shelter in the room of the girl he loved?
+
+"Go on," the leader was repeating. "Let me hear the whole truth."
+
+"I--I--" stammered the girl, and she could say no more.
+
+The man of the sneer laughed unpleasantly. "Let me help you. It was
+somebody you met somewhere--on the train, perhaps, and you couldn't
+help smiling at him, eh? You smiled so much, in fact, that he followed
+you and found that you had come here. The only way he could get in
+was by stealth. Is that right? So he came in exactly that way, like a
+robber, but really only to keep a tryst with his lady love? A pretty
+story, a true romance! I begin to see why you find me such a dull
+fellow, my dear girl."
+
+"John--" began Ruth Tolliver, her voice shaking.
+
+"Tush," he broke in as smoothly as ever. "Let me tell the story for
+you and spare your blushes. When I sent you for Harry Morgan you found
+Lochinvar in the very act of slugging the poor fellow. You helped him
+tie Morgan; then you took him here to your room; although you were
+glad to see him, you warned him that it was dangerous to play with
+fire--fire being me. Do I gather the drift of the story fairly well?
+Finally you have him worked up to the right pitch. He is convinced
+that a retreat would be advantageous, if possible. You show him that
+it is possible. You point out the ledge under your window and the easy
+way of working to the ground. Eh?"
+
+"Yes," said the girl unevenly. "That is--"
+
+"Ah!" murmured the man of the sneer. "You seem rather relieved that I
+have guessed he left the house. In that case--"
+
+Ronicky Doone had held the latch of the door turned back for some
+time. Now he pushed it open and stepped out. He was only barely in
+time, for the man of the sneer was turning quickly in his direction,
+since there was only one hiding place in the room.
+
+He was brought up with a shock by the sight of Ronicky's big Colt,
+held at the hip and covering him with absolute certainty. Ruth
+Tolliver did not cry out, but every muscle in her face and body seemed
+to contract, as if she were preparing herself for the explosion.
+
+"You don't have to put up your hands," said Ronicky Doone, wondering
+at the familiarity of the face of the man of the sneer. He had brooded
+on it so often in the past few days that it was like the face of an
+old acquaintance. He knew every line in that sharp profile.
+
+"Thank you," responded the leader, and, turning to the girl, he said
+coldly: "I congratulate you on your good taste. A regular Apollo, my
+dear Ruth."
+
+He turned back to Ronicky Doone. "And I suppose you have overhead our
+entire conversation?"
+
+"The whole lot of it," said Ronicky, "though I wasn't playing my hand
+at eavesdropping. I couldn't help hearing you, partner."
+
+The man of the sneer looked him over leisurely. "Western," he said at
+last, "decidedly Western.
+
+"Are you staying long in the East, my friend?"
+
+"I dunno," said Ronicky Doone, smiling faintly at the coolness of the
+other. "What do you think about it?"
+
+"Meaning that I'm liable to put an end to your stay?"
+
+"Maybe!"
+
+"Tush, tush! I suppose Ruth has filled your head with a lot of rot
+about what a terrible fellow I am. But I don't use poison, and I
+don't kill with mysterious X-rays. I am, as you see, a very quiet and
+ordinary sort."
+
+Ronicky Doone smiled again. "You just oblige me, partner," he
+replied in his own soft voice. "Just stay away from the walls of the
+room--don't even sit down. Stand right where you are."
+
+"You'd murder me if I took another step?" asked the man of the sneer,
+and a contemptuous and sardonic expression flitted across his face for
+the first time.
+
+"I'd sure blow you full of lead," said Ronicky fervently. "I'd kill
+you like a snake, stranger, which I mostly think you are. So step
+light, and step quick when I talk."
+
+"Certainly," said the other, bowing. "I am entirely at your service."
+He turned a little to Ruth. "I see that you have a most determined
+cavalier. I suppose he'll instantly abduct you and sweep you away from
+beneath my eyes?"
+
+She made a vague gesture of denial.
+
+"Go ahead," said the leader. "By the way, my name is John Mark."
+
+"I'm Doone--some call me Ronicky Doone."
+
+"I'm glad to know you, Ronicky Doone. I imagine that name fits you.
+Now tell me the story of why you came to this house; of course it
+wasn't to see a girl!"
+
+"You're wrong! It was."
+
+"Ah?" In spite of himself the face of John Mark wrinkled with pain and
+suspicious rage.
+
+"I came to see a girl, and her name, I figure, is Caroline Smith."
+
+Relief, wonder, and even a gleam of outright happiness shot into the
+eyes of John Mark. "Caroline? You came for that?" Suddenly he laughed
+heartily, but there was a tremor of emotion in that laughter. The
+perfect torture, which had been wringing the soul of the man of the
+sneer, projected through the laughter.
+
+"I ask your pardon, my dear," said John Mark to Ruth. "I should have
+guessed. You found him; he confessed why he was here; you took pity on
+him--and--" He brushed a hand across his forehead and was instantly
+himself, calm and cool.
+
+"Very well, then. It seems I've made an ass of myself, but I'll try
+to make up for it. Now what about Caroline? There seems to be a whole
+host of you Westerners annoying her."
+
+"Only one: I'm acting as his agent."
+
+"And what do you expect?"
+
+"I expect that you will send for her and tell her that she is free to
+go down with me--leave this house--and take a ride or a walk with me."
+
+"As much as that? If you have to talk to her, why not do the talking
+here?"
+
+"I dunno," replied Ronicky Doone. "I figure she'd think too much about
+you all the time."
+
+"The basilisk, eh?" asked John Mark. "Well, you are going to persuade
+her to go to Bill Gregg?"
+
+"You know the name, eh?"
+
+"Yes, I have a curious stock of useless information."
+
+"Well, you're right; I'm going to try to get her back for Bill."
+
+"But you can't expect me to assent to that?"
+
+"I sure do."
+
+"And why? This Caroline Smith may be a person of great value to me."
+
+"I have no doubt she is, but I got a good argument."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"The gun, partner."
+
+"And, if you couldn't get the girl--but see how absurd the whole thing
+is, Ronicky Doone! I send for the girl; I request her to go down with
+you to the street and take a walk, because you wish to talk to her.
+Heavens, man, I can't persuade her to go with a stranger at night!
+Surely you see that!"
+
+"I'll do that persuading," said Ronicky Doone calmly.
+
+"And, when you're on the streets with the girl, do you suppose I'll
+rest idle and let you walk away with her?"
+
+"Once we're outside of the house, Mark," said Ronicky Doone, "I don't
+ask no favors. Let your men come on. All I got to say is that I come
+from a county where every man wears a gun and has to learn how to use
+it. I ain't terrible backward with the trigger finger, John Mark. Not
+that I figure on bragging, but I want you to pick good men for my
+trail and tell 'em to step soft. Is that square?"
+
+"Aside from certain idiosyncrasies, such as your manner of paying a
+call by way of a cellar window, I think you are the soul of honor,
+Ronicky Doone. Now may I sit down?"
+
+"Suppose we shake hands to bind the bargain," said Ronicky. "You send
+for Caroline Smith; I'm to do the persuading to get her out of the
+house. We're safe to the doors of the house; the minute we step into
+the street, you're free to do anything you want to get either of us.
+Will you shake on that?"
+
+For a moment the leader hesitated, then his fingers closed over the
+extended hand of Ronicky Doone and clamped down on them like so many
+steel wires contracting. At the same time a flush of excitement and
+fierceness passed over the face of John Mark. Ronicky Doone, taken
+utterly by surprise, was at a great disadvantage. Then he put the
+whole power of his own hand into the grip, and it was like iron
+meeting iron. A great rage came in the eyes of John Mark; a great
+wonder came in the eyes of the Westerner. Where did John Mark get his
+sudden strength?
+
+"Well," said Ronicky, "we've shaken hands, and now you can do what you
+please! Sit down, leave the room--anything." He shoved his gun away
+in his clothes. That brought a start from John Mark and a flash of
+eagerness, but he repressed the idea, after a single glance at the
+girl.
+
+"We've shaken hands," he admitted slowly, as though just realizing the
+full extent of the meaning of that act. "Very well, Ronicky, I'll send
+for Caroline Smith, and more power to your tongue, but you'll never
+get her away from this house without force."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Thirteen
+
+
+_Doone Wins_
+
+A servant answered the bell almost at once. "Tell Miss Smith that
+she's wanted in Miss Tolliver's room," said Mark, and, when the
+servant disappeared, he began pacing up and down the room. Now and
+then he cast a sharp glance to the side and scrutinized the face
+of Ronicky Doone. With Ruth's permission, the latter had lighted a
+cigarette and was smoking it in bland enjoyment. Again the leader
+paused directly before the girl, and, with his feet spread and his
+head bowed in an absurd Napoleonic posture, he considered every
+feature of her face. The uncertain smile, which came trembling on her
+face, elicited no response from Mark.
+
+She dreaded him, Ronicky saw, as a slave dreads a cruel master. Still
+she had a certain affection for him, partly as the result of many
+benefactions, no doubt, and partly from long acquaintance; and, above
+all, she respected his powers of mind intensely. The play of emotion
+in her face--fear, anger, suspicion--as John Mark paced up and down
+before her, was a study.
+
+With a secret satisfaction Ronicky Doone saw that her glances
+continually sought him, timidly, curiously. All vanity aside, he had
+dropped a bomb under the feet of John Mark, and some day the bomb
+might explode.
+
+There was a tap at the door, it opened and Caroline Smith entered in
+a dressing gown. She smiled brightly at Ruth and wanly at John Mark,
+then started at the sight of the stranger.
+
+"This," said John Mark, "is Ronicky Doone."
+
+The Westerner rose and bowed.
+
+"He has come," said John Mark, "to try to persuade you to go out for a
+stroll with him, so that he can talk to you about that curious fellow,
+Bill Gregg. He is going to try to soften your heart, I believe, by
+telling you all the inconveniences which Bill Gregg has endured to
+find you here. But he will do his talking for himself. Just why he has
+to take you out of the house, at night, before he can talk to you is,
+I admit, a mystery to me. But let him do the persuading."
+
+Ronicky Doone turned to his host, a cold gleam in his eyes. His case
+had been presented in such a way as to make his task of persuasion
+almost impossible. Then he turned back and looked at the girl. Her
+face was a little pale, he thought, but perfectly composed.
+
+"I don't know Bill Gregg," she said simply. "Of course, I'm glad to
+talk to you, Mr. Doone, but why not here?"
+
+John Mark covered a smile of satisfaction, and the girl looked at him,
+apparently to see if she had spoken correctly. It was obvious that the
+leader was pleased, and she glanced back at Ronicky, with a flush of
+pleasure.
+
+"I'll tell you why I can't talk to you in here," said Ronicky gently.
+"Because, while you're under the same roof with this gent with the
+sneer"--he turned and indicated Mark, sneering himself as he did
+so--"you're not yourself. You don't have a halfway chance to think for
+yourself. You feel him around you and behind you and beside you
+every minute, and you keep wondering not what you really feel about
+anything, but what John Mark wants you to feel. Ain't that the
+straight of it?"
+
+She glanced apprehensively at John Mark, and, seeing that he did not
+move to resent this assertion, she looked again with wide-eyed wonder
+at Ronicky Doone.
+
+"You see," said the man of the sneer to Caroline Smith, "that our
+friend from the West has a child-like faith in my powers of--what
+shall I say--hypnotism!"
+
+A faint smile of agreement flickered on her lips and went out. Then
+she regarded Ronicky, with an utter lack of emotion.
+
+"If I could talk like him," said Ronicky Doone gravely, "I sure
+wouldn't care where I had to do the talking; but I haven't any smooth
+lingo--I ain't got a lot of words all ready and handy. I'm a pretty
+simple-minded sort of a gent, Miss Smith. That's why I want to get you
+out of this house, where I can talk to you alone."
+
+She paused, then shook her head.
+
+"As far as going out with me goes," went on Ronicky, "well, they's
+nothing I can say except to ask you to look at me close, lady, and
+then ask yourself if I'm the sort of a gent a girl has got anything to
+be afraid about. I won't keep you long; five minutes is all I ask. And
+we can walk up and down the street, in plain view of the house, if you
+want. Is it a go?"
+
+At least he had broken through the surface crust of indifference. She
+was looking at him now, with a shade of interest and sympathy, but she
+shook her head.
+
+"I'm afraid--" she began.
+
+"Don't refuse right off, without thinking," said Ronicky. "I've worked
+pretty hard to get a chance to meet you, face to face. I busted into
+this house tonight like a burglar--"
+
+"Oh," cried the girl, "you're the man--Harry Morgan--" She stopped,
+aghast.
+
+"He's the man who nearly killed Morgan," said John Mark.
+
+"Is that against me?" asked Ronicky eagerly. "Is that all against me?
+I was fighting for the chance to find you and talk to you. Give me
+that chance now."
+
+Obviously she could not make up her mind. It had been curious that
+this handsome, boyish fellow should come as an emissary from Bill
+Gregg. It was more curious still that he should have had the daring
+and the strength to beat Harry Morgan.
+
+"What shall I do, Ruth?" she asked suddenly.
+
+Ruth Tolliver glanced apprehensively at John Mark and then flushed,
+but she raised her head bravely. "If I were you, Caroline," she said
+steadily, "I'd simply ask myself if I could trust Ronicky Doone. Can
+you?"
+
+The girl faced Ronicky again, her hands clasped in indecision and
+excitement. Certainly, if clean honesty was ever written in the face
+of a man, it stood written in the clear-cut features of Ronicky Doone.
+
+"Yes," she said at last, "I'll go. For five minutes--only in the
+street--in full view of the house."
+
+There was a hard, deep-throated exclamation from John Mark. He rose
+and glided across the room, as if to go and vent his anger elsewhere.
+But he checked and controlled himself at the door, then turned.
+
+"You seem to have won, Doone. I congratulate you. When he's talking to
+you, Caroline, I want you constantly to remember that--"
+
+"Wait!" cut in Ronicky sharply. "She'll do her own thinking, without
+your help."
+
+John Mark bowed with a sardonic smile, but his face was colorless.
+Plainly he had been hard hit. "Later on," he continued, "we'll see
+more of each other, I expect--a great deal more, Doone."
+
+"It's something I'll sure wait for," said Ronicky savagely. "I got
+more than one little thing to talk over with you, Mark. Maybe about
+some of them we'll have to do more than talking. Good-by. Lady, I'll
+be waiting for you down by the front door of the house."
+
+Caroline Smith nodded, flung one frightened and appealing glance to
+Ruth Tolliver for direction, then hurried out to her room to dress.
+Ronicky Doone turned back to Ruth.
+
+"In my part of the country," he said simply, "they's some gents we
+know sort of casual, and some gents we have for friends. Once in a
+while you bump into somebody that's so straight and square-shooting
+that you'd like to have him for a partner. If you were out West, lady,
+and if you were a man--well, I'd pick you for a partner, because
+you've sure played straight and square with me tonight."
+
+He turned, hesitated, and, facing her again, caught up her hand,
+touched it to his lips, then hurried past John Mark and through the
+doorway. They could hear his rapid footfalls descending the stairs,
+and John Mark was thoughtful indeed. He was watching Ruth Tolliver,
+as she stared down at her hand. When she raised her head and met the
+glance of the leader she flushed slowly to the roots of her hair.
+
+"Yes," muttered John Mark, still thoughtfully and half to himself,
+"there's really true steel in him. He's done more against me in one
+half hour than any other dozen men in ten years."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Fourteen
+
+
+_Her Little Joke_
+
+A brief ten minutes of waiting beside the front door of the house, and
+then Ronicky Doone heard a swift pattering of feet on the stairs.
+Presently the girl was moving very slowly toward him down the hall.
+Plainly she was bitterly afraid when she came beside him, under the dim
+hall light. She wore that same black hat, turned back from her white
+face, and the red flower beside it was a dull, uncertain blur. Decidedly
+she was pretty enough to explain Bill Gregg's sorrow.
+
+Ronicky gave her no chance to think twice. She was in the very act of
+murmuring something about a change of mind, when he opened the door and,
+stepping out into the starlight, invited her with a smile and a gesture
+to follow. In a moment they were in the freshness of the night air. He
+took her arm, and they passed slowly down the steps. At the bottom she
+turned and looked anxiously at the house.
+
+"Lady," murmured Ronicky, "they's nothing to be afraid of. We're going
+to walk right up and down this street and never get out of sight of the
+friends you got in this here house."
+
+At the word "friends" she shivered slightly, and he added: "Unless you
+want to go farther of your own free will."
+
+"No, no!" she exclaimed, as if frightened by the very prospect.
+
+"Then we won't. It's all up to you. You're the boss, and I'm the
+cow-puncher, lady."
+
+"But tell me quickly," she urged. "I--I have to go back. I mustn't stay
+out too long."
+
+"Starting right in at the first," Ronicky said, "I got to tell you that
+Bill has told me pretty much everything that ever went on between you
+two. All about the correspondence-school work and about the letters and
+about the pictures."
+
+"I don't understand," murmured the girl faintly.
+
+But Ronicky diplomatically raised his voice and went on, as if he had
+not heard her. "You know what he's done with that picture of yours?"
+
+"No," she said faintly.
+
+"He got the biggest nugget that he's ever taken out of the dirt. He got
+it beaten out into the right shape, and then he made a locket out of it
+and put your picture in it, and now he wears it around his neck, even
+when he's working at the mine."
+
+Her breath caught. "That silly, cheap snapshot!"
+
+She stopped. She had admitted everything already, and she had intended
+to be a very sphinx with this strange Westerner.
+
+"It was only a joke," she said. "I--I didn't really mean to--"
+
+"Do you know what that joke did?" asked Ronicky. "It made two men fight,
+then cross the continent together and get on the trail of a girl whose
+name they didn't even know. They found the girl, and then she said she'd
+forgotten--but no, I don't mean to blame you. There's something queer
+behind it all. But I want to explain one thing. The reason that Bill
+didn't get to that train wasn't because he didn't try. He did try. He
+tried so hard that he got into a fight with a gent that tried to hold
+him up for a few words, and Bill got shot off his hoss."
+
+"Shot?" asked the girl. "Shot?"
+
+Suddenly she was clutching his arm, terrified at the thought. She
+recovered herself at once and drew away, eluding the hand of Ronicky. He
+made no further attempt to detain her.
+
+But he had lifted the mask and seen the real state of her mind; and she,
+too, knew that the secret was discovered. It angered her and threw her
+instantly on the aggressive.
+
+"I tell you what I guessed from the window," said Ronicky. "You went
+down to the street, all prepared to meet up with poor old Bill--"
+
+"Prepared to meet him?" She started up at Ronicky. "How in the world
+could I ever guess--"
+
+She was looking up to him, trying to drag his eyes down to hers, but
+Ronicky diplomatically kept his attention straight ahead.
+
+"You couldn't guess," he suggested, "but there was someone who could
+guess for you. Someone who pretty well knew we were in town, who wanted
+to keep you away from Bill because he was afraid--"
+
+"Of what?" she demanded sharply.
+
+"Afraid of losing you."
+
+This seemed to frighten her. "What do you know?" she asked.
+
+"I know this," he answered, "that I think a girl like you, all in all,
+is too good for any man. But, if any man ought to have her, it's the
+gent that is fondest of her. And Bill is terrible fond of you, lady--he
+don't think of nothing else. He's grown thin as a ghost, longing for
+you."
+
+"So he sends another man to risk his life to find me and tell me about
+it?" she demanded, between anger and sadness.
+
+"He didn't send me--I just came. But the reason I came was because I
+knew Bill would give up without a fight."
+
+"I hate a man who won't fight," said the girl.
+
+"It's because he figures he's so much beneath you," said Ronicky. "And,
+besides, he can't talk about himself. He's no good at that at all. But,
+if it comes to fighting, lady, why, he rode a couple of hosses to death
+and stole another and had a gunfight, all for the sake of seeing you,
+when a train passed through a town."
+
+She was speechless.
+
+"So I thought I'd come," said Ronicky Doone, "and tell you the insides
+of things, the way I knew Bill wouldn't and couldn't, but I figure it
+don't mean nothing much to you."
+
+She did not answer directly. She only said: "Are men like this in the
+West? Do they do so much for their friends?"
+
+"For a gent like Bill Gregg, that's simple and straight from the
+shoulder, they ain't nothing too good to be done for him. What I'd do
+for him he'd do mighty pronto for me, and what he'd do for me--well,
+don't you figure that he'd do ten times as much for the girl he loves?
+Be honest with me," said Ronicky Doone. "Tell me if Bill means anymore
+to you than any stranger?"
+
+"No--yes."
+
+"Which means simply yes. But how much more, lady?"
+
+"I hardly know him. How can I say?"
+
+"It's sure an easy thing to say. You've wrote to him. You've had letters
+from him. You've sent him your picture, and he's sent you his, and
+you've seen him on the street. Lady, you sure know Bill Gregg, and what
+do you think of him?"
+
+"I think--"
+
+"Is he a square sort of gent?"
+
+"Y-yes."
+
+"The kind you'd trust?"
+
+"Yes, but--"
+
+"Is he the kind that would stick to the girl he loved and take care of
+her, through thick and thin?"
+
+"You mustn't talk like this," said Caroline Smith, but her voice
+trembled, and her eyes told him to go on.
+
+"I'm going back and tell Bill Gregg that, down in your heart, you love
+him just about the same as he loves you!"
+
+"Oh," she asked, "would you say a thing like that? It isn't a bit true."
+
+"I'm afraid that's the way I see it. When I tell him that, you can lay
+to it that old Bill will let loose all holds and start for you, and, if
+they's ten brick walls and twenty gunmen in between, it won't make no
+difference. He'll find you, or die trying."
+
+Before he finished she was clinging to his arm.
+
+"If you tell him, you'll be doing a murder, Ronicky Doone. What he'll
+face will be worse than twenty gunmen."
+
+"The gent that smiles, eh?"
+
+"Yes, John Mark. No, no, I didn't mean--"
+
+"But you did, and I knew it, too. It's John Mark that's between you and
+Bill. I seen you in the street, when you were talking to poor Bill, look
+back over your shoulder at that devil standing in the window of this
+house."
+
+"Don't call him that!"
+
+"D'you know of one drop of kindness in his nature, lady?"
+
+"Are we quite alone?"
+
+"Not a soul around."
+
+"Then he is a devil, and, being a devil, no ordinary man has a chance
+against him--not a chance, Ronicky Doone. I don't know what you did in
+the house, but I think you must have outfaced him in some way. Well, for
+that you'll pay, be sure! And you'll pay with your life, Ronicky. Every
+minute, now, you're in danger of your life. You'll keep on being in
+danger, until he feels that he has squared his account with you. Don't
+you see that if I let Bill Gregg come near me--"
+
+"Then Bill will be in danger of this same wolf of a man, eh? And, in
+spite of the fact that you like Bill--"
+
+"Ah, yes, I do!"
+
+"That you love him, in fact."
+
+"Why shouldn't I tell you?" demanded the girl, breaking down suddenly.
+"I do love him, and I can never see him to tell him, because I dread
+John Mark."
+
+"Rest easy," said Ronicky, "you'll see Bill, or else he'll die trying to
+get to you."
+
+"If you're his friend--"
+
+"I'd rather see him dead than living the rest of his life, plumb
+unhappy."
+
+She shook her head, arguing, and so they reached the corner of Beekman
+Place again and turned into it and went straight toward the house
+opposite that of John Mark. Still the girl argued, but it was in a
+whisper, as if she feared that terrible John Mark might overhear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the home of John Mark, that calm leader was still with Ruth Tolliver.
+They had gone down to the lower floor of the house, and, at his request,
+she sat at the piano, while Mark sat comfortably beyond the sphere of
+the piano light and watched her.
+
+"You're thinking of something else," he told her, "and playing
+abominably."
+
+"I'm sorry."
+
+"You ought to be," he said. "It's bad enough to play poorly for someone
+who doesn't know, but it's torture to play like that for me."
+
+He spoke without violence, as always, but she knew that he was intensely
+angry, and that familiar chill passed through her body. It never failed
+to come when she felt that she had aroused his anger.
+
+"Why doesn't Caroline come back?" she asked at length.
+
+"She's letting him talk himself out, that's all. Caroline's a clever
+youngster. She knows how to let a man talk till his throat is dry, and
+then she'll smile and tell him that it's impossible to agree with him.
+Yes, there are many possibilities in Caroline."
+
+"You think Ronicky Doone is a gambler?" she asked, harking back to what
+he had said earlier.
+
+"I think so," answered John Mark, and again there was that tightening of
+the muscles around his mouth. "A gambler has a certain way of masking
+his own face and looking at yours, as if he were dragging your thoughts
+out through your eyes; also, he's very cool; he belongs at a table with
+the cards on it and the stakes high."
+
+The door opened. "Here's young Rose. He'll tell us the truth of the
+matter. Has she come back, Rose?"
+
+The young fellow kept far back in the shadow, and, when he spoke, his
+voice was uncertain, almost to the point of trembling. "No," he managed
+to say, "she ain't come back, chief."
+
+Mark stared at him for a moment and then slowly opened a cigarette case
+and lighted a smoke. "Well," he said, and his words were far more
+violent than the smooth voice, "well, idiot, what did she do?"
+
+"She done a fade-away, chief, in the house across the street. Went in
+with that other gent."
+
+"He took her by force?" asked John Mark.
+
+"Nope. She slipped in quick enough and all by herself. He went in last."
+
+"Damnation!" murmured Mark. "That's all, Rose."
+
+His follower vanished through the doorway and closed the door softly
+after him. John Mark stood up and paced quietly up and down the room. At
+length he turned abruptly on the girl. "Good night. I have business that
+takes me out."
+
+"What is it?" she asked eagerly.
+
+He paused, as if in doubt as to how he should answer her, if he answered
+at all. "In the old days," he said at last, "when a man caught a poacher
+on his grounds, do you know what he did?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Shot him, my dear, without a thought and threw his body to the wolves!"
+
+"John Mark! Do you mean--"
+
+"Your friend Ronicky, of course."
+
+"Only because Caroline was foolish are you going to--"
+
+"Caroline? Tut, tut! Caroline is only a small part of it. He has done
+more than that--far more, this poacher out of the West!"
+
+He turned and went swiftly through the door. The moment it was closed
+the girl buried her face in her hands.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Fifteen
+
+
+_The Girl Thief_
+
+Before that death sentence had been passed on him Ronicky Doone stood
+before the door of his room, with the trembling girl beside him.
+
+"Wait here," he whispered to her. "Wait here while I go in and wake him
+up. It's going to be the greatest moment in his life! Poor Bill Gregg is
+going to turn into the richest man in New York City--all in one moment!"
+
+"But I don't dare go in. It will mean--"
+
+"It will mean everything, but it's too late to turn back now. Besides,
+in your heart of hearts, you don't want to turn back, you know!"
+
+Quickly he passed into the room and hurried to the bed of Bill Gregg.
+Under the biting grip of Doone's hand Bill Gregg writhed to a sitting
+posture, with a groan. Still he was in the throes of his dream and only
+half awakened.
+
+"I've lost her," he whispered.
+
+"You're wrong, idiot," said Ronicky softly, "you're wrong. You've won
+her. She's at the door now, waiting to come in."
+
+"Ronicky," said Bill Gregg, suddenly awake, "you've been the finest
+friend a man ever had, but, if you make a joke out of her, I'll wring
+your neck!"
+
+"Sure you would. But, before you do that, jump into your clothes and
+open the door."
+
+Sleep was still thick enough in the brain of Bill Gregg to make him obey
+automatically. He stumbled into his clothes and then shambled dizzily to
+the door and opened it. As the light from the room struck down the hall
+Ronicky saw his friend stiffen to his full height and strike a hand
+across his face.
+
+"Stars and Stripes!" exclaimed Bill Gregg. "The days of the miracles
+ain't over!"
+
+Ronicky Doone turned his back and went to the window. Across the street
+rose the forbidding face of the house of John Mark, and it threatened
+Ronicky Doone like a clenched hand, brandished against him. The shadow
+under the upper gable was like the shadow under a frowning brow. In that
+house worked the mind of John Mark. Certainly Ronicky Doone had won the
+first stage of the battle between them, but there was more to come--much
+more of that battle--and who would win in the end was an open question.
+He made up his mind grimly that, whatever happened, he would first ship
+Bill Gregg and the girl out of the city, then act as the rear guard to
+cover their retreat.
+
+When he returned they had closed the door and were standing back from
+one another, with such shining eyes that the heart of Ronicky Doone
+leaped. If, for a moment, doubt of his work came to him, it was
+banished, as they glanced toward him.
+
+"I dunno how he did it," Bill Gregg was stammering, "but here it
+is--done! Bless you, Ronicky."
+
+"A minute ago," said Ronicky, "it looked to me like the lady didn't know
+her own mind, but that seems to be over."
+
+"I found my own mind the moment I saw him," said the girl.
+
+Ronicky studied her in wonder. There was no embarrassment, no shame to
+have confessed herself. She had the clear brow of a child. Suddenly, it
+seemed to Ronicky that he had become an old man, and these were two
+children under his protection. He struck into the heart of the problem
+at once.
+
+"The main point," he said, "is to get you two out of town, as quick as
+we can. Out West in Bill's country he can take care of you, but back
+here this John Mark is a devil and has the strength to stop us. How
+quick can you go, Caroline?"
+
+"I can never go," she said, "as long as John Mark is alive."
+
+"Then he's as good as dead," said Bill Gregg. "We both got guns, and, no
+matter how husky John Mark may be, we'll get at him!"
+
+The girl shook her head. All the joy had gone out of her face and left
+her wistful and misty eyed. "You don't understand, and I can't tell you.
+You can never harm John Mark."
+
+"Why not?" asked Bill Gregg. "Has he got a thousand men around him all
+the time? Even if he has they's ways of getting at him."
+
+"Not a thousand men," said the girl, "but, you see, he doesn't need
+help. He's never failed. That's what they say of him: 'John Mark, the
+man who has never lost!'"
+
+"Listen to me," said Ronicky angrily. "Seems to me that everybody stands
+around and gapes at this gent with the sneer a terrible lot, without a
+pile of good reasons behind 'em. Never failed? Why, lady, here's one
+night when he's failed and failed bad. He's lost you!"
+
+"No," said Caroline.
+
+"Not lost you?" asked Bill Gregg. "Say, you ain't figuring on going back
+to him?"
+
+"I have to go back."
+
+"Why?" demanded Gregg.
+
+"It's because of you," interpreted Ronicky Doone. "She knows that, if
+she leaves you, Mark will start on your trail. Mark is the name of the
+gent with the sneer, Bill."
+
+"He's got to die, then, Ronicky."
+
+"I been figuring on the same thing for a long time, but he'll die hard,
+Bill."
+
+"Don't you see?" asked the girl. "Both of you are strong men and brave,
+but against John Mark I know that you're helpless. It isn't the first
+time people have hated him. Hated? Who does anything but hate him? But
+that doesn't make any difference. He wins, he always wins, and that's
+why I've come to you."
+
+She turned to Bill Gregg, but such a sad resignation held her eyes that
+Ronicky Doone bowed his head.
+
+"I've come to tell you that I love you, that I have always loved you,
+since I first began writing to you. All of yourself showed through your
+letters, plain and strong and simple and true. I've come tonight to tell
+you that I love you, but that we can never marry. Not that I fear him
+for myself, but for you."
+
+"Listen here," said Bill Gregg, "ain't there police in this town?"
+
+"What could they do? In all of the things which he has done no one has
+been able to accuse him of a single illegal act--at least no one has
+ever been able to prove a thing. And yet he lives by crime. Does that
+give you an idea of the sort of man he is?"
+
+"A low hound," said Bill Gregg bitterly, "that's what he shows to be."
+
+"Tell me straight," said Ronicky, "what sort of a hold has he got over
+you? Can you tell us?"
+
+"I have to tell you," said the girl gravely, "if you insist, but won't
+you take my word for it and ask no more?"
+
+"We have a right to know," said Ronicky. "Bill has a right, and, me
+being Bill's friend, I have a right, too."
+
+She nodded.
+
+"First off, what's the way John Mark uses you?"
+
+She clenched her hands. "If I tell you that, you will both despise me."
+
+"Try us," said Ronicky. "And you can lay to this, lady, that, when a
+gent out of the West says 'partner' to a girl or a man, he means it.
+What you do may be bad; what you are is all right. We both know it. The
+inside of you is right, lady, no matter what John Mark makes you do. But
+tell us straight, what is it?"
+
+"He has made me," said the girl, her head falling, "a thief!"
+
+Ronicky saw Bill Gregg wince, as if someone had struck him in the face.
+And he himself waited, curious to see what the big fellow would do. He
+had not long to wait. Gregg went straight to the girl and took her
+hands.
+
+"D'you think that makes any difference?" he asked. "Not to me, and not
+to my friend Ronicky. There's something behind it. Tell us that!"
+
+"There is something behind it," said the girl, "and I can't say how
+grateful I am to you both for still trusting me. I have a brother. He
+came to New York to work, found it was easy to spend money--and spent
+it. Finally he began sending home for money. We are not rich, but we
+gave him what we could. It went on like that for some time. Then, one
+day, a stranger called at our house, and it was John Mark. He wanted to
+see me, and, when we talked together, he told me that my brother had
+done a terrible thing--what it was I can't tell even you.
+
+"I wouldn't believe at first, though he showed me what looked like
+proofs. At last I believed enough to agree to go to New York and see for
+myself. I came here, and saw my brother and made him confess. What it
+was I can't tell you. I can only say that his life is in the hand of
+John Mark. John Mark has only to say ten words, and my brother is dead.
+He told me that. He showed me the hold that Mark had over him, and
+begged me to do what I could for him. I didn't see how I could be of use
+to him, but John Mark showed me. He taught me to steal, and I have
+stolen. He taught me to lie, and I have lied. And he has me still in the
+hollow of his hand, do you see? And that's why I say that it's hopeless.
+Even if you could fight against John Mark, which no one can, you
+couldn't help me. The moment you strike him he strikes my brother."
+
+"Curse him!" exclaimed Ronicky. "Curse the hound!" Then he added:
+"They's just one thing to do, first of all. You got to go back to John
+Mark. Tell him that you came over here. Tell him that you seen Bill
+Gregg, but you only came to say good-by to him, and to ask him to leave
+town and go West. Then, tomorrow, we'll move out, and he may think that
+we've gone. Meantime the thing you do is to give me the name of your
+brother and tell me where I can find him. I'll hunt him up. Maybe
+something can be done for him. I dunno, but that's where we've got to
+try."
+
+"But--" she began.
+
+"Do what he says," whispered Bill Gregg. "I've doubted Ronicky before,
+but look at all that he's done? Do what he says, Caroline."
+
+"It means putting him in your power," she said at last, "just as he was
+put in the power of John Mark, but I trust you. Give me a slip of paper,
+and I'll write on it what you want."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Sixteen
+
+
+_Disarming Suspicion_
+
+From the house across the street Caroline Smith slipped out upon the
+pavement and glanced warily about her. The street was empty, quieter and
+more villagelike than ever, yet she knew perfectly well that John Mark
+had not allowed her to be gone so long without keeping watch over her.
+Somewhere from the blank faces of those houses across the street his
+spies kept guard over her movements. Here she glanced sharply over her
+shoulder, and it seemed to her that a shadow flitted into the door of a
+basement, farther up the street.
+
+At that she fled and did not stop running until she was at the door of
+the house of Mark. Since all was quiet, up and down the street, she
+paused again, her hand upon the knob. To enter meant to step back into
+the life which she hated. There had been a time when she had almost
+loved the life to which John Mark introduced her; there had been a time
+when she had rejoiced in the nimbleness of her fingers which had enabled
+her to become an adept as a thief. And, by so doing, she had kept the
+life of her brother from danger, she verily believed. She was still
+saving him, and, so long as she worked for John Mark, she knew that her
+brother was safe, yet she hesitated long at the door.
+
+It would be only the work of a moment to flee back to the man she loved,
+tell him that she could not and dared not stay longer with the master
+criminal, and beg him to take her West to a clean life. Her hand fell
+from the knob, but she raised it again immediately.
+
+It would not do to flee, so long as John Mark had power of life or death
+over her brother. If Ronicky Doone, as he promised, was able to inspire
+her brother with the courage to flee from New York, give up his sporting
+life and seek refuge in some far-off place, then, indeed, she would go
+with Bill Gregg to the ends of the earth and mock the cunning fiend who
+had controlled her life so long.
+
+The important thing now was to disarm him of all suspicion, make him
+feel that she had only visited Bill Gregg in order to say farewell to
+him. With this in her mind she opened the front door and stepped into
+the hall, always lighted with ominous dimness. That gloom fell about her
+like the visible presence of John Mark.
+
+A squat, powerful figure glided out of the doorway to the right. It was
+Harry Morgan, and the side of his face was swathed in bandages, so that
+he had to twist his mouth violently in order to speak.
+
+"The chief," he said abruptly. "Beat it quick to his room. He wants
+you."
+
+"Why?" asked Caroline, hoping to extract some grain or two of
+information from the henchman.
+
+"Listen, kid," said the sullen criminal. "D'you think I'm a nut to blow
+what I know? You beat it, and he'll tell you what he wants."
+
+The violence of this language, however, had given her clues enough to
+the workings of the chief's mind. She had always been a favored member
+of the gang, and the men had whistled attendance on her hardly less than
+upon Ruth Tolliver herself. This sudden harshness in the language of
+Harry Morgan told her that too much was known, or guessed.
+
+A sudden weakness came over her. "I'm going out," she said, turning to
+Harry Morgan who had sauntered over to the front door.
+
+"Are you?" he asked.
+
+"I'm going to take one turn more up the block. I'm not sleepy yet," she
+repeated and put her hand on the knob of the door.
+
+"Not so you could notice it, you ain't," retorted Morgan. "We've taken
+lip enough from you, kid. Your day's over. Go up and see what the chief
+has to say, but you ain't going through this door unless you walk over
+me."
+
+"Those are orders?" she asked, stepping back, with her heart turning
+cold.
+
+"Think I'm doing this on my own hook?"
+
+She turned slowly to the stairs. With her hand on the balustrade she
+decided to try the effect of one personal appeal. Nerving herself she
+whirled and ran to Harry Morgan. "Harry," she whispered, "let me go out
+till I've worked up my courage. You know he's terrible to face when he's
+angry. And I'm afraid, Harry--I'm terribly afraid!"
+
+"Are you?" asked Morgan. "Well, you ain't the first. Go and take your
+medicine like the rest of us have done, time and time running."
+
+There was no help for it. She went wearily up the stairs to the room of
+the master thief. There she gave the accustomed rap with the proper
+intervals. Instantly the cold, soft voice, which she knew and hated so,
+called to her to enter.
+
+She found him in the act of putting aside his book. He was seated in a
+deep easy-chair; a dressing gown of silk and a pair of horn-rimmed
+spectacles gave him a look of owlish wisdom, with a touch of the owl's
+futility of expression, likewise. He rose, as usual, with all his
+courtesy. She thought at first, as he showed her to a chair, that he was
+going to take his usual damnable tack of pretended ignorance in order to
+see how much she would confess. However, tonight this was not his plan
+of battle.
+
+The moment she was seated, he removed his spectacles, drew a chair close
+to hers and sat down, leaning far forward. "Now, my dear, foolish girl,"
+said the master thief, smiling benevolently upon her, "what have you
+been doing tonight to make us all miserable?"
+
+She knew at once that he was aware of every move she had made, from the
+first to the last. It gave her firmness to tell the lie with suavity.
+"It's a queer yarn, John," she said.
+
+"I'm used to queer yarns," he answered. "But where have you been all
+this time? It was only to take five minutes, I thought."
+
+She made herself laugh. "That's because you don't know Ronicky Doone,
+John."
+
+"I'm getting to know him, however," said the master. "And, before I'm
+done, I hope to know him very well indeed."
+
+"Well, he has a persuasive tongue."
+
+"I think I noticed that for myself."
+
+"And, when he told me how poor Bill Gregg had come clear across the
+continent--"
+
+"No wonder you were touched, my dear. New Yorkers won't travel so far,
+will they? Not for a girl, I mean."
+
+"Hardly! But Ronicky Doone made it such a sad affair that I promised I'd
+go across and see Bill Gregg."
+
+"Not in his room?"
+
+"I knew you wouldn't let him come to see me here."
+
+"Never presuppose what I'll do. But go on--I'm interested--very. Just as
+much as if Ronicky Doone himself were telling me."
+
+She eyed him shrewdly, but, if there were any deception in him, he hid
+it well. She could not find the double meaning that must have been
+behind his words. "I went there, however," she said, "because I was
+sorry for him, John. If you had seen you'd have been sorry, too, or else
+you would have laughed; I could hardly keep from it at first."
+
+"I suppose he took you in his arms at once?"
+
+"I think he wanted to. Then, of course, I told him at once why I had
+come."
+
+"Which was?"
+
+"Simply that it was absurd for him to stay about and persecute me; that
+the letters I wrote him were simply written for fun, when I was doing
+some of my cousin's work at the correspondence schools; that the best
+thing he could do would be to take my regrets and go back to the West."
+
+"Did you tell him all that?" asked John Mark in a rather changed voice.
+
+"Yes; but not quite so bluntly."
+
+"Naturally not; you're a gentle girl, Caroline. I suppose he took it
+very hard."
+
+"Very, but in a silly way. He's full of pride, you see. He drew himself
+up and gave me a lecture about deceiving men."
+
+"Well, since you have lost interest in him, it makes no difference."
+
+"But in a way," she said faintly, rising slowly from her chair, "I can't
+help feeling some interest."
+
+"Naturally not. But, you see, I was worried so much about you and this
+foolish fellow that I gave orders for him to be put out of the way, as
+soon as you left him."
+
+Caroline Smith stood for a moment stunned and then ran to him.
+
+"No, no!" she declared. "In the name of the dear mercy of Heaven, John,
+you haven't done that?"
+
+"I'm sorry."
+
+"Then call him back--the one you sent. Call him back, John, and I'll
+serve you the rest of my life without question. I'll never fail you,
+John, but for your own sake and mine, for the sake of everything fair in
+the world, call him back!"
+
+He pushed away her hands, but without violence. "I thought it would be
+this way," he said coldly. "You told a very good lie, Caroline. I
+suppose clever Ronicky Doone rehearsed you in it, but it needed only the
+oldest trick in the world to expose you."
+
+She recoiled from him. "It was only a joke, then? You didn't mean it,
+John? Thank Heaven for that!"
+
+A savagery which, though generally concealed, was never far from the
+surface, now broke out in him, making the muscles of his face tense and
+his voice metallic. "Get to your room," he said fiercely, "get to your
+room. I've wasted time enough on you and your brat of a brother, and now
+a Western lout is to spoil what I've done? I've a mind to wash my hands
+of all of you--and sink you. Get to your room, and stay there, while I
+make up my mind which of the two I shall do."
+
+She went, cringing like one beaten, to the door, and he followed her,
+trembling with rage.
+
+"Or have you a choice?" he asked. "Brother or lover, which shall it be?"
+
+She turned and stretched out her hands to him, unable to speak; but the
+man of the sneer struck down her arms and laughed in her face. In mute
+terror she fled to her room.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Seventeen
+
+
+_Old Scars_
+
+In his room Bill Gregg was striding up and down, throwing his hands
+toward the ceiling. Now and then he paused to slap Ronicky Doone on the
+back.
+
+"It's fate, Ronicky," he said, over and over again. "Thinking of waking
+up and finding the girl that you've loved and lost standing waiting for
+you! It's the dead come to life. I'm the happiest man in the world.
+Ronicky, old boy, one of these days I'll be able--" He paused, stopped
+by the solemnity of Doone's face. "What's wrong, Ronicky?"
+
+"I don't know," said the other gloomily. He rubbed his arms slowly, as
+if to bring back the circulation to numbed limbs.
+
+"You act like you're sick, Ronicky."
+
+"I'm getting bad-luck signs, Bill. That's the short of it."
+
+"How come?"
+
+"The old scars are prickling."
+
+"Scars? What scars?"
+
+"Ain't you noticed 'em."
+
+It was bedtime, so Ronicky Doone took off his coat and shirt. The
+rounded body, alive with playing muscles, was striped, here and there,
+with white streaks--scars left by healed wounds.
+
+"At your age? A kid like you with scars?" Bill Gregg had been asking,
+and then he saw the exposed scars and gasped. "How come, Ronicky," he
+asked huskily in his astonishment, "that you got all those and ain't
+dead yet?"
+
+"I dunno," said the other. "I wonder a pile about that, myself. Fact is
+I'm a lucky gent, Bill Gregg."
+
+"They say back yonder in your country that you ain't never been beaten,
+Ronicky."
+
+"They sure say a lot of foolish things, just to hear themselves talk,
+partner. A gent gets pretty good with a gun, then they say he's the best
+that ever breathed--that he's never been beat. But they forget things
+that happened just a year back. No, sir; I sure took my lickings when I
+started."
+
+"But, dog-gone it, Ronicky, you ain't twenty-four now!"
+
+"Between sixteen and twenty-two I spent a pile of time in bed, Bill, and
+you can lay to that!"
+
+"And you kept practicing?"
+
+"Sure, when I found out that I had to. I never liked shooting much.
+Hated to think of having a gent's life right inside the crook of my
+trigger finger. But, when I seen that I had to get good, why I just let
+go all holds and practiced day and night. And I still got to practice."
+
+"I seen that," said Bill Gregg. "Every day, for an hour or two, you work
+with your guns."
+
+"It's like being a musician," said Ronicky without enthusiasm. "I heard
+about it once. Suppose a gent works up to be a fine musician, maybe at
+the piano. You'd think, when he got to the top and knew everything, he
+could lay off and take things easy the rest of his life. But not him!
+Nope, he's got to work like a slave every day."
+
+"But how come you felt them scars pricking as a bad-luck sign, Ronicky?"
+he asked after a time. "Is there anything that's gone wrong, far as you
+see?"
+
+"I dunno," said Ronicky gravely. "Maybe not, and maybe so. I ain't a
+prophet, but I don't like having everything so smooth--not when they's a
+gent like the man with the sneer on the other end of the wire. It means
+he's holding back some cards on us, and I'd sure like to see the color
+of what he's got. What I'm going to work for is this, Bill: To get
+Caroline's brother, Jerry Smith, and rustle him out of town."
+
+"But how can you do that when John Mark has a hold on him?"
+
+"That's a pile of bunk, Bill. I figure Mark is just bluffing. He ain't
+going to turn anybody over to the police. Less he has to do with the
+police the happier he'll be. You can lay to that. Matter of fact, he's
+been loaning money to Caroline's brother. You heard her say that. Also,
+he thinks that Mark is the finest and most generous gent that ever
+stepped. Probably a selfish skunk of a spoiled kid, this brother of
+hers. Most like he puts Mark up as sort of an ideal. Well, the thing to
+do is to get hold of him and wake him up and pay off his debts to Mark,
+which most like run to several thousand."
+
+"Several thousand, Ronicky? But where'll we get the money?"
+
+"You forget that I can always get money. It grows on the bushes for me."
+He grinned at Bill Gregg.
+
+"Once we get Jerry Smith, then the whole gang of us will head straight
+West, as fast as we can step. Now let's hit the hay."
+
+Never had the mind of Ronicky Doone worked more quickly and surely to
+the point. The case of Jerry Smith was exactly what he had surmised. As
+for the crime of which John Mark knew, and which he held like a club
+over Jerry Smith, it had been purely and simply an act of self-defense.
+But, to Caroline and her brother, Mark had made it seem clear that the
+shadow of the electric chair was before the young fellow.
+
+Mark had worked seriously to win Caroline. She was remarkably dexterous;
+she was the soul of courage; and, if he could once make her love her
+work, she would make him rich. In the meantime she did very well indeed,
+and he strengthened his hold on her through her brother. It was not hard
+to do. If Jerry Smith was the soul of recklessness, he was the soul of
+honor, also, in many ways. John Mark had only to lead the boy toward a
+life of heavy expenditures and gaming, lending him, from time to time,
+the wherewithal to keep it up. In this way he anchored Jerry as a
+safeguard to windward, in case of trouble.
+
+But, now that Ronicky Doone had entered the tangle, everything was
+changed. That clear-eyed fellow might see through to the very bottom of
+Mark's tidewater plans. He might step in and cut the Gordian knot by
+simply paying off Jerry's debts. Telling the boy to laugh at the danger
+of exposure, Doone could snatch him away to the West. So Mark came to
+forestall Ronicky, by sending Jerry out of town and out of reach, for
+the time being. He would not risk the effect of Ronicky's tongue. Had
+not Caroline been persuaded under his very eyes by this strange
+Westerner?
+
+Very early the next morning John Mark went straight to the apartment of
+his protégé. It was his own man, Northup, who answered the bell and
+opened the door to him. He had supplied Northup to Jerry Smith,
+immediately after Caroline accomplished the lifting of the Larrigan
+emeralds. That clever piece of work had proved the worth of the girl and
+made it necessary to spare no expense on Jerry. So he had given him the
+tried and proven Northup.
+
+The moment he looked into the grinning face of Northup he knew that the
+master was not at home, and both the chief and the servant relaxed. They
+were friends of too long a term to stand on ceremony.
+
+"There's no one here?" asked Mark, as a matter of form.
+
+"Not a soul--the kid skipped--not a soul in the house."
+
+"Suppose he were to come up behind the door and hear you talk about him
+like this, Northup? He's trim you down nicely, eh?"
+
+"Him?" asked Northup, with an eloquent jerk of his hand. "He's a husky
+young brute, but it ain't brute force that I work with." He smiled
+significantly into the face of the other, and John Mark smiled in
+return. They understood one another perfectly.
+
+"When is he coming back?"
+
+"Didn't leave any word, chief."
+
+"Isn't this earlier than his usual time for starting the day?"
+
+"It is, by five hours. The lazy pup don't usually crack an eye till one
+in the afternoon."
+
+"What happened this morning."
+
+"Something rare--something it would have done your heart good to see!"
+
+"Out with it, Northup."
+
+"I was routed out of bed at eight by a jangling of the telephone. The
+operator downstairs said a gentleman was calling on Mr. Smith. I said,
+of course, that Mr. Smith couldn't be called on at that hour. Then the
+operator said the gentleman would come up to the door and explain. I
+told him to come ahead.
+
+"At the door of the apartment I met as fine looking a youngster as I
+ever laid eyes on, brown as a berry, with a quick, straight look about
+the eyes that would have done you good to see. No booze or dope in that
+face, chief. He said--"
+
+"How tall was he?" asked the chief.
+
+"About my height. Know him?"
+
+"Maybe. What name did he give?"
+
+"Didn't give a name. 'I've come to surprise Jerry,' he says to me.
+
+"'Anybody would surprise Jerry at this hour of the morning,'" says I.
+
+"'It's too early, I take it?' says he.
+
+"'About five hours,' says I.
+
+"'Then this is going to be one of the exceptions,' says he.
+
+"'If you knew Jerry better you wouldn't force yourself on him,' says I.
+
+"'Son,' says this fresh kid--"
+
+"Is this the way you talk to Smith?" broke in Mark.
+
+"No, I can polish up my lingo with the best of 'em. But this brown-faced
+youngster was a card. Son,' he says to me, 'I'll do my own explaining.
+Just lead me to his dugout.'
+
+"I couldn't help laughing. 'You'll get a hot reception,' says I.
+
+"'I come from a hot country,' says he, 'and I got no doubt that Jerry
+will try to make me at home,' and he grinned with a devil in each eye.
+
+"'Come in, then,' says I, and in he steps. 'And mind your fists,' says
+I, 'if you wake him up sudden. He fights sometimes because he has to,
+but mostly because it's a pleasure to him.'
+
+"'Sure,' says he. 'That's the way I like to have 'em come.'"
+
+"And he went in?" demanded John Mark.
+
+"What's wrong with that?" asked Northup anxiously.
+
+"Nothing. Go ahead."
+
+"Well, in he went to Jerry's room. I listened at the door. I heard him
+call Jerry, and then Jerry groaned like he was half dead.
+
+"'I don't know you,' says Jerry.
+
+"'You will before I'm through with you,' says the other.
+
+"'Who the devil are you?' asks Jerry.
+
+"'Doone is my name,' says he.
+
+"'Then go to the devil till one o'clock,' says Jerry. 'And come back
+then if you want to. Here's my time for a beauty sleep.'
+
+"'If it's that time,' says Doone, 'you'll have to go ugly today. I'm
+here to talk.'
+
+"I heard Jerry sit up in bed.
+
+"'Now what the devil's the meaning of this?' he asked.
+
+"'Are you awake?' says Doone.
+
+"'Yes, but be hung to you!' says Jerry.
+
+"Don't be hanging me,' says Doone. 'You just mark this day down in
+red--it's a lucky one for you, son.'
+
+"'An' how d'you mean that?' says Jerry, and I could hear by his voice
+that he was choking, he was that crazy mad.
+
+"'Because it's the day you met me,' says Doone; 'that's why it's a lucky
+one for you.'
+
+"'Listen to me,' says Jerry, 'of all the nervy, cold-blooded fakers that
+ever stepped you're the nerviest.'
+
+"'Thanks,' says Doone. 'I think I am doing pretty well.'
+
+"'If I wanted to waste the time,' says Jerry, 'I'd get up and throw you
+out.'
+
+"'It's a wise man,' says Doone, 'that does his talking from the other
+side of a rock.'
+
+"'Well,' says Jerry, 'd'you think I can't throw you out?'
+
+"'Anyway,' says Doone, 'I'm still here.'
+
+"I heard the springs squeal, as Jerry went bouncing out of bed. For a
+minute they wrestled, and I opened the door. What I see was Jerry lying
+flat, and Doone sitting on his chest, as calm and smiling as you please.
+I closed the door quick. Jerry's too game a boy to mind being licked
+fair and square, but, of course, he'd rather fight till he died than
+have me or anybody else see him give up.
+
+"'I dunno how you got there,' says Jerry, 'but, if I don't kill you for
+this later on, I'd like to shake hands with you. It was a good trick.'
+
+"'The gent that taught me near busted me in two with the trick of it,'
+said Doone. 'S'pose I let you up. Is it to be a handshaking or
+fighting?'
+
+"'My wind is gone for half an hour,' says Jerry, 'and my head is pretty
+near jarred loose from my spinal column. I guess it'll have to be
+hand-shaking today. But I warn you, Doone,' he says, 'someday I'll have
+it all out with you over again.'
+
+"'Any time you mention,' says Doone, 'but, if you'd landed that left
+when you rushed in, I would have been on the carpet, instead of you.'
+
+"And Jerry chuckles, feeling a pile better to think how near he'd come
+to winning the fight.
+
+"'Wait till I jump under the shower,' says Jerry, 'and I'll be with you
+again. Have you had breakfast? And what brought you to me? And who the
+devil are you, Doone? Are you out of the West?'
+
+"He piles all these questions thick and fast at Doone, and then I seen
+right off that him and Doone had made up to be pretty thick with each
+other. So I went away from the door and didn't listen any more, and in
+about half an hour out they walk, arm in arm, like old pals."
+
+It was perfectly clear to John Mark that Ronicky had come there
+purposely to break the link between him and young Jerry Smith. It was
+perfectly plain why he wanted to do it.
+
+"How much does Jerry owe me?" he asked suddenly.
+
+The other drew out a pad and calculated for a moment: "Seven thousand
+eight hundred and forty-two," he announced with a grin, as he put back
+the pad. "That's what he's sold himself for, up to this time."
+
+"Too much in a way and not enough in another way," replied John Mark.
+"Listen, if he comes back, which I doubt, keep him here. Get him away
+from Ronicky--dope him--dope them both. In any case, if he comes back
+here, don't let him get away. You understand?"
+
+"Nope, but I don't need to understand. I'll do it."
+
+John Mark nodded and turned toward the door.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Eighteen
+
+
+_The Spider's Web_
+
+Only the select attended the meetings at Fernand's. It was doubly hard
+to choose them. They had to have enough money to afford high play, and
+they also had to lose without a murmur. It made it extremely difficult
+to build up a clientele, but Fernand was equal to the task. He seemed to
+smell out the character of a man or woman, to know at once how much iron
+was in their souls. And, following the course of an evening's play,
+Fernand knew the exact moment at which a man had had enough. It was
+never twice the same for the same man. A rich fellow, who lost twenty
+thousand one day and laughed at it, might groan and curse if he lost
+twenty hundred a week later.
+
+It was Fernand's desire to keep those groans and curses from being heard
+in his gaming house. He extracted wallets painlessly, so to speak.
+
+He was never crooked; and yet he would not have a dealer in his employ
+unless the fellow knew every good trick of running up the deck. The
+reason was that, while Fernand never cheated in order to take money away
+from his customers, he very, very frequently had his men cheat in order
+to give money away.
+
+This sounds like a mad procedure for the proprietor of a gaming house,
+but there were profound reasons beneath it. For one of the maxims of
+Fernand--and, like every gambler, he had many of them--was that the best
+way to make a man lose money is first of all to make him win it.
+
+Such was Monsieur Frederic Fernand. And, if many compared him to
+Falstaff, and many pitied the merry, fat old man for having fallen into
+so hard a profession, yet there were a few who called him a bloated
+spider, holding his victims, with invisible cords, and bleeding them
+slowly to death.
+
+To help him he had selected two men, both young, both shrewd, both iron
+in will and nerve and courage, both apparently equally expert with the
+cards, and both just as equally capable of pleasing his clients. One was
+a Scotchman, McKeever; the other was a Jew, Simonds. But in looks they
+were as much alike as two peas out of one pod. They hated each other
+with silent, smiling hatred, because they knew that they were on trial
+for their fortunes.
+
+Tonight the Jew, Simonds, was dealing at one of the tables, and the
+Scotchman, McKeever, stood at the side of the master of the house, ready
+to execute his commissions. Now and again his dark eyes wandered toward
+the table where the Jew sat, with the cards flashing through his
+fingers. McKeever hungered to be there on the firing line! How he wished
+he could feel that sifting of the polished cardboard under his finger
+tips. They were playing Black Jack. He noted the smooth skill with which
+Simonds buried a card. And yet the trick was not perfectly done. Had he,
+McKeever, been there--
+
+At this point he was interrupted by the easy, oily voice of M. Fernand.
+"This is an infernal nuisance!"
+
+McKeever raised his eyebrows and waited for an explanation. Two young
+men, very young, very straight, had just come into the rooms. One he
+knew to be Jerry Smith.
+
+"Another table and dealer wasted," declared M. Fernand. "Smith--and, by
+heavens, he's brought some friend of his with him!"
+
+"Shall I see if I can turn them away without playing?" asked McKeever.
+
+"No, not yet. Smith is a friend of John Mark. Don't forget that. Never
+forget, McKeever, that the friends of John Mark must be treated with
+gloves--always!"
+
+"Very good," replied McKeever, like a pupil memorizing in class.
+
+"I'll see how far I can go with them," went on M. Fernand. He went
+straight to the telephone and rang John Mark.
+
+"How far should I go with them?" he asked, after he had explained that
+Smith had just come in.
+
+"Is there someone with him?" asked John Mark eagerly.
+
+"A young chap about the same age--very brown."
+
+"That's the man I want!"
+
+"The man you want?"
+
+"Fernand," said Mark, without explaining, "those youngsters have gone
+out there to make some money at your expense."
+
+M. Fernand growled. "I wish you'd stop using me as a bank, Mark," he
+complained. "Besides, it costs a good deal."
+
+"I pay you a tolerable interest, I believe," said John Mark coldly.
+
+"Of course, of course! Well"--this in a manner of great
+resignation--"how much shall I let them take away?"
+
+"Bleed them both to death if you want. Let them play on credit. Go as
+far as you like."
+
+"Very well," said Fernand, "but--"
+
+"I may be out there later, myself. Good-by."
+
+The face of Frederic Fernand was dark when he went back to McKeever.
+"What do you think of the fellow with Jerry Smith?" he asked.
+
+"Of him?" asked McKeever, fencing desperately for another moment, as he
+stared at Ronicky Doone.
+
+The latter was idling at a table close to the wall, running his hands
+through a litter of magazines. After a moment he raised his head
+suddenly and glanced across the room at McKeever. The shock of meeting
+glances is almost a physical thing. And the bold, calm eyes of Ronicky
+Doone lingered on McKeever and seemed to judge him and file that
+judgment away.
+
+McKeever threw himself upon the wings of his imagination. There was
+something about this fellow, or his opinion would not have been asked.
+What was it?
+
+"Well?" asked Frederic Fernand peevishly. "What do you think of him?"
+
+"I think," said the other casually, "that he's probably a Western
+gunman, with a record as long as my arm."
+
+"You think that?" asked the fat man. "Well, I've an idea that you think
+right. There's something about him that suggests action. The way he
+looks about, so slowly--that is the way a fearless man is apt to look,
+you know. Do you think you can sit at the table with Ronicky Doone, as
+they call him, and Jerry Smith and win from them this evening?"
+
+"With any sort of luck--"
+
+"Leave the luck out of it. John Mark has made a special request.
+Tonight, McKeever, it's going to be your work to make the luck come to
+you. Do you think you can?"
+
+A faint smile began to dawn on the face of McKeever. Never in his life
+had he heard news so sweet to his ear. It meant, in brief, that he was
+to be trusted for the first time at real manipulation of the cards. His
+trust in himself was complete. This would be a crushing blow for
+Simonds.
+
+"Mind you," the master of the house went on, "if you are caught at
+working--"
+
+"Nonsense!" said McKeever happily. "They can't follow my hands."
+
+"This fellow Doone--I don't know."
+
+"I'll take the chance."
+
+"If you're caught I turn you out. You hear? Are you willing to take the
+risk?"
+
+"Yes," said McKeever, very pale, but determined.
+
+At the right moment McKeever approached Jerry and Ronicky, dark,
+handsome, smoothly amiable. He was clever enough to make no indirect
+effort to introduce his topic. "I see that you gentlemen are looking
+about," he said. "Yonder is a clear table for us. Do you agree, Mr.
+Smith?"
+
+Jerry Smith nodded, and, having introduced Ronicky Doone, the three
+started for the table which had been indicated.
+
+It was in an alcove, apart from the sweep of big rooms which were given
+over to the players. It lay, too, conveniently in range of the beat of
+Frederic Fernand, as he moved slowly back and forth, over a limited
+territory and stopped, here and there for a word, here and there for a
+smile. He was smoothing the way for dollars to slide out of wallets. Now
+he deliberately stopped the party in their progress to the alcove.
+
+"I have to meet you," he said to Ronicky. "You remind me of a friend of
+my father, a young Westerner, those many years ago. Same brown skin,
+same clear eye. He was a card expert, the man I'm thinking about. I hope
+you're not in the same class, my friend!"
+
+Then he went on, laughing thunderously at his own poor jest.
+Particularly from the back, as he retreated, he seemed a harmless fat
+man, very simple, very naive. But Ronicky Doone regarded him with an
+interest both cold and keen. And, with much the same regard, after
+Fernand had passed out of view, the Westerner regarded the table at
+which they were to sit.
+
+In the alcove were three wall lights, giving an ample illumination--too
+ample to suit Ronicky Doone. For McKeever had taken the chair with the
+back to the light. He made no comment, but, taking the chair which was
+facing the lights, the chair which had been pointed out to him by
+McKeever, he drew it around on the far side and sat down next to the
+professional gambler.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Nineteen
+
+
+_Stacked Cards_
+
+The game opened slowly. The first, second, and third hands were won by
+Jerry Smith. He tucked away his chips with a smile of satisfaction, as
+if the three hands were significant of the whole progress of the game.
+But Ronicky Doone pocketed his losses without either smile or sneer. He
+had played too often in games in the West which ran to huge prices.
+Miners had come in with their belts loaded with dust, eager to bet the
+entire sum of their winnings at once. Ranchers, fat with the profits of
+a good sale of cattle, had wagered the whole amount of it in a single
+evening. As far as large losses and large gains were concerned, Ronicky
+Doone was ready to handle the bets of anyone, other than millionaires,
+without a smile or a wince.
+
+The trouble with McKeever was that he was playing the game too closely.
+Long before, it had been a maxim with the chief that a good gambler
+should only lose by a small margin. That maxim McKeever, playing for the
+first time for what he felt were important stakes in the eyes of
+Fernand, followed too closely. Stacking the cards, with the adeptness
+which years of practice had given to him, he never raised the amount of
+his opponent's hand beyond its own order. A pair was beaten by a pair,
+three of a kind was simply beaten by three of a kind of a higher order;
+and, when a full house was permitted by his expert dealing to appear to
+excite the other gamblers, he himself indulged in no more than a
+superior grade of three of a kind.
+
+Half a dozen times these coincidences happened without calling for any
+distrust on the part of Ronicky Doone, but eventually he began to think.
+Steady training enabled his eyes to do what the eyes of the ordinary man
+could not achieve, and, while to Jerry Smith all that happened in the
+deals of McKeever was the height of correctness, Ronicky Doone, at the
+seventh deal, awakened to the fact that something was wrong.
+
+He hardly dared to allow himself to think of anything for a time, but
+waited and watched, hoping against hope that Jerry Smith himself would
+discover the fraud which was being perpetrated on them. But Jerry Smith
+maintained a bland interest in the game. He had won between two and
+three hundred, and these winnings had been allowed by McKeever to
+accumulate in little runs, here and there. For nothing encourages a
+gambler toward reckless betting so much as a few series of high hands.
+He then begins to believe that he can tell, by some mysterious feeling
+inside, that one good hand presages another. Jerry Smith had not been
+brought to the point where he was willing to plunge, but he was very
+close to it.
+
+McKeever was gathering the youngster in the hollow of his hand, and
+Ronicky Doone, fully awake and aware of all that was happening, felt a
+gathering rage accumulate in him. There was something doubly horrible in
+this cheating in this place. Ronicky set his teeth and watched. Plainly
+he was the chosen victim. The winnings of Jerry Smith were carefully
+balanced against the losses of Ronicky Doone. Hatred for this
+smooth-faced McKeever was waxing in him, and hatred in Ronicky Doone
+meant battle.
+
+An interruption came to him from the side. It came in the form of a
+brief rustling of silk, like the stir of wind, and then Ruth Tolliver's
+coppery hair and green-blue eyes were before him--Ruth Tolliver in an
+evening gown and wonderful to look at. Ronicky Doone indulged himself
+with staring eyes, as he rose to greet her. This, then, was her chosen
+work under the régime of John Mark. It was as a gambler that she was
+great. The uneasy fire was in her eyes, the same fire that he had seen
+in Western gold camps, in Western gaming houses. And the delicate,
+nervous fingers now took on a new meaning to him.
+
+That she had won heavily this evening he saw at once. The dangerous and
+impalpable flush of the gamester was on her face, and behind it burned a
+glow and radiance. She looked as if, having defeated men by the coolness
+of her wits and the favor of luck, she had begun to think that she could
+now outguess the world. Two men trailed behind her, stirring uneasily
+about when she paused at Ronicky's alcove table.
+
+"You've found the place so soon?" she asked. "How is your luck?"
+
+"Not nearly as good tonight as yours."
+
+"Oh, I can't help winning. Every card I touch turns into gold this
+evening. I think I have the formula for it."
+
+"Tell me, then," said Ronicky quickly enough, for there was just the
+shadow of a backward nod of her head.
+
+"Just step aside. I'll spoil Mr. McKeever's game for him, I'm afraid."
+
+Ronicky excused himself with a nod to the other two and followed the
+girl into the next room.
+
+"I have bad news," she whispered instantly, "but keep smiling. Laugh if
+you can. The two men with me I don't know. They may be his spies for all
+we can tell. Ronicky Doone, John Mark is out for you. Why, in Heaven's
+name, are you interfering with Caroline Smith and her affairs? It will
+be your death, I promise you. John Mark has arrived and has placed men
+around the house. Ronicky Doone, he means business. Help yourself if you
+can. I'm unable to lift a hand for you. If I were you I should leave,
+and I should leave at once. Laugh, Ronicky Doone!"
+
+He obeyed, laughing until the tears were glittering in his eyes, until
+the girl laughed with him.
+
+"Good!" she whispered. "Good-by, Ronicky, and good luck."
+
+He watched her going, saw the smiles of the two men, as they greeted her
+again and closed in beside her, and watched the light flash on her
+shoulders, as she shrugged away some shadow from her mind--perhaps the
+small care she had given about him. But no matter how cold-hearted she
+might be, how thoroughly in tune with this hard, bright world of New
+York, she at least was generous and had courage. Who could tell how much
+she risked by giving him that warning?
+
+Ronicky went back to his place at the table, still laughing in apparent
+enjoyment of the jest he had just heard. He saw McKeever's ferretlike
+glance of interrogation and distrust--a thief's distrust of an honest
+man--but Ronicky's good nature did not falter in outward seeming for an
+instant. He swept up his hand, bet a hundred, with apparently foolish
+recklessness, on three sevens, and then had to buy fresh chips from
+McKeever.
+
+The coming of the girl seemed to have completely upset his equilibrium
+as a gambler--certainly it made him bet with the recklessness of a
+madman. And Frederic Fernand, glancing in from time to time, watched the
+demolition of Ronicky's pile of chips, with growing complacence.
+
+Ronicky Doone had allowed himself to take heed of the room about him,
+and Frederic Fernand liked him for it. His beautiful rooms were pearls
+cast before swine, so far as most of his visitors were concerned. A
+moment later Ronicky had risen, went toward the wall and drew a dagger
+from its sheath.
+
+It was a full twelve inches in length, that blade, and it came to a
+point drawn out thinner than the eye could follow. The end was merely a
+long glint of light. As for Ronicky Doone, he cried out in surprise and
+then sat down, balancing the weapon in his hand and looking down at it,
+with the silent happiness of a child with a satisfying toy.
+
+Frederic Fernand was observing him. There was something remarkably
+likable in young Doone, he decided. No matter what John Mark had
+said--no matter if John Mark was a genius in reading the characters of
+men--every genius could make mistakes. This, no doubt, was one of John
+Mark's mistakes. There was the free and careless thoughtlessness of a
+boy about this young fellow. And, though he glanced down the glimmering
+blade of the weapon, with a sort of sinister joy, Frederic Fernand did
+not greatly care. There was more to admire in the workmanship of the
+hilt than in a thousand such blades, but a Westerner would have his eye
+on the useful part of a thing.
+
+"How much d'you think that's worth?" asked McKeever.
+
+"Dunno," said Ronicky. "That's good steel."
+
+He tried the point, then he snapped it under his thumb nail and a little
+shiver of a ringing sound reached as far as Frederic Fernand.
+
+Then he saw Ronicky Doone suddenly lean a little across the table,
+pointing toward the hand in which McKeever held the pack, ready for the
+deal.
+
+McKeever shook his head and gripped the pack more closely.
+
+"Do you suspect me of crooked work?" asked McKeever. He pushed back his
+chair. Fernand, studying his lieutenant in this crisis, approved of him
+thoroughly. He himself was in a quandary. Westerners fight, and a fight
+would be most embarrassing. "Do you think--" began McKeever.
+
+"I think you'll keep that hand and that same pack of cards on the table
+till I've had it looked over," said Ronicky Doone. "I've dropped a cold
+thousand to you, and you're winning it with stacked decks, McKeever."
+
+There was a stifled oath from McKeever, as he jerked his hand back.
+Frederic Fernand was beginning to draw one breath of joy at the thought
+that McKeever would escape without having that pack, of all packs,
+examined, when the long dagger flashed in the hand of Ronicky Doone.
+
+He struck as a cat strikes when it hooks the fish out of the stream--he
+struck as the snapper on the end of a whiplash doubles back. And well
+and truly did that steel uphold its fame.
+
+The dull, chopping sound of the blow stood by itself for an instant.
+Then McKeever, looking down in horror at his hand, screamed and fell
+back in his chair.
+
+That was the instant when Frederic Fernand judged his lieutenant and
+found him wanting. A man who fainted in such a crisis as this was beyond
+the pale.
+
+Other people crowded past him. Frightened, desperate, he pushed on. At
+length his weight enabled him to squeeze through the rapidly gathering
+crowd of gamblers.
+
+The only nonchalant man of the lot was he who had actually used the
+weapon. For Ronicky Doone stood with his shoulders propped against the
+wall, his hands clasped lightly behind him. For all that, it was plain
+that he was not unarmed. A certain calm insolence about his expression
+told Frederic Fernand that the teeth of the dragon were not drawn.
+
+"Gents," he was saying, in his mild voice, while his eyes ran restlessly
+from face to face, "I sure do hate to bust up a nice little party like
+this one has been, but I figure them cards are stacked. I got a pile of
+reasons for knowing, and I want somebody to look over them
+cards--somebody that knows stacked cards when he sees 'em. Mostly it
+ain't hard to get onto the order of them being run up. I'll leave it,
+gents, to the man that runs this dump."
+
+And, leaning across the table, he pushed the pack straight to Frederic
+Fernand. The latter set his teeth. It was very cunningly done to trap
+him. If he said the cards were straight they might be examined
+afterward; and, if he were discovered in a lie, it would mean more than
+the loss of McKeever--it would mean the ruin of everything. Did he dare
+take the chance? Must he give up McKeever? The work of years of careful
+education had been squandered on McKeever.
+
+Fernand looked up, and his eyes rested on the calm face of Ronicky
+Doone. Why had he never met a man like that before? There was an
+assistant! There was a fellow with steel-cold nerve--worth a thousand
+trained McKeevers! Then he glanced at the wounded man, cowering and
+bunched in his chair. At that moment the gambler made up his mind to
+play the game in the big way and pocket his losses.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," he said sadly, placing the cards back on the
+edge of the table, "I am sorry to say that Mr. Doone is right. The pack
+has been run up. There it is for any of you to examine it. I don't
+pretend to understand. Most of you know that McKeever has been with me
+for years. Needless to say, he will be with me no more." And, turning on
+his heel, the old fellow walked slowly away, his hands clasped behind
+him, his head bowed.
+
+And the crowd poured after him to shake his hand and tell him of their
+unshakable confidence in his honesty. McKeever was ruined, but the house
+of Frederic Fernand was more firmly established than ever, after the
+trial of the night.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Twenty
+
+
+_Trapped!_
+
+"Get the money," said Ronicky to Jerry Smith.
+
+"There it is!"
+
+He pointed to the drawer, where McKeever, as banker, had kept the money.
+The wounded man in the meantime had disappeared.
+
+"How much is ours?" asked Jerry Smith.
+
+"All you find there," answered Ronicky calmly.
+
+"But there's a big bunch--large bills, too. McKeever was loaded for
+bear."
+
+"He loses--the house loses it. Out in my country, Jerry, that wouldn't
+be half of what the house would lose for a little trick like what's been
+played on us tonight. Not the half of what the house would lose, I tell
+you! He had us trimmed, Jerry, and out West we'd wreck this joint from
+head to heels."
+
+The diffident Jerry fingered the money in the drawer of the table
+uncertainly. Ronicky Doone swept it up and thrust it into his pocket.
+"We'll split straws later," said Ronicky. "Main thing we need right
+about now is action. This coin will start us."
+
+In the hall, as they took their hats, they found big Frederic Fernand in
+the act of dissuading several of his clients from leaving. The incident
+of the evening was regrettable, most regrettable, but such things would
+happen when wild men appeared. Besides, the fault had been that of
+McKeever. He assured them that McKeever would never again be employed in
+his house. And Fernand meant it. He had discarded all care for the
+wounded man.
+
+Ronicky Doone stepped to him and drew him aside. "Mr. Fernand," he said,
+"I've got to have a couple of words with you."
+
+"Come into my private room," said Fernand, eager to get the fighter out
+of view of the rest of the little crowd. He drew Ronicky and Jerry Smith
+into a little apartment which opened off the hall. It was furnished with
+an almost feminine delicacy of style, with wide-seated, spindle-legged
+Louis XV. chairs and a couch covered with rich brocade. The desk was a
+work of Boulle. A small tapestry of the Gobelins made a ragged glow of
+color on the wall. Frederic Fernand had recreated an atmosphere two
+hundred years old.
+
+He seated them at once. "And now, sir," he said sternly to Ronicky
+Doone, "you are aware that I could have placed you in the hands of the
+police for what you've done tonight?"
+
+Ronicky Doone made no answer. His only retort was a gradually spreading
+smile. "Partner," he said at length, while Fernand was flushing with
+anger at this nonchalance on the part of the Westerner, "they might of
+grabbed me, but they would have grabbed your house first."
+
+"That fact," said Fernand hotly, "is the reason you have dared to act
+like a wild man in my place? Mr. Doone, this is your last visit."
+
+"It sure is," said Ronicky heartily. "D'you know what would have
+happened out in my neck of the woods, if there had been a game like the
+one tonight? I wouldn't have waited to be polite, but just pulled a gat
+and started smashing things for luck."
+
+"The incident is closed," Fernand said with gravity, and he leaned
+forward, as if to rise.
+
+"Not by a long sight," said Ronicky Doone. "I got an idea, partner, that
+you worked the whole deal. This is a square house, Fernand. Why was I
+picked out for the dirty work?"
+
+It required all of Fernand's long habits of self control to keep him
+from gasping. He managed to look Ronicky Doone fairly in the eyes. What
+did the youngster know? What had he guessed?
+
+"Suppose I get down to cases and name names? The gent that talked to you
+about me was John Mark. Am I right?" asked Ronicky.
+
+"Sir," said Fernand, thinking that the world was tumbling about his
+ears, "what infernal--"
+
+"I'm right," said Ronicky. "I can tell when I've hurt a gent by the way
+his face wrinkles up. I sure hurt you that time, Fernand. John Mark it
+was, eh?"
+
+Fernand could merely stare. He began to have vague fears that this young
+devil might have hypnotic powers, or be in touch with he knew not what
+unearthly source of information.
+
+"Out with it," said Ronicky, leaving his chair.
+
+Frederic Fernand bit his lip in thought. He was by no means a coward,
+and two alternatives presented themselves to him. One was to say nothing
+and pretend absolute ignorance; the other was to drop his hand into his
+coat pocket and fire the little automatic which nestled there.
+
+"Listen," said Ronicky Doone, "suppose I was to go a little farther
+still in my guesses! Suppose I said I figured out that John Mark and his
+men might be scattered around outside this house, waiting for me and
+Smith to come out: What would you say to that?"
+
+"Nothing," said Fernand, but he blinked as he spoke. "For a feat of
+imagination as great as that I have only a silent admiration. But, if
+you have some insane idea that John Mark, a gentleman I know and respect
+greatly, is lurking like an assassin outside the doors of my house--"
+
+"Or maybe inside 'em," said Ronicky, unabashed by this gravity.
+
+"If you think that," went on the gambler heavily, "I can only keep
+silence. But, to ease your own mind, I'll show you a simple way out of
+the house--a perfectly safe way which even you cannot doubt will lead
+you out unharmed. Does that bring you what you want?"
+
+"It sure does," said Ronicky. "Lead the way, captain, and you'll find us
+right at your heels." He fell in beside Jerry Smith, while the fat man
+led on as their guide.
+
+"What does he mean by a safe exit?" asked Jerry Smith. "You'd think we
+were in a smuggler's cave."
+
+"Worse," said Ronicky, "a pile worse, son. And they'll sure have to have
+some tunnels or something for get-aways. This ain't a lawful house,
+Jerry."
+
+As they talked, they were being led down toward the cellar. They paused
+at last in a cool, big room, paved with cement, and the unmistakable
+scent of the underground was in the air.
+
+"Here we are," said the fat man, and, so saying, he turned a switch
+which illumined the room completely and then drew aside a curtain which
+opened into a black cavity.
+
+Ronicky Doone approached and peered into it. "How does it look to you,
+Jerry?" he asked.
+
+"Dark, but good enough for me, if you're all set on leaving by some
+funny way."
+
+"I don't care how it looks," said Ronicky thoughtfully. "By the looks
+you can't make out nothing most of the time--nothing important. But
+they's ways of smelling things, and the smell of this here tunnel ain't
+too good to me. Look again and try to pry down that tunnel with your
+flash light, Jerry."
+
+Accordingly Jerry raised his little pocket electric torch and held it
+above his head. They saw a tunnel opening, with raw dirt walls and floor
+and a rude framing of heavy timbers to support the roof. But it turned
+an angle and went out of view in a very few paces.
+
+"Go down there with your lantern and look for the exit," said Ronicky
+Doone. "I'll stay back here and see that we get our farewell all fixed
+up."
+
+The damp cellar air seemed to affect the throat of the fat man. He
+coughed heavily.
+
+"Say, Ronicky," said Jerry Smith, "looks to me that you're carrying this
+pretty far. Let's take a chance on what we've got ahead of us?"
+
+The fat man was chuckling: "You show a touching trust in me, Mr. Doone."
+
+Ronicky turned on him with an ugly sneer. "I don't like you, Fernand,"
+he said. "They's nothing about you that looks good to me. If I knew half
+as much as I guess about you I'd blow your head off, and go on without
+ever thinking about you again. But I don't know. Here you've got me up
+against it. We're going to go down that tunnel; but, if it's blind,
+Fernand, and you trap us from this end, it will be the worst day of your
+life."
+
+"Take this passage, Doone, or turn around and come back with me, and
+I'll show some other ways of getting out--ways that lie under the open
+sky, Doone. Would you like that better? Do you want starlight and John
+Mark--or a little stretch of darkness, all by yourself?" asked Fernand.
+
+Ronicky Doone studied the face of Fernand, almost wistfully. The more he
+knew about the fellow the more thoroughly convinced he was that Fernand
+was bad in all possible ways. He might be telling the truth now,
+however--again he might be simply tempting him on to a danger. There was
+only one way to decide. Ronicky, a gambler himself, mentally flipped a
+coin and nodded to Jerry.
+
+"We'll go in," he said, "but man, man, how my old scars are pricking!"
+
+They walked into the moldy, damp air of the tunnel, reached the corner,
+and there the passage turned and ended in a blank wall of raw dirt, with
+a little apron of fallen debris at the bottom of it. Ronicky Doone
+walked first, and, when he saw the passage obstructed in this manner, he
+whirled like a flash and fired at the mouth of the tunnel.
+
+A snarl and a curse told him that he had at least come close to his
+target, but he was too late. A great door was sliding rapidly across the
+width of the tunnel, and, before he could fire a second time, the tunnel
+was closed.
+
+Jerry Smith went temporarily mad. He ran at the door, which had just
+closed, and struck the whole weight of his body against it. There was
+not so much as a quiver. The face of it was smooth steel, and there was
+probably a dense thickness of stonework on the other side, to match the
+cellar walls of the house.
+
+"It was my fool fault," exclaimed Jerry, turning to his friend. "My
+fault, Ronicky! Oh, what a fool I am!"
+
+"I should have known by the feel of the scars," said Ronicky. "Put out
+that flash light, Jerry. We may need that after a while, and the
+batteries won't last forever."
+
+He sat down, as he spoke, cross-legged, and the last thing Jerry saw, as
+he snapped out the light, was the lean, intense face and the blazing
+eyes of Ronicky Doone. Decidedly this was not a fellow to trifle with.
+If he trembled for himself and Ronicky, he could also spare a shudder
+for what would happen to Frederic Fernand, if Ronicky got away. In the
+meantime the light was out, and the darkness sat heavily beside and
+about them, with that faint succession of inaudible breathing sounds
+which are sensed rather than actually heard.
+
+"Is there anything that we can do?" asked Jerry suddenly. "It's all
+right to sit down and argue and worry, but isn't it foolish, Ronicky?"
+
+"How come?"
+
+"I mean it in this way. Sometimes when you can't solve a problem it's
+very easy to prove that it can't be solved by anyone. That's what I can
+prove now, but why waste time?"
+
+"Have we got anything special to do with our time?" asked Ronicky dryly.
+
+"Well, my proof is easy. Here we are in hard-pan dirt, without any sort
+of a tool for digging. So we sure can't tunnel out from the sides, can
+we?"
+
+"Looks most like we can't," said Ronicky sadly.
+
+"And the only ways that are left are the ends."
+
+"That's right."
+
+"But one end is the unfinished part of the tunnel; and, if you think we
+can do anything to the steel door--"
+
+"Hush up," said Ronicky. "Besides, there ain't any use in you talking in
+a whisper, either. No, it sure don't look like we could do much to that
+door. Besides, even if we could, I don't think I'd go. I'd rather take a
+chance against starvation than another trip to fat Fernand's place. If I
+ever enter it again, son, you lay to it that he'll get me bumped off,
+mighty pronto."
+
+Jerry Smith, after a groan, returned to his argument. "But that ties us
+up, Ronicky. The door won't work, and it's worse than solid rock. And we
+can't tunnel out the side, without so much as a pin to help us dig, can
+we? I think that just about settles things. Ronicky, we can't get out."
+
+"Suppose we had some dynamite," said Ronicky cheerily.
+
+"Sure, but we haven't."
+
+"Suppose we find some?"
+
+Jerry Smith groaned. "Are you trying to make a joke out of this?
+Besides, could we send off a blast of dynamite in a closed tunnel like
+this?"
+
+"We could try," said Ronicky. "Way I'm figuring is to show you it's bad
+medicine to sit down and figure out how you're beat. Even if you owe a
+pile of money they's some satisfaction in sitting back and adding up the
+figures so that you come out about a million dollars on top--in your
+dreams. Before we can get out of here we got to begin to feel powerful
+sure."
+
+"But you take it straight, friend: Fernand ain't going to leave us in
+here. Nope, he's going to find a way to get us out. That's easy to
+figure out. But the way he'll get us out will be as dead ones, and then
+he can dump us, when he feels like it, in the river. Ain't that the
+simplest way of working it out?"
+
+The teeth of Jerry Smith came together with a snap. "Then the thing for
+us to do is to get set and wait for them to make an attack?"
+
+"No use waiting. When they attack it'll be in a way that'll give us no
+chance."
+
+"Then you figure the same as me--we're lost?"
+
+"Unless we can get out before they make the attack. In other words,
+Jerry, there may be something behind the dirt wall at the end of the
+tunnel."
+
+"Nonsense, Ronicky."
+
+"There's got to be," said Ronicky very soberly, "because, if there
+ain't, you and me are dead ones, Jerry. Come along and help me look,
+anyway."
+
+Jerry rose obediently and flashed on his precious pocket torch, and they
+went down to pass the turn and come again to the ragged wall of earth
+which terminated the passage. Jerry held the torch and passed it close
+to the dirt. All was solid. There was no sign of anything wrong. The
+very pick marks were clearly defined.
+
+"Hold on," whispered Ronicky Doone. "Hold on, Jerry. I seen something."
+He snatched the electric torch, and together they peered at the patch
+from which the dried earth had fallen.
+
+"Queer for hardpan to break up like that," muttered Ronicky, cutting
+into the surface beneath the patch, with the point of his hunting knife.
+Instantly there was the sharp gritting of steel against steel.
+
+The shout of Ronicky was an indrawn breath. The shout of Jerry Smith was
+a moan of relief.
+
+Ronicky continued his observations. The thing was very clear. They had
+dug the tunnel to this point and excavated a place which they had
+guarded with a steel door, but, in order to conceal the hiding place, or
+whatever it might be, they cunningly worked the false wall of dirt
+against the face of it, using clay and a thin coating of plaster as a
+base.
+
+"It's a place they don't use very often, maybe," said Ronicky, "and
+that's why they can afford to put up this fake wall of plaster and mud
+after every time they want to come down here. Pretty clever to leave
+that little pile of dirt on the floor, just like it had been worked off
+by the picks, eh? But we've found 'em, Jerry, and now all we got to do
+is to get to the door and into whatever lies beyond."
+
+"We'd better hurry, then," cried Jerry.
+
+"How come?"
+
+"Take a breath."
+
+Ronicky obeyed; the air was beginning to fill with the pungent and
+unmistakable odor of burning wood!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Twenty-one
+
+
+_The Miracle_
+
+No great intelligence was needed to understand the meaning of it.
+Fernand, having trapped his game, was now about to kill it. He could
+suffocate the two with smoke, blown into the tunnel, and make them rush
+blindly out. The moment they appeared, dazed and uncertain, the
+revolvers of half a dozen gunmen would be emptied into them.
+
+"It's like taking a trap full of rats," said Ronicky bitterly, "and
+shaking them into a pail of water. Let's go back and see what we can."
+
+They had only to turn the corner of the tunnel to be sure. Fernand had
+had the door of the tunnel slid noiselessly open, then, into the tunnel
+itself, smoking, slowly burning, pungent pieces of pine wood had been
+thrown, having been first soaked in oil, perhaps. The tunnel was rapidly
+filling with smoke, and through the white drifts of it they looked into
+the lighted cellar beyond. They would run out at last, gasping for
+breath and blinded by the smoke, to be shot down in a perfect light. So
+much was clear.
+
+"Now back to the wall and try to find that door," said Ronicky.
+
+Jerry had already turned. In a moment they were back and tearing with
+their fingers at the sham wall, kicking loose fragments with their feet.
+
+All the time, while they cleared a larger and larger space, they
+searched feverishly with the electric torch for some sign of a knob
+which would indicate a door, or some button or spring which might be
+used to open it. But there was nothing, and in the meantime the smoke
+was drifting back, in more and more unendurable clouds.
+
+"I can't stand much more," declared Jerry at length.
+
+"Keep low. The best air is there," answered Ronicky.
+
+A voice called from the mouth of the tunnel, and they could recognize
+the smooth tongue of Frederic Fernand. "Doone, I think I have you now.
+But trust yourselves to me, and all may still be well with you. Throw
+out your weapons, and then walk out yourselves, with your arms above
+your heads, and you may have a second chance. I don't promise--I simply
+offer you a hope in the place of no hope at all. Is that a good
+bargain?"
+
+"I'll see you hung first," answered Ronicky and turned again to his work
+at the wall.
+
+But it seemed a quite hopeless task. The surface of the steel was still
+covered, after they had cleared it as much as they could, with a thin,
+clinging coat of plaster which might well conceal the button or device
+for opening the door. Every moment the task became infinitely harder.
+
+Finally Jerry, his lungs nearly empty of oxygen, cast himself down on
+the floor and gasped. A horrible gagging sound betrayed his efforts for
+breath.
+
+Ronicky knelt beside him. His own lungs were burning, and his head was
+thick and dizzy. "One more try, then we'll turn and rush them and die
+fighting, Jerry."
+
+The other nodded and started to his feet. Together they made that last
+effort, fumbling with their hands across the rough surface, and
+suddenly--had they touched the spring, indeed?--a section of the surface
+before them swayed slowly in. Ronicky caught the half-senseless body of
+Jerry Smith and thrust him inside. He himself staggered after, and
+before him stood Ruth Tolliver!
+
+While he lay panting on the floor, she closed the door through which
+they had come and then stood and silently watched them. Presently Smith
+sat up, and Ronicky Doone staggered to his feet, his head clearing
+rapidly.
+
+He found himself in a small room, not more than eight feet square, with
+a ceiling so low that he could barely stand erect. As for the
+furnishings and the arrangement, it was more like the inside of a safe
+than anything else. There were, to be sure, three little stools, but
+nothing else that one would expect to find in an apartment. For the rest
+there was nothing but a series of steel drawers and strong chests,
+lining the walls of the room and leaving in the center very little room
+in which one might move about.
+
+He had only a moment to see all of this. Ruth Tolliver, hooded in an
+evening cloak, but with the light gleaming in her coppery hair, was
+shaking him by the arm and leaning a white face close to him.
+
+"Hurry!" she was saying. "There isn't a minute to lose. You must start
+now, at once. They will find out--they will guess--and then--"
+
+"John Mark?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she exclaimed, realizing that she had said too much, and she
+pressed her hand over her mouth, looking at Ronicky Doone in a sort of
+horror.
+
+Jerry Smith had come to his feet at last, but he remained in the
+background, staring with a befuddled mind at the lovely vision of the
+girl. Fear and excitement and pleasure had transformed her face, but she
+seemed trembling in an agony of desire to be gone. She seemed invincibly
+drawn to remain there longer still. Ronicky Doone stared at her, with a
+strange blending of pity and admiration. He knew that the danger was not
+over by any means, but he began to forget that.
+
+"This way!" called the girl and led toward an opposite door, very low in
+the wall.
+
+"Lady," said Ronicky gently, "will you hold on one minute? They won't
+start to go through the smoke for a while. They'll think they've choked
+us, when we don't come out on the rush, shooting. But they'll wait quite
+a time to make sure. They don't like my style so well that they'll hurry
+me." He smiled sourly at the thought. "And we got time to learn a lot of
+things that we'll never find out, unless we know right now, pronto!"
+
+He stepped before the girl, as he spoke. "How come you knew we were in
+there? How come you to get down here? How come you to risk everything
+you got to let us out through the treasure room of Mark's gang?"
+
+He had guessed as shrewdly as he could, and he saw, by her immediate
+wincing, that the shot had told.
+
+"You strange, mad, wild Westerner!" she exclaimed. "Do you mean to tell
+me you want to stay here and talk? Even if you have a moment to spare
+you must use it. If you knew the men with whom you are dealing you would
+never dream of--"
+
+In her pause he said, smiling: "Lady, it's tolerable clear that you
+don't know me. But the way I figure it is this: a gent may die any time,
+but, when he finds a minute for good living, he'd better make the most
+of it."
+
+He knew by her eyes that she half guessed his meaning, but she wished to
+be certain. "What do you intend by that?" she asked.
+
+"It's tolerable simple," said Ronicky. "I've seen square things done in
+my life, but I've never yet seen a girl throw up all she had to do a
+good turn for a gent she's seen only once. You follow me, lady? I pretty
+near guess the trouble you're running into."
+
+"You guess what?" she asked.
+
+"I guess that you're one of John Mark's best cards. You're his chief
+gambler, lady, and he uses you on the big game."
+
+She had drawn back, one hand pressed against her breast, her mouth tight
+with the pain. "You have guessed all that about me?" she asked faintly.
+"That means you despise me!"
+
+"What folks do don't matter so much," said Ronicky. "It's the reasons
+they have for doing a thing that matters, I figure, and the way they do
+it. I dunno how John Mark hypnotized you and made a tool out of you, but
+I do know that you ain't changed by what you've done."
+
+Ronicky Doone stepped to her quickly and took both her hands. He was
+not, ordinarily, particularly forward with girls. Now he acted as
+gracefully as if he had been the father of Ruth Tolliver. "Lady," he
+said, "you've saved two lives tonight. That's a tolerable lot to have
+piled up to anybody's credit. Besides, inside you're snow-white. We've
+got to go, but I'm coming back. Will you let me come back?"
+
+"Never, never!" declared Ruth Tolliver. "You must never see me--you must
+never see Caroline Smith again. Any step you take in that direction is
+under peril of your life. Leave New York, Ronicky Doone. Leave it as
+quickly as you may, and never come back. Only pray that his arm isn't
+long enough to follow you."
+
+"Leave Caroline?" he asked. "I'll tell you what you're going to do,
+Ruth. When you get back home you're going to tell Caroline that Jerry,
+here, has seen the light about Mark, and that he has money enough to pay
+back what he owes."
+
+"But I haven't," broke in Jerry.
+
+"I have it," said Ronicky, "and that's the same thing."
+
+"I'll take no charity," declared Jerry Smith.
+
+"You'll do what I tell you," said Ronicky Doone. "You been bothering
+enough, son. Go tell Caroline what I've said," he went on to the girl.
+"Let her know that they's no chain on anybody, and, if she wants to find
+Bill Gregg, all she's got to do is go across the street. You
+understand?"
+
+"But, even if I were to tell her, how could she go, Ronicky Doone, when
+she's watched?"
+
+"If she can't make a start and get to a man that loves her and is
+waiting for her, right across the street, she ain't worth worrying
+about," said Ronicky sternly. "Do we go this way?"
+
+She hurried before them. "You've waited too long--you've waited too
+long!" she kept whispering in her terror, as she led them through the
+door, paused to turn out the light behind her, and then conducted them
+down a passage like that on the other side of the treasure chamber.
+
+It was all deadly black and deadly silent, but the rustling of the
+girl's dress, as she hurried before them, was their guide. And always
+her whisper came back: "Hurry! Hurry! I fear it is too late!"
+
+Suddenly they were climbing up a narrow flight of steps. They stood
+under the starlight in a back yard, with houses about them on all sides.
+
+"Go down that alley, and you will be on the street," said the girl.
+"Down that alley, and then hurry--run--find the first taxi. Will you do
+that?"
+
+"We'll sure go, and we'll wait for Caroline Smith--and you, too!"
+
+"Don't talk madness! Why will you stay? You risk everything for
+yourselves and for me!"
+
+Jerry Smith was already tugging at Ronicky's arm to draw him away, but
+the Westerner was stubbornly pressing back to the girl. He had her hand
+and would not leave it.
+
+"If you don't show up, lady," he said, "I'll come to find you. You
+hear?"
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"I swear!"
+
+"Bless you, but never venture near again. But, oh, Ronicky Doone, I wish
+ten other men in the whole world could be half so generous and wild as
+you!" Suddenly her hand was slipped from his, and she was gone into the
+shadows.
+
+Down the alley went Jerry Smith, but he returned in an agony of dread to
+find that Ronicky Doone was still running here and there, in a blind
+confusion, probing the shadowy corners of the yard in search of the
+girl.
+
+"Come off, you wild man," said Jerry. "They'll be on our heels any
+minute--they may be waiting for us now, down the alley--come off, idiot,
+quick!"
+
+"If I thought they was a chance of finding her I'd stay," declared
+Ronicky, shaking his head bitterly. "Whether you and me live, don't
+count beside a girl like that. Getting soot on one tip of her finger
+might mean more'n whether you or me die."
+
+"Maybe, maybe," said the other, "but answer that tomorrow; right now,
+let's start to make sure of ourselves, and we can come back to find her
+later."
+
+Ronicky Doone, submitting partly to the force and partly to the
+persuasion of his friend, turned reluctantly and followed him down the
+alley.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Twenty-two
+
+
+_Mark Makes a Move_
+
+Passing hurriedly out of the cloakroom, a little later, Ruth met
+Simonds, the lieutenant of Frederic Fernand, in the passage. He was a
+ratfaced little man, with a furtive smile. Not an unpleasant smile, but
+it was continually coming and going, as if he wished earnestly to win
+the favor of the men before him, but greatly doubted his ability to do
+so. Ruth Tolliver, knowing his genius for the cards, knowing his cold
+and unscrupulous soul, detested him heartily.
+
+When she saw his eyes flicker up and down the hall she hesitated.
+Obviously he wished to speak with her, and obviously he did not wish to
+be seen in the act. As she paused he stepped to her, his face suddenly
+set with determination.
+
+"Watch John Mark," he whispered. "Don't trust him. He suspects
+everything!"
+
+"What? Everything about what?" she asked.
+
+Simonds gazed at her for a moment with a singular expression. There were
+conjoined cynicism, admiration, doubt, and fear in his glance. But,
+instead of speaking again, he bowed and slipped away into the open hall.
+
+She heard him call, and she heard Fernand's oily voice make answer. And
+at that she shivered.
+
+What had Simonds guessed? How, under heaven, did he know where she had
+gone when she left the gaming house? Or did he know? Had he not merely
+guessed? Perhaps he had been set on by Fernand or Mark to entangle and
+confuse her?
+
+There remained, out of all this confusion of guesswork, a grim feeling
+that Simonds did indeed know, and that, for the first time in his life,
+perhaps, he was doing an unbought, a purely generous thing.
+
+She remembered, now, how often Simonds had followed her with his eyes,
+how often his face had lighted when she spoke even casually to him. Yes,
+there might be a reason for Simonds' generosity. But that implied that
+he knew fairly well what John Mark himself half guessed. The thought
+that she was under the suspicion of Mark himself was terrible to her.
+
+She drew a long breath and advanced courageously into the gaming rooms.
+
+The first thing she saw was Fernand hurrying a late comer toward the
+tables, laughing and chatting as he went. She shuddered at the sight of
+him. It was strange that he, who had, a moment before, in the very
+cellar of that house, been working to bring about the death of two men,
+should now be immaculate, self-possessed.
+
+A step farther and she saw John Mark sitting at a console table, with
+his back to the room and a cup of tea before him. That was, in fact, his
+favorite drink at all hours of the day or night. To see Fernand was bad
+enough, but to see the master mind of all the evil that passed around
+her was too much. The girl inwardly thanked Heaven that his back was
+turned and started to pass him as softly as possible.
+
+"Just a minute, Ruth," he called, as she was almost at the door of the
+room.
+
+For a moment there was a frantic impulse in her to bolt like a foolish
+child afraid of the dark. In the next apartment were light and warmth
+and eager faces and smiles and laughter, and here, behind her, was the
+very spirit of darkness calling her back. After an imperceptible
+hesitation she turned.
+
+Mark had not turned in his chair, but it was easy to discover how he had
+known of her passing. A small oval mirror, fixed against the wall before
+him, had shown her image. How much had it betrayed, she wondered, of her
+guiltily stealthy pace? She went to him and found that he was leisurely
+and openly examining her in the glass, as she approached, his chin
+resting on one hand, his thin face perfectly calm, his eyes hazy with
+content. It was a habit of his to regard her like a picture, but she had
+never become used to it; she was always disconcerted by it, as she was
+at this moment.
+
+He rose, of course, when she was beside him, and asked her to sit down.
+
+"But I've hardly touched a card," she said. "This isn't very
+professional, you know, wasting a whole evening."
+
+She was astonished to see him flush to the roots of his hair. His voice
+shook. "Sit down, please."
+
+She obeyed, positively inert with surprise.
+
+"Do you think I keep you at this detestable business because I want the
+money?" he asked. "Dear Heaven! Ruth, is that what you think of me?"
+Fortunately, before she could answer, he went on: "No, no, no! I have
+wanted to make you a free and independent being, my dear, and that is
+why I have put you through the most dangerous and exacting school in the
+world. You understand?"
+
+"I think I do," she replied falteringly.
+
+"But not entirely. Let me pour you some tea? No?"
+
+He sighed, as he blew forth the smoke of a cigarette. "But you don't
+understand entirely," he continued, "and you must. Go back to the old
+days, when you knew nothing of the world but me. Can you remember?"
+
+"Yes, yes!"
+
+"Then you certainly recall a time when, if I had simply given
+directions, you would have been mine, Ruth. I could have married you the
+moment you became a woman. Is that true?" "Yes," she whispered, "that is
+perfectly true." The coldness that passed over her taught her for the
+first time how truly she dreaded that marriage which had been postponed,
+but which inevitably hung over her head.
+
+"But I didn't want such a wife," continued John Mark. "You would have
+been an undeveloped child, really; you would never have grown up. No
+matter what they say, something about a woman is cut off at the root
+when she marries. Certainly, if she had not been free before, she is a
+slave if she marries a man with a strong will. And I have a strong will,
+Ruth--very strong!"
+
+"Very strong, John," she whispered again. He smiled faintly, as if there
+were less of what he wanted in that second use of the name. He went on:
+"So you see, I faced a problem. I must and would marry you. There was
+never any other woman born who was meant for me. So much so good. But,
+if I married you before you were wise enough to know me, you would have
+become a slave, shrinking from me, yielding to me, incapable of loving
+me. No, I wanted a free and independent creature as my wife; I wanted a
+partnership, you see. Put you into the world, then, and let you see men
+and women? No, I could not do that in the ordinary way. I have had to
+show you the hard and bad side of life, because I am, in many ways, a
+hard and bad man myself!"
+
+He said it, almost literally, through his teeth. His face was fierce,
+defying her--his eyes were wistful, entreating her not to agree with
+him. Such a sudden rush of pity for the man swept over her that she put
+out her hand and pressed his. He looked down at her hand for a moment,
+and she felt his fingers trembling under that gentle pressure.
+
+"I understand more now," she said slowly, "than I have ever understood
+before. But I'll never understand entirely."
+
+"A thing that's understood entirely is despised," he said, with a
+careless sweep of his hand. "A thing that is understood is not feared. I
+wish to be feared, not to make people cower, but to make them know when
+I come, and when I go. Even love is nothing without a seasoning of fear.
+For instance"--he flushed as the torrent of his speech swept him into a
+committal of himself--"I am afraid of you, dear girl. Do you know what I
+have done with the money you've won?"
+
+"Tell me," she said curiously, and, at the same time, she glanced in
+wonder, as a servant passed softly across the little room. Was it not
+stranger than words could tell that such a man as John Mark should be
+sitting in this almost public place and pouring his soul out into the
+ear of a girl?
+
+"I shall tell you," said Mark, his voice softening. "I have contributed
+half of it to charity."
+
+Her lips, compressed with doubt, parted in wonder. "Charity!" she
+exclaimed.
+
+"And the other half," he went on, "I deposited in a bank to the credit
+of a fictitious personality. That fictitious personality is, in flesh
+and blood, Ruth Tolliver with a new name. You understand? I have only to
+hand you the bank book with the list of deposits, and you can step out
+of this Tolliver personality and appear in a new part of the world as
+another being. Do you see what it means? If, at the last, you find you
+cannot marry me, my dear, you are provided for. Not out of my charity,
+which would be bitter to you, but out of your own earnings. And, lest
+you should be horrified at the thought of living on your earnings at the
+gaming table, I have thrown bread on the waters, dear Ruth. For every
+dollar you have in the bank you have given another to charity, and both,
+I hope, have borne interest for you!"
+
+His smile faded a little, as she murmured, with her glance going past
+him: "Then I am free? Free, John?"
+
+"Whenever you wish!"
+
+"Not that I ever shall wish, but to know that I am not chained, that is
+the wonderful thing." She looked directly at him again: "I never dreamed
+there was so much fineness in you, John Mark, I never dreamed it, but I
+should have!"
+
+"Now I have been winning Caroline to the game," he went on, "and she is
+beginning to love it. In another year, or six months, trust me to have
+completely filled her with the fever. But now enters the mischief-maker
+in the piece, a stranger, an ignorant outsider. This incredible man
+arrives and, in a few days, having miraculously run Caroline to earth,
+goes on and brings Caroline face to face with her lover, teaches Jerry
+Smith that I am his worst enemy, gets enough money to pay off his debt
+to me, and convinces him that I can never use my knowledge of his crime
+to jail him, because I don't dare bring the police too close to my own
+rather explosive record."
+
+"I saw them both here!" said the girl. She wondered how much he guessed,
+and she saw his keen eyes probe her with a glance. But her
+ingenuousness, if it did not disarm him, at least dulled the edge of his
+suspicions.
+
+"He was here, and the trap was laid here, and he slipped through it. Got
+away through a certain room which Fernand would give a million to keep
+secret. At any rate the fellow has shown that he is slippery and has a
+sting, too. He sent a bullet a fraction of an inch past Fernand's head,
+at one point in the little story.
+
+"In short, the price is too high. What I want is to secure Caroline
+Smith from the inside. I want you to go to her, to persuade her to go
+away with you on a trip. Take her to the Bermudas, or to Havana--any
+place you please. The moment the Westerner thinks his lady is running
+away from him of her own volition he'll throw up his hands and curse his
+luck and go home. They have that sort of pride on the other side of the
+Rockies. Will you go back tonight, right now, and persuade Caroline to
+go with you?"
+
+She bowed her head under the shock of it. Ronicky Doone had begged her
+to send Caroline Smith to meet her lover. Now the counterattack
+followed.
+
+"Do you think she'd listen?"
+
+"Yes, tell her that the one thing that will save the head of Bill Gregg
+is for her to go away, otherwise I'll wipe the fool off the map. Better
+still, tell her that Gregg of his own free will has left New York and
+given up the chase. Tell her you want to console her with a trip. She'll
+be sad and glad and flattered, all in the same moment, and go along with
+you without a word. Will you try, Ruth?"
+
+"I suppose you would have Bill Gregg removed--if he continued a
+nuisance?"
+
+"Not a shadow of a doubt. Will you do your best?"
+
+She rose. "Yes," said the girl. Then she managed to smile at him. "Of
+course I'll do my best. I'll go back right now."
+
+He took her arm to the door of the room. "Thank Heaven," he said, "that
+I have one person in whom I can trust without question--one who needs no
+bribing or rewards, but works to please me. Good-by, my dear."
+
+He watched her down the hall and then turned and went through room after
+room to the rear of the house. There he rapped on a door in a peculiar
+manner. It was opened at once, and Harry Morgan appeared before him.
+
+"A rush job, Harry," he said. "A little shadowing."
+
+Harry jerked his cap lower over his eyes. "Gimme the smell of the trail,
+I'm ready," he said.
+
+"Ruth Tolliver has just left the house. Follow her. She'll probably go
+home. She'll probably talk with Caroline Smith. Find a way of listening.
+If you hear anything that seems wrong to you--anything about Caroline
+leaving the house alone, for instance, telephone to me at once. Now go
+and work, as you never worked for me before."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Twenty-three
+
+
+_Caroline takes Command_
+
+Ruth left the gaming house of Frederic Fernand entirely convinced that
+she must do as John Mark had told her--work for him as she had never
+worked before. The determination made her go home to Beekman Place as
+fast as a taxicab would whirl her along.
+
+It was not until she had climbed to Caroline Smith's room and opened the
+door that her determination faltered. For there she saw the girl lying
+on her bed weeping. And it seemed to the poor, bewildered brain of Ruth
+Tolliver, as if the form of Ronicky Doone, passionate and eager as
+before, stood at her side and begged her again to send Caroline Smith
+across the street to a lifelong happiness, and she could do it. Though
+Mark had ordered the girl to be confined to her room until further
+commands were given on the subject, no one in the house would think of
+questioning Ruth Tolliver, if she took the girl downstairs to the street
+and told her to go on her way.
+
+She closed the door softly and, going to the bed, touched the shoulder
+of Caroline. The poor girl sat up slowly and turned a stained and
+swollen face to Ruth. If there was much to be pitied there was something
+to be laughed at, also. Ruth could not forbear smiling. But Caroline was
+clutching at her hands.
+
+"He's changed his mind?" she asked eagerly. "He's sent you to tell me
+that he's changed his mind, Ruth? Oh, you've persuaded him to it--like
+an angel--I know you have!"
+
+Ruth Tolliver freed herself from the reaching hands, moistened the end
+of a towel in the bathroom and began to remove the traces of tears from
+the face of Caroline Smith. That face was no longer flushed, but growing
+pale with excitement and hope.
+
+"It's true?" she kept asking. "It is true, Ruth?"
+
+"Do you love him as much as that?"
+
+"More than I can tell you--so much more!"
+
+"Try to tell me then, dear."
+
+Talking of her love affair began to brighten the other girl, and now she
+managed a wan smile. "His letters were very bad. But, between the lines,
+I could read so much real manhood, such simple honesty, such a heart,
+such a will to trust! Ruth, are you laughing at me?"
+
+"No, no, far from that! It's a thrilling thing to hear, my dear."
+
+For she was remembering that in another man there might be found these
+same qualities. Not so much simplicity, perhaps, but to make up for it,
+a great fire of will and driving energy.
+
+"But I didn't actually know that I was in love. Even when I made the
+trip West and wrote to him to meet the train on my return--even then I
+was only guessing. When he didn't appear at the station I went cold and
+made up my mind that I would never think of him again."
+
+"But when you saw him in the street, here?"
+
+"John Mark had prepared me and hardened me against that meeting, and I
+was afraid even to think for myself. But, when Ronicky Doone--bless
+him!--talked to me in your room, I knew what Bill Gregg must be, since
+he had a friend who would venture as much for him as Ronicky Doone did.
+It all came over me in a flash. I did love him--I did, indeed!"
+
+"Yes, yes," whispered Ruth Tolliver, nodding and smiling faintly. "I
+remember how he stood there and talked to you. He was like a man on
+fire. No wonder that a spark caught in you, Caroline. He--he's a--very
+fine-looking fellow, don't you think, Caroline?"
+
+"Bill Gregg? Yes, indeed."
+
+"I mean Ronicky."
+
+"Of course! Very handsome!"
+
+There was something in the voice of Caroline that made Ruth look down
+sharply to her face, but the girl was clever enough to mask her
+excitement and delight.
+
+"Afterward, when you think over what he has said, it isn't a great deal,
+but at the moment he seems to know a great deal--about what's going on
+inside one, don't you think, Caroline?"
+
+These continual appeals for advice, appeals from the infallible Ruth
+Tolliver, set the heart of Caroline beating. There was most certainly
+something in the wind.
+
+"I think he does," agreed Caroline, masking her eyes. "He has a way,
+when he looks at you, of making you feel that he isn't thinking of
+anything else in the world but you."
+
+"Does he have that same effect on every one?" asked Ruth. She added,
+after a moment of thought, "Yes, I suppose it's just a habit of his. I
+wish I knew."
+
+"Why?" queried Caroline, unable to refrain from the stinging little
+question.
+
+"Oh, for no good reason--just that he's an odd character. In my work,
+you know, one has to study character. Ronicky Doone is a different sort
+of man, don't you think?"
+
+"Very different, dear."
+
+Then a great inspiration came to Caroline. Ruth was a key which, she
+knew, could unlock nearly any door in the house of John Mark.
+
+"Do you know what we are going to do?" she asked gravely, rising.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"We're going to open that door together, and we're going down the
+stairs--together."
+
+"Together? But we--Don't you know John Mark has given orders--"
+
+"That I'm not to leave the room. What difference does that make? They
+won't dare stop us if you are with me, leading the way."
+
+"Caroline, are you mad? When I come back--"
+
+"You're not coming back."
+
+"Not coming back!"
+
+"No, you're going on with me!"
+
+She took Ruth by the arms and turned her until the light struck into her
+eyes. Ruth Tolliver, aghast at this sudden strength in one who had
+always been a meek follower, obeyed without resistance.
+
+"But where?" she demanded.
+
+"Where I'm going."
+
+"What?"
+
+"To Ronicky Doone, my dear. Don't you see?"
+
+The insistence bewildered Ruth Tolliver. She felt herself driven
+irresistibly forward, with or without her own will.
+
+"Caroline," she protested, trying feebly to free herself from the
+commanding hands and eyes of her companion, "are you quite mad? Go to
+him? Why should I? How can I?"
+
+"Not as I'm going to Bill Gregg, with my heart in my hands, but to ask
+Ronicky Doone--bless him!--to take you away somewhere, so that you can
+begin a new life. Isn't that simple?"
+
+"Ask charity of a stranger?"
+
+"You know he isn't a stranger, and you know it isn't charity. He'll be
+happy. He's the kind that's happy when he's being of use to others?"
+
+"Yes," answered Ruth Tolliver, "of course he is."
+
+"And you'd trust him?"
+
+"To the end of the world. But to leave--"
+
+"Ruth, you've kept cobwebs before your eyes so long that you don't see
+what's happening around you. John Mark hypnotizes you. He makes you
+think that the whole world is bad, that we are simply making capital out
+of our crimes. As a matter of fact, the cold truth is that he has made
+me a thief, Ruth, and he has made you something almost as bad--a
+gambler!"
+
+The follower had become the leader, and she was urging Ruth Tolliver
+slowly to the door. Ruth was protesting--she could not throw herself on
+the kindness of Ronicky Doone--it could not be done. It would be
+literally throwing herself at his head. But here the door opened, and
+she allowed herself to be led out into the hall. They had not made more
+than half a dozen steps down its dim length when the guard hurried
+toward them.
+
+"Talk to him," whispered Caroline Smith. "He's come to stop me, and
+you're the only person who can make him let me pass on!"
+
+The guard hurriedly came up to them. "Sorry," he said. "Got an idea
+you're going downstairs, Miss Smith."
+
+"Yes," she said faintly.
+
+The fellow grinned. "Not yet. You'll stay up here till the chief gives
+the word. And I got to ask you to step back into your room, and step
+quick." His voice grew harsh, and he came closer. "He told me straight,
+you're not to come out."
+
+Caroline had shrunk back, and she was on the verge of turning when the
+arm of Ruth was passed strongly around her shoulders and stayed her.
+
+"She's going with me," she told John Mark's bulldog. "Does that make a
+difference to you?"
+
+He ducked his head and grinned feebly in his anxiety. "Sure it makes a
+difference. You go where you want, any time you want, but this--"
+
+"I say she's going with me, and I'm responsible for her."
+
+She urged Caroline forward, and the latter made a step, only to find
+that she was directly confronted by the guard.
+
+"I got my orders," he said desperately to Ruth.
+
+"Do you know who I am?" she asked hotly.
+
+"I know who you are," he answered, "and, believe me, I would not start
+bothering you none, but I got to keep this lady back. I got the orders."
+
+"They're old orders," insisted Ruth Tolliver, "and they have been
+changed."
+
+"Not to my knowing," replied the other, less certain in his manner.
+
+Ruth seized the critical moment to say: "Walk on, Caroline. If he blocks
+your way--" She did not need to finish the sentence, for, as Caroline
+started on, the guard slunk sullenly to one side of the corridor.
+
+"It ain't my doings," he said. "But they got two bosses in this joint,
+and one of them is a girl. How can a gent have any idea which way he
+ought to step in a pinch? Go on, Miss Smith, but you'll be answered
+for!"
+
+They hardly heard the last of these words, as they turned down the
+stairway, hurrying, but not fast enough to excite the suspicion of the
+man behind them.
+
+"Oh, Ruth," whispered Caroline Smith. "Oh, Ruth!"
+
+"It was close," said Ruth Tolliver, "but we're through. And, now that
+I'm about to leave it, I realize how I've hated this life all these
+years. I'll never stop thanking you for waking me up to it, Caroline."
+
+They reached the floor of the lower hall, and a strange thought came to
+Ruth. She had hurried home to execute the bidding of John Mark. She had
+left it, obeying the bidding of Ronicky Doone.
+
+They scurried to the front door. As they opened it the sharp gust of
+night air blew in on them, and they heard the sound of a man running up
+the steps. In a moment the dim hall light showed on the slender form and
+the pale face of John Mark standing before them.
+
+Caroline felt the start of Ruth Tolliver. For her part she was on the
+verge of collapse, but a strong pressure from the hand of her companion
+told her that she had an ally in the time of need.
+
+"Tut tut!" Mark was saying, "what's this? How did Caroline get out of
+her room--and with you, Ruth?"
+
+"It's idiotic to keep her locked up there all day and all night, in
+weather like this," said Ruth, with a perfect calm that restored
+Caroline's courage almost to the normal. "When I talked to her this
+evening I made up my mind that I'd take her out for a walk."
+
+"Well," replied John Mark, "that might not be so bad. Let's step inside
+and talk it over for a moment."
+
+They retreated, and he entered and clicked the door behind him. "The
+main question is, where do you intend to walk?"
+
+"Just in the street below the house."
+
+"Which might not lead you across to the house on the other side?"
+
+"Certainly not! I shall be with her."
+
+"But suppose both of you go into that house, and I lose two birds
+instead of one? What of that, my clever Ruth?"
+
+She knew at once, by something in his voice rather than his words, that
+he had managed to learn the tenor of the talk in Caroline's room. She
+asked bluntly: "What are you guessing at?"
+
+"Nothing. I only speak of what I know. No single pair of ears is enough
+for a busy man. I have to hire help, and I get it. Very effective help,
+too, don't you agree?"
+
+"Eavesdropping!" exclaimed Ruth bitterly. "Well--it's true, John Mark.
+You sent me to steal her from her lover, and I've tried to steal her for
+him in the end. Do you know why? Because she was able to show me what a
+happy love might mean to a woman. She showed me that, and she showed me
+how much courage love had given her. So I began to guess a good many
+things, and, among the rest, I came to the conclusion that I could never
+truly love you, John Mark.
+
+"I've spoken quickly," she went on at last. "It isn't that I have feared
+you all the time--I haven't been playing a part, John, on my word.
+Only--tonight I learned something new. Do you see?"
+
+"Heaven be praised," said John Mark, "that we all have the power of
+learning new things, now and again. I congratulate you. Am I to suppose
+that Caroline was your teacher?"
+
+He turned from her and faced Caroline Smith, and, though he smiled on
+her, there was a quality in the smile that shriveled her very soul with
+fear. No matter what he might say or do this evening to establish
+himself in the better graces of the girl he was losing, his malice was
+not dead. That she knew.
+
+"She was my teacher," answered Ruth steadily, "because she showed me,
+John, what a marvelous thing it is to be free. You understand that all
+the years I have been with you I have never been free?"
+
+"Not free?" he asked, the first touch of emotion showing in his voice.
+"Not free, my dear? Was there ever the least wish of yours since you
+were a child that I did not gratify? Not one, Ruth; not one, surely, of
+which I am conscious!"
+
+"Because I had no wishes," she answered slowly, "that were not suggested
+by something that you liked or disliked. You were the starting point of
+all that I desired. I was almost afraid to think until I became sure
+that you approved of my thinking."
+
+"That was long ago," he said gravely. "Since those old days I see you
+have changed greatly."
+
+"Because of the education you gave me," she answered.
+
+"Yes, yes, that was the great mistake. I begin to see. Heaven, one might
+say, gave you to me. I felt that I must improve on the gift of Heaven
+before I accepted you. There was my fault. For that I must pay the great
+penalty. Kismet! And now, what is it you wish?"
+
+"To leave at once."
+
+"A little harsh, but necessary, if you will it. There is the door, free
+to you. The change of identity of which I spoke to you is easily
+arranged. I have only to take you to the bank and that is settled. Is
+there anything else?"
+
+"Only one thing--and that is not much."
+
+"Very good."
+
+"You have given so much," she ran on eagerly, "that you will give one
+thing more--out of the goodness of that really big heart of yours, John,
+dear!"
+
+He winced under that pleasantly tender word.
+
+And she said: "I want to take Caroline with me--to freedom and the man
+she loves. That is really all!"
+
+The lean fingers of John Mark drummed on the back of the chair, while he
+smiled down on her, an inexplicable expression on his face.
+
+"Only that?" he asked. "My dear, how strange you women really are! After
+all these years of study I should have thought that you would, at least,
+have partially comprehended me. I see that is not to be. But try to
+understand that I divide with a nice distinction the affairs of
+sentiment and the affairs of business. There is only one element in my
+world of sentiment--that is you. Therefore, ask what you want and take
+it for yourself; but for Caroline, that is an entirely different matter.
+No, Ruth, you may take what you will for yourself, but for her, for any
+other living soul, not a penny, not a cent will I give. Can you
+comprehend it? Is it clear? As for giving her freedom, nothing under
+Heaven could persuade me to it!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Twenty-four
+
+
+_The Ultimate Sacrifice_
+
+She stared at him, as the blow fell, and then her glance turned slowly
+to Caroline who had uttered a sharp cry and sunk into a chair.
+
+"Help me, Ruth," she implored pitifully. "No other person in the world
+can help me but you!"
+
+"Do you see that," asked Ruth quietly of John Mark, "and still it
+doesn't move you?"
+
+"Not a hairbreadth, my dear."
+
+"But isn't it absurd? Suppose I have my freedom, and I tell the police
+that in this house a girl against her will--"
+
+"Tush, my dear! You really do not know me at all. Do you think they can
+reach me? She may be a hundred miles away before you have spoken ten
+words to the authorities."
+
+"But I warn you that all your holds on her are broken. She knows that
+you have no holds over her brother. She knows that Ronicky Doone has
+broken them all--that Jerry is free of you!"
+
+"Ronicky Doone," said Mark, his face turning gray, "is a talented man.
+No doubt of it; his is a very peculiar and incisive talent, I admit.
+But, though he has broken all the old holds, there are ways of finding
+new ones. If you leave now, I can even promise you, my dear, that,
+before the next day dawns, the very soul of Caroline will be a pawn in
+my hands. Do you doubt it? Such an exquisitely tender, such a delicate
+soul as Caroline, can you doubt that I can form invisible bonds which
+will hold her even when she is a thousand miles away from me? Tush, my
+dear; think again, and you will think better of my ability."
+
+"Suppose," Ruth said, "I were to offer to stay?"
+
+He bowed. "You tempt me, with such overwhelming generosity, to become
+even more generous myself and set her free at once. But, alas, I am
+essentially a practical man. If you will stay with me, Ruth, if you
+marry me at once, why, then indeed this girl is as free as the wind.
+Otherwise I should be a fool. You see, my dear, I love you so that I
+must have you by fair means or foul, but I cannot put any chain upon you
+except your own word. I confess it, you see, even before this poor girl,
+if she is capable of understanding, which I doubt. But speak again--do
+you make the offer?"
+
+She hesitated, and he went on: "Be careful. I have had you once, and I
+have lost you, it seems. If I have you again there is no power in
+you--no power between earth and heaven to take you from me a second
+time. Give yourself to me with a word, and I shall make you mine
+forever. Then Caroline shall go free--free as the wind--to her lover, my
+dear, who is waiting."
+
+He made no step toward her, and he kept his voice smooth and clear. Had
+he done otherwise he knew that she would have shrunk. She looked to him,
+she looked to Caroline Smith. The latter had suddenly raised her head
+and thrown out her hands, with an unutterable appeal in her eyes. At
+that mute appeal Ruth Tolliver surrendered.
+
+"It's enough," she said. "I think there would be no place for me after
+all. What could I do in the world except what you've taught me to do?
+No, let Caroline go freely, and I give my--"
+
+"Stop!"
+
+He checked her with his raised hand, and his eyes blazed and glittered
+in the dead whiteness of his face. "Don't give me your word, my dear. I
+don't want that chain to bind you. There might come a time when some
+power arose strong enough to threaten to take you from me. Then I want
+to show you that I don't need your promise. I can hold you for myself.
+Only come to me and tell me simply that you will be mine if you can.
+Will you do that?"
+
+She crossed the room slowly and stood before him. "I will do that," she
+said faintly, half closing her eyes. She had come so close that, if he
+willed, he could have taken her in his arms. She nerved herself against
+it; then she felt her hand taken, raised and touched lightly against
+trembling lips. When she stepped back she knew that the decisive moment
+of her life had been passed.
+
+"You are free to go," said John Mark to Caroline. "Therefore don't wait.
+Go at once."
+
+"Ruth!" whispered the girl.
+
+Ruth Tolliver turned away, and the movement brought Caroline beside her,
+with a cry of pain. "Is it what I think?" she asked. "Are you making the
+sacrifice all for me? You don't really care for him, Ruth, and--"
+
+"Caroline!" broke in John Mark.
+
+She turned at the command of that familiar voice, as if she had been
+struck with a whip. He had raised the curtain of the front window beside
+the door and was pointing up and across the street.
+
+"I see the window of Gregg's room," he said. "A light has just appeared
+in it. I suppose he is waiting. But, if you wish to go, your time is
+short--very short!"
+
+An infinite threat was behind the calmness of the voice. She could only
+say to Ruth: "I'll never forget." Then she fled down the hall and
+through the door, and the two within heard the sharp patter of her
+heels, as she ran down to the street.
+
+It was freedom for Caroline, and Ruth, lifting her eyes, looked into the
+face of the man she was to marry. She could have held out, she felt, had
+it not been for the sound of those departing footsteps, running so
+blithely toward a lifetime of happiness. Even as it was she made herself
+hold out. Then a vague astonishment came to clear her mind. There was no
+joy in the face of John Mark, only a deep and settled pain.
+
+"You see," he said, with a smile of anguish, "I have done it. I have
+bought the thing I love, and that, you know, is the last and deepest
+damnation. If another man had told me that I was capable of such a
+thing, I'd have killed him on the spot. But now I have done it!"
+
+"I think I'll go up to my room," she answered, her eyes on the floor.
+She made herself raise them to his. "Unless you wish to talk to me
+longer?"
+
+She saw him shudder.
+
+"If you can help it," he said, "don't make me see the brand I have put
+on you. Don't, for Heaven's sake, cringe to me if you can help it."
+
+"Very well," she said.
+
+He struck his clenched hand against his face. "It's the price," he
+declared through his teeth, "and I accept it." He spoke more to himself
+than to her, and then directly: "Will you let me walk up with you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He took her passive arm. They went slowly, slowly up the stairs, for at
+each landing it seemed her strength gave out, and she had to pause for a
+brief rest; when she paused he spoke with difficulty, but with his heart
+in every word.
+
+"You remember the old Greek fable, Ruth? The story about all the pains
+and torments which flew out of Pandora's box, and how Hope came out
+last--that blessed Hope--and healed the wounds? Here, a moment after the
+blow has fallen, I am hoping again like a fool. I am hoping that I shall
+teach you to forget; or, if I cannot teach you to forget, than I shall
+even make you glad of what you have done tonight."
+
+The door closed on her, and she was alone. Raising her head she found
+she was looking straight across the street to the lighted windows of the
+rooms of Ronicky Doone and Bill Gregg. While she watched she saw the
+silhouette of a man and woman running to each other, saw them clasped in
+each other's arms. Ruth dropped to her knees and buried her face in her
+hands.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Twenty-five
+
+
+_Unhappy Freedom_
+
+Once out in the street Caroline had cast one glance of terror over her
+shoulder at the towering facade of the house of John Mark, then she
+fled, as fast as her feet would carry her, straight across the street
+and up the steps of the rooming house and frantically up the stairs, a
+panic behind her.
+
+Presently she was tapping hurriedly and loudly on a door, while, with
+her head turned, she watched for the coming of some swift-avenging
+figure from behind. John Mark had given her up, but it was impossible
+for John Mark to give up anything. When would he strike? That was the
+only question.
+
+Then the door opened. The very light that poured out into the dim hall
+was like the reach of a friendly hand, and there was Ronicky Doone
+laughing for pure joy--and there was Bill Gregg's haggard face, as if he
+saw a ghost.
+
+"I told you, Bill, and here she is!"
+
+After that she forgot Ronicky Doone and the rest of the world except
+Gregg, as he took her in his arms and asked over and over: "How did it
+come about? How did it come about?"
+
+And over and over she answered: "It was Ronicky, Bill. We owe everything
+to him and Ruth Tolliver."
+
+This brought from Ronicky a sudden question: "And what of her? What of
+Ruth Tolliver? She wouldn't come?"
+
+It pricked the bubble of Caroline's happiness, that question. Staring at
+the frowning face of Ronicky Doone her heart for a moment misgave her.
+How could she tell the truth? How could she admit her cowardice which
+had accepted Ruth's great sacrifice?
+
+"No," she said at last, "Ruth stayed."
+
+"Talk about that afterward, Ronicky," pleaded Bill Gregg. "I got about a
+million things to say to Caroline."
+
+"I'm going to talk now," said Ronicky gravely. "They's something queer
+about the way Caroline said that. Will you let me ask you a few more
+questions?"
+
+"Won't you wait?" asked Caroline, in an agony of remorse and shame.
+"Won't you wait till the morning?"
+
+Ronicky Doone walked up and down the room for a moment. He had no wish
+to break in upon the long delayed happiness of these two. While he paced
+he heard Bill Gregg saying that they must start at once and put three
+thousand miles between them and that devil, John Mark; and he heard
+Caroline say that there was no longer anything to fear--the claws of the
+devil had been trimmed, and he would not reach after them--he had
+promised. At that Ronicky whirled sharply on them again.
+
+"What made Mark change his mind about you?" he asked. "He isn't the sort
+to change his mind without a pretty good reason. What bought him off?
+Nothing but a price would change him, I guess."
+
+And she had to admit: "It was Ruth."
+
+"She paid the price?" he asked harshly. "How, Caroline?"
+
+"She promised to marry him, Ronicky."
+
+The bitter truth was coming now, and she cringed as she spoke it. The
+tall body of Ronicky Doone was trembling with excitement.
+
+"She made that promise so that you could go free, Caroline?"
+
+"No, no!" exclaimed Bill Gregg.
+
+"It's true," said the girl. "We were about to leave together when John
+Mark stopped us."
+
+"Ruth was coming with you?" asked Ronicky.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And when Mark stopped you she offered herself in exchange for your
+freedom?"
+
+"Y-yes!"
+
+Both she and Bill Gregg looked apprehensively at the dark face of
+Ronicky Doone, where a storm was gathering.
+
+But he restrained his anger with a mighty effort. "She was going to cut
+away from that life and start over--is that straight, Caroline?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Get the police, Ronicky," said Bill Gregg. "They sure can't hold no
+woman agin' her will in this country."
+
+"Don't you see that it is her will?" asked Ronicky Doone darkly. "Ain't
+she made a bargain? Don't you think she's ready and willing to live up
+to it? She sure is, son, and she'll go the limit to do what she's said
+she'll do. You stay here--I'll go out and tackle the job."
+
+"Then I go, too," said Bill Gregg stoutly. "You been through enough for
+me. Here's where I go as far as you go. I'm ready when you're ready,
+Ronicky."
+
+It was so just an offer that even Caroline dared not cry out against it,
+but she sat with her hands clasped close together, her eyes begging
+Ronicky to let the offer go. Ronicky Doone nodded slowly.
+
+"I hoped you'd say that, Bill," he said. "But I'll tell you what: you
+stay here for a while, and I'll trot down and take a look around and try
+to figure out what's to be done. Can't just walk up and rap at the front
+door of the house, you know. And I can't go in the way I went before. No
+doubt about that. I got to step light. So let me go out and look around,
+will you, Bill? Then I'll come back and tell you what I've decided."
+
+Once in the street Ronicky looked dubiously across at the opposite
+house. He realized that more than an hour had passed since Caroline had
+left John Mark's house. What had happened to Ruth in that hour? The
+front of the house was lighted in two or three windows, but those lights
+could tell him nothing. From the inside of the house he could locate
+Ruth's room again, but from the outside it was impossible for him to do
+it.
+
+The whole house, of course, was thoroughly guarded against his attack,
+for attack they knew he would. The only question was from what angle he
+would deliver his assault. In that case, of course, the correct thing
+was to find the unexpected means. But how could he outguess a band of
+trained criminals? They would have foreseen far greater subtleties than
+any he could attempt. They would be so keen that the best way to take
+them by surprise might be simply to step up to the house, ring the door
+bell and enter, if the door were opened.
+
+The idea intrigued him at once. They might be, and no doubt were,
+guarding every obscure cellar window, every skylight. To trick them was
+impossible, but it was always possible to bluff any man--even John Mark
+and his followers.
+
+Straight across the street marched Ronicky Doone and up the steps of the
+opposite house and rang the bell--not a timid ring, but two sharp
+pressures, such as would announce a man in a hurry, a brisk man who did
+not wish to be delayed.
+
+He took only one precaution, pulling his hat down so that the black
+shadow of the brim would fall like a robber's mask across the upper part
+of his face. Then he waited, as a man both hurried and certain, turning
+a little away from the door, at an angle which still more effectually
+concealed him, while he tapped impatiently with one foot.
+
+Presently the door opened, after he made certain that someone had looked
+out at him from the side window. How much had they seen? How much had
+they guessed as to the identity of this night visitor? The softness of
+the opening of the door and the whisper of the wind, as it rushed into
+the hall beyond, were like a hiss of threatening secrecy. And then, from
+the shadow of that meager opening a voice was saying: "Who's there?"
+
+The very caution, however, reassured Ronicky Doone. Had they suspected
+that it was he they would either have kept the door definitely closed,
+or else they would have flung it open and boldly invited him in.
+
+"I want to see Harry Morgan--quick!" he said and stepped close to the
+door.
+
+At his bold approach the door was closed like the winking of an eye,
+until it was barely an inch ajar.
+
+"Keep back!" came the warning through this small opening. "Keep clear,
+bo!"
+
+"Damnation!" exclaimed Ronicky. "What's the idea? I want Harry, I tell
+you."
+
+"Harry ain't here."
+
+"Just hand me that piece of paper over there, and I'll write out the
+message," said Ronicky, pointing to the little table just beyond the
+doorman. The latter turned with a growl, and the moment he was halfway
+around Ronicky Doone sprang in. His right arm fastened around the head
+of the unlucky warder and, passing down to his throat, crushed it in a
+strangle hold. His other hand, darting out in strong precision, caught
+the right arm of the warder at the wrist and jerked it back between his
+shoulders. In an instant he was effectively gagged and bound by those
+two movements, and Ronicky Doone, pausing for an instant to make sure of
+himself, heard footsteps in the hall above.
+
+It was too late to do what he had hoped, yet he must take his prize out
+of the way. For that purpose he half carried, half dragged his victim
+through the doorway and into the adjoining room. There he deposited him
+on the floor, as near death as life. Relaxing his hold on the man's
+throat, he whipped out his Colt and tucked the cold muzzle under the
+chin of the other.
+
+"Now don't stir," he said; "don't whisper, don't move a muscle. Partner,
+I'm Ronicky Doone. Now talk quick. Where's Ruth Tolliver?"
+
+"Upstairs."
+
+"In her room?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Ronicky started to rise, then, for there had been a slight fraction of a
+second's pause before the victim answered, he changed his mind. "I ought
+to smash your head open for that lie," he said at a random guess. "Tell
+me straight, now, where's Ruth Tolliver?"
+
+"How can I tell, if she ain't in her room?"
+
+"Look," said Ronicky Doone, "if anyone comes into the hall before you've
+told me where the girl is, you're dead, partner. That's straight, now
+talk."
+
+"She's with Mark."
+
+"And where's he?"
+
+"He'd kill me if I tell."
+
+"Not if I find him before he finds you. His killing days are ended!
+Where's Mark and the girl? Has he run off with her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"They're married?" asked Ronicky, feeling that it might be a wild-goose
+chase after all.
+
+"I dunno."
+
+"But where are they?"
+
+"Heaven help me, then! Ill tell you."
+
+He began to whisper swiftly, incoherently, his voice shaking almost to
+silence, as he reached the heart of his narrative.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Twenty-six
+
+
+_Hills and Sea_
+
+The summerhouse lay in a valley between two hills; resting on the lawn
+before it Ruth Tolliver lay with her head pillowed back between her
+hands, and the broad brim of her straw that flopped down to shade her
+eyes. She could look up on either side to the sweep of grass, with the
+wind twinkling in it--grass that rolled smoothly up to the gentle blue
+sky beyond. On the one hand it was very near to her, that film of blue,
+but to her right the narrow, bright heads of a young poplar grove pushed
+up beyond the hilltop, and that made the sky fall back an immeasurable
+distance. Not very much variety in that landscape, but there was an
+infinite variety in the changes of the open-air silence. Overtones, all
+of them--but what a range!
+
+If she found that what was immediately overhead and beside her was too
+bland, if she wearied of that lovely drift of clouds across the sky,
+then she had only to raise herself upon one elbow and look down to the
+broad, white band of the earth, and the startling blue of the ocean
+beyond. She was a little way up among the hills, to be sure, but, in
+spite of her elevation, when she looked out toward the horizon it seemed
+that the sea was hollowed like a great bowl--that the horizon wave was
+apt at any moment to roll in upon the beach and overwhelm her among the
+hills.
+
+Not a very great excitement for such a girl as Ruth Tolliver, to be
+sure. Particularly when the faint crease between her eyes told of a
+perpetual worry and a strain under which she was now living. She was
+trying to lose herself in forgetfulness, in this open, drowsy climate.
+
+Behind her a leisurely step came down one of the garden paths. It
+brought her to attention at once. A shadow passed across her face, and
+instantly she was sitting up, alert and excited.
+
+John Mark sat down cross-legged beside her, a very changed John Mark,
+indeed. He wore white trousers and low white shoes, with a sack coat of
+blue--a cool-looking man even on this sultry day. The cane, which he
+insisted upon at all times, he had planted between his knees to help in
+the process of lowering himself to the ground. Now he hooked the head
+over his shoulder, pushed back his hat and smiled at the girl.
+
+"Everything is finished," he said calmly. "How well you look, Ruth--that
+hair of yours against the green grass. Everything is finished; the
+license and the clergyman will arrive here within the hour."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders. As a rule she tried at least to be politely
+acquiescent, but now and then something in her revolted. But John Mark
+was an artist in choosing remarks and moments which should not be
+noticed. Apparently her silence made not even a ripple on the calm
+surface of his assurance.
+
+He had been so perfectly diplomatic, indeed, during the whole affair,
+that she had come to respect and fear him more than ever. Even in that
+sudden midnight departure from the house in Beekman Place, in that
+unaccountable panic which made him decide to flee from the vicinity of
+Ronicky Doone--even in that critical moment he had made sure that there
+was a proper chaperon with them. During all her years with him he had
+always taken meticulous care that she should be above the slightest
+breath of suspicion--a strange thing when the work to which he had
+assigned her was considered.
+
+"Well," he asked, "now that you've seen, how do you like it? If you
+wish, we'll move today after the ceremony. It's only a temporary halting
+place, or it can be a more or less permanent home, just as you please."
+
+It rather amused her to listen to this deprecatory manner of speech. Of
+course she could direct him in small matters, but in such a thing as the
+choice of a residence she knew that in the end he would absolutely have
+his own way.
+
+"I don't know," she said. "I like silence just now. I'll stay here as
+long as you're contented."
+
+He pressed her hand very lightly; it was the only time he had caressed
+her since they left New York, and his hand left hers instantly.
+
+"Of course," he explained, "I'm glad to be at a distance for a time--a
+place to which we can't be followed."
+
+"By Ronicky Doone?" Her question had sprung impulsively to her lips.
+
+"Exactly." From the first he had been amazingly frank in confessing his
+fear of the Westerner. "Who else in the world would I care about for an
+instant? Where no other has ever crossed me once successfully, he has
+done so twice. That, you know, makes me begin to feel that my fate is
+wrapped up in the young devil."
+
+He shuddered at the thought, as if a cold wind had struck him.
+
+"I think you need not worry about him," said the girl faintly. "I
+suppose by this time he is in such a condition that he will never worry
+another soul in the world."
+
+The other turned and looked at her for a long, grave moment.
+
+"You think he attempted to break into the house?"
+
+"And didn't you expect the same thing? Why else did you leave New York?"
+
+"I confess that was my idea, but I think no harm has come to him. The
+chances are nine out of ten, at least, that he has not been badly hurt."
+
+She turned away, her hands clenched hard.
+
+"Oh my honor," he insisted with some emotion. "I gave directions that,
+if he made an attack, he was not to be harmed more than necessary to
+disarm him."
+
+"Knowing that to disarm him would mean to kill him."
+
+"Not at all. After all he is not such a terrible fellow as that--not at
+all, my dear. A blow, a shot might have dropped him. But, unless it were
+followed by a second, he would not be killed. Single shots and single
+blows rarely kill, you know."
+
+She nodded more hopefully, and then her eyes turned with a wide question
+upon her companion.
+
+He answered it at once with the utmost frankness.
+
+"You wonder why I gave such orders when I dread Doone--when I so dread
+Doone--when I so heartily want him out of my way forever? I'll tell you.
+If Doone were killed there would be a shadow between us at once. Not
+that I believe you love him--no, that cannot be. He may have touched
+your heart, but he cannot have convinced your head, and you are equal
+parts of brain and soul, my dear. Therefore you cannot love him."
+
+She controlled the faintest of smiles at the surety of his analysis. He
+could never escape from an old conclusion that the girl must be in large
+part his own product--he could never keep from attributing to her his
+own motives.
+
+"But just suppose," she said, "that Ronicky Doone broke into your house,
+forced one of your men to tell him where we are, and then followed us at
+once. He would be about due to arrive now. What if all that happened?"
+
+He smiled at her. "If all that happened, you are quite right; he would
+be about due to arrive. I suppose, being a Westerner, that the first
+thing he would do in the village would be to hire a horse to take him
+out here, and he would come galloping yonder, where you see that white
+road tossing over the hills."
+
+"And what if he does come?" she asked.
+
+"Then," said John Mark very gravely, "he will indeed be in serious
+danger. It will be the third time that he has threatened me. And the
+third time--"
+
+"You've prepared even for his coming here?" she asked, the thought
+tightening the muscles of her throat.
+
+"When you have such a man as Ronicky Doone on your hands," he confessed,
+"you have to be ready for anything. Yes, I have prepared. If he comes
+he'll come by the straightest route, certain that we don't expect him.
+He'll run blindly into the trap. Yonder--you see where the two hills
+almost close over the road--yonder is Shorty Kruger behind the rocks,
+waiting and watching. A very good gunman is Shorty. Know him?"
+
+"Yes," she said, shuddering. "Of course I know him."
+
+"But even suppose that the he passes Kruger--down there in the hollow,
+where the road bends in toward us, you can see Lefty himself. I wired
+him to come, and there he is."
+
+"Lefty?" asked the girl, aghast.
+
+"Lefty himself," said John Mark. "You see how much I respect Ronicky
+Doone's fighting properties? Yes, Lefty himself, the great, the
+infallible Lefty!"
+
+She turned her back on the white road which led from the village and
+faced the sea.
+
+"If we are down here long enough," he said, "I'll have a little wharf
+built inside that cove. You see? Then we can bring up a motor boat and
+anchor it in there. Do you know much about boats?"
+
+"Almost nothing."
+
+"That's true, but we'll correct it. Between you and me, if I had to
+choose between a boat and a horse I don't know which I should--"
+
+Two sharp detonations cut off his words. While he raised a startled hand
+for silence they remained staring at one another, and the long, faint
+echoes rolled across the hills.
+
+"A revolver shot first, far off," he said, "and then a rifle shot. That
+metallic clang always means a rifle shot."
+
+He turned, and she turned with him. Covering their eyes from the white
+light of the sun they peered at the distant road, where, as he had
+pointed out, the two hills leaned together and left a narrow footing
+between.
+
+"The miracle has happened," said John Mark in a perfectly sober voice.
+"It is Ronicky Doone!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Twenty-seven
+
+
+_The Last Stand_
+
+At the same instant she saw what his keener eye had discerned the moment
+before. A small trail of dust was blowing down the road, just below the
+place where the two hills leaned together. Under it was the dimly
+discernible, dust-veiled form of a horseman riding at full speed.
+
+"Fate is against me," said John Mark in his quiet way. "Why should this
+dare-devil be destined to hunt me? I can gain nothing by his death but
+your hate. And, if he succeeds in breaking through Lefty, as he has
+broken through Kruger, even then he shall win nothing. I swear it!"
+
+As he spoke he looked at her in gloomy resolution, but the girl was on
+fire--fear and joy were fighting in her face. In her ecstasy she was
+clinging to the man beside her.
+
+"Think of it--think of it!" she exclaimed. "He has done what I said he
+would do. Ah, I read his mind! Ronicky Doone, Ronicky Doone, was there
+ever your like under the wide, wide sky? He's brushed Kruger out of his
+way--"
+
+"Not entirely," said John Mark calmly, "not entirely, you see?"
+
+As he spoke they heard again the unmistakable sound of a rifle shot, and
+then another and another, ringing from the place where the two hills
+leaned over the road.
+
+"It's Kruger," declared John Mark calmly. "That chivalrous idiot, Doone,
+apparently shot him down and didn't wait to finish him. Very clever work
+on his part, but very sloppy. However, he seems to have wounded Kruger
+so badly that my gunman can't hit his mark."
+
+For Ronicky Doone, if it were indeed he, was still galloping down the
+road, more and more clearly discernible, while the rifle firing behind
+him ceased.
+
+"Of course that firing will be the alarm for Lefty," went on John Mark,
+seeming to enjoy the spectacle before him, as if it were a thing from
+which he was entirely detached. "And Lefty can make his choice. Kruger
+was his pal. If he wants to revenge the fall of Kruger he may shoot from
+behind a tree. If not, he'll shoot from the open, and it will be an even
+fight."
+
+The terror of it all, the whole realization, sprang up in the girl. In a
+moment she was crying: "Stop him, John--for Heaven's sake, find a way to
+stop him."
+
+"There is only one power that can turn the trick, I'm afraid," answered
+John Mark. "That power is Lefty."
+
+"If he shoots Lefty he'll come straight toward us on his way to the
+house, and if he sees you--"
+
+"If he sees me he'll shoot me, of course," declared Mark.
+
+She stared at him. "John," she said, "I know you're brave, but you won't
+try to face him?"
+
+"I'm fairly expert with a gun." He added: "But it's good of you to be
+concerned about me."
+
+"I am concerned, more than concerned, John. A woman has premonitions,
+and I tell you I know, as well as I know I'm standing here, that if you
+face Ronicky Doone you'll go down."
+
+"You're right," replied Mark. "I fear that I have been too much of a
+specialist, so I shall not face Doone."
+
+"Then start for the house--and hurry!"
+
+"Run away and leave you here?"
+
+The dust cloud and the figure of the rider in it were sweeping rapidly
+down on the grove in the hollow, where Lefty waited. And the girl was
+torn between three emotions: Joy at the coming of the adventurer, fear
+for him, terror at the thought of his meeting with Mark.
+
+"It would be murder, John! I'll go with you if you'll start now!"
+
+"No," he said quietly, "I won't run. Besides it is impossible for him to
+take you from me."
+
+"Impossible?" she asked. "What do you mean?"
+
+"When the time comes you'll see! Now he's nearly there--watch!"
+
+The rider was in full view now, driving his horse at a stretching
+gallop. There was no doubt about the identity of the man. They could not
+make out his face, of course, at that distance, but something in the
+careless dash of his seat in the saddle, something about the slender,
+erect body cried out almost in words that this was Ronicky Doone. A
+moment later the first treetops of the grove brushed across him, and he
+was lost from view.
+
+The girl buried her face in her hands, then she looked up. By this time
+he must have reached Lefty, and yet there was no sound of shooting. Had
+Lefty found discretion the better part of valor and let him go by
+unhindered? But, in that case, the swift gallop of the horse would have
+borne the rider through the grove by this time.
+
+"What's happened?" she asked of John Mark. "What can have happened down
+there?"
+
+"A very simple story," said Mark. "Lefty, as I feared, has been more
+chivalrous than wise. He has stepped out into the road and ordered
+Ronicky to stop, and Ronicky has stopped. Now he is sitting in his
+saddle, looking down to Lefty, and they are holding a parley--very like
+two knights of the old days, exchanging compliments before they try to
+cut each other's throats."
+
+But, even as he spoke, there was the sound of a gun exploding, and then
+a silence.
+
+"One shot--one revolver shot," said John Mark in his deadly calm voice.
+"It is as I said. They drew at a signal, and one of them proved far the
+faster. It was a dead shot, for only one was needed to end the battle.
+One of them is standing, the other lies dead under the shadow of that
+grove, my dear. Which is it?"
+
+"Which is it?" asked the girl in a whisper. Then she threw up her hands
+with a joyous cry: "Ronicky Doone! Ronicky, Ronicky Doone!"
+
+A horseman was breaking into view through the grove, and now he rode out
+into full view below them--unmistakably Ronicky Doone! Even at that
+distance he heard the cry, and, throwing up his hand with a shout that
+tingled faintly up to them, he spurred straight up the slope toward
+them. Ruth Tolliver started forward, but a hand closed over her wrist
+with a biting grip and brought her to a sudden halt. She turned to find
+John Mark, an automatic hanging loosely in his other hand.
+
+His calm had gone, and in his dead-white face the eyes were rolling and
+gleaming, and his set lips trembled. "You were right," he said, "I
+cannot face him. Not that I fear death, but there would be a thousand
+damnations in it if I died knowing that he would have you after my eyes
+were closed. I told you he could not take you--not living, my dear. Dead
+he may have us both."
+
+"John!" said the girl, staring and bewildered. "In the name of pity,
+John, in the name of all the goodness you have showed me, don't do it."
+
+He laughed wildly. "I am about to lose the one thing on earth I have
+ever cared for, and still I can smile. I am about to die by my own hand,
+and still I can smile. For the last time, will you stand up like your
+old brave self?"
+
+"Mercy!" she cried. "In Heaven's name--"
+
+"Then have it as you are!" he said, and she saw the sun flash on the
+steel, and he raised the gun.
+
+She closed her eyes--waited--heard the distant drumming of hoofs on the
+turf of the hillside. Then she caught the report of a gun.
+
+But it was strangely far away, that sound. She thought at first that the
+bullet must have numbed, as it struck her. Presently a shooting pain
+would pass through her body--then death.
+
+Opening her bewildered eyes she beheld John Mark staggering, the
+automatic lying on the ground, his hands clutching at his breast. Then
+glancing to one side she saw the form of Ronicky Doone riding as fast as
+spur would urge his horse, the long Colt balanced in his hand. That,
+then, was the shot she had heard--a long-range chance shot when he saw
+what was happening on top of the hill.
+
+So swift was Doone's coming that, by the time she had reached her feet
+again, he was beside her, and they leaned over John Mark together. As
+they did so Mark's eyes opened, then they closed again, as if with pain.
+When he looked again his sight was clear.
+
+"As I expected," he said dryly, "I see your faces together--both
+together, and actually wasting sympathy on me? Tush, tush! So rich in
+happiness that you can waste time on me?"
+
+"John," said the girl on her knees and weeping beside him, "you know
+that I have always cared for you, but as a brother, John, and not--"
+
+"Really," he said calmly, "you are wasting emotion. I am not going to
+die, and I wish you would put a bandage around me and send for some of
+the men at the house to carry me up there. That bullet of yours--by
+Harry, a very pretty snap shot--just raked across my breast, as far as I
+can make out. Perhaps it broke a bone or two, but that's all. Yes, I am
+to have the pleasure of living."
+
+His smile was ghastly thing, and, growing suddenly weak, as if for the
+first time in his life he allowed his indomitable spirit to relax, his
+head fell to one side, and he lay in a limp faint.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Twenty-eight
+
+
+_Hope Deferred_
+
+Time in six months brought the year to the early spring, that time when
+even the mountain desert forgets its sternness for a month or two. Six
+months had not made Bill Gregg rich from his mine, but it had convinced
+him, on the contrary, that a man with a wife must have a sure income,
+even if it be a small one.
+
+He squatted on a small piece of land, gathered a little herd, and,
+having thrown up a four-room shack, he and Caroline lived as happily as
+king and queen. Not that domains were very large, but, from their hut on
+the hill, they could look over a fine sweep of country, which did not
+all belong to them, to be sure, but which they constantly promised
+themselves should one day be theirs.
+
+It was the dull period of the afternoon, the quiet, waiting period which
+comes between three or four o'clock and the sunset, and Bill and his
+wife sat in the shadow of the mighty silver spruce before their door.
+The great tree was really more of a home for them than the roof they had
+built to sleep under.
+
+Presently Caroline stood up and pointed. "She's coming," she said, and,
+looking down the hillside, she smiled in anticipation.
+
+The rider below them, winding up the trail, looked up and waved, then
+urged her horse to a full gallop for the short remnant of the distance
+before her. It was Ruth Tolliver who swung down from the saddle,
+laughing and joyous from the ride.
+
+A strangely changed Ruth she was. She had turned to a brown beauty in
+the wind and the sun of the West, a more buoyant and more graceful
+beauty. She had accepted none of the offers of John Mark, but, leaving
+her old life entirely behind her, as Ronicky Doone had suggested, she
+went West to make her own living. With Caroline and Bill Gregg she had
+found a home, and her work was teaching the valley school, half a dozen
+miles away.
+
+"Any mail?" asked Bill, for she passed the distant group of mail boxes
+on her way to the school.
+
+At that the face of the girl darkened. "One letter," she said, "and I
+want you to read it aloud, Caroline. Then we'll all put our heads
+together and see if we can make out what it means." She handed the
+letter to Caroline, who shook it out. "It's from Ronicky," she
+exclaimed.
+
+"It's from Ronicky," said Ruth Tolliver gravely, so gravely that the
+other two raised their heads and cast silent glances at her.
+
+Caroline read aloud: "Dear Ruth, I figure that I'm overdue back at
+Bill's place by about a month--"
+
+"By two months," corrected Ruth soberly.
+
+"And I've got to apologize to them and you for being so late. Matter of
+fact I started right pronto to get back on time, but something turned
+up. You see, I went broke."
+
+Caroline dropped the letter with an exclamation. "Do you think he's gone
+back to gambling, Ruth?"
+
+"No," said the girl. "He gave me his promise never to play for money
+again, and a promise from Ronicky Doone is as good as minted gold."
+
+"It sure is," agreed Bill Gregg.
+
+Caroline went on with the letter: "I went broke because Pete Darnely was
+in a terrible hole, having fallen out with his old man, and Pete needed
+a lift. Which of course I gave him pronto, Pete being a fine gent."
+
+There was an exclamation of impatience from Ruth Tolliver.
+
+"Isn't that like Ronicky? Isn't that typical?"
+
+"I'm afraid it is," said the other girl with a touch of sadness. "Dear
+old Ronicky, but such a wild man!"
+
+She continued in the reading: "But I've got a scheme on now by which
+I'll sure get a stake and come back, and then you and me can get
+married, as soon as you feel like saying the word. The scheme is to find
+a lost mine--"
+
+"A lost mine!" shouted Bill Gregg, his practical miner's mind revolting
+at this idea. "My guns, is Ronicky plumb nutty? That's all he's got to
+do--just find a 'lost mine?' Well, if that ain't plenty, may I never see
+a yearling ag'in!"
+
+"Find a lost mine," went on Caroline, her voice trembling between tears
+and laughter, "and sink a new shaft, a couple of hundred feet to find
+where the old vein--"
+
+"Sink a shaft a couple of hundred feet!" said Bill Gregg. "And him
+broke! Where'll he get the money to sink the shaft?"
+
+"When we begin to take out the pay dirt," went on Caroline, "I'll either
+come or send for you and--"
+
+"Hush up!" said Bill Gregg softly.
+
+Caroline looked up and saw the tears streaming down the face of Ruth
+Tolliver. "I'm so sorry, poor dear!" she whispered, going to the other
+girl. But Ruth Tolliver shook her head.
+
+"I'm only crying," she said, "because it's so delightfully and
+beautifully and terribly like Ronicky to write such a letter and tell of
+such plans. He's given away a lot of money to help some spendthrift, and
+now he's gone to get more money by finding a lost mine!' But do you see
+what it means, Caroline? It means that he doesn't love me--really!"
+
+"Don't love you?" asked Bill Gregg. "Then he's a plumb fool. Why--"
+
+"Hush, Bill," put in Caroline. "You mustn't say that," she added to
+Ruth. "Of course you have reason to be sad about it and angry, too."
+
+"Sad, perhaps, but not angry," said Ruth Tolliver. "How could I ever be
+really angry with Ronicky? Hasn't he given me a chance to live a clean
+life? Hasn't he given me this big free open West to live in? And what
+would I be without Ronicky? What would have happened to me in New York?
+Oh, no, not angry. But I've simply waked up, Caroline. I see now that
+Ronicky never cared particularly about me. He was simply in love with
+the danger of my position. As a matter of fact I don't think he ever
+told me in so many words that he loved me. I simply took it for granted
+because he did such things for me as even a man in love would not have
+done. After the danger and uniqueness were gone Ronicky simply lost
+interest."
+
+"Don't say such things!" exclaimed Caroline.
+
+"It's true," said Ruth steadily. "If he really wanted to come
+here--well, did you ever hear of anything Ronicky wanted that he didn't
+get?"
+
+"Except money," suggested Bill Gregg. "Well, he even gets that, but most
+generally he gives it away pretty pronto."
+
+"He'd come like a bullet from a gun if he really wanted me," said Ruth.
+"No, the only way I can bring Ronicky is to surround myself with new
+dangers, terrible dangers, make myself a lost cause again. Then Ronicky
+would come laughing and singing, eager as ever. Oh, I think I know him!"
+
+"And what are you going to do?" asked Caroline.
+
+"The only thing I can do," said the other girl. "I'm going to wait."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Far, far north two horsemen came at that same moment to a splitting of
+the trail they rode. The elder, bearded man, pointed ahead.
+
+"That's the roundabout way," he said, "but it's sure the only safe way.
+We'll travel there, Ronicky, eh?"
+
+Ronicky Doone lifted his head, and his bay mare lifted her head at the
+same instant. The two were strangely in touch with one another.
+
+"I dunno," he said, "I ain't heard of anybody taking the short cut for
+years--not since the big slide in the canyon. But I got a feeling I'd
+sort of like to try it. Save a lot of time and give us a lot of fun."
+
+"Unless it breaks our necks."
+
+"Sure," said Ronicky, "but you don't enjoy having your neck safe and
+sound, unless you take a chance of breaking it, once in a while."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ronicky Doone, by Max Brand
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RONICKY DOONE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 11880-8.txt or 11880-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/8/8/11880/
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Nicolas Hayes, Dorota Sidor and PG
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
+eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
+compressed (zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
+the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
+are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
+download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
+search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
+download by the etext year. For example:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06
+
+    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
+     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)
+
+EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL
+
+