_CHAPTER FOUR_
When Connor wakened the next morning, after his first impression ofblinding light, he closed his eyes and waited for the sense of unhappydoom which usually comes to men of tense nerves and active life aftersleep; but, with slow and pleasant wonder, he realized that the oldnumbness of brain and fever of pulse was gone. Then he looked up andlazily watched the shadow of the vine at his window move across theceiling, a dim-bordered shadow continually changing as the wind gatheredthe leaves in solid masses and shook them out again. He pored upon thisfor a time, and next he watched a spider spinning a web in the corner;she worked in a draft which repeatedly lifted her from her place beforeshe had fastened her thread, and dropped her a foot or more into space.Connor sat up to admire the artisan's skill and courage. Compared to menand insects, the spider really worked over an abyss two hundred feetdeep, suspended by a silken thread. Connor slipped out of bed and stoodbeneath the growing web while the main cross threads were beingfastened. He had been there for some time when, turning away to rub theache out of the back of his neck, he again met the contrast between theman of this morning and the man of other days.
This time it was his image in the mirror, meeting him as he turned. Thatdeep wrinkle in the middle of the forehead was half erased. The lipswere neither compressed nor loose and shaking, and the eye was calm--itrested him to meet that glance in the mirror.
A mood of idle content always brings one to the window: Connor lookedout on the street. A horseman hopped past like a day shadow, thehoofbeats muffled by thick sand, and the wind, moving at an exactlyequal pace, carried a mist of dust just behind the horse's tail.Otherwise there was neither life nor color in the street ofweather-beaten, low buildings, and the eye of Connor went beyond theroofs and began to climb the mountains. Here was a bald bright cliff,there a drift of trees, and again a surface of raw clay from which theupper soil had recently slipped; but these were not stoppingpoints--they were rather the steps which led the glance to a sky of paleand transparent blue, and Connor felt a great desire to have that skyover him in place of a ceiling.
He splashed through a hasty bath, dressed, and ran down the stairs,humming. Jack Townsend stood on a box in the corner of the room, probingat a spider web in the corner.
"Too late for breakfast?" asked Connor.
The fat shoulders of the proprietor quivered, but he did not turn.
"Too late," he snapped. "Breakfast over at nine. No favorites up here."
Connor waited for the wave of irritation to rise in him, but to his ownsurprise he found himself saying:
"All right; you can't throw a good horse off his feed by cutting out onemeal."
Jack Townsend faced his guest, rubbing his many-folded chin.
"Don't take long for this mountain air to brace up a gent, does it?" heasked rather pointedly.
"I'll tell you what," said Connor. "It isn't the air so much; it's thepeople that do a fellow good."
"Well," admitted the proprietor modestly, "they may be something inthat. Kind of heartier out here, ain't they? More than in the city, Iguess. I'll tell you what," he added. "I'll go out and speak to themissus about a snack for you. It's late, but we like to be obligin'."
He climbed carefully down from the box and started away.
"That girl again," thought Connor, and snapped his fingers. His spiritscontinued to rise, if that were possible, during the breakfast of hamand eggs, and coffee of a taste so metallic that only a copious use ofcream made it drinkable. Jack Townsend, recovering to the full hiscustomary good nature, joined his guest in a huge piece of toast with alayer of ham on it--simply to keep a stranger from eating alone, hesaid--and while he ate he talked about the race. Connor had noticed thatthe lobby was almost empty.
"They're over lookin' at the hosses," said Townsend, "and gettin' theirbets down."
Connor laid down knife and fork, and resumed them hastily, butthereafter his interest in his food was entirely perfunctory. From thecorner of his eye a gleam kept steadily upon the face of Townsend, whocontinued:
"Speaking personal, Mr. Connor, I'd like to have you look over themhosses yourself."
Connor, on the verge of speech, checked himself with a quick effort.
"Because," continued Townsend, "if I had your advice I might get down alittle stake on one of 'em. You see?"
Ben Connor paused with a morsel of ham halfway toward his lips.
"Who told you I know anything about horses?" he asked.
"You told me yourself," grinned the proprietor, "and I'd like to figurehow you knew the mare come from the Ballor Valley."
"From which?"
"From the Ballor Valley. You even named the irrigation and sand and allthat. But you'd seen her brand before, I s'pose?"
"Hoofs like hers never came out of these mountains," smiled Ben Connor."See the way she throws them and how flat they are."
"Well, that's true," nodded Jack Townsend. "It seems simple, now you saywhat it was, but it had me beat up to now. That is the way with mostthings. Take a fine hand with a rope. He daubs it on a cow so dead easyany fool thinks he can do the same. No, Mr. Connor, I'd still like tohave you come out and take a look at them hosses. Besides"--he loweredhis voice--"you might pick up a bit of loose change yourself. They's aplenty rolling round to-day."
Connor laughed, but there was excitement behind his mirth.
"The fact is, Townsend," he said, "I'm not interested in racing now. I'mup here for the air."
"Sure--sure," said the hotel man. "I know all that. Well, if you're deadset it ain't hardly Christian to lure you into betting on a hoss race, Isuppose."
He munched at his sandwich in savage silence, while Connor looked outthe window and began to whistle.
"They race very often up here?" he asked carelessly.
"Once in a while."
"A pleasant sport," sighed Connor.
"Ain't it, now?" argued Townsend. "But these gents around here take itso serious that it don't last long."
"That so?"
"Yep. They bet every last dollar they can rake up, and about the secondor third race in the year the money's all pooled in two or threepockets. Then the rest go gunnin' for trouble, and most generally find aplenty. Any six races that's got up around here is good for threeshooting scrapes, and each shooting's equal to one corpse and half adozen put away for repairs." He touched his forehead, marked with awhite line. "I used to be considerable," he said.
"H-m," murmured Connor, grown absentminded again.
"Yes, sir," went on the other. "I've seen the boys come in from themines with enough dust to choke a mule, and slap it all down on thehoss. I've seen twenty thousand cold bucks lost and won on a dinkylittle pinto that wasn't worth twenty dollars hardly. That's how crazythey get."
Connor wiped his forehead.
"Where do they race?" he asked.
"Right down Washington Avenue. That is the main street, y'see. Gives 'emabout half a mile of runnin'."
A cigarette appeared with magic speed between the fingers of Connor, andhe began to smoke, with deep inhalations, expelling his breath sostrongly that the mist shot almost to the ceiling before it flattenedinto a leisurely spreading cloud. Townsend, fascinated, seemed to haveforgotten all about the horse race, but there was in Connor a suggestionof new interest, a certain businesslike coldness.
"Suppose we step over and give the ponies a glance?" he queried.
"That's the talk!" exclaimed Townsend. "And I'll take any tip you have!"
This made Connor look at his host narrowly, but, dismissing a suspicionfrom his mind, he shrugged his shoulders, and they went out together.
The conclave of riders and the betting public had gathered at thefarther end of the street, and it included the majority of Lukin. Onlythe center of the street was left religiously clear, and in this spacehalf a dozen men led horses up and down with ostentatious indifference,stopping often to look after cinches which they had already tested manytimes. As Connor came up he saw a group of boys place their wagers witha s
takeholder--knives, watches, nickels and dimes. That was a fair tokenof the spirit of the crowd. Wherever Connor looked he saw hands raised,brandishing greenbacks, and for every raised hand there were half adozen clamorous voices.
"Quite a bit of sporting blood in Lukin, eh?" suggested Townsend.
"Sure," sighed Connor. He looked at the brandished money. "A field ofwheat," he murmured, "waiting for the reaper. That's me."
He turned to see his companion pull out a fat wallet.
"Which one?" gasped Townsend. "We ain't got hardly any time."
Connor observed him with a smile that tucked up the corners of hismouth.
"Wait a while, friend. Plenty of time to get stung where the ponies areconcerned. We'll look them over."
Townsend began to chatter in his ear: "It's between Charlie Haig's roanand Cliff Jones's Lightning--You see that bay? Man, he can surely getacross the ground. But the roan ain't so bad. Oh, no!"
"Sure they are."
The gambler frowned. "I was about to say that there was only one horsein the race, but--" He shook his head despairingly as he looked over theriders. He was hunting automatically for the fleshless face and angularbody of a jockey; among them all Charlie Haig came the closest to thislight ideal. He was a sun-dried fellow, but even Charlie must haveweighed well over a hundred and forty pounds; the others made nopretensions toward small poundage, and Cliff Jones must have scaled twohundred.
"Which was the one hoss in your eyes?" asked the hotel man eagerly.
"The gray. But with that weight up the little fellow will be anchored."
He pointed to a gray gelding which nosed confidently at the back hippockets of his master.
"Less than fifteen hands," continued Connor, "and a hundred and eightypounds to break his back. It isn't a race; it's murder to enter a horsehandicapped like that."
"The gray?" repeated Jack Townsend, and he glanced from the corner ofhis eyes at his companion, as though he suspected mockery. "I never seenthe gray before," he went on. "Looks sort of underfed, eh?"
Connor apparently did not hear. He had raised his head and his nostrilstrembled, so that Townsend did not know whether the queer fellow wasabout to break into laughter or a trade.
"Yet," muttered Connor, "he might carry it. God, what a horse!"
He still looked at the gelding, and Townsend rubbed his eyes and staredto make sure that he had not overlooked some possibilities in thegelding. But he saw again only a lean-ribbed pony with a long neck and ahigh croup. The horse wheeled, stepping as clumsily as a ganglingyearling. Townsend's amazement changed to suspicion and then toindifference.
"Well," he said, smiling covertly, "are you going to bet on that?"
Connor made no answer. He stepped up to the owner of the gray, a swarthyman of Indian blood. His half sleepy, half sullen expression clearedwhen Connor shook hands and introduced himself as a lover of fasthorse-flesh.
He even congratulated the Indian on owning so fine a specimen, at whichapparently subtle mockery Townsend, in the rear, set his teeth to keepfrom smiling; and the big Indian also frowned, to see if there were anyhidden insult. But Connor had stepped back and was looking at theforelegs of the gelding.
"There's bone for you," he said exultantly. "More than eight inches,eh--that Cannon?"
"Huh," grunted the owner, "I dunno."
But his last shred of suspicion disappeared as Connor, working hisfingers along the shoulder muscles of the animal, smiled with pleasureand admiration.
"My name's Bert Sims," said the Indian, "and I'm glad to know you. Mostof the boys in Lukin think my hoss ain't got a chance in this race."
"I think they're right," answered Connor without hesitation.
The eyes of the Indian flashed.
"I think you're putting fifty pounds too much weight on him," explainedConnor.
"Yeh?"
"Can't another man ride your horse?"
"Anybody can ride him."
"Then let that fellow yonder--that youngster--have the mount. I'll backthe gray to the bottom of my pocket if you do."
"I wouldn't feel hardly natural seeing another man on him," said theIndian. "If he's rode I'll do the riding. I've done it for fifteenyears."
"What?"
"Fifteen years."
"Is that horse fifteen years old?" asked Connor, prepared to smile.
"He is eighteen," answered Bert Sims quietly.
The gambler cast a quick glance at Sims and a longer one at the gray. Heparted the lips of the horse, and then cursed softly.
"You're right," said Connor. "He is eighteen."
He was frowning in deadly earnestness now.
"Accident, I suppose?"
The Indian merely stared at him.
"Is the horse a strain of blood or an accident? What's his breed?"
"He's an Eden gray."
"Are there more like him?"
"The valley's full of 'em, they say," answered Bert Sims.
"What valley?" snapped the gambler.
"I ain't been in it. If I was I wouldn't talk."
"Why not?"
In reply Sims rolled the yellow-stained whites of his eyes slowly towardhis interlocutor. He did not turn his head, but a smile gradually beganon his lips and spread to a sinister hint at mirth. It put a grim end tothe conversation, and Connor turned reluctantly to Townsend. The latterwas clamoring.
"They're getting ready for the start. Are you betting on that runt of agray?"