Chapter IV: Part 4

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.