s to him all
at once.

"'How could I harm you?' I asked him.

"And then you should have seen his face change and the anger break up
like a cloud. I knew I was safe, then, but I was still dizzy--just as
if I'd looked over a cliff--you know?"

"And yet you rode up the hill after that laughing down to him! Ruth,
you're the gamest sport and the best pal in the world. The finest little
act I ever saw on the stage or off. It was Big Time stuff. My hat's off,
but--where'd you get the nerve?"

"I was frightened almost to death. Too much frightened for it to show.
When I saw you, my strength came back."

"But what do you think of him?"

"He's--simply a savage. What do I think of an Indian?"

"No more than that?"

"Ben, can you pet a tiger after you've seen his claws?"

He looked at her with anxiety.

"You're not going to break down later on--feeling as if he's dynamite
about to explode all the time?"

"I'm going to play the game through," she said with a sort of fierce
happiness. "I've felt like a sneak thief about this. But now it's
different. He's more of a wolf than a man. Ben, I saw murder in his
face, I swear! And if it isn't wrong to tame wild beasts it isn't wrong
to tame him. I'm going to play the game, lead him as far as I can until
we get the horses--and then it'll be easy enough to make up by being
good the rest of my life."

"Ruth--girl--you've covered the whole ground. And when you have the
coin--" He broke off with laughter that was filled with drunken
excitement. "But what did you think of my game?"

She did not hear him, and standing with her hands clasped lightly behind
her she looked beyond the roof of the house and over the tops of the
western mountains, with the sun-haze about them.

"I feel as if I were on the top of the world," she said at last. "And I
wouldn't have one thing changed. We're playing for big stakes, but we're
taking a chance that makes the game worth while. What we win we'll
earn--because he's a devil. Isn't it what you'd call a fair bet?"

"The squarest in the world," said Connor stoutly.

_CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR_

They had no means of knowing when David would return and the ominous
shadow of Joseph, lingering near the patio, determined Connor on a walk
out of any possible earshot. They went down to the lake with the singing
of the men on the other side of the hill growing dim as they descended.
The cool of the day was beginning, and they walked close to the edge o