girl with purple shadows
beneath her eyes making them look ghostly large.

"Oh, Bobby," she called. A tall youth came out of an inner room. "Take
the key, please; I'm going out for lunch."

"Come to the hotel with me," suggested Connor.

"Lunch at Townsend's?" She laughed with a touch of excitement. "That's a
treat."

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

"This lunch is on me, by the way," she added.

"Why is that?"

"Because I like to pay on my winning days. I cashed in on the Indian's
horse this morning."

In Connor's own parlance--it brought him up standing.

"_You_ bet on it? You know horse-flesh, then. I like the little fellow,
but the weight stopped me."

He smiled at her with a new friendliness.

"Don't pin any flowers on me," she answered. "Oh, I know enough about
horses to look at their hocks and see how they stand; and I don't
suppose I'd buy in on a pony that points the toe of a fore-foot--but I'm
no judge. I bet on the gray because I know the blood."

She had stopped at the door of the hotel and she did not see the change
in Connor's face as they entered.

"Queer thing about horses," she continued. "They show their strain,
though the finest man that ever stepped might have a son that's a
quitter. Not that way with horses. Why, any scrubby pinto that has a
drop of Eden Gray blood in him will run till his heart breaks. You can
bet on that."

Lunch at Townsend's, Connor saw, must be the fashionable thing in Lukin.
The "masses" of those who came to town for the day ate at the
lunch-counters in the old saloons while the select went to the hotel.
Mrs. Townsend, billowing about the room in a dress of blue with white
polka-dots, when she was not making hurried trips into the kitchen, cast
one glance of approval at Ben Connor and another of surprise at the
girl. Other glances followed, for the room was fairly well filled, and a
whisper went trailing about them, before and behind.

It was easy to see that Ruth Manning was being accused of "scraping"
acquaintance with the stranger, but she bore up beautifully, and Connor
gauging her with an accurate eye, admired and wondered where she had
learned. Yet when they found a table and he drew out a chair for her, he
could tell from the manner in which she lowered herself into it that she
was not used to being seated. That observation gave him a