he world? Look at yesterday!
The King of the Sea goes down with all on board. Were they all crooks?
Were they all ready to die? They can tell me about God, but I say, 'Give
me the proofs!'"

She looked at Connor defiantly. "There's just one thing I believe in,"
she said, "that's luck!"

He did not stir, but still studied her, and she flushed under the
scrutiny.

"Not that I've had enough luck to make me fond of it. I've been stuck up
here on the edge of the world all my life. And how I've wanted to get
away! How I've wanted it! I've begged for a chance--to cut out the work.
If it doesn't make callouses on a girl's hands it will make them on her
heart. I've been waiting all my life for a chance, and the chance has
never come." Something flared in her.

"Sometimes I think," she whispered, "that I can't stand it! That I'd do
anything! Anything--just to get away."

She stopped, and as her passion ebbed she was afraid she had said too
much.

"Shake," he said, stretching his hand across the table, "I'm with you.
Luck! That's all there is running things!"

His fingers closed hard over hers and she winced, for he had forgotten
to remove the ivory image from his hand, and the ape-head cut into her
flesh.

_CHAPTER SEVEN_

That evening Ruth sent a boy over to the hotel with a telegram for
Connor. It announced that Trickster, at six to one, came home a winner
in the Murray. But Connor had time for only a grunt and a nod; he was
too busy composing a letter to Harry Slocum, which read as follows:

DEAR HARRY:

I'm about to put my head in the lion's mouth; and in case you
don't hear from me again, say within three months, this is to
ask you to look for my bones. I'm starting out to nail a
thousand-to-one shot. Working a hunch for the biggest clean-up
we ever made. I'm going into the mountains to find a deaf mute
Negro who raises the finest horses I've ever seen. Do you get
that? No white man has gone into that valley; at least, no one
has come out talking. But I'm going to bring something with me.
If I don't come out it'll be because I've been knocked on the
head inside the valley. I'm not telling any one around here
where I'm bound, but I've made inquiries, and this is what I
gather: No one is interested in the mute's valley simply
because it's so far away. The mute doesn't bother them and they
won't bother him. That's the main reason