he great bulk of
Joseph with ease before, and now she was apparently ready to carry him
again. He dropped his hand upon her withers, and facing Connor, swept
his arm out in a broad gesture of dismissal. Vaguely the gambler noticed
this, but his real interest centered on the form of the mare. He was
seeing her not with that unwieldy bulk crushing her back, but with a
fly-weight jockey mounted on a racing pad riding her past the grand
stand. He was hearing the odds which the bookies offered; he was
watching those odds drop by leaps and bounds as he hammered away at
them, betting in lumps of hundreds and five hundreds, staking his
fortune on his first "sure thing." Even as she stood passive, tossing
her nose, he knew her speed, and it took his breath. Abra himself would
walk away from ordinary company, but this gray mare--slowly Connor
looked back to the face of Joseph and saw that the giant was waiting to
see his command obeyed. For the first time he noted the cartridge belt
strung across the fellow's gaunt middle and the holster in which pulled
the weight of a forty-five. In case of doubt, here was a cogent reason
to hurry a loiterer. To persuade the giant would never have been easy,
but to persuade him through an interpreter made the affair impossible.
Struggling for a loophole of escape, he absentmindedly unsnapped from
his watch chain the little ivory talisman, the ape head, and commenced
to finger it. It had been his constant companion for years and in a
measure he connected his luck with it.

"My friend," said Connor to Ephraim, "you see my position? But if I
can't do better is there any objection to my using this fire of yours
for cooking? The fire, at least, is outside the valley."

Even this question Ephraim apparently did not feel qualified to answer.
He turned first to the gigantic mute and conversed with him at some
length; his own fluent signals were answered by single movements on the
part of Joseph, and Connor recognized the signs of dissent.

"I have told him everything," said Ephraim, turning again to Connor and
shaking his head in sympathy. "And how Abra came to you, but though the
horse trusted you, Joseph does not wish you to stay. I am sorry."

Connor looked through the gate into the darkness of the Garden of Eden;
at the entrance to his promised land he was to be turned back. In his
despair he opened his palm and looked down absently at the little
grinning ape head of ivory. Even while he was deep