ticking sounded
again more clearly. It mingled with the alkali scent of the
dust--Manhattan and the desert together. He felt a sense of persecuted
virtue. But one of his maxims was: "If anything bothers you, go and find
out about it."

Ben Connor largely used maxims and epigrams; he met crises by
remembering what some one else had said. The ticking of the sounder was
making him homesick and dangerously nervous, so he went to find the
telegrapher and see the sounder which brought the voice of the world
into Lukin.

A few steps carried him to a screen door through which he looked upon a
long, narrow office.

In a corner, an electric fan swung back and forth through a hurried arc
and fluttered papers here and there. Its whining almost drowned the
ticking of the sounder, and Ben Connor wondered with dull irritation how
a tapping which was hardly audible at the door of the office could carry
to his room in the hotel. He opened the door and entered.

_CHAPTER THREE_

It was a room not more than eight feet wide, very long, with the floor,
walls, and ceiling of the same narrow, unpainted pine boards; the
flooring was worn ragged and the ceiling warped into waves. Across the
room a wide plank with a trapdoor at one end served as a counter, and
now it was littered with yellow telegraph blanks, and others, crumpled
up, were scattered about Connor's feet. No sooner had the screen door
squeaked behind him and shut him fairly into the place than the staccato
rattling of the sounder multiplied, and seemed to chatter from the wall
behind him. It left an echoing in the ear of Ben Connor which formed
into the words of his resolution, "I've made my stake and I'm going to
beat it. I'm going to get away where I can forget the worries. To-day I
beat 'em. Tomorrow the worries will beat me."

That was why he was in Lukin--to forget. And here the world had sneaked
up on him and whispered in his ear. Was it fair?

It was a woman who "jerked lightning" for Lukin. With that small finger
on the key she took the pulse of the world.

"Belmont returns--" chattered the sounder.

Connor instinctively covered his ears. Then, feeling that he was acting
like a silly child, he lowered his hands.

Another idea had come to him that this was fate--luck--his luck. Why not
take another chance?

He wavered a moment, fighting the temptation and gloomily studying the
back of the operator. The cheapness of her white cotton dress fairly
shoute