and saw the two wise guys looking at me with sick grins.
Afterward I collected two thousand bucks from a sicker looking bookie."

He paused and smiled at the girl.

"That was the 11th of July. First real day of my life."

She gathered her mind out of that scene.

"You stepped out of a telegraph office, with your finger on the key all
day, every day, and you jumped into two thousand dollars?"

After she had stopped speaking her thoughts went on, written in her
eyes.

"You'd like to try it, eh?" said Ben Connor.

"Haven't you had years of happiness out of it?"

He looked at her with a grimace.

"Happiness?" he echoed. "Happiness?"

She stepped back so that she put his deeply-marked face in a better
light.

"You're a queer one for a winner."

"Sure, the turf is crowded with queer ones like me."

"Winners, all of 'em?"

His eye had been gradually brightening while he talked to her. He felt
that the girl rang true, as men ring true, yet there was nothing
masculine about her.

"You've heard racing called the sport of kings? That's because only
kings can afford to follow the ponies. Kings and Wall Street. But a
fellow can't squeeze in without capital. I've made a go of it for a
while; pretty soon we all go smash. Sooner or later I'll do what
everybody else does--put up my cash on a sure thing and see my money go
up in smoke."

"Then why don't you pull out with what you have?"

"Why does the earth keep running around the sun? Because there's a pull.
Once you've followed the ponies you'll keep on following 'em. No hope
for it. Oh, I've seen the boys come up one after another, make their
killings, hit a streak of bad luck, plunge, and then watch their
sure-thing throw up its tail in the stretch and fade into the ruck."

He was growing excited as he talked; he was beginning to realize that he
must make his break from the turf now or never. And he spoke more to
himself than to the girl.

"We all hang on. We play the game till it breaks us and still we stay
with it. Here I am, two thousand miles away from the tracks--and sending
for dope to make a play! Can you beat that? Well, so-long."

He turned away gloomily.

"Good night, Mr. Connor."

He turned sharply.

"Where'd you get that name?" he asked with a trace of suspicion.

"Off the telegram."

He nodded, but said: "I've an idea I've been chattering to much."

"My name is Ruth Manning," answered the girl. "I don't think you've said
too much."