Under Handicap | Page 9

his
name. He had never done anything but dance and smoke and drink and
make pretty speeches which were polite lies and which were accepted
as such. And now a minor note, as thin as a low-toned human voice
heard faintly through the deep music of a cathedral organ, something
seemed to call to him telling him again of these things.
The darkening line where the far-away hills in the south were dragged
deeper and deeper into the night drew his wandering thoughts away
from himself and sent them skimming after the girl he had seen that
day. Somewhere out there she was moving across the desert, plunged
into the innermost circle of the grim solitude. He remembered her eyes
and the look he had seen in them. He could see her again as she jerked
in her plunging horse, as she caught the step of the swiftly moving train.
The desert had called her; and she, purposeful, strong, as clean of soul,
he felt, as she was of body, had answered the call. With the compelling
desire to know her springing full-grown from his first swift interest in
her, his fancies, touched by the subtle magic of the desert, showed her
to him out yonder with the dusk and the silence about her. He got to his
feet and stood staring into the gathering gloom as though he would
make out across the flat miles the flying buckboard.
"After all," he told himself, with a restless, half-reckless little laugh,
"why not?"
He turned and went back toward the town. On his way he overtook a
boy, a little fellow of eight or nine, driving a milk-cow ahead of him.
He found him the shy, wordless child he had expected, but chatted with
him none the less, and by the time they had reached the first of the
scattered buildings the boy had thawed a little and responded to
Conniston's talk. After the brief, somewhat uncomfortable
lonesomeness of a moment ago Conniston found himself glad of any

company. And upon leaving the boy at a tumbled-down house a bit
farther on he found a half-dollar in his pocket and proffered it.
"Here, Johnny," he said, smiling. "This is for some candy."
The boy put his hands behind his back. "My name's William," he said,
with a quiet, odd dignity. "An' I don't take money off'n no one 'less I
work for it!"
"My name's William, too, my boy," Conniston answered, much amused;
"but you and I have very different ideas about taking money!"
"Proud little cuss," he told himself, as he strode on along the street.
"Wonder who taught him that?"
Here and there in the dull dome above him the stars were beginning to
come out. On either hand the pale-yellow rays from kerosene-lamps
straggled through windows and doors, making restless shadows
underfoot. From the door of the saloon the brightest light crept out into
the night. And with it came men's voices. Having a desire for
companionship, and not craving that of Hapgood in his present mood,
Conniston stepped in at the low door, and, going to the bar, called for a
glass of beer. There were half a dozen men, among whom he
recognized the proprietor of the "hotel" and the men with whom he had
been playing cards, and also the cowboys who had eaten at the other
table. In the center of the room, under a big nickeled swinging-lamp, a
man was dealing faro while the others standing or sitting about him
made their bets. A glance told Conniston that the hotel man was
playing heavily, his chips and gold stacked high in front of him.
"The strange part of it," he thought, as he watched the bartender open
his bottle of beer, "is where they get so much money! Do they make it
out of sand?"
He invited the bartender to drink with him, chatted a moment, and then
strolled over to the table. The dealer, a thick-set, fat-fingered,
grave-eyed man who moved like a piece of machinery, glanced up at
him and back to his game. There was no "lookout." A man whom he

had not seen before, deft-fingered and alert, was keeping cases. The
proprietor of the hotel, the three cowboys, and one other man were
playing.
Familiar with the greater number of common ways of separating
oneself from his money, Conniston was no stranger to the ways of faro.
He watched the fat fingers of the banker as they slipped card after card
from the box, and smiled to himself at the fellow's slowness. And
before half a dozen plays were made his smile was succeeded by a little
shock of surprise. It certainly did not do to judge people out here in a
flash and by external signs. What seemed awkwardness a