it was, unquestionably, a tempting of providence, but connor was almost past caring. far off he heard the neighing of an eden gray; ruth, with her bowed head and face covered in her hands, was before him, sobbing; and all that he had come so near to winning and yet had lost rushed upon the mind of the gambler. he hardly cared now whether he lived or died. he called to the master of the garden, and david whirled on him with a livid face. connor walked into the reach of the lion.
"i've made my play," he said through his teeth, "and i don't holler because i've lost the big stakes. now i'm going to give you something to show that i'm not a piker—some free advice, dave!"
"o man of many lies," said david. "peace! for when i hear you there is a great will come on me to take you by the throat and hear your life go out with a rattle."
"a minute ago," said connor coolly enough, "i was scared, and i admit it, but i'm past that stage. i've lost too much to care, and now you're going to hear me out to the last damned word!"
"god of paul and matthew," said david, his voice broken with rage, "let temptation be far from me!"
"you can take it standing or sitting," said connor, "and be damned to you!"
the blind fury sent david a long step nearer, but he checked himself even as one hand rose toward connor.
"it is the will of god that you live to be punished hereafter."
"no matter about the future. i'm chattering in the present. i'm going to come clean, not because i'm afraid of you, but because i'm going to clear up the girl. abraham had the cold dope, well enough. i came to crook you out of a horse, dave, my boy, and i did it. but after i'd got away with the goods i tried to play hog, and i came back for the rest of the horses."
he paused; but david showed no emotion.
"you take the punishment very well," admitted connor. "there's a touch of sporting blood in you, but the trouble is that the good in you has never had a fair chance to come to the top. i came back, and i brought ruth with me.
"i'll tell you about her. she's meant to be an honest-to-god woman—the kind that keeps men clean—she's meant for the big-time stuff. and where did i find her? in a jay town punching a telegraph key. it was all wrong.
"she was made to spend a hundred thousand a year. everything that money buys means a lot to her. i saw that right away. i like her. i did more than like her. i loved her. that makes you flinch under the whip, does it? i don't say i'm worthy of her, but i'm as near to her as you are.
"i admit i played a rotten part. i went to this girl, all starved the way she was for the velvet touch. i laid my proposition before her. she was to come up here and bamboozle you. she was to knock your eye out and get you clear of the valley with the horses. then i was going to run those horses on the tracks and make a barrel of coin for all of us.
"you'd think she'd take on a scheme like that right away; but she didn't. she fought to keep from going crooked until i showed her it was as much to your advantage as it was to ours. then she decided to come, and she came. i worked my stall and she worked hers, and she got into the valley.
"but this voice of yours in the room of silence—why didn't it put you wise to my game? well, david, i'll tell you why. the voice is the bunk. it's your own thoughts. it's your own hunches. the god you've been worshiping up here is yourself, and in the end you're going to pay hell for doing it.
"well, here's the girl in the garden, and everything going smooth. we have you, and she's about to take you out and show you how to be happy in the world. but then she has to go into your secret room. that's the woman of it. you blame her? why, you infernal blockhead, you've been making love to her like god almighty speaking out of a cloud of fire! how could she hear your line of chatter without wanting to find out the secrets that made you the nut you are?
"well, we went in, and we found out. we found out what? enough to make the girl see that you're 'noble,' as she calls it. enough to make me see that you're a simp. you've been chasing bubbles all your life. you're all wrong from the first.
"those first four birds who started the garden, who were they? there was john, a rich fellow who'd hit the high spots, had his life messed up, and was ready to quit. he'd lived enough. then there was luke, a gent who'd been double-crossed and was sore at the world on general principles.
"paul would have been a full-sized saint in the old days. he was never meant to live the way other men have to live. and finally there's a guy who lies in the grass and whistles to a bird—matthew. a poet—and all poets are nuts.
"well, all those fellows were tired of the world—fed up with it. boil them down, and they come to this: they thought more about the welfare of their souls than they did about the world. was that square? it wasn't! they left the mothers and fathers, the brothers and sisters, the friends, everything that had brought them into the world and raised 'em. they go off to take care of themselves.
"that wasn't bad enough for 'em—they had to go out and pluck you and bring you up with the same rotten hunches. davie, my boy, d'you think a man is made to live by himself?
"you haven't got fed up with the world; you're no retired high liver; you haven't had a chance to get double-crossed more than once; you're not a crazy poet; and you're a hell of a long ways from being a martyr.
"i'll tell you what you are. you're a certain number of pounds of husky muscle and bone going to waste up here in the mountains. you've been alone so much that you've got to thinking that your own hunches come from god, and that'd spoil any man.
"live alone? bah! you've had more happiness since ruth came into this valley than you've ever had before or you'll ever have again.
"right now you're breaking your heart to take her in your arms and tell her to stop crying, but your pride won't let you.
"you tried to make yourself a mystery with your room of silence and all that bunk. but no woman can stand a mystery. they all got to read their husband's letters. you try to bluff her with a lot of fancy words and partly scare her. it's fear that sent the four men up here in the first place—fear of the world.
"and they've lived by fear. they scared a lot of poor unfortunate men into coming with them for the sake of their souls, they said. and they kept them here the same way. and they've kept you here by telling you that you'd be damned if you went over the mountains.
"and you still keep them here the same way. do you think they stay because they love you? give them a chance and see if they won't pack up and beat it for their old homes.
"now, show me that you're a man and not a fatheaded bluff. be a man and admit that what you call the voice is just your pride. be a man and take that girl in your arms and tell her you love her. i've made a mess of things; i've ruined her life, and i want to see you give her a chance to be happy.
"because she's not the kind to love more than one man if she lives to be a thousand. now, david eden, step out and give yourself a chance!"
it had been a gallant last stand on the part of connor. but he was beaten before he finished, and he knew it.
"are you done?" said david.
"i'm through, fast enough. it's up to you!"
"joseph, take the man and his woman out of the garden of eden."
the last thing that connor ever saw of david eden was his back as he closed the door of the room of silence upon himself. the gambler went to ruth. she was dry-eyed by this time, and there was a peculiar blankness in her expression that went to his heart.
secretly he had hoped that his harangue to david would also be a harangue to the girl and make her see through the master of the garden; but that hope disappeared at once.
he stayed a little behind her when they were conducted out of the patio by the grinning joseph. he helped her gently to her horse, the old gray gelding, and when he was in place on his own horse, with the mule pack behind him, they started for the gate.
she had not spoken since they started. at the gate she moved as if to turn and look back, but controlled the impulse and bowed her head once more. joseph came beside the gambler and stretched out his great palm. in the center of it was the little ivory ape's head which had brought connor his entrance into the valley and had won the hatred of the big negro, and had, eventually, ruined all his plans.
"it was given freely," grinned joseph, "and it is freely returned."
"very well."
connor took it and hurled it out of sight along the boulders beyond the gate. the last thing that he saw of the garden of eden and its men was that broad grin of joseph, and then he hurried his horse to overtake ruth, whose gelding had been plodding steadily along the ravine.
he attempted for the first time to speak to her.
"only a quitter tries to make up for the harm he's done by apologizing. but i've got to tell you the one thing in my life i most regret. it isn't tricking david of eden, but it's doing what i've done to you. will you believe me when i say that i'd give a lot to undo what i've done?"
she only raised her hand to check him and ventured a faint smile of reassurance. it was the smile that hurt connor to the quick.
they left the ravine. they toiled slowly up the difficult trail, and even when they had reached such an altitude that the floor of the valley of the garden was unrolling behind them the girl never once moved to look back.
"so," thought connor, "she'll go through the rest of her life with her head down, watching the ground in front of her. and this is my work."
he was not a sentimentalist, but a lump was forming in his throat when, at the very crest of the mountain, the girl turned suddenly in her saddle and stopped the gray.
"only makes it worse to stay here," muttered connor. "come on, ruth."
but she seemed not to hear him, and there was something in her smile that kept him from speaking again.
