But by his roving glance, by the sudden outpouring
of sweat which gleamed on his forehead, Hervey knew
that he had shaken his man to the soul. By playing
carefully on this string might he not reduce even
this care-free fighter to trembling love of life?
Might he not make Red Perris cringe! All cowards
feel that their own vice exists in others. Hervey,
in his entire life, had dreaded nothing saving Red
Jim, and now he felt that he had found the thing which
would make life too dear to Perris to be given up
with a smile.
“Begging? I’ll tell a man she did!”
nodded Hervey.
“It’s because she’s plumb generous.
She thought that might turn you. Why—she
don’t hardly know me!”
“Don’t she?” sneered Hervey.
“You don’t figure her right. She’s
one of the hit or miss kind. She hated me the
minute she laid eyes on me—hated me for
nothing! And you knocked her off her feet the
first shot. That’s all there is to it.
She’d give the Valley of the Eagles for a smile
from you.”
He saw the glance of Perris wander into thin distance
and soften. Then the eye of Red Jim returned
to his tormentor, desperately. The blow had told
better than Hervey could have hoped.
“And me a plain tramp—a loafer—me!”
said Perris to himself. He added suddenly:
“Hervey, let’s talk man to man!”
“Go on,” said the foreman, and set his
teeth to keep his exultation from showing.
Five minutes more, he felt, and Perris would be begging
like a coward for his life.
MCGUIRE SLEEPS
Never did a fox approach a lion with more discretion
than Marianne approached the careless figure of McGuire.
His very attitude was a warning that her task was
to be made as difficult as possible. He had pushed
his sombrero, limp with age and wear, far back on his
head, and now, gazing, apparently, into the distant
blue depths of the sky, he regarded vacancy with mild
interest and blew in the same direction a thin brownish
vapor of smoke. Obviously he expected an argument;
he was leading her on. And just as obviously
he wanted the argument merely for the sake of killing
time. He was in tremendous need of amusement.
That was all.
She wanted to go straight to him with a bitter appeal
to his manhood, to his mercy as a man. But she
realized that this would not do at all. A strenuous
attack would simply rouse him. Therefore she called
up from some mysterious corner of her tormented heart
a smile, or something that would do duty as a smile.
Strangely enough, no sooner had the smile come than
her whole mental viewpoint changed. It became
easy to make the smile real; half of her anxiety fell
away. And dropping one hand on her hip, she said
cheerfully to McGuire.
“You look queer as a prison-guard, Mr. McGuire.”
