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There's so many things enter into the running of hosses which ought to be printed in 'em and ain't. For instance, take that race right in front of you." The old man put his finger upon the page. "I remember it well. Here's Engle's mare, Sunflower, the favourite and comes fourth. Ab Mears wins it with the black hoss, Anthracite. Six to one. What does the book say 'bout Sunflower's race?"
For now again, wandering out far across the open lands, came the heavy mourning of the bell. "How far can one hear it?" she asked, surprised that from so far its ringing came so clearly. "I don't know how many miles," he answered. "We'll hear it from the mountain. I should have heard it to-day, long before I met you by the arroyo, had I not been travelling through two big bands of Engle's sheep."
Engle's sigh, while her husband spoke of black mud and straw, testified that her thoughts still clung about those events and possibilities which she herself had asked him to avoid; her eyes wandered to the tall, rudely garbed figure dimly seen in the patio.
Perhaps there was; there is in most men. And Florrie Engle was beginning to wonder the same thing. For Rod Norton, recovered and about his duties, was not quite the same touchingly heroic figure he had been while lying unconscious and in danger of his life. Nor was it any part of Florrie Engle's nature to remain long either upon the heights or in the depths of an emotion.
Engle's face was as white as chalk when a little later he came back into the room with his wife; his two hands were like rock upon his rifle. "Florence isn't in the house," he announced in a voice which, while calm, seemed not John Engle's voice. "If she is in San Juan it won't take the half-hour to know it. I'm rather inclined to think that I'm just a fool, Rod Norton.
Broad double doors in the west wall of the living-room gave entrance to the patio. When Norton and Florence Engle strolled out into the inviting patio Engle, breaking his silence, leaned forward and dominated the conversation. Virginia had been doing the major part of the talking, answering questions about Mrs. Engle's girlhood home, telling something of herself.
At the moment when it seemed that a deadlock had come between Mrs. Engle's eagerness to mother her cousin's daughter and Virginia's inborn sense of independence, the interruption came.
And, a trifle hastily it struck Virginia, he switched talk into another channel, telling of the case on which he had been out to-day, enlarging upon its difficulties, with which, it appeared, he had been eminently fitted to cope. There was an amused twinkle in John Engle's eyes as he listened. "By the way, Patten," the banker observed when there came a pause, "you've got a rival in town.
Yes, sir, he beat the good thing and spilled the beans. Elisha, first; Broadsword, second; that thing of Engle's, third. Serves 'em right! Hah!" Martin O'Connor standing on the outskirts of the betting ring, searching a limited vocabulary for language with which to garnish his emotions, felt a nudge at his elbow. It was the Sharpshooter. "Go away from me! Don't talk to me!" sputtered O'Connor.
And the first item of expense was the purchase from Engle himself of a fine saddle-animal, a pure-blooded, clean-limbed young mare, sister to Persis. After which the Mexican spent a great deal of his time riding about the country, looking at ranches. He visited Engle's two places, called upon Norton at Las Flores, ferreting out prices, looking at water and feed, examining soil.
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