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What a contrast between the ascent and the descent! He had literally flown down. Now his heels clumped out a slow and regular death march, as he came back to the room. When Gregg opened the door Ronicky Doone blinked and drew in a deep breath at the sight of the poor fellow's face.
That first day Ronicky insisted that they simply walk over the whole ground, so as to become fairly familiar with the scale of their task. They managed to make the trip before night and returned to the hotel, footsore from the hard, hot pavements. There was something unkindly and ungenerous in those pavements, it seemed to Ronicky.
A moment later Ronicky had risen, went toward the wall and drew a dagger from its sheath. It was a full twelve inches in length, that blade, and it came to a point drawn out thinner than the eye could follow. The end was merely a long glint of light.
At first the silence of Bill Gregg admitted that he felt the same way about the matter, yet he finally said aloud: "I don't blame you. Maybe you thought I was a hoss thief. But the thing is done, Ronicky, and it won't never be undone!" "Gregg," said Ronicky, "d'you know what you're going to do now?" "I dunno." "You're going to sit there and roll a cigarette and tell me the whole yarn.
"How much would you give to find her?" he asked suddenly. "Half my life," said Bill Gregg solemnly. "Then," said Ronicky, "we'll make a try at it. I got an idea how we can start on the trail. I'm going to go with you, partner. I've messed up considerable, this little game of yours; now I'm going to do what I can to straighten it out. Sometimes two are better than one.
As for Bill Gregg he bore himself straight as a soldier and came back across the pavement, but it was the erectness of a soldier who has met with a crushing defeat and only preserves an outward resolution, while all the spirit within is crushed. Ronicky Doone turned gloomily away from the window and listened to the progress of Gregg up the stairs.
The reason that Bill didn't get to that train wasn't because he didn't try. He did try. He tried so hard that he got into a fight with a gent that tried to hold him up for a few words, and Bill got shot off his hoss." "Shot?" asked the girl. "Shot?" Suddenly she was clutching his arm, terrified at the thought. She recovered herself at once and drew away, eluding the hand of Ronicky.
"Has he got a thousand men around him all the time? Even if he has they's ways of getting at him." "Not a thousand men," said the girl, "but, you see, he doesn't need help. He's never failed. That's what they say of him: 'John Mark, the man who has never lost!" "Listen to me," said Ronicky angrily.
Once in the street Ronicky looked dubiously across at the opposite house. He realized that more than an hour had passed since Caroline had left John Mark's house. What had happened to Ruth in that hour? The front of the house was lighted in two or three windows, but those lights could tell him nothing.
"Over there!" said Bill Gregg, nodding toward a flight of cellar steps. They caught the man between them, rushed him to the steps and flung him headlong down. There was a crashing fall, groans and then silence. "He'll have a broken bone or two, maybe," said Ronicky, peering calmly into the darkness, "but he'll live to trap somebody else, curse him!"
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