“Why doesn’t Caroline come back?” she asked at length.

“She’s letting him talk himself out, that’s all.  Caroline’s a clever youngster.  She knows how to let a man talk till his throat is dry, and then she’ll smile and tell him that it’s impossible to agree with him.  Yes, there are many possibilities in Caroline.”

“You think Ronicky Doone is a gambler?” she asked, harking back to what he had said earlier.

“I think so,” answered John Mark, and again there was that tightening of the muscles around his mouth.  “A gambler has a certain way of masking his own face and looking at yours, as if he were dragging your thoughts out through your eyes; also, he’s very cool; he belongs at a table with the cards on it and the stakes high.”

The door opened.  “Here’s young Rose.  He’ll tell us the truth of the matter.  Has she come back, Rose?”

The young fellow kept far back in the shadow, and, when he spoke, his voice was uncertain, almost to the point of trembling.  “No,” he managed to say, “she ain’t come back, chief.”

Mark stared at him for a moment and then slowly opened a cigarette case and lighted a smoke.  “Well,” he said, and his words were far more violent than the smooth voice, “well, idiot, what did she do?”

“She done a fade-away, chief, in the house across the street.  Went in with that other gent.”

“He took her by force?” asked John Mark.

“Nope.  She slipped in quick enough and all by herself.  He went in last.”

“Damnation!” murmured Mark.  “That’s all, Rose.”

His follower vanished through the doorway and closed the door softly after him.  John Mark stood up and paced quietly up and down the room.  At length he turned abruptly on the girl.  “Good night.  I have business that takes me out.”

“What is it?” she asked eagerly.

He paused, as if in doubt as to how he should answer her, if he answered at all.  “In the old days,” he said at last, “when a man caught a poacher on his grounds, do you know what he did?”

“No.”

“Shot him, my dear, without a thought and threw his body to the wolves!”

“John Mark!  Do you mean—­”

“Your friend Ronicky, of course.”

“Only because Caroline was foolish are you going to—­”

“Caroline?  Tut, tut!  Caroline is only a small part of it.  He has done more than that—­far more, this poacher out of the West!”

He turned and went swiftly through the door.  The moment it was closed the girl buried her face in her hands.

Chapter Fifteen

The Girl Thief

Before that death sentence had been passed on him Ronicky Doone stood before the door of his room, with the trembling girl beside him.

“Wait here,” he whispered to her.  “Wait here while I go in and wake him up.  It’s going to be the greatest moment in his life!  Poor Bill Gregg is going to turn into the richest man in New York City—­all in one moment!”