“He must!  He must, or — "

“Slick-heels Saul’s face is turnin’ the color of me native isle,” chuckled Irish Mike.  “Patty, me little ladybird, ’tis no time to be faintin’!”

“Oh, you can’t know — "

“Faith, an’ I know more than you t’ink.  Bear up, Asthore, the darkest hour is just forninst the dawn.  Whisht, now!  They’re off!”

“Here they come!  The black is ahead!  See, the nigger is lying flat on the mare’s neck.  She’s closing up!  Oh, they are neck and neck!  I cannot look.  Eric — The black is getting the whip.  Good horse!  They are even again!  Ah, it is only for a moment.  The mare ... is over the line, first ...  It is all ended, life, love, honor, happiness ...  I cannot belong to that man!  My poor old father.  Dear old ... for his sake, I must.  I — "

“Patty, girl.”

“Eric, you are not to blame.  You would wager on your own horse.  ’Tis but natural.  I must accept my fate with what fortitude I can summon.  Please take me home.  All the people staring.  I cannot bear it long.”

But when Slick-heels Saul pressed forward to her side at the boarding-house steps, she was as stately and cold as the snow-hooded rocks of Granite Mountain.

“I have lost everything, but still I hold you to your promise.”

“I made no promise, sir,” she said haughtily.

“’But you will,” he answered meaningly, “tomorrow.”

“Stand aside!” thundered Eric.

“Come awn,” soothed Irish Mike.  “Not with the lady here, Eric, b’y.”

“Patty, I cannot let you go!  I will shoot the beast on sight.”

“That would not vindicate my father’s honor.  Hush, he is coming.  I must remember that I am a Laughton.”

Eric turned to stare moodily out the dusty window.  “There goes the cattle man with his followers and his strong-box.  What he must have won!  Here comes Mike.  In a hurry, too!  I wonder — "

Slick-heels Saul was bowing before the girl.

“Forgive an auld Irishman for intrudin’ upon so tender a scene — " (Slick-heels glared at him malevolently), “but I have he-e-re a something for Mistress Patty Laughton,” pretending to read the inscription on the package he held out, “from the auld boy, there, who is just leavin’ us.”

“’Bread cast upon the waters of sweet charity shall be returned an hundred fold.  Blessed are the pure in heart for they are of the children of God,’ he has written.  Why, it is money!” gasped Patty, “and such a large amount!”

“He had me put up ye’r little bag o’ gold on his mare.  These are y’er winnings.”  Mike smiled inwardly at the sum of money.  “Sure, auld Andy must have put a rock or two in the wee buckskin bag,” he thought, but aloud he said , “I never spile sport, an’ I could not tell ye before, but ‘tis auld Andy Magee an’ his famous racin’ mare, the fastest quarter mile horse bechune the state of Missouri and the Pacific ocean.