He succeeded. Her eye lighted with indignation. She herself might
challenge him, but she would not allow another to do so.
"It is not the truth," she rejoined sharply. "He does not measure
himself against the world so. He is like--like a child," she added.
"It seems to me all big men are like that," Jowett rejoined; "and he's
the biggest man the West has seen. He knows about every man's business
as though it was his own. I can get a margin off most any man in the
West on a horse-trade, but I'd look shy about doing a trade with him.
You can't dope a horse so he won't know. He's on to it, sees it-sees it
like as if it was in glass. Sees anything and everything, and--" He
stopped short. The Master Gorgio could no longer see, and his henchman
flushed like a girl at his "break"; though, as a horse-dealer, he had in
his time listened without shame to wilder, angrier reproaches than most
men living.
She glanced at him, saw his confusion, forgave and understood him.
"It was not the horseshoe, it was not the Gipsy," she returned. "They
did not set it going. It would not have happened but for one man."
"Yes, it's Marchand, right enough," answered Jowett, "but we'll get him
yet.
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