Black Jack, page 109 by Max Brand
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r things to pay much heed to such surmises and small events. He was brooding over the events of the afternoon. If his exploits in the gaming hall should ever come to the ear of Aunt Elizabeth, he was certain enough that he would be finally damned in her judgment. Too often he had heard her express an opinion of those who lived by "chance and their wits," as she phrased it. And the thought of it irked him.
He roused himself out of his musing. They had come out from the trees and were in sight of a solidly built house on the hill. There was one thing which struck his mind at once. No attempt had been made to find level for the foundation. The log structure had been built apparently at random on the slope. It conformed, at vast waste of labor, to the angle of the base and the irregularities of the soil. This, perhaps, made it seem smaller than it was. They caught the scent of wood smoke, and then saw a pale drift of the smoke itself.
A flurry of music escaped by the opening of a door and was shut out by the closing of it. It was a moment before Terry, startled, had analyzed the sound. Unquestionably it was a piano. But how in the world, and why in the world, had it been carted to the top of this mountain?
He glanced at his companion with a new respect and almost with a suspicion.
"Up to some damn doings again," growled the big man. "Never got no peace nor quiet up my way."
Another surprise was presently in store for Terry. Behind the house, which grew in proportions as they came closer, they reached a horse shed, and when they dismounted, a servant came out for the horses. Outside of the Cornish ranch he did not know of many who afforded such luxuries.
However, El Sangre could not be handled by another, and Terry put up his horse and found the rancher waiting for him when he came out. Inside the shed he had found ample bins of barley and oats and good grain hay. And in the stalls his practiced eye scanned the forms of a round dozen fine horses with points of blood and bone t