"A professional," interjected Doctor Lanning.
"Only desperate gamesters stake all on a single throw," said Gertrude warningly.
"I am a desperate gamester," said Glover, "and now for it. Have you seen the Devil's Gap?"
"The very first day--the very first trip!" cried Mrs. Whitney, raising her tone one note above every other protest.
"And you staked all on so wretched a chance?" exclaimed Gertrude. "Why, Devil's Gap is the stock feature of every guide, good, bad, and indifferent, at the Springs."
"I have staked more at heavier odds," returned Glover, taking the storm calmly, "and won. Have you made but one trip, when you first came, do you say?"
"Then you haven't seen Devil's Gap. To see it," he continued, "you must see it at night."
"With the moon rising over the Spanish Sinks."
"To-night we have full moon," added Glover. "Don't say too lightly you have seen Devil's Gap, for that is given to but few tourists."
"Do not call us tourists," objected Gertrude.
"And from where did you see Devil's Gap--The Pilot?"
If the expression of Glover's face, returning somewhat the ridicule heaped on him, was intended to pique the interest of the sightseers it was effective. He was restored, provisionally, to favor; his suggestion that after dinner they take horses for the ride up Pilot Mountain to where the Gap could be seen by moonlight was eagerly adopted, and Mrs. Whitney's objection to dressing again was put down. Marie, fearing the hardship, demurred, but Glover woke to so lively interest, and promised the trip should be so easy that when she consented to go he made it his affair to attend directly to her comfort and safety.
He summoned one particular liveryman, not a favorite at the fashionable hotel, and to him gave especial injunctions about the horses. The girths Glover himself went over at starting, and in the riding he kept near Marie.
Lighted by the stars, they left the hotel in the early evening. "How are you to find your way, Mr. Glover?" asked Marie, as they threaded the path He led her into after they had reached the mountain. "Is this the road we came on?"
"I could climb Pilot blindfolded, I reckon. When we came in here I ran surveys all around the old fellow, switchbacks and everything. The line is a Chinese puzzle about here for ten miles. The path you're on now is an old Indian trail out of Devil's Gap. The guides don't use it because it is too long. The Gap is a ten-dollar trip, in any case, and naturally they make it the shortest way."