“All right. Your house is so near that you’d be sure to hear me. The gates are nailed up, but I can’t help feeling a little nervous. Keep what I’ve told you to yourself.”
“Do you think you will lose it all, Ben?”
“I can’t tell. I’m going to make a fight for it.”
“You’re awfully worried. I can tell by your face.”
“Well, what if I am? Most men are—most of the time. It’s life.” Beth sighed. “We’re rushed along, just as if we were on a river, and all we can do is to do the best we can. If we do that, it’s enough.”
He stopped and ground the heel of his shoe in the damp sand. “I heard a man describe it oddly once. He likened life to a dog-pit. He called it an ‘arena,’ but he meant a dog-pit. And he said a man had to take hold with a bulldog’s grip to succeed. I thought it was horrible then, but somehow it comes back to me now.”
“I never saw you in fighting mood before.”
“Haven’t I had enough to make me so? To have that rich old miser take what belongs to me! It’s mine, and he knows it, and so does everybody else! And if he sneaks through this hole he’s found in the lease and takes my gold, he’s just as much a thief as if he’d broken into my house and stolen what didn’t belong to him! I don’t care if the law does back him up,—it’s dishonest trickery!”
“Maybe you won’t be a millionaire, after all.” The girl’s face wore a blank expression. Then she suddenly brightened. “But millionaires always go through this sort of thing, don’t they? Mr. Palmer landed in San Francisco with only fifty cents in his pocket and chopped wood to earn his dinner. I’ve heard him tell about it lots of times. I think he’d rather talk about it than anything else in the world. Perhaps,” she glanced at Ben, “you’re too well dressed, Ben, to turn out a millionaire. Perhaps you ought to go barefooted, or, at least, wear ragged shoes first.”
Her companion smiled. “Girls are always thinking of appearances,” he said. “But I think you had better give up the hope of my being a millionaire; that’s a fairy tale. If I make a few thousand out of this,—provided I can beat this old devil-fish,—I’ll be satisfied.”