Episode 11. The Place Of Pines

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_ EPISODE ELEVEN. THE PLACE OF PINES

I

The last sound that Mike Clinch heard on earth was the detonation of his own rifle. Probably it was an agreeable sound to him. He lay there with a pleasant expression on his massive features. His watch had fallen out of his pocket.

Quintana shined him with an electric torch; picked up the watch. Then, holding the torch in one hand, he went through the dead man's pockets very thoroughly.

When Quintana had finished, both trays of the flat morocco case were full of jewels. And Quintana was full of wonder and suspicion.

Unquietly he looked upon the dead--upon the glittering contents of the jewel-box,--but always his gaze reverted to the dead. The faintest shadow of a smile edged Clinch's lips. Quintana's lips grew graver. He said slowly, like one who does his thinking aloud:

"What is it you have done to me, l'ami Clinch?... Are there truly then two sets of precious stones?--_two_ Flaming Jewels?--two gems of Erosite like there never has been in all thees worl' excep' only two more?... Or is one set false?... Have I here one set of paste facsimiles?... My frien' Clinch, why do you lie there an' smile at me so ver' funny ... like you are amuse?... I am wondering what you may have done to me, my frien' Clinch...."

For a while he remained kneeling beside the dead. Then: "Ah, bah," he said, pocketing the morocco case and getting to his feet.

He moved a little way toward the open trail, stopped, came back, stood his rifle against a tree.

For a while he was busy with his sharp Spanish clasp knife, whittling and fitting together two peeled twigs. A cross was the ultimate result. Then he placed Clinch's hands palm to palm upon his chest, laid the cross on his breast, and shined the result with complacency.

Then Quintana took off his hat.

"L'ami Mike," he said, "you were a _man_!... Adios!"

* * * * *

Quintana put on his hat. The path was free. The world lay open before Jose Quintana once more;--the world, his hunting ground.

"But," he thought uneasily, "what is it that I bring home this time? How much is paste? My God, how droll that smile of Clinch.... Which is the false--his jewels or mine? Dieu que j'etais bete!---- Me who have not suspec' that there are _two_ trays within my jewel-box!... I unnerstan'. It is ver' simple. In the top tray the false gems. Ah! Paste on top to deceive a thief!... Alors.... Then what I have recover of Clinch is the _real_!... Nom de Dieu!... How should I know? His smile is so ver' funny.... I think thees dead man make mock of me--all inside himse'f----"

So, in darkness, prowling south by west, shining the trail furtively, and loaded rifle ready, Quintana moved with stealthy, unhurried tread out of the wilderness that had trapped him and toward the tangled border of that outer world which led to safe, obscure, uncharted labyrinths--old-world mazes, immemorial hunting grounds--haunted by men who prey.

* * * * *

The night had turned frosty. Quintana, wet to the knees and very tired, moved slowly, not daring to leave the trail because of sink-holes.

However, the trail led to Clinch's Dump, and sooner or later he must leave it.

What he had to have was a fire; he realised that. Somewhere off the trail, in big timber if possible, he must build a fire and master this deadly chill that was slowly paralysing all power of movement.

He knew that a fire in the forest, particularly in big timber, could be seen only a little way. He must take his chances with sink-holes and find some spot in the forest to build that fire.

Who could discover him except by accident?

Who would prowl the midnight wilderness? At thirty yards the fire would not be visible. And, as for the odour--well, he'd be gone before dawn.... Meanwhile, he must have that fire. He could wait no longer.

He cut a pole first. Then he left the trail where a little spring flowed west, and turned to the right, shining the forest floor as he moved and sounding with his pole every wet stretch of moss, every strip of mud, every tiniest glimmer of water.

At last he came to a place of pines, first growth giants towering into night, and, looking up, saw stars, infinitely distant, ... where perhaps those things called souls drifted like wisps of vapour.

When the fire took, Quintana's thin dark hands had become nearly useless from cold. He could not have crooked finger to trigger.

For a long time he sat close to the blaze, slowly massaging his torpid limbs, but did not dare strip off his foot-gear.

Steam rose from puttee and heavy shoe and from the sodden woollen breeches. Warmth slowly penetrated. There was little smoke; the big dry branches were dead and bleached and he let the fire eat into them without using his axe.

Once or twice he sighed, "Oh, my God," in a weary demi-voice, as though the content of well-being were permeating him.

Later he ate and drank languidly, looking up at the stars, speculating as to the possible presence of Mike Clinch up there.

"Ah, the dirty thief," he murmured; "--nevertheless a man. Quel homme! Mais bete a faire pleurer! Je l'ai bien triche, moi! Ha!"

Quintana smiled palely as he thought of the coat and the gently-swaying bush--of the red glare of Clinch's shot, of the death-echo of his own shot.

Then, uneasy, he drew out the morocco case and gazed at the two trays full of gems.

The jewels blazed in the firelight. He touched them, moved them about, picked up several and examined them, testing the unset edges against his under lip as an expert tests jade.

But he couldn't tell; there was no knowing. He replaced them, closed the case, pocketed it. When he had a chance he could try boiling water for one sort of trick. He could scratch one or two.... Sard would know. He wondered whether Sard had got away, not concerned except selfishly. However, there were others in Paris whom he could trust--at a price....

Quintana rested both elbows on his knees and framed his dark face between both bony hands.

What a chase Clinch had led him after the Flaming Jewel. And now Clinch lay dead in the forest--faintly smiling. At _what_?

In a very low, passionless voice, Quintana cursed monotonously as he gazed into the fire. In Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, he cursed Clinch. After a little while he remembered Clinch's daughter, and he cursed her, elaborately, thoroughly, wishing her black mischance awake and asleep, living or dead.

Darragh, too, he remembered in his curses, and did not slight him. And the trooper, Stormont--ah, he should have killed all of them when he had the chance.... And those two Baltic Russians, also, the girl duchess and her friend. Why on earth hadn't he made a clean job of it? Over-caution. A wary disinclination to stir up civilization by needless murder. But after all, old maxims, old beliefs, old truths are the best, God knows. The dead don't talk! And that's the wisest wisdom of all.

"If," murmured Quintana fervently, "God gives me further opportunity to acquire a little property to comfort me in my old age, I shall leave no gossiping fool to do me harm with his tongue. No! I kill.

"And though they raise a hue and cry, dead tongues can not wag and I save myse'f much annoyance in the end."

He leaned his back against the trunk of a massive pine.

Presently Quintana slept after his own fashion--that is to say, looking closely at him one could discover a glimmer under his lowered eyelids. And he listened always in that kind of sleep. As though a shadowy part of him were detached from his body, and mounted guard over it.

The inaudible movement of a wood-mouse venturing into the firelit circle awoke Quintana. Again a dropping leaf amid distant birches awoke him. Such things. And so he slept with wet feet to the fire and his rifle across his knees; and dreamed of Eve and of murder, and that the Flaming Jewel was but a mass of glass.

* * * * *

At that moment the girl of whose white throat Quintana was dreaming, and whining faintly in his dreams, stood alone outside Clinch's Dump, rifle in hand, listening, fighting the creeping dread that touched her slender body at times--seemed to touch her very heart with frost.

Clinch's men had gone on to Ghost Lake with their wounded and dead, where there was fitter shelter for both. All had gone on; nobody remained to await Clinch's home-coming except Eve Strayer.

Black Care, that tireless squire of dames, had followed her from the time she had left Clinch, facing the spectral forests of Drowned Valley.

An odd, unusual dread weighted her heart--something in emotions that she never before had experienced in time of danger. In it there was the deathly unease of premonition. But of what it was born she did not understand,--perhaps of the strain of dangers passed--of the shock of discovery concerning Smith's identity with Darragh--Darragh!--the hated kinsman of Harrod the abhorred.

Fiercely she wondered how much her lover knew about this miserable masquerade. Was Stormont involved in this deception--Stormont, the object of her first girl's passion--Stormont, for whom she would have died?

Wretched, perplexed, fiercely enraged at Darragh, deadly anxious concerning Clinch, she had gone about cooking supper.

The supper, kept warm on the range, still awaited the man who had no more need of meat and drink.

* * * * *

Of the tragedy of Sard Eve knew nothing. There were no traces save in the disorder in the pantry and the bottles and chair on the veranda.

Who had visited the place excepting those from whom she and Stormont had fled, did not appear. She had no idea why her step-father's mattress and bed-quilt lay in the pantry.

Her heart heavy with ceaseless anxiety, Eve carried mattress and bed-clothes to Clinch's chamber, re-made his bed, wandered through the house setting it in order; then, in the kitchen, seated herself and waited until the strange dread that possessed her drove her out into the starlight to stand and listen and stare at the dark forest where all her dread seemed concentrated.

* * * * *

It was not yet dawn, but the girl could endure the strain no longer.

With electric torch and rifle she started for the forest, almost running at first; then, among the first trees, moving with caution and in silence along the trail over which Clinch should long since have journeyed homeward.

In soft places, when she ventured to flash her torch, foot-prints cast curious shadows, and it was hard to make out tracks so oddly distorted by the light. Prints mingled and partly obliterated other prints. She identified her own tracks leading south, and guessed at the others, pointing north and south, where they had carried in the wounded and had gone back to bring in the dead.

But nowhere could she discover any impression resembling her step-father's,--that great, firm stride and solid imprint which so often she had tracked through moss and swale and which she knew so well.

Once when she got up from her knees after close examination of the muddy trail, she became aware of the slightest taint in the night air--stood with delicate nostrils quivering--advanced, still conscious of the taint, listening, wary, every stealthy instinct alert.

She had not been mistaken: somewhere in the forest there was smoke. Somewhere a fire was burning. It might not be very far away; it might be distant. _Whose fire?_ Her father's? Would a hunter of men build a fire?

The girl stood shivering in the darkness. There was not a sound.

Now, keeping her cautious feet in the trail by sense of touch alone, she moved on. Gradually, as she advanced, the odour of smoke became more distinct. She heard nothing, saw nothing; but there was a near reek of smoke in her nostrils and she stopped short.

After a little while in the intense silence of the forest she ventured to touch the switch of her torch, very cautiously.

In the faint, pale lustre she saw a tiny rivulet flowing westward from a spring, and, beside it, in the mud, imprints of a man's feet.

The tracks were small, narrow, slimmer than imprints made by any man she could think of. Under the glimmer of her torch they seemed quite fresh; contours were still sharp, some ready to crumble, and water stood in the heels.

A little way she traced them, saw where their maker had cut a pole, peeled it; saw, farther on, where this unknown man had probed in moss and mud--peppered some particularly suspicious swale with a series of holes as though a giant woodcock had been "boring" there.

Who was this man wandering all alone at night off the Drowned Valley trail and probing the darkness with a pole?

She knew it was not her father. She knew that no native--none of her father's men--would behave in such a manner. Nor could any of these have left such narrow, almost delicate tracks.

As she stole along, dimly shining the tracks, lifting her head incessantly to listen and peer into the darkness, her quick eye caught something ahead--something very slightly different from the wall of black obscurity--a vague hint of colour--the very vaguest tint scarcely perceptible at all.

But she knew it was firelight touching the trunk of an unseen tree.

Now, soundlessly over damp pine needles she crept. The scent of smoke grew strong in nostril and throat; the pale tint became palely reddish. All about her the blackness seemed palpable--seemed to touch her body with its weight; but, ahead, a ruddy glow stained two huge pines. And presently she saw the fire, burning low, but redly alive. And, after a long, long while, she saw a man.

He had left the fire circle. His pack and belted mackinaw still lay there at the foot of a great tree. But when, finally, she discovered him, he was scarcely visible where he crouched in the shadow of a tree-trunk, with his rifle half lowered at a ready.

Had he heard her? It did not seem possible. Had he been crouching there since he made his fire? Why had he made it then--for its warmth could not reach him there. And why was he so stealthily watching--silent, unstirring, crouched in the shadows?

She strained her eyes; but distance and obscurity made recognition impossible. And yet, somehow, every quivering instinct within her was telling her that the crouched and shadowy watcher beyond the fire was Quintana.

And every concentrated instinct was telling her that he'd kill her if he caught sight of her; her heart clamoured it; her pulses thumped it in her ears.

Had the girl been capable of it she could have killed him where he crouched. She thought of it, but knew it was not in her to do it. And yet Quintana had boasted that he meant to kill her father. That was what terribly concerned her. And there must be a way to stop that danger--some way to stop it short of murder,--a way to render this man harmless to her and hers.

No, she could not kill him this way. Except in extremes she could not bring herself to fire upon any human creature. And yet this man must be rendered harmless--somehow--somehow--ah!----

As the problem presented itself its solution flashed into her mind. Men of the wilderness knew how to take dangerous creatures alive. To take a dangerous and reasoning human was even less difficult, because reason makes more mistakes than does instinct.

Stealthily, without a sound, the girl crept back through the shadows over the damp pine needles, until, peering fearfully over her shoulder, she saw the last ghost-tint of Quintana's fire die out in the terrific dark behind.

Slowly, still, she moved until her sensitive feet felt the trodden path from Drowned Valley.

Now, with torch flaring, she ran, carrying her rifle at a trail. Before her, here and there, little night creatures fled--a humped-up raccoon, dazzled by the glare, a barred owl still struggling with its wood-rat kill.

She ran easily,--an agile, tireless young thing, part of the swiftness and silence of the woods--part of the darkness, the sinuous celerity, the ominous hush of wide, still places--part of its very blood and pulse and hot, sweet breath.

Even when she came out among the birches by Clinch's Dump she was breathing evenly and without distress. She ran to the kitchen door but did not enter. On pegs under the porch a score or more of rusty traps hung. She unhooked the largest, wound the chain around it, tucked it under her left arm and started back.

* * * * *

When at last she arrived at the place of pines again, and saw the far, spectral glimmer of Quintana's fire, the girl was almost breathless. But dawn was not very far away and there remained little time for the taking alive of a dangerous man.

Where two enormous pines grew close together near a sapling, she knelt down, and, with both hands, scooped out a big hollow in the immemorial layers of pine needles. Here she placed her trap. It took all her strength and skill to set it; to fasten the chain around the base of the sapling pine.

And now, working with only the faintest glimmer of her torch, she covered everything with pine needles.

It was not possible to restore the forest floor; the place remained visible--a darker, rougher patch on the bronzed carpet of needles beaten smooth by decades of rain and snow. No animal would have trodden that suspicious space. But it was with man she had to deal--a dangerous but reasoning man with few and atrophied instincts--and with no experience in traps; and, therefore, in no dread of them.

* * * * *

Before she started she had thrown a cartridge into the breech of her rifle.

Now she pocketed her torch and seated herself between the two big pines and about three feet behind the hidden trap.

Dawn was not far away. She looked upward through high pine-tops where stars shone; and saw no sign of dawn. But the watcher by the fire beyond was astir, now, in the imminence of dawn, and evidently meant to warm himself before leaving.

Eve could hear him piling dry wood on the fire; the light on the tree trunks grew redder; a pungent reek of smoke was drawn through the forest aisles. She sniffed it, listened, and watched, her rifle across her knees.

Eve never had been afraid of anything. She was not afraid of this man. If it came to combat she would have to kill. It never entered her mind to fear Quintana's rifle. Even Clinch was not as swift with a rifle as she.... Only Stormont had been swifter--thank God!----

She thought of Stormont--sat there in the terrific darkness loving him, her heart of a child tremulous with adoration.

Then the memory of Darragh pushed in and hot hatred possessed her. Always, in her heart, she had distrusted the man.

Instinct had warned her. A spy! What evil had he worked already? Where was her father? Evidently Quintana had escaped him at Drowned Valley.... Quintana was yonder by his fire, preparing to flee the wilderness where men hunted him.... But where was Clinch? Had this sneak, Darragh, betrayed him? Was Clinch already in the clutch of the State Troopers? Was he in _jail_?

At the thought the girl felt slightly faint, then a rush of angry blood stung her face in the darkness. Except for game and excise violations the stories they told about Clinch were lies.

He had nothing to fear, nothing to be ashamed of. Harrod had driven him to lawlessness; the Government took away what was left him to make a living. He had to live. What if he did break laws made by millionaire and fanatic! What of it? He had her love and her respect--and her deep, deep pity. And these were enough for any girl to fight for.

Dawn spread a silvery light above the pines, but Quintana's fire still reddened the tree trunks; and she could hear him feeding it at intervals.

Finally she saw him. He came out on the edge of the ruddy ring of light and stood peering around at the woods where already a vague greyness was revealing nearer trees.

When, finally, he turned his back and looked at his fire, Eve rose and stood between the two big pines. Behind one of them she placed her rifle.

It was growing lighter in the woods. She could see Quintana in the fire ring and outside,--saw him go to the spring rivulet, lie flat, drink, then, on his knees, wash face and hands in the icy water.

It became plain to her that he was nearly ready to depart. She watched him preparing. And now she could see him plainly, and knew him to be Quintana and no other.

He had a light basket pack. He put some articles into it, stretched himself and yawned, pulled on his hat, hoisted the pack and fastened it to his back, stood staring at the fire for a long time; then, with a sudden upward look at the zenith where a slight flush stained a cloud, he picked up his rifle.

At that moment Eve called to him in a clear and steady voice.

The effect on Quintana was instant; he was behind a tree before her voice ceased.

"Hallo! Hi! You over there!" she called again. "This is Eve Strayer. I'm looking for Clinch! He hasn't been home all night. Have you seen him?"

After a moment she saw Quintana's head watching her,--not at the shoulder-height of a man but close to the ground and just above the tree roots.

"Hey!" she cried. "What's the matter with you over there? I'm asking you who you are and if you've seen my father?"

After a while she saw Quintana coming toward her, circling, creeping swiftly from tree to tree.

As he flitted through the shadows the trees between which she was standing hid her from him a moment. Instantly she placed her rifle on the ground and kicked the pine needles over it.

As Quintana continued his encircling manoeuvres Eve, apparently perplexed, walked out into the clear space, putting the concealed trap between her and Quintana, who now came stealthily toward her from the rear.

It was evident that he had reconnoitred sufficiently to satisfy himself that the girl was alone and that no trick, no ambuscade, threatened him.

And now, from behind a pine, and startlingly near her, came Quintana, moving with confident grace yet holding his rifle ready for any emergency.

Eve's horrified stare was natural; she had not realised that any man could wear so evil a smile.

Quintana stopped short a dozen paces away. The dramatic in him demanded of the moment its full value. He swept off his hat with a flourish, bowed deeply where he stood.

"Ah!" he cried gaily, "the happy encounter, Senorita. God is too good to us. And it was but a moment since my thoughts were of you! I swear it!----"

It was not fear; it was a sort of slow horror of this man that began to creep over the girl. She stared at his brilliant eyes, at his thick mouth, too red--shuddered slightly. But the toe of her right foot touched the stock of her rifle under the pine needles.

She held herself under control.

"So it's you," she said unsteadily. "I thought our people had caught you."

Quintana laughed: "Charming child," he said, "it is _I_ who have caught your people. And now, my God!--I catch _you_!... It is ver' funny. Is it not?"

She looked straight into Quintana's black eyes, but the look he returned sent the shamed blood surging into her face.

"By God," he said between his white, even teeth,--"by God!"

Staring at her he slowly disengaged his pack, let it fall behind him on the pine needles; rested his rifle on it; slipped out of his mackinaw and laid that across his rifle--always keeping his brilliant eyes on her.

His lips tightened, the muscles in his dark face grew tense; his eyes became a blazing insult.

For an instant he stood there, unencumbered, a wiry, graceful shape in his woollen breeches, leggings, and grey shirt open at the throat. Then he took a step toward her. And the girl watched him, fascinated.

One pace, two, a third, a fourth--the girl's involuntary cry echoed the stumbling crash of the man thrashing, clawing, scrambling in the clenched jaws of the bear-trap amid a whirl of flying pine needles.

He screamed once, tried to rise, turned blindly to seize the jaws that clutched him; and suddenly crouched, loose-jointed, cringing like a trapped wolf--the true fatalist among our lesser brothers.

Eve picked up her rifle. She was trembling violently. Then, mastering her emotion, she walked over to the pack, placed Quintana's rifle and mackinaw in it, coolly hoisted it to her shoulders and buckled it there.

Over her shoulder she kept an eye on Quintana who crouched where he had fallen, unstirring, his deadly eyes watching her.

She placed the muzzle of her rifle against his stomach, rested it so, holding it with one hand, and her finger at the trigger.

At her brief order he turned out both breeches pockets. She herself stooped and drew the Spanish clasp-knife from its sheath at his belt, took a pistol from the holster, another out of his hip pocket. Reaching up and behind her, she dropped these into the pack.

"Maybe," she said slowly, "your ankle is broken. I'll send somebody from Ghost Lake to find you. But whether you've a broken bone or not you'll not go very far, Quintana.... After I'm gone you'll be able to free yourself. But you can't get away. You'll be followed and caught.... So if you can walk at all you'd better go in to Ghost Lake and give yourself up.... It's that or starvation.... You've got a watch.... Don't stir or touch that trap for half an hour.... And that's all."

As she moved away toward the Drowned Valley trail she looked back at him. His face was bloodless but his black eyes blazed.

"If ever you come into this forest again," she said, "my father will surely kill you."

To her horror Quintana slowly grinned at her. Then, still grinning, he placed the forefinger of his left hand between his teeth and bit it.

Whatever he meant by the gesture it seemed unclean, horrible; and the girl hurried on, seized with an overwhelming loathing through which a sort of terror pulsated like evil premonition in a heavy and tortured heart.

Straight into the fire of dawn she sped. A pale primrose light glimmered through the woods; trees, bushes, undergrowth turned a dusky purple. Already the few small clouds overhead were edged with fiery rose.

Then, of a sudden, a shaft of flame played over the forest. The sun had risen.

Hastening, she searched the soft path for any imprint of her father's foot. And even in the vain search she hoped to find him at home--hurried on burdened with two rifles and a pack, still all nervous and aquiver from her encounter with Quintana.

Surely, surely, she thought, if he had missed Quintana in Drowned Valley he would not linger in that ghastly place; he'd come home, call in his men, take counsel perhaps----

* * * * *

Mist over Star Pond was dissolving to a golden powder in the blinding glory of the sun. The eastern window-panes in Clinch's Dump glittered as though the rooms inside were all on fire.

Down through withered weeds and scrub she hurried, ran across the grass to the kitchen door which swung ajar under its porch.

"Dad!" she called, "Dad!"

Only her own frightened voice echoed in the empty house. She climbed the stairs to his room. The bed lay undisturbed as she had made it. He was not in any of the rooms; there were no signs of him.

Slowly she descended to the kitchen. He was not there. The food she had prepared for him had become cold on a chilled range.

For a long while she stood staring through the window at the sunlight outside. Probably, since Quintana had eluded him, he'd come home for something to eat.... Surely, now that Quintana had escaped, Clinch would come back for some breakfast.

Eve slipped the pack from her back and laid it on the kitchen table. There was kindling in the wood-box. She shook down the cinders, laid a fire, soaked it with kerosene, lighted it, filled the kettle with fresh water.

In the pantry she cut some ham, and found eggs, condensed milk, butter, bread, and an apple pie. After she had ground the coffee she placed all these on a tray and carried them into the kitchen.

Now there was nothing more to do until her father came, and she sat down by the kitchen table to wait.

Outside the sunlight was becoming warm and vivid. There had been no frost after all--or, at most, merely a white trace in the shadow--on a fallen plank here and there--but not enough to freeze the ground. And, in the sunshine, it all quickly turned to dew, and glittered and sparkled in a million hues and tints like gems--like that handful of jewels she had poured into her father's joined palms--yesterday--there at the ghostly edge of Drowned Valley.

At the memory, and quite mechanically, she turned in her chair and drew Quintana's basket pack toward her.

First she lifted out his rifle, examined it, set it against the window sill. Then, one by one, she drew out two pistols, loaded; the murderous Spanish clasp-knife; an axe; a fry-pan and a tin pail, and the rolled-up mackinaw.

Under these the pack seemed to contain nothing except food and ammunition; staples in sacks and a few cans--lard, salt, tea--such things.

The cartridge boxes she piled up on the table; the food she tossed into a tin swill bucket.

About the effects of this man it seemed to her as though something unclean lingered. She could scarcely bear to handle them,--threw them from her with disgust.

The garment, also--the heavy brown and green mackinaw--she disliked to touch. To throw it out doors was her intention; but, as she lifted the coat, it unrolled and some things fell from the pockets to the kitchen table,--money, keys, a watch, a flat leather case----

She looked stupidly at the case. It had a coat of arms emblazoned on it.

Still, stupidly and as though dazed, she laid one hand on it, drew it to her, opened it.

The Flaming Jewel blazed in her face amid a heap of glittering gems.

Still she seemed slow to comprehend--as though understanding were paralysed.

It was when her eyes fell upon the watch that her heart seemed to stop. Suddenly her stunned senses were lighted as by an infernal flare.... Under the awful blow she swayed upright to her feet, sick with fright, her eyes fixed on her father's watch.

It was still ticking.

She did not know whether she cried out in anguish or was dumb under it. The house seemed to reel around her; under foot too.

When she came to her senses she found herself outside the house, running with her rifle, already entering the woods. But, inside the barrier of trees, something blocked her way, stopped her,--a man--_her_ man!

"Eve! In God's name!----" he said as she struggled in his arms; but she fought him and strove to tear her body from his embrace:

"They've killed Dad!" she panted,--"Quintana killed him. I didn't know--oh, I didn't know!--and I let Quintana go! Oh, Jack, Jack, he's at the Place of Pines! I'm going there to shoot him! Let me go!--he's killed Dad, I tell you! He had Dad's watch--and the case of jewels--they were in his pack on the kitchen table----"

"Eve!"

"Let me go!----"

"_Eve!_" He held her rigid a moment in his powerful grip, compelled her dazed, half-crazed eyes to meet his own:

"You must come to your senses," he said. "Listen to what I say: they are _bringing in your father_."

Her dilated blue eyes never moved from his.

"We found him in Drowned Valley at sunrise," said Stormont quietly. "The men are only a few rods behind me. They are carrying him out."

Her lips made a word without sound.

"Yes," said Stormont in a low voice.

There was a sound in the woods behind them. Stormont turned. Far away down the trail the men came into sight.

Then the State Trooper turned the girl very gently and placed one arm around her shoulders.

Very slowly they descended the hill together. His equipment was shining in the morning sun: and the sun fell on Eve's drooping head, turning her chestnut hair to fiery gold.

* * * * *

An hour later Trooper Stormont was at the Place of Pines.

There was nothing there except an empty trap and the ashes of the dying fire beyond. _

Read next: Episode 12. Her Highness Intervenes

Read previous: Episode 10. The Twilight Of Mike

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