"José Quintana:"You win. She's got that stuff with her. Take your damn junk and let my girl go."Mike Clinch."
"José Quintana:
"You win. She's got that stuff with her. Take your damn junk and let my girl go.
"Mike Clinch."
"Well," said Quintana, a thin, strident edge to his tone.
"My father is mistaken. I haven't any packet."
The man's visage behind his mask flushed darkly. Without warning or ceremony he caught Eve by the throat and tore open her shirt. Then, hissing and cursing and panting with his own violence, he searched her brutally and without mercy—flung her down and tore off her spiral puttees and even her shoes and stockings, now apparently beside himself with fury, puffing, gasping, always with a fierce, nasal sort of whining undertone like an animal worrying its kill.
"Cowardly beast!" she panted, fighting him with all her strength—"filthy, cowardly beast!——"striking at him, wrenching his grasp away, snatching at the disordered clothing half stripped from her.
His hunting knife fell clattering and she fought to get it, but he struck her with his open hand, knocking her down at his feet, and stood glaring at her with every tooth bared.
"So," he cried, "I give you ten minutes, make up your mind, tell me what you do with that packet."
He wiped the blood from his face where she had struck him.
"You don't know José Quintana. No! You shall make his acquaintance. Yes!"
Eve got up on naked feet, quivering from head to foot, striving to button the grey shirt at her throat.
"Where?" he demanded, beside himself.
Her mute lips only tightened.
"Ver' well, by God!" he cried. "I go make me some fire. You like it, eh? We shall put one toe in the fire until it burn off. Yes? Eh? How you like it? Eh?"
The girl's trembling hands continued busy with her clothing.
"So!" he said, hoarsely, "you remain dumb! Well, then, in ten minutes you shall talk!"
He walked toward her, pushed her savagely aside, and strode on into the spruce thicket.
The instant he disappeared Eve caught up the knife he had dropped, knelt down on the blanket and fell to cutting it into strips.
The hunting knife was like a razor; the feverish businesswas accomplished in a few moments, the pieces knotted, the cord strained in a desperate test over her knee.
And now she ran to the precipice where, ten feet below, the top of a great pine protruded from the gulf.
On the edge of the abyss was a spruce root. It looked dead, wedged deep between two rocks; but with all her strength she could not pull it out.
Sobbing, breathless, she tied her blanket rope to this, threw the other end over the cliff's edge, and, not giving herself time to think, lay flat, grasped the knotted line, swung off.
Knot by knot she went down. Half-way her naked feet brushed the needles. She looked over her shoulder, behind and down. Then, teeth clenched, she lowered herself steadily as she had learned to do in the school gymnasium, down, down, until her legs came astride of a pine limb.
It bent, swayed, gave with her, letting her sag to a larger limb below. This she clasped, letting go her rope.
Already, from the mountain's rocky crest above, she heard excited cries. Once, on her breakneck descent, she looked up through the foliage of the pine; and she saw, far up against the sky, a white-masked face looking over the edge of the precipice.
But if it were Quintana or another of his people she could not tell. And, again looking down, she began again the terrible descent.
An hour later, Trooper Stormont of the State Constabulary, sat his horse in amazement to see a ragged, breathless, boyish figure speeding toward him among thetamaracks, her naked feet splashing through pool and mire and sphagnum.
"Good heavens!" he exclaimed as she flung herself against his stirrup, sobbing, hysterical, and clinging to his knee.
"Take me back," she stammered, "—take me back to daddy! I can't—go on—another step——"
He leaned down, swung her up to his saddle in front, holding her cradled in his arms.
"Lie still," he said coolly; "you're all right now."
For another second he sat looking down at her, at the dishevelled hair, the gasping mouth,—at the rags clothing her, and at the flat packet clasped convulsively to her breast.
Then he spoke in a low voice to his horse, guiding left with one knee.
WHEN State Trooper Stormont rode up to Clinch's with Eve Strayer lying in his arms, Mike Clinch strode out of the motley crowd around the tavern, laid his rifle against a tree, and stretched forth his powerful hands to receive his stepchild.
He held her, cradled, looking down at her in silence as the men clustered around.
"Eve," he said hoarsely, "be you hurted?"
The girl opened her sky-blue eyes.
"I'm all right, dad, ... just tired.... I've got your parcel ... safe...."
"To hell with the gol-dinged parcel," he almost sobbed; "—did Quintana harm you?"
"No, dad."
As he carried her to the veranda the packet fell from her cramped fingers. Clinch kicked it under a chair and continued on into the house and up the stairs to Eve's bedroom.
Flat on the bed, the girl opened her drowsy eyes again, unsmiling.
"Did that dirty louse misuse you?" demanded Clinch unsteadily. "G'wan tell me, girlie."
"He knocked me down.... He went away to get fire to make me talk. I cut up the blanket they gave me and made a rope. Then I went over the cliff into the big pine below. That was all, dad."
Clinch filled a tin basin and washed the girl's torn feet. When he had dried them he kissed them. She felt his unshaven lips trembling, heard him whimper for the first time in his life.
"Why the hell didn't you give Quintana the packet?" he demanded. "What does that count for—what does any damn thing count for against you, girlie?"
She looked up at him out of heavy-lidded eyes: "You told me to take good care of it."
"It's only a little truck I'd laid by for you," he retorted unsteadily, "—a few trifles for to make a grand lady of you when the time's ripe. 'Tain't worth a thorn in your little foot to me.... The hull gol-dinged world full o' money ain't worth that there stone-bruise onto them little white feet o' yourn, Eve.
"Look at you now—my God, look at you there, all peaked an' scairt an' bleedin'—plum tuckered out, 'n' all ragged 'n' dirty——"
A blaze of fury flared in his small pale eyes: "—And he hit you, too, did he?—that skunk! Quintana done that to my little girlie, did he?"
"I don't know if it was Quintana. I don't know who he was, dad," she murmured drowsily.
"Masked, wa'n't he?"
"Yes."
Clinch's iron visage twitched and quivered. He gnawed his thin lips into control:
"Girlie, I gotta go out a spell. But I ain't a-leavin' you alone here. I'll git somebody to set up with you. You jest lie snug and don't think about nothin' till I come back."
"Yes, dad," she sighed, closing her eyes.
Clinch stood looking at her for a moment, then he went downstairs heavily, and out to the veranda where State Trooper Stormont still sat his saddle, talking to Hal Smith. On the porch a sullen crowd of backwoods riff-raff lounged in silence, awaiting events.
Clinch called across to Smith: "Hey, Hal, g'wan up and set with Eve a spell while she's nappin'. Take a gun."
Smith said to Stormont in a low voice: "Do me a favour, Jack?"
"You bet."
"That girl of Clinch's is in real danger if left here alone. But I've got another job on my hands. Can you keep a watch on her till I return?"
"Can't you tell me a little more, Jim?"
"I will, later. Do you mind helping me out now?"
"All right."
Trooper Stormont swung out of his saddle and led his horse away toward the stable.
Hal Smith went into the bar where Clinch stood, oiling a rifle.
"G'wan upstairs," he muttered. "I got a private war on. It's me or Quintana, now."
"You're going after Quintana?" inquired Smith, carelessly.
"I be. And I want you should git your gun and set up by Evie. And I want you should kill any living human son of a slut that comes botherin' around this here hotel."
"I'm going after Quintana with you, Mike."
"B'gosh, you ain't. You're a-goin' to keep watch here."
"No. Trooper Stormont has promised to stay with Eve. You'll need every man to-day, Mike. This isn't a deer drive."
Clinch let his rifle sag across the hollow of his left arm.
"Did you beef to that trooper?" he demanded in his pleasant, misleading way.
"Do you think I'm crazy?" retorted Smith.
"Well, what the hell——"
"They all know that some man used your girl roughly. That's all I said to him—'keep an eye on Eve until we can get back.' And I tell you, Mike, if we drive Star Peak we won't be back till long after sundown."
Clinch growled: "I ain't never asked no favours of no State Trooper——"
"He did you a favour, didn't he? He brought your daughter in."
"Yes, 'n' he'd jail us all if he got anything on us."
"Yes; and he'll shoot to kill if any of Quintana's people come here and try to break in."
Clinch grunted, peeled off his coat and got into a leather vest bristling with cartridge loops.
Trooper Stormont came in the back door, carrying his rifle.
"Some rough fellow been bothering your little daughter, Clinch?" he inquired. "The child was nearly all in when she met me out by Owl Marsh—clothes half torn off her back, bare-foot and bleeding. She's a plucky youngster. I'll say so, Clinch. If you think the fellow may come here to annoy her I'll keep an eye on her till you return."
Clinch went up to Stormont, put his powerful hands on the young fellow's shoulders.
After a moment's glaring silence: "Youlookclean. I guess you be, too. I wanta tell you I'll cut the guts outa any guy that lays the heft of a single finger onto Eve."
"I'd do so, too, if I were you," said Stormont.
"Would ye? Well, I guess you're a real man, too, even if you're a State Trooper," growled Clinch. "G'wan up. She's a-nappin'. If she wakes up you kinda talk pleasant to her. You act kind pleasant and cosy. She ain't had no ma. You tell her to set snug and ca'm. Then you cook her a egg if she wants it. There's pie, too. I cal'late to be back by sundown."
"Nearer morning," remarked Smith.
Stormont shrugged. "I'll stay until you show up, Clinch."
The latter took another rifle from the corner and handed it to Smith with a loop of ammunition.
"Come on," he grunted.
On the veranda he strode up to the group of sullen, armed men who regarded his advent in expressionless silence.
Sid Hone was there, and Harvey Chase, and the Hastings boys, and Cornelius Blommers.
"You fellas comin'?" inquired Clinch.
"Where?" drawled Sid Hone.
"Me an' Hal Smith is cal'kalatin' to drive Star Peak. It ain't a deer, neither."
There ensued a grim interval. Clinch's wintry smile began to glimmer.
"Booze agents or game protectors? Which?" askedByron Hastings. "They both look like deer—if a man gits mad enough."
Clinch's smile became terrifying. "I shell out five hundred dollars for everydeerthat's dropped on Star Peak to-day," he said. "And I hope there won't be no accidents and no mistakin' nostrangerfor a deer," he added, wagging his great, square head.
"Them accidents is liable to happen," remarked Hone, reflectively.
After another pause: "Where's Jake Kloon?" inquired Smith.
Nobody seemed to know.
"He was here when Mike called me into the bar," insisted Smith. "Where'd he go?"
Then, of a sudden, Clinch recollected the packet which he had kicked under a veranda chair. It was no longer there.
"Any o' you fellas seen a package here on the pyazza?" demanded Clinch harshly.
"Jake Kloon, he had somethin'," drawled Chase. "I supposed it was his lunch. Mebbe 'twas, too."
In the intense stillness Clinch glared into one face after another.
"Boys," he said in his softly modulated voice, "I kinda guess there's a rat amongst us. I wouldn't like for to be that there rat—no, not for a billion hundred dollars. No, I wouldn't. Becuz that there rat has bit my little girlie, Eve,—like that there deer bit her up onto Star Peak.... No, I wouldn't like for to be that there rat. Fer he's a-goin' to die like a rat, same's that there deer is a-goin' to die like a deer.... Anyone seen which way Jake Kloon went?"
"Now you speak of it," said Byron Hastings, "seems like I noticed Jake and Earl Leverett down by the woods near the pond. I kinda disremembered when you asked, but I guess I seen them."
"Sure," said Sid Hone. "Now you mention it, I seen 'em, too. Thinks I to m'self, they is pickin' them blackberries down to the crick. Yas, I seen 'em."
Clinch tossed his rifle across his left shoulder.
"Rats an' deer," he said pleasantly. "Them's the articles we're lookin' for. Only for God's sake be careful you don't mistake amanfor 'em in the woods."
One or two men laughed.
On the edge of Owl Marsh Clinch halted in the trail, and, as his men came up, he counted them with a cold eye.
"Here's the runway and this here hazel bush is my station," he said. "You fellas do the barkin'. You, Sid Hone, and you, Corny, start drivin' from the west. Harve, you yelp 'em from the north by Lynx Brook. Jim and Byron, you get twenty minutes to go 'round to the eastward and drive by the Slide. And you, Hal Smith,"—he looked around—"where 'n hell be you, Hal?——"
Smith came up from the bog's edge.
"Send 'em out," he said in a low voice. "I've got Jake's tracks in the bog."
Clinch motioned his beaters to their duty. "Twenty minutes," he reminded Hone, Chase, and Blommers, "before you start drivin'." And, to the Hastings boys: "If you shoot, aim low for their bellies. Don't leave no blood around. Scrape it up. We bury what we get."
He and Smith stood looking after the five slouchingfigures moving away toward their blind trails. When all had disappeared:
"Show me Jake's mark," he said calmly.
Smith led him to the edge of the bog, knelt down, drew aside a branch of witch-hopple. A man's footprint was plainly visible on the mud.
"That's Jake," said Clinch slowly. "I know them half-soled boots o' hisn." He lifted another branch. "There's another man's track!"
"The other is probably Leverett's."
"Likely. He's got thin feet."
"I think I'd better go after them," said Smith, reflectively.
"They'll plug you, you poor jackass—two o' them like that, and one a-settin' up to watch out. Hell! Be you tired o' bed an' board?"
Smith smiled: "Don't you worry, Mike."
"Why? You think you're that smart? Jest becuz you stuck up a tourist you think you're cock o' the North Woods—with them two foxes lyin' out for to snap you up? Hey? Why, you poor dumb thing, Jake runs Canadian hootch for a livin' and Leverett's a trap thief! What couldyoudo with a pair o' foxes like that?"
"Catch 'em," said Smith, coolly. "You mind your business, Mike."
As he shouldered his rifle and started into the marsh, Clinch dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder; but the young man shook it off.
"Shut up," he said sharply. "You've a private war on your hands. So have I. I'll take care of my own."
"What'syourgrievance?" demanded Clinch, surprised.
"Jake Kloon played a dirty trick on me."
"When was that?"
"Not very long ago."
"I hadn't heard," said Clinch.
"Well, you hear it now, don't you? All right. All right; I'm going after him."
As he started again across the marsh, Clinch called out in a guarded voice: "Take good care of that packet if you catch them rats. It belongs to Eve."
"I'll take such good care of it," replied Smith, "that its proper owner need not worry."
The "proper owner" of the packet was, at that moment, on the Atlantic Ocean, travelling toward the United States.
Four other pretended owners of the Grand Duchess Theodorica's jewels, totally unconscious of anything impending which might impair their several titles to the gems, were now gathered together in a wilderness within a few miles of one another.
José Quintana lay somewhere in the forests with his gang, fiercely planning the recovery of the treasure of which Clinch had once robbed him. Clinch squatted on his runway, watching the mountain flank with murderous eyes. It was no longer the Flaming Jewel which mattered. His master passion ruled him now. Those who had offered violence to Eve must be reckoned with first of all. The hand that struck Eve Strayer had offered mortal insult to Mike Clinch.
As for the third pretender to the Flaming Jewel, Jake Kloon, he was now travelling in a fox's circle toward Drowned Valley—that shaggy wilderness of slime and tamarackand depthless bog which touches the northwest base of Star Peak. He was not hurrying, having no thought of pursuit. Behind him plodded Leverett, the trap thief, very, very busy with his own ideas.
To Leverett's repeated requests that Kloon halt and open the packet to see what it contained, Kloon gruffly refused.
"What do we care what's in it?" he said. "We get ten thousand apiece over our rifles for it from them guys. Ain't it a good enough job for you?"
"Maybe we make more if we take what's inside it for ourselves," argued Leverett. "Let's take a peek, anyway."
"Naw. I don't want no peek nor nothin'. The ten thousand comes too easy. More might scare us. Let that guy, Quintana, have what's his'n. All I ask is my rake-off. You allus was a dirty, thieving mink, Earl. Let's give him his and take ours and git. I'm going to Albany to live. You bet I don't stay in no woods where Mike Clinch dens."
They plodded on, arguing, toward their rendezvous with Quintana's outpost on the edge of Drowned Valley.
The fourth pretender to the pearls, rubies, and great gem called the Flaming Jewel, stolen from the young Grand Duchess Theodorica of Esthonia by José Quintana, was an unconscious pretender, entirely innocent of the rôle assigned her by Clinch.
For Eve Strayer had never heard where the packet came from or what it contained. All she knew was that her stepfather had told her that it belonged to her. And the knowledge left her incurious.
Eve slept the sleep of mental and physical exhaustion. Reaction from fear brings a fatigue more profound than that which follows physical overstrain. But the healthy mind, like the healthy body, disposes very thoroughly of toxics which arise from terror and exhaustion.
The girl slept profoundly, calmly. Her bruised young mind and body left her undisturbed. There was neither restlessness nor fever. Sleep swept her with its clean, sweet tide, cleansing the superb youth and health of her with the most wonderful balm in the Divine pharmacy.
She awoke late in the afternoon, opened her flower-blue eyes, and saw State Trooper Stormont sitting by the window, and gazing out.
Perhaps Eve's confused senses mistook the young man for a vision; for she lay very still, nor stirred even her little finger.
After a while Stormont glanced around at her. A warm, delicate colour stained her skin slowly, evenly, from throat to hair.
He got up and came over to the bed.
"How do you feel?" he asked, awkwardly.
"Where is dad?" she managed to inquire in a steady voice.
"He won't be back till late. He asked me to stick around—in case you needed anything——"
The girl's clear eyes searched his.
"Trooper Stormont?"
"Yes, Eve."
"Dad's gone after Quintana."
"Is he the fellow who misused you?"
"I think so."
"Who is he?"
"I don't know."
"Is he your enemy or your stepfather's?"
But the girl shook her head: "I can't discuss dad's affairs with—with——"
"With a State Trooper," smiled Stormont. "That's all right, Eve. You don't have to."
There was a pause; Stormont stood beside the bed, looking down at her with his diffident, boyish smile. And the girl gazed back straight into his eyes—eyes she had so often looked into in her dreams.
"I'm to cook you an egg and bring you some pie," he remarked, still smiling.
"Did dad say I am to stay in bed?"
"That was my inference. Do you feel very lame and sore?"
"My feet burn."
"You poor kid!... Would you let me look at them? I have a first-aid packet with me."
After a moment she nodded and turned her face on the pillow. He drew aside the cover a little, knelt down beside the bed.
Then he rose and went downstairs to the kitchen. There was hot water in the kettle. He fetched it back, bathed her feet, drew out from cut and scratch the flakes of granite-grit and brier-points that still remained there.
From his first-aid packet he took a capsule, dissolved it, sterilized the torn skin, then bandaged both feet with a deliciously cool salve, and drew the sheets into place.
Eve had not stirred nor spoken. He washed and driedhis hands and came back, drawing his chair nearer to the bedside.
"Sleep, if you feel like it," he said pleasantly.
As she made no sound or movement he bent over to see if she had already fallen asleep. And noticed that her flushed cheeks were wet with tears.
"Are you suffering?" he asked gently.
"No.... You are so wonderfully kind...."
"Why shouldn't I be kind?" he said, amused and touched by the girl's emotion.
"I tried to shoot you once. That is why you ought to hate me."
He began to laugh: "Isthatwhat you're thinking about?"
"I—never can—forget——"
"Nonsense. We're quits anyway. Do you remember what I did toyou?"
He was thinking of the handcuffs. Then, in her vivid blush he read what she was thinking. And he remembered his lips on her palms.
He, too, now was blushing brilliantly at memory of that swift, sudden rush of romantic tenderness which this girl had witnessed that memorable day on Owl Marsh.
In the hot, uncomfortable silence, neither spoke. He seated himself after a while. And, after a while, she turned on her pillow part way toward him.
Somehow they both understood that it was friendship which had subtly filled the interval that separated them since that amazing day.
"I've often thought of you," he said,—as though they had been discussing his absence.
No hour of the waking day that she had not thought ofhim. But she did not say so now. After a little while:
"Is yours a lonely life?" she asked in a low voice.
"Sometimes. But I love the forest."
"Sometimes," she said, "the forest seems like a trap that I can't escape. Sometimes I hate it."
"Are you lonely, Eve?"
"As you are. You see I know what the outside world is. I miss it."
"You were in boarding school and college."
"Yes."
"It must be hard for you here at Star Pond."
The girl sighed, unconsciously:
"There are days when I—can scarcely—stand it.... The wilderness would be more endurable if dad and I were all alone.... But even then——"
"You need young people of your own age,—educated companions——"
"I need the city, Mr. Stormont. I need all it can give: I'm starving for it. That's all."
She turned on her pillow, and he saw that she was smiling faintly. Her face bore no trace of the tragic truth she had uttered. But the tragedy was plain enough to him, even without her passionless words of revolt. The situation of this young, educated girl, aglow with youth, fettered, body and mind, to the squalor of Clinch's dump, was perfectly plain to anybody.
She said, seeing his troubled expression: "I'm sorry I spoke that way."
"I knew how you must feel, anyway."
"It seems ungrateful," she murmured. "I love my step-father."
"You've proven that," he remarked with a dry humour that brought the hot flush to her face again.
"I must have been crazy that day," she said. "It scares me to remember what I tried to do.... What a frightful thing—if I had killed you——Howcanyou forgive me?"
"How can you forgiveme, Eve?"
She turned her head: "I do."
"Entirely?"
"Yes."
He said,—a slight emotion noticeable in his voice: "Well, I forgave you before the darned gun exploded in our hands."
"Howcouldyou?" she protested.
"I was thinking all the while that you were acting as I'd have acted if anything threatenedmyfather."
"Were you thinking ofthat?"
"Yes,—and also how to get hold of you before you shot me." He began to laugh.
After a moment she turned her head to look at him, and her smile glimmered, responsive to his amusement. But she shivered slightly, too.
"How about that egg?" he inquired.
"I can get up——"
"Better keep off your feet. What is there in the pantry? You must be starved."
"I could eat a little before supper time," she admitted. "I forgot to take my lunch with me this morning. It is still there in the pantry on the bread box, wrapped up in brown paper, just as I left it——"
She half rose in bed, supported on one arm, her curly brown-gold hair framing her face:
"—Two cakes of sugar-milk chocolate in a flat brownpacket tied with a string," she explained, smiling at his amusement.
So he went down to the pantry and discovered the parcel on the bread box where she had left it that morning before starting for the cache on Owl Marsh.
He brought it to her, placed both pillows upright behind her, stepped back gaily to admire the effect. Eve, with her parcel in her hands, laughed shyly at his comedy.
"Begin on your chocolate," he said. "I'm going back to fix you some bread and butter and a cup of tea."
When again he had disappeared, the girl, still smiling, began to untie her packet, unhurriedly, slowly loosening string and wrapping.
Her attention was not fixed on what her slender fingers were about.
She drew from the parcel a flat morocco case with a coat of arms and crest stamped on it in gold, black, and scarlet.
For a few moments she stared at the object stupidly. The next moment she heard Stormont's spurred tread on the stairs; and she thrust the morocco case and the wrapping under the pillows behind her.
She looked up at him in a dazed way when he came in with the tea and bread. He set the tin tray on her bureau and came over to the bedside.
"Eve," he said, "you look very white and ill. Have you been hurt somewhere, and haven't you admitted it?"
She seemed unable to speak, and he took both her hands and looked anxiously into the lovely, pallid features.
After a moment she turned her head and buried her face in the pillow, trembling now in overwhelming realization ofwhat she had endured for the sake of two cakes of sugar-milk chocolate hidden under a bush in the forest.
For a long while the girl lay there, the feverish flush of tears on her partly hidden face, her nervous hands tremulous, restless, now seeking his, convulsively, now striving to escape his clasp—eloquent, uncertain little hands that seemed to tell so much and yet were telling him nothing he could understand.
"Eve, dear," he said, "are you in pain? What is it that has happened to you? I thought you were all right. You seemed all right——"
"I am," she said in a smothered voice. "You'll stay here with me, won't you?"
"Of course I will. It's just the reaction. It's all over. You're relaxing. That's all, dear. You're safe. Nothing can harm you now——"
"Please don't leave me."
After a moment: "I won't leave you.... I wish I might never leave you."
In the tense silence that followed her trembling ceased. Then his heart, heavy, irregular, began beating so that the startled pulses in her body awoke, wildly responsive.
Deep emotions, new, unfamiliar, were stirring, awaking, confusing them both. In a sudden instinct to escape, she turned and partly rose on one elbow, gazing blindly about her out of tear-marred eyes.
"I want my room to myself," she murmured in a breathless sort of way, "—I want you to go out, please——"
A boyish flush burnt his face. He got up slowly, tookhis rifle from the corner, went out, closing the door, and seated himself on the stairs.
And there, on guard, sat Trooper Stormont, rigid, unstirring, hour after hour, facing the first great passion of his life, and stunned by the impact of its swift and unexpected blow.
In her chamber, on the bed's edge, sat Eve Strayer, her deep eyes fixed on space. Vague emotions, exquisitely recurrent, new born, possessed her. The whole world, too, all around her seemed to have become misty and golden and all pulsating with a faint, still rhythm that indefinably thrilled her pulses to response.
Passion, full-armed, springs flaming from the heart of man. Woman is slow to burn. And it was the delicate phantom of passion that Eve gazed upon, there in her unpainted chamber, her sun-tanned fingers linked listlessly in her lap, her little feet like bruised white flowers drooping above the floor.
Hour after hour she sat there dreaming, staring at the tinted ghost of Eros, rose-hued, near-smiling, unreal, impalpable as the dusty sunbeam that slanted from her window, gilding the boarded floor.
Three spectres, gliding near, paused to gaze at State Trooper Stormont, on guard by the stairs. Then they looked at the closed door of Eve's chamber.
Then the three spectres, Fate, Chance and Destiny, whispering together, passed on toward the depths of the sunset forest.
THE soft, bluish forest shadows had lengthened, and the barred sun-rays, filtering through, were tinged with a rosy hue before Jake Kloon, the hootch runner, and Earl Leverett, trap thief, came to Drowned Valley.
They were still a mile distant from the most southern edge of that vast desolation, but already tamaracks appeared in the beauty of their burnt gold; little pools glimmered here and there; patches of amber sphagnum and crimson pitcher-plants became frequent; and once or twice Kloon's big boots broke through the crust of fallen leaves, soaking him to the ankles with black silt.
Leverett, always a coward, had pursued his devious and larcenous way through the world, always in deadly fear of sink holes.
His movements and paths were those of a weasel, preferring always solid ground; but he lacked the courage of that sinuous little beast, though he possessed all of its ferocity and far more cunning.
Now trotting lightly and tirelessly in the broad and careless spoor of Jake Kloon, his narrow, pointed head alert, and every fear-sharpened instinct tensely observant, the trap-thief continued to meditate murder.
Like all cowards, he had always been inclined to bold andruthless action; but inclination was all that ever had happened.
Yet, even in his pitiable misdemeanours he slunk through life in terror of that strength which never hesitates at violence. In his petty pilfering he died a hundred deaths for every trapped mink or otter he filched; he heard the game protector's tread as he slunk from the bagged trout brook or crawled away, belly dragging, and pockets full of snared grouse.
Always he had dreamed of the day when, through some sudden bold and savage stroke, he could deliver himself from a life of fear and live in a city, grossly, replete with the pleasures of satiation, never again to see a tree or a lonely lake or the blue peaks which, always, he had hated because they seemed to spy on him from their sky-blue heights.
They were spying on him now as he moved lightly, furtively at Jake Kloon's heels, meditating once more that swift, bold stroke which forever would free him from all care and fear.
He looked at the back of Kloon's massive head. One shot would blow that skull into fragments, he thought, shivering.
One shot from behind,—and twenty thousand dollars,—or, if it proved a better deal, the contents of the packet. For, if Quintana's bribery had dazzled them, what effect might the contents of that secret packet have if revealed?
Always in his mean and busy brain he was trying to figure to himself what that packet must contain. And, to make the bribe worth while, Leverett had concluded that only a solid packet of thousand-dollar bills could account for the twenty thousand offered.
There might easily be half a million in bills pressed together in that heavy, flat packet. Bills were absolutely safe plunder. But Kloon had turned a deaf ear to his suggestions,—Kloon, who never entertained ambitions beyond his hootch rake-off,—whose miserable imagination stopped at a wretched percentage, satisfied.
One shot! There was the back of Kloon's bushy head. One shot!—and fear, which had shadowed him from birth, was at an end forever. Ended, too, privation,—the bitter rigour of black winters; scorching days; bodily squalor; ills that such as he endured in a wilderness where, like other creatures of the wild, men stricken died or recovered by chance alone.
A single shot would settle all problems for him.... But if he missed? At the mere idea he trembled as he trotted on, trying to tell himself that he couldn't miss. No use; always the coward's "if" blocked him; and the coward's rage,—fiercest of all fury,—ravaged him, almost crazing him with his own impotence.
Tamaracks, sphagnum, crimson pitcher-plants grew thicker; wet woods set with little black pools stretched away on every side.
It was still nearly a mile from Drowned Valley when Jake Kloon halted in his tracks and seatedhimselfon a narrow ridge of hard ground. And Leverett came lightly up and, after nosing the whole vicinity, sat down cautiously where Kloon would have to turn partly around to look at him.
"Where the hell do we meet up with Quintana?" growledKloon, tearing a mouthful from a gnawed tobacco plug and shoving the remainder deep into his trousers pocket.
"We gotta travel a piece, yet.... Say, Jake, be you a man or be you a poor dumb critter what ain't got no spunk?"
Kloon, chewing on his cud, turned and glanced at him. Then he spat, as answer.
"If you got the spunk of a chipmunk you and me'll take a peek at that there packet. I bet you it's thousand-dollar bills—more'n a billion million dollars, likely."
Kloon's dogged silence continued. Leverett licked his dry lips. His rifle lay on his knees. Almost imperceptibly he moved it, moved it again, froze stiff as Kloon spat, then, by infinitesimal degrees, continued to edge the muzzle toward Kloon.
"Jake?"
"Aw, shut your head," grumbled Kloon disdainfully. "You allus was a dirty rat—you sneakin' trap robber. Enough's enough. I ain't got no use for no billion million dollar bills. Ten thousand'll buy me all I cal'late to need till I'm planted. But you're like a hawg; you ain't never had enough o' nothin' and you won't never git enough, neither,—not if you wuz God a'mighty you wouldn't."
"Ten thousand dollars hain't nothin' to a billion million, Jake."
Kloon squirted a stream of tobacco at a pitcher plant and filled the cup. Diverted and gratified by the accuracy of his aim, he took other shots at intervals.
Leverett moved the muzzle of his rifle a hair's width to the left, shivered, moved it again. Under his soggy, sun-tanned skin apallormade his visage sickly grey.
"Jake?"
No answer.
"Say, Jake?"
No notice.
"Jake, I wanta take a peek at them bills."
Merely another stream of tobacco soiling the crimson pitcher.
"I'm—I'm desprit. I gotta take a peek. I gotta—gotta——"
Something in Leverett's unsteady voice made Kloon turn his head.
"You gol rammed fool," he said, "what you doin' with your——"
The loud detonation of the rifle punctuated Kloon's inquiry with a final period. The big, soft-nosed bullet struck him full in the face, spilling his brains and part of his skull down his back, and knocking him flat as though he had been clubbed.
Leverett, stunned, sat staring, motionless, clutching the rifle from the muzzle of which a delicate stain of vapour floated and disappeared through a rosy bar of sunshine.
In the intense stillness of the place, suddenly the dead man made a sound; and the trap-robber nearly fainted.
But it was only air escaping from the slowly collapsing lungs; and Leverett, ashy pale, shaking, got to his feet and leaned heavily against an oak tree, his eyes never stirring from the sprawling thing on the ground.
If it were a minute or a year he stood there he could never have reckoned the space of time. The sun's level rays glimmered ruddy through the woods. A green fly appeared,buzzing about the dead man. Another zig-zagged through the sunshine, lacing it with streaks of greenish fire. Others appeared, whirling, gyrating, filling the silence with their humming. And still Leverett dared not budge, dared not search the dead and take from it that for which the dead had died.
A little breeze came by and stirred the bushy hair on Kloon's head and fluttered the ferns around him where he lay.
Two delicate, pure-white butterflies—rare survivors of a native species driven from civilization into the wilderness by the advent of the foreign white—fluttered in airy play over the dead man, drifting away into the woodland at times, yet always returning to wage a fairy combat above the heap of soiled clothing which once had been a man.
Then, near in the ferns, the withering fronds twitched, and a red squirrel sprung his startling alarm, squeaking, squealing, chattering his opinion of murder; and Leverett, shaking with the shock, wiped icy sweat from his face, laid aside his rifle, and took his first stiff step toward the dead man.
But as he bent over he changed his mind, turned, reeling a little, then crept slowly out among the pitcher-plants, searching about him as though sniffing.
In a few minutes he discovered what he was looking for; took his bearings; carefully picked his way back over a leafy crust that trembled under his cautious tread.
He bent over Kloon and, from the left inside coat pocket, he drew the packet and placed it inside his own flannel shirt.
Then, turning his back to the dead, he squatted down andclutched Kloon's burly ankles, as a man grasps the handles of a wheelbarrow to draw it after him.
Dragging, rolling, bumping over roots, Jake Kloon took his last trail through the wilderness, leaving a redder path than was left by the setting sun through fern and moss and wastes of pitcher-plants.
Always, as Leverett crept on, pulling the dead behind him, the floor of the woods trembled slightly, and a black ooze wet the crust of withered leaves.
At the quaking edge of a little pool of water, Leverett halted. The water was dark but scarcely an inch deep over its black bed of silt.
Beside this sink hole the trap-thief dropped Kloon. Then he drew his hunting knife and cut a tall, slim swamp maple. The sapling was about twenty feet in height. Leverett thrust the butt of it into the pool. Without any effort he pushed the entire sapling out of sight in the depthless silt.
He had to manœuvre very gingerly to dump Kloon into the pool and keep out of it himself. Finally he managed it.
To his alarm, Kloon did not sink far. He cut another sapling and pushed the body until only the shoes were visible above the silt.
These, however, were very slowly sinking, now. Bubbles rose, dully iridescent, floated, broke. Strings of blood hung suspended in the clouding water.
Leverett went back to the little ridge and covered with dead leaves the spot where Kloon had lain. There were broken ferns, but he could not straighten them. And there lay Kloon's rifle.
For a while he hesitated, his habits of economy being ingrained; but he remembered the packet in his shirt, andhe carried the rifle to the little pool and shoved it, muzzle first, driving it downward, out of sight.
As he rose from the pool's edge, somebody laid a hand on his shoulder.
That was the most real death that Leverett ever had died.
A coward dies many times before Old Man Death really gets him.
The swimming minutes passed; his mind ceased to live for a space. Then, as through the swirling waters of the last dark whirlpool, a dulled roar of returning consciousness filled his being.
Somebody was shaking him, shouting at him. Suddenly instinct resumed its function, and he struggled madly to get away from the edge of the sink-hole—fought his way, blindly, through tangled undergrowth toward the hard ridge. No human power could have blocked the frantic creature thrashing toward solid ground.
But there Quintana held him in his wiry grip.
"Fool! Mule! Crazee fellow! What you do, eh? For why you make jumps like rabbits! Eh? You expec' Quintana? Yes? Alors!"
Leverett, in a state of collapse, sagged back against an oak tree. Quintana's nervous grasp fell from his arms and they swung, dangling.
"What you do by that pond-hole? Eh? I come and touch you, and, my God!—one would think I have stab you. Such an ass!"
The sickly greenish hue changed in Leverett's face asthe warmer tide stirred from its stagnation. He lifted his head and tried to look at Quintana.
"Where Jake Kloon?" demanded the latter.
At that the weasel wits of the trap-robber awoke to the instant crisis. Blood and pulse began to jump. He passed one dirty hand over his mouth to mask any twitching.
"Where my packet, eh?" inquired Quintana.
"Jake's got it." Leverett's voice was growing stronger. His small eyes switched for an instant toward his rifle, where it stood against a tree behind Quintana.
"Where is he, then, this Jake?" repeated Quintana impatiently.
"He got bogged."
"Bogged? What is that, then?"
"He got into a sink-hole."
"What!"
"That's all I know," said Leverett, sullenly. "Him and me was travellin' hell-bent to meet up with you,—Jake, he was for a short cut to Drowned Valley,—but 'no,' sez I, 'gimme a good hard ridge an' a long deetoor when there's sink-holes into the woods——'"
"What is it the talk you talk to me?" asked Quintana, whose perplexed features began to darken. "Where is it, my packet?"
"I'm tellin' you, ain't I?" retorted the other, raising a voice now shrill with the strain of this new crisis rushing so unexpectedly upon him: "I heard Jake give a holler. 'What the hell's the trouble?' I yells. Then he lets out a beller, 'Save me!' he screeches, 'I'm into a sink-hole! The quicksand's got me,' sez he. So I drop my rifle, I did,—thereshe stands against that birch sapling!—and I run down into them there pitcher-plants.
"'Whar be ye!' I yells. Then I listens, and don't hear nothin' only a kina wallerin' noise an' a slobber like he was gulpin' mud.
"Then I foller them there sounds and I come out by that sink-hole. The water was a-shakin' all over it but Jake he had went down plum out o' sight. T'want no use. I cut a sapling an' I poked down. I was sick and scared like, so when you come up over the moss, not makin' no noise, an' grabbed me—God!—I guess you'd jump, too."
Quintana's dark, tense face was expressionless when Leverett ventured to look at him. Like most liars he realised the advisability of looking his victim straight in the eyes. This he managed to accomplish, sustaining the cold intensity of Quintana's gaze as long as he deemed it necessary. Then he started toward his rifle. Quintana blocked his way.
"Where my packet?"
"Gol ram it! Ain't I told you? Jake had it in his pocket."
"My packet?"
"Yaas, yourn."
"My packet, it is down in thee sink 'ole?"
"You think I'm lyin'?" blustered Leverett, trying to move around Quintana's extended arm. The arm swerved and clutched him by the collar of his flannel shirt.
"Wait, my frien'," said Quintana in a soft voice. "You shall explain to me some things before you go."
"Explain what!—you gol dinged——"
Quintana shook him into speechlessness.
"Listen, my frien'," he continued with a terrifying smile,"I mus' ask you what it was, that gun-shot, which I hear while I await at Drown' Vallee. Eh? Who fire a gun?"
"I ain't heard no gun," replied Leverett in a strangled voice.
"You did not shoot? No?"
"No!—damn it all——"
"And Jake? He did not fire?"
"No, I tell yeh——"
"Ah! Someone lies. It is not me, my frien'. No. Let us examine your rifle——"
Leverett made a rush for the gun; Quintana slung him back against the oak tree and thrust an automatic pistol against his chin.
"Han's up, my frien'," he said gently, "—up! high up!—or someone will fire another shot you shall never hear.... So!... Now I search the other pocket.... So!... Still no packet. Bah! Not in the pants, either? Ah, bah!Butwait! Tiens! What is this you hide inside your shirt——?"
"I was jokin'," gasped Leverett; "—I was jest a-goin' to give it to you——"
"Is that my packet?"
"Yes. It was all in fun; I wan't a-going to steal it——"
Quintana unbuttoned the grey wool shirt, thrust in his hand and drew forth the packet for which Jake Kloon had died within the hour.
Suddenly Leverett's knees gave way and he dropped to the ground, grovelling at Quintana's feet in an agony of fright:
"Don't hurt me," he screamed, "—I didn't meant no harm! Jake, he wanted me to steal it. I told him I washonest. I fired a shot to scare him, an' he tuk an' run off! I wan't a-goin' to steal it off you, so help me God! I was lookin' for you—as God is my witness——"
He got Quintana by one foot. Quintana kicked him aside and backed away.
"Swine," he said, calmly inspecting the whimpering creature who had started to crawl toward him.
He hesitated, lifted his automatic, then, as though annoyed by Leverett's deafening shriek, shrugged, hesitated, pocketed both pistol and packet, and turned on his heel.
By the birch sapling he paused and picked up Leverett's rifle. Something left a red smear on his palm as he worked the ejector. It was blood.
Quintana gazed curiously at his soiled hand. Then he stooped and picked up the empty cartridge case which had been ejected. And, as he stooped, he noticed more blood on a fallen leaf.
With one foot, daintily as a game-cock scratches, he brushed away the fallen leaves, revealing the mess underneath.
After he had contemplated the crimson traces of murder for a few moments, he turned and looked at Leverett with faint curiosity.
"So," he said in his leisurely, emotionless way, "you have fight with my frien' Jake for thee packet. Yes? Ver' amusing." He shrugged his indifference, tossed the rifle to his shoulder and, without another glance at the cringing creature on the ground, walked away toward Drowned Valley, unhurriedly.
When Quintana disappeared among the tamaracks, Leverett ventured to rise to his knees. As he crouched there, peering after Quintana, a man came swiftly out of the forest behind him and nearly stumbled over him.
Recognition was instant and mutual as the man jerked the trap-robber to his feet, stifling the muffled yell in his throat.
"I want that packet you picked up on Clinch's veranda," said Hal Smith.
"M-my God," stammered Leverett, "Quintana just took it off me. He ain't been gone a minute——"
"You lie!"
"I ain't lyin'. Look at his foot-marks there in the mud!"
"Quintana!"
"Yaas, Quintana! He tuk my gun, too——"
"Which way!" whispered Smith fiercely, shaking Leverett till his jaws wagged.
"Drowned Valley.... Lemme loose!—I'm chokin'——"
Smith pushed him aside.
"You rat," he said, "if you're lying to me I'll come back and settle your affair. And Kloon's, too!"
"Quintana shot Jake and stuck him into a sink-hole!" snivelled Leverett, breaking down and sobbing; "—oh, Gawd—Gawd—he's down under all that black mud with his brains spillin' out——"
But Smith was already gone, running lightly along the string of footprints which led straight away across slime and sphagnum toward the head of Drowned Valley.
In the first clump of hard-wood trees Smith saw Quintana. He had halted and he was fumbling at the twine which bound a flat, paper-wrapped packet.
He did not start when Smith's sharp warning struck his ear: "Don't move! I've got you over my rifle, Quintana!"
Quintana's fingers had instantly ceased operations. Then, warily, he lifted his head and looked into the muzzle of Smith's rifle.
"Ah, bah!" he said tranquilly. "There were three of you, then."
"Lay that packet on the ground."
"My frien'——"
"Drop it or I'll dropyou!"
Quintana carefully placed the packet on a bed of vivid moss.
"Now your gun!" continued Smith.
Quintana shrugged and laid Leverett's rifle beside the packet.
"Kneel down with your hands up and your back toward me!" said Smith.
"My frien'——"
"Down with you!"
Quintana dropped gracefully into the humiliating attitude popularly indicative of prayerful supplication. Smith walked slowly up behind him, relieved him of two automatics and a dirk.
"Stay put," he said sharply, as Quintana started to turn his head. Then he picked up the packet with its loosened string, slipped it into his side pocket, gathered together the arsenal which had decorated Quintana, and so, loaded withweapons, walked away a few paces and seated himself on a fallen log.
Here he pocketed both automatics, shoved the sheathed dirk into his belt, placed the captured rifle handy, after examining the magazine, and laid his own weapon across his knees.
"You may turn around now, Quintana," he said amiably.
Quintana lowered his arms and started to rise.
"Sit down!" said Smith.
Quintana seated himself on the moss, facing Smith.
"Now, my gay and nimble thimble-rigger," said Smith genially, "while I take ten minutes' rest we'll have a little polite conversation. Or, rather, a monologue. Because I don't want to hear anything from you."
He settled himself comfortably on the log:
"Let me assemble for you, Señor Quintana, the interesting history of the jewels which so sparklingly repose in the packet in my pocket.
"In the first place, as you know, Monsieur Quintana, the famous Flaming Jewel and the other gems contained in this packet of mine, belonged to Her Highness the Grand Duchess Theodorica of Esthonia.
"Very interesting. More interesting still—along comes Don José Quintana and his celebrated gang of international thieves, and steals from the Grand Duchess of Esthonia the Flaming Jewel and all her rubies, emeralds and diamonds. Yes?"
"Certainly," said Quintana, with a polite inclination of acknowledgment.
"Bon! Well, then, still more interesting to relate, a gentlemannamed Clinch helps himself to these famous jewels. How very careless of you, Mr. Quintana."
"Careless, certainly," assented Quintana politely.
"Well," said Smith, laughing, "Clinch was more careless still. The robber baron, Sir Jacobus Kloon, swiped,—as Froissart has it,—the Esthonian gems, and, under agreement to deliver them to you, I suppose, thought better of it and attempted to abscond. Do you get me, Herr Quintana?"
"Gewiss."
"Yes, and you got Jake Kloon, I hear," laughed Smith.
"No."
"Didn't you kill Kloon?"
"No."
"Oh, pardon. The mistake was natural. You merely robbed Kloon and Leverett. You should have killed them."
"Yes," said Quintana slowly, "I should have. It was my mistake."
"Signor Quintana, it is human for the human crook to err. Sooner or later he always does it. And then the Piper comes around holding out two itching palms."
"Mr. Smith," said Quintana pleasantly, "you are an unusually agreeable gentleman for a thief. I regret that you do not see your way to an amalgamation of interests with myself."
"As you say, Quintana mea, I am somewhat unusual. For example, what do you suppose I am going to do with this packet in my pocket?"
"Live," replied Quintana tersely.
"Live, certainly," laughed Smith, "but not on the proceeds of this coup-de-main. Non pas! I am going to returnthis packet to its rightful owner, the Grand Duchess Theodorica of Esthonia. And what do you think of that, Quintana?"
Quintana smiled.
"You do not believe me?" inquired Smith.
Quintana smiled again.
"Allons, bon!" exclaimed Smith, rising. "It's the unusual that happens in life, my dear Quintana. And now we'll take a little inventory of these marvellous gems before we part.... Sit very, very still, Quintana,—unless you want to lie stiller still.... I'll let you take a modest peep at the Flaming Jewel——"busily unwrapping the packet—"just one little peep, Quintana——"
He unwrapped the paper. Two cakes of sugar-milk chocolate lay within.
Quintana turned white, then deeply, heavily red. Then he smiled in ghastly fashion:
"Yes," he said hoarsely, "as you have just said, sir, it is usually the unusual which happens in the world."