Chapter I

Mike Clinch regarded the jewels taken from Jose Quintana as legitimate loot acquired in war. He was prepared to kill anybody who attempted to take the gems from him.

At the very possibility his ruling passion blazed -- his mania to make of Eve Strayer a grand lady.

But now, what he had feared for years had happened. Quintana had found him, -- Quintana, after all these years, had discovered the identity and dwelling place of the obscure American soldier who had robbed him in the wash-room of a Paris cafe. And Quintana was now in America, here in this very wilderness, tracking the man who had despoiled him.

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Clinch, in his shirt-sleeves, carrying a rifle, came out on the log veranda and sat down to think it over.

He began to realise that he was likely to have trouble with a man as cold-blooded and as dogged as himself.

Nor did he doubt that those with Quintana were desperate men.

On whom could he count? On nobody unless he paid their hire. None among the lawless men who haunted his backwoods "hotel" at Star Pond would lift a finger to help him. Almost any among them would have robbed him, -- murdered him, probably, -- if it were known that the jewels were hidden in the house.

He could not trust Jake Kloon; Leverett was as treacherous as only a born coward can be; Sid Hone, Harvey Chase, Blommers, Byron Hastings, -- he knew them all too well to trust them, -- a sullen, unscrupulous pack, partly cowardly, always fierce, -- as are any creatures that live furtively, feed only by their wits, and slink through life just outside the frontiers of law.

And yet, one of this gang had stood by him -- Hal Smith -- the man he himself had been about to slay.

Clinch got up from the bench where he had been sitting and walked down to the pond where Hal Smith sat cleaning trout.

"Hal," he said, "I been figuring some. Quintana don't dare call in the constables. I can't afford to. Quintana and I've got to settle this on our own."

Smith slit open a ten-inch trout, stripped it, flung the entrails out into the pond, soused the fish in water, and threw it into a milk pan.

"Whose jewels were they in the beginning?" he enquired carelessly.

"How do I know?"

"If you ever found out----"

"I don't want to. I got them in the way, anyway. And it don't make no difference how I got 'em; Eve's going to be a lady if I go to the chair for it. So that's that."

Smith slit another trout, gutted it, flung away the viscera but laid back the roe.

"Shame to take them in October," he remarked, "but people must eat."

"Same's me," nodded Clinch; "I don't want to kill no one, but Eve she's gotta be a lady and ride in her own automobile with the proudest."

"Does Eve know about the jewels?"

Clinch's pale eyes, which had been roving over the wooded shores of Star Pond, reverted to Smith.

"I'd cut my own throat before I'd tell her," he said softly.

"She wouldn't stand for it?"

"Hal, when you said to me, `Eve's a lad, by God!' you swallered the hull pie. That's the answer. A lady don't stand for what you and I don't bother about."

"Suppose she learns that you robbed the man who robbed somebody else of these jewels."

Clinch's pale eyes were fixed on him: "Only you and me know," he said in his pleasant voice.

"Quintana knows. His gang knows."

Clinch's smile was terrifying. "I guess she ain't never likely to know nothing, Hal."

"What do you purpose to do, Mike?"

"Still hunt."

"For Quintana?"

"I might mistake him for a deer. Them accidents is likely, too."

"If Quintana catches you it will go hard with you, Mike."

"Sure. I know."

"He'll torture you to make you talk."

"You think I'd talk, Hal?"

Smith looked up into the light-coloured eyes. The pupils were pin points. Then he went on cleaning fish.

"Hal?"

"What?"

"If they get me, -- but no matter; they ain't a-going to get me."

"Were you going to tell me where those jewels are hidden, Mike?" enquired the young man, still busy with his fish. He did not look around when he spoke. Clinch's murderous gaze was fastened on the back of his head.

"Don't go to gettin' too damn nosey, Hal," he said in his always agreeable voice.

Smith soused all the fish in water again: "You'd better tell somebody if you go gunning for Quintana."

"Did I ask your advice?"

"You did not," said the young man, smiling.

"All right. Mind your business."

Smith got up from the water's edge with his pan of trout:

"That's what I shall do, Mike," he said, laughing. "So go on with your private war; it's no button off _my_ pants if Quintana gets you."

He went away toward the ice-house with the trout. Eve Strayer, doing chamber work, watched the young man from an upper room.

The girl's instinct was to like Smith, -- but that very instinct aroused her distrust. What was a man of his breeding and education doing at Clinch's dump? Why was he content to hang around and do chores? A man of his type who had gone crooked enough to stick up a tourist in an automobile nourishes higher- though probably perverted -- ambitions than a dollar a day and board.

She heard Clinch's light step on the uncarpeted stair; went on making up Smith's bed; and smiled as her step-father came into the room, still carrying his rifle.

He had something else in his hand, too, -- a flat, thin packet wrapped in heavy paper and sealed all over with black wax.

"Girlie," he said, "I want you should do a little errand for me this morning. If you're spry it won't take long -- time to go there and get back to help with noon dinner."

"Very well, dad."

"Go git your pants on, girlie."

"You want me to go into the woods?"

"I want you to go to the hole in the rocks under Star Peak and lay this packet under the hootch cache."

She nodded, tucked in the sheets, smoothed blanket and pillow with deft hands, went out to her own room. Clinch seated himself and turned a blank face to the window.

It was a sudden decision. He realised now that he couldn't keep the jewels in his house. War was on with Quintana. The "hotel" would be the goal for Quintana and his gang. And for smith, too, if ever temptation over-powered him. The house was liable to an attempt at robbery any night, now; -- any day, perhaps. It was no place for the packet he had taken from Jose Quintana.

Eve came in wearing grey shirt, breeches, and puttees. Clinch gave her the packet.

"What's in it, dad?" she asked smilingly.

"Don't you get nosey, girlie. Come here."

She went to him. He put his left arm around her.

"You like me some, don't you, girlie?"

"You know it, dad."

"All right. You're all that matters to me. ... since your mother went and died. ... after a year. ... That was crool, girlie. Only a year. Well, I ain't cared none for nobody since -- only you, girlie."

He touched the packet with his forefinger:

"If I step out, that's yours. But I ain't a-going to step out. Put it with the hootch. You know how to move that keystone?"

"Yes, dad."

"And watch out that no game protector and none of that damn millionaire's wardens see you in the woods. No, nor none o' these here fancy State Troopers. You gotta watch out _this_ time, Eve. It means everything to us -- to you, girlie -- and to me. Go tip-toe. Lay low, coming and going. Take a rifle."

Eve ran to her bed-room and returned with her Winchester and belt.

"You shoot to kill," said Clinch grimly, "if anyone wants to stop you. But lay low and you won't need to shoot nobody, girlie. G'wan out the back way; Hal's in the ice house."

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