 EPISODE 1 OF THE FLAMING JUUL To my friend, R. T. Haynes Halsey, who unreservedly believes everything I write, to R. T. 1. Three guests at dinner. That's the life. Wedgewood, Revere, and Duncan Fife. Two. You sit on Duncan when you dare and out of Wedgewood using care. With Paul Revere you eat your fare. Three. From Paul you borrow fork and knife to wage a gastronomic strife in pouringers and platters rare of blue historic willow-ware. Four. Make what's with cymbals, drum and fife, or rose wreath's feasts with riot rife, to your chace uppers can't compare. Five. Let those deny the truth who dare. Paul, Duncan, Wedgewood, that's the life. All else is bunk and empty air. Envois. The cordon bleu has set the pace, with goulash, haggis, boule-baisse, curry, chop sui, couscous, stew. I can't offer these to you. Being a plain old-fashioned cook, so pray accept this scrambled book. R. W. C. Episode 1. Eve. 1. During the last two years, fate, chance, and destiny had been too busy to attend to Mike Clinch. But now his turn was coming in the eternal sequence of things. The stars in their courses indicated the beginning of the undoing of Mike Clinch. From Estonia a refugee countess wrote to James Dara in New York. After two years we have discovered that it was Jose Quintana's band of international thieves that robbed Rika. Quintana has disappeared. A Levantean diamond broker in New York named Immanuel Sard may be in communication with him. Rika and I are going to America as soon as possible. Valentin. The day Dara received the letter he started to look up Sard. But that very morning Sard had received a curious letter from Rotterdam. This was the letter. Sardias, Tourmaline, Ergonenite, Rodenite, Porphyry, Obsidian, Nugget Gold, Diasophore, Lovaculite, Eugh, Nugget Silver, Amber, Matrix Turquoise, Eliite, Ivory, Sardonyx, Moonstone, Iceland Spar, Kalpa, Zircon, I, Agate, Selenite, Lapis, Iolite, Nephrite, Chalcedony, Hydrolyte, Hegolite, Amethyst, Selenite, Fireopel, Labradorite, Aquamarine, Malachite, Iris Stone, Natrolite, Garnet, Jade, Emerald, Woodopel, Esenite, Lazuli, Epidote, Ruby, Onyx, Sapphire, Indiculite, Topaz, Euclase, Indian Diamond, Star Sapphire, African Diamond, Iceland Spar, Lapis Crucifer, Abalone, Turkish Turquoise, Old Mind Stone, Natrolite, Katzai, Electrum, One Fifth, A-Bar, A-Bar. That afternoon, young Dara located Sard's office and presented himself as a customer. The weasel-faced clerk behind the wicket laid a pistol handy and informed Dara that Sard was away on business. Dara looked cautiously around the small office. Can anybody hear us? Nobody, why? I have important news concerning Jose Quintana, whispered Dara. Where is Sard? While he had a letter from Quintana this very morning, replied the clerk in a low uneasy voice. Mr. Sard left for Albany on the one o'clock train. Is there any trouble? Plenty replied Dara Cooley. Do you know Quintana? No, but Mr. Sard expects him here any day now. Dara leaned closer against the grill. Listen very carefully. If a man comes here who calls himself Jose Quintana, turn him over to the police until Mr. Sard returns. No matter what he tells you, turn him over to the police. Do you understand? Who are you? demanded the word clerk. Are you one of Quintana's people? Young man said Dara, I am close enough to Quintana to give you orders and give Sard orders to Quintana too. A great light dawned on the scared clerk. You are Jose Quintana, he said hoarsely. Dara bored him through with his dark stare. Mind your business, he said. That night in Albany Dara picked up Sard's trail. It led to a dealer in automobiles. Sard had about a comet six paying cash, and it started north. Through Schectady, Fonda, and Mayfield the following day Dara traced a brand new comet six containing one short dark Levantian with a parrot nose. In Northville Dara hired a ford. At Lake Pleasant Sard's car went wrong. Dara missed him by ten minutes, but he learned that Sard had inquired the way to Ghost Lake Inn. That was sufficient. Dara bought an axe, drove as far as Herod's corner, dismissed the ford, and walked into a forest entirely familiar to him. He emerged in half an hour on a wood road two miles farther on. Here he fell the tree across the road and sat down in the bushes to await events. Toward sunset hearing a car coming he tied his handkerchief over his face below his eyes and took an automatic from his pocket. Sard's car stopped and Sard got out to inspect the obstruction. Dara sauntered out of the bushes, poked his pistol against Mr. Sard's fat abdomen, and leisurely and thoroughly robbed him. In an agreeable spot near Brook Dara lighted his pipe and sat him down to examine the booty in detail. Two pistols, a stiletto, and a blackjack composed the arsenal of Mr. Sard. A large wallet disclosed more than four thousand dollars in treasury notes, something to reimburse Rika when she arrived, he thought. Among Sard's papers he discovered a cipher letter from Rotterdam, probably from Quintana. Cipher was rather Dara's line. All ciphers are solved by similar methods, unless the key is contained in a codebook known only to the sender and receiver. But Quintana's cipher proved to be only an easy, crostic, the very simplest of secret messages. Within an hour Dara had penciled it out. Cipher. Take notice. Starpaw, New York. Name is Mike Clinch. Has Flaming Jewel. Aerosight. I sail at once. Quintana. Having served in Rush as an officer in the Military Intelligence Department attached to the American Expeditionary Forces, Dara had little trouble with Quintana's letter. Even the signature was not difficult. The fraction one-fifth was easily translated Quint and the familiar prescription symbol A-bar-A-bar spelled Anna, which gave Quintana's name in full. He had heard of Aerosight as the rarest and most magnificent of all gems. Only three were known. The young Duchess Theodorica of Estonia had possessed one. Dara was immensely amused to find that the chase after Emmanuel Sard should have led him to the very borders of the great Herod Estates in the Adirondacks. He gathered up his loot and walked on through the spotted forest which once had belonged to Henry Herod of Boston and which now was the property of Herod's nephew James Dara. When he came to the first trespass notice he stood a moment to read it. Then slowly he turned and looked towards clinches. An autumn sunset flared like a conflagration through the pines. There was a glimmer of water, too, where star pond lay. Fate, chance, and destiny were becoming very busy with Mike clinch. They had started Quintana, Sard, and Dara on his trail. Now they stirred up the sovereign state of New York. That lank-wolf justice was afoot and sniffing uncomfortably close to the heels of Mike clinch. Two. Two straight troopers drew bridles in the yellowing October forest. Their smart drab uniforms touched with purple blended harmoniously with the autumn woods. They were as inconspicuous as two deer in the dappled shadow. There was a sunny clearing just ahead. The wood road they had been traveling entered it, beyond lay star pond. Trooper Lannis said to Trooper Stormont, that's Mike clinch's clearing. Our man may be there. Now we'll see if anybody tips him off at this time. Forest and clearing were very still in the sunshine. Nothing stirred saved gold leaves, drifting down in a hawk high in the deep blue sky, turning in narrow circles. Lannis was instructing Stormont, who had been transferred from Long Island troop, and was unacquainted with local matters. Lannis said, clinch's dump stands on the other edge of the clearing. Clinch owns five hundred acres in here. He's a rat. Bad? Well, he's mean. I don't know how bad he is, but he runs a rotten dump. Forest has its slums as well as a city. This is Hell's Kitchen of the North Woods. Stormont nodded. All the scum of the wilderness gathers here went on Lannis. Here's where half the trouble in the North Woods hatches. We'll eat dinner at clinch's. His step-daughters a peach. The sturdy, sun-brown trooper glanced at his wristwatch, stretched his legs in his stirrups. Jack, he said, I want you to get clinch right. I'm going to tell you about this outfit while we watch this road. It's like a movie. Clinch plays the lead. I'll dope out the scenario for you. He turned sideways in his saddle, freeing both spurred heels and lulled so, constructing a cigarette while he talked. Way back around 1900, Mike clinch was a guide. A decent young fellow, they say. He guided fishing parties in summer, hunters in fall and winter. He made money and built the house, and the people he guided were wealthy. He made a lot of money and bought land. I understand he was square and that everybody liked him. About that time, there came to clinch's hotel a Mr. and Mrs. Strayer. They were lungers. Strayer seemed to be a gentleman. His wife was good-looking and rather common. Both were very young. He had the consump, bad, the galloping variety. He didn't last long. A month after he died, his young wife had a baby. Clinch married her. She also died the same year. The baby's name was Eve. Clinch became quite crazy about her and started to make a lady of her. That was his mania. Lannis leaned from his saddle and carefully dropped his cigarette end into a puddle of rainwater. Then he swung one leg over and sat side-saddle. Clinch had plenty of money in those days, he went on. He could afford to educate the child. The kid had the governess. Then he sent her to a fancy boarding school. She had everything a young girl could want. She developed into a pretty young thing at fifteen. She's eighteen now. I don't know what to call her. She pulled a gun on me in July. What? Sure. There was a row at Clinch Dump. A rum-runner called Jake Klune got shot up. I came up to get Clinch. He was sick, drunk, in his bunk. When I broke in the door, Eve Strayer pulled a gun on me. What happened, inquired Stormont. Nothing. I took Clinch, but he got off as usual. Aquitted. Lannis nodded, rolling another cigarette. Now, I'll tell you how Clinch happened to go wrong, he said. You see, he'd always made his living by guiding. Well, some years ago Henry Herod of Boston came here and bought thousands and thousands of acres of forest all around Clinches. Lannis half-rose on one stirrup and with a comprehensive sweep of his muscular arm ending in a flourish. He bought everything from miles and miles, and that started Clinch downhill. Herod tried to force Clinch to sell. The millionaire tactics, you know, he was determined to oust him. Clinch got mad and wouldn't sell at any price. Herod kept on buying all around Clinch and posted trespass signs that meant to ruin Clinch. He was walled in. No hunters care to be restricted. Clinch's little property was no good. Lannis stopped. His step-daughter's education became too expensive. He was in a bad way. Herod offered him a big price, but Clinch turned ugly and wouldn't budge. And that's how Clinch began to go wrong. Poor devil, said Stormont. Devil, all right. Poor too. But he needed money. He was crazy to make a lady at Eve Strayer. And there are ways of finding money, you know. Stormont nodded. Well, Clinch found money in those ways. The conservation commissioner in Ebony began to hear about game law violations. The revenue people heard of run-running. Clinch lost his guide's license, but nobody could get the goods on him. There was a rough backwoods bunch always drifting about Clinch's place in those days. There were fights, and not so many miles from Clinch's, there was a highway robbery and a murder or two. Then the war came. The draft cock Clinch, Malone exempted him, he being the sole support of his step-child. But the girl volunteered, shot to France, somehow, scrubbed in a hospital, I believe. Anyway, Clinch wanted to be on the same side of the world she was on, and he went with a forestry regiment, cut trees for railroads, ties in southern France until the war ended, and they sent him home. Eve Strayer came back too. She's there now. You'll see her at dinnertime. She sticks to Clinch. He's a rat. He's up against the dry laws and the game laws, government enforcement agents, game protectors, state constable areas. I'll keep an eye on Clinch. Herod's trespass signs fence him in. He's like a rat in a trap. Yet Clinch makes money at lawbreaking and nobody can catch him red-handed. He kills Herod's deer. That's certain. I mean Herod's nephew's deer. Herod's dead. Dara's the young nephew's name. He's never been here. He was in the army in Russia, I don't know what became of him, but he keeps up the Herod preserve, game wardens, patrols, watchers, trespass signs and all. Len has finished his second cigarette, got back into his stirrups, and gathered bridle, began leisurely to divide curb and snaffle. That's the layout, Jack, he said. Yonder lies the red light district of the Northwoods. Mike Clinch is the brain of all the dirty works that goes on. A floating population of crooks and bums, game violators, bootleggers, market hunters, pelt collectors, rum runners, hooch makers, do his dirty work. And I guess there are some who will stick you up by starlight for a quarter and others who will knock you off your block for a dollar. And there's the girl, Eve Strayer. I don't get her at all, except that she's loyal to Clinch. And now you know what you ought to know about this movie called Hell in the Woods. And it's up to us to keep a calm, impartial eye on the picture and try to follow the plot they're acting out, if there is any. Stormont said, thanks, Bill. I'm posted, and I'm getting hungry too. I believe, said Lannis, that you want to see that girl. I do, returned the other, laughing. Well, you'll see her. She's good to look at, but I don't get her at all. Why? Because she looks right, and yet she lives at Clinch's with him and his bunch of bums. Would you think a straight girl could stand it? No man can tell what a straight girl can stand. Straight or crook, she stands for Mike Clinch, says Lannis, and he's a ratty customer. Maybe the girl is fond of him. It's natural. I guess it's that. I don't see how any young girl can stomach the life at Clinch's. It's a wonder what a decent woman will stand, observed Stormont. Ninety-nine percent of all wives ought to receive the DSO. Do you think we're so rotten, inquired Lannis, smiling? Not so rotten. No, but any man knows what men are, and it's a wonder women stick to us when they learn. They laughed. Lannis glanced at his wristwatch again. Well, he said, I don't believe anybody has tipped off our man. It's noon. Come on to dinner, Jack. They cantered forward into the sunlit clearing. Starpawn lay ahead on its edge, stood Clinch's. 3. Clinch, in his shirt sleeves, came out on the veranda. He had little gray eyes, close-clipped gray hair, and was clean-shaven. How are you, Clinch? inquired Lannis affably. All right, replied Clinch. You are the same, I hope. Trooper Stormont, Mr. Clinch, said Lannis in his genial way. Pleased to know you said Clinch, level-eyed, unsteering. The troopers dismounted. Both shook hands with Clinch. Then Lannis led the way to the barn. Willy, well, he remarked to his comrade, Clinch cooks. From the care of their horses they went to a pump to wash, one or two rough-looking men slouched out of the house and glanced at them. Hello, Jake, said Lannis cheerfully. Jake Cloon grunted acknowledgement. Lannis said in Stormont's ear, Here she comes with the towel. She's pretty, isn't she? A young girl in pink gingham advanced toward them across the patch of grass. Lannis was very polite and presented Stormont. The girl handed him two rough towels, glanced at Stormont again after the introduction, and smiled slightly. Dinner's ready, she said. They dried their faces and followed her back to the house. It was an unpainted building, partly a flog. In the dining-room, half a dozen men waited silently for food. Lannis saluted all, named his comrade, and seated himself. A delicious odor of Johnny cake pervaded the room. Presently Eve Strayer appeared with the dinner. There was dew on her pale forehead. The heat of the kitchen, no doubt. The girl's thick, lustrous hair was brownish-gold, and so twisted up that it revealed her ears in a very white neck. When she brought Stormont his dinner, he caught her eyes a moment, experienced a slight shock of pleasure at their intense blue, the gentium blue of the summer zenith at midday. Lannis remained affable, even became jacose at moments. No hooch for dinner, Mike, how's that now? The bootleg expresses a day late replied clinch with cold humor. Around the table ran an odd sound. A company of catamounts feeding might have made such a noise if catamounts ever laughed. How's the fur market, Jake? inquired Lannis, pouring gravy over his mashed potatoes. Cloon quoted prices with an oath. A mean, visage man named Leveret complained of the price of traps. What do you care, inquired Lannis genially? The other man pays. What are you kicking about, anyway? It wasn't so long ago that muskrats were ten cents. The troopers' good-humored intimation that Earl Leveret took fur in other men's traps was not lost on the company. Leveret's fox visage reddened. Jake Cloon, who had only one eye, glared at the state trooper, but said nothing. Clinch's pale gaze met the trooper's smiling one. The jays and squirrels talked, too, he said slowly. I don't mean anything. Only the showdown counts. You're quite right, Clinch. The showdown is what we pay to see. But talk is the tune the orchestra plays before the curtain rises. Storm on a finished dinner, he heard a low, charming voice from behind his chair. Apple pie, lemon pie, maple cake, berry roll. He looked up into two gentenian blue eyes. Lemon pie, please, he said, blushing. When dinner was over and the bare little dining room empty, except for Clinch and the two state troopers, the former folded his heavy, powerful hands on the table's edge and turned his square face and pale-eyed gaze on Lannis. Spit it out, he said in a passionless voice. Lannis crossed one knee over the other and lighted a cigarette. Is there a young fellow working for you named Hal Smith? No, said Clinch. Sure, sure. Clinch, continued Lannis. Have you heard about a stick-up on the Wood Road out Ghost Lake? No. Well, a wealthy tourist from New York, a Mr. Sard, stopping at Ghost Lake Inn, was held up and robbed last Saturday towards Sundown. Never heard of him, said Clinch, calmly. The robber took $4,000 in bills and some private papers from him. It's no skin off my shins, remarked Clinch. He's laid a complaint. Yes? Have any strangers been here since Saturday evening? No. There was a pause. We heard you had a new man named Hal Smith working around your place. No. He came here last Saturday. Who says so? A guide from Ghost Lake. He's a liar. You know, said Lannis. He won't do you any good if hold-up men can hide here making getaway. Go on and search, said Clinch, calmly. They searched the hotel, from Garrett to Seller. They searched the barn, butchered outhouses. While this was going on, Clinch went into the kitchen. Eve, he said coolly. The state troopers are after that fellow, Hal Smith, who came here Saturday night. Where is he? He went into Harris to get us a deer, she replied in a low voice. What has he done? Stuck up a man on Ghost Lake Road. He ought to have told me. Do you think you could meet with him and tip him off? He's hunting on Al Marsh. I'll try. All right. Change your clothes and slip out the back door, and look out for Harris patrols, too. All right, Dad, she said. If I have to be out tonight, don't worry. I'll get word to Smith somehow. Half an hour later, Lannis and Stormont returned from a prowl around the clearing. Lannis paid the reckoning. His comrade led out the horses. He said again to Lannis. I'm sure it was the girl. She wore him his clothing, and she went into the woods on a run. As they started to ride away, Lannis said to Clinch, who stood on the veranda. It still blew Jay and Squirrel talk between us, Mike, but the showdown is sure to come. Better go straight while going's good. I'll go straight enough to suit me, said Clinch. But it's the government that is to be suited, Mike, and if it gets you right, you'll be in Dutch. Don't let that worry you, said Clinch. About three o'clock, the two state troopers riding at a walk came to the forks of the Ghost Lake Road. Now, said Lannis to Stormont, if you really believe you saw the girl beat it out of the back door and take to the woods, she's probably somewhere in there, he pointed into the Western Forest. But, he added, what's your idea in following her? She wore men's clothing. She was in her hurry and trying to keep out of sight. I wondered whether Clinch might have sent her to warn this holdup fellow. That's a rather long shot, isn't it? Very long. I could go in and look about a bit if you leave my horse. All right, take your bearings. This road runs west to Ghost Lake. We sleep at the end there, if you mean to cross the woods on foot. Stormont nodded, consulted his map and compass, pocketed both, unbuckled his spurs. When he was ready, he gave his bridle to Lannis. I'd just like to see what she's up to, he remarked. All right, if you miss me, come to the end, said Lannis, starting on with the lead horse. The forest was open amid a big stand of white pine and hemlock, and Stormont traveled easily and swiftly. He had struck a line by compass that must cross the direction taken by Eve Strayer when she left Clinch's, but it was a wild chance that he would ever run across her. And probably he never would have if the man that she was looking for had not fired a shot on the edge of that vast maze of stream, morass, and dead timber called Owl Marsh. Far away in the open forest, Stormont heard the shot and turned in that direction. But Eve already was very near when the young man who called himself Hal Smith fired one of Herod's Deer, a three-pronged buck on the edge of the dead water. Smith had drawn and dressed the buck by the time the girl found him. He was cleaning up when she arrived, squatting by the water's edge when he heard her voice cross the swale. Smith, the straight troopers are looking for you. He stood up, dried his hands on his breeches. The girl picked her way across the bog, jumping from one tossick to the next. When she told him what had happened, he began to laugh. Did you really stick up this man, she asked incredulously? I'm afraid I did, Eve, he replied, still laughing. The girl's entire expression altered. So that's the sort you are, she said. I thought you'd different, but you're all rotten lot. Hold on, he interrupted. What do you mean by that? I mean that the only men who ever come to starpond are crooks, she retorted bitterly. I didn't believe you were. You look decent, but you're as crooked as the rest of them, and it seems as if I couldn't stand it any longer. If you think me so rotten, why did you run all the way from clinches to warn me, he asked curiously? I didn't do it for you. I did it for my father. They'll jail him if they catch him hiding you. They've got it in for him. If they put him in a prison, he'll die. He couldn't stand it, I know. And that's why I came to find you and tell you to clear out. The distant crack of a dry stick checked her. The next instant she picked up his rifle, seized his arm, and fairly dragged him into a spruce thicket. Do you want to get my father into trouble, she said fiercely? The rocky flank of Star Peak bordered the marsh here. Come on, she whispered, jerking him along through the thicket, and up the rocks to a cleft, a hole in the sheer rock overhung by a shaggy hemlock. Get in there, she said breathlessly. Whoever comes, he protested, will see the buck yonder, and will certainly look in here. Not if I go down there and take your medicine. Creep into that cave and lie down. What do you intend to do, he demanded, interested and amused. If it's one of Herod's gamekeepers, said the girl, dryly, it only means a summons and a fine for me. And if it's a state trooper, who is prowling in the woods, yonder, hunting crooks, he'll find nobody here but a trespasser. Keep quiet, I'll stand him off. One state trooper's storm-ock came out on the edge of Alomars, the girl was kneeling by the water, washing deer blood from her slendered, suntanned fingers. What are you doing here, she inquired, looking up over her shoulder with a slight smile. Just having a look around, he said pleasantly. That's a nice fat buck you have there. Yes, he's nice. You shot him, asked Stormont. Who else did he suppose shot him, she inquired smilingly. She rinsed her fingers again and stood up, swaying her arms to dry her hands. A lith gray-shirted figure in her boyish garment, straight, supple, and strong. I saw you hurrying into the woods, said Stormont. Yes, I was in a hurry. We need meat. I didn't notice that you carried a rifle when I saw you leave the house by the back door. No, it was in the woods, she said indifferently. You have a hiding place for your rifle. For other things, also, she said, letting her eyes of gentian blue rest on the young man. You seem to be very secretive. Is a girl more so than a man, she asked smilingly. Stormont smiled too, then became grave. Who else was here with you, he asked quietly. She seemed surprised. Did you see anybody else? He hesitated, flushed, pointed down at the wet sphagnum. Smith's footprints were there, in damning contrast to her own. Worse than that, Smith's pipe lay on an embedded log and a rubber tobacco pouch beside it. She said with a slight catch in her breath. It seems that somebody has been here. Some hunter, perhaps, or a game warden? Or how Smith, said Stormont. A painful color swept the girl's face and throat. The man's sorry for her looked away. Dear silence, I know something about you, he said gently, and I know that I've seen you. Heard you speak, meant your eyes. I know enough about you to form an opinion, so I don't ask you to turn informer. But the law won't stand for what clinch is doing, whatever provocation he has had, and he must not aid or abet in any criminal or harbor any mal-factor. The girl's features were expressionless. The passive soul and beauty of her troubled the trooper. All for clinch means sorrow for you, he said. I don't want you to be unhappy. I bear clinch, no ill will. For this reason I ask him, and I ask you to, to stand clear of this affair. How Smith is wanted. I'm here to take him. As she said nothing, he looked down at the footprint in the sphagnum. Then his eyes moved to the next imprint, to the next. Then he moved slowly along the water's edge, tracking the course of the man he was following. The girl watched him in silence until the plain trail led him to the spruce thicket. Don't go in there, she said sharply, with an odd tremor in her voice. He turned and looked at her, then stepped calmly into the thicket. The next instant she was among the spruce's two, confronting him with her rifle. Get out of these woods, she said. He looked into the girl's deathly white face. Eve, he said, it will go hard for you if you kill me. I don't want you to live out your life in prison. I can't help it. If you send my father to prison, he'll die. I'd rather die myself. Let us alone, I tell you. The man you're after is nothing to us. We didn't know he had struck up anybody. If he's nothing to you, why do you point that rifle at me? I tell you he is nothing to us, but my father won't betray a dog, and I won't. That's all. Now get out of these woods and come back tomorrow. Nobody will interfere with you then. Stormont smiled. Eve, he said, do you really think me as yellow as that? Her blue eyes flashed a terrible warning, but in the same instant he caught her rifle, twisting it out of her grasp as it exploded. The detonation dazed her, then he flung the rifle into the water. She caught him by the neck and belt and flung him bodily into the spruces. But she fell with him. He held her, twisting and struggling with all her superb and supple strength, staggered to his feet, still mastering her. And as she struggled, sobbing, locked, hot and panting in his arms, he snapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrists and flung her aside. She fell on both knees, got up, shoulder deepened, spruce, blood running from her lip over her chin. The trooper took her by the arm, she was trembling all over. He took a thin steel chain and padlock from his pocket, passed the link around her steel bound wrists and fastened her to a young birch tree. Then drawing his pistol from his holster, he went swiftly forward through the spruces. When he saw the cleft and the rocky flank of Star Peak, he walked straight to the black hole which confronted him. "'Come out of there,' he said distinctly. After a few seconds Smith came out. "'Good God!' said Stormont in a low voice. "'What are you doing here, Dara?' Dara came close and rested one hand on Stormont's shoulder. "'Don't crab my game, Stormont. I never dreamed you were in the constabulary or out of Let You Know. Are you Hal Smith?' "'I sure am. Where's that girl?' Hand cuffed out yonder. "'Then for God's sake, go back and ask as if you hadn't found me. Tell Mayor Chandler that I'm after a bigger game than he is.' "'Clinch?' "'Stormont, I'm here to protect my clinch. Tell the mayor not to touch him. The men I'm after are going to try to rob him. I don't want them to, because, well, I'm going to rob him myself.' Stormont stared. "'You must stand by,' said Dara. So must the mayor. He knows me through and through. Tell him to forget that holdup. I stopped that man's sard. I frisked him. Tell the mayor I'll keep in touch with him.' "'Of course,' said Stormont. That settles it. "'Thanks, old chap. Now go back to that girl and let her believe that you never found me.' A slight smile touched their eyes, both instinctively saluted. Then they shook hands. Dara, alias Hal Smith, went back into the hemlock-shaded hole in the rocks. Trooper Stormont walked slowly down through the spruces. When Eve saw him returning empty-handed, something flashed in her pallet face, like sunlight across snow. Stormont passed her, went to the water's edge, soaked to spicy handful of sphagnum moss in the icy water, came back and wiped the blood from her face. The girl seemed astounded. Her face surged in vivid color as he unlocked the handcuffs and pocketed them in the little steel chain. Her lips were bleeding again. He washed it with wet moss, took a clean handkerchief from the breast of his tunic, and laid it against her mouth. Hold it there, he said. Mechanically she raised her hand to support the compress. Stormont went back to the shore, recovered her rifle from the shallow water, and returned with it. As she made no motion to take it, he stood it against the tree to which he had tied her. Then he came close to her, where she stood holding his handkerchief against her mouth and looking at him out of a steady eyes as deeply blue as Gentinian blossoms. Eve, he said, you win, but you won't forgive me. I wish we could be friends, someday. We never can, now. Goodbye. Neither spoke again, then of sudden the girl's eyes filled, and Trooper Stormont caught her free hand and kissed it, kissed it again and again, dropped it, and went striding away through the underbrush, which was now all rosy with the rays of sunset. After he had disappeared, the girl, Eve, went to the cleft in the rocks above. Come out, she said contemptuously. It's a good thing you hid, because there was a real man after you, and God help you if he ever finds you. Hal Smith came out, packing your meats of the girl curtly, and flung his rifle across her shoulder. Through the ruddy afterglow, she led the way homeward, and a man's handkerchief pressed to her wounded mouth, her eyes preoccupied with the strangest thoughts that had ever stirred her virgin mind. Hunter walked Dara with his load of venison and his alias, and his tongue and his cheek. Thus began the preliminaries towards the ultimate undoing of my clinch. Fate, chance, and destiny had undertaken the job in earnest. End of Episode 1. Episode 2 of The Flaming Jewel This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Flaming Jewel by Robert W. Chamber Episode 2. The Ruling Passion 1. Nobody understood how Jose Quintana had slipped through the Secret Service net spread for him at every port. The United States authorities did not know how Quintana had come to America. They realized merely that he arrived for no good purpose, and they meant to arrest him and hold him for extradition if requested, for deportation as an undesirable alien anyway. Only two men in America knew that Quintana had come to the United States for the purpose of recovering the famous Flaming Jewel, stolen by him from the Grand Duchess Theodorica of Estonia, and stolen from Quintana in turn by a private soldier in an American forestry regiment on leave in Paris. This soldier's name probably was Michael clinch. One of the men who knew why Quintana might come to America was James Dara, recently of military intelligence, but now passing as hold up man under the name of Hal Smith, and actually in the employment of clinch at his disreputable hotel at Star Pond in the North Woods. The other man who knew why Quintana had come to America was Emmanuel Sard, a Levantean diamond broker of New York, Quintana's agent in America. Now, as the October days passed without any report of Quintana's detection, Dara known as Hal Smith at clinches dump, began to suspect that Quintana had already slid into America through the meshes of the police. If so, this desperate international criminal could be expected at clinches under some guys or other pouted thither by Emmanuel Sard. So Hal Smith, whose duty was to wash dishes due chores and also to supply clinches with mountain beef or deer taken illegally, made it convenient to prowl every day in the vicinity of the Ghost Lake Road. He was perfectly familiar with Emmanuel Sard's squat features and parrot nose, having robbed Mr. Sard of Quintana's cipher and of $4,000 at pistol point. And one morning, while roving around the guide's quarters at Ghost Lake Inn, Smith beheld Sard himself on the Hotel Veranda in company with five strangers of foreign aspect. During the day dinner, Smith, on pretense of inquiring for a guide's license, got a look at the inn ledger. Sard's signature was on it, followed by the names of Henry Pickett, Nicholas Salzar, Victor Georgias, Harry Beck, and Jose Sanchez. And Smith went back through the wilderness to Starpond, convinced that one of these gentlemen was Quintana and the remainder, Quintana's gang, and that they were here to do murder if necessary in their remorseless quest of the Flaming Jewel. $2 million once had been offered for the Flaming Jewel and had been refused. Clinch probably possessed it. Smith was now convinced of that, but he was there to rob Clinch of it himself. For he had promised the little Dan Duchess to help recover her erasite jewel. And now he had finally traced its probable possession to Clinch. He was wondering how this recovery was to be accomplished. To arrest Clinch meant to ruin Yves Strayer, besides, he knew now that Clinch would die in prison before revealing the hiding place of the Flaming Jewel. Also, how could it be proven that Clinch had the erasite gem? The cipher from Quintana was not sufficient evidence. No, the only way was to watch Clinch prevent any robbery by Quintana's gang, somehow discover where the Flaming Jewel had been concealed, take it, and restore it to the beggard young girl whose only financial resource now lay in the possible recovery of this almost priceless gem. Toward evening, Hal Smith shot two deer near Almarsh to poach on his own property appealed to his sense of humor. And Clinch, never dreaming that Hal Smith was the James Dara who had inherited Herod's vast preserve, damned all millionaires for every buck brought in and became friendlier to Smith. Clinch's dump was the disposal plant in which collected the human sewage of the wilderness. It being Saturday, the scum of a north woods was gathered at Star Pond Resort, a venison and chicken supper was promised, and a dance if any woman appeared. Jay Clune had run in some Canadian hooch. Dara, Alias Hal Smith, contributed two fat deer and Clinch cooked them. By ten o'clock that morning many of the men were growing noisy, some were already drunk by noon. Only after midday dinner the first fight started, extinguished only after Clinch had beaten several of the backwood's aristocracy insensible. Towering amid the wreck of battle, his light gray eyes glittered. Clinch dominated, swaying his iron fist. When the combat ended and the fawn lay starkly where they fell, Clinch said in his pleasant level voice, take them out and stick their heads in the pond, and don't go forth to get me mad, boys, unliable to act up rough. They bore forth the sleepers for immersion in Star Pond. Clinch relighted his cigar and repeated the rulings which had caused the fracas. You gotta play square cards here or you don't play none in my house. No living thumbnail can nick no cards in my place and get away with it. Three kings and two trays is better than three chickens and two eggs. If you don't like it, go on home. He went out to his shirt sleeves to see how the knockouts were reviving, and met Hal Smith, returning from the pond, who reported progress towards consciousness. They walked back to the hotel together. Say, young fella, said Clinch in his soft, agreeable way. You want to keep your eye peeled tonight? Why, inquired Smith? Well, there've been a lot of folk here. There'll be strangers, too. Don't forget the straight troopers are looking for you. The straight trooper ever played detective, asked Smith, smiling. Sure. Men here rigged out like peddlers and lumberjacks and timberlookers. Did they ever get anything on you? Not a thing. Can you always spot them, Mike? No, but when a stranger shows up here who don't know nobody, he never sees nothing and he don't ever learn nothing. He gets no hooch out of me, no nor no craps and no cards. He gets his supper. That's what he gets, and dance, if there's ladies, and if any girl favors him, that's all the change any stranger gets out of Mike Clinch. They had paused on the rough veranda in the hot October sunshine. Mike, suggested Smith carelessly. Wouldn't it pay better to go straight? Clinch's small, gray eyes, which had been roaming over the prospect of lake and forest focus on Smith's smiling features. What's that to you, he asked? I'll be out of a job, remarked Smith, laughing, if they ever land you. This level gaze measured him. His mind was busy measuring him, too. Who the hell are you, anyway, he asked? I don't know. You stick up a man in the ghost lake road and hide out here when the state troopers come after you, and now you ask me if it pays better to go straight. Why didn't you go straight, if you think pays? I haven't got a daughter to worry about, explained Smith. If they get me, it won't hurt anybody else. A dull red tinge came out under Clinch's tan. Who asked you to worry about Eve? She's a fine girl, that's all. Clinch's steely glare measured the young man. You trying to make up to her, he inquired gently? No, she has no use for me. Clinch reflected, his cold, tiger gaze still fastened on Smith. You're right, he said after a moment. Eve's a good girl. Someday I'll make a lady ever. She is one, Clinch. At that, Clinch reddened heavily. The first finer motion ever betrayed before Smith. He did not say anything for a few moments, but his grim mouth worked, finally. I guess you was a gentleman once before you went crooked, Hal, he said. You act up like you once was. Say, there's only one thing on God's earth I care about. You've guessed it, too. He was off again upon his ruling passion. Eve nodded Smith? Sure, she isn't my flesh and blood, but it seems like she's more, even. I want she should be a lady, it's all I want. That damn millionaire Herod busts me. But he couldn't stop me giving Eve her schooling. Now all I'm living for is to be fixed, so as to give her money to go to the city like a lady. I don't care how I make money, all I want is to make it, and I'm going to. Smith nodded again. Clinch, now obsessed by his monomania, went on with an oath. I can't make no money on the level after what Herod done to me. And I gotta fix up Eve. What the hell do you mean by asking me would it pay to travel straight? I don't know. I was only thinking of Eve, a lady isn't supposed to have a crook for a father. Clinch's gray eyes blazed for a moment, then their menacing glare dulled, died out into wintry fixity. I want born a crook, he said. I ain't got no choice. And don't worry, young fella, they ain't gonna get me. You can't go on beating the game forever, Clinch. I'm beating it. He hesitated. And it won't be so long, neither, before I turn over enough to let Eve live in the city like any lady, with her automobile and her own butler and all her swell friends in a big house like she is educated for. He broke off abruptly as a procession approached from the lake, escorting the battered gentry who now were able to wobble about a little. One of them, a fox-faced trap thief named Earl Leveret, slunk hastily by as though expecting another kick from Clinch. Go on inside, Earl, and act upright, said Clinch pleasantly. You ought to have more sense than I start a fight in my place. You and Sid Hone and Harvey Chase, go on and behave. He and Smith followed procession of damaged ones into the house. The big unpainted room where a bar had once been was blue, cheap cigar smoke. The air reeked with a stench of beer and spirits. A score of more shambling forest louts and their dingy Saturday finery were gathered there playing cards, shooting craps, lulling around tables and tilting slopping glasses at one another. Heavy pleasantries were exchanged with the victims of Clinch's ponderous fists as they re-entered the room for which they had been born so recently, feet first. Now boys, said Clinch kindly, act up like swell gents and behave friendly, and if any ladies come in for chicken supper, why, gall dang it, we'll have a dance. Three. In the sundown, the first woodland nymph appeared, a half-shy, half-bold, willowy thing in the rosy light of the clearing. Hal Smith, washing glasses and dishes on the back porch for Eve Strayer to dry, asked who the rustic beauty might be. Harvey Chase's sister, said Eve, she shouldn't come here, but I can't keep her away and her brother doesn't care. She's only a child, too. Is there any harm in chicken supper and a dance? Eve looked gravely at young Smith without replying. Another girl with shapes loomed in the evening light. Some were met by gallants, some arrived at the veranda unescorted. Where do they all come from? Do they live in trees like dryads, asked Smith? They're always squatters in the woods, she replied indifferently. Some of these girls come from Ghost Lake, I suppose. Yes, waitress is at the inn. What music is there? Jim Hastings plays a fiddle. I play the melodian, if they need me. What do you do when there's a fight, he asked, with a side glance at her pure profile? What do you suppose I do, fight, too? He laughed, mirthlessly, conscious always of his secret pity for this girl. Well, he said, when your father makes enough to quit, he'll take you out of this. It's a vile hole for a young girl. See here, she said, flushing. You're rather particular for a young man who stuck up a tourist and robbed him for four thousand dollars. I'm not complaining on my own account, returned Smith, laughing. Clinch suits me. Well, don't concern yourself on my account, House Smith, and you better keep out that dance, too, if there's any strangers there. You think a straight trooper might happen in? It's likely. A lot of people come and go. We don't always know them. She opened a sliding wooden shutter and looked into the bar room. After a moment, she beckoned him to her side. There are strangers there now, she said. And that thin, dark man who looks like a canuck, and those two men shaking dice, I don't know who they are. I never before saw them. But Smith had seen them at Ghost Lake Inn. One of them was Sard, Quintana's gang had arrived at Clinch's camp. A moment later, Clinch came through the pantry and kitchen and out onto the rear porch, where Smith was washing glasses in a tub filled from an ever-flowing spring. I'm going to get supper, he said to Eve. There'll be twenty-three plates. And to Smith, how? You help Eve wait on the tables. And if anybody acts up rough, you slam him in the jaw. Don't argue, don't wait. Just slam him good, and I'll come on the hop. Who are the strangers, Dad? Asked Eve. Don't nobody know him, and none, girly. But they ain't state troopers. They talk like they was foreign. One of them's English. The big bony one with the yellow hair and mustache. Did they give any names, asked Smith. You bet. The stout, dark one calls himself Hungry Pickett. French, I guess. The fat beak is a fellow named Sard. Sanchez is the guy with a face like a Canada priest. Jose Sanchez, or something on that style. And then the yellow-skinned young man is Nicole Salzar, a Britisher, Harry Beck, and that good-looking dark gent with the little black Charlie Chaplin. He's Victor Georgiatis. What are those foreigners doing in the Northwoods, clench, inquired Smith? Oh, they all get the same spiel, hire out in the lumber camp. But they ain't no lumberjacks, added clench contemptuously. I don't know what they be, Hootrunners maybe, or booze bandits, or they done something crooked, some or other. It's safe to serve them drinks. Clench himself had been drinking. He always drank when preparing to cook. He turned and went into the kitchen now, rolling up his shirt sleeves and relighting his clay pipe. Four. By nine o'clock the noisy chicken supper had ended. The table had been cleared. Jim Hastings was tuning his fiddle in the big room. Eve had seated herself before the battered melodian. Ladies and gents, said Clench, in his clear, pleasant voice, which carried throughout the hubbub. We are going to have a dance. Thanks and beholden to Jim Hastings and my daughter Eve. Eve, she don't drink and she don't dance, so no use asking and no hard feeling towards nobody. So act up pleasant to one and all and have a good time and no rough stuff and no form, shape, or manner. But behave like gents all in swell names, like he was to Swarie on Fifth Avenue. Let's go. He went back to the pantry, taking no notice of the cheering. The fiddler scraped at Foxtrot, Eve's melodian joined in. A vast scuffling of heavily shod feet filled the momentary silence, accented by the shrill giggle of young girls. Thereof, remarked Clench to Smith, he stood at the pantry shelf, preparing to serve whiskey or beer upon previous receipt of payment. In the event of a sudden raid, the arrangements at Clench's were quite simple. Two large drain pipes emerged from the kitchen floor beside Smith and ended in Starpond. In case of alarm, the tub of beer was poured down one pipe, the whiskey down the other. Only the trout and Starpond would ever sample the hooch again. Clench, now slightly intoxicated, leaned heavily on the pantry shelf beside Smith, adjusting his pistol under his suspenders. Young fellow, he said in his agreeable voice, You're dead right. You sure set a faceful when you says to me, Eve's a lady by God. You ought to know. You was a gentleman yourself once. Even if you take sticking-up tourists, you know a lady when you see one, and you call a turn. She is a lady. All I'm living for is to get her down to the city and give her money to live like a lady. I'll do it yet, soon. I do it tomorrow, tonight, if I dared. If I thought it, sure, fire. If I was dead certain I could get away with it. I've got the money now, only it ain't money, Smith. Yes, Mike? You know me. Sure. You size me up? Sure. I do. All right. If you ever tell anyone I got money that ain't money, I'll shoot you through the head. Don't worry, Clench. I ain't. You're a crook. You won't talk. You're a gentleman, too. They don't sell out a pal. Say how. There's one fella I don't want to meet. Who's that, Mike? Let me tell you, continued Clench, resting more heavily on the shelf while Smith, looking out through the pantry shutter at the dancing, listened intently. When I was in France in Forestry Regiment, went on Clench, lowering his always pleasant voice. I was to Paris on leave a few days before they sent us home. I was in the washroom of a cafe, cleaning up for supper, when Da Bang into the place comes to humble, and a man with two cops pushing and kicking him. They didn't see me in there, for they locked the door on the man. He was a swell gent, too, a full dress, a silk hat, and all like that, and an operating cloak and white kid gloves and mustache and French beard. When they locked him up, he stood stock still and lit a cigarette, as cool as ice. Then he began walking around, looking for a way to get out, but there wasn't no way. Then he see me, and over he comes and talks English right away. Want to make a thousand francs, soldier? Says he in a quick whisper. You're on, says I. Show your dough. Then Flicks has went to get the commissary for to frisk me, says he. If they find this parcel on me, I do twenty years in Nomia. Five years kills anybody out there. What do you want I should do? Says I, have no love for cops, French, or other. Take this packet, stick it in your overcoat, says he. Go to Thirteen Rue Quinza, October, and give it to the concierge for José Quizana. And he shoved the packet on me in a thousand franc note. Then he grabs me sudden and pulls open my collar. God, he was strong. What's the matter with you, says I? Let me go, or I'll mash your mug flat. Let me see your identification, disks, he barked. Being in Paris for a bat, I had exchanged with my bunkie, Bill Hanson. Let him look, thinks I, and he reads Bill's check. If you fool me, he says, I'll follow you, and I'll do you if it takes the rest of my life, you understand? Sure, says I, me tongue and me cheek. Bon, allez-vous, un, says he. How the hell, says I, do I get out of here? You're a Yankee soldier. The flicks don't know you were in here. You go and kick on that door and make a hollet. So I done it good, and the cops opens and swears at me. But he sees a Yankee soldier was locked in the washroom by mistake, and he lets me out, you bet. Clint smiled a thin smile, pouring out three fingers of hooch. What else, asked Smith quietly. Nothing much. I didn't go to know Rue Quinn's October. But I don't never want to see that fella Quintana. I've been waiting till it was safe to sell what was in that packet. Sell what? What was in that packet, replied Clinch, thickly. What was it? Sparklers. Since you're so nosy. Diamonds? And then some. I don't know what they're called. All I know is I'll croak Quintana if he ever turns up asking for him. He frisked somebody. I frisked him. I'll kill anybody who tries to frisk me. Where do you keep them? inquired Smith naively. Clinch looked at him. Very drunk. Na-yo dang business, he said, very softly. The dancing had become boisterous, but not unseemly, although all the men had been drinking too freely. Smith closed the pantry bar at midnight by direction of Eve. Now he came out into the ballroom and mixed affably with the company. Even dancing with Harvey Chase's sister once, a slender hodan, all flushed and disheveled with a tireless mania for dancing which seemed to intoxicate her. She danced, danced, danced, accepting any partner offered, but Smith's skill enraptured her, and she refused to let him go when her beau, a late arrival, one Charlie Berry, slouched up to claim her. Smith, always trying to keep attention Quintana's men in view, took no part in the discussion, but Berry thought he was detaining Lily Chase and pushed him aside. Hold on, young man, exclaimed Smith sharply. Keep your hands to yourself. If your girl don't want to dance with you, she doesn't have to. Some of Quintana's gang came up to listen. Berry glared at Smith. Say, he says, I've seen you before somewhere. Wasn't you in Russia? What are you talking about? Yes, you was. You was an officer. What are you doing at Clinch's? What's that grout, Clinch, shoving his way forward and shouldering the crowd aside? Who's this man, Mike, demanded Berry? Well, who do you think he is, asked Clinch, thickly? I think he's getting the goods on you. That's what I think, yelled Berry. Go on home, Charlie, return, Clinch. Go on all you. Dance over. Go peaceably. Everyone stop that fiddle. The music ceased. The dance was ended. They all understood that, that there was grumbling and demands for drinks. Clinch, drunk but impassive, herded them through the door out into the starlight. There was scuffling horseplay, but no fighting. The big Englishman, Harry Beck, asked for accommodations for his party overnight. Now, I said, Clinch, go on back to the inn. I can't bother with you folks tonight. And as the others, Salazar, Georgiatis, Paquete, and Sanchez gathered about to insist, Clinch pushed them all out of the doors in a mass. Get the hell out of here, he growled and slammed the door. He stood firm a moment with head lowered drunk, but apparently capable of reflection. Eve came from the Melodian and laid one slim hand on his arm. Go to bed, girly, he said, not looking at her. You also, dad. No, I got business with Hal Smith. Passing Smith, the girl whispered, you look out for him and undress him. Smith nodded, gravely preoccupied with coming events and nerving himself to meet them. He had no gun. Clinch's big automatic bulged from under his armpit. When the girl had ascended the creaking stairs and her door above closed, Clinch walked unsteadily to the door, opened it, fished out his pistol. Come on out, he said, without turning. Where, inquired Smith, Clinch turned, lifted his square head, and the deadly glare in his eyes left Smith silent. You coming? Sure, said Smith quietly, but Clinch gave him no chance to close in. It was death, even to swerve. Smith walked slowly out into the starlight, ahead of Clinch, slowly forward in luminous darkness. Keep going, came Clinch's quiet voice behind him. And after they had entered the woods, bare to the right. Smith knew now. The low woods were full of sinkholes. They were headed for the nearest one. On the edge of the thing they halted, Smith turned and faced Clinch. What's the idea, he asked without a quaver? Was you in Russia? Yes. Was you an officer? I was. Then you're spying. You're a cop. You're mistaken. Ah, don't hand me none of that. You're a stick trooper, or a secret service guy, or a plain dirty cop, and I'm going to croak you. I'm not in any service now. Wasn't you an army officer? Yes, can't an officer go wrong? Soft stuff, don't feed it to me. I told you too much anyway. I was babbling drunk. I'm drunk now, but I got sense. Do you think I'll run chances of sitting in state prison for the next 10 years and leave Eve out here alone? No, I gotta shoot you, Smith. And I'm going to do it. Go on and say what you want, and think if there's some kind of old god you can square before you croak. If you go to the chair for murder, what good will it do, Eve? asked Smith. His lips were crackling dry. He moistened them. Sinkholes, don't talk, said Clinch. Go on and square yourself, if you're a churchkind. Clinch said unsteadily. If you kill me now, you're as good as dead yourself. Quintana is here. Say, don't hand me that, retorted Clinch. Do you square yourself or no? I tell you, Quintana's gang were at the dance tonight. Piquet Salazar, Giorgiatis, Sard, Beck, Jose Sanchez, the one who looks like the French priest. Maybe he had a beard when you saw him in that cafe washroom. What, chatted Clinch in a sudden fury? What you talking about, your poor dumb dingo? You fixing to scare me? What do you know about Quintana? Are you one of Quintana's gang, too? Is that what you're up to? You hiding out at star pond? Come on now, out with it. I'll have it all out of you now, how, Smith, before I plug you. He came lurching forward, swaying his heavy pistol, as though he meant to brain his victim. But he halted it after the first step or two and stood there shadowy bulk, growling, enraged, undecided. And as Smith looked at him, two shadows detached themselves from behind Clinch, silently, silently glided behind, struck in utter silence. Down crashed Clinch, blackjacked, his face in the ooze. His pistol flew from his hand, struck Smith's leg, and Smith had it at the same instant and turned it like lightning on the murderous shadows. Hands up, quick, he cried. At bay now, and his back to the sinkhole, pistol leveled. He bent one knee, pushed Clinch over on his back, lest the ooze suffocate him. Now, he said, Cooley, what do you bums want of my Clinch? Who are you, came a soul and voice? This is none of your bloody business. We want Clinch, not you. What do you want of Clinch? Take your gun off us. Answer, I'll let go at you. What do you want of Clinch? Money, what do you think? You're here to stick up Clinch, inquired Smith. Yes, what's that to you? What has Clinch done to you? He stuck us up, that's what. Now, are you going to keep out of this? No, we ain't going to hurt Clinch. You bet you're not. Where's the rest of your gang? What gang? Quintana, said Smith, laughing. A wild exhilaration possessed him. His flanks and rear were protected by the sinkhole. He had Quintana's gang, two of them, over his pistol. Turn your backs and sit down, he said. As the shadowy forms hesitated, he picked up a stick and hurled at him. They sat down hastily, hands up, backs toward him. You'll both die where you sit, remarked Smith, if you yell for help. Clinch sighed heavily, stirred, groped, and damp leaves with his hands. I say he began the voice which Smith identified as Harry Beck's. If you come in with us on this, it will pay you, young man. No, drawed Smith. I'll go it alone. It can't be done, old dear. You'll see if you try it on. Who'll stop me, Quintana? Come, urged Beck, and be a good pal. You can't manage it alone. We've got all night to make Clinch talk. We know how, too. You'll get your share. Oh, Stowett, said Smith, watching Clinch, who was reviving. He sat up presently and put both hands over his head. Smith touched him silently on the shoulder, and he turned his heavy square head in a dazed way. Blood striped his visage. He gazed duly at Smith for a little while. Then, seeming to recollect, the old glare began to light his pale eyes. The next instant, however, Beck spoke again, and Clinch turned in astonishment and sought the two figures sitting there with back towards Smith and hands up. Clinch stared at the squatting forms, then slowly moved his head and looked at Smith and his leveled pistol. We know how to make a man squeal, said Harry Beck suddenly. He'll talk. We can make Clinch talk. No fear. Leave it to us, old pal. Are you with us? He started to look around over his shoulder and hurled another stick and hit him in the face. Quiet there, Harry, he said. What's my share if I go in with you? One-six, same as we all get. What's it worth, asked Smith with a motion of caution toward Clinch? If I say a million, you'll tell me I lie. But it's near three. Or you can have my share. Is it a go? You'll not hurt Clinch when he comes, too. We'll make him talk, that's all. It may hurt him some. You won't kill him. I swear by God. Wait, isn't it better to shoot him after he squeals? Here's a lovely sinkhole, handy. Right, oh, we'll make him talk fast. Then we'll shove him in. Are you with us? If you turn your head, I'll blow the face off, you Harry, said Smith, cautioning Clinch to silent with a gesture. All right, only you better make up your mind. That cove is likely to wake up now at any time, grumbled Beck. Clinch looked at Smith. The latter smiled, leaned over and whispered. Can you walk all right? Clinch nodded. Well, we'd better beat it. Contanna's whole gang is in these woods. Somewhere, hunting for you, they might stumble on us here. At any moment, and the two men in front, lie down flat on your faces, don't stir, don't speak, or it's you for the sinkhole. Lie down, I tell you. That's it. Don't move till I tell you. Clinch got up from where he was sitting, cast one murderous glance at the prostrate forms, then followed Smith noiselessly over the stretch of sphagnum moss. When they reached the house, they saw Eve standing on the steps in her nightdress and bare feet holding a lantern. Daddy, she whimpered, I was frightened. I didn't know where he had gone. Clinch put his arm around her and turned his bloody face and looked at Smith. It's this, he said, that I ain't forgetting, young fellow, what you've done for me, you've done for her. I've got to live to make a lady for her. That's why he added thickly. I much obliged you, House Smith. Go to bed, girly. You're bleeding, dad. Ah, twigs scratched me. I've been in the woods with Hal. Go on to bed. He went to the sink and washed his face, dried it, kissed the girl, and gave her a gentle shove towards the stairs. Hal and I, sitting up, talking business, he remarked, bolting the door and all the shutters. When the girl had gone, Clinch went to the closet and brought back two Winchester rifles, two shotguns, and a box of ammunition. Going to see it out with me, Hal? Sure, smiled Smith. All right, have a drink. No. All right. Well, you set. Anywhere. All right, sit over there. They may try the back porch. I'll just adhere a spell, and then I'll kind or mose you round, plug the first fellow that tries to shudder, Hal. You bet. Clinch came over and held out his hand. You said a faceful that time you says to me. Clinch, you says, Eve's a lady. I've got to fix her up. I've got to be a lot to do it. That's why I'm greatly obliged to you, Hal. He took his rifle and walked slowly toward the pantry. You bet he muttered, she is a lady, so help me God. End of Episode 2, Episode 3 of The Flaming Jewel. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Flaming Jewel by Robert W. Chambers. Episode 3 on Star Peak, 1. 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's 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 washroom of a Paris café, and Quintana was now in America, here in the very wilderness, tracking the man who had despoiled him. Clinch, in his shirt sleeves carrying a rifle, came out on the log veranda and sat down to think it over. He began to realize that he was likely to have trouble with a man as cold-blooded and 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. One among the lawless men who haunted his backwoods hotel at Starpond would lift a finger to help him. Almost any among them would have robbed him, murdered him, probably, if it were known that jewels were hidden in the house. He could not trust Jake Klune. Lever it was as treacherous as only a born coward can be. Sid Hone, Harvey Chase, Blommer's, Byron Hastings, he knew them all too well to trust them. A sullen unscrupulous pack, partly cowardly, always fears, 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 stood by him, Hal Smith, the man he himself had been about to slay. Klune 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've been figuring some. Quintana don't dare call in the constables. I can't afford to. Quintana and Avai got to settle this on our own. Smith slid open a ten-inch trout, stripping 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 inquired carelessly. How do I know? If you ever found out, I don't want to. I got them in the war, anyway, and it don't make no difference how I got them. Eve's going to be a lady, if I have to go to the chair for it. So that's that. Smith slid another trout, gutted it, flung away the viscera, but laid back the row. Shame to take them in October, he remarked. But people must eat. Same's me, added Klinch. I don't want to kill no one. But Eve, she's got to be a lady, and ride in her own automobile with the proudest. Does Eve know about the jewels? Klunche's pale eyes, which had been roving over the wooded shores of Starpon, reverted to Smith. I'd cut my throat before I'd tell her, he said softly. She wouldn't stand for it? How? When you said to me, Eve's a lady by God, you swallowed the whole 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. Klunche's pale eyes were fixed on him. Only you and me know, he said in a pleasant voice. Quintana knows. His gang knows. Klunche's smile was terrifying. I guess she ain't never likely to know nothing, how? What do you propose 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, how? Smith looked into his light-colored eyes. The pupils were pinpoints. Then he went on cleaning fish. How? What? If they get me. But no matter, they ain't going to get me. Were you going to tell me where those jewels are hidden, Mike? Inquired the young man, still busy with his fish. He did not look around when he spoke. Klunche's murderous gaze was fastened on the back of his head. Don't go getting too damn nosy, how, he said in his always-agreeable voice. Smith sourced all the fish and water again. You 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 towards the ice house with the trout, Eve Strayer, doing chamber work watching 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 Klunche's dump? Why was he content to hang around and do chores? A man of his type, who was gone crooked enough to stick up a tourist in an automobile, nourish his hire, though probably perverted ambitions than a dollar a day in board. She heard Klunche's light step on the uncarpeted stair, went on making up Smith's bed, and smiled as her stepfather 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 your spry won't take long. Time to go there and get back to help with noon dinner. Very well, Dad. Go get 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 in the hooch cache. She nodded, tucked in a sheet, smoothed blanket, and pillow with deft hands. Went out to her room, Klunche seated himself, and turned a blank face to the window. It was a sudden decision. He realized now 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 overpowered 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 gray shirt, breeches, and putties. Klunche gave her the packet. What's in it, Dad? She asked, smiling. Don't you get nosy, girl? 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 cruel, 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 going to step out. Put it with the hooch. You know how to move that keystone. Yes, Dad. And watch out that no game protector and none of that damn millionaire's war can see you in the woods. No, nor none of these here fancy state troopers. You gotta watch out this time, Eve. It means everything to us, to you, Girlie, and to me. Go tiptoe, lay low, coming and going, take a rifle. Eve ran to her bedroom and returned with her Winchester and belt. You shoot to kill, said clenched grimly, if anyone wants to stop you. But lay low, and you won't need to shoot nobody, Girlie. Go on out the back way, house in the ice house, too. Slim and straight as a young boy in her gray shirt and breeches, Eve continued on lightly through the woods, her rifle over her shoulder, her eyes a gentinium blue, always alert. The morning turned warm. She pulled off her soft-felt hat, shook out her clipped curls, stripped open the shirt and her throat where sweat glimmered like melted frost. The forest was a lovely in the morning sunlight, lovely and still, save for the blue jays. For the summer birds had gone, and only birds, destined to a long northern winter, remained. Now a man ahead of her, she saw a roughed grouse wandering in the trail. These and a single tiny gray bird with a dreary note intermittently repeated, were the only living things she saw, except here and there a summer battered butterfly of the Vanessa tribe flitted in some stray sunbeam. The haunting odor of late autumn was in the air, delicately arid, the scent of frost killed break and ripening old grasses, of brilliant dead leaves and black forest loam pungent with mast from beach and oak. Eve's tread was light on the moist trail, her quick eyes missed nothing, not the dainty imprint of deer, fresh-made, nor the sprawling insignia of rambling raccoons, nor the big-barred owl huddled on the pine limb overhead, nor were the swift gravely reaches of the brook-caught sunlight did she miss the swirling and furrowing and milling of painted trout on the spawning beds. Once she took cover, hearing something stirring, but it was only a yearling buck that came out of the witch hazel to stare, stamp, then wheel and trot away, displaying the danger signal. In her carriage-pouch, she carried the flat-sealed packet, which clinch had trusted to her. The sack swayed gently as she strode on, slapping her left hip at every step, and always her subconscious mind remained on guard and aware of it, and now and then she dropped her hand to feel of the pouch and strap. The character of the forest was now changing as she advanced. The first tamaracks appeared, slim, silvery trunks, crowned with the gold of autumn foliage, outer sentinels of that vast maze of swamp and stream called Owl Marsh, the stronghold and refuge of forest wild things, sometimes the sanctuary of hunted men. From star-peaks' left flank and icy stream clattered down to the level floor of the woods here, and it was here that Eve had meant to clinch her thirst with a mouthful of sweet water. But as she approached the tiny ford warily, she saw a saddled horse tied to a sapling and a man seated on a mossy log. The trappings of horse, the gray-green uniform of the man, left no room for speculation. A trooper of a stake constabulary was seated there. His cap was off, his head rested in his palm, elbow on knee, he sat there gazing at the water, watching the slim fish perhaps darting up the stream toward their bridal beds, hidden far away at the headwaters. A detour was imperative. The girl, from the sheltered up hind, looked out cautiously at the trooper, and a sudden sight of him had merely checked her. Now the recognition of his uniform startled her heart out of its tranquil rhythm and set the blood burning in her cheeks. There was a memory of such man seared into the girl's very soul. A man whose head and shoulders resembled this man's, who had the same bright hair, the same slim and powerful body, and who moved too, as this young man moved. The trooper stirred, lifted his head to relight his pipe. The girl knew him, her heart stood still. Then heart and blood ran riot, and she felt her knees tremble, felt weak as she rested against the pine's huge trunk, and covered her face with unsteady fingers. Until the moment Eve had never dreamed what the memory of this man really meant to her, never dreamed that she had capacity for emotion so utterly overwhelming. Even now confusion, shame, fear were paramount. All she wanted was to get away, get away, and still her heart's wild beating, control the strange tremor that possessed her, recover mind and sense and breath. She drew her hand from her eyes, and looked upon the man she had attempted to kill. Upon the young man who had wrestled her off her feet in handcuff her, had then bathed her bleeding mouth with sphagnum, and had then kissed her hands. She was trembling so that she became frightened. The racket of the brook in his ears safeguarded her in a measure. She bent over nearly double, her rifle at a trail, and cautiously began the detour. When at length the wide circle through the woods had been safely accomplished, and Eve was moving out through the thickening ranks of tamarack, her heart, which seemed to suffocate her, quieted, and she leaned against a shoulder of rock strangely tired. After a while she drew from her pocket his handkerchief and looked at it. The square of cambrick bore his initials, J.S. Blood from her lip remained on it. She had not washed out the spots. She put it to her lips again, mechanically. A faint odor of tobacco still clung to it. By every law of loyalty, pride, self-respect, she should have held this man at her enemy. Instead she held his handkerchief against her lips, crushed it there suddenly, closing her eyes while the color surged and surged through her skin from throat to hair. Then, warily, she lifted her head and looked out into the gray and empty vista of her life, where the dreary years seemed to stretch like milestones away, away into an endless waste. She put the handkerchief into her pocket, shouldered her rifle, and moved on without looking about her. A mistake which only the emotions of the moment could account for in a girl so habituated to caution, for she had gone only a few rods before a man's strident voice halted her. Alta la, crossa in air, drop that rifle, came another voice from behind her, your covered, throw down your gun on the ground. She stood as though paralyzed, to the right and left she heard people tramping through the thicket toward her. Down with that gun, damn you, repeated the voice, breathless from running. All around her men came floundering and crashing towards her through the undergrowth. She could see some of them. As she stooped to place her rifle on the deadly, she drew the flat packet from her cartridge sack at the same time and slid it deftly under the rotting log. Then, calm but very pale, she stood upright to face events. The first man wore a red and yellow bandana handkerchief over the lower half of his face, pulled tightly across a bony nose. He held a long pistol nearly parallel to his own body, and when he came up to where she was standing, he poked the muzzle into her stomach. She did not flinch. He said nothing. She looked intently into the two ratty eyes fastened on her over the edge of his bandana. Five other men were surrounding her, but they all wore white masks of visage shape, revealing chin and mouth. They were different otherwise also, wearing various sorts and patterns of sport clothes, brand new and giving them an odd foreign appearance. What troubled her most was the silence they maintained. The man wearing the bandana was the only one who seemed at all a familiar figure, merely perhaps because he was an American in build, clothing and movement. He took her by the shoulder, turned her around, and gave her a shove forward. She staggered a step or two. He gave her another shove, and she comprehended that she was to keep on going. Presently, she found herself in a steep, wet deer trail rising upward through a gully. She knew that runway. It led up Star Peak. Behind her, as she climbed, she heard the slopping, panting tread of men. Her wind was better than theirs. She climbed lithly upwards, setting a pace which finally resulted in a violent jerk backwards, a savage, wordless admonition to go more slowly. As she climbed, she wondered whether she should have fired an alarm shot on the chance of a state prooper Stormont hearing it. But she had thought only of the packet at the moment of surprise, and now she wondered whether, when freed, she could ever find that rotting log. Up, up, always up, along the wet gully. Deep with silt and frost-spuntered rock, she toiled the heavy gasping of men behind her. Twice she was jerked to a halt while her escort rested. Once without turning, she said unsteadily, who are you? What have I done to you? There was no reply. What are you going to do to me? She began again, and was shaken by the shoulder until silent. At last the vast arch of the eastern sky sprang out ahead, where stunted spruce stood out against the sunshine and the intense heat of midday fell upon the bare table-land of rock and moss and fern. As she came out upon the level, the man behind her took both her arms and pulled them back, and somebody bandaged her eyes. Then a hand closed on her left arm, and so guided she stumbled and crept forward across the rocks for a few moments until her guide halted her and forced her into a sitting position on a smooth, flat boulder. She heard the crunch of heavy feet all around her, whispering made hoarse by breath exhausted. Movement across rock and scrub, retreating steps. For an interminable amount of time she sat there alone in the hot sun, drenched to the skin and sweat, listening, thinking, striving to find a reason for this lawless outrage. After a long while she heard somebody coming across the rocks, stiffened as she listened with some vague presentiment of evil. Somebody halted beside her. After a pause she was aware of nimble fingers busy with the bandage over her eyes. At first, when freed, the light blinded her. By degree she was able to distinguish the rocky crest of star peak with the tops of trees appearing level with the rocks from Dep's Blow. Then she turned slowly and looked at the man who had seated himself beside her. He wore a white mask over a delicate, smoothly shaven face. His soft hat and sporting clothes were dark gray, evidently new, and she noticed his hands long, elegantly made, smooth, restless, playing with a pencil and some sheets of paper on his knees. As she met his brilliant eyes behind the mask, his delicate, thin lips grew tense in what seemed to be a smile or a soundless sort of laugh. Very happy, he said, to make the acquaintance. Pardon my unceremony miss, but only necessity compels. Are you perhaps a little rested? Yes. Ah, then if you permit, we proceed with affairs of moment. You will be sufficiently kind to write down what I say, yes? He placed paper and pencil in Eve's hand. Without demuring or hesitating, she made ready to write, and her mind groping wildly for the reason of it all. Right, he said, with his silent laugh, which was more like the soundless snarl of links unafraid. To my clinch, my father, from his child, Eve, I am hostage, held by Jose Quintana. Pay what you owe him, and I go free. For each day, delay, he sends you one finger, which will be severed from my right hand. Eve's slender fingers trembled. She looked up at the masked man, stared steadily into his brilliant eyes. Proceed, miss, if you are so amiable, he said softly. She wrote on, one finger for every day's delay, the whole hand at the end of the week, the other hand then, finger by finger, then alas, the right foot. Eve trembled. Proceed, he said softly. She wrote, if you agree, you shall pay what you owe to Jose Quintana in this manner. You shall place a stick at the edge of the star pond, where the star rivulet flows out. Upon this stick you shall tie a white rag. At the foot of the stick you shall lay the parcel which contains your indent to Jose Quintana. Say, miss, by tonight one finger at sunset. The man paused. Eve waited dumb under the surging confusion in her brain, a sort of incredulous horror benumbed her, through which she still heard and perceived. Be kind enough to sign it with your name, said the man pleasantly. Eve signed. Then the masked man took the letter, got up, and removed his hat. I am Quintana, he said. I keep my word. A thousand thanks and apologies, miss. I trust that your detention may be brief and not too disagreeable. I place at your feet my humble respects. He bowed, put on his hat, and walked quickly away. And she saw him descend the rocks toward the eastward, where the peak slopes. When Quintana had disappeared behind the summit scrub and rocks, Eve slowly stood up and looked about her at the rocky pulpit so familiar. There was only one way out. Quintana had gone that way. His men, no doubt, guarded it. Otherwise sheer precipice has confronted her. She walked to the western edge, where a sheet of slippery reindeer moss clothe the rock. Below the mountain fell away to the valley where she had been made prisoner. She looked out over the vast panorama of wilderness and mountain, range on range, stretching blue to the horizon. She looked down into the depths of the valley where the deep, under the flaming foliage of October, somewhere a state trooper was sitting, cheek on hand beside a waterfall. Or perhaps riding slowly through a forest which she might never gaze upon again. There was a noise on the rocks behind her. A masked man came out of the spruce scrub, laid a blanket on the rocks, placed a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a tin pail full of water upon it, motioned her, and went away through the dwarf spruces. Eve walked slowly to the blanket. She drank out of a tin pail. And then she set aside the food, lay down, and buried her quivering face in her arms. The sun was halfway between zenith and horizon when she heard somebody coming and rose to a sitting posture. Her visitor was Quintana. He came up to her quite close, stood with glittering eyes and tent upon her. After a moment he handed her a letter. She could scarcely unfold it, she trembled so. Girlie, for God's sake, give that packet to Quintana and come on home. I'm near crazy with it all. What the hell's anything worth besides you, girlie? I don't give a damn for nothing only you, so come quick, dad. After a little while she lifted her eyes to Quintana. So he said quietly, you are the little she-fox that has learned tricks already. What do you mean? Where is that packet? I haven't it. Where is it? She shook her head slightly. You had a packet, he insisted fiercely. Look here, regard, and he sped out a penciled sheet and clinched his hand. Jose Quintana, you win. She's got that stuff with her. Take your damn junk and let my girl go. My clinch. Well, said Quintana, a thin strutting 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 E by the throat and tore open her shirt. Then, hissing and cursing and panting with his own violence, he searched her brutally without mercy, flung her down and tore off her spiral putties. 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 toothbare. So he cried, I give you 10 minutes. Make up your mind. Tell me what you do with the packet. He wiped the blood from his face where she had struck him. You don't know, Jose Quintana. No. You shall make his acquaintance, yes. Eve got up on naked feet, quivering from head to foot, striving to button the gray shirt at her throat. Where, he demanded, beside himself, her mute lips only tightened. Very well, by God, he cried, I go make me some fire. You like it, eh? We shall put one toe in the fire and tell 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 10 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 keg into strips. The hunting knife was like a razor. The feverish business was accomplished in a few moments. The pieces knotted, the cords strained, in a desperate test over one knee. And now she ran to the precipice, where, 10 feet below the top of a grape 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, and threw the other end over the cliff's edge, and not giving herself time to think, lay flat, grasp the knotted line, and swung off. Not by not, she went down. Halfway, 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. Then she clasped, letting go of 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 saw, far up against the sky, a white, masked face looking over the edge of the precipice. 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 a state constabulary sat his horse in amazement to see a ragged, breathless, boyish figure speeding toward him among the tamaracks, her naked feet splashing through Poulenmeyer and Spagnum. 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. Cooley, you're all right now. For another second, he sat, looking down at her, the disheveled hair, the gasping mouth, at the regs, 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. End of episode three.