"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 d.a.m.n 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 b.u.t.ton 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 ch.o.r.es? A man of his type who has 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 in 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 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 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 n.o.body 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 d.a.m.n 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 n.o.body, girlie. G"wan out the back way; Hal"s in the ice house."
II
Slim and straight as a young boy in her grey shirt and breeches, Eve continued on lightly through the woods, her rifle over her shoulder, her eyes of gentian-blue always alert.
The morning turned warm; she pulled off her soft felt hat, shook out her clipped curls, stripped open the shirt at her snowy throat where sweat glimmered like melted frost.
The forest was 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 and then, ahead of her, she saw a ruffed grouse wandering in the trail. These, and a single tiny grey bird with a dreary note interminably repeated, were the only living things she saw except here and there a summer-battered b.u.t.terfly of the Vanessa tribe flitting in some stray sunbeam.
The haunting odour of late autumn was in the air--delicately acrid--the scent of frost-killed brake and ripening wild gra.s.ses, of brilliant dead leaves and black forest loam pungent with mast from beech 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 racc.o.o.ns--nor the big barred owl huddled on a pine limb overhead, nor, where the swift gravelly reaches of the brook caught sunlight, did she miss the swirl and furrowing and milling of painted trout on the sp.a.w.ning 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 cartridge-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 Peak"s left flank an icy stream clatters down to the level floor of the woods, here; and it was here that Eve had meant to quench her thirst with a mouthful of sweet water.