"You"re watching to kill Quintana. But there"s no use watching any longer."
"Have the boys below got him?" he demanded.
"They got one of his gang. Byron Hastings is dead. Jim is badly hurt; Sid Hone, too,--not so badly----"
"Where"s Quintana?"
"Dad, he"s gone.... But it don"t matter. See here!----" She dug her slender hand into her breeches" pocket and pulled out a little fistful of gems.
Clinch, his powerful arm closing her shoulders, looked dully at the jewels.
"You see, dad, there"s no use killing Quintana. These are the things he robbed you of."
""Tain"t them that matter.... I"m glad you got "em. I allus wanted you should be a great lady, girlie. Them"s the tickets of admission. You put "em in your pants. I gotta stay here a spell----"
"Dad! Take them!"
He took them, smiled, shoved them into his pocket.
"What is it, girlie?" he asked absently, his pale eyes searching the woods ahead.
"I"ve just told you," she said, "that the boys went in as far as Quintana"s shanty. There was a dead man there, too; but Quintana has gone."
Clinch said,--not removing his eyes from the forest: "If any o" them boys has let Quintana crawl through I"ll kill _him_, too.... G"wan home, girlie. I gotta mosey--I gotta kinda loaf around f"r a spell----"
"Dad, I want you to come back with me----"
"You go home; you hear me, Eve? Tell Corny and d.i.c.k Berry to hook it for Owl Marsh and stop the Star Peak trails--both on "em.... Can Sid and Jimmy walk?"
"Jim can"t----"
"Well, let Harve take him on his back. You go too. You help fix Jimmy up at the house. He"s a little fella, Jimmy Hastings is. Harve can tote him. And you go along----"
"Dad, Quintana says he means to kill you! What is the use of hurting him? You have what he took----"
"I gotta have more"n he took. But even that ain"t enough. He couldn"t pay for all he ever done to me, girlie.... I"m aimin" to draw on him on sight----"
Clinch"s set visage relaxed into an alarming smile which flickered, faded, died in the wintry ferocity of his eyes.
"Dad----"
"G"wan home!" he interrupted harshly. "You want that Hastings boy to bleed to death?"
She came up to him, not uttering a word, yet asking him with all the tenderness and eloquence of her eyes to leave this blood-trail where it lay and hunt no more.
He kissed her mouth, infinitely tender, smiled; then, again prim and scowling:
"G"wan home, you little scut, an" do what I told ye, or, by G.o.d, I"ll cut a switch that"ll learn ye good! Never a word, now! On yer way!
G"wan!"
Twice she turned to look back. The second time, Clinch was slowly walking into the woods straight ahead of him. She waited; saw him go in; waited. After a while she continued on her way.
When she sighted the men below she called to Blommers and d.i.c.k Berry:
"Dad says you"re to stop Star Peak trail by Owl Marsh."
Jimmy Hastings sat on a log, crying and looking down at his dead brother, over whose head somebody had spread a coat.
Blommers had made a tourniquet for Jimmy out of a bandanna and a peeled stick.
The girl examined it, loosened it for a moment, twisted it again, and bade Harvey Chase take him on his back and start for Clinch"s.
The boy began to sob that he didn"t want his brother to be left out there all alone; but Chase promised to come back and bring him in before night.
Sid Hone came up, haggard from pain and loss of blood, resting his mangled hand in the sling of his cartridge-belt.
Berry and Blommers were already starting across toward Owl Marsh; and the latter, pa.s.sing by, asked Eve where Mike was.
"He went into Drowned Valley by the upper outlet," she said.
"He"ll never find no one in them logans an" sinks," muttered Chase, squatting to hoist Jimmy Hastings to his broad back.
"I guess he"ll be over Star Peak side by sundown," nodded Blommers.
Eve watched him slouching off into the woods, followed sullenly by Berry. Then she looked down at the dead man in silence.
"Be you ready, Eve?" grunted Chase.
She turned with a heavy heart to the home trail; but her mind was pa.s.sionately with Clinch in the spectral forests of Drowned Valley.
III
And Clinch"s mind was on her. All else--his watchfulness, his stealthy advance--all the alertness of eye and ear, all the subtlety, the cunning, the infinite caution--were purely instinctive mechanics.
Somewhere in this flooded twilight of gigantic trees was Jose Quintana.
Knowing that, he dismissed that fact from his mind and turned his thoughts to Eve.
Sometimes his lips moved. They usually did when he was arguing with G.o.d or calling his Creator"s attention to the justice of his case. His _two_ cases--each, to him, a cause celebre; the matter of Harrod; the affair of Quintana.
Many a time he had pleaded these two causes before the Most High.
But now his thoughts were chiefly concerned with Eve--with the problem of her future--his master pa.s.sion--this daughter of the dead wife he had loved.
He sighed unconsciously; halted.