dismounted. Both shook hands with Clinch. Then Lannis ledthe way to the barn.
"We'll eat well," he remarked to his comrade. "Clinch cooks."
From the care of their horses they went to a pump to wash. One or tworough looking men slouched out of the house and glanced at them.
"Hallo, Jake," said Lannis cheerily.
Jake Kloon grunted acknowledgment.
Lannis said in Stormont's ear: "Here she comes with towels. She'spretty, isn't she?"
A young girl in pink gingham advanced toward them across the patch ofgrass.
Lannis was very polite and presented Stormont. The girl handed them tworough towels, glanced at Stormont again after the introductions, smiledslightly.
"Dinner is ready," she said.
They dried their faces and followed her back to the house.
It was an unpainted building, partly of log. In the dining room half adozen men waited silently for food. Lannis saluted all, named hiscomrade, and seated himself.
A delicious odour of johnny-cake pervaded the room. Presently EveStrayer 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 upthat it revealed her ears and 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 -- thegentian-blue of the summer zenith at midday.
Lannis remained affable, even became jocose at moments: "No hootch fordinner, Mike? How's that, now?"
"The Boot-leg Express is a day late," replied Clinch, with cold humour.
Around the table ran an odd sound -- a company of catamounts feedingmight have made such a noise -- if catamounts ever laugh.
"How's the fur market, Jake?" inquired Lannis, pouring gravy over hismashed potato.
Kloon quoted prices with an oath.
A mean-visaged young man named Leverett complained of the price oftraps.
"What do you care?" inquired Lannis genially. "The other man pays.What are you kicking about, anyway? It wasn't so long ago that muskratswere ten cents."
The trooper's good-humoured intimation that Earl Leverett took fur inother men's traps was not lost on the company. Leverett's fox visagereddened; Jake Kloon, who had only one eye, glared at the State Trooperbut said nothing.
Clinch's pale gaze met the trooper's smiling one: "The jays andsquirrels talk too," he said slowly. "It don't mean anything. Only theshow-down counts."
"You're quite right, Clinch. The show-down is what we pay to see. Buttalk is the tune the orchestra plays before the curtain rises."
Stormont had finished dinner. He heard a low, charming voice frombehind his chair:
"Apple pie, lemon pie, maple cake, berry roll."
He looked up into two gentian-blue eyes.
"Lemon pie, please," he said, blushing.
* * * * *
When dinner was over and the bare little dining room empty except forClinch and the two State Troopers, the former folded his heavy, powerfulhands on the table's edge and turned his square face and pale-eyed gazeon Lannis.
"Spit it out," he said in a passionless voice.
Lannis crossed one knee over the other, 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 thiswood-road out of Ghost Lake?"
"No."
"Well, a wealthy tourist from New York -- a Mr. Sard, stopping at GhostLake Inn -- was held up and robbed last Saturday toward sundown."
"Never heard of him," said Clinch, calmly.
"The robber took four thousand dollars in bills and some private papersfrom 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 Saturday night."
"Who says so?"
"A guide from Ghost Lake."
"He's a liar."
"You know," said Lannis, "it won't do you any good if hold-up men canhide here and make a getaway."
"G'wan and search," said Clinch, calmly.
* * * * *
They searched the "hotel" from garret to cellar. They searched thebarn, boat-shed, out-houses.
While this was going on, Clinch went into the kitchen.
"Eve," he said coolly, "the State Troopers are after that fellow, HalSmith, who came here Saturday night. Where is he?"
"He went into Harrod's to get us a deer," she replied in a low voice."What has he done?"
"Stuck up a man on the Ghost Lake road. He ought to have told me. Doyou think you could meet up with him and tip him off?"
"He's hunting on Owl Marsh. I'll try."
"All right. Change your clothes and slip out the back-door. And lookout for Harrod's patrols, too."
"All right, dad," she sad. "If I have to be out to-night, don't worry.I'll get word to Smith somehow."
Half an hour later Lannis and Stormont returned from a prowl around theclearing. Lannis paid the reckoning; his comrade led out the horses.He said again to Lannis:
"I'm sure it was the girl. She wore men's clothes and she went into thewoods on a run."
As they started to ride away, Lannis said to Clinch, who stood on theveranda:
"It's still the blue-jay and the squirrel talk between us, Mike, but theshow-down is sure to come. Better go straight while the going's good."
"I go straight enough to suit me," said Clinch.
"But it's the Government that is to be suited, Mike. And if it gets youright 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 tothe forks of the Ghost Lake road.
"Now," said Lannis to Stormont, "if you really believe you saw the girlbeat it out of the back door and take to the woods, she's probablysomewhere in there----" he pointed into the western forest. "But" headded, "what's your idea in following her?"
"She wore men's clothes; she was in a hurry and trying to keep out ofsight. I wondered whether Clinch might have sent her to warn thishold-up fellow."
"That's rather a long shot, isn't it?"
"Very long. I could go in and look about a bit, if you'll lead myhorse."
"All right. Take your bearings. This road runs west to Ghost Lake. Wesleep at the Inn there -- if you mean to cross the woods on foot."
Stormont nodded, consulted his map and compass, pocketed both, unbuckledhis 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 Inn," said Lannis, starting onwith the led horse.
* * * * *
The forest was open amid a big stand of white pine and hemlock, andStormont traveled easily and swiftly. He had struck a line by compassthat must cross the direction taken by Eve Strayer when she leftClinch'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 hadnot fired a shot on the edge of that vast maze of stream, morass anddead timber called Owl Marsh.
Far away in the open forest Stormont heard the shot and turned in thatdirection.
But Eve already was very near when the young man who called himself HalSmith fired at one of Harrod's deer -- a three-prong buck on the edge ofthe 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 whenhe heard her voice across the swale:
"Smith! The State Troopers are looking for you!"
He stood up, dried his hands on his breeches. The girl picked her wayacross the bog, jumping from one tussock 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 different.
The Flaming Jewel Page 3