Now he began to gain momentum; he felt himself sliding, not fast but steadily.
There came a hitch somewhere; his heavy body stuck on the steep incline.
Then, as he lifted his bewildered head and stove to peer into the blackness in front, he saw four balls of green fire close to him in the darkness.
He began to slide at the same instant, and flung out both hands to check himself. But his palms slid in the slime and his body slid after.
He shrieked once as his face struck a furry obstruction where four balls of green fire flamed horribly and a fury of murderous teeth tore his face and throat to bloody tatters as he slid lower, lower, settling through crimson-dyed waters into the icy depths of Star Pond.
* * * * *
Stormont, down by the lake, called to Darragh, who appeared on the veranda:
“Oh, Jim! Both otters crawled into the drain! I think your dogs must have killed one of them under water. There’s a big patch of blood spreading off shore.”
“Yes,” said Darragh, “something has just been killed, somewhere. …
Jack!”
“Yes?”
“Pull both your guns and come up here, quick!”
* * * * *
Episode Ten
The Twilight of Mike
* * * * *
I
When Quintana turned like an enraged snake on Sard and drove him to his destruction, he would have killed and robbed the frightened diamond broker had he dared risk the shot. He had intended to do this anyway, sooner or later. But with the noise of the hunting dogs filling the forest, Quintana was afraid to fire. Yet, even then he followed Sard stealthily for a few minutes, afraid yet murderously desirous of the gems, confused by the tumult of the hounds, timid and ferocious at the same time, and loath to leave his fat, perspiring, and demoralised victim.
But the racket of the dogs proved too much for Quintana. He sheered away toward the South, leaving Sard floundering on ahead, unconscious of the treachery that had followed furtively in his panic-stricken tracks.
About an hour later Quintana was seen, challenged, chased and shot at by
State Trooper Lannis.
Quintana ran. And what with the dense growth of seedling beech and oak and the heavily falling birch and poplar leaves, Lannis first lost Quintana and then his trail.
The State Trooper had left his horse at the cross-roads near the scene of Darragh’s masked exploit, where he had stopped and robbed Sard — and now Lannis hastened back to find and mount his horse, and gallop straight into the first growth timber.
Through dim aisles of giant pine he spurred to a dead run on the chance of cutting Quintana from the eastward edge of the forest and forcing him back toward the north or west, where patrols were more than likely to hold him.
The State Trooper rode with all the reckless indifference and grace of the Western cavalryman, and he seemed to be part of the superb animal he rode — part of its bone and muscle, its litheness, its supple power — part of its vertebrae and ribs and limbs, so perfect was their bodily co-ordination.
Rifle and eyes intently alert, the rider scarce noticed his rushing mount; and if he guided with wrist and knee it was instinctive and as though the horse were guiding them both.
And now, far ahead through this primeval stand of pine, sunshine glimmered, warning of a clearing. And here Trooper Lannis pulled in his horse at the edge of what seemed to be a broad, flat meadow, vividly green.
But it was the intense, arsenical green of hair-fine grass that covers with its false velvet those quaking bogs where only a thin, crust-like skin of root-fibre and vegetation cover infinite depths of silt.
The silt had no more substance than a drop of ink colouring the water in a tumbler.
Sitting his fast-breathing mount, Lannis searched this wide, flat expanse of brilliant green. Nothing moved on it save a great heron picking its deliberate way on stilt-like legs. It was well for Quintana that he had not attempted it.
Very cautiously Lannis walked his horse along the hard ground which edged this marsh on the west. Nowhere was there any sign that Quintana had come down to the edge among the shrubs and swale grasses.
Beyond the marsh another trooper patrolled; and when at length he and
Lannis perceived each other and exchanged signals, the latter wheeled
his horse and retraced his route at an easy canter, satisfied that
Quintana had not yet broken cover.
Back through the first growth he cantered, his rifle at a ready, carefully scanning the more open woodlands, and so came again to the cross-roads.
And here stood a State Game Inspector, with a report that some sort of beagle-pack was hunting in the forest to the northwest; and very curious to investigate.
So it was arranged that the Inspector should turn road-patrol and the
Trooper become the rover.
There was no sound of dogs when Lannis rode in on the narrow, spotted trail whence he had flushed Quintana into the dense growth of saplings that bordered it.
His horse made little noise on the moist layer of leaves and forest mould; he listened hard for the sound of hounds as he rode; heard nothing save the chirr of red squirrels, the shriek of a watching jay, or the startling noise of falling acorns rapping and knocking on great limbs in their descent to the forest floor.
Once, very, very far away westward in the direction of Star Pond he fancied he heard a faint vibration in the air that might have been hounds baying.
He was right. And at that very moment Sard was dying, horribly, among two trapped otters as big and fierce as the dogs that had driven them into the drain.
But Lannis knew nothing of that as he moved on, mounted, along the spotted trail, now all a yellow glory of birch and poplar which made the woodland brilliant as though lighted by yellow lanterns.
Somewhere among the birches, between him and Star Pond, was Harrod
Place. And the idea occurred to him that Quintana might have ventured
to ask food and shelter there. Yet, that was not likely because Trooper
Stormont had called him that morning on the telephone from the Hatchery
Lodge.
No; the only logical retreat for Quintana was northward to the mountains, where patrols were plenty and fire-wardens on duty in every watch-tower. Or, the fugitive could make for Drowned Valley by a blind trail which, Stormont informed him, existed but which Lannis never had heard of.
However, to reassure himself, Lannis rode as far as Harrod Place, and found game wardens on duty along the line.
Then he turned west and trotted his mount down to the hatchery, where he saw Ralph Wier, the Superintendent, standing outside the lodge talking to his assistant, George Fry.
When Lannis rode up on the opposite side of the brook, he called across to Wier:
“You haven’t seen anything of any crooked outfit around here, have you,
Ralph? I’m looking for that kind.”
“See here,” said the Superintendent, “I don’t know but George Fry may have seen one of your guys. Come over and he’ll tell you what happened an hour ago.”
Trooper Lannis pivotted his horse and put him to the brook with scarcely any take-off; and the splendid animal cleared the water like a deer and came cantering up to the door of the lodge.
Fry’s boyish face seemed agitated; he looked up at the State Trooper with the flush of tears in his gaze and pointed at the rifle Lannis carried:
“If I’d had that,” he said excitedly, “I’d have brought in a crook, you bet!”
“Where did you see him?” inquired Lannis.
“Jest west of the Scaur, about an hour and a half ago. Wier and me was stockin’ the head of Scaur Brook with fingerlings. There’s more good water — two miles of it — to the east, and all it needed was a fish-ladder around Scaur Falls.
“So I toted in cement and sand and grub last week, and I built me a shanty on the Scaur, and I been laying up a fish-way around the falls. So that’s how
I come there — —” He clicked his teeth and darted a furious glance at the woods. “By God,” he said, “I was such a fool I didn’t take no rifle. All I had was an axe and a few traps. … I wasn’t going to let the mink get our trout whatever you fellows say,” he added defiantly, “ — and law or no law — —”
“Get along with your story, young man,” interrupted Lannis; “ — you can spill the rest out to the Commissioner.”
“All right, then. This is the way it happened down to the Scaur. I was eating lunch by the fish-stairs, looking up at ’em and kind of planning how to save cement, and not thinking about anybody being near me, when something made me turn my head. … You know how it is in the woods. … I kinda felt somebody near. And, by cracky! — there stood a man with a big, black automatic pistol, and he had a bead on my belly.
“`Well,’ said I, `what’s troubling you and your gun, my friend?’ — I was that astonished.
“He was a slim-built, powerful guy with a foreign face and voice and way. He wanted to know if he had the honour — as he put it — to introduce himself to a detective or game constable, or a friend of Mike Clinch.
“I told him I wasn’t any of these, and that I worked in a private hatchery; and he called me a liar.”
Young Fry’s face flushed and his voice began to quiver:
“That’s the way he misused me; and he backed me into the shanty and I had to sit down with both hands up. Then he filled my pack-basket with grub, and took my axe, and strapped my kit onto his back. … And talking all the time in his mean, sneery, foreign way — and I guess he thought he was funny, for he laughed at his own jokes.
“He told me his name was Quintana, and that he ought to shoot me for a rat, but he wouldn’t because of the stink. Then he said he was going to do a quick job that the police were too cowardly to do; — that he was a-going to find Mike Clinch down to Drowned Valley and kill him; and if he could catch Mike’s daughter, too, he’d spoil her face for life — —”
The boy was breathing so hard and his rage made him so incoherent that
Lannis took him by the shoulder and shook him:
“What next?” demanded the Trooper impatiently. “Tell your story and quit thinking how you were misused!”
“He told me to stay in the shanty for an hour or he’d do for me good,” cried Fry. … “Once I got up and went to the door; and there he stood by the brook, wolfing my lunch with both hands. I tell you he cursed and drove me, like a dog, inside with his big pistol — my God — like a dog. …
“Then, the next time I took a chance he was gone. … And I beat it here to get me a rifle — —” The boy broke down and sobbed: “He drove me around — like a dog — he did — —”
“You leave that to me,” interrupted Lannis sharply. And, to Wier: “You and George had better get a gun apiece. That fellow might come back here or go to Harrod Place if we starve him out.”
Wier said to Fry: “Go up to Harrod Place and tell Jansen your story and bring back two 45-70’s. … And quit snivelling. … You may get a shot at him yet.”
Lannis had already ridden down to the brook. Now he jumped his horse across, pulled up, called back to Wier:
“I think our man is making for Drowned Valley, all right. My mate,
Stormont, telephoned me that some of his gang are there, and that Mike
Clinch and his gang have them stopped on the other side! Keep your eye
on Harrod Place!”
And away he cantered into the North.
* * * * *
Behind the curtains of her open window Eve Strayer, lying on her bed, had heard every word.
Crouched there beside her pillow she peered out and saw Trooper Lannis ride away; saw the Fry boy start toward Harrow Place on a run; saw Ralph Wier watch them out of sight and then turn and re-enter the lodge.
Wrapped in Darragh’s big blanket robe she got off the bed and opened her chamber door as Wier was passing through the living-room.
“Please — I’d like to speak to you a moment,” she called.
Wier turned instantly and came to the partly open door.
“I want to know,” she said, “where I am.”
“Ma’am?”
“What is this place?”
“It’s a hatchery — —”
“Whose?”
“Ma’am?”
“Whose lodge is this? Does it belong to Harrod Place?”
“We’re h-hootch runners, Miss — —” stammered Wier, mindful of
instructions, but making a poor business of deception; “ — I and Hal
Smith, we run a `Easy One,’ and we strip trout for a blind and sell to
Harrod Place — Hal and I — —”
“Who is Hal Smith?” she asked.
“Ma’am?”
The girl’s flower-blue eyes turned icy: “Who is the man who calls himself Hal Smith?” she repeated.
Wier looked at her, red and dumb.
“Is he a Trooper in plain clothes?” she demanded in a bitter voice. “Is he one of the Commissioner’s spies? Are you one, too?”
Wier gazed miserably at her, unable to formulate a convincing lie.
She flushed swiftly as a terrible suspicion seized her:
“Is this Harrod property? Is Hal Smith old Harrod’s heir? Is he?”
“My God, Miss — —”
“He is!”
“Listen, Miss — —”
She flung open the door and came out into the living-room.
“Hal Smith is that nephew of old Harrod,” she said calmly. “His name is Darragh. And you are one of his wardens. … And I can’t stay here. Do you understand?”
Wier wiped his hot face and waited. The cat was out; there was a hole in the bag; and he knew there was no use in such lies as he could tell.
He said: “All I know, Miss, is that I was to look after you and get you whatever you want — —”
“I want my clothes!”
“Ma’am?”
“My clothes!” she repeated impatiently. “I’ve got to have them!”
“Where are they, ma’am?” asked the bewildered man.
At the same moment the girl’s eyes fell on a pile of men’s sporting clothing — garments sent down from Harrod Place to the Lodge — lying on a leather lounge near a gun-rack.
Without a glance at Wier, Eve went to the heap of clothing, tossed it about, selected cords, two pairs of woollen socks, grey shirt, puttees, shoes, flung the garments through the door into her own room followed them, and locked herself in.
* * * * *
When she was dressed — the two heavy of socks helping to fit her feet to the shoes — she emptied her handful of diamonds, sapphires and emeralds, including the Flaming Jewel, into the pockets of her breeches.
Now she was ready. She unlocked her door and went out, scarcely limping at all, now.
Wier gazed at her helplessly as she coolly chose a rifle and cartridge-belt at the gun-rack.
Then she turned on him as still and dangerous as a young puma:
“Tell Darragh he’d better keep clear of Clinch’s,” she said. “Tell him
I always thought he was a rat. Now I know he’s one.”
She plunged one slim hand into her pocket and drew out a diamond.
“Here,” she said insolently. “This will pay your gentleman for his gun and clothing.”
She tossed the gem onto a table, where it rolled, glittering.
“For heaven’s sake, Miss — —” burst out Wier, horrified, but she cut him short:
“ — He may keep the change,” she said. “We’re no swindlers at Clinch’s
Dump!”
Wier started forward as though to intercept her. Eve’s eyes flamed. And he stood still. She wrenched open the door and walked out among the silver birches.
At the edge of the brook she stood a moment, coolly loading the magazine of her rifle. Then, with one swift glance of hatred, flung at the place that Harrod’s money had built, she sprang across t
he brook, tossed her rifle to her shoulder, and passed lithely into the golden wilderness of poplar and silver birch.
* * * * *
II
Quintana, on a fox-trot along the rock-trail into Drowned Valley, now thoroughly understood that it was the only sanctuary left him for the moment. Egress to the southward was closed; to the eastward, also; and he was too wary to venture westward toward Ghost Lake.
No, the only temporary safety lay in the swamps of Drowned Valley.
And there, he decided as he jogged along, if worse came to worst and starvation drove him out, he’d settle matters with Mike Clinch and break through to the north.
He meant to settle matters with Mike Clinch anyway. He was not afraid of Clinch; not really afraid of anybody. It had been the dogs that demoralised Quintana. He’d had no experience with hunting hounds, — did not know what to expect, — how to manoeuvre. If only he could have seen these beasts that filled the forest with their hob-goblin outcries — if he could have had a good look at the creatures who gave forth that weird, crazed, melancholy volume of sound! —
“Bon!” he said coolly to himself. “It was a crisis of nerves which I experience. yes. … I should have shot him, that fat Sard. Yes. … Only those damn dog —— And now he shall die an’ rot — that fat Sard — all by himse’f, parbleu! — like one big dead thing all alone in the wood. … A puddle of guts full of diamonds! Ah! — mon dieu! — a million francs in gems that shine like festering stars in this damn wood till the world end. Ah, bah — nome de dieu de — —”
“Halte la!” came a sharp voice from the cedar fringe in front. A pause, then recognition; and Henri Picquet walked out on the hard ridge beyond and stood leaning on his rifle and looking sullenly at his leader.
Quintana came forward, carelessly, a disagreeable expression in his eyes and on his narrow lips, and continued on pas Picquet.
The latter slouched after his leader, who had walked over to the lean-to before which a pile of charred logs lay in cold ashes.
As Picquet came up, Quintana turned on him, with a gesture toward the extinguished fire: “It is cold like hell,” he said. “Why do you not have some fire?”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 1026