The Flaming Jewel, Robert W. Chambers [reading tree txt] 📗

be part of the superb animal he rode—part of its bone and muscle, its litheness, its supple power—part of its vertebræ 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 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 Harrod 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 pairs 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