"Oh, pardon. The mistake was natural. You merely robbed Kloon and Leverett. You should have killed them."

"Yes," said Quintana slowly, "I should have. It was my mistake."

"Signor Quintana, it is human for the human crook to err. Sooner or later he always does it. And then the Piper comes around holding out two itching palms."

"Mr. Smith," said Quintana pleasantly, "you are an unusually agreeable gentleman for a thief. I regret that you do not see your way to an amalgamation of interests with myself."

"As you say, Quintana mea, I am somewhat unusual. For example, what do you suppose I am going to do with this packet in my pocket?"

"Live," replied Quintana tersely.

"Live, certainly," laughed Smith, "but not on the proceeds of this coup-de-main. Non pas! I am going to return this packet to its rightful owner, the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Theodorica of Esthonia. And what do you think of that, Quintana?"

Quintana smiled.

"You do not believe me?" inquired Smith.

Quintana smiled again.

"Allons, bon!" exclaimed Smith, rising. "It's the unusual that happens in life, my dear Quintana. And now we'll take a little inventory of these marvellous gems before we part.... Sit very, very still, Quintana,--unless you want to lie stiller still.... I'll let you take a modest peep at the Flaming Jewel----" busily unwrapping the packet--"just one little peep, Quintana----"

He unwrapped the paper. Two cakes of sugar-milk chocolate lay within.

Quintana turned white, then deeply, heavily red. Then he smiled in ghastly fashion:

"Yes," he said hoa.r.s.ely, "as you have just said, sir, it is usually the unusual which happens in the world."

EPISODE SIX

THE JEWEL AFLAME

I

Mike Clinch and his men "drove" Star Peak, and drew a blanket covert.

There was a new shanty atop, camp debris, plenty of signs of recent occupation everywhere,--hot embers in which offal still smouldered, bottles odorous of claret dregs, and an aluminum culinary outfit, unwashed, as though Quintana and his men had departed in haste.

Far in the still valley below, Mike Clinch squatted beside the runway he had chosen, a c.o.c.ked rifle across his knees.

The glare in his small, pale eyes waned and flared as distant sounds broke the forest silence, grew vague, died out,--the fairy clatter of a falling leaf, the sudden scurry of a squirrel, a feathery rustle of swift wings in play or combat, the soft crash of a rotten bough sagging earthward to enrich the soil that grew it.

And, as Clinch squatted there, murderously intent, ever the fixed obsession burned in his fever brain, stirring his thin lips to incessant muttering,--a sort of soundless invocation, part chronicle, part prayer:

"O G.o.d A'mighty, in your big, swell mansion up there, all has went contrary with me sence you let that there d.a.m.n millionaire, Harrod, come into this here forest.... He went and built unto hisself an habitation, and he put up a wall of law all around me where I was earnin' a lawful livin' in Thy nice, clean wilderness.... And now comes this here Quintana and robs my girlie.... I promised her mother I'd make a lady of her little Eve.... I loved my wife, O Lord.... Once she showed me a piece in the Bible,--I ain't never found it sence,--but it said: 'And the woman she fled into the wilderness where there was a place prepared for her of G.o.d.' ... That's what _you_ wrote into your own Bible, O G.o.d! You can't go back on it. I seen it.

"And now I wanta to ask, What place did you prepare for my Eve? What spot have you reference to? You didn't mean my 'Dump,' did you? Why, Lord, that ain't no place for no lady.... And now Quintana has went and robbed me of what I'd saved up for Eve.... Does that go with Thee, O Lord? No, it don't. And it don't go with me, neither. I'm a-goin' to git Quintana. Then I'm a-goin' to git them two minks that robbed my girlie,--I am!... Jake Kloon, he done it in cahoots with Earl Leverett; and Quintana set 'em on. And they gotta die, O Lord of Israel, them there Egyptians is about to hop the twig.... I ain't aimin' to be mean to n.o.body. I buy hootch of them that runs it. I eat mountain mutton in season and out. I trade with law-breakers, I do. But, Lord, I gotta get my girlie outa here; and Harrod he walled me in with the chariots and spears of Egypt, till I nigh went wild.... And now comes Quintana, and here I be a-lyin' out to get him so's my girlie can become a lady, same's them fine folks with all their butlers and automobiles and what-not----"

A far crash in the forest stilled his twitching lips and stiffened every iron muscle.

As he lifted his rifle, Sid Hone came into the glade.

"Yahoo! Yahoo!" he called. "Where be you, Mike?"

Clinch slowly rose, grasping his rifle, his small, grey eyes ablaze.

"Where's Quintana?" he demanded.

"H'ain't you seen n.o.body?"

"No."

In the intense silence other sounds broke sharply in the sunset forest; Harvey Chase's halloo rang out from the rocks above; Blommers and the Hastings boys came slouching through the ferns.

Byron Hastings greeted Clinch with upflung gun: "Me and Jim heard a shot away out on Drowned Valley," he announced. "Was you out that way, Mike?"

"No."

One by one the men who had driven Star Peak lounged up in the red sunset light, gathering around Clinch and wiping the sweat from sun-reddened faces.

"Someone's in Drowned Valley," repeated Byron. "Them minks slid off'n Star in a hurry, I reckon, judgin' how they left their shanty. Phew! It stunk! They had French hootch, too."

"Mebby Leverett and Kloon told 'em we was fixin' to visit them,"

suggested Blommers.

"They didn't know," said Clinch.

"Where's Hal Smith?" inquired Hone.

Clinch made no reply. Blommers silently gnawed a new quid from the remains of a sticky plug.

"Well," inquired Jim Hastings finally, "do we quit, Mike, or do we still-hunt in Drowned Valley?"

"Not me, at night," remarked Blommers drily.

"Not amongst them sink-holes," added Hone.

Suddenly Clinch turned and stared at him. Then the deadly light from his little eyes shone on the others one by one.

"Boys," he said, "I gotta get Quintana. I can't never sleep another wink till I get that man. Come on. Act up like gents all. Let's go."

n.o.body stirred.

"Come on," repeated Clinch softly. But his lips shrank back, twitching.