The Flaming Jewel Part 56

Slowly she descended to the kitchen. He was not there. The food she had prepared for him had become cold on a chilled range.

For a long while she stood staring through the window at the sunlight outside. Probably, since Quintana had eluded him, he'd come home for something to eat.... Surely, now that Quintana had escaped, Clinch would come back for some breakfast.

Eve slipped the pack from her back and laid it on the kitchen table.

There was kindling in the wood-box. She shook down the cinders, laid a fire, soaked it with kerosene, lighted it, filled the kettle with fresh water.

In the pantry she cut some ham, and found eggs, condensed milk, b.u.t.ter, bread, and an apple pie. After she had ground the coffee she placed all these on a tray and carried them into the kitchen.

Now there was nothing more to do until her father came, and she sat down by the kitchen table to wait.

Outside the sunlight was becoming warm and vivid. There had been no frost after all--or, at most, merely a white trace in the shadow--on a fallen plank here and there--but not enough to freeze the ground. And, in the sunshine, it all quickly turned to dew, and glittered and sparkled in a million hues and tints like gems--like that handful of jewels she had poured into her father's joined palms--yesterday--there at the ghostly edge of Drowned Valley.

At the memory, and quite mechanically, she turned in her chair and drew Quintana's basket pack toward her.

First she lifted out his rifle, examined it, set it against the window sill. Then, one by one, she drew out two pistols, loaded; the murderous Spanish clasp-knife; an axe; a fry-pan and a tin pail, and the rolled-up mackinaw.

Under these the pack seemed to contain nothing except food and ammunition; staples in sacks and a few cans--lard, salt, tea--such things.

The cartridge boxes she piled up on the table; the food she tossed into a tin swill bucket.

About the effects of this man it seemed to her as though something unclean lingered. She could scarcely bear to handle them,--threw them from her with disgust.

The garment, also--the heavy brown and green mackinaw--she disliked to touch. To throw it out doors was her intention; but, as she lifted the coat, it unrolled and some things fell from the pockets to the kitchen table,--money, keys, a watch, a flat leather case----

She looked stupidly at the case. It had a coat of arms emblazoned on it.

Still, stupidly and as though dazed, she laid one hand on it, drew it to her, opened it.

The Flaming Jewel blazed in her face amid a heap of glittering gems.

Still she seemed slow to comprehend--as though understanding were paralysed.

It was when her eyes fell upon the watch that her heart seemed to stop.

Suddenly her stunned senses were lighted as by an infernal flare....

Under the awful blow she swayed upright to her feet, sick with fright, her eyes fixed on her father's watch.

It was still ticking.

She did not know whether she cried out in anguish or was dumb under it.

The house seemed to reel around her; under foot too.

When she came to her senses she found herself outside the house, running with her rifle, already entering the woods. But, inside the barrier of trees, something blocked her way, stopped her,--a man--_her_ man!

"Eve! In G.o.d's name!----" he said as she struggled in his arms; but she fought him and strove to tear her body from his embrace:

"They've killed Dad!" she panted,--"Quintana killed him. I didn't know--oh, I didn't know!--and I let Quintana go! Oh, Jack, Jack, he's at the Place of Pines! I'm going there to shoot him! Let me go!--he's killed Dad, I tell you! He had Dad's watch--and the case of jewels--they were in his pack on the kitchen table----"

"Eve!"

"Let me go!----"

"_Eve!_" He held her rigid a moment in his powerful grip, compelled her dazed, half-crazed eyes to meet his own:

"You must come to your senses," he said. "Listen to what I say: they are _bringing in your father_."

Her dilated blue eyes never moved from his.

"We found him in Drowned Valley at sunrise," said Stormont quietly. "The men are only a few rods behind me. They are carrying him out."

Her lips made a word without sound.

"Yes," said Stormont in a low voice.

There was a sound in the woods behind them. Stormont turned. Far away down the trail the men came into sight.

Then the State Trooper turned the girl very gently and placed one arm around her shoulders.

Very slowly they descended the hill together. His equipment was shining in the morning sun: and the sun fell on Eve's drooping head, turning her chestnut hair to fiery gold.

An hour later Trooper Stormont was at the Place of Pines.

There was nothing there except an empty trap and the ashes of the dying fire beyond.

EPISODE TWELVE

HER HIGHNESS INTERVENES

I

Toward noon the wind changed, and about one o'clock it began to snow.

Eve, exhausted, lay on the sofa in her bedroom. Her step-father lay on a table in the dance hall below, covered by a sheet from his own bed. And beside him sat Trooper Stormont, waiting.

It was snowing heavily when Mr. Lyken, the little undertaker from Ghost Lake, arrived with several a.s.sistants, a casket, and what he called "swell tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs."

Long ago Mike Clinch had selected his own mortuary site and had driven a section of iron pipe into the ground on a ferny knoll overlooking Star Pond. In explanation he grimly remarked to Eve that after death he preferred to be planted where he could see that Old Harrod's ghost didn't trespa.s.s.

Here two of Mr. Lyken's able a.s.sistants dug a grave while the digging was still good; for if Mike Clinch was to lie underground that season there might be need of haste--no weather prophet ever having successfully forecast Adirondack weather.

Eve, exhausted by shock and a sleepless night, was spared the more harrowing details of the coroner's visit and the subsequent jaunty activities of Mr. Lyken and his efficient a.s.sistants.

She had managed to dress herself in a black wool gown, intending to watch by Mike, but Stormont's blunt authority prevailed and she lay down for an hour's rest.