orld, too, all around her seemed to have become misty
and golden and all pulsating with a faint, still rhythm that indefinably
thrilled her pulses to response.

Passion, full-armed, springs flaming from the heart of man. Woman is
slow to burn. And it was the delicate phantom of passion that Eve gazed
upon, there in her unpainted chamber, her sun-tanned fingers linking
listlessly in her lap, her little feet like bruised white flowers
drooping above the floor.

Hour after hour she sat there dreaming, staring at the tinted ghost of
Eros, rose-hued, near-smiling, unreal, impalpable as the dusty sunbeam
that slanted from her window, gilding the boarded floor.

* * * * *

Three spectres, gilding near, paused to gaze at State Trooper Stormont,
on guard by the stairs. Then they looked at the closed door of Eve's
chamber.

Then the three spectres, Fate, Chance, and Destiny, whispering together,
passed on toward the depths of the sunset forest.

* * * * *

Episode Five

Drowned Valley

* * * * *

I

The soft, bluish forest shadows had lengthened, and the barred sun-rays,
filtering through, were tinged with a rosy hue before Jake Kloon, the
hootch runner, and Earl Leverett, trap thief, came to Drowned Valley.

They were still a mile distant from the most southern edge of that vast
desolation, but already tamaracks appeared in the beauty of their burnt
gold; the little pools glimmered here and there; patches of amber
sphagnum and crimson pitcher-plants became frequent; and once or twice
Kloon's big boots broke through the crust of fallen leaves, soaking him
to the ankles with black silt.

Leverett, always a coward, had pursued his devious and larcenous way
through the world, always in deadly fear of sink holes.

His movements and paths were those of a weasel, preferring always solid
ground; but he lacked the courage of that sinuous little beast, though
he possessed all of its ferocity and far more cunning.

Now trotting lightly and tirelessly in the broad and careless spoor of
Jake Kloon, his narrow, pointed head alert, and every fear-sharpened
instinct tensely observant, the trap-thief continued to meditate murder.

Like all cowards, he had always been inclined to bold and ruthless
action; but inclination was all that ever had happened.

Yet, even in his pitiable misdemeanours he slunk through life in terror
of that strength which never hesitates at violence. In his petty
pilfering he died a hundred deat