ded, rolling another cigarette:

"Now, I'll tell you how Clinch happened to go wrong," he said. "You see
he'd always made his living by guiding. Well, some years ago Henry
Harrod, of Boston, came here and bought thousands and thousands of acres
of forest all around Clinch's----" Lannis half rose on one stirrup and,
with a comprehensive sweep of his muscular arm, ending in a flourish:
"-- He bought everything for miles and miles. And that started Clinch
down hill. Harrod tried to force Clinch to sell. The millionaire
tactics you know. He was determined to oust him. Clinch got mad and
wouldn't sell at any price. Harrod kept on buying all around Clinch and
posted trespass notices. That meant ruin to Clinch. He was walled in.
No hunters care to be restricted. Clinch's little property was no good.
Business stopped. His step-daughter's education became expensive. He
as in a bad way. Harrod offered him a high price. But Clinch turned
ugly and wouldn't budge. And that's how Clinch began to go wrong."

"Poor devil," said Stormont.

"Devil, all right. Poor, too. But he needed money. He was crazy to
make a lady of Eve Strayer. And there are ways of finding money, you
know."

Stormont nodded.

"Well, Clinch found money in those ways. The Conservation Commissioner
in Albany began to hear about game law violations. The Revenue people
heard of rum-running. Clinch lost his guide's license. But nobody
could get the goods on him.

"There was a rough backwoods bunch always drifting around Clinch's place
in those days. There were fights. And not so many miles from Clinch's
there was highway robbery and a murder or two.

"Then the war came. The draft caught Clinch. Malone exempted him, he
being the sole support of his stepchild.

"But the girl volunteered. She got to France, somehow -- scrubbed in a
hospital, I believe -- anyway, Clinch wanted to be on the same side of
the world she was on, and he went with a Forestry Regiment and cut trees
for railroad ties in southern France until the war ended and they sent
him home.

"Eve Strayer came back too. She's there now. You'll see her at dinner
time. She sticks to Clinch. He's a rat. He's up against the dry laws
and the game laws. Government enforcement agents, game protectors,
State Constabulary, all keep an eye on Clinch. Harrod's trespass signs
fence him in. He's like a rat in a trap. Yet Clinch makes money at law
breaking and nobody can catc