s of
chocolate Kloon had died. For two cakes of chocolate he, Earl Leverett,
had become a man-slayer, a homeless fugitive in peril of his life.

He stood licking his blood-dried lips there in the darkness, striving to
hatch courage out of the dull fury eating at a coward's heart.

Somewhere in Clinch's Dump was the packet that would make him rich. ...
Here was his opportunity. He had only to dare; and pain and poverty and
fear -- above all else _fear_ -- would end forever! ...

* * * * *

When, at last, he came out to the edge of Clinch's clearing, the dark
October heavens were but a vast wilderness of stars.

Star Pond, set to its limpid depths with the heavenly gems, glittered
and darkled with its million diamond incrustations. The humped-up lump
of Clinch's Dump crouched like some huge and feeding night-beast on the
bank, ringed by the solemn forest.

There was a kerosene lamp burning in Eve Strayer's rooms. Another light
-- a candle -- flickered in the kitchen.

Leverett, crouching, ran rat-like down to the barn, slid in between the
ice house and the corn-crib, crawled out among the wilderness of weeds
and lay flat.

The light burned steadily from Eve's window.

* * * * *

IV

From his form among the frost-blackened rag-weeds, the trap-robber could
see only the plastered ceiling of the bed chamber.

But the kerosene lamp cast two shadows on that -- tall shadows of human
shapes that stirred at times.

The trap-robber, scared, stiffened to immobility, but his little eyes
remained fastened on the camera obscura above. All the cunning,
patience, and murderous immobility of the rat were his.

Not a weed stirred under the stars where he lay with tiny, unwinking
eyes intent upon the shadows on the ceiling.

* * * * *

The shadows on the ceiling were cast by Eve Strayer and her State
Trooper.

Eve sat on her bed's edge, swathed in a lilac silk kimona -- delicate
relic of school days. Her bandaged feet, crossed, dangled above the
rag-rug on the floor; her slim, tanned fingers were interlaced over the
book on her lap.

Near the door stood State Trooper Stormont, spurred, booted, trig and
trim, an undecided and flushed young man, fumbling irresolutely with the
purple cord on his campaign-hat.

The book on Eve's knees -- another relic of the past -- was _Sigurd the
Volsung._ Stormont had been reading to her -- they having found, after
the half shy tentatives of new friends, a point d'appui in li