sheet
beside her.

"Now," he said, "there is no reason for you to lie awake any longer.
I'll fix you up for the night."

Deftly he unbandaged, bathed, dressed, and rebandaged her slim white
feet -- little wounded feet so lovely, so exquisite that his hand
trembled as he touched them.

"They're doing fine," he said cheerily. "You've half a degree of fever
and I'm going to give you something to drink before you go to sleep----"

He poured out a glass of water, dissolved two tablets, supported her
shoulders while she drank in a dazed way, looking always at him over the
glass.

"Now," he said, "go to sleep. I'll b on the job outside your door until
your daddy arrives."

"How did you get back dad's money?" she asked in an odd, emotionless way
as though too weary for further surprises.

"I'll tell you in the morning."

"Did you kill him? I didn't hear your pistol."

"I'll tell you all about it in the morning. Good night, Eve."

As he bent over her, she looked up into his eyes and put both arms
around his neck.

It was her first kiss given to any man, except Mike Clinch.

After Stormont had gone out and closed the door, she lay very still for
a long while.

Then, instinctively, she touched her lips with her fingers; and, at that
contact, a blush clothed her from brow to ankle.

The Flaming Jewel in its morocco casket under her pillow burned with no
purer fire than the enchanted flame glowing in the virgin heart of Eve
Strayer of Clinch's Dump.

Thus they lay together, two lovely flaming jewels burning softly,
steadily through the misty splendour of the night.

Under a million stars, Death sprawled in squalor among the trampled
weeds. Under the same high stars dark mountains waited; and there was a
silvery sound of waters stirring somewhere in the mist.

* * * * *

Episode Seven

Clinch's Dump

* * * * *

I

When Mike Clinch bade Hal Smith return to the Dump and take care of Eve,
Smith already had decided to go there.

Somewhere in Clinch's Dump was hidden the Flaming Jewel. Now was his
time to search for it.

There were two other reasons why he should go back. One of them was
that Leverett was loose. If anything had called Trooper Stormont away,
Eve would be alone in the house. And nobody on earth could forecast
what a coward like Leverett might attempt.

But there was another and more serious reason for returning to Clinch's.
Clinch, blood-mad, was headed for Drowned Valley with h