, Eve? Tell Corny and Dick Berry to hook it
for Owl Marsh and stop the Star Peak trails -- both on 'em. ... Can Sid
and Jimmy walk?"

"Jim can't---"

"Well, let Harve take him on his back. You go too. You help fix Jimmy
up at the house. He's a little fella, Jimmy Hastings is. Harve can
tote him. And you go along----"

"Dad, Quintana says he means to kill you! What is the use of hurting
him? You have what he took----"

"I gotta have more'n he took. But even that ain't enough. He couldn't
pay for all he ever done to me, girlie. ... I'm aimin' to draw him on
sight---"

Clinch's set visage relaxed into an alarming smile which flickered,
faded, died in the wintry ferocity of his eyes.

"Dad----"

"G'wan home!" he interrupted harshly. "You want that Hastings boy to
bleed to death?"

She came up to him, not uttering a word, yet asking him with all the
tenderness and eloquence of her eyes to leave this blood-trail where it
lay and hunt no more.

He kissed her mouth, infinitely tender, smiled; then, again prim and
scowling:

"G'wan home, you little scut, an' do what I told ye, or, by God, I'll
cut a switch that'll learn ye good! Never a word, now! On yer way!
G'wan!"

* * * * *

Twice she turned to look back. The second time, Clinch was slowly
walking into the woods straight ahead of him. She waited; saw him go
in; waited. After a while she continued on her way.

When she sighted the men below she called to Blommers and Dick Berry:

"Dad says you're to stop Star Peak trail by Owl Marsh."

Jimmy Hastings sat on a log, crying and looking down at his dead
brother, over whose head somebody had spread a coat.

Blommers had made a tourniquet for Jimmy out of a bandanna and a peeled
stick.

The girl examined it, loosened it for a moment, twisted it again, and
bade Harvey Chase take him on his back and start for Clinch's.

The boy began to sob that he didn't want his brother to be left out
there all alone; but Chase promised to come back and bring him in before
night.

Sid Hone came up, haggard from pain and loss of blood, resting his
mangled hand in the sling of his cartridge-belt.

Berry and Blommers were already starting across toward Owl Marsh; and
the latter, passing by, asked Eve where Mike was.

"He went into Drowned Valley by the upper outlet," she said.

"He'll never find no one in them logans an' sinks," muttered Chase,
squatting to hoist Jimmy Hastings to his broad back.

"I gu