said as she struggled in his arms; but she
fought him and strove to tear her body from his embrace:

"They've killed Dad!" she panted, -- "Quintana killed him. I didn't
know -- oh, I didn't know! -- and I let Quintana go! Oh, Jack, Jack,
he's at the Place of Pines! I'm going there to shoot him! Let me go!
-- he's killed Dad, I tell you! He had Dad's watch -- and the case of
jewels -- they were in his pack on the kitchen table----"

"Eve!"

"Let me go!----"

"_Eve!_" He held her rigid a moment in his powerful grip, compelled her
dazed, half-crazed eyes to meet his own:

"You must come to your senses," he said. "Listen to what I say: they
are _bringing in your father._"

Her dilated blue eyes never moved from his.

"W found him in Drowned Valley at sunrise," said Stormont quietly. "The
men are only a few rods behind me. They are carrying him out."

Her lips made a word without sound.

"Yes," said Stormont in a low voice.

There was a sound in the woods behind them. Stormont turned. Far away
down the trail the men came into sight.

Then the State Trooper turned the girl very gently and placed one arm
around her shoulders.

Very slowly they descended the hill together. His equipment was shining
in the morning sun: and the sun fell on Eve's drooping head, turning her
chestnut hair into fiery gold.

* * * * *

An hour later Trooper Stormont was at the Place of Pines.

There was nothing there except an empty trap and the ashes of the dying
fire beyond.

* * * * *

Episode Twelve

Her Highness Intervenes

* * * * *

I

Toward noon the wind changed, and about one o'clock it began to snow.

Eve, exhausted, lay on the sofa in her bedroom. Her step-father lay on
a table in the dance hall below, covered by a sheet from his own bed.
And beside him sat Trooper Stormont, waiting.

It was snowing heavily when Mr. Lyken, the little undertaker from Ghost
Lake, arrived with several assistants, a casket, and what he called
"swell trimmings."

Long ago Mike Clinch had selected his own mortuary site and had driven a
section of iron pipe into the ground on a ferny knoll overlooking Star
Pond. In explanation he grimly remarked to Eve that after death he
preferred to be planted where he could see that Old Harrod's ghost
didn't trespass.

Here two of Mr. Lyken's able assistants dug a grave while the digging
was still good; for it Mike Clinch was to lie underground that season
there might be need o