closet and brought back two
Winchester rifles, two shot guns, and a box of ammunition.

"Goin' to see it out with me, Hal?"

"Sure," smiled Smith.

"Aw' right. Have a drink?"

"No."

"Aw' right. Where'll you set?"

"Anywhere."

"Aw' right. Set over there. They may try the back porch. I'll jest
set here a spell, n'then I'll kind er mosey 'round. ... Plug the first
fella that tries a shutter, Hal."

"You bet."

Clinch came over and held out his hand.

"You said a face-full that time when you says to me, `Clinch,' you says,
`Eve _is_ a lady.' ... I gotta fix her up. I gotta be alive to do it.
... That's why I'm greatly obliged to yeh, Hal."

He took his rifle and walked slowly toward the pantry.

"You bet," he muttered, "she _is_ a lady, so help me God."

* * * * *

Episode Three

On Star Peak

* * * * *

I

Mike Clinch regarded the jewels taken from Jose Quintana as legitimate
loot acquired in war. He was prepared to kill anybody who attempted to
take the gems from him.

At the very possibility his ruling passion blazed -- his mania to make
of Eve Strayer a grand lady.

But now, what he had feared for years had happened. Quintana had found
him, -- Quintana, after all these years, had discovered the identity and
dwelling place of the obscure American soldier who had robbed him in the
wash-room of a Paris cafe. And Quintana was now in America, here in
this very wilderness, tracking the man who had despoiled him.

* * * * *

Clinch, in his shirt-sleeves, carrying a rifle, came out on the log
veranda and sat down to think it over.

He began to realise that he was likely to have trouble with a man as
cold-blooded and as dogged as himself.

Nor did he doubt that those with Quintana were desperate men.

On whom could he count? On nobody unless he paid their hire. None
among the lawless men who haunted his backwoods "hotel" at Star Pond
would lift a finger to help him. Almost any among them would have
robbed him, -- murdered him, probably, -- if it were known that the
jewels were hidden in the house.

He could not trust Jake Kloon; Leverett was as treacherous as only a
born coward can be; Sid Hone, Harvey Chase, Blommers, Byron Hastings, --
he knew them all too well to trust them, -- a sullen, unscrupulous pack,
partly cowardly, always fierce, -- as are any creatures that live
furtively, feed only by their wits, and slink through life just outside
the frontiers of law.

And yet,