one of this gang had stood by him -- Hal Smith -- the man he
himself had been about to slay.

Clinch got up from the bench where he had been sitting and walked down
to the pond where Hal Smith sat cleaning trout.

"Hal," he said, "I been figuring some. Quintana don't dare call in the
constables. I can't afford to. Quintana and I've got to settle this on
our own."

Smith slit open a ten-inch trout, stripped it, flung the entrails out
into the pond, soused the fish in water, and threw it into a milk pan.

"Whose jewels were they in the beginning?" he enquired carelessly.

"How do I know?"

"If you ever found out----"

"I don't want to. I got them in the way, anyway. And it don't make no
difference how I got 'em; Eve's going to be a lady if I go to the chair
for it. So that's that."

Smith slit another trout, gutted it, flung away the viscera but laid
back the roe.

"Shame to take them in October," he remarked, "but people must eat."

"Same's me," nodded Clinch; "I don't want to kill no one, but Eve she's
gotta be a lady and ride in her own automobile with the proudest."

"Does Eve know about the jewels?"

Clinch's pale eyes, which had been roving over the wooded shores of Star
Pond, reverted to Smith.

"I'd cut my own throat before I'd tell her," he said softly.

"She wouldn't stand for it?"

"Hal, when you said to me, `Eve's a lad, by God!' you swallered the hull
pie. That's the answer. A lady don't stand for what you and I don't
bother about."

"Suppose she learns that you robbed the man who robbed somebody else of
these jewels."

Clinch's pale eyes were fixed on him: "Only you and me know," he said in
his pleasant voice.

"Quintana knows. His gang knows."

Clinch's smile was terrifying. "I guess she ain't never likely to know
nothing, Hal."

"What do you purpose to do, Mike?"

"Still hunt."

"For Quintana?"

"I might mistake him for a deer. Them accidents is likely, too."

"If Quintana catches you it will go hard with you, Mike."

"Sure. I know."

"He'll torture you to make you talk."

"You think I'd talk, Hal?"

Smith looked up into the light-coloured eyes. The pupils were pin
points. Then he went on cleaning fish.

"Hal?"

"What?"

"If they get me, -- but no matter; they ain't a-going to get me."

"Were you going to tell me where those jewels are hidden, Mike?"
enquired the young man, still busy with his fish. He did not look
around when he spoke. Clinch's