rty----"

A blaze of fury flared in his small pale eyes: "-- And he hit you, too,
did he? -- that skunk! Quintana done that to my little girlie, did he?"

"I don't know if it was Quintana. I don't know who he was, dad," she
murmured drowsily.

"Masked, wa'n't he?"

"Yes."

Clinch's iron visage twitched and quivered. He gnawed his thin lips
into control.

"Girlie, I gotta go out a spell. But I ain't a-leavin' you alone here.
I'll git somebody to set up with you. You jest lie snug and don't think
about nothin' till I come back."

"Yes, dad," she sighed, closing her eyes.

Clinch stood looking at her for a moment, then he went downstairs
heavily, and out to the veranda where State Trooper Stormont still sat
his saddle, talking to Hal Smith. On the porch a sullen crowd of the
backwoods riff-raff lounged in the silence, awaiting events.

Clinch called across to Smith: "Hey, Hal, g'wan up and set with Eve a
spell while she's nappin'. Take a gun."

Smith said to Stormont in a low voice: "Do me a favour, Jack?"

"You bet."

"That girl of Clinch's is in real danger if left here alone. But I've
got another job on my hands. Can you keep a watch on her till I
return?"

"Can't you tell me a little more, Jim?"

"I will, later. Do you mind helping me out now?"

"All right."

Trooper Stormont swung out of his saddle and led his horse away toward
the stable.

Hal Smith went into the bar where Clinch stood, oiling a rifle.

"G'wan upstairs," he muttered. "I got a private way on. It's me or
Quintana, now."

"You're going after Quintana?" inquired Smith, carelessly.

"I be. And I want you should git your gun and set up by Evie. And I
want you to kill any living human son of a slut that comes botherin'
around this here hotel."

"I'm going after Quintana with you, Mike."

"B'gosh you ain't. You're a-goin' to keep watch here."

"No. Trooper Stormont has promised to stay with Eve. You'll need every
man to-day, Mike. This isn't a deer drive."

Clinch let his rifle sag across the hollow of his left arm.

"Did you beef to that trooper?" he demanded in his pleasant, misleading
way.

"Do you think I'm crazy?" retorted Smith.

"Well, what the hell----"

"They all know that some man used your girl roughly. That's all I said
to him -- 'keep an eye on Eve until we can get back.' And I tell you,
Mike, if we drive Star Peak we won't be back till long after sundown."

Clinch growled: "I ain't nev