his horse, guiding left with one knee.
* * * * *
Episode Four
A Private War
* * * * *
I
When State Trooper Stormont rode up to Clinch's with Eve Strayer lyingin his arms, Mike Clinch strode out of the motley crowd around thetavern, laid his rifle against a tree, and stretched forth his powerfulhands to receive his stepchild.
He held her, cradle, looking down at her in silence as the men clusteredaround.
"Eve," he said hoarsely, "be you hurted?"
The girl opened her sky-blue eyes.
"I'm all right, dad, ... just tired. ... I've got your parcel ... safe..."
"To hell with the gol-dinged parcel," he almost sobbed; "--did Quintanaharm you?"
"No, dad."
As he carried her to the veranda the packet fell from her crampedfingers. Clinch kicked it under a chair and continued on into the houseand up the stairs to Eve's bedroom.
Flat on the bed, the girl opened her drowsy eyes again, unsmiling.
"Did that dirty louse misuse you?" demanded Clinch unsteadily. "G'wantell me, girlie."
"He knocked me down. ... He went away to get fire to make me talk. Icut up the blanket they gave me and made a rope. Then I went over thecliff into the big pine below. That was all, dad."
Clinch filled a tin basin and washed the girl's torn feet. When he haddried them he kissed them. She felt his unshaven lips trembling, heardhim whimper for the first time in his life.
"Why the hell didn't you give Quintana the packet?" he demanded. "Whatdoes that count for -- what does any damn thing count for against you,girlie?"
She looked up at him out of heavy-lidded eyes: "You told me to take goodcare of it."
"It's only a little truck I'd laid by for you," he retorted unsteadily,"-- a few trifles for to make a grand lady of you when the time's ripe.'Tain't worth a thorn in your little foot to me. ... The hull gol-dingedworld full o' money ain't worth that there stone-bruise onto them littlewhite feet o' yourn, Eve.
"Look at you now -- my God, look at you there, all peaked an' scairt an'bleedin' -- plum tuckered out, 'n' all ragged 'n' dirty----"
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," shemurmured drowsily.
"Masked, wa'n't he?"
"Yes."
Clinch's iron visage twitched and quivered. He gnawed his thin lipsinto 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 thinkabout nothin' till I come back."
"Yes, dad," she sighed, closing her eyes.
Clinch stood looking at her for a moment, then he went downstairsheavily, and out to the veranda where State Trooper Stormont still sathis saddle, talking to Hal Smith. On the porch a sullen crowd of thebackwoods riff-raff lounged in the silence, awaiting events.
Clinch called across to Smith: "Hey, Hal, g'wan up and set with Eve aspell 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'vegot another job on my hands. Can you keep a watch on her till Ireturn?"
"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 towardthe 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 orQuintana, 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 Iwant 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 everyman 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, misleadingway.
"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 saidto 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 never asked no favours of no State Trooper----"
"He did you a favour, didn't he? He brought your daughter in."
"Yes, 'n' he'd jail us all if he got anything on us."
"Yes; and he'll shoot to kill if any of Quintana's people come here andtry to break in."
Clinch grunted, peeled off his coat and got into a leather vestbristling with cartridge loops.
Trooper Stormont came into the back door, carrying his rifle.
"Some rough fellow been bothering your little daughter, Clinch?" heinquired. "The child was nearly all in when she met me out by Owl Marsh-- clothes half torn off her back, bare-foot and bleeding. She's aplucky youngster. I'll say so, Clinch. If you think the fellow maycome here to annoy her I'll keep an eye on her till you return."
Clinch went up to Stormont, put his powerful hands on the young fellow'sshoulders.
After a moment's glaring silence: "You _look_ clean. I guess you be,too. I wanta tell you I'll cut the guts outa any guy that lays the heftof a single finger onto Eve."
"I'd do so, too, if I were you," said Stormont.
"Would ye? Well, I guess you're a real man, too, even if you're a StateTrooper," growled Clinch. "G'wan up. She's a-nappin'. If she wakes upyou kinda talk pleasant to her. You act pleasant and cozy. She ain'thad no ma. You tell her to set snug and ca'm. Then you cook her an eggif she wants it. There's pie, too. I cal'late to be back by sundown."
"Nearer morning," remarked Smith.
Stormont shrugged. "I'll stay until you show up, Clinch."
The latter took another rifle from the corner and handed it to Smithwith a loop of ammunition.
"Come on," he grunted.
On the veranda he strode up to the group of sullen, armed men whoregarded his advent in expressionless silence.
Sid Hone was there, and Harvey Chase, and the Hastings boys, andCornelius Blommers.
"You fellas comin'?" inquired Clinch.
"Where?" drawled Sid Hone.
"Me an' Hal Smith is cal'kalatin' to drive Star Peak. It ain't a deer,neither."
There ensued a grim interval. Clinch's wintry smile began to glimmer.
"Booze agents or game protectors? Which?" asked Byron Hastings. "Theyboth look like deer -- if a man gits mad enough."
Clinch's smile became terrifying. "I shell out five hundred dollars forevery _deer_ that's dropped on Star Peak to-day," he said. "And I hopethere won't be no accidents and no mistakin' no _stranger_ for a deer,"he added, wagging his great, square head.
"Them accidents is liable to happen," remarked hone, reflectively.
After another pause: "Where's Jake Kloon?" inquired Smith.
Nobody seemed to know.
"He was here when Mike called me into the bar," insisted Smith. Where'dhe go?"
Then, of a sudden, Clinch recollected the packet which he had kickedunder a veranda chair. It was no longer there.
"Any o' you fellas seen a package here on the pyazza?" demanded Clinchharshly.
"Jake Kloon, he had somethin'," drawled Chase. "I supposed it was hislunch. Mebbe 'twas, too."
In the intense stillness Clinch glared into one face after another.
"Boys," he said in his softly modulated voice, "I kinda gues
s there's arat amongst us. I wouldn't like for to be that there rat -- no, not fora billion hundred dollars. No, I wouldn't. Becuz that there rat hasbit my little girlie, Eve, -- like that there deer bit her up on StarPeak. ... No, I wouldn't like for to be that there rat. Fer he'sa-going' to die like a rat, same's