Wier gazed at her helplessly as she coolly chose a rifle and cartridge-belt at the gun-rack. Then she turned on him as still and dangerous as a young puma: "Tell Darragh he'd better keep clear of Clinch's," she said. "Tell him I always thought he was a rat. Now I know he's one." She plunged one slim hand into her pocket and drew out a diamond. "Here," she said insolently. "This will pay your _gentleman_ for his gun and clothing." She tossed the gem onto a table, where it rolled, glittering. "For heaven's sake, Miss----" burst out Wier, horrified, but she cut him short: "-- He may keep the change," she said. "We're no swindlers at Clinch's Dump!" Wier started forward as though to intercept her. Eve's eyes flamed. And he stood still. She wrenched open the door and walked out among the silver birches. At the edge of the brook she stood a moment, coolly loading the magazine of her rifle. Then, with one swift glance of hatred, flung at the place that Harrod's money had built, she sprang across the brook, tossed her rifle to her shoulder, and passed lithely into the golden wilderness of poplar and silver birch. * * * * * II Quintana, on a fox-trot along the rock-trail into Drowned Valley, now thoroughly understood that it was the only sanctuary left him for the moment. Egress to the southward was closed; to the eastward, also; and he was too wary to venture westward toward Ghost Lake. No, the only temporary safety lay in the swamps of Drowned Valley. And there, he decided as he jogged along, if worse came to worst and starvation drove him out, he'd settle matters with Mike Clinch and break through to the north. He meant to settle matters with Mike Clinch anyway. He was not afraid of Clinch; not really afraid of anybody. It had been the dogs that demoralised Quintana. He'd had no experience with hunting hounds, -- did not know what to expect, -- how to manoeuvre. If only he could have _seen_ these beasts that filled the forest with their hob-goblin outcries -- if he could have had a good look at the creatures who gave forth that weird, crazed, melancholy volume of sound!--- "Bon!" he said coolly to himself. "It was a crisis of nerves which I experience. yes. ... I should have shot him, that fat Sard. Yes. ... Only those damn dog---- And now he shall die an' rot -- that fat Sard -- all by himse'f, parbleu! -- like one big dead thing all alone in the wood. ... A puddle of guts full of diamonds! Ah! -- mon dieu! -- a million francs in gems that shine like festering stars in this damn wood till the world end. Ah, bah -- nome de dieu de----" "Halte la!" came a sharp voice from the cedar fringe in front. A pause, then recognition; and Henri Picquet walked out on the hard ridge beyond and stood leaning on his rifle and looking sullenly at his leader. Quintana came forward, carelessly, a disagreeable expression in his eyes and on his narrow lips, and continued on pas Picquet.