Part 7 (1/2)
”Why?” inquired Smith.
”Well, there'll be a lot o' folks here. There'll be strangers, too....
Don't forget the State Troopers are looking for you.”
”Do the State Troopers ever play detective?” asked Smith, smiling.
”Sure. They've been in here rigged out like peddlers and lumber-jacks and timber lookers.”
”Did they ever get anything on you?”
”Not a thing.”
”Can you always spot them, Mike?”
”No. But when a stranger shows up here who don't know n.o.body, he never sees nothing and he don't never learn nothing. He gets no hootch outa me. No, nor no c.r.a.ps and no cards. He gets his supper; that's what he gets ... and a dance, if there's ladies--and if any girl favours him.
That's all the change any stranger gets out of Mike Clinch.”
They had paused on the rough veranda in the hot October suns.h.i.+ne.
”Mike,” suggested Smith carelessly, ”wouldn't it pay you better to go straight?”
Clinch's small grey eyes, which had been roaming over the prospect of lake and forest, focussed on Smith's smiling features.
”What's that to you?” he asked.
”I'll be out of a job,” remarked Smith, laughing, ”if they ever land you.”
Clinch's level gaze measured him; his mind was busy measuring him, too.
”Who the h.e.l.l are you, anyway?” he asked. ”_I_ don't know. You stick up a man on the Ghost Lake Road and hide out here when the State Troopers come after you. And now you ask me if it pays better to go straight. Why didn't _you_ go straight if you think it pays?”
”I haven't got a daughter to worry about,” explained Smith. ”If they get me it won't hurt anybody else.”
A dull red tinge came out under Clinch's tan:
”Who asked _you_ to worry about Eve?”
”She's a fine girl: that's all.”
Clinch's steely glare measured the young man:
”You trying to make up to her?” he enquired gently.
”No. She has no use for me.”
Clinch reflected, his cold tiger-gaze still fastened on Smith.
”You're right,” he said after a moment. ”Eve is a good girl. Some day I'll make a lady of her.”