Part 56 (2/2)

”They've killed Dad!” she panted,--”Quintana killed him. I didn't know--oh, I didn't know!--and I let Quintana go! Oh, Jack, Jack, he's at the Place of Pines! I'm going there to shoot him! Let me go!--he's killed Dad, I tell you! He had Dad's watch--and the case of jewels--they were in his pack on the kitchen table----”

”Eve!”

”Let me go!----”

”_Eve!_” He held her rigid a moment in his powerful grip, compelled her dazed, half-crazed eyes to meet his own:

”You must come to your senses,” he said. ”Listen to what I say: they are _bringing in your father_.”

Her dilated blue eyes never moved from his.

”We found him in Drowned Valley at sunrise,” said Stormont quietly. ”The men are only a few rods behind me. They are carrying him out.”

Her lips made a word without sound.

”Yes,” said Stormont in a low voice.

There was a sound in the woods behind them. Stormont turned. Far away down the trail the men came into sight.

Then the State Trooper turned the girl very gently and placed one arm around her shoulders.

Very slowly they descended the hill together. His equipment was s.h.i.+ning in the morning sun: and the sun fell on Eve's drooping head, turning her chestnut hair to fiery gold.

An hour later Trooper Stormont was at the Place of Pines.

There was nothing there except an empty trap and the ashes of the dying fire beyond.

EPISODE TWELVE

HER HIGHNESS INTERVENES

I

Toward noon the wind changed, and about one o'clock it began to snow.

Eve, exhausted, lay on the sofa in her bedroom. Her step-father lay on a table in the dance hall below, covered by a sheet from his own bed. And beside him sat Trooper Stormont, waiting.

It was snowing heavily when Mr. Lyken, the little undertaker from Ghost Lake, arrived with several a.s.sistants, a casket, and what he called ”swell tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs.”

Long ago Mike Clinch had selected his own mortuary site and had driven a section of iron pipe into the ground on a ferny knoll overlooking Star Pond. In explanation he grimly remarked to Eve that after death he preferred to be planted where he could see that Old Harrod's ghost didn't trespa.s.s.

Here two of Mr. Lyken's able a.s.sistants dug a grave while the digging was still good; for if Mike Clinch was to lie underground that season there might be need of haste--no weather prophet ever having successfully forecast Adirondack weather.

Eve, exhausted by shock and a sleepless night, was spared the more harrowing details of the coroner's visit and the subsequent jaunty activities of Mr. Lyken and his efficient a.s.sistants.

She had managed to dress herself in a black wool gown, intending to watch by Mike, but Stormont's blunt authority prevailed and she lay down for an hour's rest.

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