The Flaming Jewel

When terror had subsided in a measure and some of his trembling strength returned, he got up out of the clump of rag-weeds where he had lain down, and earnestly nosed the unpainted house, listening with all his ears.

There was not a sound save the soughing of autumn winds and the delicate rattle of falling leaves in the woods behind him.

He needed food and rest. He gazed earnestly at the house. Nothing stirred there save the open doors swinging idly in every vagrant wind.

He ventured down a little way -- near enough to see the black cinders of the burned bar, and close enough to hear the lake waters slapping the sandy shore.

If he dared---And after a long while he ventured to waddle nearer, slinking through the brush and frosted weed, creeping behind boulders, edging always closer and closer to that silent house where nothing moved except the wind-blown door.

And now, at last, he set a furtive foot upon the threshold, stood listening, tip-toed in, peered here and there, sidled to the dining-room, peered in.

* * * * *

When, at length, Emanuel Sard discovered that Clinch's Dump was tenantless, he made straight for the pantry. Here was cheese, crackers, an apple pie, half a dozen bottles of home-brewed beer.

He loaded his arms with all they could carry, stole through the dance-hall out to the veranda, which overlooked the lake.

Here, hidden in the doorway, he could watch the road from Ghost Lake and survey the hillside down which an intruder must come from the forest.

And here Sard slaked his raging thirst and satiated the gnawing appetite of the obese, than which there is no crueller torment to an inert liver and distended paunch.

Munching, guzzling, watching, Sard squatted just within the veranda doorway, anxiously considering his chances.

He knew where he was. At the foot of the lake, and eastward, he had been robbed by a highwayman on the forest road branching from the main highway. Southwest lay Ghost Lake and the Inn.

Somewhere between these two points he must try to cross the State Road. ... After that, comparative safety. For the miles that still would lie between him and distant civilisation seemed as nothing to the horror of that hell of trees.

He looked up now at the shaggy fringing woods, shuddered, opened another bottle of beer.

In all that panorama of forest, swale, and water the only thing that had alarmed him at all by moving was something in the water. When first he noticed it he almost swooned, for he took it to be a swimming dog.

In his agitation he had risen to his feet; and then the swimming creature almost frightened Sard out of his senses, for it tilted suddenly and went down with a report like the crack of a pistol.