The Flaming Jewel

"`Well,' said I, `what's troubling you and your gun, my friend?' -- I was that astonished.

"He was a slim-built, powerful guy with a foreign face and voice and way. He wanted to know if he had the honour -- as he put it -- to introduce himself to a detective or game constable, or a friend of Mike Clinch.

"I told him I wasn't any of these, and that I worked in a private hatchery; and he called me a liar."

Young Fry's face flushed and his voice began to quiver: "That's the way he misused me; and he backed me into the shanty and I had to sit down with both hands up. Then he filled my pack-basket with grub, and took my axe, and strapped my kit onto his back. ... And talking all the time in his mean, sneery, foreign way -- and I guess he thought he was funny, for he laughed at his own jokes.

"He told me his name was Quintana, and that he ought to shoot me for a rat, but he wouldn't because of the stink. Then he said he was going to do a quick job that the police were too cowardly to do; -- that he was a-going to find Mike Clinch down to Drowned Valley and kill him; and if he could catch Mike's daughter, too, he'd spoil her face for life----"

The boy was breathing so hard and his rage made him so incoherent that Lannis took him by the shoulder and shook him: "What next?" demanded the Trooper impatiently. "Tell your story and quit thinking how you were misused!"

"He told me to stay in the shanty for an hour or he'd do for me good," cried Fry. ... "Once I got up and went to the door; and there he stood by the brook, wolfing my lunch with both hands. I tell you he cursed and drove me, like a dog, inside with his big pistol -- my God -- like a dog. ...

"Then, the next time I took a chance he was gone. ... And I beat it here to get me a rifle----" The boy broke down and sobbed: "He drove me around -- like a dog -- he did----"

"You leave that to me," interrupted Lannis sharply. And, to Wier: "You and George had better get a gun apiece. That fellow might come back here or go to Harrod Place if we starve him out."

Wier said to Fry: "Go up to Harrod Place and tell Jansen your story and bring back two 45-70's. ... And quit snivelling. ... You may get a shot at him yet."