The Flaming Jewel

Eve nodded. Then, suddenly recollecting: "Oh," she exclaimed, reddening, "I forgot the jewel case! It's under my pillow----"

She turned and sped upstairs and reappeared almost instantly, carrying the jewel-case.

Breathless, flushed, thankful and happy in the excitement of restitution, she placed the leather case in Ricca's hands.

"My jewels!" cried the girl, astonished. Then, with a little cry of delight, she placed the case upon the table, stripped open the emblazoned cover, and emptied the two trays. All over the table rolled the jewels, flashing, scintillating, ablaze with blinding light.

And at the same instant the outer door crashed open and Quintana covered them with Darragh's rifle.

"Now, by Christ!" he shouted, "who stirs a finger shall go to God in one jump! You, my gendarme frien' -- you, my frien' Smith -- turn your damn backs -- han's up high! -- tha's the way! -- now, ladies! -- back away there -- get back or I kill! -- sure, by Jesus, I kill you like I would some white little mice!----"

With incredible quickness he stepped forward and swept the jewels into one hand -- filled the pocket of his trousers, caught up every stray stone and pocketed them.

"You gendarme," he cried in a menacing voice, "you think you shall follow in my tack. Yes? I blow your damn head off if you stir before the hour. ... After that -- well, follow and be damn!"

Even as he spoke he stepped outside and slammed the door; and Darragh and Stormont leaped for it. Then the lout detonation of Quintana's rifle was echoed by the splintered rip of bullets tearing through the closed door; and both men halted in the face of the leaden hail.

Eve ran to the pantry window and saw Quintana in somebody's stolen lumber-sledge, lash a big pair of horses to a gallop and go floundering past into the Ghost Lake road.

As he sped by in a whirl of snow he fired five times at the house, then, rising and swinging his whip, he flogged the frantic horses into the woods.

In the dining room, Stormont, red with rage and shame, and having found his rifle in the corridor outside Eve's bedroom, was trying to open the shutters for a shot; and Darragh, empty-handed, searched the house frantically for a weapon.

Eve, terribly excited, came from the pantry: "He's gone!" she cried furiously. "He's in somebody's lumber-sledge with a pair of horses and he's driving west like the devil!"

Stormont ran to the tap-room telephone, cranked it, and warned the constabulary at Five Lakes.