The Flaming Jewel

"Them accidents is liable to happen," remarked hone, reflectively.

After another pause: "Where's Jake Kloon?" inquired Smith.

Nobody seemed to know.

"He was here when Mike called me into the bar," insisted Smith. Where'd he go?"

Then, of a sudden, Clinch recollected the packet which he had kicked under a veranda chair. It was no longer there.

"Any o' you fellas seen a package here on the pyazza?" demanded Clinch harshly.

"Jake Kloon, he had somethin'," drawled Chase. "I supposed it was his lunch. Mebbe 'twas, too."

In the intense stillness Clinch glared into one face after another.

"Boys," he said in his softly modulated voice, "I kinda guess there's a rat amongst us. I wouldn't like for to be that there rat -- no, not for a billion hundred dollars. No, I wouldn't. Becuz that there rat has bit my little girlie, Eve, -- like that there deer bit her up on Star Peak. ... No, I wouldn't like for to be that there rat. Fer he's a-going' to die like a rat, same's that there deer is a-goin' to die like a deer. ... Anyone seen which way Jake Kloon went?"

"Now you speak of it," said Byron Hastings, "seems like I noticed Jake and Earl Leverett down by the woods near the pond. I kinda disremembered when you asked, but I guess I seen them."

"Sure," said Sid Hone. "Now you mention it, I seen 'em, too. Thinks I to m'self, they is pickin' them blackberries down to the crick. Yes, I seen 'em."

Clinch tossed his rifle across his left shoulder.

"Rats an' deer," he said pleasantly. "Them's the articles we're lookin' for. Only for God's sake be careful you don't mistake a man for 'em in the woods."

One or two men laughed.

* * * * *

On the edge of Owl Marsh Clinch halted in the trail, and, as his men came up, he counted them with a cold eye.

"Here's the runway and this here hazel bush is my station," he said. "You fellas do the barkin'. You, Sid Hone, and you, Corny, start drivin' from the west. Harvey, you yelp 'em from the north by Lynx Brook. Jim and Byron, you get twenty minutes to go 'round to the eastward and drive by the Slide. And you, Hal Smith," -- he looked around -- "where 'n hell be you, Hal?----"

Smith came up from the bog's edge.

"Send 'em out," he said in a low voice. "I've got Jake's tracks in the bog."