The Flaming Jewel

"Then the war came. The draft caught Clinch. Malone exempted him, he being the sole support of his stepchild.

"But the girl volunteered. She got to France, somehow -- scrubbed in a hospital, I believe -- anyway, Clinch wanted to be on the same side of the world she was on, and he went with a Forestry Regiment and cut trees for railroad ties in southern France until the war ended and they sent him home.

"Eve Strayer came back too. She's there now. You'll see her at dinner time. She sticks to Clinch. He's a rat. He's up against the dry laws and the game laws. Government enforcement agents, game protectors, State Constabulary, all keep an eye on Clinch. Harrod's trespass signs fence him in. He's like a rat in a trap. Yet Clinch makes money at law breaking and nobody can catch him red-handed.

"He kills Harrod's deer. That's certain. I mean Harrod's nephew's deer. Harrod's dead. Darragh's the young nephew's name. He's never been here -- he was in the army -- in Russia -- I don't know what became of him -- but he keeps up the Harrod preserve -- game-wardens, patrols, watchers, trespass signs and all."

Lannis finished his second cigarette, got back into his stirrups and, gathering bridle, began leisurely to divide curb and snaffle.

"That's the layout, Jack," he said. "Yonder lies the Red Light district of the North Woods. Mike Clinch is the brains of all the dirty work that goes on. A floating population of crooks and bums -- game violators, boot-leggers, market hunters, pelt `collectors,' rum-runners, hootch makers, do his dirty work -- and I guess there are some who'll stick you up by starlight for a quarter and others who'll knock your block off for a dollar. ... And there's the girl, Eve Strayer. I don't get her at all, except that she's loyal to Clinch. ... And now you know what you ought to know about this movie called `Hell in the woods.' And it's up to us to keep a calm, impartial eye on the picture and try to follow the plot they're acting out -- if there is any."

Stormont said: "Thanks, Bill; I'm posted. ... And I'm getting hungry, too."

"I believe, said Lannis, "that you want to see that girl."

"I do," returned the other, laughing.

"Well, you'll see her. She's good to look at. But I don't get her at all."

"Why?"

"Because she looks right. And yet she lives at Clinch's with him and his bunch of bums. Would you think a straight girl could stand it?"