When Mike Clinch bade Hal Smith return to the Dump and take care of Eve, Smith already had decided to go there.
Somewhere in Clinch's Dump was hidden the Flaming Jewel. Now was his time to search for it.
There were two other reasons why he should go back. One of them was that Leverett was loose. If anything had called Trooper Stormont away, Eve would be alone in the house. And nobody on earth could forecast what a coward like Leverett might attempt.
But there was another and more serious reason for returning to Clinch's. Clinch, blood-mad, was headed for Drowned Valley with his men, to stop both ends of that vast morass before Quintana and his gang could get out.
It was evident that neither Clinch nor any of his men -- although their very lives depended upon familiarity with the wilderness -- knew that a third exit from Drowned Valley existed.
But the nephew of the late Henry Harrod knew.
When Jake Kloon was a young man and Darragh was a boy, Kloon had shown him the rocky, submerged game trail into Drowned Valley. Doubtless Kloon had used it in hootch running since. If ever he had told anybody else about it, probably he had revealed the trail to Quintana.
And that was why Darragh, or Hal Smith, finally decided to return to Star Pond; -- because if Quintana had been told or had discovered that circuitous way out of Drowned Valley, he might go straight to Clinch's Dump. ... And, supposing Stormont was still there, how long could one State Trooper stand off Quintana's gang?
* * * * *
No sooner had Clinch and his motley followers disappeared in the dusk than Smith unslung his basket-pack, fished out a big electric torch, flashed it tentatively, and then, reslinging the pack and taking his rifle in his left hand, he set off at an easy swinging stride.
His course was not toward Star Pond; it was at right angles with that trail. For he was taking no chances. Quintana might already have left Drowned Valley by that third exit unknown to Clinch.
Smith's course would now cut this unmarked trail, trodden, only by game that left no sign in the shallow mountain rivulet which was the path.
The trail lay a long way off through the night. But if Quintana had discovered and taken that trail, it would be longer still for him -- twice as long as the regular trail out.
For a mile or two the forest was first growth pine, and sufficiently open so that Smith might economise on his torch.
He knew every foot of it. As a boy he had carried a jacob-staff in the Geological Survey. Who better than the forest-roaming nephew of Henry Harrod should know this blind wilderness?