Part 98

"Let me go!----"

"Eve!" He held her rigid a moment in his powerful grip, compelled her dazed, half-crazed eyes to meet his own:

"You must come to your senses," he said. "Listen to what I say: they are bringing in your father."

Her dilated blue eyes never moved from his.

"We found him in Drowned Valley at sunrise," said Stormont quietly. "The men are only a few rods behind me. They are carrying him out."

Her lips made a word without sound.

"Yes," said Stormont in a low voice.

There was a sound in the woods behind them. Stormont turned. Far away down the trail the men came into sight.

Then the State Trooper turned the girl very gently and placed one arm around her shoulders.

Very slowly they descended the hill together. His equipment was shining in the morning sun: and the sun fell on Eve's drooping head, turning her chestnut hair to fiery gold.

* * * * *

An hour later Trooper Stormont was at the Place of Pines.

There was nothing there except an empty trap and the ashes of the dying fire beyond.

EPISODE TWELVE

HER HIGHNESS INTERVENES

Toward noon the wind changed, and about one o'clock it began to snow.

Eve, exhausted, lay on the sofa in her bedroom. Her step-father lay on a table in the dance hall below, covered by a sheet from his own bed. And beside him sat Trooper Stormont, waiting.

It was snowing heavily when Mr. Lyken, the little undertaker from Ghost Lake, arrived with several assistants, a casket, and what he called "swell trimmings."

Long ago Mike Clinch had selected his own mortuary site and had driven a section of iron pipe into the ground on a ferny knoll overlooking Star Pond. In explanation he grimly remarked to Eve that after death he preferred to be planted where he could see that Old Harrod's ghost didn't trespass.

Here two of Mr. Lyken's able assistants dug a grave while the digging was still good; for if Mike Clinch was to lie underground that season there might be need of haste--no weather prophet ever having successfully forecast Adirondack weather.

Eve, exhausted by shock and a sleepless night, was spared the more harrowing details of the coroner's visit and the subsequent jaunty activities of Mr. Lyken and his efficient assistants.

She had managed to dress herself in a black wool gown, intending to watch by Mike, but Stormont's blunt authority prevailed and she lay down for an hour's rest.

The hour lengthened into many hours; the girl slept heavily on her sofa under blankets laid over her by Stormont.

All that dark, snowy day she slept, mercifully unconscious of the proceedings below.

In its own mysterious way the news penetrated the wilderness; and out of the desolation of forest and swamp and mountain drifted the people who somehow existed there--a few shy, half wild young girls, a dozen silent, lank men, two or three of Clinch's own people, who stood silently about in the falling snow and lent a hand whenever requested.

One long shanked youth cut hemlock to line the grave; others erected a little fence of silver birch around it, making of the enclosure a "plot."

A gaunt old woman from God knows where aided Mr. Lyken at intervals: a pretty, sulky-eyed girl with her slovenly, red-headed sister cooked for anybody who desired nourishment.

When Mike was ready to hold the inevitable reception everybody filed into the dance hall. Mr. Lyken was master of ceremonies; Trooper Stormont stood very tall and straight by the head of the casket.