a conflagration through the pines. There was a glimmer of water, too, where Star Pond lay.
Fate, Chance, and Destiny were becoming very busy with Mike Clinch. They had started Quintana, Sard, and Darragh on his trail. Now they stirred up the sovereign State of New York.
That lank wolf, Justice, was afoot and sniffing uncomfortably close to the heels of Mike Clinch.
Two State Troopers drew bridles in the yellowing October forest. Their smart drab uniforms touched with purple blended harmoniously with the autumn woods. They were as inconspicuous as two deer in the dappled shadow. There was a sunny clearing just ahead. The wood road they had been travelling entered it. Beyond lay Star Pond.
Trooper Lannis said to Trooper Stormont: "That's Mike Clinch's clearing. Our man may be there. Now we'll see if anybody tips him off this time."
Forest and clearing were very still in the sunshine. Nothing stirred save gold leaves drifting down, and a hawk high in the deep blue sky turning in narrow circles.
Lannis was instructing Stormont, who had been transferred from the Long Island Troop, and who was unacquainted with local matters.
Lannis said: "Clinch's dump stands on the other edge of the clearing. Clinch owns five hundred acres in here. He's a rat."
"Bad?"
"Well, he's mean. I don't know how bad he is. But he runs a rotten dump. The forest has its slums as well as the city. This is the Hell's Kitchen of the North Woods."
Stormont nodded.
"All the scum of the wilderness gathers here," went on Lannis. "Here's where half the trouble in the North Woods hatches. We'll eat dinner at Clinch's. His stepdaughter is a peach."
The sturdy, sun-browned trooper glanced at his wrist watch, stretched his legs in his stirrups.
"Jack," he said, "I want you to get Clinch right, and I'm going to tell you about his outfit while we watch this road. It's like a movie. Clinch plays the lead. I'll dope out the scenario for you – "
He turned sideways in his saddle, freeing both spurred heels and lolled so, constructing a cigarette while he talked:
"Way back around 1900 Mike Clinch was a guide – a decent young fellow they say. He guided fishing parties in summer, hunters in fall and winter. He made money and built the house. The people he guided were wealthy. He made a lot of money and bought land. I understand he was square and that everybody liked him.
"About that time there came to Clinch's 'hotel' a Mr. and Mrs. Strayer. They were 'lungers.' Strayer seemed to be a gentleman; his wife was good looking and rather common. Both were very young. He had the consump bad – the galloping variety. He didn't last long. A month after he died his young wife had a baby. Clinch married her. She also died the same year. The baby's name was Eve. Clinch became quite crazy about her and started to make a lady of her. That was his mania."
Lannis leaned from his saddle and carefully dropped his cigarette end into a puddle of rain water. Then he swung one leg over and sat side saddle.
"Clinch had plenty of money in those days," he went on. "He could afford to educate the child. The kid had a governess. Then he sent her to a fancy boarding school. She had everything a young girl could want.
"She developed into a pretty young thing at fifteen… She's eighteen now – and I don't know what to call her. She pulled a gun on me in July."
"What!"
"Sure. There was a row at Clinch's dump. A rum-runner called Jake Kloon got shot up. I came up to get Clinch. He was sick-drunk in his bunk. When I broke in the door Eve Strayer pulled a gun on me."
"What happened?" inquired Stormont.
"Nothing. I took Clinch… But he got off as usual."
"Acquitted?"
Lannis nodded, rolling another cigarette:
"Now, I'll tell you how Clinch happened to go wrong," he said. "You see he'd always made his living by guiding. Well, some years ago Henry Harrod, of Boston, came here and bought thousands and thousands of acres of forest all around Clinch's – " Lannis half rose on one stirrup and, with a comprehensive sweep of his muscular arm, ending in a flourish: " – He bought everything for miles and miles. And that started Clinch down hill. Harrod tried to force Clinch to sell. The millionaire tactics you know. He was determined to oust him. Clinch got mad and wouldn't sell at any price. Harrod kept on buying all around Clinch and posted trespass notices. That meant ruin to Clinch. He was walled in. No hunters care to be restricted. Clinch's little property was no good. Business stopped. His stepdaughter's education became expensive. He was in a bad way. Harrod offered him a big price. But Clinch turned ugly and wouldn't budge. And that's how Clinch began to go wrong."
"Poor devil," said Stormont.
"Devil, all right. Poor, too. But he needed money. He was crazy to make a lady of Eve Strayer. And there are ways of finding money, you know."
Stormont nodded.
"Well, Clinch found money in those ways. The Conservation Commissioner in Albany began to hear about game law violations. The Revenue people heard of rum-running. Clinch lost his guide's license. But nobody could get the goods on him.
"There was a rough backwoods bunch always drifting about Clinch's place in those days. There were fights. And not so many miles from Clinch's there was highway robbery and a murder or two.
"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?"
"No man can tell what a straight girl can stand."
"Straight or crooked she stands for Mike Clinch," said Lannis, "and he's a ratty customer."
"Maybe the girl is fond of him. It's natural."
"I guess it's that. But I don't