"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 step-daughter's education became expensive. He as in a bad way. Harrod offered him a high 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 around 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."