She plunged one slim hand into her pocket and drew out a diamond.
"Here," she said insolently. "This will pay your gentleman for his gun and clothing."
She tossed the gem onto a table, where it rolled, glittering.
"For heaven's sake, Miss——" burst out Wier, horrified, but she cut him short:
"— He may keep the change," she said. "We're no swindlers at Clinch's
Dump!"
Wier started forward as though to intercept her. Eve's eyes flamed. And he stood still. She wrenched open the door and walked out among the silver birches.
At the edge of the brook she stood a moment, coolly loading the magazine of her rifle. Then, with one swift glance of hatred, flung at the place that Harrod's money had built, she sprang across the brook, tossed her rifle to her shoulder, and passed lithely into the golden wilderness of poplar and silver birch.
* * * * *
II
Quintana, on a fox-trot along the rock-trail into Drowned Valley, now thoroughly understood that it was the only sanctuary left him for the moment. Egress to the southward was closed; to the eastward, also; and he was too wary to venture westward toward Ghost Lake.