He could not trust Jake Kloon; Leverett was as treacherous as only a born coward can be; Sid Hone, Harvey Chase, Blommers, Byron Hastings, — he knew them all too well to trust them, — a sullen, unscrupulous pack, partly cowardly, always fierce, — as are any creatures that live furtively, feed only by their wits, and slink through life just outside the frontiers of law.
And yet, one of this gang had stood by him — Hal Smith — the man he himself had been about to slay.
Clinch got up from the bench where he had been sitting and walked down to the pond where Hal Smith sat cleaning trout.
"Hal," he said, "I been figuring some. Quintana don't dare call in the constables. I can't afford to. Quintana and I've got to settle this on our own."
Smith slit open a ten-inch trout, stripped it, flung the entrails out into the pond, soused the fish in water, and threw it into a milk pan.
"Whose jewels were they in the beginning?" he enquired carelessly.
"How do I know?"
"If you ever found out——"
"I don't want to. I got them in the way, anyway. And it don't make no difference how I got 'em; Eve's going to be a lady if I go to the chair for it. So that's that."
Smith slit another trout, gutted it, flung away the viscera but laid back the roe.