"Where?" drawled Sid Hone.
"Me an' Hal Smith is cal'kalatin' to drive Star Peak. It ain't a deer, neither."
There ensued a grim interval. Clinch's wintry smile began to glimmer.
"Booze agents or game protectors? Which?" asked Byron Hastings. "They both look like deer — if a man gits mad enough."
Clinch's smile became terrifying. "I shell out five hundred dollars for every deer that's dropped on Star Peak to-day," he said. "And I hope there won't be no accidents and no mistakin' no stranger for a deer," he added, wagging his great, square head.
"Them accidents is liable to happen," remarked hone, reflectively.
After another pause: "Where's Jake Kloon?" inquired Smith.
Nobody seemed to know.
"He was here when Mike called me into the bar," insisted Smith. Where'd he go?"
Then, of a sudden, Clinch recollected the packet which he had kicked under a veranda chair. It was no longer there.