"Any o' you fellas seen a package here on the pyazza?" demanded Clinch harshly.
"Jake Kloon, he had somethin'," drawled Chase. "I supposed it was his lunch. Mebbe 'twas, too."
In the intense stillness Clinch glared into one face after another.
"Boys," he said in his softly modulated voice, "I kinda guess there's a rat amongst us. I wouldn't like for to be that there rat — no, not for a billion hundred dollars. No, I wouldn't. Becuz that there rat has bit my little girlie, Eve, — like that there deer bit her up on Star Peak. … No, I wouldn't like for to be that there rat. Fer he's a-going' to die like a rat, same's that there deer is a-goin' to die like a deer. … Anyone seen which way Jake Kloon went?"
"Now you speak of it," said Byron Hastings, "seems like I noticed Jake and Earl Leverett down by the woods near the pond. I kinda disremembered when you asked, but I guess I seen them."
"Sure," said Sid Hone. "Now you mention it, I seen 'em, too. Thinks I to m'self, they is pickin' them blackberries down to the crick. Yes, I seen 'em."
Clinch tossed his rifle across his left shoulder.
"Rats an' deer," he said pleasantly. "Them's the articles we're lookin' for. Only for God's sake be careful you don't mistake a man for 'em in the woods."
One or two men laughed.
* * * * *