m flat. Almost crazed, he got up, yelling in his pain, one
hand wet and sticky from blood welling up from his cheek-bone.

He stood listening, infuriated, vindictive, but heard nothing save the
panting, animal sounds in his own throat.

He strove to see in the ghostly obscurity around him, but could make out
little except the trees close by.

But wood-rats are never completely lost in their native darkness; and
Leverett presently discovered the far stars shining faintly through
rifts in the phantom foliage above.

These heavenly signals were sufficient to give him his directions. Then
the question suddenly came, _which_ direction?

To his own shack on Stinking Lake he dared not go. He tried to believe
that it was fear of Clinch that made him shy of the home shanty; but, in
his cowering soul, he knew it was fear of another kind -- the deep,
superstitious horror of Jake Kloon's empty bunk -- the repugnant sight
of Kloon's spare clothing hanging from its peg -- the dead man's
shoes----

No, he could not go to Stinking Lake and sleep. ... And wake with the
faint stench of sulphur in his throat. ... And see the worm-like leeches
unfolding in the shallows, and the big, reddish water-lizards, livid as
skinned eels, wriggling convulsively toward their sunless lairs. ...

At the mere thought of his dead bunk-mate he sought relief in vindictive
rage -- stirred up the smouldering embers again, cursed Clinch and Hal
Smith, violently searching in his inflamed brain some instant vengeance
upon these men who had driven him out from the only place on earth where
he knew how to exist -- the wilderness.

All at once he thought of Clinch's step-daughter. The thought instantly
scared him. Yet -- what a revenge! -- to strike Clinch through the only
creature he cared for in all the world! ... What a revenge! ... Clinch
was headed for Drowned Valley. Eve Strayer was alone at the Dump. ...
Another thought flashed like lightning across his turbid mind; -- _the
packet!_

Bribed by Quintana, Jake Kloon, lurking at Clinch's door, had heard him
direct Eve to take a packet to Owl Marsh, and had notified Quintana.

Wittingly or unwittingly, the girl had taken a packet of sugar-milk
chocolate instead of the priceless parcel expected.

Again, carried in, exhausted, by a State Trooper, Jake Kloon had been
fooled; and it was the packet of sugar-milk chocolate that Jake had
purloined from the veranda where Clinch kicked it. For two cake