nch's Dump.

He smiled to think of Eve and Stormont there together, and now in safety
behind bolted doors and shutters.

He grinned to think of Quintana and his precious crew, blood-crazy,
baffled, probably already distrusting one another, yet running wild
through the night like starving wolves galloping at hazard across a
famine-stricken waste.

"Only wait till Stormont makes his report," he thought, grinning more
broadly still. "Every State Trooper north of Albany will be after Senor
Quintana. Some hunting! And, if he could understand, Mike Clinch might
thank his stars that what I've done this night has saved him his skin
and Eve a broken heart!"

He drew his horse to a walk, now, for the path began to run closer to
Star Pond, skirting the pebbled shallows in the open just ahead.

Alders still concealed the house across the lake, but the trail was
already coming out into the starlight.

Suddenly his horse stopped short, trembling, its ears pricked forward.

Darragh sat listening intently for a moment. Then with infinite
caution, he leaned over the cantle and gently parted the alders.

On the pebbled beach, full in the starlight, stood two figures, on white
and slim, the other dark.

The arm of the dark figure clasped the waist of the white and slender
one.

Evidently they had heard his horse, for they stood motionless, looking
directly at the alders behind which his horse had halted.

To turn might mean a shot in the back as far as Darragh knew. He was
still masked with Salzar's red bandanna. He raised his rifle, slid a
cartridge into the breech, pressed his horse forward with a slight touch
of heel and knee, and rode slowly out into the star-dusk.

What Stormont saw was a masked man, riding his own horse, with menacing
rifle half lifted for a shot! What Eve Strayer thought she saw was too
terrible for words. And before Stormont could prevent her she sprang in
front of him, covering his body with her gown.

At that the horseman tore off his red mask:

"Eve! Jack Stormont! What the devil are you doing over _here!_"

Stormont walked slowly up to his own horse, laid one unsteady hand on
its silky nose, kept it there while dusty, velvet lips mumbled and
caressed his fingers.

"I knew it was a calvaryman," he said quietly. "I suspected you, Jim.
It was the sort of crazy thing you were likely to do. ... I don't ask
you what you're up to, where you've been, what your plans may be. If
you neede