When at last she arrived at the place of pines again, and saw the far, spectral glimmer of Quintana's fire, the girl was almost breathless. But dawn was not very far away and there remained little time for the taking alive of a dangerous man.
Where two enormous pines grew close together near a sapling, she knelt down, and, with both hands, scooped out a big hollow in the immemorial layers of pine needles. Here she placed her trap. It took all her strength and skill to set it; to fasten the chain around the base of the sapling pine.
And now, working with only the faintest glimmer of her torch, she covered everything with pine needles.
It was not possible to restore the forest floor; the place remained visible--a darker, rougher patch on the bronzed carpet of needles beaten smooth by decades of rain and snow. No animal would have trodden that suspicious space. But it was with man she had to deal--a dangerous but reasoning man with few and atrophied instincts--and with no experience in traps; and, therefore, in no dread of them.
Before she started she had thrown a cartridge into the breech of her rifle.
Now she pocketed her torch and seated herself between the two big pines and about three feet behind the hidden trap.
Dawn was not far away. She looked upward through high pine-tops where stars shone; and saw no sign of dawn. But the watcher by the fire beyond was astir, now, in the imminence of dawn, and evidently meant to warm himself before leaving.
Eve could hear him piling dry wood on the fire; the light on the tree trunks grew redder; a pungent reek of smoke was drawn through the forest aisles. She sniffed it, listened, and watched, her rifle across her knees.
Eve never had been afraid of anything. She was not afraid of this man. If it came to combat she would have to kill. It never entered her mind to fear Quintana's rifle. Even Clinch was not as swift with a rifle as she.... Only Stormont had been swifter--thank God!----
She thought of Stormont--sat there in the terrific darkness loving him, her heart of a child tremulous with adoration.
Then the memory of Darragh pushed in and hot hatred possessed her. Always, in her heart, she had distrusted the man.
Instinct had warned her. A spy! What evil had he worked already? Where was her father? Evidently Quintana had escaped him at Drowned Valley.... Quintana was yonder by his fire, preparing to flee the wilderness where men hunted him.... But where was Clinch? Had this sneak, Darragh, betrayed him? Was Clinch already in the clutch of the State Troopers? Was he in _jail_?