Episode Four: A Private War Chapter 2

"Maybe we make more if we take what's inside it for ourselves," argued Leverett. "Let's take a peek, anyway."

"Naw. I don't want no peek nor nothin'. The ten thousand comes too easy. More might scare us. Let that guy, Quintana, have what's his'n. All I ask is my rake-off. You allus was a dirty, thieving mink, Earl. Let's give him his and take ours and git. I'm going to Albany to live. You bet I don't stay in no woods where Mike Clinch dens."

They plodded on, arguing, toward their rendezvous with Quintana's outpost on the edge of drowned valley.

* * * * *

The fourth pretender to the pearls, rubies, and great gem called the Flaming Jewel, stolen from the young Grand Duchess Theodorica of Esthonia by Jose Quintana, was an unconscious pretender, entirely innocent of the role assigned her by Clinch.

For Eve Strayer had never heard where the packet came from or what it contained. All she knew was that her stepfather had told her that it belonged to her. And the knowledge left her incurious.