Episode Seven: Clinch's Dump Chapter 1

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No sooner had Clinch and his motley followers disappeared in the dusk than Smith unslung his basket-pack, fished out a big electric torch, flashed it tentatively, and then, reslinging the pack and taking his rifle in his left hand, he set off at an easy swinging stride.

His course was not toward Star Pond; it was at right angles with that trail. For he was taking no chances. Quintana might already have left Drowned Valley by that third exit unknown to Clinch.

Smith's course would now cut this unmarked trail, trodden, only by game that left no sign in the shallow mountain rivulet which was the path.

The trail lay a long way off through the night. But if Quintana had discovered and taken that trail, it would be longer still for him -- twice as long as the regular trail out.

For a mile or two the forest was first growth pine, and sufficiently open so that Smith might economise on his torch.

He knew every foot of it. As a boy he had carried a jacob-staff in the Geological Survey. Who better than the forest-roaming nephew of Henry Harrod should know this blind wilderness?

The great pines towered on every side, lofty and smooth to the feathery canopy that crowned them under the high stars.

There was no game here, no water, nothing to attract anybody except the devastating lumberman. But this was a five thousand acre patch of State land. The ugly whine of the stream-saw would never be heard here.