Episode Eleven: The Place of Pines Chapter 1

He moved a little way toward the open trail, stopped, came back, stood his rifle against a tree.

For a while he was busy with his sharp Spanish clasp knife, whittling and fitting together two peeled twigs. A cross was the ultimate result. Then he placed Clinch's hands palm to palm upon his chest, lay the cross on his breast, and shined the result with complacency.

Then Quintana took off his hat.

"L'ami Mike," he said, "you were a man! ... Adios!"

* * * *

Quintana put on his hat. The path was free. The world lay open before Jose Quintana once more; -- the world, his hunting ground.

"But," he thought uneasily, "what is it that I bring home this time? How much is paste? My God, how droll that smile of Clinch. ... Which is the false -- his jewels or mine? Dieu que j'etais bete!---- Me who have not suspec' that there are two trays within my jewel-box! ... I unnerstan'. It is ver' simple. In the top tray the false gems. Ah! Paste on top to deceive a thief! ... Alors. ... Then what I have recover of Clinch is the real! ... Nom de Dieu! ... I think thees dead man make mock of me -- all inside himse'f----"

So, in darkness, prowling south by west, shining the trail furtively, and loaded rifle ready, Quintana moved with stealthy, unhurried tread out of the wilderness that had trapped him and toward the tangled border of that outer world which led to safe, obscure, uncharted labyrinths -- old-world mazes, immemorial hunting grounds -- haunted by men who prey.