Part 5 (1/2)

At the corral he came unexpectedly in sight of the Swede, who grinned a guileless welcome and came toward him, so that Lone could not ride on unless he would advertise his dislike of the place. John Doe, plainly glad to find an excuse to stop, slowed and came to where Swan waited by the gate.

”By golly, this is lonesome here,” Swan complained, heaving a great sigh. ”That judge don't get busy pretty quick, I'm maybe jumping my job. Lone, what you think? You believe in ghosts?”

”Naw. What's on your chest, Swan?” Lone slipped sidewise in the saddle, resting his muscles. ”You been seeing things?”

”No--I don't be seeing things, Lone. But sometimes I been--like I _feel_ something.” He stared at Lone questioningly. ”What you think, Lone, if you be sitting down eating your supper, maybe, and you feel something say words in your brain? Like you know something talks to you and then quits.”

Lone gave Swan a long, measuring look, and Swan laughed uneasily.

”That sounds crazy. But it's true, what something tells me in my brain. I go and look, and by golly, it's there just like the words tell me.”

Lone straightened in the saddle. ”You better come clean, Swan, and tell the whole thing. What was it? Don't talk in circles. What words did you feel--in your brain?” In spite of himself, Lone felt as he had when the girl had talked to him and called him Charlie.

Swan closed the gate behind him with steady hands. His lips were pressed firmly together, as if he had definitely made up his mind to something. Lone was impressed somehow with Swan's perfect control of his speech, his thoughts, his actions. But he was puzzled rather than anything else, and when Swan turned, facing him, Lone's bewilderment did not lessen.

”I'll tell you. It's when I'm sitting down to eat my supper. I'm just reaching out my hand like this, to get my coffee. And something says in my head, 'It's a lie. I don't ride backwards. Go look at my saddle. There's blood----' And that's all. It's like the words go far away so I can't hear any more. So I eat my supper, and then I get the lantern and I go look. You come with me, Lone. I'll show you.”

Without a word Lone dismounted and followed Swan into a small shed beside the stable, where a worn stock saddle hung suspended from a cross-piece, a rawhide string looped over the horn. Lone did not ask whose saddle it was, nor did Swan name the owner. There was no need.

Swan took the saddle and swung it around so that the right side was toward them. It was what is called a full-stamped saddle, with the popular wild-rose design on skirts and cantle. Much hard use and occasional oilings had darkened the leather to a rich, red brown, marred with old scars and scratches and the stains of many storms.

”Blood is hard to find when it's raining all night,” Swan observed, speaking low as one does in the presence of death. ”But if somebody is bleeding and falls off a horse slow, and catches hold of things and tries like h.e.l.l to hang on----” He lifted the small flap that covered the cinch ring and revealed a reddish, flaked stain. Phlegmatically he wetted his finger tip on his tongue, rubbed the stain and held up his finger for Lone to see. ”That's a d.a.m.n funny place for blood, when a man is dragging on the ground,” he commented dryly. ”And something else is d.a.m.n funny, Lone.”

He lifted the wooden stirrup and touched with his finger the rowel marks. ”That is on the front part,” he said. ”I could swear in court that Fred's left foot was twisted--that's d.a.m.n funny, Lone. I don't see men ride backwards, much.”

Lone turned on him and struck the stirrup from his hand. ”I think you better forget it,” he said fiercely. ”He's dead--it can't help him any to----” He stopped and pulled himself together. ”Swan, you take a fool's advice and don't tell anybody else about feeling words talk in your head. They'll have you in the bug-house at Black-foot, sure as you live.” He looked at the saddle, hesitated, looked again at Swan, who was watching him. ”That blood most likely got there when Fred was packing a deer in from the hills. And marks on them old oxbow stirrups don't mean a d.a.m.n thing but the need of a new pair, maybe.” He forced a laugh and stepped outside the shed. ”Just shows you, Swan, that imagination and being alone all the time can raise Cain with a fellow.

You want to watch yourself.”

Swan followed him out, closing the door carefully behind him. ”By golly, I'm watching out now,” he a.s.sented thoughtfully. ”You don't tell anybody, Lone.”

”No, I won't tell anybody--and I'd advise you not to,” Lone repeated grimly. ”Just keep those thoughts outa your head, Swan. They're bad medicine.”

He mounted John Doe and rode away, his eyes downcast, his quirt slapping absently the weeds along the trail. It was not his business, and yet---- Lone shook himself together and put John Doe into a lope.

He had warned Swan, and he could do no more.

Halfway to the Quirt he met Lorraine riding along the trail. She would have pa.s.sed him with no sign of recognition, but Lone lifted his hat and stopped. Lorraine looked at him, rode on a few steps and turned.

”Did you wish to speak about something?” she asked impersonally.

Lone felt the flush in his cheeks, which angered him to the point of speaking curtly. ”Yes. I found your purse where you dropped it that night you were lost. I was bringing it over to you. My name's Morgan.

I'm the man that found you and took you in to the ranch.”

”Oh.” Lorraine looked at him steadily. ”You're the one they call Loney?”

”When they're feeling good toward me. I'm Lone Morgan. I went back to find your grip--you said you left it under a bush, but the world's plumb full of bushes. I found your purse, though.”

”Thank you so much. I must have been an awful nuisance, but I was so scared--and things were terribly mixed in my mind. I didn't even have sense enough to tell you what ranch I was trying to find, did I? So you took me to the wrong one, and I was a week there before I found it out. And then they were perfectly lovely about it and brought me--home.” She turned the purse over and over in her hands, looking at it without much interest. She seemed in no hurry to ride on, which gave Lone courage.

”There's something I'd like to say,” he began, groping for words that would make his meaning plain without telling too much. ”I hope you won't mind my telling you. You were kinda out of your head when I found you, and you said something about seeing a man shot and----”