Part 17 (1/2)

”You come back, Lone, and let Yack take a d.a.m.n good smell of you. By golly, if that dog lies to me this time, I lick him good!”

Lone came back, grinning a little. ”All right, now maybe you'll listen to reason. I ain't the kind to tell all I know and some besides, Swan.

I've been a Sawtooth man, and a fellow kinda hates to throw down his outfit deliberate. But they're going' too strong for any white man to stand for. I quit them when they tried to get Brit Hunter. I don't know so much, Swan, but I'm pretty good at guessing. So if you'll come with me to Whisper, your dog may show yuh who owns that handkerchief.

If he don't, then I'm making a mistake, and I'd like to be set right.”

”Somebody rode that horse,” Swan meditated aloud. ”Yack don't make a mistake like that, and I don't think I'm blind. Where's the man that was on the horse? What you think, Lone?”

”_Me_? I think there was another horse somewhere close to that outcropping, tied to a bush, maybe. I think the man you're after changed horses there, just on a chance that somebody might trail him from the road. You put your dog on the trail of that one particular horse, and he showed yuh where it was feeding with the bunch. It looks to me like it was turned loose, back there, and come on alone. Your man went to Whisper; I'll bank money on that. Anyway, your dog'll know if he's been there.”

Swan thought it over, his eyes moving here and there to every hint of movement between the skyline and himself. Suddenly he turned to Lone, his face flus.h.i.+ng with honest shame.

”Loney, take a d.a.m.n Swede and give him something he believes, and you could pull his teeth before you pull that notion from his thick head.

You acted funny, that day Fred Thurman was killed, and you gave yourself away at the stable when I showed you that saddle. So I think you're the killer, and I keep on thinking that, and I've been trying to catch you with evidence. I'm a Swede, all right! Square head. Built of wood two inches thick. Loney, you kick me good. You don't have time to ride over here, get some other horse and ride back to the Quirt after Frank was killed. You got there before I did, last night. We know Frank was dead not much more than one hour when we get him to the bunk-house. Yack, he gives you a good alibi.”

”I sure am glad we took the time to trail that horse, then,” Lone remarked, while Swan was removing the handcuffs. ”You're all right, Swan. Nothing like sticking to an idea till you know it's wrong. Now, let's stick to mine for awhile. Let's go on to Whisper. It ain't far.”

They returned to the rocky hillside where the trail had been covered, and searched here and there for the tracks of another horse; found the trail and followed it easily enough to Whisper. Swan put Jack once more on the scent of the handkerchief, and if actions meant anything, Jack proved conclusively that he found the Whisper camp reeking with the scent.

But that was all,--since Al was at that moment trailing Lorraine toward the Sawtooth.

”We may as well eat,” Swan suggested. ”We'll get him, by golly, but we don't have to starve ourselves.”

”He wouldn't know we're after him,” Lone agreed. ”He'll stick around so as not to raise suspicion. And he might come back, most any time.

If he does, we'll say I'm out with you after coyotes, and we stopped here for a meal. That's good enough to satisfy him--till you get the drop on him. But I want to tell yuh, Swan, you can't take Al Woodruff as easy as you took me. And you couldn't have taken me so easy if I'd been the man you wanted. Al would kill you as easy as you kill coyotes. Give him a reason, and you won't need to give him a chance along with it. He'll find the chance himself.”

Because they thought it likely that Al would soon return, they did not hurry. They were hungry, and they cooked enough food for four men and ate it leisurely. Jim was at the ranch, Sorry had undoubtedly returned before now, and the coroner would probably not arrive before noon, at the earliest.

Swan wanted to take Al Woodruff back with him in irons. He wanted to confront the coroner with the evidence he had found and the testimony which Lone could give. There had been too many killings already, he a.s.serted in his nave way; the sooner Al Woodruff was locked up, the safer the country would be.

He discussed with Lone the possibility of making Al talk,--the chance of his implicating the Sawtooth. Lone did not hope for much and said so.

”If Al was a talker he wouldn't be holding the job he's got,” Lone argued. ”Don't get the wrong idea again, Swan. Yuh may pin this on to Al, but that won't let the Sawtooth in. The Sawtooth's too slick for that. They'd be more likely to make up a lynching party right in the outfit and hang Al as an example than they would try to s.h.i.+eld him.

He's played a lone hand, Swan, right from the start, unless I'm badly mistaken. The Sawtooth's paid him for playing it, that's all.”

”Warfield, he's the man I want,” Swan confided. ”It's for more than killing these men. It goes into politics, Loney, and it goes deep.

He's bad for the government. Getting Warfield for having men killed is getting Warfield without telling secrets of politics. Warfield, he's a smart man, by golly. He knows some one is after him in politics, but he don't know some one is after him at home. So the big Swede has got to be smart enough to get the evidence against him for killing.”

”Well, I wish yuh luck, Swan, but I can't say you're going at it right.

Al won't talk, I tell yuh.”

Swan did not believe that. He waited another hour and made a mental inventory of everything in camp while he waited. Then, chiefly because Lone's impatience finally influenced him, he set out to see where Al had gone.

According to Jack, Al had gone to the corral. From there they put Jack on the freshest hoof-prints leaving the place, and were led here and there in an apparently aimless journey to nowhere until, after Jack had been at fault in another rock patch, the trail took them straight away to the ridge overlooking the Quirt ranch. The two men looked at one another.

”That's like Al,” Lone commented dryly. ”Coyotes are foolish alongside him, and you'll find it out. I'll bet he's been watching this place since daybreak.”

”Where he goes, Yack will follow,” Swan grinned cheerfully. ”And I follow Yack. We'll get him, Lone. That dog, he never quits till I say quit.”