Chapter 15 - Page 2

few tiny grains of sandstone rattled out, and in the center was a small blood spot. Swan looked up straight into Lone's dark, brooding eyes.

"By golly, Lone, you would do that, too, if you kill somebody," he began in a new tone,--the tone which Lorraine had heard indistinctly in the bunk-house when Swan was talking to the doctor. "Do you think I'm a damn fool, just because I'm a Swede? You are smart--you think out every little thing. But you make a big mistake if you don't think some one else may be using his brain, too. This handkerchief I have seen you pull from your pocket too many times. And it had a rock in it last night, and the blood shows that it was used to hit Frank behind the ear. You think it all out--but maybe I've been thinking too. Now you're under arrest. Just stay on your horse--he can't run faster than a bullet, and I don't miss coyotes when I shoot them on the run."

"The hell you say!" Lone stared at him. "Where's your authority, Swan?"

Swan lifted the rifle to a comfortable, firing position, the muzzle pointing straight at Lone's chest. With his left hand he turned back his coat and disclosed a badge pinned to the lining.

"I'm a United States Marshal, that's all; a government hunter," he stated. "I'm hot on the trail of coyotes--all kinds. Throw that six-shooter over there in the brush, will you?"

"I hate to get the barrel all sanded up," Lone objected mildly. "You can pack it, can't you?" He grinned a little as he handed out the gun, muzzle toward himself. "You're playing safe, Swan, but if that dog of yours is any good, you'll have a change of heart pretty quick. Isn't that a man's track, just beside that flat rock? Put the dog on, why don't you?"

"Yack is on already," Swan pointed out. "Ride ahead of me, Lone."

With a shrug of his shoulders Lone obeyed, following the dog as it trotted through the brush on the trail of a man's footprints which Swan had shown it. A man might have had some trouble in keeping to the trail, but Jack trotted easily along and never once seemed at fault. In a very few minutes he stopped in a rocky depression where a horse had been tied, and waited for Swan, wagging his tail and showing his teeth in a panting smile. The man he had trailed had mounted and ridden toward the ridge to the west. Swan examined the tracks, and Lone sat on his horse watching him.

Jack picked up the trail where the horseman had walked away toward the road, and Swan followed him, motioning Lone to ride ahead.

"You could tell me about this, I think, but I can find out for myself," he observed, glancing at Lone briefly.

"Sure, you can find out, if you use your eyes and do a little thinking," Lone replied. "I hope you do lay the evidence on the right doorstep."

"I