she would stay where she was. The woods were dark, the firelight and the
warmth enticed her. The sight of the supper preparations made her
hungrier than she had ever been in her life before. When one has
breakfasted on one cup of coffee at dawn and has ridden all day with
nothing to eat, running away from food, even though that food is in the
hands of one's captor, requires courage. Lorraine was terribly tempted
to stay, at least until she had eaten. But Al might not give her another
chance like this. She crept on her knees to the slicker and seized one
piece of bannock, crawled out of the firelight stealthily, then sprang
to her feet and began running straight across the meadow toward Skinner.
Twenty yards she covered when a bullet sang over her head. Lorraine
ducked, stumbled and fell headfirst over a hummock, not quite sure that
she had not been shot.
"Thought maybe I could trust yuh to play square," Al said disgustedly,
pulling her to her feet, the gun still smoking in his hands. "You little
fool, what do you think you'd do in these hills alone? You sure enough
belittle me, if you think you'd have a chance in a million of getting
away from me!"
She fought him, then, with a great, inner relief that the situation was
at last swinging around to a normal kidnapping. Still, Al Woodruff
seemed unable to play his part realistically. He failed to fill her with
fear and repulsion. She had to think back, to remember that he had
killed men, in order to realize her own danger. Now, for instance, he
merely forced her back to the campfire, pulled the saddle strings from
his pocket and tied her feet together, using a complicated knot which he
told her she might work on all she darn pleased, for all he cared. Then
he went calmly to work cooking their supper.
This was simple. He divided the grouse so that one part had the meaty
breast and legs, and the other the back and wings. The meaty part he
larded neatly with strips of bacon, using his hunting knife,--which
Lorraine watched fascinatedly, wondering if it had ever taken the life
of a man. He skewered the meat on a green, forked stick and gave it to
her to broil for herself over the hottest coals of the fire, while he
made the coffee and prepared his own portion of the grouse.
Lorraine was hungry. She broiled the grouse carefully and ate it, with
the exception of one leg, which she surprised herself by offering to Al,
who was picking the bones of his own share down to the last shred of
meat. She drank a cup of coffee, black, and returned the cup to the
killer, who unconcernedly drank from it without any previous rinsing.
She ate bannock with her meat and secretly thought what an adventure it
would be if only it were not real,--if only she were not threatened with
a forced marriage to this man. The primitive camp appealed to her; she
who had prided herself upon being an outdoor girl saw how she had always
played at being primitive. This was real. She would have loved it if
only the man opposite were Lone, or Swan, or some one else whom she knew
and trusted.
She watched the firelight dancing on Al's somber face, softening its
hardness, making it almost wistful when he gazed thoughtfully into the
coals. She thrilled when she saw how watchful he was, how he lifted his
head and listened to every little night sound. She was afraid of him as
she feared the lightning; she feared his pitiless attitude toward human
life. She would find some way to outwit him when it came to the point of
marrying him, she thought. She would escape him if she could without too
great a risk of being shot. She felt absolutely certain that he would
shoot her with as little compunction as he would marry her by
force,--and it seemed to Lorraine that he would not greatly care which
he did.
"I guess you're tired," Al said suddenly, rousing himself from deep
study and looking at her imperturbably. "I'll fix yuh so you can
sleep--and that's about all yuh can do."
He went over to his saddle, took the blanket and unfolded it until
Lorraine saw that it was a full-size bed blanket of heavy gray wool.
The man's ingenuity seemed endless. Without seeming to have any extra
luggage, he had nevertheless carried a very efficient camp outfit with
him. He took his hunting knife, went to the spruce grove and cut many
small, green branches, returning with all he could hold in his arms. She
watched him lay them tips up for a mattress, and was secretly glad that
she knew this much at least of camp comfort. He spread the blanket over
them and then, without a word, came over to her and untied her feet.
"Go and lay down on the blanket," he commanded.
"I'll do nothing of the kind!" Lorraine set her mouth stubbornly.
"Well, then I'll have to lay you down," said Al, lifting her to her
feet. "If you get balky, I'm liable to get rough."
Lorraine drew away from him as far as she could and looked at him for a
full minute. Al stared back into her eyes. "Oh, I could _kill_ you!"
cried Lorraine for the second time that day and threw herself down on
the bed, sobbing like an angry child.
Al said nothing. The man's capacity for keeping still was amazing. He
knelt beside her, folded the blanket over her from the two sides, and
tied the corners around her neck snugly, the knot at the back. In the
same way he tied her ankles. Lorraine found herself in a sleeping bag
from which she had small hope of extricating herself. He took his coat,
folded it compactly and pushed it under her head for a pillow; then he
brought her own saddle blanket and spread it over her for extra warmth.
"Now stop your bawling and go to sleep," he advised her calmly. "You
ain't hurt, and you ain't going to be as long as you gentle down and
behave yourself."
She saw him draw the slicker over his shoulders and move back where the
shadows were deep and she could not see him. She heard some animal
squall in the woods behind them. She looked up at the stars,--millions
of them, and brighter than she had ever seen them before. Insensibly she
quieted, watching the stars, listening to the night noises, catching now
and then a whiff of smoke from Al Woodruff's cigarette. Before she knew
that she was sleepy, she slept.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
"YACK, I LICK YOU GOOD IF YOU BARK"
Swan cooked himself a hasty meal while he studied the various
possibilities of the case and waited for further word from headquarters.
He wanted to be sure that help had started and to be able to estimate
within an hour or two the probable time of its arrival, before he left
the wireless. Jack he fed and left on watch outside the cabin, so that
he could without risk keep open the door to the dugout.
His instrument was not a large one, and the dugout door was thick,--as a
precaution against discovery if he should be called when some visitor
chanced to be in the cabin. Not often did a man ride that way, though
occasionally some one stopped for a meal if he knew that the cabin was
there and had ever tasted Swan's sour-dough biscuits. His aerial was
cleverly camouflaged between the two pine trees, and he had no fear of
discovery there; Jack was a faithful guardian and would give warning if
any one approached the place. Swan could therefore give his whole
attention to the business at hand.
He was not yet supplied with evidence enough to warrant arresting
Warfield and Hawkins, but he hoped to get it when the real crisis came.
They could not have known of Al Woodruff's intentions toward Lorraine,
else they would have kept themselves in the background and would not
have risked the failure of their own plan.
On the other hand, Al must have been wholly ignorant of Warfield's
scheme to try and prove Lorraine crazy. It looked to Swan very much like
a muddling of the Sawtooth affairs through over-anxiety to avoid
trouble. They were afraid of what Lorraine knew. They wanted to
eliminate her, and they had made the blunder of working independently to
that end.
Lone's anxiety he did not even consider. He believed that Lone would be
equal to any immediate emergency and would do whatever the circumstances
seemed to require of him. Warfield counted him a Sawtooth man. Al
Woodruff, if the four men met unexpectedly, would also take it for
granted that he was one of them. They would probably talk to Lone
without reserve,--Swan counted on that. Whereas, if he were present,
they would be on their guard, at least.
Swan's plan was to wait at the cabin until he knew that deputies were
headed toward the Pass. Then, with Jack, it would be a simple matter to
follow Warfield to where he overtook Al,--supposing he did overtake him.
If he did not, then Swan meant to be present when the meeting occurred.
The dog would trail Al anywhere, since the scent would be less than
twenty-four hours old. Swan would locate Warfield and lead him straight
to Al Woodruff, and then make his arrests. But he wanted to have the
deputies there.
At dusk he got his call. He learned that four picked men had started for
the Pass, and that they would reach the divide by daybreak. Others were
on their way to intercept Al Woodruff if he crossed before then.
It was all that Swan could have hoped for,--more than he had dared to
expect on such short notice. He notified the operator that he would not
be there to receive anything else, until he returned to report that he
had got his men.
"Don't count your chickens till they're hatched," came facetiously out
of the blue.
"By golly, I can hear them holler in the shell," Swan sent back,
grinning to himself as he rattled the key. "That irrigation graft is
killed now. You tell the boss Swan says so. He's right. The way to catch
a fox is to watch his den."
He switched off the current, closed the case and went out, making sure
that the cupboard-camouflaged door looked perfectly innocent on the
outside. With a bannock stuffed into one pocket, a chunk of bacon in the
other, he left the cabin and swung off again in that long, tireless
stride of his, Jack following contentedly at his heels.
At the farther end of Skyline Meadow he stopped, took a tough leather
leash from his pocket and fastened it to Jack's collar.
"We don't go running to paw nobody's stomach and say, 'Wow-wow! Here we
are back again!'" he told the dog, pulling its ears affectionately.
"Maybe we get shot or something like that. We trail, and we keep our
mouth still, Yack. One bark, and I lick you good!"
Jack flashed out a pink tongue and licked his master's chin to show how
little he was worried over the threat, and went racing along at the end
of the leash, taking Swan's trail and his own back to where they had
climbed out of the canyon.
At the bottom Swan spoke to the dog in an undertone, and Jack obediently
started up the canyon on the trail of the five horses who had passed
that way since noon. It was starlight now, and Swan did not hurry. He
was taking it for granted that Warfield and Hawkins would stop when it
became too dark to follow the hoofprints, and without Jack to show them
the way they would perforce remain where they were until daybreak.
They would do that, he reasoned, if they were sincere in wanting to
overtake Lorraine and in their ignorance that they were also following
Al Woodruff. And try as he would, he could not see the object of so
foolish a plan as this abduction carried out in collusion with two men
of unknown sentiments in the party. They had shown no suspicion of Al's
part in the affair, and Swan grinned when he thought of the mutual
surprise when they met.
He was not disappointed. They reached timber line, following the seldom
used trail that wound over the divide to Bear Top Pass and so, by a
difficult route which he did not believe Al would attempt after dark,
to the country beyond the mountain. Where dark overtook them, they
stopped in a sheltered nook to wait, just as Swan had expected they
would. They were close to the trail, where no one could pass without
their knowledge.
In the belief that it was only Lorraine they were following, and that
she would be frightened and would come to the cheer of a campfire, they
had a fine, inviting blaze. Swan made his way as close as he dared,
without being discovered, and sat down to wait. He could see nothing of
the men until Lone appeared and fed the flames more wood, and sat down
where the light shone on his face. Swan grinned again. Warfield had
probably decided that Lorraine would be less afraid of Lone than of them
and had ordered him into the firelight as a sort of decoy. And Lone,
knowing that Al Woodruff might be within shooting distance, was probably
much more uncomfortable than he looked.
He sat with his legs crossed in true range fashion and stared into the
fire while he smoked. He was a fair mark for an enemy who might be
lurking out there in the dark, but he gave no sign that he realized the
danger of his position. Neither did he wear any air of expectancy.
Warfield and Hawkins might wait and listen and hope that Lorraine,
wide-eyed and weary, would steal up to the warmth of the fire; but not
Lone.
Swan, sitting on a rotting log, became uneasy at the fine target which
Lone made by the fire, and drew Al Woodruff's blue bandanna from his
pocket. He held it to Jack's nose and whispered, "You find him,
Yack--and I lick you good if you bark." Jack sniffed, dropped his nose
to the ground and began tugging at the leash. Swan got up and, moving
stealthily, followed the dog.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
"I COULDA LOVED THIS LITTLE GIRL"
A chill wind that hurried over Bear Top ahead of the dawn brought Swan
and Jack clattering up the trail that dipped into Spirit Canyon.
Warfield rose stiffly from the one-sided warmth of the fire and walked a
few paces to meet him, shrugging his wide shoulders at the cold and
rubbing his thigh muscles that protested against movement. Much riding
upon upholstered cushions had not helped Senator Warfield to retain the
tough muscles of hard-riding Bill Warfield. The senator was saddle-sore
as well as hungry, and his temper showed in his blood-shot eyes. He
would have quarreled with his best-beloved woman that morning, and he
began on Swan.
Why hadn't he come back down the gulch yesterday and helped track the
girl, as he was told to do? (The senator had quite unpleasant opinions
of Swedes, and crazy women, and dogs that were never around when they
were wanted, and he expressed them fluently.)
Swan explained with a great deal of labor that he had not thought he was
wanted, and that he had to sleep on his claim sometimes or the law would
take it from him, maybe. Also he virtuously pointed out that he had come
with Yack before daylight to the canyon to see if they had found Miss
Hunter and gone home, or if they were still hunting for her.
"If you like to find that jong lady, I put Yack on the trail quick," he
offered placatingly. "I bet you Yack finds her in one-half an hour."
With much unnecessary language, Senator Warfield told him to get to
work, and the three tightened cinches, mounted their horses and prepared
to follow Swan's lead. Swan watched his chance and gave Lone a chunk of
bannock as a substitute for breakfast, and Lone, I may add, dropped
behind his companions and ate every crumb of it, in spite of his worry
over Lorraine.
Indeed, Swan eased that worry too, when they were climbing the pine
slope where Al had killed the grouse. Lone had forged ahead on John Doe,
and Swan stopped suddenly, pointing to the spot where a few bloody
feathers and a boot-print showed. The other evidence Jack had eaten in
the night.
"Raine's all right, Lone. Got men coming. Keep your gun handy," he
murmured and turned away as the others rode up, eager for whatever news
Swan had to offer.
"Something killed a bird," Swan explained politely, planting one of his
own big feet over the track, which did not in the least resemble
Lorraine's. "Yack! you find that jong lady quick!"
From there on Swan walked carefully, putting his foot wherever a print
of Al's boot was visible. Since he was much bigger than Al, with a
correspondingly longer stride, his gait puzzled Lone until he saw just
what Swan was doing. Then his eyes lightened with amused appreciation of
the Swede's cunning.
"We ought to have some hot drink, or whisky, when we find that girl,"
Hawkins muttered unexpectedly, riding up beside Lone as they crossed an
open space. "She'll be half-dead with cold--if we find her alive."
Before Lone could answer, Swan looked back at the two and raised his
hand for them to stop.
"Better if you leave the horses here," he suggested. "From Yack I know
we get close pretty quick. That jong lady's horse maybe smells these
horse and makes a noise, and crazy folks run from noise."
Without objection the three dismounted and tied their horses securely to
trees. Then, with Swan and Jack leading the way, they climbed over the
ridge and descended into the hollow by way of the ledge which Skinner
had negotiated so carefully the night before. Without the dog they never
would have guessed that any one had passed this way, but as it was they
made good progress and reached the nearest edge of the spruce thicket
just as the sun was making ready to push up over the skyline.
Jack stopped and looked up at his master inquiringly, lifting his lip at
the sides and showing his teeth. But he made no sound; nor did Swan,
when he dropped his fingers to the dog's head and patted him
approvingly.
They heard a horse sneeze, beyond the spruce grove, and Warfield stepped
forward authoritatively, waving Swan back. This, his manner said
plainly, was first and foremost his affair, and from now on he would
take charge of the situation. At his heels went Hawkins, and Swan sent
an oblique glance of satisfaction toward Lone, who answered it with his
half-smile. Swan himself could not have planned the approach more to his
liking.
The smell of bacon cooking watered their mouths and made Warfield and
Hawkins look at one another inquiringly. Crazy young women would hardly
be expected to carry a camping outfit. But Swan and Lone were treading
close on their heels, and their own curiosity pulled them forward. They
went carefully around the thicket, guided by the pungent odor of burning
pine wood, and halted so abruptly that Swan and Lone bumped into them
from behind. A man had risen up from the campfire and faced them, his
hands rising slowly, palms outward.
"Warfield, by----!" Al blurted in his outraged astonishment. "Trailing
me with a bunch, are yuh? I knew you'd double-cross your own father--but
I never thought you had it in you to do it in the open. Damn yuh, what
d'yuh want that you expect to get?"
Warfield stared at him, slack-jawed. He glanced furtively behind him at
Swan, and found that guileless youth ready to poke him in the back with
the muzzle of a gun. Lone, he observed, had another. He looked back at
Al, whose eyes were ablaze with resentment. With an effort he smiled his
disarming, senatorial smile, but Al's next words froze it on his face.
"I think I know the play you're making, but it won't get you anything,
Bill Warfield. You think I slipped up--and you told me not to let my
foot slip; said you'd hate to lose me. Well, you're the one that
slipped, you damned, rotten coward. I was watching out for leaks. I
stopped two, and this one----"
He glanced down at Lorraine, who sat beside the fire, a blanket tied
tightly around her waist and her ankles, so that, while comfortably
free, she could make no move to escape.
"I was fixing to stop _her_ from telling all she knew," he added
harshly. "By to-night I'd have had her married to me, you damned fool.
And here you've blocked everything for me, afraid I was falling down on
my job!
"Now folks, lemme just tell you a few little things. I know my
limit--you've got me dead to rights. I ain't complaining about that; a
man in my game expects to get his, some day. But I ain't going to let
the man go that paid me my wages and a bonus of five hundred dollars
for every man I killed that he wanted outa the way.
"Hawkins knows that's a fact. He's foreman of the Sawtooth, and he knows
the agreement. I've got to say for Hawkins that aside from stealing
cattle off the nesters and helping make evidence against some that's in
jail, Hawkins never done any dirty work. He didn't have to. They paid
_me_ for that end of the business.
"I killed Fred Thurman--this girl, here, saw me shoot him. And it was
when I told Warfield I was afraid she might set folks talking that he
began to get cold feet. Up to then everything was lovely, but Warfield
began to crawfish a little. We figured--_we_ figured, emphasize the
_we_, folks,--that the Quirt would have to be put outa business. We knew
if the girl told Brit and Frank, they'd maybe get the nerve to try and
pin something on us. We've stole 'em blind for years, and they wouldn't
cry if we got hung. Besides, they was friendly with Fred.
"The girl and the Swede got in the way when I tried to bump Brit off.
I'd have gone into the canyon and finished him with a rock, but they
beat me to it. The girl herself I couldn't get at very well and make it
look accidental--and anyway, I never did kill a woman, and I'd hate it
like hell. I figured if her dad got killed, she'd leave.
"And let me tell you, folks, Warfield raised hell with me because Brit
Hunter wasn't killed when he pitched over the grade. He held out on me
for that job--so I'm collecting five hundred dollars' worth of fun right
now. He did say he'd pay me after Brit was dead, but it looks like he's
going to pull through, so I ain't counting much on getting my money outa
Warfield.
"Frank I got, and made a clean job of it. And yesterday morning the girl
played into my hands. She rode over to the Sawtooth, and I got her at
Thurman's place, on her way home, and figured I'd marry her and take a
chance on keeping her quiet afterwards. I'd have been down the Pass in
another two hours and heading for the nearest county seat. She'd have
married me, too. She knows I'd have killed her if she didn't--which I
would. I've been square with her--she'll tell you that. I told her, when
I took her, just what I was going to do with her. So that's all
straight. She's been scared, I guess, but she ain't gone hungry, and
she ain't suffered, except in her mind. I don't fight women, and I'll
say right now, to her and to you, that I've got all the respect in the
world for this little girl, and if I'd married her I'd have been as good
to her as I know how, and as she'd let me be.
"Now I want to tell you folks a few more things about Bill Warfield. If
you want to stop the damnest steal in the country, tie a can onto that
irrigation scheme of his. He's out to hold up the State for all he can
get, and bleed the poor devils of farmers white, that buys land under
that canal. It may look good, but it ain't good--not by a damn sight.
"Yuh know what he's figuring on doing? Get water in the canal, sell land
under a contract that lets him out if the ditch breaks, or something so
he _can't_ supply water at any time. And when them poor suckers gets
their crops all in, and at the point where they've got to have water or
lose out, something'll happen to the supply. Folks, I _know_! I'm a
reliable man, and I've rode with a rope around my neck for over five
years, and Warfield offered me the same old five hundred every time I
monkeyed with the water supply as ordered. He'd have done it slick;
don't worry none about that. The biggest band of thieves he could get
together is that company. So if you folks have got any sense, you'll
bust it up right now.
"Bill Warfield, what I've got to say to _you_ won't take long. You
thought you'd make a grand-stand play with the law, and at the same time
put me outa the way. You figured I'd resist arrest, and you'd have a
chance to shoot me down. I know your rotten mind better than you do. You
wanted to bump me off, but you wanted to do it in a way that'd put you
in right with the public. Killing me for kidnapping this girl would
sound damn romantic in the newspapers, and it wouldn't have a thing to
do with Thurman or Frank Johnson, or any of the rest that I've sent over
the trail for you.
"Right now you're figuring how you'll get around this bawling-out I'm
giving you. There's nobody to take down what I say, and I'm just a mean,
ornery outlaw and killer, talking for spite. With your pull you expect
to get this smoothed over and hushed up, and have me at a hanging bee,
and everything all right for Bill! Well----"
His eyes left Warfield's face and went beyond the staring group. His
face darkened, a sneer twisted his lips.
"Who're them others?" he cried harshly. "Was you afraid four wouldn't be
enough to take me?"
The four turned heads to look. Bill Warfield never looked back, for Al's
gun spoke, and Warfield sagged at the knees and the shoulders, and he
slumped to the ground at the instant when Al's gun spoke again.