SWAN TRAILS A COYOTE
At daybreak Swan was striding toward the place where Frank Johnson had
been found. Lone, his face moody, his eyes clouded with thought, rode
beside him, while Jack trotted loose-jointedly at Swan's heels. Swan
had his rifle, and Lone's six-shooter showed now and then under his
coat when the wind flipped back a corner. Neither had spoken since
they left the ranch, where Jim was wandering dismally here and there,
trying to do the chores when his heart was heavy with a sense of
personal loss and grim foreboding. None save Brit had slept during the
night--and Brit had slept only because Lorraine had prudently given him
a full dose of the sedative left by the doctor for that very purpose.
Sorry had gone to Echo to send a telegram to the coroner, and he was
likely to return now at any time. Wherefore Swan and Lone were going
to look over the ground before others had trampled out what evidence
there might be in the shape of footprints.
They reached the spot where the team had stopped of its own accord in
crossing a little, green meadow, and had gone to feeding. Lone pulled
up and half turned in the saddle, looking at Swan questioningly.
"Is that dog of yours any good at trailing?" he asked abruptly. "I've
got a theory that somebody was in that wagon with Frank, and drove on a
ways before he jumped out. I believe if you'd put that dog on the
trail----"
"If I put that dog on the trail he stays on the trail all day, maybe,"
Swan averred with some pride. "By golly, he follows a coyote till he
drops."
"Well, it's a coyote we're after now," said Lone. "A sheep-killer that
has made his last killin'. Right here's where I rode up and caught the
team, last night. We better take a look along here for tracks."
Swan stared at him curiously, but he did not speak, and the two went on
more slowly, their glances roving here and there along the trail edge,
looking for footprints. Once the dog Jack swung off the trail into the
brush, and Swan followed him while Lone stopped and awaited the result.
Swan came back presently, with Jack sulking at his heels.
"Yack, he take up the trail of a coyote," Swan explained, "but it's got
the four legs, and Yack, he don't understand me when I don't follow.
He thinks I'm crazy this morning."
"I reckon the team came on toward home after the fellow jumped out,"
Lone observed. "He'd plan that way, seems to me. I know I would."
"I guess that's right. I don't have experience in killing somebody,"
Swan returned blandly, and Lone was too preoccupied to wonder at the
unaccustomed sarcasm.
A little farther along Swan swooped down upon a blue dotted
handkerchief of the kind which men find so useful where laundries are
but a name. Again Lone stopped and bent to examine it as Swan spread
it out in his hands. A few tiny grains of sandstone rattled out, and
in the centre 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 bunkhouse 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 will," Swan promised, looking ahead to where Jack was nosing his way
through the sagebrush.
They brought up at the edge of the road nearly a quarter of a mile
nearer Echo than the place where Frank's body had been found. They saw
where the man had climbed into the wagon, and followed to where they
had found Frank beside the road, lying just as he had pitched forward
from the wagon seat.
"I think," said Swan quietly, "we will go now and find out where that
horse went last night."
"A good idea," Lone agreed. "Do you see how it was done, Swan? When
he saw the team coming, away back toward Echo, he rode down into that
wash and tied his horse. He was walking when Frank overtook him, I
reckon--maybe claiming his horse had broke away from him. He had a
rock in his handkerchief. Frank stopped and gave him a lift, and he
used the rock first chance he got. Then I reckon he stuck the whisky
bottle in Frank's pocket and heaved him out. He dropped the
handkerchief out of his hip pocket when he jumped out of the rig. It's
right simple, and if folks didn't get to wondering about it, it'd be
safe as any killing can be. As safe," he added meaningly, "as dragging
Fred Thurman, or unhooking Brit's chain-lock before he started down the
canyon with his load of posts."
Swan did not answer, but turned back to where the horse had been left
tied and took up the trail from there. As before, the dog trotted
along, Lone riding close behind him and Swan striding after. They did
not really need the dog, for the hoofprints were easily followed for
the greater part of the way.
They had gone perhaps four miles when Lone turned, resting a hand on
the cantle of his saddle while he looked back at Swan. "You see where
he was headed for, don't yuh, Swan?" he asked, his tone as friendly as
though he was not under arrest as a murderer. "If he didn't go to
Whisper, I'll eat my hat."
"You're the man to know," Swan retorted grimly. And then, because
Lone's horse had slowed in a long climb over a ridge, he came up even
with a stirrup. "Lone, I hate to do it. I'd like you, if you don't
kill for a living. But for that I could shoot you quick as a coyote.
You're smart--but not smart enough. You gave yourself away when I
showed you Fred's saddle. After that I knew who was the Sawtooth
killer that I came here to find."
"You thought you knew," Lone corrected calmly.
"You don't have to lie," Swan informed mm bluntly. "You don't have to
tell anything. I find out for myself if I make mistake."
"Go to it," Lone advised him coldly. "It don't make a darn bit of
difference to me whether I ride in front of you or behind. I'm so glad
you're here on the job, Swan, that I'm plumb willing to be tied hand
and foot if it'll help you any."
"When a man's too damn willing to be my prisoner," Swan observed
seriously, "he gets tied, all right. Put out your hands, Lone. You
look good to me with bracelets on, when you talk so willing to go to
jail for murder."
He had slipped the rifle butt to the ground, and before Lone quite
realised what he was doing Swan had a short, wicked-looking automatic
pistol in one hand and a pair of handcuffs in the other. Lone flushed,
but there was nothing to do but hold out his hands.