The Quirt Part 17

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 hoofprints 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 drily. "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."

"You better go down and get a horse, then," Lone advised. "They're all gentle. Al's mounted, remember. He's maybe gone over to the Sawtooth, and that's farther than you can walk."

"I can walk all day and all night, when I need to go like that. I can take short cuts that a horse can't take. I think I shall go on my own legs."

"Well, I'm going down to the house first. I know them two men riding down to the gate. I want to see what the boss and Hawkins have got to say about this last 'accident.' Better come on down, Swan. You might pick up something. They're heading for the ranch, all right. Going to make a play at being neighborly, I reckon."

"You bet I want to see Warfield," Swan a.s.sented rather eagerly and called Jack, who had nosed around the spot where Al had waited so long and was now trotting along the ridge on the next lap of Al's journey.

They reached the gate in time to meet Warfield and Hawkins face to face.

Hawkins gave Lone a quick, questioning look and nodded carelessly to Swan. Warfield, having a delicate errand to perform and knowing how much depended upon first impressions, pulled up eagerly when he recognized Lone.

"Has the girl arrived safely, Lone?" he asked anxiously.

"What girl?" Lone looked at him noncommittally.

"Miss--ah--Hunter. Have you been away all the forenoon? The girl came to the ranch in such a condition that I was afraid she might do herself or some one else an injury. Has she been unbalanced for long?"

"If you mean Lorraine Hunter, she was all right last time I saw her, and that was last night." Lone's eyes narrowed a little as he watched the two. "You say she went to the Sawtooth?"

"She came pelting over there crazier than when you brought her in,"

Hawkins broke in gruffly. "She ain't safe going around alone like that."

Senator Warfield glanced at him impatiently. "Is there any truth in her declaring that Frank Johnson is dead? She seemed to have had a shock of some kind. She was raving crazy, and in her rambling talk she said something about Frank Johnson having died last night."

Lone glanced back as he led the way through the gate which Swan was holding open. "He didn't die--he got killed last night," he corrected.

"Killed! And how did that happen? It was impossible to get two coherent sentences out of the girl." Senator Warfield rode through just behind Lone and reined close, lowering his voice. "No use in letting this get out," he said confidentially. "It may be that the girl's dementia is some curable nervous disorder, and you know what an injustice it would be if it became noised around that the girl is crazy. How much English does that Swede know?"

"Not any more than he needs to get along on," Lone answered, instinctively on guard. "He's all right--just a good-natured kinda cuss that wouldn't harm anybody."

He glanced uneasily at the house, hoping that Lorraine was safe inside, yet fearing that she would not be safe anywhere. Sane or insane, she was in danger if Senator Warfield considered her of sufficient importance to bring him out on horseback to the Quirt ranch. Lone knew how seldom the owner of the Sawtooth rode on horseback since he had high-powered cars to carry him in soft comfort.

"I'll go see if she's home," Lone explained, and reined John Doe toward the house.

"I'll go with you," Senator Warfield offered suavely and kept alongside.

"Frank Johnson was killed, you say? How did it happen?"

"Fell off his wagon and broke his neck," Lone told him laconically.

"Brit's pretty sick yet; I don't guess you'd better go inside. There's been a lot of excitement already for the old man. He only sees folks he's used to having around."

With that he dismounted and went into the house, leaving Senator Warfield without an excuse for following. Swan and Hawkins came up and waited with him, and Jim opened the door of the bunk-house and looked out at them without showing enough interest to come forward and speak to them.

In a few minutes Lone returned, to find Senator Warfield trying to glean information from Swan, who seemed willing enough to give it if only he could find enough English words to form a complete sentence.

Swan, then, had availed himself of Lone's belittlement of him and was living down to it. But Lone gave him scant attention just then.

"She hasn't come back. Brit's worked himself up into a fever, and I didn't dare tell him she wasn't with me. I said she's all tired out and sick and wanted to stay up by the spring awhile, where it's cool. I said she was with me, and the sun was too much for her, and she sent him word that Jim would take care of him awhile longer. So you better move down this way, or he'll hear us talking and want to know what's up."

"You're sure she isn't here?" Senator Warfield's voice held suspicion.

"You can ask Jim, over here. He's been on hand right along. And if you can't take his word for it, you can go look in the shack--but in that case Brit's liable to take a shot at yuh, Senator. He's on the warpath right, and he's got his gun right handy."

"It is not necessary to search the cabin," Senator Warfield answered stiffly. "Unless she is in a stupor we'd have heard her yelling long ago. The girl was a raving maniac when she appeared at the Sawtooth.

It's for her good that I'm thinking."

Jim stepped out of the doorway and came slowly toward them, eyeing the two from the Sawtooth curiously while he chewed tobacco. His hands rested on his hips, his thumbs hooked inside his overalls; a gawky pose that fitted well his colorless personality,--and left his right hand close to his six-shooter.

"Cor'ner comin'?" he asked, nodding at the two who were almost strangers to him. "Sorry, he got back two hours ago, and he said the cor'ner would be right out. But he ain't showed up yet."

Senator Warfield said that he felt sure the coroner would be prompt and then questioned Jim artfully about "Miss Hunter."

"Raine? She went fer a ride. I loaned her my horse, and she ain't back yet. I told her to take a good long ride and settle her nerves. She acted kinda edgy."

Senator Warfield and his foreman exchanged glances for which Lone could have killed them.

"You noticed, then, that she was not quite--herself?" Senator Warfield used his friendly, confidential tone on Jim.