r Lorraine,
which shows what was his opinion of Snake.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

YACK DON'T LIE

For a time the trail seemed to lead toward Whisper. Then it turned away
and seemed about to end abruptly on a flat outcropping of rock two miles
from Whisper camp. Lone frowned and stared at the ground, and Swan spoke
sharply to Jack, who was nosing back and forth, at fault if ever a dog
was. But presently he took up the scent and led them down a barren slope
and into grassy ground where a bunch of horses grazed contentedly. Jack
singled out one and ran toward it silently, as he had done all his
trailing that morning. The horse looked up, stared and went galloping
down the little valley, stampeding the others with him.

"That's about where I thought we'd wind up--in a saddle bunch," Lone
observed disgustedly. "If I had the evidence you're carrying in your
pocket, Swan, I'd put that darn dog on the scent of the man, not the
horse."

"The man I've got," Swan retorted. "I don't have to trail him."

"Well, now, you _think_ you've got him. Here's good, level ground--I
couldn't get outa sight in less than ten minutes, afoot. Let me walk out
a ways, and you see if that handkerchief's mine. Oh, search me all you
want to, first," he added, when he read the suspicion in Swan's eyes.
"Make yourself safe as yuh please, but give me a fair show. You've made
up your mind I'm the killer, and you've been fitting the evidence to
me--or trying to."

"It fits," Swan pointed out drily.

"You see if it does. The dog'll tell you all about it in about two
minutes if you give him a chance."

Swan looked at him. "Yack don't lie. By golly, I raised that dog to
trail, and he _trails_, you bet! He's cocker spaniel and bloodhound, and
he knows things, that dog. All right, Lone, you walk over to that black
rock and set down. If you think you frame something, maybe, I pack a
dead man to the Quirt again."

"You can, for all me," Lone replied quietly. "I'd about as soon go that
way as the way I am now."

Swan watched him until he was seated on the rock as directed, his
manacled hands resting on his knees, his face turned toward the horses.
Then Swan took the blue handkerchief from his pocket, called Jack to him
and muttered something in Swedish while the dog sniffed at the cloth.
"Find him, Yack," said Swan, standing straight again.

Jack went sniffing obediently in wide circles, crossing unconcernedly
Lone's footprints while he trotted bac