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