est man who owned the slightest suspicion of him. Lone could have
smiled at the sight of Senator Warfield betraying himself so, had
smiling been possible to him then.

He dropped behind the two at the first rough bit of trail and felt
stealthily to test the hanging of his six-shooter, which he might need
in a hurry. Those two men would never lay their hands on Lorraine
Hunter while he lived to prevent it. He did not swear it to himself;
he had no need.

They rode on to Fred Thurman's ranch, dismounted at Warfield's
suggestion--which amounted to a command--and began a careful search of
the premises. If Warfield had felt any doubt of Lone's loyalty he
appeared to have dismissed it from his mind, for he sent Lone to the
stable to search there, while he and Hawkins went into the house. Lone
guessed that the two felt the need of a private conference after their
visit to the Quirt, but he could see no way to slip unobserved to the
house and eavesdrop, so he looked perfunctorily through all the sheds
and around the depleted haystacks,--wherever a person could find a
hiding place. He was letting himself down through the manhole in the
stable loft when Swan's voice, lowered almost to a whisper, startled
him.

"What the hell!" Lone ejaculated under his breath. "I thought you were
on another trail!"

"That trail leads here, Lone. Did you find Raine yet?"

"Not a sign of her. Swan, I don't know what to make of it. I did
think them two were stalling. I thought they either hadn't seen her at
all, or had got hold of her and were trying to square themselves on the
insanity dodge. But if they know where she is, they're acting damn
queer, Swan. They _want_ her. They haven't got her yet."

"They're in the house," Swan reassured Lone. "I heard them walking.
You don't think they've got her there, Lone?"

"If they have," gritted Lone, "they made the biggest blunder of their
lives bringing me over here. No, I could see they wanted to get off
alone and hold a powwow. They expected she'd be at the Quirt."

"I think Al Woodruff, he's maybe got her, then," Swan declared, after
studying the matter briefly. "All the way he follows the trail over
here, Lone. I could see you sometimes in the trail. He was keeping
hid from the trail--I think because Raine was riding along, this
morning, and he's following. The tracks are that old."

"They said they had trailed Raine this far, coming from the Sawtooth,"
Lone told him wor