"Yas, Ay know English pretty good. Ay don't tell too moch." His
cheerful smile brought a faint response from Senator Warfield. At Lone
he did not look at all. "I go quick. I'm good climber like a sheep,"
he boasted, and whistling to Jack, he began working his way up a rough,
brush-scattered ledge to the slope above.

Lone watched him miserably, wishing that Swan was not quite so matter
of fact in his man-chasing. If Al Woodruff, for some reason which Lone
could not fathom, had taken Lorraine and forced her to go with him into
the wilderness, Warfield and Hawkins would be his allies the moment
they came up with him. Lone was no coward, but neither was he a fool.
Hawkins had never distinguished himself as a fighter, but Lone had
gleaned here and there a great deal of information about Senator
Warfield in the old days when he had been plain Bill. When Lorraine
and Al were overtaken, then Lone would need to show the stuff that was
in him. He only hoped he would have time, and that luck would be with
him.

"If they get me, it'll be all off with her," he worried, as he followed
the two up the canyon. "Swan would have been a help. But he thinks
more of catching Al than he does of helping Raine."

He looked up and saw that already Swan was halfway up the canyon's
steep side, making his way through the brush with more speed than Lone
could have shown on foot in the open, unless he ran. The sight
heartened Lone a little. Swan might have some plan of his own,--an
ambush, possibly. If he would only keep along within rifle shot and
remain hidden, he would show real brains, Lone thought. But Swan, when
Lone looked up again, was climbing straight away from the little
searching party; and even though he seemed tireless on foot, he could
not perform miracles.

Swan, however, was not troubling himself over what Lone would think, or
even what Warfield was thinking. Contrary to Lone's idea of him, Swan
was tired, and he was thinking a great deal about Lorraine, and very
little about Al Woodruff, except as Al was concerned with Lorraine's
welfare. Swan had made a mistake, and he was humiliated over his
blunder. Al had kept himself so successfully in the background while
Lone's peculiar actions had held his attention, that Swan had never
considered Al Woodruff as the killer. Now he blamed himself for
Frank's death. He had been watching Lone, had been baffled by Lone's
consistent kindness toward the Quirt, by the force