hot on the trail of coyotes--all kinds. Throw that
six-shooter over there in the brush, will you?"

"I hate to get the barrel all sanded up," Lone objected mildly. "You can
pack it, can't you?" He grinned a little as he handed out the gun,
muzzle toward himself. "You're playing safe, Swan, but if that dog of
yours is any good, you'll have a change of heart pretty quick. Isn't
that a man's track, just beside that flat rock? Put the dog on, why
don't you?"

"Yack is on already," Swan pointed out. "Ride ahead of me, Lone."

With a shrug of his shoulders Lone obeyed, following the dog as it
trotted through the brush on the trail of a man's footprints which Swan
had shown it. A man might have had some trouble in keeping to the trail,
but Jack trotted easily along and never once seemed at fault. In a very
few minutes he stopped in a rocky depression where a horse had been
tied, and waited for Swan, wagging his tail and showing his teeth in a
panting smile. The man he had trailed had mounted and ridden toward the
ridge to the west. Swan examined the tracks, and Lone sat on his horse
watching him.

Jack picked up the trail where the horseman had walked away toward the
road, and Swan followed him, motioning Lone to ride ahead.

"You could tell me about this, I think, but I can find out for myself,"
he observed, glancing at Lone briefly.

"Sure, you can find out, if you use your eyes and do a little
thinking," Lone replied. "I hope you do lay the evidence on the right
doorstep."

"I will," Swan promised, looking ahead to where Jack was nosing his way
through the sagebrush.

They brought up at the edge of the road nearly a quarter of a mile
nearer Echo than the place where Frank's body had been found. They saw
where the man had climbed into the wagon, and followed to where they had
found Frank beside the road, lying just as he had pitched forward from
the wagon seat.

"I think," said Swan quietly, "we will go now and find out where that
horse went last night."

"A good idea," Lone agreed. "Do you see how it was done, Swan? When he
saw the team coming, away back toward Echo, he rode down into that wash
and tied his horse. He was walking when Frank overtook him, I
reckon--maybe claiming his horse had broke away from him. He had a rock
in his handkerchief. Frank stopped and gave him a lift, and he used the
rock first chance he got. Then I reckon he stuck the whisky bottle in
Frank's pocket and heaved him out. He dropped