n, and tell
the whole thing. What was it? Don't talk in circles. What words did you
feel--in your brain?" In spite of himself, Lone felt as he had when the
girl had talked to him and called him Charlie.

Swan closed the gate behind him with steady hands. His lips were pressed
firmly together, as if he had definitely made up his mind to something.
Lone was impressed somehow with Swan's perfect control of his speech,
his thoughts, his actions. But he was puzzled rather than anything else,
and when Swan turned, facing him, Lone's bewilderment did not lessen.

"I'll tell you. It's when I'm sitting down to eat my supper. I'm just
reaching out my hand like this, to get my coffee. And something says in
my head, 'It's a lie. I don't ride backwards. Go look at my saddle.
There's blood----' And that's all. It's like the words go far away so I
can't hear any more. So I eat my supper, and then I get the lantern and
I go look. You come with me, Lone. I'll show you."

Without a word Lone dismounted and followed Swan into a small shed
beside the stable, where a worn stock saddle hung suspended from a
crosspiece, a rawhide string looped over the horn. Lone did not ask
whose saddle it was, nor did Swan name the owner. There was no need.

Swan took the saddle and swung it around so that the right side was
toward them. It was what is called a full-stamped saddle, with the
popular wild-rose design on skirts and cantle. Much hard use and
occasional oilings had darkened the leather to a rich, red brown, marred
with old scars and scratches and the stains of many storms.

"Blood is hard to find when it's raining all night," Swan observed,
speaking low as one does in the presence of death. "But if somebody is
bleeding and falls off a horse slow, and catches hold of things and
tries like hell to hang on----" He lifted the small flap that covered
the cinch ring and revealed a reddish, flaked stain. Phlegmatically he
wetted his finger tip on his tongue, rubbed the stain and held up his
finger for Lone to see. "That's a damn funny place for blood, when a man
is dragging on the ground," he commented drily. "And something else is
damn funny, Lone."

He lifted the wooden stirrup and touched with his finger the rowel
marks. "That is on the front part," he said. "I could swear in court
that Fred's left foot was twisted--that's damn funny, Lone. I don't see
men ride backwards, much."

Lone turned on him and struck the stirrup from his hand. "I thi