f the ridge opposite the road and the
house, mounted there and rode away after Lorraine, keeping parallel
with the trail but never using it, as was his habit. He made no
attempt to overtake her, and not once did Lorraine glimpse him or
suspect that she was being followed. Al knew well the art of
concealing his movements and his proximity from the inquisitive eyes of
another man's saddle horse, and Snake had no more suspicion than his
rider that they were not altogether alone that morning.

Lorraine sent him over the trail at a pace which Jim had long since
reserved for emergencies. But Snake appeared perfectly able and
willing to hold it and never stumbled or slowed unexpectedly as did
Yellowjacket, wherefore Lorraine rode faster than she would have done
had she known more about horses.

Still, Snake held his own better than even Jim would have believed, and
carried Lorraine up over Granite Ridge and down into the Sawtooth flat
almost as quickly as Lorraine expected him to do. She came up to the
Sawtooth ranch-houses with Snake in a lather of sweat and with her own
determination unweakened to carry the war into the camp of her enemy.
It was, she firmly believed, what should have been done long ago; what
would have curbed effectually the arrogant powers of the Sawtooth.

She glanced at the foreman's cottage only to make sure that Hawkins was
nowhere in sight there, and rode on toward the corrals, intercepting
Hawkins and a large, well-groomed, smooth-faced man whom she knew at
once must be Senator Warfield himself. Unconsciously Lorraine mentally
fitted herself into a dramatic movie "scene" and plunged straight into
the subject.

"There has been," she said tensely, "another Sawtooth accident. It
worked better than the last one, when my father was sent over the grade
into Spirit Canyon. Frank Johnson is _dead_. I am here to discover
what you are going to do about it?" Her eyes were flashing, her chest
was rising and falling rapidly when she had finished. She looked
straight into Senator Warfield's face, her own full in the sunlight, so
that, had there been a camera "shooting" the scene, her expression
would have been fully revealed--though she did not realise all that.

Senator Warfield looked her over calmly (just as a director would have
wished him to do) and turned to Hawkins. "Who is this girl?" he asked.
"Is she the one who came here temporarily--deranged?"

"She's the girl," Hawkins affirmed, his ey