good woman. Just have a
room ready, so that she will be comfortable here until we can get her
to a sanitorium. It isn't hopeless, I assure you--but I'm mighty glad
I happened to be here so that I can take charge of the case. Now here
comes Hawkins. We'll bring her back--don't you worry."

"Well, take her away as quick as you can, Senator. I'm scared of crazy
people. His brother went crazy in our house and----"

"Yes, yes--we'll take care of her. Poor girl, I wish that I had been
here when she first came," said the senator, as he went to meet
Hawkins, who was riding up from the corrals leading two horses--one for
Lorraine, which shows what was his opinion of Snake.

CHAPTER XVII

YACK DON'T LIE

For a time the trail seemed to lead toward Whisper. Then it turned
away and seemed about to end abruptly on a flat outcropping of rock two
miles from Whisper camp. Lone frowned and stared at the ground, and
Swan spoke sharply to Jack, who was nosing back and forth, at fault if
ever a dog was. But presently he took up the scent and led them down a
barren slope and into grassy ground where a bunch of horses grazed
contentedly. Jack singled out one and ran toward it silently, as he
had done all his trailing that morning. The horse looked up, stared
and went galloping down the little valley, stampeding the others with
him.

"That's about where I thought we'd wind up--in a saddle bunch," Lone
observed disgustedly. "If I had the evidence you're carrying in your
pocket, Swan, I'd put that darn dog on the scent of the man, not the
horse."

"The man I've got," Swan retorted. "I don't have to trail him."

"Well, now, you _think_ you've got him. Here's good, level ground--I
couldn't get outa sight in less than ten minutes, afoot. Let me walk
out a ways, and you see if that handkerchief's mine. Oh, search me all
you want to, first," he added, when he read the suspicion in Swan's
eyes. "Make yourself safe as yuh please, but give me a fair show.
You've made up your mind I'm the killer, and you've been fitting the
evidence to me--or trying to."

"It fits," Swan pointed out dryly.

"You see if it does. The dog'll tell you all about it in about two
minutes if you give him a chance."

Swan looked at him. "Yack don't lie. By golly, I raised that dog to
trail, and he _trails_, you bet! He's cocker spaniel and bloodhound,
and he knows things, that dog. All right, Lone, you walk over to that
black rock and