set down. If you think you frame something, maybe, I
pack a dead man to the Quirt again."

"You can, for all me," Lone replied quietly. "I'd about as soon go
that way as the way I am now."

Swan watched him until he was seated on the rock as directed, his
manacled hands resting on his knees, his face turned toward the horses.
Then Swan took the blue handkerchief from his pocket, called Jack to
him and muttered something in Swedish while the dog sniffed at the
cloth. "Find him, Yack," said Swan, standing straight again.

Jack went sniffing obediently in wide circles, crossing unconcernedly
Lone's footprints while he trotted back and forth. He hesitated once
on the trail of the horse he had followed, stopped and looked at Swan
inquiringly, and whined. Swan whistled the dog to him with a peculiar,
birdlike note and called to Lone.

"You come back, Lone, and let Yack take a damn good smell of you. By
golly, if that dog lies to me this time, I lick him good!"

Lone came back, grinning a little. "All right, now maybe you'll listen
to reason. I ain't the kind to tell all I know and some besides, Swan.
I've been a Sawtooth man, and a fellow kinda hates to throw down his
outfit deliberate. But they're going' too strong for any white man to
stand for. I quit them when they tried to get Brit Hunter. I don't
know so much, Swan, but I'm pretty good at guessing. So if you'll come
with me to Whisper, your dog may show yuh who owns that handkerchief.
If he don't, then I'm making a mistake, and I'd like to be set right."

"Somebody rode that horse," Swan meditated aloud. "Yack don't make a
mistake like that, and I don't think I'm blind. Where's the man that
was on the horse? What you think, Lone?"

"_Me_? I think there was another horse somewhere close to that
outcropping, tied to a bush, maybe. I think the man you're after
changed horses there, just on a chance that somebody might trail him
from the road. You put your dog on the trail of that one particular
horse, and he showed yuh where it was feeding with the bunch. It looks
to me like it was turned loose, back there, and come on alone. Your
man went to Whisper; I'll bank money on that. Anyway, your dog'll know
if he's been there."

Swan thought it over, his eyes moving here and there to every hint of
movement between the skyline and himself. Suddenly he turned to Lone,
his face flushing with honest shame.

"Loney, take a damn Swede and give him someth