Sawtooth Ranch

  CHAPTER XXII

  "YACK, I LICK YOU GOOD IF YOU BARK"

  Swan cooked himself a hasty meal while he studied the variouspossibilities of the case and waited for further word fromheadquarters. He wanted to be sure that help had started and to beable to estimate within an hour or two the probable time of itsarrival, before he left the wireless. Jack he fed and left on watchoutside the cabin, so that he could without risk keep open the door tothe dugout.

  His instrument was not a large one, and the dugout door was thick,--asa precaution against discovery if he should be called when some visitorchanced to be in the cabin. Not often did a man ride that way, thoughoccasionally some one stopped for a meal if he knew that the cabin wasthere and had ever tasted Swan's sour-dough biscuits. His aerial wascleverly camouflaged between the two pine trees, and he had no fear ofdiscovery there; Jack was a faithful guardian and would give warning ifany one approached the place. Swan could therefore give his wholeattention to the business at hand.

  He was not yet supplied with evidence enough to warrant arrestingWarfield and Hawkins, but he hoped to get it when the real crisis came.They could not have known of Al Woodruff's intentions towards Lorraine,else they would have kept themselves in the background and would nothave risked the failure of their own plan.

  On the other hand, Al must have been wholly ignorant of Warfield'sscheme to try and prove Lorraine crazy. It looked to Swan very muchlike a muddling of the Sawtooth affairs through over-anxiety to avoidtrouble. They were afraid of what Lorraine knew. They wanted toeliminate her, and they had made the blunder of working independentlyto that end.

  Lone's anxiety he did not even consider. He believed that Lone wouldbe equal to any immediate emergency and would do whatever thecircumstances seemed to require of him. Warfield counted him aSawtooth man. Al Woodruff, if the four men met unexpectedly, wouldalso take it for granted that he was one of them. They would probablytalk to Lone without reserve,--Swan counted on that. Whereas, if hewere present, they would be on their guard, at least.

  Swan's plan was to wait at the cabin until he knew that deputies wereheaded toward the Pass. Then, with Jack, it would be a simple matterto follow Warfield to where he overtook Al,--supposing he did overtakehim. If he did not, then Swan meant to be present when the meetingoccurred. The dog would trail Al anywhere, since the scent would beless than twenty-four hours old. Swan would locate Warfield and leadhim straight to Al Woodruff, and then make his arrests. But he wantedto have the deputies there.

  At dusk he got his call. He learned that four picked men had startedfor the Pass, and that they would reach the divide by daybreak. Otherswere on their way to intercept Al Woodruff if he crossed before then.

  It was all that Swan could have hoped for,--more than he had dared toexpect on such short notice. He notified the operator that he wouldnot be there to receive anything else, until he returned to report thathe had got his men.

  "Don't count your chickens till they're hatched," came facetiously outof the blue.

  "By golly, I can hear them holler in the shell," Swan sent back,grinning to himself as he rattled the key. "That irrigation graft iskilled now. You tell the boss Swan says so. He's right. The way tocatch a fox is to watch his den."

  He switched off the current, closed the case and went out, making surethat the cupboard-camouflaged door looked perfectly innocent on theoutside. With a bannock stuffed into one pocket, a chunk of bacon inthe other, he left the cabin and swung off again in that long, tirelessstride of his, Jack following contentedly at his heels.

  At the farther end of Skyline Meadow he stopped, took a tough leatherleash from his pocket and fastened it to Jack's collar.

  "We don't go running to paw nobody's stomach and say, 'Wow-wow! Herewe are back again!'" he told the dog, pulling its ears affectionately."Maybe we get shot or something like that. We trail, and we keep ourmouth still, Yack. One bark, and I lick you good!"

  Jack flashed out a pink tongue and licked his master's chin to show howlittle he was worried over the threat, and went racing along at the endof the leash, taking Swan's trail and his own back to where they hadclimbed out of the canyon.

  At the bottom Swan spoke to the dog in an undertone, and Jackobediently started up the canyon on the trail of the five horses whohad passed that way since noon. It was starlight now, and Swan did nothurry. He was taking it for granted that Warfield and Hawkins wouldstop when it became too dark to follow the hoofprints, and without Jackto show them the way they would perforce remain where they were untildaybreak.

  They would do that, he reasoned, if they were sincere in wanting toovertake Lorraine and in their ignorance that they were also followingAl Woodruff. And try as he would, he could not see the object of sofoolish a plan as this abduction carried out in collusion with two menof unknown sentiments in the party. They had shown no suspicion ofAl's part in the affair, and Swan grinned when he thought of the mutualsurprise when they met.

  He was not disappointed. They reached timber line, following theseldom used trail that wound over the divide to Bear Top Pass and so,by a difficult route which he did not believe Al would attempt afterdark, to the country beyond the mountain. Where dark overtook them,they stopped in a sheltered nook to wait, just as Swan had expectedthey would. They were close to the trail, where no one could passwithout their knowledge.

  In the belief that it was only Lorraine they were following, and thatshe would be frightened and would come to the cheer of a campfire, theyhad a fine, inviting blaze. Swan made his way as close as he dared,without being discovered, and sat down to wait. He could see nothingof the men until Lone appeared and fed the flames more wood, and satdown where the light shone on his face. Swan grinned again. Warfieldhad probably decided that Lorraine would be less afraid of Lone than ofthem and had ordered him into the firelight as a sort of decoy. AndLone, knowing that Al Woodruff might be within shooting distance, wasprobably much more uncomfortable than he looked.

  He sat with his legs crossed in true range fashion and stared into thefire while he smoked. He was a fair mark for an enemy who might belurking out there in the dark, but he gave no sign that he realised thedanger of his position. Neither did he wear any air of expectancy.Warfield and Hawkins might wait and listen and hope that Lorraine,wide-eyed and weary, would steal up to the warmth of the fire; but notLone.

  Swan, sitting on a rotting log, became uneasy at the fine target whichLone made by the fire, and drew Al Woodruff's blue bandanna from hispocket. He held it to Jack's nose and whispered, "You find him,Yack--and I lick you good if you bark." Jack sniffed, dropped his noseto the ground and began tugging at the leash. Swan got up and, movingstealthily, followed the dog.