Lone stared at him. "He wouldn't dare!" "A coward is a brave man when you scare him bad enough," Swan stated flatly. "I'm careful always when I corner a coward." "Al ain't a coward. You've got him wrong." "Maybe, but he kills like a coward would kill, and he's scared he will be caught. Warfield, he's scared, too. You watch him, Lone. "Now I tell you what I do. Yack, he picks up the trail from here to where you can follow easy. We know two places where he didn't go with her, and from here is two more trails he could take. But one goes to the main road, and he don't take that one, I bet you. I think he takes that girl up Spirit Canyon, maybe. It's woods and wild country in a few miles, and plenty of places to hide, and good chances for getting out over the top of the divide. "I'm going to my cabin, and you don't say anything when I leave. Warfield, he don't want the damn Swede hanging around. So you go with them, Loney. This is to what you call a showdown." "We'll want the dog," Lone told him, but Swan shook his head. Hawkins and Warfield had come from the house and were approaching the stable. Swan looked at Lone, and Lone went forward to meet them. "The Swede followed along on the ridge, and he didn't see anything," he volunteered, before Warfield could question him. "We might put his dog on the trail and see which way she went from here." Warfield thought that a good idea. He was so sure that Lorraine must be somewhere within a mile or two of the place that he seemed to think the search was practically over when Jack, nosing out the trail of Al Woodruff, went trotting toward Spirit Canyon. "Took the wrong turn after she left the corrals here," Warfield commented relievedly. "She wouldn't get far, up this way." "There's the track of two horses," Hawkins said abruptly. "That there is the girl's horse, all right--there's a hind shoe missing. We saw where her horse had cast a shoe, coming over Juniper Ridge. But there's another horse track." Lone bit his lip. It was the other horse that Jack had been trailing so long. "There was a loose horse hanging around Thurman's place," he said casually. "It's him, tagging along, I reckon." "Oh," said Hawkins. "That accounts for it." CHAPTER XIX SWAN CALLS FOR HELP Past the field where the horses were grazing and up the canyon on the side toward Skyline Meadow, that lay on a shoulder of Bear Top, the dog nosed unfalteringly along the trail. Now and then he was balked when the hoofprints led him to the bank of Granite Creek, but not for long. Jack appeared to understand why his trailing was interrupted and sniffed the bank until he picked up the scent again. "Wonder if she changed off and rode that loose horse," Hawkins said once, when the tracks were plain in the soft soil of the creek bank. "She might, and lead that horse she was on." "She wouldn't know enough. She's a city girl," Lone replied, his heart heavy with fear for Lorraine.