The Quirt Part 18

"We-ell--yes, I did. I thought a ride would do her good, mebby. She's been sticking here on the job purty close. And Frank getting killed kinda--upset her, I guess."

"That's it--that's what I was saying. Disordered nerves, which rest and proper medical care will soon remedy." He looked at Lone. "Her horse was worn out when she reached the ranch. Does she know this country well?

She started this way, and she should have been here some time ago. We thought it best to ride after her, but there was some delay in getting started. Hawkins' horse broke away and gave us some trouble catching him, so the girl had quite a start. But with her horse f.a.gged as it was, we had no idea that we would fail to get even a sight of her. She may have wandered off on some other trail, in which case her life as well as her reason is in danger."

Lone did not answer at once. It had occurred to him that Senator Warfield knew where Lorraine was at that minute, and that he might be showing this concern for the effect it would have on his hearers. He looked at him speculatively.

"Do you think we ought to get out and hunt for her?" he asked.

"I certainly think some one ought to. We can't let her wander around the country in that condition. If she is not here, she is somewhere in the hills, and she should be found."

"She sure ain't here," Jim a.s.serted convincingly. "I been watching for the last two hours, expecting every minute she'd show up. I'd a been kinda oneasy, myself, but Snake's dead gentle, and she's a purty fair rider fer a girl."

"Then we'll have to find her. Lone, can you come and help?"

"The Swede and me'll both help," Lone volunteered. "Jim and Sorry can wait here for the coroner. We ought to find her without any trouble, much. Swan, I'll get you that tobacco first and see if Brit needs anything."

He started to the house, and Swan followed him aimlessly, his long strides bringing him close to Lone before they reached the door.

"What do you make of this new play?" Lone muttered cautiously when he saw Swan's shadow move close to his own.

"By golly, it's something funny about it. You stick with them, Loney, and find out. I'm taking Al's trail with Yack. You fix it." And he added whimsically, "Not so much tobacco, Lone. I don't eat it or smoke it ever in my life."

His voice was very Swedish, which was fortunate, because Senator Warfield appeared softly behind him and went into the house. Swan was startled, but he hadn't much time to worry over the possibility of having been overheard. Brit's voice rose in a furious denunciation of Bill Warfield, punctuated by two shots and followed almost immediately by the senator.

"My G.o.d, the whole family's crazy!" Warfield exclaimed, when he had reached the safety of the open air. "You're right, Lone. I thought I'd be neighborly enough to ask what I could do for him, and he tried to kill me!"

Lone merely grunted and gave Swan the tobacco.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"I THINK AL WOODRUFF'S GOT HER"

There was no opportunity for further conference. Senator Warfield showed no especial interest in Swan, and the Swede was permitted without comment to take his dog and strike off up the ridge. Jim and Sorry were sent to look after Brit, who was still shouting vain threats against the Sawtooth, and the three men rode away together. Warfield did not suggest separating, though Lone expected him to do so, since one man on a trail was as good as three in a search of this kind.

He was still inclined to doubt the whole story. He did not believe that Lorraine had been to the Sawtooth, or that she had raved about anything.

She had probably gone off by herself to cry and to worry over her troubles,--hurt, too, perhaps, because Lone had left the ranch that morning without a word with her first. He believed the story of her being insane had been carefully planned, and that Warfield had perhaps ridden over in the hope that they would find her alone; though with Frank dead on the ranch that would be unlikely. But to offset that, Lone's reason told him that Warfield had probably not known that Frank was dead. That had been news to him--or had it? He tried to remember whether Warfield had mentioned it first and could not. Too many disturbing emotions had held him lately; Lone was beginning to feel the need of a long, quiet pondering over his problems. He did not feel sure of anything except the fact that the Quirt was like a drowning man struggling vainly against the whirlpool that is sucking him slowly under.

One thing he knew, and that was his determination to stay with these two of the Sawtooth until he had some definite information; until he saw Lorraine or knew that she was safe from them. Like a weight pressing harder and harder until one is crushed beneath it, their talk of Lorraine's insanity forced fear into his soul. They could do just what they had talked of doing. He himself had placed that weapon in their hands when he took her to the Sawtooth delirious and told of wilder words and actions. Hawkins and his wife would swear away her sanity if they were told to do it, and there were witnesses in plenty who had heard him call her crazy that first morning.

They could do it; they could have her committed to an asylum, or at least to a sanitarium. He did not underestimate the influence of Senator Warfield. And what could the Quirt do to prevent the outrage? Frank Johnson was dead; Brit was out of the fight for the time being; Jim and Sorry were the doggedly faithful sort who must have a leader before they can be counted upon to do much.

Swan,--Lone lifted his head and glanced toward the ridge when he thought of Swan. There, indeed, he might hope for help. But Swan was out here, away from reinforcements. He was trailing Al Woodruff, and when he found him,--that might be the end of Swan. If not, Warfield could hurry Lorraine away before Swan could act in the matter. A whimsical thought of Swan's telepathic miracle crossed his mind and was dismissed as an unseemly bit of foolery in a matter so grave as Lorraine's safety. And yet--the doctor _had_ received a message that he was wanted at the Quirt, and he had arrived before his patient. There was no getting around that, however impossible it might be. No one could have foreseen Brit's accident; no one save the man who had prepared it for him, and he would be the last person to call for help.

"We followed the girl's horse-tracks almost to Thurman's place and lost the trail there." Warfield turned in the saddle to look at Lone riding behind him. "We made no particular effort to trace her from there, because we were sure she would come on home. I'm going back that far, and we'll pick up the trail, unless we find her at the ranch. She may have hidden herself away. You can't," he added, "be sure of anything where a demented person is concerned. They never act according to logic or reason, and it is impossible to make any deductions as to their probable movements."

Lone nodded, not daring to trust his tongue with speech just then. If he were to protect Lorraine later on, he knew that he must not defend her now.

"Hawkins told me she had some sort of hallucination that she had seen a man killed at Rock City, when she was wandering around in that storm,"

Warfield went on in a careless, gossipy tone. "Just what was that about, Lone? You're the one who found her and took her in to the ranch, I believe. She somehow mixed her delusion up with Fred Thurman, didn't she?"

Lone made a swift decision. He was afraid to appear to hesitate, so he laughed his quiet little chuckle while he scrambled mentally for a plausible lie.

"I don't know as she done that, quite," he drawled humorously. "She was out of her head, all right, and talking wild, but I laid it to her being sick and scared. She said a man was shot, and that she saw it happen.

And right on top of that she said she didn't think they ought to stage a murder and a thunderstorm in the same scene, and thought they ought to save the thunder and lightning for the murderer to make his getaway by.

She used to work for the moving pictures, and she was going on about some wild-west picture she thought she was acting a part in.

"Afterwards I told her what she'd been saying, and she seemed to kinda remember it, like a bad dream she'd had. She told me she thought the villain in one of the plays she acted in had pulled off a stage murder in them rocks. We figured it out together that the first crack of thunder had sounded like shooting, and that's what started her off. She hadn't ever been in a real thunderstorm before, and she's scared of them. I know that one we had the other day like to of scared her into hysterics. I laughed at her and joshed her out of it."

"Didn't she ever say anything about Fred Thurman, then?" Warfield persisted.

"Not to me, she didn't. Fred was dragged that night, and if she heard about a man being killed during that same storm, she might have said something about it. She might have wondered if that was what she saw. I don't know. She's pretty sensible--when she ain't crazy."

Warfield turned his horse, as if by accident, so that he was brought face to face with Lone. His eyes searched Lone's face pitilessly.

"Lone, you know how ugly a story can grow if it's left alone. Do _you_ believe that girl actually saw a man shot? Or do you think she was crazy?"

Lone met Warfield's eyes fairly. "I think she was plumb out of her head," he answered. And he added with just the right degree of hesitation: "I don't think she's what you'd call right crazy, Mr.

Warfield. Lots of folks go outa their heads and talk crazy when they get a touch of fever, and they get over it again."

"Let's have a fair understanding," Warfield insisted. "Do you think I am justified in the course I am taking, or don't you?"

"Hunting her up? Sure, I do! If you and Hawkins rode on home, I'd keep on hunting till I located her. If she's been raving around like you say, she's in no shape to be riding these hills alone. She's got to be taken care of."

Warfield gave him another sharp scrutiny and rode on. "I always prefer to deal in the open with every one," he averred. "It may not be my affair, strictly speaking. The Quirt and the Sawtooth aren't very intimate. But the Quirt's having trouble enough to warrant any one in lending a hand; and common humanity demands that I take charge of the girl until she is herself again."

"I don't know as any one would question that," Lone a.s.sented and ground his teeth afterwards because he must yield even the appearance of approval. He knew that Warfield must feel himself in rather a desperate position, else he would never trouble to make his motives so clear to one of his men. Indeed, Warfield had protested his unselfishness in the matter too much and too often to have deceived the dullest man who owned the slightest suspicion of him. Lone could have smiled at the sight of Senator Warfield betraying himself so, had smiling been possible to him then.

He dropped behind the two at the first rough bit of trail and felt stealthily to test the hanging of his six-shooter, which he might need in a hurry. Those two men would never lay their hands on Lorraine Hunter while he lived to prevent it. He did not swear it to himself; he had no need.

They rode on to Fred Thurman's ranch, dismounted at Warfield's suggestion--which amounted to a command--and began a careful search of the premises. If Warfield had felt any doubt of Lone's loyalty he appeared to have dismissed it from his mind, for he sent Lone to the stable to search there, while he and Hawkins went into the house. Lone guessed that the two felt the need of a private conference after their visit to the Quirt, but he could see no way to slip un.o.bserved to the house and eavesdrop, so he looked perfunctorily through all the sheds and around the depleted haystacks,--wherever a person could find a hiding place. He was letting himself down through the manhole in the stable loft when Swan's voice, lowered almost to a whisper, startled him.

"What the h.e.l.l!" Lone e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed under his breath. "I thought you were on another trail!"

"That trail leads here, Lone. Did you find Raine yet?"

"Not a sign of her. Swan, I don't know what to make of it. I did think them two were stalling. I thought they either hadn't seen her at all, or had got hold of her and were trying to square themselves on the insanity dodge. But if they know where she is, they're acting d.a.m.n queer, Swan.

They _want_ her. They haven't got her yet."

"They're in the house," Swan rea.s.sured Lone. "I heard them walking. You don't think they've got her there, Lone?"

"If they have," gritted Lone, "they made the biggest blunder of their lives bringing me over here. No, I could see they wanted to get off alone and hold a powwow. They expected she'd be at the Quirt."

"I think Al Woodruff, he's maybe got her, then," Swan declared, after studying the matter briefly. "All the way he follows the trail over here, Lone. I could see you sometimes in the trail. He was keeping hid from the trail--I think because Raine was riding along, this morning, and he's following. The tracks are that old."

"They said they had trailed Raine this far, coming from the Sawtooth,"