Up on the ridge nearest the house Al Woodruff shifted his position so
that he could watch her go. He had been watching Lone and Swan and the
dog, trailing certain tracks through the sagebrush down below, and when
Lorraine rode away from the Quirt they were in the wagon road, fussing
around the place where Frank had been found.
"They can't pin nothing on _me_," Al tried to comfort himself. "If that
damn girl would keep her mouth shut I could stand a trial, even. They
ain't got any evidence whatever, unless she saw me at Rock City that
night." He turned and looked again toward the two men down on the road
and tilted his mouth down at the corners in a sour grin.
"Go to it and be damned to you!" he muttered. "You haven't got the dope,
and you can't git it, either. Trail that horse if you want to--I'd like
to see yuh amuse yourselves that way!"
He turned again to stare after Lorraine, meditating deeply. If she had
only been a man, he would have known exactly how to still her tongue,
but he had never before been called upon to deal with the problem of
keeping a woman quiet. He saw that she was taking the trail toward Fred
Thurman's, and that she was riding swiftly, as if she had some errand in
that direction, something urgent.
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