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.Brit's voice rose in a furious denunciation of Bill Warfield, punctuated by two shots and followed almost immediately by the senator."My God, 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 neighbourly enough to ask what I could do for him, and he tried to kill me!"Lone merely grunted and gave Swan the tobacco.CHAPTER XVIII"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 sanitorium.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 get-a-way 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
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