"We may as well eat," Swan suggested. "We'll get him, by golly, but we don't have to starve ourselves."
"He wouldn't know we're after him," Lone agreed. "He'll stick around so as not to raise suspicion. And he might come back, most any time. If he does, we'll say I'm out with you after coyotes, and we stopped here for a meal. That's good enough to satisfy him—till you get the drop on him. But I want to tell yuh, Swan, you can't take Al Woodruff as easy as you took me. And you couldn't have taken me so easy if I'd been the man you wanted. Al would kill you as easy as you kill coyotes. Give him a reason, and you won't need to give him a chance along with it. He'll find the chance himself."
Because they thought it likely that Al would soon return, they did not hurry. They were hungry, and they cooked enough food for four men and ate it leisurely. Jim was at the ranch, Sorry had undoubtedly returned before now, and the coroner would probably not arrive before noon, at the earliest.
Swan wanted to take Al Woodruff back with him in irons. He wanted to confront the coroner with the evidence he had found and the testimony which Lone could give. There had been too many killings already, he asserted in his naïve way; the sooner Al Woodruff was locked up, the safer the country would be.
He discussed with Lone the possibility of making Al talk,—the chance of his implicating the Sawtooth. Lone did not hope for much and said so.
"If Al was a talker he wouldn't be holding the job he's got," Lone argued. "Don't get the wrong idea again, Swan. Yuh may pin this on to Al, but that won't let the Sawtooth in. The Sawtooth's too slick for that. They'd be more likely to make up a lynching party right in the outfit and hang Al as an example than they would try to shield him. He's played a lone hand, Swan, right from the start, unless I'm badly mistaken. The Sawtooth's paid him for playing it, that's all."
"Warfield, he's the man I want," Swan confided. "It's for more than killing these men. It goes into politics, Loney, and it goes deep. He's bad for the government. Getting Warfield for having men killed is getting Warfield without telling secrets of politics. Warfield, he's a smart man, by golly. He knows some one is after him in politics, but he don't know some one is after him at home. So the big Swede has got to be smart enough to get the evidence against him for killing."
"Well, I wish yuh luck, Swan, but I can't say you're going at it right. Al won't talk, I tell yuh."
Swan did not believe that. He waited another hour and made a mental inventory of everything in camp while he waited. Then, chiefly because Lone's impatience finally influenced him, he set out to see where Al had gone.
According to Jack, Al had gone to the corral. From there they put Jack on the freshest hoof-prints leaving the place, and were led here and there in an apparently aimless journey to nowhere until, after Jack had been at fault in another rock patch, the trail took them straight away to the ridge overlooking the Quirt ranch. The two men looked at one another.