The Last of the Plainsmen 



less with his pans. I did not betray Frank, but I 

 resolved to keep a still closer watch on him. It was 

 partially because of this uneasy sense of his trickiness 

 in the fringe of my mind that I made a discovery. 

 My sleeping-bag rested on a raised platform in one 

 corner, and at a favorable moment I examined the 

 bag. It had not been tampered with, but I noticed 

 a string running out through a chink between the 

 logs. I found it came from a thick layer of straw 

 under my bed, and had been tied to the end of a 

 flatly coiled lasso. Leaving the thing as it was, I 

 went outside and carelessly chased the hounds round 

 the cabin. The string stretched along the logs to 

 another chink, where it returned into the cabin at a 

 point near where Frank slept. No, great power of 

 deduction was necessary to acquaint me with full 

 details of the plot to spoil my slumbers. So I 

 patiently awaited developments. 



Lawson rode in near sundown with the carcasses 

 of two beasts of some species hanging over his sad 

 dle. It turned out that Jones had planned a surprise 

 for Wallace and me, and it could hardly have been 

 a more enjoyable one, considering the time and place. 

 We knew he had a flock of Persian sheep on the 

 south slope of Buckskin, but had no idea it was 

 within striking distance of Oak. Lawson had that 

 day hunted up the shepherd and his sheep, to return 



1P4 



