How long ago Brit had been hurled into the canyon Lone did not know; he had not asked.

But he judged that it must have been very recently.

Swan had not told him of anything but the runaway, and of helping to carry Brit home--and of the "damn funny thing about the chain"-- the rough-lock, he must have meant.

Too well Lone understood the sinister meaning that probably lay behind that phrase.
"They've started on the Quirt now," he told himself with foreboding.
"She's been telling her father----" Lone fell into bitter argument with himself.

Just how far was it justifiable to mind his own business?
And if he did not mind it, what possible chance had he against a power so ruthless and so cunning?
An accident to a man driving a loaded wagon down the Spirit Canyon grade had a diabolic plausibility that no man in the country could question.
Brit, he reasoned, could not have known before he started that his rough-lock had been tampered with, else he would have fixed it.