LONE ADVISES SILENCE Twice in the next week Lone found an excuse for riding over to the Sawtooth.

During his first visit, the foreman's wife told him that the young lady was still too sick to talk much.

The second time he went, Pop Bridgers spied him first and cackled over his coming to see the girl.
Lone grinned and dissembled as best he could, knowing that Pop Bridgers fed his imagination upon denials and argument and remonstrance and was likely to build gossip that might spread beyond the Sawtooth.

Wherefore he did not go near the foreman's house that day, but contented himself with gathering from Pop's talk that the girl was still there.
After that he rode here and there, wherever he would be likely to meet a Sawtooth rider, and so at last he came upon Al Woodruff loping along the crest of Juniper Ridge.

Al at first displayed no intention of stopping, but pulled up when he saw John Doe slowing down significantly.