Yet it was important that he should go; he must return the girl's purse! The most direct route to the Quirt took him down Juniper Ridge and across Granite Creek near the Thurman ranch.

Indeed, if he followed the trail up Granite Creek and across the hilly country to Quirt Creek, he must pass within fifty yards of the Thurman cabin.

Lone's time was limited, yet he took the direct route rather reluctantly.

He did not want to be reminded too sharply of Fred Thurman as a man who had lived his life in his own way and had died so horribly.
"Well, he didn't have it coming to him--but it's done and over with, now, so it's no use thinking about it," he reflected, when the roofs of the Thurman ranch buildings began to show now and then through the thin ranks of the cottonwoods along the creek.
But his face sobered as he rode along.

It seemed to him that the sleepy little meadows, the quiet murmuring of the creek, even the soft rustling of the cottonwood leaves breathed a new loneliness, an emptiness where the man who had called this place home, who had clung to it in the face of opposition that was growing into open warfare, had lived and had left life suddenly--unwarrantably, Lone knew in his heart.