Page:War Drums (1928).pdf/55

 regarding Almayne's suspicions of Falcon—he knew the old hunter too well to dismiss lightly any idea of his.

Yet, studying this one carefully, Lachlan could find no tangible foundation for it in the facts that Almayne had made known to him. Plainly Falcon was in love with Jolie—Lachlan had divined this much in the Stanwicke garden when he had seen Falcon kiss the girl's hand. But he could see no reason for believing that Falcon knew anything about Gilbert Barradell's disappearance or present whereabouts, if he were still alive; and it seemed unlikely, on the whole, that the Englishman who had been seen nearly a year before in Concha's country was Gilbert Barradell. Lachlan's thoughts had strayed to other aspects of the problem—aspects concerned chiefly with Jolie Stanwicke herself—when, on his way to his lodgings, he passed by Ramage's tavern where, earlier in the evening, he had seen Falcon rout the pack-horse drivers.

Falcon lodged there when he slept in town instead of on his brig; and as Lachlan walked slowly along the deserted street, he watched curiously a lighted window of an upper room, thinking possibly to catch a glimpse of a man with whom he had already had a somewhat memorable passage and who might become even better known to him in the future.

The man interested him keenly. None seemed to know certainly who Lance Falcon was or whence he