CHAPTER IV
Only one man at Meeker appeared to be attracted by the news that RancherBill Belllounds was offering employment. This was a littlecadaverous-looking fellow, apparently neither young nor old, who saidhis name was Bent Wade. He had drifted into Meeker with two poor horsesand a pack.
"Whar you from?" asked the innkeeper, observing how Wade cared for hishorses before he thought of himself. The query had to be repeated.
"Cripple Creek. I was cook for some miners an' I panned gold betweentimes," was the reply.
"Humph! Thet oughter been a better-payin' job than any to be hedhereabouts."
"Yes, got big pay there," said Wade, with a sigh.
"What'd you leave fer?"
"We hed a fight over the diggin's an' I was the only one left. I'll tellyou...." Whereupon Wade sat down on a box, removed his old sombrero, andbegan to talk. An idler sauntered over, attracted by something. Then aminer happened by to halt and join the group.
Next, old Kemp, the patriarch of the village, came and listenedattentively. Wade seemed to have a strange magnetism, a magic tongue.
He was small of stature, but wiry and muscular. His garments were old,soiled, worn. When he removed the wide-brimmed sombrero he exposed aremarkable face. It was smooth except for a drooping mustache, andpallid, with drops of sweat standing out on the high, broad forehead;gaunt and hollow-cheeked, with an enormous nose, and cavernous eyes setdeep under shaggy brows. These features, however, were not so strikingin themselves. Long, sloping, almost invisible lines of pain, the shadowof mystery and gloom in the deep-set, dark eyes, a sad harmony betweenfeatures and expression, these marked the man's face with a record nokeen eye could miss.
Wade told a terrible tale of gold and blood and death. It seemed torelieve him. His face changed, and lost what might have been called itstragic light, its driven intensity.
His listeners shook their heads in awe. Hard tales were common inColorado, but this one was exceptional. Two of the group left withoutcomment. Old Kemp stared with narrow, half-recognizing eyes at thenew-comer.
"Wal! Wal!" ejaculated the innkeeper. "It do beat hell what canhappen!... Stranger, will you put up your hosses an' stay?"
"I'm lookin' for work," replied Wade.
It was then that mention was made of Belllounds sending to Meeker forhands.
"Old Bill Belllounds thet settled Middle Park an' made friends with theUtes," said Wade, as if certain of his facts.
"Yep, you have Bill to rights. Do you know him?"
"I seen him once twenty years ago."
"Ever been to Middle Park? Belllounds owns ranches there," said theinnkeeper.
"He ain't livin' in the Park now," interposed Kemp. "He's at WhiteSlides, I reckon, these last eight or ten years. Thet's over theGore Range."
"Prospected all through that country," said Wade.
"Wal, it's a fine part of Colorado. Hay an' stock country--too high fergrain. Did you mean you'd been through the Park?"
"Once--long ago," replied Wade, staring with his great, cavernous eyesinto space. Some memory of Middle Park haunted him.
"Wal, then, I won't be steerin' you wrong," said the innkeeper. "I likethet country. Some people don't. An' I say if you can cook or pack orpunch cows or 'most anythin' you'll find a bunk with Old Bill. Iunderstand he was needin' a hunter most of all. Lions an' wolves bad!Can you hunt?"
"Hey?" queried Wade, absently, as he inclined his ear. "I'm deaf on oneside."
"Are you a good man with dogs an' guns?" shouted his questioner.
"Tolerable," replied Wade.
"Then you're sure of a job."
"I'll go. Much obliged to you."
"Not a-tall. I'm doin' Belllounds a favor. Reckon you'll put up hereto-night?"
"I always sleep out. But I'll buy feed an' supplies," replied Wade, ashe turned to his horses.
Old Kemp trudged down the road, wagging his gray head as if he wascontending with a memory sadly failing him. An hour later when Bent Waderode out of town he passed Kemp, and hailed him. The old-timer suddenlyslapped his leg: "By Golly! I knowed I'd met him before!"
Later, he said with a show of gossipy excitement to his friend theinnkeeper, "Thet fellar was Bent Wade!"
"So he told me," returned the other.
"But didn't you never hear of him? _Bent Wade?_"
"Now you tax me, thet name do 'pear familiar. But dash take it, I can'tremember. I knowed he was somebody, though. Hope I didn't wish agun-fighter or outlaw on Old Bill. Who was he, anyhow?"
"They call him Hell-Bent Wade. I seen him in Wyomin', whar he were astage-driver. But I never heerd who he was an' what he was till yearsafter. Thet was onct I dropped down into Boulder. Wade was thar, allshot up, bein' nussed by Sam Coles. Sam's dead now. He was a friend ofWade's an' knowed him fer long. Wal, I heerd all thet anybody ever heerdabout him, I reckon. Accordin' to Coles this hyar Hell-Bent Wade was astrange, wonderful sort of fellar. He had the most amazin' ways. Hecould do anythin' under the sun better'n any one else. Bad with guns!He never stayed in one place fer long. He never hunted trouble, buttrouble follered him. As I remember Coles, thet was Wade's queeridee--he couldn't shake trouble. No matter whar he went, always thar washell. Thet's what gave him the name Hell-Bent.... An' Coles swore thetWade was the whitest man he ever knew. Heart of gold, he said. Alwayssavin' somebody, helpin' somebody, givin' his money or time--neverthinkin' of himself a-tall.... When he began to tell thet story aboutCripple Creek then my ole head begun to ache with rememberin'. Fer I'dheerd Bent Wade talk before. Jest the same kind of story he told hyar,only wuss. Lordy! but thet fellar has seen times. An' queerest of all isthet idee he has how hell's on his trail an' everywhere he roams itketches up with him, an' thar he meets the man who's got to hearhis tale!"
* * * * *
Sunset found Bent Wade far up the valley of White River under the shadowof the Flat Top Mountains. It was beautiful country. Grassy hills, withcolored aspen groves, swelled up on his left, and across the brawlingstream rose a league-long slope of black spruce, above which the barered-and-gray walls of the range towered, glorious with the blaze ofsinking sun. White patches of snow showed in the sheltered nooks. Wade'sgaze rested longest on the colored heights.
By and by the narrow valley opened into a park, at the upper end ofwhich stood a log cabin. A few cattle and horses grazed in an inclosedpasture. The trail led by the cabin. As Wade rode up a bushy-haired mancame out of the door, rifle in hand. He might have been going out tohunt, but his scrutiny of Wade was that of a lone settler in awild land.
"Howdy, stranger!" he said.
"Good evenin'," replied Wade. "Reckon you're Blair an' I'm nigh theheadwaters of this river?"
"Yep, a matter of three miles to Trapper's Lake."
"My name's Wade. I'm packin' over to take a job with Bill Belllounds."
"Git down an' come in," returned Blair. "Bill's man stopped with me sometime ago."
"Obliged, I'm sure, but I'll be goin' on," responded Wade. "Do youhappen to have a hunk of deer meat? Game powerful scarce comin' upthis valley."
"Lots of deer an' elk higher up. I chased a bunch of more'n thirty, Ireckon, right out of my pasture this mornin'."
Blair crossed to an open shed near by and returned with half a deerhaunch, which he tied upon Wade's pack-horse.
"My ole woman's ailin'. Do you happen to hev some terbaccer?
"I sure do--both smokin' an' chewin', an' I can spare more chewin'. Alittle goes a long ways with me."
"Wal, gimme some of both, most chewin'," replied Blair, with evidentsatisfaction.
"You acquainted with Belllounds?" asked Wade, as he handed over thetobacco.
"Wal, yes, everybody knows Bill. You'd never find a whiter boss in thesehills."
"Has he any family?"
"Now, I can't say as to thet," replied Blair. "I heerd he lost a wifeyears ago. Mebbe he married ag'in. But Bill's gittin' along."
"Good day to you, Blair," said Wade, and took up h
is bridle.
"Good day an' good luck. Take the right-hand trail. Better trot up abit, if you want to make camp before dark."
Wade soon entered the spruce forest. Then he came to a shallow, roaringriver. The horses drank the water, foaming white and amber around theirknees, and then with splash and thump they forded it over the slipperyrocks. As they cracked out upon the trail a covey of grouse whirred upinto the low branches of spruce-trees. They were tame.
"That's somethin' like," said Wade. "First birds I've seen this fall.Reckon I can have stew any day."
He halted his horse and made a move to dismount, but with his eyes onthe grouse he hesitated. "Tame as chickens, an' they sure are pretty."
Then he rode on, leading his pack-horse. The trail was not steep,although in places it had washed out, thus hindering a steady trot. Ashe progressed the forest grew thick and darker, and the fragrance ofpine and spruce filled the air. A dreamy roar of water rushing overrocks rang in the traveler's ears. It receded at times, then grewlouder. Presently the forest shade ahead lightened and he rode out intoa wide space where green moss and flags and flowers surrounded awonderful spring-hole. Sunset gleams shone through the trees to colorthe wide, round pool. It was shallow all along the margin, with a deep,large green hole in the middle, where the water boiled up. Trout werefeeding on gnats and playing on the surface, and some big ones leftwakes behind them as they sped to deeper water. Wade had an appreciativeeye for all this beauty, his gaze lingering longest upon the flowers.
"Wild woods is the place for me," he soliloquized, as the cool windfanned his cheeks and the sweet tang of evergreen tingled his nostrils."But sure I'm most haunted in these lonely, silent places."
Bent Wade had the look of a haunted man. Perhaps the consciousness heconfessed was part of his secret.
Twilight had come when again he rode out into the open. Trapper's Lakelay before him, a beautiful sheet of water, mirroring the black slopesand the fringed spruces and the flat peaks. Over all its gray,twilight-softened surface showed little swirls and boils and splasheswhere the myriads of trout were rising. The trail led out over opengrassy shores, with a few pines straggling down to the lake, and clumpsof spruces raising dark blurs against the background of gleaming lake.Wade heard a sharp crack of hoofs on rock, and he knew he had disturbeddeer at their drinking; also he heard a ring of horns on the branch of atree, and was sure an elk was slipping off through the woods. Across thelake he saw a camp-fire and a pale, sharp-pointed object that was atrapper's tent or an Indian's tepee.
Selecting a camp-site for himself, he unsaddled his horse, threw thepack off the other, and, hobbling both animals, he turned them loose.His roll of bedding, roped in canvas tarpaulin, he threw under aspruce-tree. Then he opened his oxhide-covered packs and laid oututensils and bags, little and big. All his movements were methodical,yet swift, accurate, habitual. He was not thinking about what he wasdoing. It took him some little time to find a suitable log to split forfire-wood, and when he had started a blaze night had fallen, and thelight as it grew and brightened played fantastically upon theisolating shadows.
Lid and pot of the little Dutch oven he threw separately upon thesputtering fire, and while they heated he washed his hands, mixed thebiscuits, cut slices of meat off the deer haunch, and put water on toboil. He broiled his meat on the hot, red coals, and laid it near onclean pine chips, while he waited for bread to bake and coffee to boil.The smell of wood-smoke and odorous steam from pots and the fragrance ofspruce mingled together, keen, sweet, appetizing. Then he ate his simplemeal hungrily, with the content of the man who had fared worse.
After he had satisfied himself he washed his utensils and stowed themaway, with the bags. Whereupon his movements acquired less dexterity andspeed. The rest hour had come. Still, like the long-experienced man inthe open, he looked around for more to do, and his gaze fell upon hisweapons, lying on his saddle. His rifle was a Henry--shiny and smoothfrom long service and care. His small gun was a Colt's 45. It had beencarried in a saddle holster. Wade rubbed the rifle with his hands, andthen with a greasy rag which he took from the sheath. After that he heldthe rifle to the heat of the fire. A squall of rain had overtaken himthat day, wetting his weapons. A subtle and singular difference seemedto show in the way he took up the Colt's. His action was slow, his lookreluctant. The small gun was not merely a thing of steel and powder andball. He dried it and rubbed it with care, but not with love, and thenhe stowed it away.
Next Wade unrolled his bed under the spruce, with one end of thetarpaulin resting on the soft mat of needles. On top of that came thetwo woolly sheepskins, which he used to lie upon, then his blankets, andover all the other end of the tarpaulin.
This ended his tasks for the day. He lighted his pipe and composedhimself beside the camp-fire to smoke and rest awhile before going tobed. The silence of the wilderness enfolded lake and shore; yetpresently it came to be a silence accentuated by near and distantsounds, faint, wild, lonely--the low hum of falling water, the splash oftiny waves on the shore, the song of insects, and the dismal hootof owls.
"Bill Belllounds--an' he needs a hunter," soliloquized Bent Wade, withgloomy, penetrating eyes, seeing far through the red embers. "That willsuit me an' change my luck, likely. Livin' in the woods, away frompeople--I could stick to a job like that.... But if this White Slides isclose to the old trail I'll never stay."
He sighed, and a darker shadow, not from flickering fire, overspread hiscadaverous face. Eighteen years ago he had driven the woman he lovedaway from him, out into the world with her baby girl. Never had herested beside a camp-fire that that old agony did not recur! Jealousfool! Too late he had discovered his fatal blunder; and then had begun asearch over Colorado, ending not a hundred miles across the wildmountains from where he brooded that lonely hour--a search ended by newsof the massacre of a wagon-train by Indians.
That was Bent Wade's secret.
And no earthly sufferings could have been crueler than his agony andremorse, as through the long years he wandered on and on. The very goodthat he tried to do seemed to foment evil. The wisdom that grew out ofhis suffering opened pitfalls for his wandering feet. The wildness ofmen and the passion of women somehow waited with incredible fatality forthat hour when chance led him into their lives. He had toiled, he hadgiven, he had fought, he had sacrificed, he had killed, he had enduredfor the human nature which in his savage youth he had betrayed. Yet outof his supreme and endless striving to undo, to make reparation, to givehis life, to find God, had come, it seemed to Wade in his abasement,only a driving torment.
But though his thought and emotion fluctuated, varying, wandering, hismemory held a fixed and changeless picture of a woman, fair and sweet,with eyes of nameless blue, and face as white as a flower.
"Baby would have been--let's see--'most nineteen years old now--if she'dlived," he said. "A big girl, I reckon, like her mother.... Strange how,as I grow older, I remember better!"
The night wind moaned through the spruces; dark clouds scudded acrossthe sky, blotting out the bright stars; a steady, low roar of water camefrom the outlet of the lake. The camp-fire flickered and burned out, sothat no sparks blew into the blackness, and the red embers glowed andpaled and crackled. Wade at length got up and made ready for bed. Hethrew back tarpaulin and blankets, and laid his rifle alongside where hecould cover it. His coat served for a pillow and he put the Colt's gununder that; then pulling off his boots, he slipped into bed, dressed ashe was, and, like all men in the open, at once fell asleep.
For Wade, and for countless men like him, who for many years had roamedthe West, this sleeping alone in wild places held both charm and peril.But the fascination of it was only a vague realization, and the dangerwas laughed at.
Over Bent Wade's quiet form the shadows played, the spruce boughs waved,the piny needles rustled down, the wind moaned louder as the nightadvanced. By and by the horses rested from their grazing; the insectsceased to hum; and the continuous roar of water dominated the solitude.If wild animals passed Wade
's camp they gave it a wide berth.
* * * * *
Sunrise found Wade on the trail, climbing high up above the lake, makingfor the pass over the range. He walked, leading his horses up a zigzagtrail that bore the tracks of recent travelers. Although this countrywas sparsely settled, yet there were men always riding from camp to campor from one valley town to another. Wade never tarried on awell-trodden trail.
As he climbed higher the spruce-trees grew smaller, no longer forming agreen aisle before him, and at length they became dwarfed and stunted,and at last failed altogether. Soon he was above timber-line and outupon a flat-topped mountain range, where in both directions the landrolled and dipped, free of tree or shrub, colorful with grass andflowers. The elevation exceeded eleven thousand feet. A whipping windswept across the plain-land. The sun was pale-bright in the east, slowlybeing obscured by gray clouds. Snow began to fall, first in scudding,scanty flakes, but increasing until the air was full of a great, fleecyswirl. Wade rode along the rim of a mountain wall, watching a beautifulsnow-storm falling into the brown gulf beneath him. Once as he headedround a break he caught sight of mountain-sheep cuddled under aprotecting shelf. The snow-squall blew away, like a receding wall,leaving grass and flowers wet. As the dark clouds parted, the sun shonewarmer out of the blue. Gray peaks, with patches of white, stood upabove their black-timbered slopes.
Wade soon crossed the flat-topped pass over the range and faced adescent, rocky and bare at first, but yielding gradually to theencroachment of green. He left the cold winds and bleak trails abovehim. In an hour, when he was half down the slope, the forest had becomewarm and dry, fragrant and still. At length he rode out upon the brow ofa last wooded bench above a grassy valley, where a bright, windingstream gleamed in the sun. While the horses rested Wade looked abouthim. Nature never tired him. If he had any peace it emanated from thesilent places, the solemn hills, the flowers and animals of the wild andlonely land.
A few straggling pines shaded this last low hill above the valley. Grassgrew luxuriantly there in the open, but not under the trees, where thebrown needle-mats jealously obstructed the green. Clusters of columbineswaved their graceful, sweet, pale-blue flowers that Wade felt a joy inseeing. He loved flowers--columbines, the glory of Colorado, came first,and next the many-hued purple asters, and then the flaunting spikes ofpaint-brush, and after them the nameless and numberless wild flowersthat decked the mountain meadows and colored the grass of the aspengroves and peeped out of the edge of snow fields.
"Strange how it seems good to live--when I look at a columbine--or watcha beaver at his work--or listen to the bugle of an elk!" mused BentWade. He wondered why, with all his life behind him, he could still findcomfort in these things.
Then he rode on his way. The grassy valley, with its winding stream,slowly descended and widened, and left foothill and mountain far behind.Far across a wide plain rose another range, black and bold against theblue. In the afternoon Wade reached Elgeria, a small hamlet, butimportant by reason of its being on the main stage line, and becausehere miners and cattlemen bought supplies. It had one street, so wide itappeared to be a square, on which faced a line of bold board houses withhigh, flat fronts. Wade rode to the inn where the stagecoaches madeheadquarters. It suited him to feed and rest his horses there, andpartake of a meal himself, before resuming his journey.
The proprietor was a stout, pleasant-faced little woman, loquacious andamiable, glad to see a stranger for his own sake rather than fromconsiderations of possible profit. Though Wade had never before visitedElgeria, he soon knew all about the town, and the miners up in thehills, and the only happenings of moment--the arrival and departureof stages.
"Prosperous place," remarked Wade. "I saw that. An' it ought to begrowin'."
"Not so prosperous fer me as it uster be," replied the lady. "We didwell when my husband was alive, before our competitor come to town. Heruns a hotel where miners can drink an' gamble. I don't.... But I reckonI've no cause to complain. I live."
"Who runs the other hotel?"
"Man named Smith. Reckon thet's not his real name. I've had people herewho--but it ain't no matter."
"Men change their names," replied Wade.
"Stranger, air you packin' through or goin' to stay?"
"On my way to White Slides Ranch, where I'm goin' to work forBelllounds. Do you know him?"
"Know Belllounds? Me? Wal, he's the best friend I ever had when I was atKremmlin'. I lived there several years. My husband had stock there. Infact, Bill started us in the cattle business. But we got out of therean' come here, where Bob died, an' I've been stuck ever since."
"Everybody has a good word for Belllounds," observed Wade.
"You'll never hear a bad one," replied the woman, with cheerful warmth."Bill never had but one fault, an' people loved him fer thet."
"What was it?"
"He's got a wild boy thet he thinks the sun rises an' sets in. BusterJack, they call him. He used to come here often. But Bill sent him awaysomewhere. The boy was spoiled. I saw his mother years ago--she's deadthis long time--an' she was no wife fer Bill Belllounds. Jack took afterher. An' Bill was thet woman's slave. When she died all his big heartwent to the son, an' thet accounts. Jack will never be any good."
Wade thoughtfully nodded his head, as if he understood, and waspondering other possibilities.
"Is he the only child?"
"There's a girl, but she's not Bill's kin. He adopted her when she was ababy. An' Jack's mother hated this child--jealous, we used to think,because it might grow up an' get some of Bill's money.'
"What's the girl's name?" asked Wade.
"Columbine. She was over here last summer with Old Bill. They stayedwith me. It was then Bill had hard words with Smith across the street.Bill was resentin' somethin' Smith put in my way. Wal, the lass's theprettiest I ever seen in Colorado, an' as good as she's pretty. Old Billhinted to me he'd likely make a match between her an' his son Jack. An'I ups an' told him, if Jack hadn't turned over a new leaf when he comeshome, thet such a marriage would be tough on Columbine. Whew, but OldBill was mad. He jest can't stand a word ag'in' thet Buster Jack."
"Columbine Belllounds," mused Wade. "Queer name."
"Oh, I've knowed three girls named Columbine. Don't you know the flower?It's common in these parts. Very delicate, like a sago lily,only paler."
"Were you livin' in Kremmlin' when Belllounds adopted the girl?" askedWade.
"Laws no!" was the reply. "Thet was long before I come to Middle Park.But I heerd all about it. The baby was found by gold-diggers up in themountains. Must have got lost from a wagon-train thet Indians set onsoon after--so the miners said. Anyway, Old Bill took the baby an'raised her as his own."
"How old is she now?" queried Wade, with a singular change in his tone.
"Columbine's around nineteen."
Bent Wade lowered his head a little, hiding his features under the old,battered, wide-brimmed hat. The amiable innkeeper did not see the tremorthat passed over him, nor the slight stiffening that followed, nor thegray pallor of his face. She went on talking until some one called her.
Wade went outdoors, and with bent head walked down the street, across alittle river, out into green pasture-land. He struggled with an amazingpossibility. Columbine Belllounds might be his own daughter. His heartleaped with joy. But the joy was short-lived. No such hope in this worldfor Bent Wade! This coincidence, however, left him with a strange,prophetic sense in his soul of a tragedy coming to White Slides Ranch.Wade possessed some power of divination, some strange gift to pierce theveil of the future. But he could not exercise this power at will; itcame involuntarily, like a messenger of trouble in the dark night.Moreover, he had never yet been able to draw away from the fascinationof this knowledge. It lured him on. Always his decision had been to goon, to meet this boding circumstance, or to remain and meet it, in thehope that he might take some one's burden upon his shoulders. He sensedit now, in the keen, poignant clairvoyance of the moment--the
tangle oflife that he was about to enter. Old Bill Belllounds, big and fine,victim of love for a wayward son; Buster Jack, the waster, thetearer-down, the destroyer, the wild youth at a wild time; Columbine,the girl of unknown birth, good and loyal, subject to a condition sureto ruin her. Wade's strange mind revolved a hundred outcomes to thisconflict of characters, but not one of them was the one that waswritten. That remained dark. Never had he received so strong a call outof the unknown, nor had he ever felt such intense curiosity. Hope hadlong been dead in him, except the one that he might atone in some wayfor the wrong he had done his wife. So the pangs of emotion thatrecurred, in spite of reason and bitterness, were not recognized by himas lingering hopes. Wade denied the human in him, but he thrilled at thethought of meeting Columbine Belllounds. There was something here beyondall his comprehension.
"It _might_--be true!" he whispered. "I'll know when I see her."
Then he walked back toward the inn. On the way he looked into thebarroom of the hotel run by Smith. It was a hard-looking place, halffull of idle men, whose faces were as open pages to Bent Wade. Curiositydid not wholly control the impulse that made him wait at the door tillhe could have a look at the man Smith. Somewhere, at some time, Wade hadmet most of the veterans of western Colorado. So much he had traveled!But the impulse that held him was answered and explained when Smith camein--a burly man, with an ugly scar marring one eye. Bent Wade recognizedSmith. He recognized the scar. For that scar was his own mark, dealt tothis man, whose name was not Smith, and who had been as evil as helooked, and whose nomadic life was not due to remorse or love of travel.
Wade passed on without being seen. This recognition meant less to himthan it would have ten years ago, as he was not now the kind of man whohunted old enemies for revenge or who went to great lengths to keep outof their way. Men there were in Colorado who would shoot at him onsight. There had been more than one that had shot to his cost.
* * * * *
That night Wade camped in the foothills east of Elgeria, and upon thefollowing day, at sunrise, his horses were breaking the frosty grass andferns of the timbered range. This he crossed, rode down into a valleywhere a lonely cabin nestled, and followed an old, blazed trail thatwound up the course of a brook. The water was of a color that made rockand sand and moss seem like gold. He saw no signs or tracks of game. Agray jay now and then screeched his approach to unseen denizens of thewoods. The stream babbled past him over mossy ledges, under the darkshade of clumps of spruces, and it grew smaller as he progressed towardits source. At length it was lost in a swale of high, rank grass, andthe blazed trail led on through heavy pine woods. At noon he reached thecrest of the divide, and, halting upon an open, rocky eminence, he gazeddown over a green and black forest, slow-descending to a great irregularpark that was his destination for the night.
Wade needed meat, and to that end, as he went on, he kept a sharplookout for deer, especially after he espied fresh tracks crossing thetrail. Slipping along ahead of his horses, that followed, him almost tooclosely to permit of his noiseless approach to game, he hunted all theway down to the great open park without getting a shot.
This park was miles across and miles long, covered with tall, wavinggrass, and it had straggling arms that led off into the surrounding beltof timber. It sloped gently toward the center, where a round, greenacreage of grass gave promise of water. Wade rode toward this, keepingsomewhat to the right, as he wanted to camp at the edge of the woods.Soon he rode out beyond one of the projecting peninsulas of forest tofind the park spreading wider in that direction. He saw horses grazingwith elk, and far down at the notch, where evidently the park had outletin a narrow valley, he espied the black, hump-shaped, shaggy forms ofbuffalo. They bobbed off out of sight. Then the elk saw or scented him,and they trotted away, the antlered bulls ahead of the cows. Wadewondered if the horses were wild. They showed great interest, but nofear. Beyond them was a rising piece of ground, covered with pine, andit appeared to stand aloft from the forest on the far side as well asupon that by which he was approaching. Riding a mile or so farther heascertained that this bit of wooded ground resembled an island in alake. Presently he saw smoke arising above the treetops.
A tiny brook welled out of the green center of the park and meanderedaround to pass near the island of pines. Wade saw unmistakable signs ofprospecting along this brook, and farther down, where he crossed it, hefound tracks made that day.
The elevated plot of ground appeared to be several acres in extent,covered with small-sized pines, and at the far edge there was a littlelog cabin. Wade expected to surprise a lone prospector at his eveningmeal. As he rode up a dog ran out of the cabin, barking furiously. Aman, dressed in fringed buckskin, followed. He was tall, and had long,iron-gray hair over his shoulders. His bronzed and weather-beaten facewas a mass of fine wrinkles where the grizzled hair did not hide them,and his shining, red countenance proclaimed an honest, fearless spirit.
"Howdy, stranger!" he called, as Wade halted several rods distant. Hisgreeting was not welcome, but it was civil. His keen scrutiny, however,attested to more than his speech.
"Evenin', friend," replied Wade. "Might I throw my pack here?"
"Sure. Get down," answered the other. "I calkilate I never seen you inthese diggin's."
"No. I'm Bent Wade, an' on my way to White Slides to work forBelllounds."
"Glad to meet you. I'm new hereabouts, myself, but I know Belllounds. Myname's Lewis. I was jest cookin' grub. An' it'll burn, too, if I don'trustle. Turn your hosses loose an' come in."
Wade presented himself with something more than his usual methodicalaction. He smelled buffalo steak, and he was hungry. The cabin had beenbuilt years ago, and was a ramshackle shelter at best. The stonefireplace, however, appeared well preserved. A bed of red coals glowedand cracked upon the hearth.
"Reckon I sure smelled buffalo meat," observed Wade, with muchsatisfaction. "It's long since I chewed a hunk of that."
"All ready. Now pitch in.... Yes, thar's some buffalo left in here. Nothunted much. Thar's lots of elk an' herds of deer. After a little snowyou'd think a drove of sheep had been trackin' around. An' some bear."
Wade did not waste many words until he had enjoyed that meal. Later,while he helped his host, he recurred to the subject of game.
"If there's so many deer then there's lions an' wolves."
"You bet. I see tracks every day. Had a shot at a lofer not long ago.Missed him. But I reckon thar's more varmints over in the Troublesomecountry back of White Slides."
"Troublesome! Do they call it that?" asked Wade, with a queer smile.
"Sure. An' it is troublesome. Belllounds has been tryin' to hire ahunter. Offered me big wages to kill off the wolves an' lions."
"That's the job I'm goin' to take."
"Good!" exclaimed Lewis. "I'm sure glad. Belllounds is a nice fellar. Ifelt sort of cheap till I told him I wasn't really a hunter. You see,I'm prospectin' up here, an' pretendin' to be a hunter."
"What do you make that bluff for?" queried Wade.
"You couldn't fool any one who'd ever prospected for gold. I saw yoursigns out here."
"Wal, you've sharp eyes, thet's all. Wade, I've some ondesirableneighbors over here. I'd just as lief they didn't see me diggin' gold.Lately I've had a hunch they're rustlin' cattle. Anyways, they've soldcattle in Kremmlin' thet came from over around Elgeria."
"Wherever there's cattle there's sure to be some stealin'," observedWade.
"Wal, you needn't say anythin' to Belllounds, because mebbe I'm wrong.An' if I found out I was right I'd go down to White Slides an' tell itmyself. Belllounds done some favors."
"How far to White Slides?" asked Wade, with a puff on his pipe.
"Roundabout trail, an' rough, but you'll make it in one day, easy.Beautiful country. Open, big peaks an' ranges, with valleys an' lakes.Never seen such grass!"
"Did you ever see Belllounds's son?"
"No. Didn't know he hed one. But I seen his gal the fust day I was thar
.She was nice to me. I went thar to be fixed up a bit. Nearly chopped myhand off. The gal--Columbine, she's called--doctored me up. Fact is, Iowe considerable to thet White Slides Ranch. There's a cowboy, Wilssomethin', who rode up here with some medicine fer me--some they didn'thave when I was thar. You'll like thet boy. I seen he was sweet on thegal an' I sure couldn't blame him."
Bent Wade removed his pipe and let out a strange laugh, significant withits little note of grim confirmation.
"What's funny about thet?" demanded Lewis, rather surprised.
"I was only laughin'," replied Wade. "What you said about the cowboybein' sweet on the girl popped into my head before you told it. Well,boys will be boys. I was young once an' had my day."
Lewis grunted as he bent over to lift a red coal to light his pipe, andas he raised his head he gave Wade a glance of sympathetic curiosity.
"Wal, I hope I'll see more of you," he said, as his guest rose,evidently to go.
"Reckon you will, as I'll be chasin' hounds all over. An' I want a lookat them neighbors you spoke of that might be rustlers.... I'll turn innow. Good night."