h, 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 my
hand off. The gal--Columbine, she's called--doctored me up. Fact is, I
owe considerable to thet White Slides Ranch. There's a cowboy, Wils
somethin', who rode up here with some medicine fer me--some they didn't
have when I was thar. You'll like thet boy. I seen he was sweet on the
gal an' I sure couldn't blame him."

Bent Wade removed his pipe and let out a strange laugh, significant with
its 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 cowboy
bein' 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, and
as 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 look
at them neighbors you spoke of that might be rustlers.... I'll turn in
now. Good night."

CHAPTER V

Bent Wade rode out of the forest to look down upon the White Slides
country at the hour when it was most beautiful.

"Never seen the beat of that!" he exclaimed, as he halted.

The hour was sunset, with the golden rays and shadows streaking ahead of
him down the rolling sage hills, all rosy and gray with rich, strange
softness. Groves of aspens stood isolated from one another--here
crowning a hill with blazing yellow, and there fringing the brow of
another with gleaming gold, and lower down reflecting the sunlight with
brilliant red and purple. The valley seemed filled with a delicate haze,
almost like smoke. White Slides Ranch was hidden from sight, as it lay
in the bottomland. The gray old peak towered proud and aloof, clear-cut
and sunset-flushed against the blue. The eastern slope of the valley was
a vast sweep of sage and hill and grassy bench and aspen bench, on fire
with the colors of autumn made molten by the last flashing of the sun.
Great black slopes of forest gave sharp contrast, and led up to the
red-walled rampa