rts of the mountain range.

Wade watched the scene until the fire faded, the golden shafts paled and
died, the rosy glow on sage changed to cold steel gray. Then he rode out
upon the foothills. The trail led up and down slopes of sage. Grass grew
thicker as he descended. Once he startled a great flock of
prairie-chickens, or sage-hens, large gray birds, lumbering, swift
fliers, that whirred up, and soon plumped down again into the sage.
Twilight found him on a last long slope of the foothills, facing the
pasture-land of the valley, with the ranch still five miles distant, now
showing misty and dim in the gathering shadows.

Wade made camp where a brook ran near an aspen thicket. He had no desire
to hurry to meet events at White Slides Ranch, although he longed to see
this girl that belonged to Belllounds. Night settled down over the quiet
foothills. A pack of roving coyotes visited Wade, and sat in a
half-circle in the shadows back of the camp-fire. They howled and
barked. Nevertheless sleep visited Wade's tired eyelids the moment he
lay down and closed them.

* * * * *

Next morning, rather late, Wade rode down to White Slides Ranch. It
looked to him like the property of a rich rancher who held to the old
and proven customs of his generation. The corrals were new, but their
style was old. Wade reflected that it would be hard for rustlers or
horse-thieves to steal out of those corrals. A long lane led from the
pasture-land, following the brook that ran through the corrals and by
the back door of the rambling, comfortable-looking cabin. A cowboy was
leading horses across a wide square between the main ranch-house and a
cluster of cabins and sheds. He saw the visitor and waited.

"Mornin'," said Wade, as he rode up.

"Hod do," replied the cowboy.

Then these two eyed each other, not curiously nor suspiciously, but with
that steady, measuring gaze common to Western men.

"My name's Wade," said the traveler. "Come from Meeker way. I'm lookin'
for a job with Belllounds."

"I'm Lem Billings," replied the other. "Ridin' fer White Slides fer
years. Reckon the boss'll be glad to take you on."

"Is he around?"

"Sure. I jest seen him," replied Billings, as he haltered his horses to
a post. "I reckon I ought to give you a hunch."

"I'd take that as a favor."

"Wal, we're short of hands," said the cowboy. "Jest got the round-up
over. Hudson was hurt an' Wils Moore got crippled. Then th