cious, and active on his own account. According to
the best of his evidence and judgment there had been a gang of rough men
come of late to Gore Peak, where they presumably were prospecting. This
gang was composed of strangers to Lewis. They had ridden to his cabin,
bought and borrowed of him, and, during his absence, had stolen from
him. He believed they were in hiding, probably being guilty of some
depredation in another locality. They gave both Kremmling and Elgeria a
wide berth. On the other hand, the Smith gang from Elgeria rode to and
fro, like ranchers searching for lost horses. There were only three in
this gang, including Smith. Lewis had seen these men driving unbranded
stock. And lastly, Lewis casually imparted the information, highly
interesting to Wade, that he had seen Jack Belllounds riding through the
forest. The prospector did not in the least, however, connect the
appearance of the son of Belllounds with the other facts so peculiarly
interesting to Wade. Cowboys and hunters rode trails across the range,
and though they did so rather infrequently, there was nothing unusual
about encountering them.

Wade remained all night with Lewis, and next morning rode six miles
along the divide, and then down into a valley, where at length he found
a cabin described by the prospector. It was well hidden in the edge of
the forest, where a spring gushed from under a low cliff. But for water
and horse tracks Wade would not have found it easily. Rifle in hand, and
on foot, he slipped around in the woods, as a hunter might have, to
stalk drinking deer. There were no smoke, no noise, no horses anywhere
round the cabin, and after watching awhile Wade went forward to look at
it. It was an old ramshackle hunter's or prospector's cabin, with dirt
floor, a crumbling fireplace and chimney, and a bed platform made of
boughs. Including the door, it had three apertures, and the two smaller
ones, serving as windows, looked as if they had been intended for
port-holes as well. The inside of the cabin was large and unusually well
lighted, owing to the windows and to the open chinks between the logs.
Wade saw a deck of cards lying bent and scattered in one corner, as if
a violent hand had flung them against the wall. Strange that Wade's
memory returned a vivid picture of Jack Belllounds in just that act of
violence! The only other thing around the place which earned scrutiny
from Wade was a number of horseshoe tracks outside, with the l