--nature in its
simplicity and freedom and hidden cruelty, and the existence of people,
blindly hating, loving, sacrificing, mostly serving some noble aim, and
yet with baseness among them, the lees with the wine, evil intermixed
with good.

By and by the cowboys appeared on their spring mustangs, and in twos and
threes they rode off in different directions. But none rode Wade's way.
The sun rose higher, and there was warmth in the air. Bees began to hum
by Wade, and fluttering moths winged uncertain flight over him.

At the end of another hour Jack Belllounds came out of the house, gazed
around him, and then stalked to the barn where he kept his horses. For a
little while he was not in sight; then he reappeared, mounted on a white
horse, and he rode into the pasture, and across that to the hay-field,
and along the edge of this to the slope of the hill. Here he climbed to
a small clump of aspens. This grove was not so far from Wilson Moore's
cabin; in fact, it marked the boundary-line between the rancher's range
and the acres that Moore had acquired. Jack vanished from sight here,
but not before Wade had made sure he was dismounting.

"Reckon he kept to that grassy ground for a reason of his own--and
plainer to me than any tracks," soliloquized Wade, as he strained his
eyes. At length Belllounds came out of the grove, and led his horse
round to where Wade knew there was a trail leading to and from Moore's
cabin. At this point Jack mounted and rode west. Contrary to his usual
custom, which was to ride hard and fast, he trotted the white horse as a
cowboy might have done when going out on a day's work. Wade had to
change his position to watch Belllounds, and his somber gaze followed
him across the hill, down the slope, along the willow-bordered brook,
and so on to the opposite side of the great valley, where Jack began to
climb in the direction of Buffalo Park.

After Belllounds had disappeared and had been gone for an hour, Wade
went down on the other side of the hill, found his horse where he had
left him, in a thicket, and, mounting, he rode around to strike the
trail upon which Belllounds had ridden. The imprint of fresh horse
tracks showed clear in the soft dust. And the left front track had been
made by a shoe crudely triangular in shape, identical with that peculiar
to Wilson Moore's horse.

"Ahuh!" muttered Wade, in greeting to what he had expected to see.
"Well, Buster Jack, it's a plain trail now--damn your