t thar wasn't any other hurt--honest! They're takin' him to
Kremmlin'."

"Ah!" Columbine's low cry sounded strangely in her ears, as if some one
else had uttered it.

"Buster Jack made two bursts this hyar day," concluded Lem,
reflectively. "Miss Collie, I ain't shore how you're regardin' thet
individool, but I'm tellin' you this, fer your own good. He's bad
medicine. He has his old man's temper thet riles up at nuthin' an' never
felt a halter. Wusser'n thet, he's spoiled an' he acts like a colt
thet'd tasted loco. The idee of his ropin' Pronto right thar near the
round-up! Any one would think he jest come West. Old Bill is no fool.
But he wears blinders when he looks at his son. I'm predictin' bad days
fer White Slides Ranch."

CHAPTER IV

Only one man at Meeker appeared to be attracted by the news that Rancher
Bill Belllounds was offering employment. This was a little
cadaverous-looking fellow, apparently neither young nor old, who said
his name was Bent Wade. He had drifted into Meeker with two poor horses
and a pack.

"Whar you from?" asked the innkeeper, observing how Wade cared for his
horses before he thought of himself. The query had to be repeated.

"Cripple Creek. I was cook for some miners an' I panned gold between
times," was the reply.

"Humph! Thet oughter been a better-payin' job than any to be hed
hereabouts."

"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 tell
you...." Whereupon Wade sat down on a box, removed his old sombrero, and
began to talk. An idler sauntered over, attracted by something. Then a
miner happened by to halt and join the group.

Next, old Kemp, the patriarch of the village, came and listened
attentively. 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 a
remarkable face. It was smooth except for a drooping mustache, and
pallid, with drops of sweat standing out on the high, broad forehead;
gaunt and hollow-cheeked, with an enormous nose, and cavernous eyes set
deep under shaggy brows. These features, however, were not so striking
in themselves. Long, sloping, almost invisible lines of pain, the shadow
of mystery and gloom in the deep-set, dark eyes, a sad harmony between
features and expression, these marked the man's face wi