o his friend the
innkeeper, "Thet fellar was Bent Wade!"

"So he told me," returned the other.

"But didn't you never hear of him? _Bent Wade?_"

"Now you tax me, thet name do 'pear familiar. But dash take it, I can't
remember. I knowed he was somebody, though. Hope I didn't wish a
gun-fighter or outlaw on Old Bill. Who was he, anyhow?"

"They call him Hell-Bent Wade. I seen him in Wyomin', whar he were a
stage-driver. But I never heerd who he was an' what he was till years
after. Thet was onct I dropped down into Boulder. Wade was thar, all
shot up, bein' nussed by Sam Coles. Sam's dead now. He was a friend of
Wade's an' knowed him fer long. Wal, I heerd all thet anybody ever heerd
about him, I reckon. Accordin' to Coles this hyar Hell-Bent Wade was a
strange, wonderful sort of fellar. He had the most amazin' ways. He
could do anythin' under the sun better'n any one else. Bad with guns!
He never stayed in one place fer long. He never hunted trouble, but
trouble follered him. As I remember Coles, thet was Wade's queer
idee--he couldn't shake trouble. No matter whar he went, always thar was
hell. Thet's what gave him the name Hell-Bent.... An' Coles swore thet
Wade was the whitest man he ever knew. Heart of gold, he said. Always
savin' somebody, helpin' somebody, givin' his money or time--never
thinkin' of himself a-tall.... When he began to tell thet story about
Cripple Creek then my ole head begun to ache with rememberin'. Fer I'd
heerd Bent Wade talk before. Jest the same kind of story he told hyar,
only wuss. Lordy! but thet fellar has seen times. An' queerest of all is
thet idee he has how hell's on his trail an' everywhere he roams it
ketches up with him, an' thar he meets the man who's got to hear
his tale!"

* * * * *

Sunset found Bent Wade far up the valley of White River under the shadow
of the Flat Top Mountains. It was beautiful country. Grassy hills, with
colored aspen groves, swelled up on his left, and across the brawling
stream rose a league-long slope of black spruce, above which the bare
red-and-gray walls of the range towered, glorious with the blaze of
sinking sun. White patches of snow showed in the sheltered nooks. Wade's
gaze rested longest on the colored heights.

By and by the narrow valley opened into a park, at the upper end of
which stood a log cabin. A few cattle and horses grazed in an inclosed
pasture. The trail led by the cabin. As Wade rode up a bus