ng for
and feeling for, but to no avail, for he had found him not. The very men
whom he would have at one time killed on sight, had he known then as
much as he did now, were those who had on more than one occasion saved
him from death, men whom he now believed had wound themselves so
thoroughly about his heart as to cause him to love rather than hate
them. Through his mind ran thoughts of things that had been done so long
as to be almost forgotten by others, but they clung to his memory as a
reminder of what men would do again. In his heart was nothing but hatred
for the man who shot Fred Conover to death, and he would far rather put
a bullet through his heart than any other man he knew, even Al Thompson.
Thompson, he knew, was always somewhere about looking for him, that he
might put a bullet into his brain or a knife into his heart.

Wade was to the Judsons a seemingly fast friend, and therefore must be
firmly against the Thompsons. Regarded in this light, it was only
necessary to meet one of the avowed enemy and someone would go out of
this world of trouble.

Time passes swiftly over our heads. It won't wait for any human being.
The pace of humanity is entirely too slow for old Father Time, who only
looks once as he glides swiftly on. Things can't all happen in a day.
Sometimes one could look out through the darkened gloom and see away in
the distance the brightness of a flame leaping high and sending great
sparks heavenward. Some poor deluded human being, some weak human being,
was no doubt losing all of his earthly possessions--his tobacco crop.
Sometimes one could listen out over the star-lit earth, when all else
slumbered peacefully in the very arms of nature, and catch the faint
report of a rifle shot; and had he been nearer to the scene of the
conflict could perhaps have heard the groan of a dying soul as it made
its last farewell gasp and flitted into eternity. Such is life where
strife and turmoil are uppermost in the human heart and mind.

Wade looked back for one moment over the vast expanse of the past and
saw all; then he closed his eyes and looked into the future. It was all
blank; his mind kept to the present. For one moment he was gazing into
the dark eyes of Nora Judson, the next into the translucent waters of
the little brook on the banks of which he had sat whiling away many
happy hours beside the girl who was such an ardent student of nature,
and in whom he had never dreamed there could have been