Gore Peak was the highest point of the black range that extended for
miles westward from Buffalo Park. It was a rounded dome, covered with
timber and visible as a landmark from the surrounding country. All along
the eastern slope of that range an unbroken forest of spruce and pine
spread down to the edge of the valley. This valley narrowed toward its
source, which was Buffalo Park. A few well-beaten trails crossed that
country, one following Red Brook down to Kremmling; another crossing
from the Park to White Slides; and another going over the divide down to
Elgeria. The only well-known trail leading to Gore Peak was a branch-off
from the valley, and it went round to the south and more accessible side
of the mountain.
All that immense slope of timbered ridges, benches, ravines, and swales
west of Buffalo Park was exceedingly wild and rough country. Here the
buffalo took to cover from hunters, and were safe until they ventured
forth into the parks again. Elk and deer and bear made this forest
their home.
Bent Wade, hunter now for bigger game than wild beasts of the range,
left his horse at Lewis's cabin and penetrated the dense forest alone,
like a deer-stalker or an Indian in his movements. Lewis had acted as
scout for Wade, and had ridden furiously down to Sage Valley with news
of the rustlers. Wade had accompanied him back to Buffalo Park that
night, riding in the dark. There were urgent reasons for speed. Jack
Belllounds had ridden to Kremmling, and the hunter did not believe he
would return by the road he had taken.
Fox, Wade's favorite dog, much to his disgust, was left behind with
Lewis. The bloodhound, Kane, accompanied Wade. Kane had been ill-treated
and then beaten by Jack Belllounds, and he had left White Slides to take
up his home at Moore's cabin. And at last he had seemed to reconcile
himself to the hunter, not with love, but without distrust. Kane never
forgave; but he recognized his friend and master. Wade carried his rifle
and a buckskin pouch containing meat and bread. His belt, heavily
studded with shells, contained two guns, both now worn in plain sight,
with the one on the right side hanging low. Wade's character seemed to
have undergone some remarkable change, yet what he represented then was
not unfamiliar.
He headed for the concealed cabin on the edge of the high valley, under
the black brow of Gore Peak. It was early morning of a July day, with
summer fresh and new to the forest. Along the park edges the birds and
squirrels were holding carnival. The grass was crisp and bediamonded
with sparkling frost. Tracks of game showed sharp in the white patches.
Wade paused once, listening. Ah! That most beautiful of forest melodies
for him--the bugle of an elk. Clear, resonant, penetrating, with these
qualities held and blended by a note of wildness, it rang thrillingly
through all Wade's being. The hound listened, but was not interested. He
kept close beside the hunter or at his heels, a stealthily stepping,
warily glancing hound, not scenting the four-footed denizens of the
forest. He expected his master to put him on the trail of men.
The distance from the Park to Gore Peak, as a crow would have flown, was
not great. But Wade progressed slowly; he kept to the dense parts of
the forest; he avoided the open aisles, the swales, the glades, the high
ridges, the rocky ground. When he came to the Elgeria trail he was not
disappointed to find it smooth, untrodden by any recent travel. Half a
mile farther on through the forest, however, he encountered tracks of
three horses, made early the day before. Still farther on he found
cattle and horse tracks, now growing old and dim. These tracks, pointed
toward Elgeria, were like words of a printed page to Wade.
About noon he climbed a rocky eminence that jutted out from a
slow-descending ridge, and from this vantage-point he saw down the
wavering black and green bosom of the mountain slope. A narrow valley,
almost hidden, gleamed yellow in the sunlight. At the edge of this
valley a faint column of blue smoke curled upward.
"Ahuh!" muttered the hunter, as he looked. The hound whined and pushed a
cool nose into Wade's hand.
Then Wade resumed his noiseless and stealthy course through the woods.
He began a descent, leading off somewhat to the right of the point where
the smoke had arisen. The presence of the rustlers in the cabin was of
importance, yet not so paramount as another possibility. He expected
Jack Belllounds to be with them or meet them there, and that was the
thing he wanted to ascertain. When he got down below the little valley
he swung around to the left to cross the trail that came up from the
main valley, some miles still farther down. He found it, and was not
surprised to see fresh horse tracks, made that morning. He recognized
those tracks. Jack Belllounds was with the rustlers, come, no doubt, to
receive his pay.
Then the change in Wade, and the actions of a trailer of men, became
more singularly manifest. He reverted to some former habit of mind and
body. He was as slow as a shadow, absolutely silent, and the gaze that
roved ahead and all around must have taken note of every living thing,
of every moving leaf or fern or bough. The hound, with hair curling up
stiff on his back, stayed close to Wade, watching, listening, and
stepping with him. Certainly Wade expected the rustlers to have some one
of their number doing duty as an outlook. So he kept uphill, above the
cabin, and made his careful way through the thicket coverts, which at
that place were dense and matted clumps of jack-pine and spruce. At last
he could see the cabin and the narrow, grassy valley just beyond. To his
relief the horses were unsaddled and grazing. No man was in sight. But
there might be a dog. The hunter, in his slow advance, used keen and
unrelaxing vigilance, and at length he decided that if there had been a
dog he would have been tied outside to give an alarm.
Wade had now reached his objective point. He was some eighty paces from
the cabin, in line with an open aisle down which he could see into the
cleared space before the door. On his left were thick, small spruces,
with low-spreading branches, and they extended all the way to the cabin
on that side, and in fact screened two walls of it. Wade knew exactly
what he was going to do. No longer did he hesitate. Laying down his
rifle, he tied the hound to a little spruce, patting him and whispering
for him to stay there and be still.
Then Wade's action in looking to his belt-guns was that of a man who
expected to have recourse to them speedily and by whom the necessity was
neither regretted nor feared. Stooping low, he entered the thicket of
spruces. The soft, spruce-matted ground, devoid of brush or twig, did
not give forth the slightest sound of step, nor did the brushing of the
branches against his body. In some cases he had to bend the boughs.
Thus, swiftly and silently, with the gliding steps of an Indian, he
approached the cabin till the brown-barked logs loomed before him,
shutting off the clearer light.
He smelled a mingling of wood and tobacco smoke; he heard low, deep
voices of men; the shuffling and patting of cards; the musical click of
gold. Resting on his knees a moment the hunter deliberated. All was
exactly as he had expected. Luck favored him. These gamblers would be
absorbed in their game. The door of the cabin was just around the
corner, and he could glide noiselessly to it or gain it in a few leaps.
Either method would serve. But which he must try depended upon the
position of the men inside and that of their weapons.
Rising silently, Wade stepped up to the wall and peeped through a chink
between the logs. The sunshine streamed through windows and door. Jack
Belllounds sat on the ground, full in its light, back to the wall. He
was in his shirt-sleeves. The gambling fever and the grievous soreness
of a loser shone upon his pale face. Smith sat with back to Wade,
opposite Belllounds. The other men completed the square. All were close
enough together to reach comfortably for the cards and gold before them.
Wade's keen eyes took this in at a single glance, and then steadied
searchingly for smaller features of the scene. Belllounds had no weapon.
Smith's belt and gun lay in the sunlight on the hard, clay floor, out of
reach except by violent effort. The other two rustlers both wore their
weapons. Wade gave a long scrutiny to the faces of these comrades of
Smith, and evidently satisfied himself as to what he had to expect
from them.
Wade hesitated; then stooping low, he softly swept aside the intervening
boughs of spruce, glided out of the thicket into the open. Two noiseless
bounds! Another, and he was inside the door!
"Howdy, rustlers! Don't move!" he called.
The surprise of his appearance, or his voice, or both, stunned the four
men. Belllounds dropped his cards, and his jaw dropped at the same
instant. These were absolutely the only visible movements.
"I'm in talkin' humor, an' the longer you listen the longer you'll have
to live," said Wade. "But don't move!"
"We ain't movin'," burst out Smith. "Who're you, an' what d'ye want?"
It was singular that the rustler leader had not had a look at Wade,
whose movements had been swift and who now stood directly behind him.
Also it was obvious that Smith was sitting very stiff-necked and
straight. Not improbably he had encountered such situations before.
"Who're you?" he shouted, hoarsely.
"You ought to know me." The voice was Wade's, gentle, cold, with depth
and ring in it.
"I've heerd your voice somewhars--I'll gamble on thet."
"Sure. You ought to recognize my voice, Cap," returned Wade.
The rustler gave a violent start--a start that he controlled instantly.
"Cap! You callin' me thet?"
"Sure. We're old friends--_Cap Folsom!_"
In the silence, then, the rustler's hard breathing could be heard; his
neck bulged red; only the eyes of his two comrades moved; Belllounds
began to recover somewhat from his consternation. Fear had clamped him
also, but not fear of personal harm or peril. His mind had not yet
awakened to that.
"You've got me pat! But who're you?" said Folsom, huskily.
Wade kept silent.
"Who'n hell is thet man?" yelled the rustler It was not a query to his
comrades any more than to the four winds. It was a furious questioning
of a memory that stirred and haunted, and as well a passionate and
fearful denial.
"His name's Wade," put in Belllounds, harshly. "He's the friend of Wils
Moore. He's the hunter I told you about--worked for my father
last winter."
"Wade?... What? _Wade!_ You never told me his name. It ain't--it
ain't--"
"Yes, it is, Cap," interrupted Wade. "It's the old boy that spoiled your
handsome mug--long ago."
"_Hell-Bent Wade!_" gasped Folsom, in terrible accents. He shook all
over. An ashen paleness crept into his face. Instinctively his right
hand jerked toward his gun; then, as in his former motion, froze in
the very act.
"Careful, Cap!" warned Wade. "It'd be a shame not to hear me talk a
little.... Turn around now an' greet an old pard of the Gunnison days."
Folsom turned as if a resistless, heavy force was revolving his head.
"By Gawd!... Wade!" he ejaculated. The tone of his voice, the light in
his eyes, must have been a spiritual acceptance of a dreadful and
irrefutable fact--perhaps the proximity of death. But he was no coward.
Despite the hunter's order, given as he stood there, gun drawn and
ready, Folsom wheeled back again, savagely to throw the deck of cards in
Belllounds's face. He cursed horribly.... "You spoiled brat of a rich
rancher! Why'n hell didn't you tell me thet varmint-hunter was Wade."
"I did tell you," shouted Belllounds, flaming of face.
"You're a liar! You never said Wade--W-a-d-e, right out, so I'd hear it.
An' I'd never passed by Hell-Bent Wade."
"Aw, that name made me tired," replied Belllounds, contemptuously.
"Haw! Haw! Haw!" bawled the rustler. "Made you tired, hey? Think you're
funny? Wal, if you knowed how many men thet name's made tired--an' tired
fer keeps--you'd not think it so damn funny."
"Say, what're you giving me? That Sheriff Burley tried to tell me and
dad a lot of rot about this Wade. Why, he's only a little, bow-legged,
big-nosed meddler--a man with a woman's voice--a sneaking cook and
camp-doctor and cow-milker, and God only knows what else."
"Boy, you're correct. God only knows what else!... It's the _else_
you've got to learn. An' I'll gamble you'll learn it.... Wade, have you
changed or grown old thet you let a pup like this yap such talk?"
"Well, Cap, he's very amusin' just now, an' I want you-all to enjoy him.
Because, if you don't force my hand I'm goin' to tell you some
interestin' stuff about this Buster Jack.... Now, will you be quiet an'
listen--an' answer for your pards?"
"Wade, I answer fer no man. But, so far as I've noticed, my pards ain't
hankerin' to make any loud noise," Folsom replied, indicating his
comrades, with sarcasm.
The red-bearded one, a man of large frame and gaunt face, wicked and
wild-looking, spoke out, "Say, Smith, or whatever the hell's yore right
handle--is this hyar a game we're playin'?"
"I reckon. An' if you turn a trick you'll be damn lucky," growled
Folsom.
The other rustler did not speak. He was small, swarthy-faced, with
sloe-black eyes and matted hair, evidently a white man with Mexican
blood. Keen, strung, furtive, he kept motionless, awaiting events.
"Buster Jack, these new pards of yours are low-down rustlers, an' one of
them's worse, as I could prove," said Wade, "but compared with you
they're all gentlemen."
Belllounds leered. But he was losing his bravado. Something began to
dawn upon his obtuse consciousness.
"What do I care for you or your gabby talk?" he flashed, sullenly.
"You'll care when I tell these rustlers how you double-crossed them."
Belllounds made a spring, like that of a wolf in a trap; but when
half-way up he slipped. The rustler on his right kicked him, and he
sprawled down again, back to the wall.
"Buster, look into this!" called Wade, and he leveled the gun that
quivered momentarily, like a compass needle, and then crashed fire and
smoke. The bullet spat into a log. But it had cut the lobe of
Belllounds's ear, bringing blood. His face turned a ghastly, livid hue.
All in a second terror possessed him--shuddering, primitive terror
of death.
Folsom haw-hawed derisively and in crude delight. "Say, Buster Jack,
don't get any idee thet my ole pard Wade was shootin' at your head.
Aw, no!"
The other rustlers understood then, if Belllounds had not, that the
situation was in control of a man not in any sense ordinary.
"Cap, did you know Buster Jack accused my friend, Wils Moore, of
stealin' these cattle you're sellin'?" asked Wade, deliberately.
"What cattle did you say?" asked the rustler, as if he had not heard
aright.
"The cattle Buster Jack stole from his father an' sold to you."
"Wal, now! Bent Wade at his old tricks! I might have knowed it, once I
seen you.... Naw, I'd no idee Belllounds blamed thet stealin' on to
any one."
"He did."
"Ahuh! Wal, who's this Wils Moore?"
"He's a cowboy, as fine a youngster as ever straddled a horse. Buster
Jack hates him. He licked Jack a couple of times an' won the love of a
girl that Jack wants."
"Ho! Ho! Quite romantic, I declare.... Say, thar's some damn queer
notions I'm gettin' about you, Buster Jack."
Belllounds lay propped against the wall, sagging there, laboring of
chest, sweating of face. The boldness of brow held, because it was
fixed, but that of his eyes had gone; and his mouth and chin showed
craven weakness. He stared in dread suspense at Wade.
"Listen. An' all of you sit tight," went on Wade, swiftly. "Jack stole
the cattle from his father. He's a thief at heart. But he had a double
motive. He left a trail--he left tracks behind. He made a crooked
horseshoe, like that Wils Moore's horse wears, an' he put that on his
own horse. An' he made a contraption--a little iron ring with a dot in
it, an' he left the crooked shoe tracks, an' he left the little
ring tracks--"
"By Gawd! I seen them funny tracks!" ejaculated Folsom. "At the
water-hole an' right hyar in front of the cabin. I seen them. I knowed
Jack made them, somehow, but I didn't think. His white hoss has a
crooked left front shoe."
"Yes, he has, when Jack takes off the regular shoe an' nails on the
crooked one.... Men, I followed those tracks They lead up here to your
cabin. Belllounds made them with a purpose.... An' he went to Kremmlin'
to get Sheriff Burley. An' he put him wise to the rustlin' of cattle to
Elgeria. An' he fetched him up to White Slides to accuse Wils Moore.
An' he trailed his own tracks up here, showin' Burley the crooked horse
track an' the little circle--that was supposed to be made by the end of
Moore's crutch--an' he led Burley with his men right to this cabin an'
to the trail where you drove the cattle over the divide.... An' then he
had Burley dig out some cakes of mud holdin' these tracks, an' they
fetched them down to White Slides. Buster Jack blamed the stealin' on to
Moore. An' Burley arrested Moore. The trial comes off next week at
Kremmlin'."
"Damn me!" exclaimed Folsom, wonderingly. "A man's never too old to
learn! I knowed this pup was stealin' from his own father, but I
reckoned he was jest a natural-born, honest rustler, with a hunch fer
drink an' cards."
"Well, he's double-crossed you, Cap. An' if I hadn't rounded you up your
chances would have been good for swingin'."
"Ahuh! Wade, I'd sure preferred them chances of swingin' to your
over-kind interferin' in my bizness. Allus interferin', Wade, thet's
your weakness!... But gimmie a gun!"
"I reckon not, Cap."
"Gimme a gun!" roared the rustler. "Lemme sit hyar an' shoot the eyes
outen this--lyin' pup of a Belllounds!... Wade, put a gun in my hand--a
gun with two shells--or only one. You can stand with your gun at my
head.... Let me kill this skunk!"
For all Belllounds could tell, death was indeed close. No trace of a
Belllounds was apparent about him then, and his face was a horrid
spectacle for a man to be forced to see. A froth foamed over his hanging
lower lip.
"Cap, I ain't trustin' you with a gun just this particular minute," said
Wade.
Folsom then bawled his curses to his comrades.
"----! Kill him! Throw your guns an' bore him--right in them bulgin'
eyes!... I'm tellin' you--we've gotta fight, anyhow. We're agoin' to
cash right hyar. But kill him first!"
Neither of Folsom's lieutenants yielded to the fierce exhortation of
their leader or to their own evilly expressed passions. It was Wade who
dominated them. Then ensued a silence fraught with suspense, growing
more charged every long instant. The balance here seemed about to
be struck.
"Wade, I've been a gambler all my life, an' a damn smart one, if I do
say it myself," declared the rustler leader, his voice inharmonious with
the facetiousness of his words. "An' I'll make a last bet."
"Go ahead, Cap. What'll you bet?" answered the cold voice, still gentle,
but different now in its inflection.
"By Gawd! I'll bet all the gold hyar that Hell-Bent Wade wouldn't shoot
any man in the back!"
"You win!"
Slowly and stiffly the rustler rose to his feet. When he reached his
height he deliberately swung his leg to kick Belllounds in the face.
"Thar! I'd like to have a reckonin' with you, Buster Jack," he said. "I
ain't dealin' the cards hyar. But somethin' tells me thet, shaky as I am
in my boots, I'd liefer be in mine than yours."
With that, and expelling a heavy breath, he wrestled around to confront
the hunter.
"Wade. I've no hunch to your game, but it's slower'n I recollect you."
"Why, Cap, I was in a talkin' humor," replied Wade.
"Hell! You're up to some dodge. What'd you care fer my learnin' thet
pup had double-crossed me? You won't let me kill him."
"I reckon I wanted him to learn what real men thought of him."
"Ahuh! Wal, an' now I've onlightened him, what's the next deal?"
"You'll all go to Kremmlin' with me an' I'll turn you over to Sheriff
Burley."
That was the gauntlet thrown down by Wade. It was not unexpected, and
acceptance seemed a relief. Folsom's eyeballs became living fire with
the desperate gleam of the reckless chances of life. Cutthroat he might
have been, but he was brave, and he proved the significance of
Wade's attitude.
"Pards, hyar's to luck!" he rang out, hoarsely, and with pantherish
quickness he leaped for his gun.
A tense, surcharged instant--then all four men, as if released by some
galvanized current of rapidity, flashed into action. Guns boomed in
unison. Spurts of red, clouds of smoke, ringing reports, and hoarse
cries filled the cabin. Wade had fired as he leaped. There was a
thudding patter of lead upon the walls. The hunter flung himself
prostrate behind the bough framework that had served as bedstead. It was
made of spruce boughs, thick and substantial. Wade had not calculated
falsely in estimating it as a bulwark of defense. Pulling his second
gun, he peeped from behind the covert.
Smoke was lifting, and drifting out of door and windows. The atmosphere
cleared. Belllounds sagged against the wall, pallid, with protruding
eyes of horror on the scene before him. The dark-skinned little man lay
writhing. All at once a tremor stilled his convulsions. His body relaxed
limply. As if by magic his hand loosened on the smoking gun. Folsom was
on his knees, reeling and swaying, waving his gun, peering like a
drunken man for some lost object. His temple appeared half shot away, a
bloody and horrible sight.
"Pards, I got him!" he said, in strange, half-strangled whisper. "I got
him!... Hell-Bent Wade! My respects! I'll meet you--thar!"
His reeling motion brought his gaze in line with Belllounds. The
violence of his start sent drops of blood flying from his gory temple.
"Ahuh! The cards run--my way. Belllounds, hyar's to your--lyin' eyes!"
The gun wavered and trembled and circled. Folsom strained in last
terrible effort of will to aim it straight. He fired. The bullet tore
hair from Belllounds's head, but missed him. Again the rustler aimed,
and the gun wavered and shook. He pulled trigger. The hammer clicked
upon an empty chamber. With low and gurgling cry of baffled rage Folsom
dropped the gun and sank face forward, slowly stretching out.
The red-bearded rustler had leaped behind the stone chimney that all but
hid his body. The position made it difficult for him to shoot because
his gun-hand was on the inside, and he had to press his body tight to
squeeze it behind the corner of ragged stone. Wade had the advantage. He
was lying prone with his right hand round the corner of the framework.
An overhang of the bough-ends above protected his head when he peeped
out. While he watched for a chance to shoot he loaded his empty gun with
his left hand. The rustler strained and writhed his body, twisting his
neck, and suddenly darting out his head and arm, he shot. His bullet
tore the overhang of boughs above Wade's face. And Wade's answering
shot, just a second too late, chipped the stone corner where the
rustler's face had flashed out. The bullet, glancing, hummed out of the
window. It was a close shave. The rustler let out a hissing,
inarticulate cry. He was trapped. In his effort to press in closer he
projected his left elbow beyond the corner of the chimney. Wade's quick
shot shattered his arm.
There was no asking or offering of quarter here. This was the old feud
of the West--of the vicious and the righteous in strife--both reared in
the same stern school. The rustler gave his body such contortion that he
was twisted almost clear around, with his right hand over his left
shoulder. He punched the muzzle of his gun into a crack between two
stones, and he pried to open them. The dry clay cement crumbled, the
crack widened. Sighting along the barrel he aimed it with the narrow
strip of Wades shoulder that was visible above the framework. Then he
shot and hit. Wade shrank flatter and closer, hiding himself to better
advantage. The rustler made his great blunder then, for in that moment
he might have rushed out and killed his adversary. But, instead, he shot
again--another time--a third. And his heavy bullets tore and splintered
the boughs dangerously close to the hunter's head. Then came an awkward,
almost hopeless task for the rustler, in maintaining his position while
reloading his gun. He did it, and his panting attested to the labor and
pain it cost him.
So much, in fact, that he let his knee protrude. Wade fired, breaking
that knee. The rustler sagged in his tracks, his hip stuck out to afford
a target for the remorseless Wade. Still the doomed man did not cry out,
though it was evident that he could not now keep his body from sagging
into sight of the hunter. Then with a desperate courage worthy of a
better cause, and with a spirit great in its defeat, the rustler plunged
out from his hiding-place, gun extended. His red beard, his gaunt face,
fierce and baleful, his wabbling plunge that was really a fall, made a
sight which was terrible. He hopped out of that fall. His gun began to
blaze. But it only matched the blazes of Wade's. And the rustler pitched
headlong over the framework, falling heavily against the wall beyond.
Then there was silence for a long moment. Wade stirred, as if to look
around. Belllounds also stirred, and gulped, as if to breathe. The three
prostrate rustlers lay inert, their positions singularly tragic and
settled. The smoke again began to lift, to float out of the door and
windows. In another moment the big room seemed less hazy.
Wade rose, not without effort, and he had a gun in each hand. Those
hands were bloody; there was blood on his face, and his left shoulder
was red. He approached Belllounds.
Wade was terrible then--terrible with a ruthlessness that was no
pretense. To Belllounds it must have represented death--a bloody death
which he was not prepared to meet.
"Come out of your trance, you pup rustler!" yelled Wade.
"For God's sake, don't kill me!" implored Belllounds, stricken with
terror.
"Why not? Look around! My busy day, Buster!... An' for that Cap Folsom
it's been ten years comin'.... I'm goin' to shoot you in the belly an'
watch you get sick to your stomach!"
Belllounds, with whisper, and hands, and face, begged for his life in an
abjectness of sheer panic.
"What!" roared the hunter. "Didn't you know I come to kill you?"
"Yes--yes! I've seen--that. It's awful!... I never harmed you.... Don't
kill me! Let me live, Wade. I swear to God I'll--I'll never do it
again.... For dad's sake--for Collie's sake--don't kill me!"
"I'm Hell-Bent Wade!... You wouldn't listen to them--when they wanted to
tell you who I am!"
Every word of Wade's drove home to this boy the primal meaning of sudden
death. It inspired him with an unutterable fear. That was what clamped
his brow in a sweaty band and upreared his hair and rolled his eyeballs.
His magnified intelligence, almost ghastly, grasped a hope in Wade's
apparent vacillation and in the utterance of the name of Columbine.
Intuition, a subtle sense, inspired him to beg in that name.
"Swear you'll give up Collie!" demanded Wade, brandishing his guns with
bloody hands.
"Yes--yes! My God, I'll do anything!" moaned Belllounds.
"Swear you'll tell your father you'd had a change of heart. You'll give
Collie up!... Let Moore have her!"
"I swear!... But if you tell dad--I stole his cattle--he'll do for me!"
"We won't squeal that. I'll save you if you give up the girl. Once more,
Buster Jack--try an' make me believe you'll square the deal."
Belllounds had lost his voice. But his mute, fluttering lips were
infinite proof of the vow he could not speak. The boyishness, the
stunted moral force, replaced the manhood in him then. He was only a
factor in the lives of others, protected even from this Nemesis by the
greatness of his father's love.
"Get up, an' take my scarf," said Wade, "an' bandage these bullet-holes
I got."