“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.”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  WADE’S WOUNDS WERE not in any way serious, and with Belllounds’s assistance he got to the cabin of Lewis, where weakness from loss of blood made it necessary that he remain. Belllounds went home.

  The next day Wade sent Lewis with pack-horse down to the rustler’s cabin, to bury the dead men and fetch back their effects. Lewis returned that night, accompanied by Sheriff Burley and two deputies, who had been busy on their own account. They had followed horse tracks from the water-hole under Gore Peak to the scene of the fight, and had arrived to find Lewis there. Burley had appropriated the considerable amount of gold, which he said could be identified by cattlemen who had bought the stolen cattle.

  When opportunity afforded Burley took advantage of it to speak to Wade when the others were out of earshot.

  “Thar was another man in thet cabin when the fight come off,” announced the sheriff. “An’ he come up hyar with you.”

  “Jim, you’re locoed,” replied Wade.

  The sheriff laughed, and his shrewd eyes had a kindly, curious gleam.

  “Next you’ll be givin’ me a hunch thet you’re in a fever an’ out of your head.”

  “Jim, I’m not as clear-headed as I might be.”

  “Wal, tell me or not, jest as you like. I seen his tracks — follered them. An’ Wade, old pard, I’ve reckoned long ago thar’s a nigger in the wood-pile.”

  “Sure. An’ you know me. I’d take it friendly of you to put Moore’s trial off fer a while — till I’m able to ride to Krernmlin’. Maybe then I can tell you a story.”

  Burley threw up his hands in genuine apprehension. “Not much! You ain’t agoin’ to tell me no story!... But I’ll wait on you, an’ welcome. Reckon I owe you a good deal on this rustler round-up. Wade, thet must have been a man-sized fight, even fer you. I picked up twenty-six empty shells. An’ the little half-breed had one empty shell an’ five loaded ones in his gun. You must have got him quick. Hey?”

  “Jim, I’m observin’ you’re a heap more curious than ever, an’ you always was an inquisitive cuss,” complained Wade. “I don’t recollect what happened.”

  “Wal, wal, have it your own way,” replied Burley, with good nature. “Now, Wade, I’ll pitch camp hyar in the park to-night, an’ to-morrer I’ll ride down to White Slides on my way to Kremmlin’. What’re you wantin’ me to tell Belllounds?”

  The hunter pondered a moment.

  “Reckon it’s just as well that you tell him somethin’.... You can say the rustlers are done for an’ that he’ll get his stock back. I’d like you to tell him that the rustlers were more to blame than Wils Moore. Just say that an’ nothin’ else about Wils. Don’t mention about your suspectin’ there was another man around when the fight come off.... Tell the cowboys that I’ll be down in a few days. An’ if you happen to get a chance for a word alone with Miss Collie, just say I’m not bad hurt an’ that all will be well.”

  “Ahuh!” Burley grunted out the familiar exclamation. He did not say any more then, but he gazed thoughtfully down upon the pale hunter, as if that strange individual was one infinitely to respect, but never to comprehend.

  Wade’s wounds healed quickly; nevertheless, it was more than several days before he felt spirit enough to undertake the ride. He had to return to White Slides, but he was reluctant to do so. Memory of Jack Belllounds dragged at him, and when he drove it away it continually returned. This feeling was almost equivalent to an augmentation of his gloomy foreboding, which ever hovered on the fringe of his consciousness. But one morning he started early, and, riding very slowly, with many rests, he reached the Sage Valley cabin before sunset. Moore saw him coming, yelled his delight and concern, and almost lifted him off the horse. Wade was too tired to talk much, but he allowed himself to be fed and put to bed and worked over.

  “Boot’s on the other foot now, pard,” said Moore, with delight at the prospect of returning service. “Say, you’re all shot up! And it’s I who’ll be nurse!”

  “Wils, I’ll be around to-morrow,” replied the hunter. “Have you heard any news from down below?”

  “Sure. I’ve met Lem every night.”

  Then he related Burley’s version of Wade’s fight with the rustlers in the cabin. From the sheriff’s lips the story gained much. Old Bill Belllounds had received the news in a singular mood; he offered no encomiums to the victor; contrary to his usual custom of lauding every achievement of labor or endurance, he now seemed almost to regret the affray. Jack Belllounds had returned from Kremmling and he was present when Burley brought news of the rustlers. What he thought none of the cowboys vouchsafed to say, but he was drunk the next day, and he lost a handful of gold to them. Never had he gambled so recklessly. Indeed, it was as if he hated the gold he lost. Little had been seen of Columbine, but little was sufficient to make the cowboys feel concern.

  Wade made scarcely any comment upon this news from the ranch; next day, however, he was up, and caring for himself, and he told Moore about the fight and how he had terrorized Belllounds and exhorted the promises from him.

  “Never in God’s world will Buster Jack live up to those promises!” cried Moore, with absolute conviction. “I know him, Ben. He meant them when he made them. He’d swear his soul away — then next day he’d lie or forget or betray.”

  “I’m not believin’ that till I know,” replied the hunter, gloomily. “But I’m afraid of him.... I’ve known bad men to change. There’s a grain of good in all men — somethin’ divine. An’ it comes out now an’ then. Men rise on steppin’-stones of their dead selves to higher things!... This is Belllounds’s chance for the good in him. If it’s not there he will do as you say. If it is — that scare he had will be the turnin’-point in his life. I’m hopin’, but I’m afraid.”

  “Ben, you wait and see,” said Moore, earnestly. “Heaven knows I’m not one to lose hope for my fellowmen — hope for the higher things you’ve taught me.... But human nature is human nature. Jack can’t give Collie up, just the same as I can’t. That’s self-preservation as well as love.”

  The day came when Wade walked down to White Slides. There seemed to be a fever in his blood, which he tried to convince himself was a result of his wounds instead of the condition of his mind. It was Sunday, a day of sunshine and squall, of azure-blue sky, and great, sailing, purple clouds. The sage of the hills glistened and there was a sweetness in the air.

  The cowboys made much of Wade. But the old rancher, seeing him from the porch, abruptly went into the house. No one but Wade noticed this omission of courtesy. Directly, Columbine appeared, waving her hand, and running to meet him.

  “Dad saw you. He told me to come out and excuse him.... Oh, Ben, I’m so happy to see you! You don’t look hurt at all. What a fight you had!... Oh, I was sick! But let me forget that.... How are you? And how’s Wils?”

  Thus she babbled until out of breath.

  “Collie, it’s sure good to see you,” said Wade, feeling the old, rich thrill at her presence. “I’m comin’ on tolerable well. I wasn’t bad hurt, but I bled a lot. An’ I reckon I’m older ‘n I was when packin’ gun-shot holes was nothin’. Every year tells. Only a man doesn’t know till after.... An’ how are you, Collie?”

  Her blue eyes clouded, and a tremor changed the expression of her sweet lips.

  “I am unhappy, Ben,” she said. “But what could we expect? It might be worse. For instance, you might have been killed. I’ve much to be thankful for.”

  “I reckon so. We all have.... I fetched a message from Wils, but I oughtn’t tell it.”

  “Please do,” she begged, wistfully.

  “Well, Wils says, tell Collie I love her every day more an’ more, an’ that my love keeps up my courage an’ my belief in God, an’ if she ever marries Jack Belllounds she can come up to visit my grave among the columbines on the hill.”