For Wade, the cloud on his horizon spread and darkened, gathered sinister shape of storm, harboring lightning and havoc. It was the cloud in his mind, the foreshadowing of his soul, the prophetic sense of like to like. Where he wandered there the blight fell! * * * * * Significant was the fact that Belllounds hired new men. Bludsoe had quit. Montana Jim grew surly these days and packed a gun. Lem Billings had threatened to leave. New and strange hands for Jack Belllounds to direct had a tendency to release a strain and tide things over. Every time the old rancher saw Wade he rolled his eyes and wagged his head, as if combating superstition with an intelligent sense of justice. Wade knew what troubled Belllounds, and it strengthened the gloomy mood that, like a poison lichen, seemed finding root. Every day Wade visited his friend Wilson Moore, and most of their conversation centered round that which had become a ruling passion for both. But the time came when Wade deviated from his gentleness of speech and leisure of action. "Bent, you're not like you were," said Moore, once, in surprise at the discovery. "You're losing hope and confidence." "No. I've only somethin' on my mind." "What?" "I reckon I'm not goin' to tell you now." "You've got _hell_ on your mind!" flashed the cowboy, in grim inspiration. Wade ignored the insinuation and turned the conversation to another subject. "Wils, you're buyin' stock right along?" "Sure am. I saved some money, you know. And what's the use to hoard it? I'll buy cheap. In five years I'll have five hundred, maybe a thousand head. Wade, my old dad will be pleased to find out I've made the start I have." "Well, it's a fine start, I'll allow. Have you picked up any unbranded stock?" "Sure I have. Say, pard, are you worrying about this two-bit rustler work that's been going on?" "Wils, it ain't two bits any more. I reckon it's gettin' into the four-bit class." "I've been careful to have my business transactions all in writing," said Moore. "It makes these fellows sore, because some of them can't write. And they're not used to it. But I'm starting this game in my own way." "Have you sold any stock?" "Not yet. But the Andrews boys are driving some thirty-odd head to Kremmling for me to be sold." "Ahuh! Well, I'll be goin'," Wade replied, and it was significant of his state of mind that he left his young friend sorely puzzled. Not that Wade did not see Moore's anxiety! But the drift of events at White Slides had passed beyond the stage where sympathetic and inspiring hope might serve Wade's purpose. Besides, his mood was gradually changing as these events, like many fibers of a web, gradually closed in toward a culminating knot.