so that the curve was sharp and the ends closer together than those of his other shoes. Wade rode down to White Slides that day, and at the evening meal he casually asked Moore if he had been riding Spottie of late. "Sure. What other horse could I ride? Do you think I'm up to trying one of those broncs?" asked Moore, in derision. "Reckon you haven't been leavin' any tracks up Buffalo Park way?" The cowboy slammed down his knife. "Say, Wade, are you growing dotty? Good Lord! if I'd ridden that far--if I was able to do it--wouldn't you hear me yell?" "Reckon so, come to think of it. I just saw a track like Spottie's, made two days ago." "Well, it wasn't his, you can gamble on that," returned the cowboy. * * * * * Wade spent four days hiding in an aspen grove, on top of one of the highest foothills above White Slides Ranch. There he lay at ease, like an Indian, calm and somber, watching the trails below, waiting for what he knew was to come. On the fifth morning he was at his post at sunrise. A casual remark of one of the new cowboys the night before accounted for the early hour of Wade's reconnoiter. The dawn was fresh and cool, with sweet odor of sage on the air; the jays were squalling their annoyance at this early disturber of their grove; the east was rosy above the black range and soon glowed with gold and then changed to fire. The sun had risen. All the mountain world of black range and gray hill and green valley, with its shining stream, was transformed as if by magic color. Wade sat down with his back to an aspen-tree, his gaze down upon the ranch-house and the corrals. A lazy column of blue smoke curled up toward the sky, to be lost there. The burros were braying, the calves were bawling, the colts were whistling. One of the hounds bayed full and clear. The scene was pastoral and beautiful. Wade saw it clearly and whole. Peace and plenty, a happy rancher's home, the joy of the dawn and the birth of summer, the rewards of toil--all seemed significant there. But Wade pondered on how pregnant with life that scene was--nature in its simplicity and freedom and hidden cruelty, and the existence of people, blindly hating, loving, sacrificing, mostly serving some noble aim, and yet with baseness among them, the lees with the wine, evil intermixed with good. By and by the cowboys appeared on their spring mustangs, and in twos and threes they rode off in different directions. But none rode Wade's way. The sun rose higher, and there was warmth in the air. Bees began to hum by Wade, and fluttering moths winged uncertain flight over him.