"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."