“I was only laughin',” replied Wade. “What you said about the cowboy bein' sweet on the girl popped into my head before you told it. Well, boys will be boys. I was young once an' had my day.”
Lewis grunted as he bent over to lift a red coal to light his pipe, and as he raised his head he gave Wade a glance of sympathetic curiosity.
“Wal, I hope I'll see more of you,” he said, as his guest rose, evidently to go.
“Reckon you will, as I'll be chasin' hounds all over. An' I want a look at them neighbors you spoke of that might be rustlers.... I'll turn in now. Good night.”
CHAPTER V
Bent Wade rode out of the forest to look down upon the White Slides country at the hour when it was most beautiful.
“Never seen the beat of that!” he exclaimed, as he halted.
The hour was sunset, with the golden rays and shadows streaking ahead of him down the rolling sage hills, all rosy and gray with rich, strange softness. Groves of aspens stood isolated from one another—here crowning a hill with blazing yellow, and there fringing the brow of another with gleaming gold, and lower down reflecting the sunlight with brilliant red and purple. The valley seemed filled with a delicate haze, almost like smoke. White Slides Ranch was hidden from sight, as it lay in the bottomland. The gray old peak towered proud and aloof, clear-cut and sunset-flushed against the blue. The eastern slope of the valley was a vast sweep of sage and hill and grassy bench and aspen bench, on fire with the colors of autumn made molten by the last flashing of the sun. Great black slopes of forest gave sharp contrast, and led up to the red-walled ramparts of the mountain range.
Wade watched the scene until the fire faded, the golden shafts paled and died, the rosy glow on sage changed to cold steel gray. Then he rode out upon the foothills. The trail led up and down slopes of sage. Grass grew thicker as he descended. Once he startled a great flock of prairie-chickens, or sage-hens, large gray birds, lumbering, swift fliers, that whirred up, and soon plumped down again into the sage. Twilight found him on a last long slope of the foothills, facing the pasture-land of the valley, with the ranch still five miles distant, now showing misty and dim in the gathering shadows.
Wade made camp where a brook ran near an aspen thicket. He had no desire to hurry to meet events at White Slides Ranch, although he longed to see this girl that belonged to Belllounds. Night settled down over the quiet foothills. A pack of roving coyotes visited Wade, and sat in a half-circle in the shadows back of the camp-fire. They howled and barked. Nevertheless sleep visited Wade's tired eyelids the moment he lay down and closed them.
* * * * *
Next morning, rather late, Wade rode down to White Slides Ranch. It looked to him like the property of a rich rancher who held to the old and proven customs of his generation. The corrals were new, but their style was old. Wade reflected that it would be hard for rustlers or horse-thieves to steal out of those corrals. A long lane led from the pasture-land, following the brook that ran through the corrals and by the back door of the rambling, comfortable-looking cabin. A cowboy was leading horses across a wide square between the main ranch-house and a cluster of cabins and sheds. He saw the visitor and waited.
“Mornin',” said Wade, as he rode up.
“Hod do,” replied the cowboy.
Then these two eyed each other, not curiously nor suspiciously, but with that steady, measuring gaze common to Western men.
“My name's Wade,” said the traveler. “Come from Meeker way. I'm lookin' for a job with Belllounds.”
“I'm Lem Billings,” replied the other. “Ridin' fer White Slides fer years. Reckon the boss'll be glad to take you on.”
“Is he around?”
“Sure. I jest seen him,” replied Billings, as he haltered his horses to a post. “I reckon I ought to give you a hunch.”
“I'd take that as a favor.”
“Wal, we're short of hands,” said the cowboy. “Jest got the round-up over. Hudson was hurt an' Wils Moore got crippled. Then the boss's son has been put on as foreman. Three of the boys quit. Couldn't stand him. This hyar son of Belllounds is a son-of-a-gun! Me an' pards of mine, Montana an' Bludsoe, are stickin' on—wal, fer reasons thet ain't egzactly love fer the boss. But Old Bill's the best of bosses.... Now the hunch is—thet if you git on hyar you'll hev to do two or three men's work.”
“Much obliged,” replied Wade. “I don't shy at that.”
“Wal, git down an' come in,” added Billings, heartily.
He led the way across the square, around the corner of the ranch-house, and up on a long porch, where the arrangement of chairs and blankets attested to the hand of a woman. The first door was open, and from it issued voices; first a shrill, petulant boy's complaint, and then a man's deep, slow, patient reply.
Lem Billings knocked on the door-jamb.
“Wal, what's wanted?” called Belllounds.
“Boss, thar's a man wantin' to see you,” replied Lem.
Heavy steps approached the doorway and it was filled with the large figure of the rancher. Wade remembered Belllounds and saw only a gray difference in years.
“Good mornin', Lem, an' good moinin' to you, stranger,” was the rancher's greeting, his bold, blue glance, honest and frank and keen, with all his long experience of men, taking Wade in with one flash.
Lem discreetly walked to the end of the porch as another figure, that of the son who resembled the father, filled the doorway, with eyes less kind, bent upon the visitor.
“My name's Wade. I'm over from Meeker way, hopin' to find a job with you,” said Wade.
“Glad to meet you,” replied Belllounds, extending his huge hand to shake Wade's. “I need you, sure bad. What's your special brand of work?”
“I reckon any kind.”
“Set down, stranger,” replied Belllounds, pulling up a chair. He seated himself on a bench and leaned against the log wall. “Now, when a boy comes an' says he can do anythin', why I jest haw! haw! at him. But you're a man, Wade, an' one as has been there. Now I'm hard put fer hands. Jest speak out now fer yourself. No one else can speak fer you, thet's sure. An' this is bizness.”
“Any work with stock, from punchin' steers to doctorin' horses,” replied Wade, quietly. “Am fair carpenter an' mason. Good packer. Know farmin'. Can milk cows an' make butter. I've been cook in many outfits. Read an' write an' not bad at figures. Can do work on saddles an' harness, an-”
“Hold on!” yelled Belllounds, with a hearty laugh. “I ain't imposin' on no man, no matter how I need help. You're sure a jack of all range trades. An' I wish you was a hunter.”
“I was comin' to that. You didn't give me time.”
“Say, do you know hounds?” queried Belllounds, eagerly.
“Yes. Was raised where everybody had packs. I'm from Kentucky. An' I've run hounds off an' on for years. I'll tell you—”
Belllounds interrupted Wade.
“By all that's lucky! An' last, can you handle guns? We 'ain't had a good shot on this range fer Lord knows how long. I used to hit plumb center with a rifle. My eyes are pore now. An' my son can't hit a flock of haystacks. An' the cowpunchers are 'most as bad. Sometimes right hyar where you could hit elk with a club we're out of fresh meat.”