The hunter took up that trail, and he followed it into the woods.  There he hesitated.  Men who left crooked trails frequently ambushed them, and Belllounds had made no effort to conceal his tracks.  Indeed, he had chosen the soft, open ground, even after he had left the trail to take to the grassy, wooded benches.  There were cattle here, but not as many as on the more open aspen slopes across the valley.  After deliberating a moment, Wade decided that he must risk being caught trailing Belllounds.  But he would go slowly, trusting to eye and ear, to outwit this strangely acting foreman of White Slides Ranch.

To that end he dismounted and took the trail.  Wade had not followed it far before he became convinced that Belllounds had been looking in the thickets for cattle; and he had not climbed another mile through the aspens and spruce before he discovered that Belllounds was driving cattle.  Thereafter Wade proceeded more cautiously.  If the long grass had not been wet he would have encountered great difficulty in trailing Belllounds.  Evidence was clear now that he was hiding the tracks of the cattle by keeping to the grassy levels and slopes which, after the sun had dried them, would not leave a trace.  There were stretches where even the keen-eyed hunter had to work to find the direction taken by Belllounds.  But here and there, in other localities, there showed faint signs of cattle and horse tracks.

The morning passed, with Wade slowly climbing to the edge of the black timber.  Then, in a hollow where a spring gushed forth, he saw the tracks of a few cattle that had halted to drink, and on top of these the tracks of a horse with a crooked left front shoe.  The rider of this horse had dismounted.  There was an imprint of a cowboy’s boot, and near it little sharp circles with dots in the center.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” ejaculated Wade.  “I call that mighty cunnin’.  Here they are—­proofs as plain as writin’—­that Wils Moore rustled Old Bill’s cattle!...  Buster Jack, you’re not such a fool as I thought....  He’s made somethin’ like the end of Wils’s crutch.  An’ knowin’ how Wils uses that every time he gets off his horse, why, the dirty pup carried his instrument with him an’ made these tracks!”

Wade left the trail then, and, leading his horse to a covert of spruce, he sat down to rest and think.  Was there any reason for following Belllounds farther?  It did not seem needful to take the risk of being discovered.  The forest above was open.  No doubt Belllounds would drive the cattle somewhere and turn them over to his accomplices.

“Buster Jack’s outbusted himself this time, sure,” soliloquized Wade.  “He’s double-crossin’ his rustler friends, same as he is Moore.  For he’s goin’ to blame this cattle-stealin’ onto Wils.  An’ to do that he’s layin’ his tracks so he can follow them, or so any good trailer can.  It doesn’t concern me so much now who’re his pards in this deal.  Reckon it’s Smith an’ some of his gang.”