Suddenly it dawned upon Wade that Jack Belllounds was stealing cattle from his father.  “Whew!” he whistled softly.  “Awful hard on the old man!  Who’s to tell him when all this comes out?  Aw, I’d hate to do it.  I wouldn’t.  There’s some things even I’d not tell.”

Straightway this strange aspect of the case confronted Wade and gripped his soul.  He seemed to feel himself changing inwardly, as if a gray, gloomy, sodden hand, as intangible as a ghostly dream, had taken him bodily from himself and was now leading him into shadows, into drear, lonely, dark solitude, where all was cold and bleak; and on and on over naked shingles that marked the world of tragedy.  Here he must tell his tale, and as he plodded on his relentless leader forced him to tell his tale anew.

Wade recognized this as his black mood.  It was a morbid dominance of the mind.  He fought it as he would have fought a devil.  And mastery still was his.  But his brow was clammy and his heart was leaden when he had wrested that somber, mystic control from his will.

“Reckon I’d do well to take up this trail to-morrow an’ see where it leads,” he said, and as a gloomy man, burdened with thought, he retraced his way down the long slope, and over the benches, to the grassy slopes and aspen groves, and thus to the sage hills.

It was dark when he reached the cabin, and Moore had supper almost ready.

“Well, old-timer, you look fagged out,” called out the cowboy, cheerily.  “Throw off your boots, wash up, and come and get it!”

“Pard Wils, I’m not reboundin’ as natural as I’d like.  I reckon I’ve lived some years before I got here, an’ a lifetime since.”

“Wade, you have a queer look, lately,” observed Moore, shaking his head solemnly.  “Why, I’ve seen a dying man look just like you—­now—­round the mouth—­but most in the eyes!”

“Maybe the end of the long trail is White Slides Ranch,” replied Wade, sadly and dreamily, as if to himself.

“If Collie heard you say that!” exclaimed Moore, in anxious concern.

“Collie an’ you will hear me say a lot before long,” returned Wade.  “But, as it’s calculated to make you happy—­why, all’s well.  I’m tired an’ hungry.”

Wade did not choose to sit round the fire that night, fearing to invite interrogation from his anxious friend, and for that matter from his other inquisitively morbid self.

Next morning, though Wade felt rested, and the sky was blue and full of fleecy clouds, and the melody of birds charmed his ear, and over all the June air seemed thick and beating with the invisible spirit he loved, he sensed the oppression, the nameless something that presaged catastrophe.

Therefore, when he looked out of the door to see Columbine swiftly riding up the trail, her fair hair flying and shining in the sunlight, he merely ejaculated, “Ahuh!”

“What’s that?” queried Moore, sharp to catch the inflection.