“Wils, now ain’t that queer?” replied Wade, sadly.  “I’m agreein’ with you.”

“Aw!” Moore shook himself savagely and laid an affectionate and appealing arm on his friend’s shoulder.  “Forgive me, pard!...  It’s me who’s out of his head....  But my heart’s broken.”

“That’s what you think,” rejoined Wade, stoutly.  “But a man’s heart can’t break in a day.  I know....  An’ the God’s truth is Buster Jack will hang himself!”

Moore raised his head sharply, flinging himself back from his friend so as to scrutinize his face.  Wade felt the piercing power of that gaze.

“Wade, what do you mean?”

“Collie told us some interestin’ news about Jack, didn’t she?  Well, she didn’t know what I know.  Jack Belllounds had laid a cunnin’ an’ devilish trap to prove you guilty of rustlin’ his father’s cattle.”

“Absurd!” ejaculated Moore, with white lips.

“I’d never given him credit for brains to hatch such a plot,” went on Wade.  “Now listen.  Not long ago Buster Jack made a remark in front of the whole outfit, includin’ his father, that the homesteaders on the range were rustlin’ cattle.  It fell sort of flat, that remark.  But no one could calculate on his infernal cunnin’.  I quit workin’ for Belllounds that night, an’ I’ve put my time in spyin’ on the boy.  In my day I’ve done a good deal of spyin’, but I’ve never run across any one slicker than Buster Jack.  To cut it short—­he got himself a white-speckled mustang that’s a dead ringer for Spottie.  He measured the tracks of your horse’s left front foot—­the bad hoof, you know, an’ he made a shoe exactly the same as Spottie wears.  Also, he made some kind of a contraption that’s like the end of your crutch.  These he packs with him.  I saw him ride across the pasture to hide his tracks, climb up the sage for the same reason, an’ then hide in that grove of aspens over there near the trail you use.  Here, you can bet, he changed shoes on the left front foot of his horse.  Then he took to the trail, an’ he left tracks for a while, an’ then he was careful to hide them again.  He stole his father’s stock an’ drove it up over the grassy benches where even you or I couldn’t track him next day.  But up on top, when it suited him, he left some horse tracks, an’ in the mud near a spring-hole he gets off his horse, steppin’ with one foot—­an’ makin’ little circles with dots like those made by the end of your crutch.  Then ’way over in the woods there’s a cabin where he meets his accomplices.  Here he leaves the same horse tracks an’ crutch tracks....  Simple as a b c, Wils, when you see how he did it.  But I’ll tell you straight—­if I hadn’t been suspicious of Buster Jack—­that trick of his would have made you a rustler!”

“Damn him!” hissed the cowboy, in utter consternation and fury.

“Ahuh!  That’s my sentiment exactly.”

“I swore to Collie I’d never kill him!”

“Sure you did, son.  An’ you’ve got to keep that oath.  I pin you down to it.  You can’t break faith with Collie....  An’ you don’t want his bad blood on your hands.”