“No!  No!” he replied, violently.  “Of course I don’t.  I won’t.  But God! how sweet it would be to tear out his lying tongue—­to—­”

“I reckon it would.  Only don’t talk about that,” interrupted Wade, bluntly.  “You see, now, don’t you, how he’s about hanged himself.”

“No, pard, I don’t.  We can’t squeal that on him, any more than we can squeal what Collie told us.”

“Son, you’re young in dealin’ with crooked men.  You don’t get the drift of motives.  Buster Jack is not only robbin’ his father an’ hatchin’ a dirty trap for you, but he’s double-crossin’ the rustlers he’s sellin’ the cattle to.  He’s riskin’ their necks.  He’s goin’ to find your tracks, showin’ you dealt with them.  Sure, he won’t give them away, an’ he’s figurin’ on their gettin’ out of it, maybe by leavin’ the range, or a shootin’-fray, or some way.  The big thing with Jack is that he’s goin’ to accuse you of rustlin’ an’ show your tracks to his father.  Well, that’s a risk he’s given the rustlers.  It happens that I know this scar-face Smith.  We’ve met before.  Now it’s easy to see from what Collie heard that Smith is not trustin’ Buster Jack.  So, all underneath this Jack Belllounds’s game, there’s forces workin’ unbeknown to him, beyond his control, an’ sure to ruin him.”

“I see.  I see.  By Heaven!  Wade, nothing else but ruin seems possible!...  But suppose it works out his way!...  What then?  What of Collie?”

“Son, I’ve not got that far along in my reckonin’,” replied Wade.

“But for my sake—­think.  If Buster Jack gets away with his trick—­if he doesn’t hang himself by some blunder or fit of temper or spree—­what then of Collie?”

Wade could not answer this natural and inevitable query for the reason that he had found it impossible of consideration.

“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” he replied.

“Wade, you’ve said that before.  It helped me.  But now I need more than a few words from the Bible.  My faith is low.  I ... oh, I tried to pray because Collie told me she had prayed!  But what are prayers?  We’re dealing with a stubborn, iron-willed old man who idolizes his son; we’re dealing with a crazy boy, absolutely self-centered, crafty, and vicious, who’ll stop at nothing.  And, lastly, we’re dealing with a girl who’s so noble and high-souled that she’ll sacrifice her all—­her life to pay her debt.  If she were really Bill Belllounds’s daughter she’d never marry Jack, saying, of course, that he was not her brother....  Do you know that it will kill her, if she marries him?”

“Ahuh!  I reckon it would,” replied Wade, with his head bowed.  Moore roused his gloomy forebodings.  He did not care to show this feeling or the effect the cowboy’s pleading had upon him.

“Ah! so you admit it?  Well, then, what of Collie?”

“If she marries him—­she’ll have to die, I suppose,” replied Wade.

Then Wilson Moore leaped at his friend and with ungentle hands lifted him, pushed him erect.