“Hell-Bent Wade, as I’m a born sinner!” shouted the sheriff, and his hand leaped out to grasp Wade’s and grip it and wring it.  His face worked.  “My Gawd!  I’m glad to see you, old-timer!  Wal, you haven’t changed at all!...  Ten years!  How time flies!  An’ it’s shore you?”

“Same, Jim, an’ powerful glad to meet you,” replied Wade.

“Shake hands with Bridges an’ Lindsay,” said Burley, indicating his two comrades.  “Stockmen from Grand Lake....  Boys, you’ve heerd me talk about him.  Wade an’ I was both in the old fight at Blair’s ranch on the Gunnison.  An’ I’ve shore reason to recollect him!...  Wade, what’re you doin’ up in these diggin’s?”

“Drifted over last fall, Jim, an’ have been huntin’ varmints for Belllounds,” replied Wade.  “Cleaned the range up fair to middlin’.  An’ since I quit Belllounds I’ve been hangin’ round with my young pard here, Wils Moore, an’ interestin’ myself in lookin’ up cattle tracks.”

Burley’s back was toward Belllounds and his son, so it was impossible for them to see the sudden little curious light that gleamed in his eyes as he looked hard at Wade, and then at Moore.

“Wils Moore.  How d’ye do?  I reckon I remember you, though I don’t ride up this way much of late years.”

The cowboy returned the greeting civilly enough, but with brevity.

Belllounds cleared his throat and stepped forward.  His manner showed he had a distasteful business at hand.

“Moore, I sent for you on a serious matter, I’m sorry to say.”

“Well, here I am.  What is it?” returned the cowboy, with clear, hazel eyes, full of fire, steady on the old rancher’s.

“Jack, you know, is foreman of White Slides now.  An’ he’s made a charge against you.”

“Then let him face me with it,” snapped Moore.

Jack Belllounds came forward, hands in his pockets, self-possessed, even a little swaggering, and his pale face and bold eyes showed the gravity of the situation and his mastery over it.

Wade watched this meeting of the rivals and enemies with an attention powerfully stimulated by the penetrating scrutiny Burley laid upon them.  Jack did not speak quickly.  He looked hard into the tense face of Moore.  Wade detected a vibration of Jack’s frame and a gleam of eye that showed him not wholly in control of exultation and revenge.  Fear had not struck him yet.

“Well, Buster Jack, what’s the charge?” demanded Moore, impatiently.

The old name, sharply flung at Jack by this cowboy, seemed to sting and reveal and inflame.  But he restrained himself as with roving glance he searched Moore’s person for sight of a weapon.  The cowboy was unarmed.

“I accuse you of stealing my father’s cattle,” declared Jack, in low, husky accents.  After he got the speech out he swallowed hard.

Moore’s face turned a dead white.  For a fleeting instant a red and savage gleam flamed in his steady glance.  Then it vanished.