“You’ve got me pat!  But who’re you?” said Folsom, huskily.

Wade kept silent.

“Who’n hell is thet man?” yelled the rustler It was not a query to his comrades any more than to the four winds.  It was a furious questioning of a memory that stirred and haunted, and as well a passionate and fearful denial.

“His name’s Wade,” put in Belllounds, harshly.  “He’s the friend of Wils Moore.  He’s the hunter I told you about—­worked for my father last winter.”

“Wade?...  What? Wade! You never told me his name.  It ain’t—­it ain’t—­”

“Yes, it is, Cap,” interrupted Wade.  “It’s the old boy that spoiled your handsome mug—­long ago.”

“Hell-Bent Wade!” gasped Folsom, in terrible accents.  He shook all over.  An ashen paleness crept into his face.  Instinctively his right hand jerked toward his gun; then, as in his former motion, froze in the very act.

“Careful, Cap!” warned Wade.  “It’d be a shame not to hear me talk a little....  Turn around now an’ greet an old pard of the Gunnison days.”

Folsom turned as if a resistless, heavy force was revolving his head.

“By Gawd!...  Wade!” he ejaculated.  The tone of his voice, the light in his eyes, must have been a spiritual acceptance of a dreadful and irrefutable fact—­perhaps the proximity of death.  But he was no coward.  Despite the hunter’s order, given as he stood there, gun drawn and ready, Folsom wheeled back again, savagely to throw the deck of cards in Belllounds’s face.  He cursed horribly....  “You spoiled brat of a rich rancher!  Why’n hell didn’t you tell me thet varmint-hunter was Wade.”

“I did tell you,” shouted Belllounds, flaming of face.

“You’re a liar!  You never said Wade—­W-a-d-e, right out, so I’d hear it.  An’ I’d never passed by Hell-Bent Wade.”

“Aw, that name made me tired,” replied Belllounds, contemptuously.

“Haw!  Haw!  Haw!” bawled the rustler.  “Made you tired, hey?  Think you’re funny?  Wal, if you knowed how many men thet name’s made tired—­an’ tired fer keeps—­you’d not think it so damn funny.”

“Say, what’re you giving me?  That Sheriff Burley tried to tell me and dad a lot of rot about this Wade.  Why, he’s only a little, bow-legged, big-nosed meddler—­a man with a woman’s voice—­a sneaking cook and camp-doctor and cow-milker, and God only knows what else.”

“Boy, you’re correct.  God only knows what else!...  It’s the else you’ve got to learn.  An’ I’ll gamble you’ll learn it....  Wade, have you changed or grown old thet you let a pup like this yap such talk?”

“Well, Cap, he’s very amusin’ just now, an’ I want you-all to enjoy him.  Because, if you don’t force my hand I’m goin’ to tell you some interestin’ stuff about this Buster Jack....  Now, will you be quiet an’ listen—­an’ answer for your pards?”

“Wade, I answer fer no man.  But, so far as I’ve noticed, my pards ain’t hankerin’ to make any loud noise,” Folsom replied, indicating his comrades, with sarcasm.