“I’ll keep them with me an’ make lead dogs out of them,” said Wade.  “Belllounds, that bunch hasn’t had enough to eat.  They’re half starved.”

“Wal, thet’s worried me more’n you’ll guess,” declared Belllounds, with irritation.  “What do a lot of cow-punchin’ fellars know about dogs?  Why, they nearly ate Bludsoe up.  He wouldn’t feed ’em.  An’ Wils, who seemed good with dogs, was taken off bad hurt the other day.  Lem’s been tryin’ to rustle feed fer them.  Now we’ll give back the dogs you don’t want to keep, an’ thet way thin out the pack.”

“Yes, we won’t need `em all.  An’ I reckon I’ll take the worry of this dog-pack off your mind.”

“Thet’s your job, Wade.  My orders are fer you to kill off the varmints.  Lions, wolves, coyotes.  An’ every fall some ole silvertip gits bad, an’ now an’ then other bears.  Whatever you need in the way of supplies jest ask fer.  We send regular to Kremmlin’.  You can hunt fer two months yet, barrin’ an onusual early winter....  I’m askin’ you—­if my son tramps on your toes—­I’d take it as a favor fer you to be patient.  He’s only a boy yet, an’ coltish.”

Wade divined that was a favor difficult for Belllounds to ask.  The old rancher, dominant and forceful and self-sufficient all his days, had begun to feel an encroachment of opposition beyond his control.  If he but realized it, the favor he asked of Wade was an appeal.

“Belllounds, I get along with everybody,” Wade assured him.  “An’ maybe I can help your son.  Before I’d reached here I’d heard he was wild, an’ so I’m prepared.”

“If you’d do thet—­wal, I’d never forgit it,” replied the rancher, slowly.  “Jack’s been away fer three years.  Only got back a week or so ago.  I calkilated he’d be sobered, steadied, by—­thet—­thet work I put him to.  But I’m not sure.  He’s changed.  When he gits his own way he’s all I could ask.  But thet way he wants ain’t always what it ought to be.  An’ so thar’s been clashes.  But Jack’s a fine young man.  An’ he’ll outgrow his temper an’ crazy notions.  Work’ll do it.”

“Boys will be boys,” replied Wade, philosophically.  “I’ve not forgotten when I was a boy.”

“Neither hev I. Wal, I’ll be goin’, Wade.  I reckon Columbine will be up to call on you.  Bein’ the only woman-folk in my house, she sort of runs it.  An’ she’s sure interested in thet pack of hounds.”

Belllounds trudged away, his fine old head erect, his gray hair shining in the sun.

Wade sat down upon the step of his cabin, pondering over the rancher’s remarks about his son.  Recalling the young man’s physiognomy, Wade began to feel that it was familiar to him.  He had seen Jack Belllounds before.  Wade never made mistakes in faces, though he often had a task to recall names.  And he began to go over the recent past, recalling all that he could remember of Meeker, and Cripple Creek, where he had worked for several months, and so on, until he had gone back as far as his last trip to Denver.