“I reckon a little trimmin’ will improve the looks of this carcass,” observed Wade.

“Wade, we never had any one round except dad who could cut up a steer or elk,” said Jack.  “But you’ve got him beat.”

“I’m pretty handy at most things.”

“Handy!...  I wish I could do just one thing as well as you.  I can ride, but that’s all.  No one ever taught me anything.”

“You’re a young fellow yet, an’ you’ve time, if you only take kindly to learnin’.  I was past your age when I learned most I know.”

The hunter’s voice and his look, and that fascination which subtly hid in his presence, for the first time seemed to find the response of interest in young Belllounds.

“I can’t stick, dad says, and he swears at me,” replied Belllounds.  “But I’ll bet I could learn from you.”

“Reckon you could.  Why can’t you stick to anythin’?”

“I don’t know.  I’ve been as enthusiastic over work as over riding mustangs.  To ride came natural, but in work, when I do it wrong, then I hate it.”

“Ahuh!  That’s too bad.  You oughtn’t to hate work.  Hard work makes for what I reckon you like in a man, but don’t understand.  As I look back over my life—­an’ let me say, young fellar, it’s been a tough one—­what I remember most an’ feel best over are the hardest jobs I ever did, an’ those that cost the most sweat an’ blood.”

As Wade warmed to his subject, hoping to sow a good seed in Belllounds’s mind, he saw that he was wasting his earnestness.  Belllounds did not keep to the train of thought.  His mind wandered, and now he was examining Wade’s rifle.

“Old Henry forty-four,” he said.  “Dad has one.  Also an old needle-gun.  Say, can I go hunting with you?”

“Glad to have you.  How do you handle a rifle?”

“I used to shoot pretty well before I went to Denver,” he replied.  “Haven’t tried since I’ve been home....  Suppose you let me take a shot at that post?” And from where he stood in the door he pointed to a big hitching-post near the corral gate.

The corral contained horses, and in the pasture beyond were cattle, any of which might be endangered by such a shot.  Wade saw that the young man was in earnest, that he wanted to respond to the suggestion in his mind.  Consequences of any kind did not awaken after the suggestion.

“Sure.  Go ahead.  Shoot low, now, a little below where you want to hit,” said Wade.

Belllounds took aim and fired.  A thundering report shook the cabin.  Dust and splinters flew from the post.

“I hit it!” he exclaimed, in delight.  “I was sure I wouldn’t, because I aimed ’way under.”

“Reckon you did.  It was a good shot.”

Then a door slammed and Old Bill Belllounds appeared, his hair upstanding, his look and gait proclaiming him on the rampage.

“Jack!  What’n hell are you doin’?” he roared, and he stamped up to the door to see his son standing there with the rifle in his hands.  “By Heaven!  If it ain’t one thing it’s another!”