* * * * *

Sunset found Bent Wade far up the valley of White River under the shadow
of the Flat Top Mountains. It was beautiful country. Grassy hills, with
colored aspen groves, swelled up on his left, and across the brawling
stream rose a league-long slope of black spruce, above which the bare
red-and-gray walls of the range towered, glorious with the blaze of
sinking sun. White patches of snow showed in the sheltered nooks. Wade's
gaze rested longest on the colored heights.

By and by the narrow valley opened into a park, at the upper end of
which stood a log cabin. A few cattle and horses grazed in an inclosed
pasture. The trail led by the cabin. As Wade rode up a bushy-haired man
came out of the door, rifle in hand. He might have been going out to
hunt, but his scrutiny of Wade was that of a lone settler in a
wild land.

"Howdy, stranger!" he said.

"Good evenin'," replied Wade. "Reckon you're Blair an' I'm nigh the
headwaters of this river?"

"Yep, a matter of three miles to Trapper's Lake."

"My name's Wade. I'm packin' over to take a job with Bill Belllounds."

"Git down an' come in," returned Blair. "Bill's man stopped with me some
time ago."

"Obliged, I'm sure, but I'll be goin' on," responded Wade. "Do you