crooked soul!"

The hunter took up that trail, and he followed it into the woods. There
he hesitated. Men who left crooked trails frequently ambushed them, and
Belllounds had made no effort to conceal his tracks. Indeed, he had
chosen the soft, open ground, even after he had left the trail to take
to the grassy, wooded benches. There were cattle here, but not as many
as on the more open aspen slopes across the valley. After deliberating a
moment, Wade decided that he must risk being caught trailing Belllounds.
But he would go slowly, trusting to eye and ear, to outwit this
strangely acting foreman of White Slides Ranch.

To that end he dismounted and took the trail. Wade had not followed it
far before he became convinced that Belllounds had been looking in the
thickets for cattle; and he had not climbed another mile through the
aspens and spruce before he discovered that Belllounds was driving
cattle. Thereafter Wade proceeded more cautiously. If the long grass had
not been wet he would have encountered great difficulty in trailing
Belllounds. Evidence was clear now that he was hiding the tracks of the
cattle by keeping to the grassy levels and slopes which, after the sun
had dried them, would not leave a trace. There were stretches where even
the keen-eyed hunter had to work to find the direction taken by
Belllounds. But here and there, in other localities, there showed faint
signs of cattle and horse tracks.

The morning passed, with Wade slowly climbing to the edge of the black
timber. Then, in a hollow where a spring gushed forth, he saw the tracks
of a few cattle that had halted to drink, and on top of these the tracks
of a horse with a crooked left front shoe. The rider of this horse had
dismounted. There was an imprint of a cowboy's boot, and near it little
sharp circles with dots in the center.

"Well, I'll be damned!" ejaculated Wade. "I call that mighty cunnin'.
Here they are--proofs as plain as writin'--that Wils Moore rustled Old
Bill's cattle!... Buster Jack, you're not such a fool as I thought....
He's made somethin' like the end of Wils's crutch. An' knowin' how Wils
uses that every time he gets off his horse, why, the dirty pup carried
his instrument with him an' made these tracks!"

Wade left the trail then, and, leading his horse to a covert of spruce,
he sat down to rest and think. Was there any reason for following
Belllounds farther? It did not seem needful to take the risk of being
discovered