dden, gleamed yellow in the sunlight. At the edge of this
valley a faint column of blue smoke curled upward.

"Ahuh!" muttered the hunter, as he looked. The hound whined and pushed a
cool nose into Wade's hand.

Then Wade resumed his noiseless and stealthy course through the woods.
He began a descent, leading off somewhat to the right of the point where
the smoke had arisen. The presence of the rustlers in the cabin was of
importance, yet not so paramount as another possibility. He expected
Jack Belllounds to be with them or meet them there, and that was the
thing he wanted to ascertain. When he got down below the little valley
he swung around to the left to cross the trail that came up from the
main valley, some miles still farther down. He found it, and was not
surprised to see fresh horse tracks, made that morning. He recognized
those tracks. Jack Belllounds was with the rustlers, come, no doubt, to
receive his pay.

Then the change in Wade, and the actions of a trailer of men, became
more singularly manifest. He reverted to some former habit of mind and
body. He was as slow as a shadow, absolutely silent, and the gaze that
roved ahead and all around must have taken note of every living thing,
of every moving leaf or fern or bough. The hound, with hair curling up
stiff on his back, stayed close to Wade, watching, listening, and
stepping with him. Certainly Wade expected the rustlers to have some one
of their number doing duty as an outlook. So he kept uphill, above the
cabin, and made his careful way through the thicket coverts, which at
that place were dense and matted clumps of jack-pine and spruce. At last
he could see the cabin and the narrow, grassy valley just beyond. To his
relief the horses were unsaddled and grazing. No man was in sight. But
there might be a dog. The hunter, in his slow advance, used keen and
unrelaxing vigilance, and at length he decided that if there had been a
dog he would have been tied outside to give an alarm.

Wade had now reached his objective point. He was some eighty paces from
the cabin, in line with an open aisle down which he could see into the
cleared space before the door. On his left were thick, small spruces,
with low-spreading branches, and they extended all the way to the cabin
on that side, and in fact screened two walls of it. Wade knew exactly
what he was going to do. No longer did he hesitate. Laying down his
rifle, he tied the hound to a little spruce, patting him