“Wal, git down an' come in,” added Billings, heartily.
He led the way across the square, around the corner of the ranch-house, and up on a long porch, where the arrangement of chairs and blankets attested to the hand of a woman. The first door was open, and from it issued voices; first a shrill, petulant boy's complaint, and then a man's deep, slow, patient reply.
Lem Billings knocked on the door-jamb.
“Wal, what's wanted?” called Belllounds.
“Boss, thar's a man wantin' to see you,” replied Lem.
Heavy steps approached the doorway and it was filled with the large figure of the rancher. Wade remembered Belllounds and saw only a gray difference in years.
“Good mornin', Lem, an' good moinin' to you, stranger,” was the rancher's greeting, his bold, blue glance, honest and frank and keen, with all his long experience of men, taking Wade in with one flash.
Lem discreetly walked to the end of the porch as another figure, that of the son who resembled the father, filled the doorway, with eyes less kind, bent upon the visitor.
“My name's Wade. I'm over from Meeker way, hopin' to find a job with you,” said Wade.
“Glad to meet you,” replied Belllounds, extending his huge hand to shake Wade's. “I need you, sure bad. What's your special brand of work?”
“I reckon any kind.”
“Set down, stranger,” replied Belllounds, pulling up a chair. He seated himself on a bench and leaned against the log wall. “Now, when a boy comes an' says he can do anythin', why I jest haw! haw! at him. But you're a man, Wade, an' one as has been there. Now I'm hard put fer hands. Jest speak out now fer yourself. No one else can speak fer you, thet's sure. An' this is bizness.”
“Any work with stock, from punchin' steers to doctorin' horses,” replied Wade, quietly. “Am fair carpenter an' mason. Good packer. Know farmin'. Can milk cows an' make butter. I've been cook in many outfits. Read an' write an' not bad at figures. Can do work on saddles an' harness, an-”
“Hold on!” yelled Belllounds, with a hearty laugh. “I ain't imposin' on no man, no matter how I need help. You're sure a jack of all range trades. An' I wish you was a hunter.”
“I was comin' to that. You didn't give me time.”
“Say, do you know hounds?” queried Belllounds, eagerly.
“Yes. Was raised where everybody had packs. I'm from Kentucky. An' I've run hounds off an' on for years. I'll tell you—”
Belllounds interrupted Wade.
“By all that's lucky! An' last, can you handle guns? We 'ain't had a good shot on this range fer Lord knows how long. I used to hit plumb center with a rifle. My eyes are pore now. An' my son can't hit a flock of haystacks. An' the cowpunchers are 'most as bad. Sometimes right hyar where you could hit elk with a club we're out of fresh meat.”
“Yes, I can handle guns,” replied Wade, with a quiet smile and a lowering of his head. “Reckon you didn't catch my name.”
“Wal—no, I didn't,” slowly replied Belllounds, and his pause, with the keener look he bestowed upon Wade, told how the latter's query had struck home.
“Wade—Bent Wade,” said Wade, with quiet distinctness.
“
“The same.... I ain't proud of the handle, but I never sail under false colors.”
“Wal, I'll be damned!” went on the rancher. “Wade, I've heerd of you fer years. Some bad, but most good, an' I reckon I'm jest as glad to meet you as if you'd been somebody else.”
“You'll give me the job?”
“I should smile.”
“I'm thankin' you. Reckon I was some worried. Jobs are hard for me to get an' harder to keep.”
“Thet's not onnatural, considerin' the hell which's said to camp on your trail,” replied Belllounds, dryly. “Wade, I can't say I take a hell of a lot of stock in such talk. Fifty years I've been west of the Missouri. I know the West an' I know men. Talk flies from camp to ranch, from diggin's to town, an' always some one adds a little more. Now I trust my judgment an' I trust men. No one ever betrayed me yet.”
“I'm that way, too,” replied Wade. “But it doesn't pay, an' yet I still kept on bein' that way.... Belllounds, my name's as bad as good all over western Colorado. But as man to man I tell you—I never did a low-down trick in my life.... Never but once.”
“An' what was thet?” queried the rancher, gruffly.
“I killed a man who was innocent,” replied Wade, with quivering lips, “an'—an' drove the woman I loved to her death.”
“Aw! we all make mistakes some time in our lives,” said Belllounds, hurriedly. “I made 'most as big a one as yours—so help me God!...”
“I'll tell you—” interrupted Wade.
“You needn't tell me anythin',” said Belllounds, interrupting in his turn. “But at thet some time I'd like to hear about the Lascelles outfit over on the Gunnison. I knowed Lascelles. An' a pardner of mine down in Middle Park came back from the Gunnison with the dog-gondest story I ever heerd. Thet was five years ago this summer. Of course I knowed your name long before, but this time I heerd it powerful strong. You got in thet mix-up to your
