"Say, Wade, are you growing dotty?
Good Lord! if I'd ridden that far--if I was able to do it--wouldn't you hear me yell ?" "Reckon so, come to think of it.

I just saw a track like Spottie's, made two days ago." "Well, it wasn't his, you can gamble on that," returned the cowboy.
* * * * * Wade spent four days hiding in an aspen grove, on top of one of the highest foothills above White Slides Ranch.

There he lay at ease, like an Indian, calm and somber, watching the trails below, waiting for what he knew was to come.
On the fifth morning he was at his post at sunrise.

A casual remark of one of the new cowboys the night before accounted for the early hour of Wade's reconnoiter.

The dawn was fresh and cool, with sweet odor of sage on the air; the jays were squalling their annoyance at this early disturber of their grove; the east was rosy above the black range and soon glowed with gold and then changed to fire.