Livin' in the woods, away from people--I could stick to a job like that....

But if this White Slides is close to the old trail I'll never stay." He sighed, and a darker shadow, not from flickering fire, overspread his cadaverous face.

Eighteen years ago he had driven the woman he loved away from him, out into the world with her baby girl.

Never had he rested beside a camp-fire that that old agony did not recur! Jealous fool! Too late he had discovered his fatal blunder; and then had begun a search over Colorado, ending not a hundred miles across the wild mountains from where he brooded that lonely hour--a search ended by news of the massacre of a wagon-train by Indians.
That was Bent Wade's secret.
And no earthly sufferings could have been crueler than his agony and remorse, as through the long years he wandered on and on.

The very good that he tried to do seemed to foment evil.