That round-up showed a loss of one hundred head of stock.
Belllounds received the amazing news with a roar.

THE

MYSTERIOUS RIDER

A NOVEL

BY

ZANE GREY

AUTHOR OF

THE MAN OF THE FOREST,
THE U.P. TRAIL,
RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE,
THE DESERT OF WHEAT, ETC.

1921

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE MYSTERIOUS RIDER

CHAPTER I

A September sun, losing some of its heat if not its brilliance,
was dropping low in the west over the black Colorado range. Purple
haze began to thicken in the timbered notches. Gray foothills,
round and billowy, rolled down from the higher country. They were
smooth, sweeping, with long velvety slopes and isolated patches of
aspens that blazed in autumn gold. Splotches of red vine colored
the soft gray of sage. Old White Slides, a mountain scarred by
avalanche, towered with bleak rocky peak above the valley,
sheltering it from the north.

A girl rode along the slope, with gaze on the sweep and range
and color of the mountain fastness that was her home. She followed
an old trail which led to a bluff overlooking an arm of the valley.
Once it had been a familiar lookout for her, but she had not
visited the place of late. It was associated with serious hours of
her life. Here seven years before, when she was twelve, she had
made a hard choice to please her guardian–the old rancher whom she
loved and called father, who had indeed been a father to her. That
choice had been to go to school in Denver. Four years she had lived
away from her beloved gray hills and black mountains. Only once
since her return had she climbed to this height, and that occasion,
too, was memorable as an unhappy hour. It had been three years ago.
To-day girlish ordeals and griefs seemed back in the past: she was
a woman at nineteen and face to face with the first great problem
in her life.

The trail came up back of the bluff, through a clump of aspens
with white trunks and yellow fluttering leaves, and led across a
level bench of luxuriant grass and wild flowers to the rocky
edge.

She dismounted and threw the bridle. Her mustang, used to being
petted, rubbed his sleek, dark head against her and evidently
expected like demonstration in return, but as none was forthcoming
he bent his nose to the grass and began grazing. The girl’s eyes
were intent upon some waving, slender, white-and-blue flowers. They
smiled up wanly, like pale stars, out of the long grass that had a
tinge of gold.

“Columbines,” she mused, wistfully, as she plucked several of
the flowers and held them up to gaze wonderingly at them, as if to
see in them some revelation of the mystery that shrouded her birth
and her name. Then she stood with dreamy gaze upon the distant
ranges.

“Columbine!… So they named me–those miners who found me–a
baby–lost in the woods–asleep among the columbines.” She spoke
aloud, as if the sound of her voice might convince her.

So much of the mystery of her had been revealed that day by the
man she had always called father. Vaguely she had always been
conscious of some mystery, something strange about her childhood,
some relation never explained.

“No name but Columbine,” she whispered, sadly, and now she
understood a strange longing of her heart.

Scarcely an hour back, as she ran down the Wide porch of White
Slides ranch-house, she had encountered the man who had taken care
of her all her life. He had looked upon her as kindly and fatherly
as of old, yet with a difference. She seemed to see him as old Bill
Belllounds, pioneer and rancher, of huge frame and broad face, hard
and scarred and grizzled, with big eyes of blue fire.

“Collie,” the old man had said, “I reckon hyar’s news. A letter
from Jack…. He’s comin’ home.”

Belllounds had waved the letter. His huge hand trembled as he
reached to put it on her shoulder. The hardness of him seemed
strangely softened. Jack was his son. Buster Jack, the range had
always called him, with other terms, less kind, that never got to
the ears of his father. Jack had been sent away three years ago,
just before Columbine’s return from school. Therefore she had not
seen him for over seven years. But she remembered him well–a big,
rangy boy, handsome and wild, who had made her childhood almost
unendurable.

“Yes–my son–Jack–he’s comin’ home,” said Belllounds, with a
break in his voice. “An’, Collie–now I must tell you
somethin’.”

“Yes, dad,” she had replied, with strong clasp of the heavy hand
on her shoulder.

“Thet’s just it, lass. I ain’t your dad. I’ve tried to be a dad
to you an’ I’ve loved you as my own. But you’re not flesh an’ blood
of mine. An’ now I must tell you.”

The brief story followed. Seventeen years ago miners working a
claim of Belllounds’s in the mountains above Middle Park had found
a child asleep in the columbines along the trail. Near that point
Indians, probably Arapahoes coming across the mountains to attack
the Utes, had captured or killed the occupants of a
prairie-schooner. There was no other clue. The miners took the
child to their camp, fed and cared for it, and, after the manner of
their kind, named it Columbine. Then they brought it to
Belllounds.

“Collie,” said the old rancher, “it needn’t never have been
told, an’ wouldn’t but fer one reason. I’m gettin’ old. I reckon
I’d never split my property between you an’ Jack. So I mean you an’
him to marry. You always steadied Jack. With a wife like you’ll
be–wal, mebbe Jack’ll–“

“Dad!” burst out Columbine. “Marry Jack!… Why I–I don’t even
remember him!”

“Haw! Haw!” laughed Belllounds. “Wal, you dog-gone soon will.
Jack’s in Kremmlin’, an’ he’ll be hyar to-night or to-morrow.”

“But–I–I don’t l-love him,” faltered Columbine.

The old man lost his mirth; the strong-lined face resumed its
hard cast; the big eyes smoldered. Her appealing objection had
wounded him. She was reminded of how sensitive the old man had
always been to any reflection cast upon his son.

“Wal, thet’s onlucky;” he replied, gruffly. “Mebbe you’ll
change. I reckon no girl could help a boy much, onless she cared
for him. Anyway, you an’ Jack will marry.”

He had stalked away and Columbine had ridden her mustang far up
the valley slope where she could be alone. Standing on the verge of
the bluff, she suddenly became aware that the quiet and solitude of
her lonely resting-place had been disrupted. Cattle were bawling
below her and along the slope of old White Slides and on the grassy
uplands above. She had forgotten that the cattle were being driven
down into the lowlands for the fall round-up. A great
red-and-white-spotted herd was milling in the park just beneath
her. Calves and yearlings were making the dust fly along the
mountain slope; wild old steers were crashing in the sage, holding
level, unwilling to be driven down; cows were running and lowing
for their lost ones. Melodious and clear rose the clarion calls of
the cowboys. The cattle knew those calls and only the wild steers
kept up-grade.

Columbine also knew each call and to which cowboy it belonged.
They sang and yelled and swore, but it was all music to her. Here
and there along the slope, where the aspen groves clustered, a
horse would flash across an open space; the dust would fly, and a
cowboy would peal out a lusty yell that rang along the slope and
echoed under the bluff and lingered long after the daring rider had
vanished in the steep thickets.

“I wonder which is Wils,” murmured Columbine, as she watched and
listened, vaguely conscious of a little difference, a strange check
in her remembrance of this particular cowboy. She felt the change,
yet did not understand. One after one she recognized the riders on
the slopes below, but Wilson Moore was not among them. He must be
above her, then, and she turned to gaze across the grassy bluff, up
the long, yellow slope, to where the gleaming aspens half hid a red
bluff of mountain, towering aloft. Then from far to her left, high
up a scrubby ridge of the slope, rang down a voice that thrilled
her: “Go–aloong–you-ooooo.” Red cattle dashed pell-mell
down the slope, raising the dust, tearing the brush, rolling rocks,
and letting out hoarse bawls.

“Whoop-ee!” High-pitched and pealing came a clearer
yell.

Columbine saw a white mustang flash out on top of the ridge,
silhouetted against the blue, with mane and tail flying. His gait
on that edge of steep slope proved his rider to be a reckless
cowboy for whom no heights or depths had terrors. She would have
recognized him from the way he rode, if she had not known the slim,
erect figure. The cowboy saw her instantly. He pulled the mustang,
about to plunge down the slope, and lifted him, rearing and
wheeling. Then Columbine waved her hand. The cowboy spurred his
horse along the crest of the ridge, disappeared behind the grove of
aspens, and came in sight again around to the right, where on the
grassy bench he slowed to a walk in descent to the bluff.

The girl watched him come, conscious of an unfamiliar sense of
uncertainty in this meeting, and of the fact that she was seeing
him differently from any other time in the years he had been a
playmate, a friend, almost like a brother. He had ridden for
Belllounds for years, and was a cowboy because he loved cattle well
and horses better, and above all a life in the open. Unlike most
cowboys, he had been to school; he had a family in Denver that
objected to his wild range life, and often importuned him to come
home; he seemed aloof sometimes and not readily understood.

While many thoughts whirled through Columbine’s mind she watched
the cowboy ride slowly down to her, and she became more concerned
with a sudden restraint. How was Wilson going to take the news of
this forced change about to come in her life? That thought leaped
up. It gave her a strange pang. But she and he were only good
friends. As to that, she reflected, of late they had not been the
friends and comrades they formerly were. In the thrilling
uncertainty of this meeting she had forgotten his distant manner
and the absence of little attentions she had missed.

By this time the cowboy had reached the level, and with the lazy
grace of his kind slipped out of the saddle. He was tall, slim,
round-limbed, with the small hips of a rider, and square, though
not broad shoulders. He stood straight like an Indian. His eyes
were hazel, his features regular, his face bronzed. All men of the
open had still, lean, strong faces, but added to this in him was a
steadiness of expression, a restraint that seemed to hide
sadness.

“Howdy, Columbine!” he said. “What are you doing up here? You
might get run over.”

“Hello, Wils!” she replied, slowly. “Oh, I guess I can keep out
of the way.”

“Some bad steers in that bunch. If any of them run over here
Pronto will leave you to walk home. That mustang hates cattle. And
he’s only half broke, you know.”

“I forgot you were driving to-day,” she replied, and looked away
from him. There was a moment’s pause–long, it seemed to her.

“What’d you come for?” he asked, curiously.

“I wanted to gather columbines. See.” She held out the nodding
flowers toward him. “Take one…. Do you like them?”

“Yes. I like columbine,” he replied, taking one of them. His
keen hazel eyes, softened, darkened. “Colorado’s flower.”

“Columbine!… It is my name.”

“Well, could you have a better? It sure suits you.”

“Why?” she asked, and she looked at him again.

“You’re slender–graceful. You sort of hold your head high and
proud. Your skin is white. Your eyes are blue. Not bluebell blue,
but columbine blue–and they turn purple when you’re angry.”

“Compliments! Wilson, this is new kind of talk for you,” she
said.

“You’re different to-day.”

“Yes, I am.” She looked across the valley toward the westering
sun, and the slight flush faded from her cheeks. “I have no right
to hold my head proud. No one knows who I am–where I came
from.”

“As if that made any difference!” he exclaimed.

“Belllounds is not my dad. I have no dad. I was a waif. They
found me in the woods–a baby–lost among the flowers. Columbine
Belllounds I’ve always been. But that is not my name. No one can
tell what my name really is.”

“I knew your story years ago, Columbine,” he replied, earnestly.
“Everybody knows. Old Bill ought to have told you long before this.
But he loves you. So does–everybody. You must not let this
knowledge sadden you…. I’m sorry you’ve never known a mother or a
sister. Why, I could tell you of many orphans who–whose stories
were different.”

“You don’t understand. I’ve been happy. I’ve not longed for
any–any one except a mother. It’s only–“

“What don’t I understand?”

“I’ve not told you all.”

“No? Well, go on,” he said, slowly.

Meaning of the hesitation and the restraint that had obstructed
her thought now flashed over Columbine. It lay in what Wilson Moore
might think of her prospective marriage to Jack Belllounds. Still
she could not guess why that should make her feel strangely
uncertain of the ground she stood on or how it could cause a
constraint she had to fight herself to hide. Moreover, to her
annoyance, she found that she was evading his direct request for
the news she had withheld.

“Jack Belllounds is coming home to-night or to-morrow,” she
said. Then, waiting for her companion to reply, she kept an
unseeing gaze upon the scanty pines fringing Old White Slides. But
no reply appeared to be forthcoming from Moore. His silence
compelled her to turn to him. The cowboy’s face had subtly altered;
it was darker with a tinge of red under the bronze; and his lower
lip was released from his teeth, even as she looked. He had his
eyes intent upon the lasso he was coiling. Suddenly he faced her
and the dark fire of his eyes gave her a shock.

I’ve been expecting that shorthorn back for months.” he said,
bluntly.

“You–never–liked Jack?” queried Columbine, slowly. That was
not what she wanted to say, but the thought spoke itself.

“I should smile I never did.”

“Ever since you and he fought–long ago–all over–“

His sharp gesture made the coiled lasso loosen.

“Ever since I licked him good–don’t forget that,” interrupted
Wilson. The red had faded from the bronze.

“Yes, you licked him,” mused Columbine. “I remember that. And
Jack’s hated you ever since.”

“There’s been no love lost.”

“But, Wils, you never before talked this way–spoke out
so–against Jack,” she protested.

“Well, I’m not the kind to talk behind a fellow’s back. But I’m
not mealy-mouthed, either, and–and–“

He did not complete the sentence and his meaning was enigmatic.
Altogether Moore seemed not like himself. The fact disturbed
Columbine. Always she had confided in him. Here was a most complex
situation–she burned to tell him, yet somehow feared to–she felt
an incomprehensible satisfaction in his bitter reference to
Jack–she seemed to realize that she valued Wilson’s friendship
more than she had known, and now for some strange reason it was
slipping from her.

“We–we were such good friends–pards,” said Columbine,
hurriedly and irrelevantly.

“Who?” He stared at her.

“Why, you–and me.”

“Oh!” His tone softened, but there was still disapproval in his
glance. “What of that?”

“Something has happened to make me think I’ve missed
you–lately–that’s all.”

“Ahuh!” His tone held finality and bitterness, but he would not
commit himself. Columbine sensed a pride in him that seemed the
cause of his aloofness.

“Wilson, why have you been different lately?” she asked,
plaintively.

“What’s the good to tell you now?” he queried, in reply.

That gave her a blank sense of actual loss. She had lived in
dreams and he in realities. Right now she could not dispel her
dream–see and understand all that he seemed to. She felt like a
child, then, growing old swiftly. The strange past longing for a
mother surged up in her like a strong tide. Some one to lean on,
some one who loved her, some one to help her in this hour when
fatality knocked at the door of her youth–how she needed that!

“It might be bad for me–to tell me, but tell me, anyhow,” she
said, finally, answering as some one older than she had been an
hour ago–to something feminine that leaped up. She did not
understand this impulse, but it was in her.

“No!” declared Moore, with dark red staining his face. He
slapped the lasso against his saddle, and tied it with clumsy
hands. He did not look at her. His tone expressed anger and
amaze.

“Dad says I must marry Jack,” she said, with a sudden return to
her natural simplicity.

“I heard him tell that months ago,” snapped Moore.

“You did! Was that–why?” she whispered.

“It was,” he answered, ringingly.

“But that was no reason for you to be–be–to stay away from
me,” she declared, with rising spirit.

He laughed shortly.

“Wils, didn’t you like me any more after dad said that?” she
queried.

“Columbine, a girl nineteen years and about to–to get
married–ought not be a fool,” he replied, with sarcasm.

“I’m not a fool,” she rejoined, hotly.

“You ask fool questions.”

“Well, you didn’t like me afterward or you’d never have
mistreated me.”

“If you say I mistreated you–you say what’s untrue,” he
replied, just as hotly.

They had never been so near a quarrel before. Columbine
experienced a sensation new to her–a commingling of fear, heat,
and pang, it seemed, all in one throb. Wilson was hurting her. A
quiver ran all over her, along her veins, swelling and
tingling.

“You mean I lie?” she flashed.

“Yes, I do–if–“

But before he could conclude she slapped his face. It grew pale
then, while she began to tremble.

“Oh–I didn’t intend that. Forgive me,” she faltered.

He rubbed his cheek. The hurt had not been great, so far as the
blow was concerned. But his eyes were dark with pain and anger.

“Oh, don’t distress yourself,” he burst out. “You slapped me
before–once, years ago–for kissing you. I–I apologize for saying
you lied. You’re only out of your head. So am I.”

That poured oil upon the troubled waters. The cowboy appeared to
be hesitating between sudden flight and the risk of staying
longer.

“Maybe that’s it,” replied Columbine, with a half-laugh. She was
not far from tears and fury with herself. “Let us make up–be
friends again.”

Moore squared around aggressively. He seemed to fortify himself
against something in her. She felt that. But his face grew harder
and older than she had ever seen it.

“Columbine, do you know where Jack Belllounds has been for these
three years?” he asked, deliberately, entirely ignoring her
overtures of friendship.

“No. Somebody said Denver. Some one else said Kansas City. I
never asked dad, because I knew Jack had been sent away. I’ve
supposed he was working–making a man of himself.”

“Well, I hope to Heaven–for your sake–what you suppose comes
true,” returned Moore, with exceeding bitterness.

“Do you know where he has been?” asked Columbine. Some
strange feeling prompted that. There was a mystery here. Wilson’s
agitation seemed strange and deep.

“Yes, I do.” The cowboy bit that out through closing teeth, as
if locking them against an almost overmastering temptation.

Columbine lost her curiosity. She was woman enough to realize
that there might well be facts which would only make her situation
harder.

“Wilson,” she began, hurriedly, “I owe all I am to dad. He has
cared for me–sent me to school. He has been so good to me. I’ve
loved him always. It would be a shabby return for all his
protection and love if–if I refused–“

“Old Bill is the best man ever,” interrupted Moore, as if to
repudiate any hint of disloyalty to his employer. “Everybody in
Middle Park and all over owes Bill something. He’s sure good. There
never was anything wrong with him except his crazy blindness about
his son. Buster Jack–the–the–“

Columbine put a hand over Moore’s lips.

“The man I must marry,” she said, solemnly.

“You must–you will?” he demanded.

“Of course. What else could I do? I never thought of
refusing.”

“Columbine!” Wilson’s cry was so poignant, his gesture so
violent, his dark eyes so piercing that Columbine sustained a shock
that held her trembling and mute. “How can you love Jack
Belllounds? You were twelve years old when you saw him last. How
can you love him?”

“I don’t” replied Columbine.

“Then how could you marry him?”

“I owe dad obedience. It’s his hope that I can steady Jack.”

“Steady Jack!” exclaimed Moore, passionately. “Why, you
girl–you white-faced flower! You with your innocence and
sweetness steady that damned pup! My Heavens! He was a gambler and
a drunkard. He–“

“Hush!” implored Columbine.

“He cheated at cards,” declared the cowboy, with a scorn that
placed that vice as utterly base.

“But Jack was only a wild boy,” replied Columbine, trying with
brave words to champion the son of the man she loved as her father.
“He has been sent away to work. He’ll have outgrown that wildness.
He’ll come home a man.”

“Bah!” cried Moore, harshly.

Columbine felt a sinking within her. Where was her strength?
She, who could walk and ride so many miles, to become sick with an
inward quaking! It was childish. She struggled to hide her weakness
from him.

“It’s not like you to be this way,” she said. “You used to be
generous. Am I to blame? Did I choose my life?”

Moore looked quickly away from her, and, standing with a hand on
his horse, he was silent for a moment. The squaring of his
shoulders bore testimony to his thought. Presently he swung up into
the saddle. The mustang snorted and champed the bit and tossed his
head, ready to bolt.

“Forget my temper,” begged the cowboy, looking down upon
Columbine. “I take it all back. I’m sorry. Don’t let a word of mine
worry you. I was only jealous.”

“Jealous!” exclaimed Columbine, wonderingly.

“Yes. That makes a fellow see red and green. Bad medicine! You
never felt it.”

“What were you jealous of?” asked Columbine.

The cowboy had himself in hand now and he regarded her with a
grim amusement.

“Well, Columbine, it’s like a story,” he replied. “I’m the
fellow disowned by his family–a wanderer of the wilds–no
good–and no prospects…. Now our friend Jack, he’s handsome and
rich. He has a doting old dad. Cattle, horses–ranches! He wins the
girl. See!”

Spurring his mustang, the cowboy rode away. At the edge of the
slope he turned in the saddle. “I’ve got to drive in this bunch of
cattle. It’s late. You hurry home.” Then he was gone. The stones
cracked and rolled down under the side of the bluff.

Columbine stood where he had left her: dubious, yet with the
blood still hot in her cheeks.

“Jealous?… He wins the girl?” she murmured in repetition to
herself. “What ever could he have meant? He didn’t mean–he
didn’t–“

The simple, logical interpretation of Wilson’s words opened
Columbine’s mind to a disturbing possibility of which she had never
dreamed. That he might love her! If he did, why had he not said so?
Jealous, maybe, but he did not love her! The next throb of thought
was like a knock at a door of her heart–a door never yet opened,
inside which seemed a mystery of feeling, of hope, despair, unknown
longing, and clamorous voices. The woman just born in her,
instinctive and self-preservative, shut that door before she had
more than a glimpse inside. But then she felt her heart swell with
its nameless burdens.

Pronto was grazing near at hand. She caught him and mounted. It
struck her then that her hands were numb with cold. The wind had
ceased fluttering the aspens, but the yellow leaves were falling,
rustling. Out on the brow of the slope she faced home and the
west.

A glorious Colorado sunset had just reached the wonderful height
of its color and transformation. The sage slopes below her seemed
rosy velvet; the golden aspens on the farther reaches were on fire
at the tips; the foothills rolled clear and mellow and rich in the
light; the gulf of distance on to the great black range was veiled
in mountain purple; and the dim peaks beyond the range stood up,
sunset-flushed and grand. The narrow belt of blue sky between crags
and clouds was like a river full of fleecy sails and wisps of
silver. Above towered a pall of dark cloud, full of the shades of
approaching night.

“Oh, beautiful!” breathed the girl, with all her worship of
nature. That wild world of sunset grandeur and loneliness and
beauty was hers. Over there, under a peak of the black range, was
the place where she had been found, a baby, lost in the forest. She
belonged to that, and so it belonged to her. Strength came to her
from the glory of light on the hills.

Pronto shot up his ears and checked his trot.

“What is it, boy?” called Columbine. The trail was getting dark.
Shadows were creeping up the slope as she rode down to meet them.
The mustang had keen sight and scent. She reined him to a halt.

All was silent. The valley had begun to shade on the far side
and the rose and gold seemed fading from the nearer. Below, on the
level floor of the valley, lay the rambling old ranch-house, with
the cabins nestling around, and the corrals leading out to the soft
hay-fields, misty and gray in the twilight. A single light gleamed.
It was like a beacon.

The air was cold with a nip of frost. From far on the other side
of the ridge she had descended came the bawls of the last
straggling cattle of the round-up. But surely Pronto had not shot
up his ears for them. As if in answer a wild sound pealed down the
slope, making the mustang jump. Columbine had heard it before.

“Pronto, it’s only a wolf,” she soothed him.

The peal was loud, rather harsh at first, then softened to a
mourn, wild, lonely, haunting. A pack of coyotes barked in angry
answer, a sharp, staccato, yelping chorus, the more piercing notes
biting on the cold night air. These mountain mourns and yelps were
music to Columbine. She rode on down the trail in the gathering
darkness, less afraid of the night and its wild denizens than of
what awaited her at White Slides Ranch.

CHAPTER II

Darkness settled down like a black mantle over the valley.
Columbine rather hoped to find Wilson waiting to take care of her
horse, as used to be his habit, but she was disappointed. No light
showed from the cabin in which the cowboys lived; he had not yet
come in from the round-up. She unsaddled, and turned Pronto loose
in the pasture.

The windows of the long, low ranch-house were bright squares in
the blackness, sending cheerful rays afar. Columbine wondered in
trepidation if Jack Belllounds had come home. It required effort of
will to approach the house. Yet since she must meet him, the sooner
the ordeal was over the better. Nevertheless she tiptoed past the
bright windows, and went all the length of the long porch, and
turned around and went back, and then hesitated, fighting a slow
drag of her spirit, an oppression upon her heart. The door was
crude and heavy. It opened hard.

Columbine entered a big room lighted by a lamp on the upper
table and by blazing logs in a huge stone fireplace. This was the
living-room, rather gloomy in the corners, and bare, but
comfortable, for all simple needs. The logs were new and the chinks
between them filled with clay, still white, showing that the house
was of recent build.

The rancher, Belllounds, sat in his easy-chair before the fire,
his big, horny hands extended to the warmth. He was in his
shirt-sleeves, a gray, bold-faced man, of over sixty years, still
muscular and rugged.

At Columbine’s entrance he raised his drooping head, and so
removed the suggestion of sadness in his posture.

“Wal, lass, hyar you are,” was his greeting. “Jake has been
hollerin’ thet chuck was ready. Now we can eat.”

“Dad–did–did your son come?” asked Columbine.

“No. I got word jest at sundown. One of Baker’s cowpunchers from
up the valley. He rode up from Kremmlin’ an’ stopped to say Jack
was celebratin’ his arrival by too much red liquor. Reckon he won’t
be home to-night. Mebbe to-morrow.”

Belllounds spoke in an even, heavy tone, without any apparent
feeling. Always he was mercilessly frank and never spared the
truth. But Columbine, who knew him well, felt how this news flayed
him. Resentment stirred in her toward the wayward son, but she knew
better than to voice it.

“Natural like, I reckon, fer Jack to feel gay on gettin’ home. I
ain’t holdin’ thet ag’in’ him. These last three years must have
been gallin’ to thet boy.”

Columbine stretched her hands to the blaze.

“It’s cold, dad,” she averred. “I didn’t dress warmly, so I
nearly froze. Autumn is here and there’s frost in the air. Oh, the
hills were all gold and red–the aspen leaves were falling. I love
autumn, but it means winter is so near.”

“Wal, wal, time flies,” sighed the old man. “Where’d you
ride?”

“Up the west slope to the bluff. It’s far. I don’t go there
often.”

“Meet any of the boys? I sent the outfit to drive stock down
from the mountain. I’ve lost a good many head lately. They’re
eatin’ some weed thet poisons them. They swell up an’ die. Wuss
this year than ever before.”

“Why, that is serious, dad! Poor things! That’s worse than
eating loco…. Yes, I met Wilson Moore driving down the
slope.”

“Ahuh! Wal, let’s eat.”

They took seats at the table which the cook, Jake, was loading
with steaming victuals. Supper appeared to be a rather sumptuous
one this evening, in honor of the expected guest, who had not come.
Columbine helped the old man to his favorite dishes, stealing
furtive glances at his lined and shadowed face. She sensed a subtle
change in him since the afternoon, but could not see any sign of it
in his look or demeanor. His appetite was as hearty as ever.

“So you met Wils. Is he still makin’ up to you?” asked
Belllounds, presently.

“No, he isn’t. I don’t see that he ever did–that–dad,” she
replied.

“You’re a kid in mind an’ a woman in body. Thet cowpuncher has
been lovesick over you since you were a little girl. It’s what kept
him hyar ridin’ fer me.”

“Dad, I don’t believe it,” said Columbine, feeling the blood at
her temples. “You always imagined such things about Wilson, and the
other boys as well.”

“Ahuh! I’m an old fool about wimmen, hey? Mebbe I was years ago.
But I can see now…. Didn’t Wils always get ory-eyed when any of
the other boys shined up to you?”

“I can’t remember that he did,” replied Columbine. She felt a
desire to laugh, yet the subject was anything but amusing to
her.

“Wal, you’ve always been innocent-like. Thank the Lord you never
leaned to tricks of most pretty lasses, makin’ eyes at all the men.
Anyway, a matter of three months ago I told Wils to keep away from
you–thet you were not fer any poor cowpuncher.”

“You never liked him. Why? Was it fair, taking him as boys
come?”

“Wal, I reckon it wasn’t,” replied Belllounds, and as he looked
up his broad face changed to ruddy color. “Thet boy’s the best
rider an’ roper I’ve had in years. He ain’t the bronco-bustin’
kind. He never drank. He was honest an’ willin’. He saves his
money. He’s good at handlin’ stock. Thet boy will be a rich rancher
some day.”

“Strange, then, you never liked him,” murmured Columbine. She
felt ashamed of the good it did her to hear Wilson praised.

“No, it ain’t strange. I have my own reasons,” replied
Belllounds, gruffly, as he resumed eating.

Columbine believed she could guess the cause of the old
rancher’s unreasonable antipathy for this cowboy. Not improbably it
was because Wilson had always been superior in every way to Jack
Belllounds. The boys had been natural rivals in everything
pertaining to life on the range. What Bill Belllounds admired most
in men was paramount in Wilson and lacking in his own son.

“Will you put Jack in charge of your ranches, now?” asked
Columbine.

“Not much. I reckon I’ll try him hyar at White Slides as
foreman. An’ if he runs the outfit, then I’ll see.”

“Dad, he’ll never run the White Slides outfit,” asserted
Columbine.

“Wal, it is a hard bunch, I’ll agree. But I reckon the boys will
stay, exceptin’, mebbe, Wils. An’ it’ll be jest as well fer him to
leave.”

“It’s not good business to send away your best cowboy. I’ve
heard you complain lately of lack of men.”

“I sure do need men,” replied Belllounds, seriously. “Stock
gettin’ more ‘n we can handle. I sent word over the range to
Meeker, hopin’ to get some men there. What I need most jest now is
a fellar who knows dogs an’ who’ll hunt down the wolves an’ lions
an’ bears thet’re livin’ off my cattle.”

“Dad, you need a whole outfit to handle the packs of hounds
you’ve got. Such an assortment of them! There must be a hundred.
Only yesterday some man brought a lot of mangy, long-eared canines.
It’s funny. Why, dad, you’re the laughing-stock of the range!’

“Yes, an’ the range’ll be thankin’ me when I rid it of all these
varmints,” declared Belllounds. “Lass, I swore I’d buy every dog
fetched to me, until I had enough to kill off the coyotes an’
lofers an’ lions. I’ll do it, too. But I need a hunter.”

“Why not put Wilson Moore in charge of the hounds? He’s a
hunter.”

“Wal, lass, thet might be a good idee,” replied the rancher,
nodding his grizzled head. “Say, you’re sort of wantin’ me to keep
Wils on.”

“Yes, dad.”

“Why? Do you like him so much?”

“I like him–of course. He has been almost a brother to me.”

“Ahuh! Wal, are you sure you don’t like him more ‘n you
ought–considerin’ what’s in the wind?”

“Yes, I’m sure I don’t,” replied Columbine, with tingling
cheeks.

“Wal, I’m glad of thet. Reckon it’ll be no great matter whether
Wils stays or leaves. If he wants to I’ll give him a job with the
hounds.”

That evening Columbine went to her room early. It was a cozy
little blanketed nest which she had arranged and furnished herself.
There was a little square window cut through the logs and through
which many a night the snow had blown in upon her bed. She loved
her little isolated refuge. This night it was cold, the first time
this autumn, and the lighted lamp, though brightening the room, did
not make it appreciably warmer. There was a stone fireplace, but as
she had neglected to bring in wood she could not start a fire. So
she undressed, blew out the lamp, and went to bed. Columbine was
soon warm, and the darkness of her little room seemed good to her.
Sleep she felt never would come that night. She wanted to think;
she could not help but think; and she tried to halt the whirl of
her mind. Wilson Moore occupied the foremost place in her varying
thoughts–a fact quite remarkable and unaccountable. She tried to
change it. In vain! Wilson persisted–on his white mustang flying
across the ridge-top–coming to her as never before–with his anger
and disapproval–his strange, poignant cry, “Columbine!” that
haunted her–with his bitter smile and his resignation and his
mocking talk of jealousy. He persisted and grew with the old
rancher’s frank praise.

“I must not think of him,” she whispered. “Why, I’ll be–be
married soon…. Married!”

That word transformed her thought, and where she had thrilled
she now felt cold. She revolved the fact in mind.

“It’s true, I’ll be married, because I ought–I must,” she said,
half aloud. “Because I can’t help myself. I ought to want to–for
dad’s sake…. But I don’t–I don’t.”

She longed above all things to be good, loyal, loving, helpful,
to show her gratitude for the home and the affection that had been
bestowed upon a nameless waif. Bill Belllounds had not been under
any obligation to succor a strange, lost child. He had done it
because he was big, noble. Many splendid deeds had been laid at the
old rancher’s door. She was not of an ungrateful nature. She meant
to pay. But the significance of the price began to dawn upon
her.

“It will change my whole life,” she whispered, aghast.

But how? Columbine pondered. She must go over the details of
that change. No mother had ever taught her. The few women that had
been in the Belllounds home from time to time had not been
sympathetic or had not stayed long enough to help her much. Even
her school life in Denver had left her still a child as regarded
the serious problems of women.

“If I’m his wife,” she went on, “I’ll have to be with him–I’ll
have to give up this little room–I’ll never be free–alone–happy,
any more.”

That was the first detail she enumerated. It was also the last.
Realization came with a sickening little shudder. And that moment
gave birth to the nucleus of an unconscious revolt.

The coyotes were howling. Wild, sharp, sweet notes! They soothed
her troubled, aching head, lulled her toward sleep, reminded her of
the gold-and-purple sunset, and the slopes of sage, the lonely
heights, and the beauty that would never change. On the morrow, she
drowsily thought, she would persuade Wilson not to kill all the
coyotes; to leave a few, because she loved them.

Bill Belllounds had settled in Middle Park in 1860. It was wild
country, a home of the Ute Indians, and a natural paradise for elk,
deer, antelope, buffalo. The mountain ranges harbored bear. These
ranges sheltered the rolling valley land which some explorer had
named Middle Park in earlier days.

Much of this inclosed table-land was prairie, where long grass
and wild flowers grew luxuriantly. Belllounds was a cattleman, and
he saw the possibilities there. To which end he sought the
friendship of Piah, chief of the Utes. This noble red man was well
disposed toward the white settlers, and his tribe, during those
troublous times, kept peace with these invaders of their mountain
home.

In 1868 Belllounds was instrumental in persuading the Utes to
relinquish Middle Park. The slopes of the hills were heavily
timbered; gold and silver had been found in the mountains. It was a
country that attracted prospectors, cattlemen, lumbermen. The
summer season was not long enough to grow grain, and the nights too
frosty for corn; otherwise Middle Park would have increased rapidly
in population.

In the years that succeeded the departure of the Utes Bill
Belllounds developed several cattle-ranches and acquired others.
White Slides Ranch lay some twenty-odd miles from Middle Park,
being a winding arm of the main valley land. Its development was a
matter of later years, and Belllounds lived there because the
country was wilder. The rancher, as he advanced in years, seemed to
want to keep the loneliness that had been his in earlier days. At
the time of the return of his son to White Slides Belllounds was
rich in cattle and land, but he avowed frankly that he had not
saved any money, and probably never would. His hand was always open
to every man and he never remembered an obligation. He trusted
every one. A proud boast of his was that neither white man nor red
man had ever betrayed his trust. His cowboys took advantage of him,
his neighbors imposed upon him, but none were there who did not
make good their debts of service or stock. Belllounds was one of
the great pioneers of the frontier days to whom the West owed its
settlement; and he was finer than most, because he proved that the
Indians, if not robbed or driven, would respond to
friendliness.

Belllounds was not seen at his customary tasks on the day he
expected his son. He walked in the fields and around the corrals;
he often paced up and down the porch, scanning the horizon below,
where the road from Kremmling showed white down the valley; and
part of the time he stayed indoors.

It so happened that early in the afternoon he came out in time
to see a buckboard, drawn by dust-and-lather-stained horses, pull
into the yard. And then he saw his son. Some of the cowboys came
running. There were greetings to the driver, who appeared well
known to them.

Jack Belllounds did not look at them. He threw a bag out of the
buckboard and then clambered down slowly, to go toward the
porch.

“Wal, Jack–my son–I’m sure glad you’re back home,” said the
old rancher, striding forward. His voice was deep and full,
singularly rich. But that was the only sign of feeling he
showed.

“Howdy–dad!” replied the son, not heartily, as he put out his
hand to his father’s.

Jack Belllounds’s form was tall, with a promise of his father’s
bulk. But he did not walk erect; he slouched a little. His face was
pale, showing he had not of late been used to sun and wind. Any
stranger would have seen the resemblance of boy to man would have
granted the handsome boldness, but denied the strength. The lower
part of Jack Belllounds’s face was weak.

The constraint of this meeting was manifest mostly in the manner
of the son. He looked ashamed, almost sullen. But if he had been
under the influence of liquor at Kremmling, as reported the day
before, he had entirely recovered.

“Come on in,” said the rancher.

When they got into the big living-room, and Belllounds had
closed the doors, the son threw down his baggage and faced his
father aggressively.

“Do they all know where I’ve been?” he asked, bitterly. Broken
pride and shame flamed in his face.

“Nobody knows. The secret’s been kept.” replied Belllounds.

Amaze and relief transformed the young man. “Aw, now,
I’m–glad–” he exclaimed, and he sat down, half covering his face
with shaking hands.

“Jack, we’ll start over,” said Belllounds, earnestly, and his
big eyes shone with a warm and beautiful light. “Right hyar. We’ll
never speak of where you’ve been these three years. Never
again!”

Jack gazed up, then, with all the sullenness and shadow
gone.

“Father, you were wrong about–doing me good. It’s done me harm.
But now, if nobody knows–why, I’ll try to forget it.”

“Mebbe I blundered,” replied Belllounds, pathetically. “Yet, God
knows I meant well. You sure were–But thet’s enough palaver….
You’ll go to work as foreman of White Slides. An’ if you make a
success of it I’ll be only too glad to have you boss the ranch. I’m
gettin’ along in years, son. An’ the last year has made me poorer.
Hyar’s a fine range, but I’ve less stock this year than last.
There’s been some rustlin’ of cattle, an a big loss from wolves an’
lions an’ poison-weed…. What d’you say, son?”

“I’ll run White Slides,” replied Jack, with a wave of his hand.
“I hadn’t hoped for such a chance. But it’s due me. Who’s in the
outfit I know?”

“Reckon no one, except Wils Moore.”

“Is that cowboy here yet? I don’t want him.”

“Wal, I’ll put him to chasin’ varmints with the hounds. An’ say,
son, this outfit is bad. You savvy–it’s bad. You can’t run that
bunch. The only way you can handle them is to get up early an’ come
back late. Sayin’ little, but sawin’ wood. Hard work.”

Jack Belllounds did not evince any sign of assimilating the
seriousness of his father’s words.

“I’ll show them,” he said. “They’ll find out who’s boss. Oh, I’m
aching to get into boots and ride and tear around.”

Belllounds stroked his grizzled beard and regarded his son with
mingled pride and doubt. Not at this moment, most assuredly, could
he get away from the wonderful fact that his only son was home.

“Thet’s all right, son. But you’ve been off the range fer three
years. You’ll need advice. Now listen. Be gentle with hosses. You
used to be mean with a hoss. Some cowboys jam their hosses around
an’ make ’em pitch an’ bite. But it ain’t the best way. A hoss has
got sense. I’ve some fine stock, an’ don’t want it spoiled. An’ be
easy an’ quiet with the boys. It’s hard to get help these days. I’m
short on hands now…. You’d do best, son, to stick to your dad’s
ways with hosses an’ men.”

“Dad, I’ve seen you kick horses an’ shoot at men” replied
Jack.

“Right, you have. But them was particular bad cases. I’m not
advisin’ thet way…. Son, it’s close to my heart–this hope I have
thet you’ll–“

The full voice quavered and broke. It would indeed have been a
hardened youth who could not have felt something of the deep and
unutterable affection in the old man. Jack Belllounds put an arm
around his father’s shoulder.

“Dad, I’ll make you proud of me yet. Give me a chance. And don’t
be sore if I can’t do wonders right at first.”

“Son, you shall have every chance. An’ thet reminds me. Do you
remember Columbine?”

“I should say so,” replied Jack, eagerly. “They spoke of her in
Kremmling. Where is she?”

“I reckon somewheres about. Jack, you an’ Columbine are to
marry.”

“Marry! Columbine and me?” he ejaculated.

“Yes. You’re my son an’ she’s my adopted daughter. I won’t split
my property. An’ it’s right she had a share. A fine, strong, quiet,
pretty lass, Jack, an’ she’ll make a good wife. I’ve set my heart
on the idee.”

“But Columbine always hated me.”

“Wal, she was a kid then an’ you teased her. Now she’s a woman,
an’ willin’ to please me. Jack, you’ll not buck ag’in’ this
deal?”

“That depends,” replied Jack. “I’d marry `most any girl you
wanted me to. But if Columbine were to flout me as she used
to–why, I’d buck sure enough…. Dad, are you sure she knows
nothing, suspects nothing of where you–you sent me?”

“Son, I swear she doesn’t.”

“Do you mean you’d want us to marry soon?”

“Wal, yes, as soon as Collie would think reasonable. Jack, she’s
shy an’ strange, an’ deep, too. If you ever win her heart you’ll be
richer than if you owned all the gold in the Rockies. I’d say go
slow. But contrariwise, it’d mebbe be surer to steady you, keep you
home, if you married right off.”

“Married right off!” echoed Jack, with a laugh. “It’s like a
story. But wait till I see her.”

At that very moment Columbine was sitting on the topmost log of
a high corral, deeply interested in the scene before her.

Two cowboys were in the corral with a saddled mustang. One of
them carried a canvas sack containing tools and horseshoes. As he
dropped it with a metallic clink the mustang snorted and jumped and
rolled the whites of his eyes. He knew what that clink meant.

“Miss Collie, air you-all goin’ to sit up thar?” inquired the
taller cowboy, a lean, supple, and powerful fellow, with a rough,
red-blue face, hard as a rock, and steady, bright eyes.

“I sure am, Jim,” she replied, imperturbably.

“But we’ve gotta hawg-tie him,” protested the cowboy.

“Yes, I know. And you’re going to be gentle about it.”

Jim scratched his sandy head and looked at his comrade, a little
gnarled fellow, like the bleached root of a tree. He seemed all
legs.

“You hear, you Wyomin’ galoot,” he said to Jim. “Them shoes goes
on Whang right gentle.”

Jim grinned, and turned to speak to his mustang. “Whang, the
law’s laid down an’ we wanta see how much hoss sense you hev.”

The shaggy mustang did not appear to be favorably impressed by
this speech. It was a mighty distrustful look he bent upon the
speaker.

“Jim, seein’ as how this here job’s aboot the last Miss Collie
will ever boss us on, we gotta do it without Whang turnin’ a hair,”
drawled the other cowboy.

“Lem, why is this the last job I’ll ever boss you boys?”
demanded Columbine, quickly.

Jim gazed quizzically at her, and Lem assumed that blank,
innocent face Columbine always associated with cowboy deviltry.

“Wal, Miss Collie, we reckon the new boss of White Slides rode
in to-day.”

“You mean Jack Belllounds came home,” said Columbine. “Well,
I’ll boss you boys the same as always.”

“Thet’d be mighty fine for us, but I’m feared it ain’t writ in
the fatal history of White Slides,” replied Jim.

“Buster Jack will run over the ole man an’ marry you,” added
Lem.

“Oh, so that’s your idea,” rejoined Columbine, lightly. “Well,
if such a thing did come to pass I’d be your boss more than
ever.”

“I reckon no, Miss Collie, for we’ll not be ridin’ fer White
Sides,” said Jim, simply.

Columbine had sensed this very significance long before when the
possibility of Buster Jack’s return had been rumored. She knew
cowboys. As well try to change the rocks of the hills!

“Boys, the day you leave White Slides will be a sad one for me,”
sighed Columbine.

“Miss Collie, we ‘ain’t gone yet,” put in Lem, with awkward
softness. “Jim has long hankered fer Wyomin’ an’ he jest talks thet
way.”

Then the cowboys turned to the business in hand. Jim removed the
saddle, but left the bridle on. This move, of course, deceived
Whang. He had been broken to stand while his bridle hung, and, like
a horse that would have been good if given a chance, he obeyed as
best he could, shaking in every limb. Jim, apparently to hobble
Whang, roped his forelegs together, low down, but suddenly slipped
the rope over the knees. Then Whang knew he had been deceived. He
snorted fire, let out a scream, and, rearing on his hind legs, he
pawed the air savagely. Jim hauled on the rope while Whang screamed
and fought with his forefeet high in the air. Then Jim, with a
powerful jerk, pulled Whang down and threw him, while Lem, seizing
the bridle, hauled him over on his side and sat upon his head.
Whereupon Jim slipped the loop off one front hoof and pulled the
other leg back across one of the hind ones, where both were secured
by a quick hitch. Then the lasso was wound and looped around front
and back hoofs together. When this had been done the mustang was
rolled over on his other side, his free front hoof lassoed and
pulled back to the hind one, where both were secured, as had been
the others. This rendered the mustang powerless, and the shoeing
proceeded.

Columbine hated to sit by and watch it, but she always stuck to
her post, when opportunity afforded, because she knew the cowboys
would not be brutal while she was there.

“Wal, he’ll step high to-morrer,” said Lem, as he got up from
his seat on the head of Whang.

“Ahuh! An’, like a mule, he’ll be my friend fer twenty years
jest to get a chance to kick me.” replied Jim.

For Columbine, the most interesting moment of this incident was
when the mustang raised his head to look at his legs, in order to
see what had been done to them. There was something almost human in
that look. It expressed intelligence and fear and fury.

The cowboys released his legs and let him get up. Whang stamped
his iron-shod hoofs.

“It was a mean trick, Whang,” said Columbine. “If I owned you
that’d never be done to you.”

“I reckon you can have him fer the askin’,” said Jim, as he
threw on the saddle. “Nobody but me can ride him. Do you want to
try?”

“Not in these clothes,” replied Columbine, laughing.

“Wal, Miss Collie, you’re shore dressed up fine to-day, fer some
reason or other,” said Lem, shaking his head, while he gathered up
the tools from the ground.

“Ahuh! An’ here comes the reason,” exclaimed Jim, in low, hoarse
whisper.

Columbine heard the whisper and at the same instant a sharp
footfall on the gravel road. She quickly turned, almost losing her
balance. And she recognized Jack Belllounds. The boy Buster Jack
she remembered so well was approaching, now a young man, taller,
heavier, older, with paler face and bolder look. Columbine had
feared this meeting, had prepared herself for it. But all she felt
when it came was annoyance at the fact that he had caught her
sitting on top of the corral fence, with little regard for dignity.
It did not occur to her to jump down. She merely sat straight,
smoothed down her skirt, and waited.

Jim led the mustang out of the corral and Lem followed. It
looked as if they wanted to avoid the young man, but he prevented
that.

“Howdy, boys! I’m Jack Belllounds,” he said, rather loftily. But
his manner was nonchalant. He did not offer to shake hands.

Jim mumbled something, and Lem said, “Hod do.”

“That’s an ornery–looking bronc,” went on Belllounds, and he
reached with careless hand for the mustang. Whang jerked so hard
that he pulled Jim half over.

“Wal, he ain’t a bronc, but I reckon he’s all the rest.” drawled
Jim.

Both cowboys seemed slow, careless. They were neither
indifferent nor responsive. Columbine saw their keen, steady
glances go over Belllounds. Then she took a second and less hasty
look at him. He wore high-heeled, fancy-topped boots, tight-fitting
trousers of dark material, a heavy belt with silver buckle, and a
white, soft shirt, with wide collar, open at the neck. He was
bareheaded.

“I’m going to run White Slides,” he said to the cowboys.
“What’re your names?”

Columbine wanted to giggle, which impulse she smothered. The
idea of any one asking Jim his name! She had never been able to
find out.

“My handle is Lemuel Archibawld Billings,” replied Lem, blandly.
The middle name was an addition no one had ever heard.

Belllounds then directed his glance and steps toward the girl.
The cowboys dropped their heads and shuffled on their way.

“There’s only one girl on the ranch,” said Belllounds, “so you
must be Columbine.”

“Yes. And you’re Jack,” she replied, and slipped off the fence.
“I’m glad to welcome you home.”

She offered her hand, and he held it until she extricated it.
There was genuine surprise and pleasure in his expression.

“Well, I’d never have known you,” he said, surveying her from
head to foot. “It’s funny. I had the clearest picture of you in
mind. But you’re not at all like I imagined. The Columbine I
remember was thin, white-faced, and all eyes.”

“It’s been a long time. Seven years,” she replied. “But I knew
you. You’re older, taller, bigger, but the same Buster Jack.”

“I hope not,” he said, frankly condemning that former self. “Dad
needs me. He wants me to take charge here–to be a man. I’m back
now. It’s good to be home. I never was worth much. Lord! I hope I
don’t disappoint him again.”

“I hope so, too,” she murmured. To hear him talk frankly,
seriously, like this counteracted the unfavorable impression she
had received. He seemed earnest. He looked down at the ground,
where he was pushing little pebbles with the toe of his boot. She
had a good opportunity to study his face, and availed herself of
it. He did look like his father, with his big, handsome head, and
his blue eyes, bolder perhaps from their prominence than from any
direct gaze or fire. His face was pale, and shadowed by worry or
discontent. It seemed as though a repressed character showed there.
His mouth and chin were undisciplined. Columbine could not imagine
that she despised anything she saw in the features of this young
man. Yet there was something about him that held her aloof. She had
made up her mind to do her part unselfishly. She would find the
best in him, like him for it, be strong to endure and to help. Yet
she had no power to control her vague and strange perceptions. Why
was it that she could not feel in him what she liked in Jim Montana
or Lem or Wilson Moore?

“This was my second long stay away from home,” said Belllounds.
“The first was when I went to school in Kansas City. I liked that.
I was sorry when they turned me out–sent me home…. But the last
three years were hell.”

His face worked, and a shade of dark blood rippled over it.

“Did you work?” queried Columbine.

“Work! It was worse than work…. Sure I worked,” he
replied.

Columbine’s sharp glance sought his hands. They looked as soft
and unscarred as her own. What kind of work had he done, if he told
the truth?

“Well, if you work hard for dad, learn to handle the cowboys,
and never take up those old bad habits–“

“You mean drink and cards? I swear I’d forgotten them for three
years–until yesterday. I reckon I’ve the better of them.”

“Then you’ll make dad and me happy. You’ll be happy, too.”

Columbine thrilled at the touch of fineness coming out in him.
There was good in him, whatever the mad, wild pranks of his
boyhood.

“Dad wants us to marry,” he said, suddenly, with shyness and a
strange, amused smile. “Isn’t that funny? You and me–who used to
fight like cat and dog! Do you remember the time I pushed you into
the old mud-hole? And you lay in wait for me, behind the house, to
hit me with a rotten cabbage?”

“Yes, I remember,” replied Columbine, dreamily. “It seems so
long ago.”

“And the time you ate my pie, and how I got even by tearing off
your little dress, so you had to run home almost without a stitch
on?”

“Guess I’ve forgotten that,” replied Columbine, with a blush. “I
must have been very little then.”

“You were a little devil…. Do you remember the fight I had
with Moore–about you?”

She did not answer, for she disliked the fleeting expression
that crossed his face. He remembered too well.

“I’ll settle that score with Moore,” he went on. “Besides, I
won’t have him on the ranch.”

“Dad needs good hands,” she said, with her eyes on the gray sage
slopes. Mention of Wilson Moore augmented the aloofness in her. An
annoyance pricked along her veins.

“Before we get any farther I’d like to know something. Has Moore
ever made love to you?”

Columbine felt that prickling augment to a hot, sharp wave of
blood. Why was she at the mercy of strange, quick, unfamiliar
sensations? Why did she hesitate over that natural query from Jack
Belllounds?

“No. He never has,” she replied, presently.

“That’s damn queer. You used to like him better than anybody
else. You sure hated me…. Columbine, have you outgrown that?”

“Yes, of course,” she answered. “But I hardly hated you.”

“Dad said you were willing to marry me. Is that so?”

Columbine dropped her head. His question, kindly put, did not
affront her, for it had been expected. But his actual presence, the
meaning of his words, stirred in her an unutterable spirit of
protest. She had already in her will consented to the demand of the
old man; she was learning now, however, that she could not force
her flesh to consent to a surrender it did not desire.

“Yes, I’m willing,” she replied, bravely.

“Soon?” he flashed, with an eager difference in his voice.

“If I had my way it’d not be–too soon,” she faltered. Her
downcast eyes had seen the stride he had made closer to her, and
she wanted to run.

“Why? Dad thinks it’d be good for me,” went on Belllounds, now,
with strong, self-centered thought. “It’d give me responsibility. I
reckon I need it. Why not soon?”

“Wouldn’t it be better to wait awhile?” she asked. “We do not
know each other–let alone care–“

“Columbine, I’ve fallen in love with you.” he declared,
hotly.

“Oh, how could you!” cried Columbine, incredulously.

“Why, I always was moony over you–when we were kids,” he said.
“And now to meet you grown up like this–so pretty and sweet–such
a–a healthy, blooming girl…. And dad’s word that you’d be my
wife soon–mine–why, I just went off my head at sight of
you.”

Columbine looked up at him and was reminded of how, as a boy, he
had always taken a quick, passionate longing for things he must and
would have. And his father had not denied him. It might really be
that Jack had suddenly fallen in love with her.

“Would you want to take me without my–my love?” she asked, very
low. “I don’t love you now. I might some time, if you were good–if
you made dad happy–if you conquered–“

“Take you! I’d take you if you–if you hated me,” he replied,
now in the grip of passion.

“I’ll tell dad how I feel,” she said, faintly, “and–and marry
you when he says.”

He kissed her, would have embraced her had she not put him
back.

“Don’t! Some–some one will see.”

“Columbine, we’re engaged,” he asserted, with a laugh of
possession. “Say, you needn’t look so white and scared. I won’t eat
you. But I’d like to…. Oh, you’re a sweet girl! Here I was hating
to come home. And look at my luck!”

Then with a sudden change, that seemed significant of his
character, he lost his ardor, dropped the half-bold, half-masterful
air, and showed the softer side.

“Collie, I never was any good,” he said. “But I want to be
better. I’ll prove it. I’ll make a clean breast of everything. I
won’t marry you with any secret between us. You might find out
afterward and hate me…. Do you have any idea where I’ve been
these last three years?”

“No,” answered Columbine.

“I’ll tell you right now. But you must promise never to mention
it to any one–or throw it up to me–ever.”

He spoke hoarsely, and had grown quite white. Suddenly Columbine
thought of Wilson Moore! He had known where Jack had spent those
years. He had resisted a strong temptation to tell her. That was as
noble in him as the implication of Jack’s whereabouts had been
base.

“Jack, that is big of you,” she replied, hurriedly. “I respect
you–like you for it. But you needn’t tell me. I’d rather you
didn’t. I’ll take the will for the deed.”

Belllounds evidently experienced a poignant shock of amaze, of
relief, of wonder, of gratitude. In an instant he seemed
transformed.

“Collie, if I hadn’t loved you before I’d love you now. That was
going to be the hardest job I ever had–to tell you my–my story. I
meant it. And now I’ll not have to feel your shame for me and I’ll
not feel I’m a cheat or a liar…. But I will tell you this–if you
love me you’ll make a man of me!”

CHAPTER III

The rancher thought it best to wait till after the round-up
before he turned over the foremanship to his son. This was wise,
but Jack did not see it that way. He showed that his old,
intolerant spirit had, if anything, grown during his absence.
Belllounds patiently argued with him, explaining what certainly
should have been clear to a young man brought up in Colorado. The
fall round-up was the most important time of the year, and during
the strenuous drive the appointed foreman should have absolute
control. Jack gave in finally with a bad grace.

It was unfortunate that he went directly from his father’s
presence out to the corrals. Some of the cowboys who had ridden all
the day before and stood guard all night had just come in. They
were begrimed with dust, weary, and sleepy-eyed.

“This hyar outfit won’t see my tracks no more,” said one,
disgustedly. “I never kicked on doin’ two men’s work. But when it
comes to rustlin’ day and night, all the time, I’m a-goin’ to
pass.”

“Turn in, boys, and sleep till we get back with the
chuck-wagon,” said Wilson Moore. “We’ll clean up that bunch
to-day.”

“Ain’t you tired, Wils?” queried Bludsoe, a squat, bow-legged
cowpuncher who appeared to be crippled or very lame.

“Me? Naw!” grunted Moore, derisively. “Blud, you sure ask fool
questions…. Why, you–mahogany-colored, stump-legged, biped of a
cowpuncher, I’ve had three hours’ sleep in four nights!”

“What’s a biped?” asked Bludsoe, dubiously.

Nobody enlightened him.

“Wils, you-all air the only eddicated cowman I ever loved, but
I’m a son-of-a-gun if we ain’t agoin’ to come to blows some day,”
declared Bludsoe.

“He shore can sling English,” drawled Lem Billings. “I reckon he
swallowed a dictionary onct.”

“Wal, he can sling a rope, too, an’ thet evens up,” added Jim
Montana.

Just at this moment Jack Belllounds appeared upon the scene. The
cowboys took no notice of him. Jim was bandaging a leg of his
horse; Bludsoe was wearily gathering up his saddle and trappings;
Lem was giving his tired mustang a parting slap that meant much.
Moore evidently awaited a fresh mount. A Mexican lad had come in
out of the pasture leading several horses, one of which was the
mottled white mustang that Moore rode most of the time.

Belllounds lounged forward with interest as Moore whistled, and
the mustang showed his pleasure. Manifestly he did not like the
Mexican boy and he did like Moore.

“Spottie, it’s drag yearlings around for you to-day,” said the
cowboy, as he caught the mustang. Spottie tossed his head and
stepped high until the bridle was on. When the saddle was thrown
and strapped in place the mustang showed to advantage. He was
beautiful, but not too graceful or sleek or fine-pointed or
prancing to prejudice any cowboy against his qualities for
work.

Jack Belllounds admiringly walked all around the mustang a
little too close to please Spottie.

“Moore, he’s a fair-to-middling horse,” said Belllounds, with
the air of judge of horseflesh. “What’s his name?”

“Spottie,” replied Moore, shortly, as he made ready to
mount.

“Hold on, will you!” ordered Jack, peremptorily. “I like this
horse. I want to look him over.”

When he grasped the bridle-reins out of the cowboy’s hand
Spottie jumped as if he had been shot at. Belllounds jerked at him
and went closer. The mustang reared, snorting, plunging to get
loose. Then Jack Belllounds showed the sudden temper for which he
was noted. Red stained his pale cheeks.

“Damn you–come down!” he shouted, infuriated at the mustang,
and with both hands he gave a powerful lunge. Spottie came down,
and stood there, trembling all over, his ears laid back, his eyes
showing fright and pain. Blood dripped from his mouth where the bit
had cut him.

“I’ll teach you to stand,” said Belllounds, darkly. “Moore, lend
me your spurs. I want to try him out.”

“I don’t lend my spurs–or my horse, either,” replied the
cowboy, quietly, with a stride that put him within reach of
Spottie.

The other cowboys had dropped their trappings and stood at
attention, with intent gaze and mute lips.

“Is he your horse?” demanded Jack, with a quick flush.

“I reckon so,” replied Moore, slowly. “No one but me ever rode
him.”

“Does my father own him or do you own him?”

“Well, if that’s the way you figure–he belongs to White
Slides,” returned the cowboy. “I never bought him. I only raised
him from a colt, broke him, and rode him.”

“I thought so. Moore, he’s mine, and I’m going to ride him now.
Lend me spurs, one of you cowpunchers.”

Nobody made any motion to comply. There seemed to be a suspense
at hand that escaped Belllounds.

“I’ll ride him without spurs,” he declared, presently, and again
he turned to mount the mustang.

“Belllounds, it’d be better for you not to ride him now,” said
Moore, coolly.

“Why, I’d like to know?” demanded Belllounds, with the temper of
one who did not tolerate opposition.

“He’s the only horse left for me to ride,” answered the cowboy.
“We’re branding to-day. Hudson was hurt yesterday. He was foreman,
and he appointed me to fill his place. I’ve got to rope yearlings.
Now, if you get up on Spottie you’ll excite him. He’s high-strung,
nervous. That’ll be bad for him, as he hates cutting-out and
roping.”

The reasonableness of this argument was lost upon
Belllounds.

“Moore, maybe it’d interest you to know that I’m foreman of
White Slides,” he asserted, not without loftiness.

His speech manifestly decided something vital for the
cowboy.

“Ahuh!… I’m sure interested this minute,” replied Moore, and
then, stepping to the side of the mustang, with swift hands he
unbuckled the cinch, and with one sweep he drew saddle and blanket
to the ground.

The action surprised Belllounds. He stared. There seemed
something boyish in his lack of comprehension. Then his temper
flamed.

“What do you mean by that?” he demanded, with a strident note in
his voice. “Put that saddle back.”

“Not much. It’s my saddle. Cost sixty dollars at Kremmling last
year. Good old hard-earned saddle!… And you can’t ride it.
Savvy?”

“Yes, I savvy,” replied Belllounds, violently. “Now you’ll savvy
what I say. I’ll have you discharged.”

“Nope. Too late,” said Moore, with cool, easy scorn. “I figured
that. And I quit a minute ago–when you showed what little regard
you had for a horse.”

“You quit!… Well, it’s damned good riddance. I wouldn’t have
you in the outfit.”

“You couldn’t have kept me, Buster Jack.”

The epithet must have been an insult to Belllounds. “Don’t you
dare call me that,” he burst out, furiously.

Moore pretended surprise. “Why not? It’s your range name. We all
get a handle, whether we like it or not. There’s Montana and Blud
and Lemme Two Bits. They call me Professor. Why should you kick on
yours?”

“I won’t stand it now. Not from any one–especially not
you.”

“Ahuh! Well, I’m afraid it’ll stick,” replied Moore, with
sarcasm. “It sure suits you. Don’t you bust everything you monkey
with? Your old dad will sure be glad to see you bust the round-up
to-day–and I reckon the outfit to-morrow.”

“You insolent cowpuncher!” shouted Belllounds, growing beside
himself with rage. “If you don’t shut up I’ll bust your face.”

“Shut up!… Me? Nope. It can’t be did. This is a free country,
Buster Jack.” There was no denying Moore’s cool, stinging
repetition of the epithet that had so affronted Belllounds.

“I always hated you!” he rasped out, hoarsely. Striking hard at
Moore, he missed, but a second effort landed a glancing blow on the
cowboy’s face.

Moore staggered back, recovered his balance, and, hitting out
shortly, he returned the blow. Belllounds fell against the corral
fence, which upheld him.

“Buster Jack–you’re crazy!” cried the cowboy, his eyes
flashing. “Do you think you can lick me–after where you’ve been
these three years?”

Like a maddened boy Belllounds leaped forward, this time his
increased violence and wildness of face expressive of malignant
rage. He swung his arms at random. Moore avoided his blows and
planted a fist squarely on his adversary’s snarling mouth.
Belllounds fell with a thump. He got up with clumsy haste, but did
not rush forward again. His big, prominent eyes held a dark and
ugly look. His lower jaw wabbled as he panted for breath and speech
at once.

“Moore–I’ll kill–you!” he hissed, with glance flying
everywhere for a weapon. From ground to cowboys he looked. Bludsoe
was the only one packing a gun. Belllounds saw it, and he was so
swift in bounding forward that he got a hand on it before Bludsoe
could prevent.

“Let go! Give me–that gun! By God! I’ll fix him!” yelled
Belllounds, as Bludsoe grappled with him.

There was a sharp struggle. Bludsoe wrenched the other’s hands
free, and, pulling the gun, he essayed to throw it. But Belllounds
blocked his action and the gun fell at their feet.

“Grab it!” sang out Bludsoe, ringingly. “Quick, somebody! The
damned fool’ll kill Wils.”

Lem, running in, kicked the gun just as Belllounds reached for
it. When it rolled against the fence Jim was there to secure it.
Lem likewise grappled with the struggling Belllounds.

“Hyar, you Jack Belllounds,” said Lem, “couldn’t you see Wils
wasn’t packin’ no gun? A-r’arin’ like thet!… Stop your rantin’ or
we’ll sure handle you rough.”

“The old man’s comin’,” called Jim, warningly.

The rancher appeared. He strode swiftly, ponderously. His gray
hair waved. His look was as stern as that of an eagle.

“What the hell’s goin’ on?” he roared.

The cowboys released Jack. That worthy, sullen and downcast,
muttering to himself, stalked for the house.

“Jack, stand your ground,” called old Belllounds.

But the son gave no heed. Once he looked back over his shoulder,
and his dark glance saw no one save Moore.

“Boss, thar’s been a little argyment,” explained Jim, as with
swift hand he hid Bludsoe’s gun. “Nuthin’ much.”

“Jim, you’re a liar,” replied the old rancher.

“Aw!” exclaimed Jim, crestfallen.

“What’re you hidin’?… You’ve got somethin’ there. Gimme thet
gun.”

Without more ado Jim handed the gun over.

“It’s mine, boss,” put in Bludsoe.

“Ahuh? Wal, what was Jim hidin’ it fer?” demanded
Belllounds.

“Why, I jest tossed it to him–when I–sort of j’ined in with
the argyment. We was tusslin’ some an’ I didn’t want no gun.”

How characteristic of cowboys that they lied to shield Jack
Belllounds! But it was futile to attempt to deceive the old
rancher. Here was a man who had been forty years dealing with all
kinds of men and events.

“Bludsoe, you can’t fool me,” said old Bill, calmly. He had
roared at them, and his eyes still flashed like blue fire, but he
was calm and cool. Returning the gun to its owner, he continued: “I
reckon you’d spare my feelin’s an’ lie about some trick of Jack’s.
Did he bust out?”

“Wal, tolerable like,” replied Bludsoe, dryly.

“Ahuh! Tell me, then–an’ no lies.”

Belllounds’s shrewd eyes had rested upon Wilson Moore. The
cowboy’s face showed the red marks of battle and the white of
passion.

“I’m not going to lie, you can bet on that,” he declared,
forcefully.

“Ahuh! I might hev knowed you an’ Jack’d clash,” said
Belllounds, gruffly. “What happened?”

“He hurt my horse. If it hadn’t been for that there’d been no
trouble.”

A light leaped up in the old man’s bold eyes. He was a lover of
horses. Many hard words, and blows, too, he had dealt cowboys for
being brutal.

“What’d he do?”

“Look at Spottie’s mouth.”

The rancher’s way of approaching a horse was singularly
different from his son’s, notwithstanding the fact that Spottie
knew him and showed no uneasiness. The examination took only a
moment.

“Tongue cut bad. Thet’s a damn shame. Take thet bridle off….
There. If it’d been an ornery hoss, now…. Moore, how’d this
happen?”

“We just rode in,” replied Wilson, hurriedly. “I was saddling
Spottie when Jack came up. He took a shine to the mustang and
wanted to ride him. When Spottie reared–he’s shy with
strangers–why, Jack gave a hell of a jerk on the bridle. The bit
cut Spottie…. Well, that made me mad, but I held in. I objected
to Jack riding Spottie. You see, Hudson was hurt yesterday and he
appointed me foreman for to-day. I needed Spottie. But your son
couldn’t see it, and that made me sore. Jack said the mustang was
his–“

“His?” interrupted Belllounds.

“Yes. He claimed Spottie. Well, he wasn’t really mine, so I gave
in. When I threw off the saddle, which was mine, Jack began
to roar. He said he was foreman and he’d have me discharged. But I
said I’d quit already. We both kept getting sorer and I called him
Buster Jack…. He hit me first. Then we fought. I reckon I was
getting the best of him when he made a dive for Bludsoe’s gun. And
that’s all.”

“Boss, as sure as I’m a born cowman,” put in Bludsoe, “he’d hev
plugged Wils if he’d got my gun. At thet he damn near got it!”

The old man stroked his scant gray beard with his huge, steady
hand, apparently not greatly concerned by the disclosure.

“Montana, what do you say?” he queried, as if he held strong
store by that quiet cowboy’s opinion.

“Wal, boss,” replied Jim, reluctantly, “Buster Jack’s temper was
bad onct, but now it’s plumb wuss.”

Whereupon Belllounds turned to Moore with a gesture and a look
of a man who, in justice to something in himself, had to speak.

“Wils, it’s onlucky you clashed with Jack right off,” he said.
“But thet was to be expected. I reckon Jack was in the wrong. Thet
hoss was yours by all a cowboy holds right an’ square. Mebbe by law
Spottie belonged to White Slides Ranch–to me. But he’s yours now,
fer I give him to you.”

“Much obliged, Belllounds. I sure do appreciate that,” replied
Moore, warmly. “It’s what anybody’d gamble Bill Belllounds would
do.”

“Ahuh! An’ I’d take it as a favor if you’d stay on to-day an’
get thet brandin’ done:”

“All right, I’ll do that for you,” replied Moore. “Lem, I guess
you won’t get your sleep till to-night. Come on.”

“Awl” sighed Lem, as he picked up his bridle.

Late that afternoon Columbine sat upon the porch, watching the
sunset. It had been a quiet day for her, mostly indoors. Once only
had she seen Jack, and then he was riding by toward the pasture,
whirling a lasso round his head. Jack could ride like one born to
the range, but he was not an adept in the use of a rope. Nor had
Columbine seen the old rancher since breakfast. She had heard his
footsteps, however, pacing slowly up and down his room.

She was watching the last rays of the setting sun rimming with
gold the ramparts of the mountain eastward, and burning a crown for
Old White Slides peak. A distant bawl and bellow of cattle had died
away. The branding was over for that fall. How glad she felt! The
wind, beginning to grow cold as the sun declined, cooled her hot
face. In the solitude of her room Columbine had cried enough that
day to scald her cheeks.

Presently, down the lane between the pastures, she saw a cowboy
ride into view. Very slowly he came, leading another horse.
Columbine recognized Lem a second before she saw that he was
leading Pronto. That struck her as strange. Another glance showed
Pronto to be limping. Apparently he could just get along, and that
was all. Columbine ran out in dismay, reaching the corral gate
before Lem did. At first she had eyes only for her beloved
mustang.

“Oh, Lem–Pronto’s hurt!” she cried.

“Wal, I should smile he is,” replied Lem.

But Lem was not smiling. And when he wore a serious face for
Columbine something had indeed happened. The cowboy was the color
of dust and so tired that he reeled.

“Lem, he’s all bloody!” exclaimed Columbine, as she ran toward
Pronto.

“Hyar, you jest wait,” ordered Lem, testily. “Pronto’s all cut
up, an’ you gotta hustle some linen an’ salve.”

Columbine flew away to do his bidding, and so quick and violent
was she that when she got back to the corral she was out of breath.
Pronto whinnied as she fell, panting, on her knees beside Lem, who
was examining bloody gashes on the legs of the mustang.

“Wal, I reckon no great harm did,” said Lem, with relief. “But
he shore hed a close shave. Now you help me doctor him up.”

“Yes–I’ll help,” panted Columbine. “I’ve done this kind–of
thing often–but never–to Pronto…. Oh, I was afraid–he’d been
gored by a steer.”

“Wal, he come damn near bein’,” replied Lem, grimly. “An’ if it
hedn’t been fer ridin’ you don’t see every day, why thet ornery
Texas steer’d hev got him.”

“Who was riding? Lem, was it you? Oh, I’ll never be able to do
enough for you!”

“Wuss luck, it weren’t me,” said Lem.

“No? Who, then?”

“Wal, it was Wils, an’ he made me swear to tell you
nuthin’–leastways about him.”

“Wils! Did he save Pronto?… And didn’t want you to tell me?
Lem, something has happened. You’re not like yourself.”

“Miss Collie, I reckon I’m nigh all in,” replied Lem, wearily.
“When I git this bandagin’ done I’ll fall right off my hoss.”

“But you’re on the ground now, Lem,” said Columbine, with a
nervous laugh. “What happened?”

“Did you hear about the argyment this mawnin’?”

“No. What–who–“

“You can ask Ole Bill aboot thet. The way Pronto was hurt come
off like this. Buster Jack rode out to where we was brandin’ an’
jumped his hoss over a fence into the pasture. He hed a rope an’ he
got to chasin’ some hosses over thar. One was Pronto, an’ the
son-of-a-gun somehow did git the noose over Pronto’s head. But he
couldn’t hold it, or didn’t want to, fer Pronto broke loose an’
jumped the fence. This wasn’t so bad as far as it went. But one of
them bad steers got after Pronto. He run an’ sure stepped on the
rope, an’ fell. The big steer nearly piled on him. Pronto broke
some records then. He shore was scared. Howsoever he picked out
rough ground an’ run plumb into some dead brush. Reckon thar he got
cut up. We was all a good ways off. The steer went bawlin’ an’
plungin’ after Pronto. Wils yelled fer a rifle, but nobody hed one.
Nor a six-shooter, either…. I’m goin’ back to packin’ a gun. Wal,
Wils did some ridin’ to git over thar in time to save Pronto.”

“Lem, that is not all,” said Columbine, earnestly, as the cowboy
concluded. Her knowledge of the range told her that Lem had
narrated nothing so far which could have been cause for his cold,
grim, evasive manner; and her woman’s intuition divined a
catastrophe.

“Nope…. Wils’s hoss fell on him.”

Lem broke that final news with all a cowboy’s bluntness.

“Was he hurt–Lem!” cried Columbine.

“Say, Miss Collie,” remonstrated Lem, “we’re doctorin’ up your
hoss. You needn’t drop everythin’ an’ grab me like thet. An’ you’re
white as a sheet, too. It ain’t nuthin’ much fer a cowboy to hev a
hoss fall on him.”

“Lem Billings, I’ll hate you if you don’t tell me quick,”
flashed Columbine, fiercely.

“Ahuh! So thet’s how the land lays,” replied Lem, shrewdly.
“Wal, I’m sorry to tell you thet Wils was bad hurt. Now, not
real bad!… The hoss fell on his leg an’ broke it. I cut
off his boot. His foot was all smashed. But thar wasn’t any other
hurt–honest! They’re takin’ him to Kremmlin’.”

“Ah!” Columbine’s low cry sounded strangely in her ears, as if
some one else had uttered it.

“Buster Jack made two bursts this hyar day,” concluded Lem,
reflectively. “Miss Collie, I ain’t shore how you’re regardin’ thet
individool, but I’m tellin’ you this, fer your own good. He’s bad
medicine. He has his old man’s temper thet riles up at nuthin’ an’
never felt a halter. Wusser’n thet, he’s spoiled an’ he acts like a
colt thet’d tasted loco. The idee of his ropin’ Pronto right thar
near the round-up! Any one would think he jest come West. Old Bill
is no fool. But he wears blinders when he looks at his son. I’m
predictin’ bad days fer White Slides Ranch.”

CHAPTER IV

Only one man at Meeker appeared to be attracted by the news that
Rancher Bill Belllounds was offering employment. This was a little
cadaverous-looking fellow, apparently neither young nor old, who
said his name was Bent Wade. He had drifted into Meeker with two
poor horses and a pack.

“Whar you from?” asked the innkeeper, observing how Wade cared
for his horses before he thought of himself. The query had to be
repeated.

“Cripple Creek. I was cook for some miners an’ I panned gold
between times,” was the reply.

“Humph! Thet oughter been a better-payin’ job than any to be hed
hereabouts.”

“Yes, got big pay there,” said Wade, with a sigh.

“What’d you leave fer?”

“We hed a fight over the diggin’s an’ I was the only one left.
I’ll tell you….” Whereupon Wade sat down on a box, removed his
old sombrero, and began to talk. An idler sauntered over, attracted
by something. Then a miner happened by to halt and join the
group.

Next, old Kemp, the patriarch of the village, came and listened
attentively. Wade seemed to have a strange magnetism, a magic
tongue.

He was small of stature, but wiry and muscular. His garments
were old, soiled, worn. When he removed the wide-brimmed sombrero
he exposed a remarkable face. It was smooth except for a drooping
mustache, and pallid, with drops of sweat standing out on the high,
broad forehead; gaunt and hollow-cheeked, with an enormous nose,
and cavernous eyes set deep under shaggy brows. These features,
however, were not so striking in themselves. Long, sloping, almost
invisible lines of pain, the shadow of mystery and gloom in the
deep-set, dark eyes, a sad harmony between features and expression,
these marked the man’s face with a record no keen eye could
miss.

Wade told a terrible tale of gold and blood and death. It seemed
to relieve him. His face changed, and lost what might have been
called its tragic light, its driven intensity.

His listeners shook their heads in awe. Hard tales were common
in Colorado, but this one was exceptional. Two of the group left
without comment. Old Kemp stared with narrow, half-recognizing eyes
at the new-comer.

“Wal! Wal!” ejaculated the innkeeper. “It do beat hell what can
happen!… Stranger, will you put up your hosses an’ stay?”

“I’m lookin’ for work,” replied Wade.

It was then that mention was made of Belllounds sending to
Meeker for hands.

“Old Bill Belllounds thet settled Middle Park an’ made friends
with the Utes,” said Wade, as if certain of his facts.

“Yep, you have Bill to rights. Do you know him?”

“I seen him once twenty years ago.”

“Ever been to Middle Park? Belllounds owns ranches there,” said
the innkeeper.

“He ain’t livin’ in the Park now,” interposed Kemp. “He’s at
White Slides, I reckon, these last eight or ten years. Thet’s over
the Gore Range.”

“Prospected all through that country,” said Wade.

“Wal, it’s a fine part of Colorado. Hay an’ stock country–too
high fer grain. Did you mean you’d been through the Park?”

“Once–long ago,” replied Wade, staring with his great,
cavernous eyes into space. Some memory of Middle Park haunted
him.

“Wal, then, I won’t be steerin’ you wrong,” said the innkeeper.
“I like thet country. Some people don’t. An’ I say if you can cook
or pack or punch cows or ‘most anythin’ you’ll find a bunk with Old
Bill. I understand he was needin’ a hunter most of all. Lions an’
wolves bad! Can you hunt?”

“Hey?” queried Wade, absently, as he inclined his ear. “I’m deaf
on one side.”

“Are you a good man with dogs an’ guns?” shouted his
questioner.

“Tolerable,” replied Wade.

“Then you’re sure of a job.”

“I’ll go. Much obliged to you.”

“Not a-tall. I’m doin’ Belllounds a favor. Reckon you’ll put up
here to-night?”

“I always sleep out. But I’ll buy feed an’ supplies,” replied
Wade, as he turned to his horses.

Old Kemp trudged down the road, wagging his gray head as if he
was contending with a memory sadly failing him. An hour later when
Bent Wade rode out of town he passed Kemp, and hailed him. The
old-timer suddenly slapped his leg: “By Golly! I knowed I’d met him
before!”

Later, he said with a show of gossipy excitement to his friend
the innkeeper, “Thet fellar was Bent Wade!”

“So he told me,” returned the other.

“But didn’t you never hear of him? Bent Wade?“

“Now you tax me, thet name do ‘pear familiar. But dash take it,
I can’t remember. I knowed he was somebody, though. Hope I didn’t
wish a gun-fighter or outlaw on Old Bill. Who was he, anyhow?”

“They call him Hell-Bent Wade. I seen him in Wyomin’, whar he
were a stage-driver. But I never heerd who he was an’ what he was
till years after. Thet was onct I dropped down into Boulder. Wade
was thar, all shot up, bein’ nussed by Sam Coles. Sam’s dead now.
He was a friend of Wade’s an’ knowed him fer long. Wal, I heerd all
thet anybody ever heerd about him, I reckon. Accordin’ to Coles
this hyar Hell-Bent Wade was a strange, wonderful sort of fellar.
He had the most amazin’ ways. He could do anythin’ under the sun
better’n any one else. Bad with guns! He never stayed in one place
fer long. He never hunted trouble, but trouble follered him. As I
remember Coles, thet was Wade’s queer idee–he couldn’t shake
trouble. No matter whar he went, always thar was hell. Thet’s what
gave him the name Hell-Bent…. An’ Coles swore thet Wade was the
whitest man he ever knew. Heart of gold, he said. Always savin’
somebody, helpin’ somebody, givin’ his money or time–never
thinkin’ of himself a-tall…. When he began to tell thet story
about Cripple Creek then my ole head begun to ache with
rememberin’. Fer I’d heerd Bent Wade talk before. Jest the same
kind of story he told hyar, only wuss. Lordy! but thet fellar has
seen times. An’ queerest of all is thet idee he has how hell’s on
his trail an’ everywhere he roams it ketches up with him, an’ thar
he meets the man who’s got to hear his tale!”

Sunset found Bent Wade far up the valley of White River under
the shadow of the Flat Top Mountains. It was beautiful country.
Grassy hills, with colored aspen groves, swelled up on his left,
and across the brawling stream rose a league-long slope of black
spruce, above which the bare red-and-gray walls of the range
towered, glorious with the blaze of sinking sun. White patches of
snow showed in the sheltered nooks. Wade’s gaze rested longest on
the colored heights.

By and by the narrow valley opened into a park, at the upper end
of which stood a log cabin. A few cattle and horses grazed in an
inclosed pasture. The trail led by the cabin. As Wade rode up a
bushy-haired man came out of the door, rifle in hand. He might have
been going out to hunt, but his scrutiny of Wade was that of a lone
settler in a wild land.

“Howdy, stranger!” he said.

“Good evenin’,” replied Wade. “Reckon you’re Blair an’ I’m nigh
the headwaters of this river?”

“Yep, a matter of three miles to Trapper’s Lake.”

“My name’s Wade. I’m packin’ over to take a job with Bill
Belllounds.”

“Git down an’ come in,” returned Blair. “Bill’s man stopped with
me some time ago.”

“Obliged, I’m sure, but I’ll be goin’ on,” responded Wade. “Do
you happen to have a hunk of deer meat? Game powerful scarce comin’
up this valley.”

“Lots of deer an’ elk higher up. I chased a bunch of more ‘n
thirty, I reckon, right out of my pasture this mornin’.”

Blair crossed to an open shed near by and returned with half a
deer haunch, which he tied upon Wade’s pack-horse.

“My ole woman’s ailin’. Do you happen to hev some terbaccer?

“I sure do–both smokin’ an’ chewin’, an’ I can spare more
chewin’. A little goes a long ways with me.”

“Wal, gimme some of both, most chewin’,” replied Blair, with
evident satisfaction.

“You acquainted with Belllounds?” asked Wade, as he handed over
the tobacco.

“Wal, yes, everybody knows Bill. You’d never find a whiter boss
in these hills.”

“Has he any family?”

“Now, I can’t say as to thet,” replied Blair. “I heerd he lost a
wife years ago. Mebbe he married ag’in. But Bill’s gittin’
along.”

“Good day to you, Blair,” said Wade, and took up his bridle.

“Good day an’ good luck. Take the right-hand trail. Better trot
up a bit, if you want to make camp before dark.”

Wade soon entered the spruce forest. Then he came to a shallow,
roaring river. The horses drank the water, foaming white and amber
around their knees, and then with splash and thump they forded it
over the slippery rocks. As they cracked out upon the trail a covey
of grouse whirred up into the low branches of spruce-trees. They
were tame.

“That’s somethin’ like,” said Wade. “First birds I’ve seen this
fall. Reckon I can have stew any day.”

He halted his horse and made a move to dismount, but with his
eyes on the grouse he hesitated. “Tame as chickens, an’ they sure
are pretty.”

Then he rode on, leading his pack-horse. The trail was not
steep, although in places it had washed out, thus hindering a
steady trot. As he progressed the forest grew thick and darker, and
the fragrance of pine and spruce filled the air. A dreamy roar of
water rushing over rocks rang in the traveler’s ears. It receded at
times, then grew louder. Presently the forest shade ahead lightened
and he rode out into a wide space where green moss and flags and
flowers surrounded a wonderful spring-hole. Sunset gleams shone
through the trees to color the wide, round pool. It was shallow all
along the margin, with a deep, large green hole in the middle,
where the water boiled up. Trout were feeding on gnats and playing
on the surface, and some big ones left wakes behind them as they
sped to deeper water. Wade had an appreciative eye for all this
beauty, his gaze lingering longest upon the flowers.

“Wild woods is the place for me,” he soliloquized, as the cool
wind fanned his cheeks and the sweet tang of evergreen tingled his
nostrils. “But sure I’m most haunted in these lonely, silent
places.”

Bent Wade had the look of a haunted man. Perhaps the
consciousness he confessed was part of his secret.

Twilight had come when again he rode out into the open.
Trapper’s Lake lay before him, a beautiful sheet of water,
mirroring the black slopes and the fringed spruces and the flat
peaks. Over all its gray, twilight-softened surface showed little
swirls and boils and splashes where the myriads of trout were
rising. The trail led out over open grassy shores, with a few pines
straggling down to the lake, and clumps of spruces raising dark
blurs against the background of gleaming lake. Wade heard a sharp
crack of hoofs on rock, and he knew he had disturbed deer at their
drinking; also he heard a ring of horns on the branch of a tree,
and was sure an elk was slipping off through the woods. Across the
lake he saw a camp-fire and a pale, sharp-pointed object that was a
trapper’s tent or an Indian’s tepee.

Selecting a camp-site for himself, he unsaddled his horse, threw
the pack off the other, and, hobbling both animals, he turned them
loose. His roll of bedding, roped in canvas tarpaulin, he threw
under a spruce-tree. Then he opened his oxhide-covered packs and
laid out utensils and bags, little and big. All his movements were
methodical, yet swift, accurate, habitual. He was not thinking
about what he was doing. It took him some little time to find a
suitable log to split for fire-wood, and when he had started a
blaze night had fallen, and the light as it grew and brightened
played fantastically upon the isolating shadows.

Lid and pot of the little Dutch oven he threw separately upon
the sputtering fire, and while they heated he washed his hands,
mixed the biscuits, cut slices of meat off the deer haunch, and put
water on to boil. He broiled his meat on the hot, red coals, and
laid it near on clean pine chips, while he waited for bread to bake
and coffee to boil. The smell of wood-smoke and odorous steam from
pots and the fragrance of spruce mingled together, keen, sweet,
appetizing. Then he ate his simple meal hungrily, with the content
of the man who had fared worse.

After he had satisfied himself he washed his utensils and stowed
them away, with the bags. Whereupon his movements acquired less
dexterity and speed. The rest hour had come. Still, like the
long-experienced man in the open, he looked around for more to do,
and his gaze fell upon his weapons, lying on his saddle. His rifle
was a Henry–shiny and smooth from long service and care. His small
gun was a Colt’s 45. It had been carried in a saddle holster. Wade
rubbed the rifle with his hands, and then with a greasy rag which
he took from the sheath. After that he held the rifle to the heat
of the fire. A squall of rain had overtaken him that day, wetting
his weapons. A subtle and singular difference seemed to show in the
way he took up the Colt’s. His action was slow, his look reluctant.
The small gun was not merely a thing of steel and powder and ball.
He dried it and rubbed it with care, but not with love, and then he
stowed it away.

Next Wade unrolled his bed under the spruce, with one end of the
tarpaulin resting on the soft mat of needles. On top of that came
the two woolly sheepskins, which he used to lie upon, then his
blankets, and over all the other end of the tarpaulin.

This ended his tasks for the day. He lighted his pipe and
composed himself beside the camp-fire to smoke and rest awhile
before going to bed. The silence of the wilderness enfolded lake
and shore; yet presently it came to be a silence accentuated by
near and distant sounds, faint, wild, lonely–the low hum of
falling water, the splash of tiny waves on the shore, the song of
insects, and the dismal hoot of owls.

“Bill Belllounds–an’ he needs a hunter,” soliloquized Bent
Wade, with gloomy, penetrating eyes, seeing far through the red
embers. “That will suit me an’ change my luck, likely. 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. The wisdom
that grew out of his suffering opened pitfalls for his wandering
feet. The wildness of men and the passion of women somehow waited
with incredible fatality for that hour when chance led him into
their lives. He had toiled, he had given, he had fought, he had
sacrificed, he had killed, he had endured for the human nature
which in his savage youth he had betrayed. Yet out of his supreme
and endless striving to undo, to make reparation, to give his life,
to find God, had come, it seemed to Wade in his abasement, only a
driving torment.

But though his thought and emotion fluctuated, varying,
wandering, his memory held a fixed and changeless picture of a
woman, fair and sweet, with eyes of nameless blue, and face as
white as a flower.

“Baby would have been–let’s see–‘most nineteen years old
now–if she’d lived,” he said. “A big girl, I reckon, like her
mother…. Strange how, as I grow older, I remember better!”

The night wind moaned through the spruces; dark clouds scudded
across the sky, blotting out the bright stars; a steady, low roar
of water came from the outlet of the lake. The camp-fire flickered
and burned out, so that no sparks blew into the blackness, and the
red embers glowed and paled and crackled. Wade at length got up and
made ready for bed. He threw back tarpaulin and blankets, and laid
his rifle alongside where he could cover it. His coat served for a
pillow and he put the Colt’s gun under that; then pulling off his
boots, he slipped into bed, dressed as he was, and, like all men in
the open, at once fell asleep.

For Wade, and for countless men like him, who for many years had
roamed the West, this sleeping alone in wild places held both charm
and peril. But the fascination of it was only a vague realization,
and the danger was laughed at.

Over Bent Wade’s quiet form the shadows played, the spruce
boughs waved, the piny needles rustled down, the wind moaned louder
as the night advanced. By and by the horses rested from their
grazing; the insects ceased to hum; and the continuous roar of
water dominated the solitude. If wild animals passed Wade’s camp
they gave it a wide berth.

Sunrise found Wade on the trail, climbing high up above the
lake, making for the pass over the range. He walked, leading his
horses up a zigzag trail that bore the tracks of recent travelers.
Although this country was sparsely settled, yet there were men
always riding from camp to camp or from one valley town to another.
Wade never tarried on a well-trodden trail.

As he climbed higher the spruce-trees grew smaller, no longer
forming a green aisle before him, and at length they became dwarfed
and stunted, and at last failed altogether. Soon he was above
timber-line and out upon a flat-topped mountain range, where in
both directions the land rolled and dipped, free of tree or shrub,
colorful with grass and flowers. The elevation exceeded eleven
thousand feet. A whipping wind swept across the plain-land. The sun
was pale-bright in the east, slowly being obscured by gray clouds.
Snow began to fall, first in scudding, scanty flakes, but
increasing until the air was full of a great, fleecy swirl. Wade
rode along the rim of a mountain wall, watching a beautiful
snow-storm falling into the brown gulf beneath him. Once as he
headed round a break he caught sight of mountain-sheep cuddled
under a protecting shelf. The snow-squall blew away, like a
receding wall, leaving grass and flowers wet. As the dark clouds
parted, the sun shone warmer out of the blue. Gray peaks, with
patches of white, stood up above their black-timbered slopes.

Wade soon crossed the flat-topped pass over the range and faced
a descent, rocky and bare at first, but yielding gradually to the
encroachment of green. He left the cold winds and bleak trails
above him. In an hour, when he was half down the slope, the forest
had become warm and dry, fragrant and still. At length he rode out
upon the brow of a last wooded bench above a grassy valley, where a
bright, winding stream gleamed in the sun. While the horses rested
Wade looked about him. Nature never tired him. If he had any peace
it emanated from the silent places, the solemn hills, the flowers
and animals of the wild and lonely land.

A few straggling pines shaded this last low hill above the
valley. Grass grew luxuriantly there in the open, but not under the
trees, where the brown needle-mats jealously obstructed the green.
Clusters of columbines waved their graceful, sweet, pale-blue
flowers that Wade felt a joy in seeing. He loved
flowers–columbines, the glory of Colorado, came first, and next
the many-hued purple asters, and then the flaunting spikes of
paint-brush, and after them the nameless and numberless wild
flowers that decked the mountain meadows and colored the grass of
the aspen groves and peeped out of the edge of snow fields.

“Strange how it seems good to live–when I look at a
columbine–or watch a beaver at his work–or listen to the bugle of
an elk!” mused Bent Wade. He wondered why, with all his life behind
him, he could still find comfort in these things.

Then he rode on his way. The grassy valley, with its winding
stream, slowly descended and widened, and left foothill and
mountain far behind. Far across a wide plain rose another range,
black and bold against the blue. In the afternoon Wade reached
Elgeria, a small hamlet, but important by reason of its being on
the main stage line, and because here miners and cattlemen bought
supplies. It had one street, so wide it appeared to be a square, on
which faced a line of bold board houses with high, flat fronts.
Wade rode to the inn where the stagecoaches made headquarters. It
suited him to feed and rest his horses there, and partake of a meal
himself, before resuming his journey.

The proprietor was a stout, pleasant-faced little woman,
loquacious and amiable, glad to see a stranger for his own sake
rather than from considerations of possible profit. Though Wade had
never before visited Elgeria, he soon knew all about the town, and
the miners up in the hills, and the only happenings of moment–the
arrival and departure of stages.

“Prosperous place,” remarked Wade. “I saw that. An’ it ought to
be growin’.”

“Not so prosperous fer me as it uster be,” replied the lady. “We
did well when my husband was alive, before our competitor come to
town. He runs a hotel where miners can drink an’ gamble. I
don’t…. But I reckon I’ve no cause to complain. I live.”

“Who runs the other hotel?”

“Man named Smith. Reckon thet’s not his real name. I’ve had
people here who–but it ain’t no matter.”

“Men change their names,” replied Wade.

“Stranger, air you packin’ through or goin’ to stay?”

“On my way to White Slides Ranch, where I’m goin’ to work for
Belllounds. Do you know him?”

“Know Belllounds? Me? Wal, he’s the best friend I ever had when
I was at Kremmlin’. I lived there several years. My husband had
stock there. In fact, Bill started us in the cattle business. But
we got out of there an’ come here, where Bob died, an’ I’ve been
stuck ever since.”

“Everybody has a good word for Belllounds,” observed Wade.

“You’ll never hear a bad one,” replied the woman, with cheerful
warmth. “Bill never had but one fault, an’ people loved him fer
thet.”

“What was it?”

“He’s got a wild boy thet he thinks the sun rises an’ sets in.
Buster Jack, they call him. He used to come here often. But Bill
sent him away somewhere. The boy was spoiled. I saw his mother
years ago–she’s dead this long time–an’ she was no wife fer Bill
Belllounds. Jack took after her. An’ Bill was thet woman’s slave.
When she died all his big heart went to the son, an’ thet accounts.
Jack will never be any good.”

Wade thoughtfully nodded his head, as if he understood, and was
pondering other possibilities.

“Is he the only child?”

“There’s a girl, but she’s not Bill’s kin. He adopted her when
she was a baby. An’ Jack’s mother hated this child–jealous, we
used to think, because it might grow up an’ get some of Bill’s
money.’

“What’s the girl’s name?” asked Wade.

“Columbine. She was over here last summer with Old Bill. They
stayed with me. It was then Bill had hard words with Smith across
the street. Bill was resentin’ somethin’ Smith put in my way. Wal,
the lass’s the prettiest I ever seen in Colorado, an’ as good as
she’s pretty. Old Bill hinted to me he’d likely make a match
between her an’ his son Jack. An’ I ups an’ told him, if Jack
hadn’t turned over a new leaf when he comes home, thet such a
marriage would be tough on Columbine. Whew, but Old Bill was mad.
He jest can’t stand a word ag’in’ thet Buster Jack.”

“Columbine Belllounds,” mused Wade. “Queer name.”

“Oh, I’ve knowed three girls named Columbine. Don’t you know the
flower? It’s common in these parts. Very delicate, like a sago
lily, only paler.”

“Were you livin’ in Kremmlin’ when Belllounds adopted the girl?”
asked Wade.

“Laws no!” was the reply. “Thet was long before I come to Middle
Park. But I heerd all about it. The baby was found by gold-diggers
up in the mountains. Must have got lost from a wagon-train thet
Indians set on soon after–so the miners said. Anyway, Old Bill
took the baby an’ raised her as his own.”

“How old is she now?” queried Wade, with a singular change in
his tone.

“Columbine’s around nineteen.”

Bent Wade lowered his head a little, hiding his features under
the old, battered, wide-brimmed hat. The amiable innkeeper did not
see the tremor that passed over him, nor the slight stiffening that
followed, nor the gray pallor of his face. She went on talking
until some one called her.

Wade went outdoors, and with bent head walked down the street,
across a little river, out into green pasture-land. He struggled
with an amazing possibility. Columbine Belllounds might be his own
daughter. His heart leaped with joy. But the joy was short-lived.
No such hope in this world for Bent Wade! This coincidence,
however, left him with a strange, prophetic sense in his soul of a
tragedy coming to White Slides Ranch. Wade possessed some power of
divination, some strange gift to pierce the veil of the future. But
he could not exercise this power at will; it came involuntarily,
like a messenger of trouble in the dark night. Moreover, he had
never yet been able to draw away from the fascination of this
knowledge. It lured him on. Always his decision had been to go on,
to meet this boding circumstance, or to remain and meet it, in the
hope that he might take some one’s burden upon his shoulders. He
sensed it now, in the keen, poignant clairvoyance of the
moment–the tangle of life that he was about to enter. Old Bill
Belllounds, big and fine, victim of love for a wayward son; Buster
Jack, the waster, the tearer-down, the destroyer, the wild youth at
a wild time; Columbine, the girl of unknown birth, good and loyal,
subject to a condition sure to ruin her. Wade’s strange mind
revolved a hundred outcomes to this conflict of characters, but not
one of them was the one that was written. That remained dark. Never
had he received so strong a call out of the unknown, nor had he
ever felt such intense curiosity. Hope had long been dead in him,
except the one that he might atone in some way for the wrong he had
done his wife. So the pangs of emotion that recurred, in spite of
reason and bitterness, were not recognized by him as lingering
hopes. Wade denied the human in him, but he thrilled at the thought
of meeting Columbine Belllounds. There was something here beyond
all his comprehension.

“It might–be true!” he whispered. “I’ll know when I see
her.”

Then he walked back toward the inn. On the way he looked into
the barroom of the hotel run by Smith. It was a hard-looking place,
half full of idle men, whose faces were as open pages to Bent Wade.
Curiosity did not wholly control the impulse that made him wait at
the door till he could have a look at the man Smith. Somewhere, at
some time, Wade had met most of the veterans of western Colorado.
So much he had traveled! But the impulse that held him was answered
and explained when Smith came in–a burly man, with an ugly scar
marring one eye. Bent Wade recognized Smith. He recognized the
scar. For that scar was his own mark, dealt to this man, whose name
was not Smith, and who had been as evil as he looked, and whose
nomadic life was not due to remorse or love of travel.

Wade passed on without being seen. This recognition meant less
to him than it would have ten years ago, as he was not now the kind
of man who hunted old enemies for revenge or who went to great
lengths to keep out of their way. Men there were in Colorado who
would shoot at him on sight. There had been more than one that had
shot to his cost.

That night Wade camped in the foothills east of Elgeria, and
upon the following day, at sunrise, his horses were breaking the
frosty grass and ferns of the timbered range. This he crossed, rode
down into a valley where a lonely cabin nestled, and followed an
old, blazed trail that wound up the course of a brook. The water
was of a color that made rock and sand and moss seem like gold. He
saw no signs or tracks of game. A gray jay now and then screeched
his approach to unseen denizens of the woods. The stream babbled
past him over mossy ledges, under the dark shade of clumps of
spruces, and it grew smaller as he progressed toward its source. At
length it was lost in a swale of high, rank grass, and the blazed
trail led on through heavy pine woods. At noon he reached the crest
of the divide, and, halting upon an open, rocky eminence, he gazed
down over a green and black forest, slow-descending to a great
irregular park that was his destination for the night.

Wade needed meat, and to that end, as he went on, he kept a
sharp lookout for deer, especially after he espied fresh tracks
crossing the trail. Slipping along ahead of his horses, that
followed, him almost too closely to permit of his noiseless
approach to game, he hunted all the way down to the great open park
without getting a shot.

This park was miles across and miles long, covered with tall,
waving grass, and it had straggling arms that led off into the
surrounding belt of timber. It sloped gently toward the center,
where a round, green acreage of grass gave promise of water. Wade
rode toward this, keeping somewhat to the right, as he wanted to
camp at the edge of the woods. Soon he rode out beyond one of the
projecting peninsulas of forest to find the park spreading wider in
that direction. He saw horses grazing with elk, and far down at the
notch, where evidently the park had outlet in a narrow valley, he
espied the black, hump-shaped, shaggy forms of buffalo. They bobbed
off out of sight. Then the elk saw or scented him, and they trotted
away, the antlered bulls ahead of the cows. Wade wondered if the
horses were wild. They showed great interest, but no fear. Beyond
them was a rising piece of ground, covered with pine, and it
appeared to stand aloft from the forest on the far side as well as
upon that by which he was approaching. Riding a mile or so farther
he ascertained that this bit of wooded ground resembled an island
in a lake. Presently he saw smoke arising above the treetops.

A tiny brook welled out of the green center of the park and
meandered around to pass near the island of pines. Wade saw
unmistakable signs of prospecting along this brook, and farther
down, where he crossed it, he found tracks made that day.

The elevated plot of ground appeared to be several acres in
extent, covered with small-sized pines, and at the far edge there
was a little log cabin. Wade expected to surprise a lone prospector
at his evening meal. As he rode up a dog ran out of the cabin,
barking furiously. A man, dressed in fringed buckskin, followed. He
was tall, and had long, iron-gray hair over his shoulders. His
bronzed and weather-beaten face was a mass of fine wrinkles where
the grizzled hair did not hide them, and his shining, red
countenance proclaimed an honest, fearless spirit.

“Howdy, stranger!” he called, as Wade halted several rods
distant. His greeting was not welcome, but it was civil. His keen
scrutiny, however, attested to more than his speech.

“Evenin’, friend,” replied Wade. “Might I throw my pack
here?”

“Sure. Get down,” answered the other. “I calkilate I never seen
you in these diggin’s.”

“No. I’m Bent Wade, an’ on my way to White Slides to work for
Belllounds.”

“Glad to meet you. I’m new hereabouts, myself, but I know
Belllounds. My name’s Lewis. I was jest cookin’ grub. An’ it’ll
burn, too, if I don’t rustle. Turn your hosses loose an’ come
in.”

Wade presented himself with something more than his usual
methodical action. He smelled buffalo steak, and he was hungry. The
cabin had been built years ago, and was a ramshackle shelter at
best. The stone fireplace, however, appeared well preserved. A bed
of red coals glowed and cracked upon the hearth.

“Reckon I sure smelled buffalo meat,” observed Wade, with much
satisfaction. “It’s long since I chewed a hunk of that.”

“All ready. Now pitch in…. Yes, thar’s some buffalo left in
here. Not hunted much. Thar’s lots of elk an’ herds of deer. After
a little snow you’d think a drove of sheep had been trackin’
around. An’ some bear.”

Wade did not waste many words until he had enjoyed that meal.
Later, while he helped his host, he recurred to the subject of
game.

“If there’s so many deer then there’s lions an’ wolves.”

“You bet. I see tracks every day. Had a shot at a lofer not long
ago. Missed him. But I reckon thar’s more varmints over in the
Troublesome country back of White Slides.”

“Troublesome! Do they call it that?” asked Wade, with a queer
smile.

“Sure. An’ it is troublesome. Belllounds has been tryin’ to hire
a hunter. Offered me big wages to kill off the wolves an’
lions.”

“That’s the job I’m goin’ to take.”

“Good!” exclaimed Lewis. “I’m sure glad. Belllounds is a nice
fellar. I felt sort of cheap till I told him I wasn’t really a
hunter. You see, I’m prospectin’ up here, an’ pretendin’ to be a
hunter.”

“What do you make that bluff for?” queried Wade.

“You couldn’t fool any one who’d ever prospected for gold. I saw
your signs out here.”

“Wal, you’ve sharp eyes, thet’s all. Wade, I’ve some ondesirable
neighbors over here. I’d just as lief they didn’t see me diggin’
gold. Lately I’ve had a hunch they’re rustlin’ cattle. Anyways,
they’ve sold cattle in Kremmlin’ thet came from over around
Elgeria.”

“Wherever there’s cattle there’s sure to be some stealin’,”
observed Wade.

“Wal, you needn’t say anythin’ to Belllounds, because mebbe I’m
wrong. An’ if I found out I was right I’d go down to White Slides
an’ tell it myself. Belllounds done some favors.”

“How far to White Slides?” asked Wade, with a puff on his
pipe.

“Roundabout trail, an’ rough, but you’ll make it in one day,
easy. Beautiful country. Open, big peaks an’ ranges, with valleys
an’ lakes. Never seen such grass!”

“Did you ever see Belllounds’s son?”

“No. Didn’t know he hed one. But I seen his gal the fust day I
was thar. She was nice to me. I went thar to be fixed up a bit.
Nearly chopped my hand off. The gal–Columbine, she’s
called–doctored me up. Fact is, I owe considerable to thet White
Slides Ranch. There’s a cowboy, Wils somethin’, who rode up here
with some medicine fer me–some they didn’t have when I was thar.
You’ll like thet boy. I seen he was sweet on the gal an’ I sure
couldn’t blame him.”

Bent Wade removed his pipe and let out a strange laugh,
significant with its little note of grim confirmation.

“What’s funny about thet?” demanded Lewis, rather surprised.

“I was only laughin’,” replied Wade. “What you said about the
cowboy bein’ sweet on the girl popped into my head before you told
it. Well, boys will be boys. I was young once an’ had my day.”

Lewis grunted as he bent over to lift a red coal to light his
pipe, and as he raised his head he gave Wade a glance of
sympathetic curiosity.

“Wal, I hope I’ll see more of you,” he said, as his guest rose,
evidently to go.

“Reckon you will, as I’ll be chasin’ hounds all over. An’ I want
a look at them neighbors you spoke of that might be rustlers….
I’ll turn in now. Good night.”

CHAPTER V

Bent Wade rode out of the forest to look down upon the White
Slides country at the hour when it was most beautiful.

“Never seen the beat of that!” he exclaimed, as he halted.

The hour was sunset, with the golden rays and shadows streaking
ahead of him down the rolling sage hills, all rosy and gray with
rich, strange softness. Groves of aspens stood isolated from one
another–here crowning a hill with blazing yellow, and there
fringing the brow of another with gleaming gold, and lower down
reflecting the sunlight with brilliant red and purple. The valley
seemed filled with a delicate haze, almost like smoke. White Slides
Ranch was hidden from sight, as it lay in the bottomland. The gray
old peak towered proud and aloof, clear-cut and sunset-flushed
against the blue. The eastern slope of the valley was a vast sweep
of sage and hill and grassy bench and aspen bench, on fire with the
colors of autumn made molten by the last flashing of the sun. Great
black slopes of forest gave sharp contrast, and led up to the
red-walled ramparts of the mountain range.

Wade watched the scene until the fire faded, the golden shafts
paled and died, the rosy glow on sage changed to cold steel gray.
Then he rode out upon the foothills. The trail led up and down
slopes of sage. Grass grew thicker as he descended. Once he
startled a great flock of prairie-chickens, or sage-hens, large
gray birds, lumbering, swift fliers, that whirred up, and soon
plumped down again into the sage. Twilight found him on a last long
slope of the foothills, facing the pasture-land of the valley, with
the ranch still five miles distant, now showing misty and dim in
the gathering shadows.

Wade made camp where a brook ran near an aspen thicket. He had
no desire to hurry to meet events at White Slides Ranch, although
he longed to see this girl that belonged to Belllounds. Night
settled down over the quiet foothills. A pack of roving coyotes
visited Wade, and sat in a half-circle in the shadows back of the
camp-fire. They howled and barked. Nevertheless sleep visited
Wade’s tired eyelids the moment he lay down and closed them.

Next morning, rather late, Wade rode down to White Slides Ranch.
It looked to him like the property of a rich rancher who held to
the old and proven customs of his generation. The corrals were new,
but their style was old. Wade reflected that it would be hard for
rustlers or horse-thieves to steal out of those corrals. A long
lane led from the pasture-land, following the brook that ran
through the corrals and by the back door of the rambling,
comfortable-looking cabin. A cowboy was leading horses across a
wide square between the main ranch-house and a cluster of cabins
and sheds. He saw the visitor and waited.

“Mornin’,” said Wade, as he rode up.

“Hod do,” replied the cowboy.

Then these two eyed each other, not curiously nor suspiciously,
but with that steady, measuring gaze common to Western men.

“My name’s Wade,” said the traveler. “Come from Meeker way. I’m
lookin’ for a job with Belllounds.”

“I’m Lem Billings,” replied the other. “Ridin’ fer White Slides
fer years. Reckon the boss’ll be glad to take you on.”

“Is he around?”

“Sure. I jest seen him,” replied Billings, as he haltered his
horses to a post. “I reckon I ought to give you a hunch.”

“I’d take that as a favor.”

“Wal, we’re short of hands,” said the cowboy. “Jest got the
round-up over. Hudson was hurt an’ Wils Moore got crippled. Then
the boss’s son has been put on as foreman. Three of the boys quit.
Couldn’t stand him. This hyar son of Belllounds is a son-of-a-gun!
Me an’ pards of mine, Montana an’ Bludsoe, are stickin’ on–wal,
fer reasons thet ain’t egzactly love fer the boss. But Old Bill’s
the best of bosses…. Now the hunch is–thet if you git on hyar
you’ll hev to do two or three men’s work.”

“Much obliged,” replied Wade. “I don’t shy at that.”

“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.

“Not Hell-Bent Wade!” ejaculated Belllounds.

“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
neck…. Wal, what consarns me now is this. Is there any sense in
the talk thet wherever you land there’s hell to pay?”

“Belllounds, there’s no sense in it, but a lot of truth,”
confessed Wade, gloomily.

“Ahuh!… Wal, Hell-Bent Wade, I’ll take a chance on you,”
boomed the rancher’s deep voice, rich with the intent of his big
heart. “I’ve gambled all my life. An’ the best friends I ever made
were men I’d helped…. What wages do you ask?”

“I’ll take what you offer.”

“I’m payin’ the boys forty a month, but thet’s not enough fer
you.”

“Yes, that’ll do.”

“Good, it’s settled,” concluded Belllounds, rising. Then he saw
his son standing inside the door. “Say, Jack, shake hands with Bent
Wade, hunter an’ all-around man. Wade, this’s my boy. I’ve jest put
him on as foreman of the outfit, an’ while I’m at it I’ll say thet
you’ll take orders from me an’ not from him.”

Wade looked up into the face of Jack Belllounds, returned his
brief greeting, and shook his limp hand. The contact sent a strange
chill over Wade. Young Belllounds’s face was marred by a bruise and
shaded by a sullen light.

“Get Billin’s to take you out to thet new cabin an’ sheds I jest
had put up,” said the rancher. “You’ll bunk in the cabin…. Aw, I
know. Men like you sleep in the open. But you can’t do thet under
Old White Slides in winter. Not much! Make yourself to home, an’
I’ll walk out after a bit an’ we’ll look over the dog outfit. When
you see thet outfit you’ll holler fer help.”

Wade bowed his thanks, and, putting on his sombrero, he turned
away. As he did so he caught a sound of light, quick footsteps on
the far end of the porch.

“Hello, you-all!” cried a girl’s voice, with melody in it that
vibrated piercingly upon Wade’s sensitive ears.

“Mornin’, Columbine,” replied the rancher.

Bent Wade’s heart leaped up. This girlish voice rang upon the
chord of memory. Wade had not the strength to look at her then. It
was not that he could not bear to look, but that he could not bear
the disillusion sure to follow his first glimpse of this adopted
daughter of Belllounds. Sweet to delude himself! Ah! the years were
bearing sterner upon his head! The old dreams persisted, sadder now
for the fact that from long use they had become half-realities!
Wade shuffled slowly across the green square to where the cowboy
waited for him. His eyes were dim, and a sickness attended the
sinking of his heart.

“Wade, I ain’t a bettin’ fellar, but I’ll bet Old Bill took you
up,” vouchsafed Billings, with interest.

“Glad to say he did,” replied Wade. “You’re to show me the new
cabin where I’m to bunk.”

“Come along,” said Lem, leading off. “Air you agoin’ to handle
stock or chase coyotes?”

“My job’s huntin’.”

“Wal, it may be thet from sunup to sundown, but between times
you’ll be sure busy otherwise, I opine,” went on Lem. “Did you meet
the boss’s son?”

“Yes, he was there. An’ Belllounds made it plain I was to take
orders from him an’ not from his son.”

“Thet’ll make your job a million times easier,” declared Lem, as
if to make up for former hasty pessimism. He led the way past some
log cabins, and sheds with dirt roofs, and low, flat-topped barns,
out across another brook where willow-trees were turning yellow.
Then the new cabin came into view. It was small, with one door and
one window, and a porch across the front. It stood on a small
elevation, near the swift brook, and overlooking the ranch-house
perhaps a quarter of a mile below. Above it, and across the brook,
had been built a high fence constructed of aspen poles laced
closely together. The sounds therefrom proclaimed this stockade to
be the dog-pen.

Lem helped Wade unpack and carry his outfit into the cabin. It
contained one room, the corner of which was filled with blocks and
slabs of pine, evidently left there after the construction of the
cabin, and meant for fire-wood. The ample size of the stone
fireplace attested to the severity of the winters.

“Real sawed boards on the floor!” exclaimed Lem, meaning to
impress the new-comer. “I call this a plumb good bunk.”

“Much too good for me,” replied Wade.

“Wal, I’ll look after your hosses,” said Lem. “I reckon you’ll
fix up your bunk. Take my hunch an’ ask Miss Collie to find you
some furniture an’ sich like. She’s Ole Bill’s daughter, an’ she
makes up fer–fer–wal, fer a lot we hev to stand. I’ll fetch the
boys over later.”

“Do you smoke?” asked Wade. “I’ve somethin’ fine I fetched up
from Leadville.”

“Smoke! Me? I’ll give you a hoss right now for a cigar. I git
one onct a year, mebbe.”

“Here’s a box I’ve been packin’ for long,” replied Wade, as he
handed it up to Billings. “They’re Spanish, all right. Too rich for
my blood!”

A box of gold could not have made that cowboy’s eyes shine any
brighter.

“Whoop-ee!” he yelled. “Why, man, you’re like the fairy
in the kid’s story! Won’t I make the outfit wild? Aw, I forgot.
Thar’s only Jim an’ Blud left. Wal, I’ll divvy with them. Sure,
Wade, you hit me right. I was dyin’ fer a real smoke. An’ I reckon
what’s mine is yours.”

Then he strode out of the cabin, whistling a merry cowboy
tune.

Wade was left sitting in the middle of the room on his roll of
bedding, and for a long time he remained there motionless, with his
head bent, his worn hands idly clasped. A heavy footfall outside
aroused him from his meditation.

“Hey, Wade!” called the cheery voice of Belllounds. Then the
rancher appeared at the door. “How’s this bunk suit you?”

“Much too fine for an old-timer like me,” replied Wade.

“Old-timer! Say, you’re young yet. Look at me. Sixty-eight last
birthday! Wal, every dog has his day…. What’re you needin’ to fix
this bunk comfortable like?”

“Reckon I don’t need much.”

“Wal, you’ve beddin’ an’ cook outfit. Go get a table, an’ a
chair an’ a bench from thet first cabin. The boys thet had it are
gone. Somethin’ with a back to it, a rockin’-chair, if there’s one.
You’ll find tools, an’ boxes, an’ stuff in the workshop, if you
want to make a cupboard or anythin’.”

“How about a lookin’-glass?” asked Wade. “I had a piece, but I
broke it.”

“Haw! Haw! Mebbe we can rustle thet, too. My girl’s good on
helpin’ the boys fix up. Woman-like, you know. An’ she’ll fetch you
some decorations on her own hook. Now let’s take a look at the
hounds.”

Belllounds led the way out toward the crude dog-corral, and the
way he leaped the brook bore witness to the fact that he was still
vigorous and spry. The door of the pen was made of boards hung on
wire. As Belllounds opened it there came a pattering rush of many
padded feet, and a chorus of barks and whines. Wade’s surprised
gaze took in forty or fifty dogs, mostly hounds, browns and blacks
and yellows, all sizes–a motley, mangy, hungry pack, if he had
ever seen one.

“I swore I’d buy every hound fetched to me, till I’d cleaned up
the varmints around White Slides. An’ sure I was imposed on,”
explained the rancher.

“Some good-lookin’ hounds in the bunch,” replied Wade. “An’
there’s hardly too many. I’ll train two packs, so I can rest one
when the other’s huntin’.”

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned!” ejaculated Belllounds, with relief. “I
sure thought you’d roar. All this rabble to take care of!”

“No trouble after I’ve got acquainted,” said Wade. “Have they
been hunted any?”

“Some of the boys took out a bunch. But they split on deer
tracks an’ elk tracks an’ Lord knows what all. Never put up a lion!
Then again Billings took some out after a pack of coyotes, an’ gol
darn me if the coyotes didn’t lick the hounds. An’ wuss! Jack, my
son, got it into his head thet he was a hunter. The other mornin’
he found a fresh lion track back of the corral. An’ he ups an’ puts
the whole pack of hounds on the trail. I had a good many more
hounds in the pack than you see now. Wal, anyway, it was great to
hear the noise thet pack made. Jack lost every blamed hound of
them. Thet night an’ next day an’ the followin’ they straggled in.
But twenty some never did come back.”

Wade laughed. “They may come yet. I reckon, though, they’ve gone
home where they came from. Are any of these hounds
recommended?”

“Every consarned one of them,” declared Belllounds.

“That’s funny. But I guess it’s natural. Do you know for sure
whether you bought any good dogs?”

“Yes, I gave fifty dollars for two hounds. Got them of a friend
in Middle Park whose pack killed off the lions there. They’re good
dogs, trained on lion, wolf, an’ bear.”

“Pick ’em out,” said Wade.

With a throng of canines crowding and fawning round him, and
snapping at one another, it was difficult for the rancher to draw
the two particular ones apart so they could be looked over. At
length he succeeded, and Wade drove back the rest of the pack.

“The big fellar’s Sampson an’ the other’s Jim,” said
Belllounds.

Sampson was a huge hound, gray and yellow, with mottled black
marks, very long ears, and big, solemn eyes. Jim, a good-sized dog,
but small in comparison with the other, was black all over, except
around the nose and eyes. Jim had many scars. He was old, yet not
past a vigorous age, and he seemed a quiet, dignified, wise hound,
quite out of his element in that mongrel pack.

“If they’re as good as they look we’re lucky,” said Wade, as he
tied the ends of his rope round their necks. “Now are there any
more you know are good?”

“Denver, come hyar!” yelled Belllounds. A white, yellow-spotted
hound came wagging his tail. “I’ll swear by Denver. An’ there’s one
more–Kane. He’s half bloodhound, a queer, wicked kind of dog. He
keeps to himself…. Kane! Come hyar!”

Belllounds tramped around the corral, and finally found the
hound in question, asleep in a dusty hole. Kane was the only
beautiful dog in the lot. If half of him was bloodhound the other
half was shepherd, for his black and brown hair was inclined to
curl, and his head had the fine thoroughbred contour of the
shepherd. His ears, long and drooping and thin, betrayed the hound
in him. Kane showed no disposition to be friendly. His dark eyes,
sad and mournful, burned with the fires of doubt.

Wade haltered Kane, Jim, and Sampson, which act almost
precipitated a fight, and led them out of the corral. Denver,
friendly and glad, followed at the rancher’s heels.

“I’ll keep them with me an’ make lead dogs out of them,” said
Wade. “Belllounds, that bunch hasn’t had enough to eat. They’re
half starved.”

“Wal, thet’s worried me more’n you’ll guess,” declared
Belllounds, with irritation. “What do a lot of cow-punchin’ fellars
know about dogs? Why, they nearly ate Bludsoe up. He wouldn’t feed
’em. An’ Wils, who seemed good with dogs, was taken off bad hurt
the other day. Lem’s been tryin’ to rustle feed fer them. Now we’ll
give back the dogs you don’t want to keep, an’ thet way thin out
the pack.”

“Yes, we won’t need `em all. An’ I reckon I’ll take the worry of
this dog-pack off your mind.”

“Thet’s your job, Wade. My orders are fer you to kill off the
varmints. Lions, wolves, coyotes. An’ every fall some ole silvertip
gits bad, an’ now an’ then other bears. Whatever you need in the
way of supplies jest ask fer. We send regular to Kremmlin’. You can
hunt fer two months yet, barrin’ an onusual early winter…. I’m
askin’ you–if my son tramps on your toes–I’d take it as a favor
fer you to be patient. He’s only a boy yet, an’ coltish.”

Wade divined that was a favor difficult for Belllounds to ask.
The old rancher, dominant and forceful and self-sufficient all his
days, had begun to feel an encroachment of opposition beyond his
control. If he but realized it, the favor he asked of Wade was an
appeal.

“Belllounds, I get along with everybody,” Wade assured him. “An’
maybe I can help your son. Before I’d reached here I’d heard he was
wild, an’ so I’m prepared.”

“If you’d do thet–wal, I’d never forgit it,” replied the
rancher, slowly. “Jack’s been away fer three years. Only got back a
week or so ago. I calkilated he’d be sobered, steadied,
by–thet–thet work I put him to. But I’m not sure. He’s changed.
When he gits his own way he’s all I could ask. But thet way he
wants ain’t always what it ought to be. An’ so thar’s been clashes.
But Jack’s a fine young man. An’ he’ll outgrow his temper an’ crazy
notions. Work’ll do it.”

“Boys will be boys,” replied Wade, philosophically. “I’ve not
forgotten when I was a boy.”

“Neither hev I. Wal, I’ll be goin’, Wade. I reckon Columbine
will be up to call on you. Bein’ the only woman-folk in my house,
she sort of runs it. An’ she’s sure interested in thet pack of
hounds.”

Belllounds trudged away, his fine old head erect, his gray hair
shining in the sun.

Wade sat down upon the step of his cabin, pondering over the
rancher’s remarks about his son. Recalling the young man’s
physiognomy, Wade began to feel that it was familiar to him. He had
seen Jack Belllounds before. Wade never made mistakes in faces,
though he often had a task to recall names. And he began to go over
the recent past, recalling all that he could remember of Meeker,
and Cripple Creek, where he had worked for several months, and so
on, until he had gone back as far as his last trip to Denver.

“Must have been there,” mused Wade, thoughtfully, and he tried
to recall all the faces he had seen. This was impossible, of
course, yet he remembered many. Then he visualized the places in
Denver that for one reason or another had struck him particularly.
Suddenly into one of these flashed the pale, sullen, bold face of
Jack Belllounds.

“It was there!” he exclaimed, incredulously. “Well!… If
thet’s not the strangest yet! Could I be mistaken? No. I saw
him…. Belllounds must have known it–must have let him stay
there…. Maybe put him there! He’s just the kind of a man to go to
extremes to reform his son.”

Singular as was this circumstance, Wade dwelt only momentarily
on it. He dismissed it with the conviction that it was another
strange happening in the string of events that had turned his steps
toward White Slides Ranch. Wade’s mind stirred to the probability
of an early sight of Columbine Belllounds. He would welcome it,
both as interesting and pleasurable, and surely as a relief. The
sooner a meeting with her was over the better. His life had been
one long succession of shocks, so that it seemed nothing the future
held could thrill him, amaze him, torment him. And yet how well he
knew that his heart was only the more responsive for all it had
withstood! Perhaps here at White Slides he might meet with an
experience dwarfing all others. It was possible; it was in the
nature of events. And though he repudiated such a possibility, he
fortified himself against a subtle divination that he might at last
have reached the end of his long trail, where anything might
happen.

Three of the hounds lay down at Wade’s feet. Kane, the
bloodhound, stood watching this new master, after the manner of a
dog who was a judge of men. He sniffed at Wade. He grew a little
less surly.

Wade’s gaze, however, was on the path that led down along the
border of the brook to disappear in the willows. Above this clump
of yellowing trees could be seen the ranch-house. A girl with fair
hair stepped off the porch. She appeared to be carrying something
in her arms, and shortly disappeared behind the willows. Wade saw
her and surmised that she was coming to his cabin. He did not
expect any more or think any more. His faculties condensed to the
objective one of sight.

The girl, when she reappeared, was perhaps a hundred yards
distant. Wade bent on her one keen, clear glance. Then his brain
and his blood beat wildly. He saw a slender girl in riding-costume,
lithe and strong, with the free step of one used to the open. It
was this form, this step that struck Wade. “My–God! how like
Lucy!” he whispered, and he tried to pierce the distance to see her
face. It gleamed in the sunshine. Her fair hair waved in the wind.
She was coming, but so slowly! All of Wade that was physical and
emotional seemed to wait–clamped. The moment was age-long, with
nothing beyond it. While she was still at a distance her face
became distinct. And Wade sustained a terrible shock…. Then, as
one in a dream, as in a blur of strained peering into a maze, he
saw the face of his sweetheart, his wife, the Lucy of his early
manhood. It moved him out of the past. Closer! Pang on pang
quivered in his heart. Was this only a nightmare? Or had he at last
gone mad! This girl raised her head. She was looking–she saw him.
Terror mounted upon Wade’s consciousness.

“That’s Lucy’s face!” he gasped. “So help–me, God!… It’s for
this–I wandered here! She’s my flesh an’ blood–my Lucy’s
child–my own!”

Fear and presentiment and blank amaze and stricken consciousness
left him in the lightning-flash of divination that was recognition
as well. A shuddering cataclysm enveloped him, a passion so
stupendous that it almost brought oblivion.

The three hounds leaped up with barks and wagging tails. They
welcomed this visitor. Kane lost still more of his canine
aloofness.

Wade’s breast heaved. The blue sky, the gray hills, the green
willows, all blurred in his sight, that seemed to hold clear only
the face floating closer.

“I’m Columbine Belllounds,” said a voice.

It stilled the storm in Wade. It was real. It was a voice of
twenty years ago. The burden on his breast lifted. Then flashed the
spirit, the old self-control of a man whose life had held many
terrible moments.

“Mornin’, miss. I’m glad to meet you,” he replied, and there was
no break, no tone unnatural in his greeting.

So they gazed at each other, she with that instinctive look
peculiar to women in its intuitive powers, but common to all
persons who had lived far from crowds and to whom a new-comer was
an event. Wade’s gaze, intense and all-embracing, found that face
now closer in resemblance to the imagined Lucy’s–a pretty face,
rather than beautiful, but strong and sweet–its striking qualities
being a colorless fairness of skin that yet held a rose and golden
tint, and the eyes of a rare and exquisite shade of blue.

“Oh! Are you feeling ill?” she asked. “You look so–so
pale.”

“No. I’m only tuckered out,” replied Wade, easily, as he wiped
the clammy drops from his brow. “It was a long ride to get
here.”

“I’m the lady of the house,” she said, with a smile. “I’m glad
to welcome you to White Slides, and hope you’ll like it.”

“Well, Miss Columbine, I reckon I will,” he replied, returning
the smile. “Now if I was younger I’d like it powerful much.”

She laughed at that. “Men are all alike, young or old.”

“Don’t ever think so,” said Wade, earnestly.

“No? I guess you’re right about that. I’ve fetched you up some
things for your cabin. May I peep in?”

“Come in,” replied Wade, rising. “You must excuse my manners.
It’s long indeed since I had a lady caller.”

She went in, and Wade, standing on the threshold, saw her survey
the room with a woman’s sweeping glance.

“I told dad to put some–“

“Miss, your dad told me to go get them, an’ I’ve not done it
yet. But I will presently.”

“Very well. I’ll leave these things and come back later,” she
replied, depositing a bundle upon the floor. “You won’t mind if I
try to–to make you a little comfortable. It’s dreadful the way
outdoor men live when they do get indoors.”

“I reckon I’ll be slow in lettin’ you see what a good
housekeeper I am,” he replied. “Because then, maybe, I’ll see more
of you.”

“Weren’t you a sad flatterer in your day?” she queried,
archly.

Her intonation, the tilt of her head, gave Wade such a pang that
he could not answer. And to hide his momentary restraint he turned
back to the hounds. Then she came out upon the porch.

“I love hounds,” she said, patting Denver, which caress
immediately made Jim and Sampson jealous. “I’ve gotten on pretty
well with these, but that Kane won’t make up. Isn’t he splendid?
But he’s afraid–no, not afraid of me, but he doesn’t like me.”

“It’s mistrust. He’s been hurt. I reckon he’ll get over that
after a while.”

“You don’t beat dogs?” she asked, eagerly.

“No, miss. That’s not the way to get on with hounds or
horses.”

Her glance was a blue flash of pleasure.

“How glad that makes me! Why, I quit coming here to see and feed
the dogs because somebody was always kicking them around.”

Wade handed the rope to her. “You hold them, so when I come out
with some meat they won’t pile over me.” He went inside, took all
that was left of the deer haunch out of his pack, and, picking up
his knife, returned to the porch. The hounds saw the meat and
yelped. They pulled on the rope.

“You hounds behave,” ordered Wade, as he sat down on the step
and began to cut the meat. “Jim, you’re the oldest an’ hungriest.
Here…. Now you, Sampson. Here!”… The big hound snapped at the
meat. Whereupon Wade slapped him. “Are you a pup or a wolf that you
grab for it? Here.” Sampson was slower to act, but he snapped
again. Whereupon Wade hit him again, with open hand, not with
violence or rancor, but a blow that meant Sampson must obey.

Next time the hound did not snap. Denver had to be cuffed
several times before he showed deference to this new master. But
the bloodhound Kane refused to take any meat out of Wade’s hand. He
growled and showed his teeth, and sniffed hungrily.

“Kane will have to be handled carefully,” observed Wade. “He’d
bite pretty quick.”

“But, he’s so splendid,” said the girl. “I don’t like to think
he’s mean. You’ll be good to him–try to win him?”

“I’ll do my best with him.”

“Dad’s full of glee that he has a real hunter at White Slides at
last. Now I’m glad, and sorry, too. I hate to think of little
calves being torn and killed by lions and wolves. And it’s dreadful
to know bears eat grown-up cattle. But I love the mourn of a wolf
and the yelp of a coyote. I can’t help hoping you don’t kill them
all–quite.”

“It’s not likely, miss,” he replied. “I’ll be pretty sure to
clean out the lions an’ drive off the bears. But the wolf family
can’t be exterminated. No animal so cunnin’ as a wolf!… I’ll tell
you…. Some years ago I went to cook on a ranch north of Denver,
on the edge of the plains. An’ right off I began to hear stories
about a big lobo–a wolf that was an old residenter. He’d been
known for long, an’ he got meaner an’ wiser as he was hunted. His
specialty got to be yearlings, an’ the ranchers all over rose up in
arms against him. They hired all the old hunters an’ trappers in
the country to kill him. No good! Old Lobo went right on pullin’
down yearlings. Every night he’d get one or more. An’ he was so
cute an’ so swift that he’d work on different ranches on different
nights. Finally he killed eleven yearlings for my boss on one
night. Eleven! Think of that. An’ then I said to my boss, ‘I reckon
you’d better let me go kill that gray butcher.’ An’ my boss laughed
at me. But he let me go. He’d have tried anythin’. I took a hunk of
meat, a blanket, my gun, an’ a pair of snow-shoes, an’ I set out on
old Lobo’s tracks…. An’, Miss Columbine, I walked old Lobo
to death in the snow!”

“Why, how wonderful!” exclaimed the girl, breathless and glowing
with interest. “Oh, it seems a pity such a splendid brute should be
killed. Wild animals are cruel. I wish it were different.”

“Life is cruel, miss, an’ I echo your wish,” replied Wade,
sadly.

“You have had great experiences. Dad said to me, ‘Collie, here
at last is a man who can tell you enough stories!’… But I don’t
believe you ever could.”

“You like stories?” asked Wade, curiously.

“Love them. All kinds, but I like adventure best. I
should have been a boy. Isn’t it strange, I can’t hurt anything
myself or bear to see even a steer slaughtered? But you can’t tell
too bloody and terrible stories for me. Except I hate Indian
stories. The very thought of Indians makes me shudder…. Some day
I’ll tell you a story.”

Wade could not find his tongue readily.

“I must go now,” she continued, and moved off the porch. Then
she hesitated, and turned with a smile that was wistful and
impulsive. “I–I believe we’ll be good friends.”

“Miss Columbine, we sure will, if I can live up to my part,”
replied Wade.

Her smile deepened, even while her gaze grew unconsciously
penetrating. Wade felt how subtly they were drawn to each other.
But she had no inkling of that.

“It takes two to make a bargain,” she replied, seriously. “I’ve
my part. Good-by.”

Wade watched her lithe stride, and as she drew away the
restraint he had put upon himself loosened. When she disappeared
his feeling burst all bounds. Dragging the dogs inside, he closed
the door. Then, like one broken and spent, he fell face against the
wall, with the hoarsely whispered words, “I’m thankin’ God!”

CHAPTER VI

September’s glory of gold and red and purple began to fade with
the autumnal equinox. It rained enough to soak the frost-bitten
leaves, and then the mountain winds sent them flying and fluttering
and scurrying to carpet the dells and spot the pools in the brooks
and color the trails. When the weather cleared and the sun rose
bright again many of the aspen thickets were leafless and bare, and
the willows showed stark against the gray sage hills, and the vines
had lost their fire. Hills and valleys had sobered with subtle
change that left them none the less beautiful.

A mile or more down the road from White Slides, in a protected
nook, nestled two cabins belonging to a cattleman named Andrews,
who had formerly worked for Belllounds and had recently gone into
the stock business for himself. He had a rather young wife, and
several children, and a brother who rode for him. These people were
the only neighbors of Belllounds for some ten miles on the road
toward Kremmling.

Columbine liked Mrs. Andrews and often rode or walked down there
for a little visit and a chat with her friend and a romp with the
children.

Toward the end of September Columbine found herself combating a
strong desire to go down to the Andrews ranch and try to learn some
news about Wilson Moore. If anything had been heard at White Slides
it certainly had not been told her. Jack Belllounds had ridden to
Kremmling and back in one day, but Columbine would have endured
much before asking him for information.

She did, however, inquire of the freighter who hauled
Belllounds’s supplies, and the answer she got was awkwardly
evasive. That nettled Columbine. Also it raised a suspicion which
she strove to subdue. Finally it seemed apparent that Wilson
Moore’s name was not to be mentioned to her.

First, in her growing resentment, she had an impulse to go to
her new friend, the hunter Wade, and confide in him not only her
longing to learn about Wilson, but also other matters that were
growing daily more burdensome. How strange for her to feel that in
some way Jack Belllounds had come between her and the old man she
loved and called father! Columbine had not divined that until
lately. She felt it now in the fact that she no longer sought the
rancher as she used to, and he had apparently avoided her. But
then, Columbine reflected, she might be entirely wrong, for when
Belllounds did meet her at meal-times, or anywhere, he seemed just
as affectionate as of old. Still he was not the same man. A chill,
an atmosphere of shadow, had pervaded the once wholesome ranch. And
so, feeling not yet well enough acquainted with Wade to confide so
intimately in him, she stifled her impulses and resolved to make
some effort herself to find out what she wanted to know.

As luck would have it, when she started out to walk down to the
Andrews ranch she encountered Jack Belllounds.

“Where are you going?” he inquired, inquisitively.

“I’m going to see Mrs. Andrews,” she replied.

“No, you’re not!” he declared, quickly, with a flash.

Columbine felt a queer sensation deep within her, a hot little
gathering that seemed foreign to her physical being, and ready to
burst out. Of late it had stirred in her at words or acts of Jack
Belllounds. She gazed steadily at him, and he returned her look
with interest. What he was thinking she had no idea of, but for
herself it was a recurrence and an emphasis of the fact that she
seemed growing farther away from this young man she had to marry.
The weeks since his arrival had been the most worrisome she could
remember.

“I am going,” she replied, slowly.

“No!” he replied, violently. “I won’t have you running off down
there to–to gossip with that Andrews woman.”

“Oh, you won’t?” inquired Columbine, very quietly. How
little he understood her!

“That’s what I said.”

“You’re not my boss yet, Mister Jack Belllounds,” she flashed,
her spirit rising. He could irritate her as no one else.

“I soon will be. And what’s a matter of a week or a month?” he
went on, calming down a little.

“I’ve promised, yes,” she said, feeling her face blanch, “and I
keep my promises…. But I didn’t say when. If you talk like that
to me it might be a good many weeks–or–or months before I name
the day.”

“Columbine!” he cried, as she turned away. There was
genuine distress in his voice. Columbine felt again an assurance
that had troubled her. No matter how she was reacting to this new
relation, it seemed a fearful truth that Jack was really falling in
love with her. This time she did not soften.

“I’ll call dad to make you stay home,” he burst out
again, his temper rising.

Columbine wheeled as on a pivot.

“If you do you’ve got less sense than I thought.”

“I know why you’re going. It’s to see that club-footed cowboy
Moore!…
Don’t let me catch you with him.”

Passion claimed him then.

“I know why you’re going. It’s to see that club-footed cowboy
Moore!… Don’t let me catch you with him!”

Columbine turned her back upon Belllounds and swung away, every
pulse in her throbbing and smarting. She hurried on into the road.
She wanted to run, not to get out of sight or hearing, but to fly
from something, she knew not what.

“Oh! it’s more than his temper!” she cried, hot tears in her
eyes. “He’s mean–mean–MEAN! What’s the use of me denying
that–any more–just because I love dad?… My life will be
wretched…. It is wretched!”

Her anger did not last long, nor did her resentment. She
reproached herself for the tart replies that had inflamed Jack.
Never again would she forget herself!

“But he–he makes me furious,” she cried, in sudden excuse for
herself. “What did he say? ‘That club-footed cowboy Moore’!… Oh,
that was vile. He’s heard, then, that poor Wilson has a bad foot,
perhaps permanently crippled…. If it’s true…. But why should he
yell that he knew I wanted to see Wilson?… I did not! I
do not…. Oh, but I do, I do!”

And then Columbine was to learn straightway that she would
forget herself again, that she had forgotten, and that a sadder,
stranger truth was dawning upon her–she was discovering another
Columbine within herself, a wilful, passionate, different creature
who would no longer be denied.

Almost before Columbine realized that she had started upon the
visit she was within sight of the Andrews ranch. So swiftly had she
walked! It behooved her to hide such excitement as had dominated
her. And to that end she slowed her pace, trying to put her mind on
other matters.

The children saw her first and rushed upon her, so that when she
reached the cabin door she could not well have been otherwise than
rosy and smiling. Mrs. Andrews, ruddy and strong, looked the
pioneer rancher’s hard-working wife. Her face brightened at the
advent of Columbine, and showed a little surprise and curiosity as
well.

“Laws, but it’s good to see you, Columbine,” was her greeting.
“You ‘ain’t been here for a long spell.”

“I’ve been coming, but just put it off,” replied Columbine.

And so, after the manner of women neighbors, they began to talk
of the fall round-up, and the near approach of winter with its
loneliness, and the children, all of which naturally led to more
personal and interesting topics.

“An’ is it so, Columbine, that you’re to marry Jack Belllounds?”
asked Mrs. Andrews, presently.

“Yes, I guess it is,” replied Columbine, smiling.

“Humph! I’m no relative of yours or even a particular, close
friend, but I’d like to say–“

“Please don’t,” interposed Columbine.

“All right, my girl. I guess it’s better I don’t say anythin’.
It’s a pity, though, onless you love this Buster Jack. An’ you
never used to do that, I’ll swan.”

“No, I don’t love Jack–yet–as I ought to love a husband. But
I’ll try, and if–if I–I never do–still, it’s my duty to marry
him.”

“Some woman ought to talk to Bill Belllounds,” declared Mrs.
Andrews with a grimness that boded ill for the old rancher.

“Did you know we had a new man up at the ranch?” asked
Columbine, changing the subject.

“You mean the hunter, Hell-Bent Wade?”

“Yes. But I hate that ridiculous name,” said Columbine.

“It’s queer, like lots of names men get in these parts. An’
it’ll stick. Wade’s been here twice; once as he was passin’ with
the hounds, an’ the other night. I like him, Columbine. He’s
true-blue, for all his strange name. My men-folks took to him like
ducks to water.”

“I’m glad. I took to him almost like that,” rejoined Columbine.
“He has the saddest face I ever saw.”

“Sad? Wal, yes. That man has seen a good deal of what they
tacked on to his name. I laughed when I seen him first. Little lame
fellar, crooked-legged an’ ragged, with thet awful homely face! But
I forgot how he looked next time he came.”

“That’s just it. He’s not much to look at, but you forget his
homeliness right off,” replied Columbine, warmly. “You feel
something behind all his–his looks.”

“Wal, you an’ me are women, an’ we feel different,” replied Mrs.
Andrews. “Now my men-folks take much store on what Wade can
do. He fixed up Tom’s gun, that’s been out of whack for a
year. He made our clock run ag’in, an’ run better than ever. Then
he saved our cow from that poison-weed. An’ Tom gave her up to
die.”

“The boys up home were telling me Mr. Wade had saved some of our
cattle. Dad was delighted. You know he’s lost a good many head of
stock from this poison-weed. I saw so many dead steers on my last
ride up the mountain. It’s too bad our new man didn’t get here
sooner to save them. I asked him how he did it, and he said he was
a doctor.”

“A cow-doctor,” laughed Mrs. Andrews. “Wal, that’s a new one on
me. Accordin’ to Tom, this here Wade, when he seen our sick cow,
said she’d eat poison-weed–larkspur, I think he called it–an’
then when she drank water it formed a gas in her stomach an’ she
swelled up turrible. Wade jest stuck his knife in her side a little
an’ let the gas out, and she got well.”

“Ughh!… What cruel doctoring! But if it saves the cattle, then
it’s good.”

“It’ll save them if they can be got to right off,” replied Mrs.
Andrews.

“Speaking of doctors,” went on Columbine, striving to make her
query casual, “do you know whether or not Wilson Moore had his foot
treated by a doctor at Kremmling?”

“He did not,” answered Mrs. Andrews. “Wasn’t no doctor there.
They’d had to send to Denver, an’, as Wils couldn’t take that trip
or wait so long, why, Mrs. Plummer fixed up his foot. She made a
good job of it, too, as I can testify.”

“Oh, I’m–very thankful!” murmured Columbine. “He’ll not be
crippled or–or club-footed, then?”

“I reckon not. You can see for yourself. For Wils’s here. He was
drove up night before last an’ is stayin’ with my
brother-in-law–in the other cabin there.”

Mrs. Andrews launched all this swiftly, with evident pleasure,
but with more of woman’s subtle motive. Her eyes were bent with
shrewd kindness upon the younger woman.

“Here!” exclaimed Columbine, with a start, and for an instant
she was at the mercy of conflicting surprise and joy and alarm.
Alternately she flushed and paled.

“Sure he’s here,” replied Mrs. Andrews, now looking out of the
door. “He ought to be in sight somewheres. He’s walkin’ with a
crutch.”

“Crutch!” cried Columbine, in dismay.

“Yes, crutch, an’ he made it himself…. I don’t see him
nowheres. Mebbe he went in when he see you comin’. For he’s
powerful sensitive about that crutch.”

“Then–if he’s so–so sensitive, perhaps I’d better go,” said
Columbine, struggling with embarrassment and discomfiture. What if
she happened to meet him! Would he imagine her purpose in coming
there? Her heart began to beat unwontedly.

“Suit yourself, lass,” replied Mrs. Andrews, kindly. “I know you
and Wils quarreled, for he told me. An’ it’s a pity…. Wal, if you
must go, I hope you’ll come again before the snow flies.
Good-by.”

Columbine bade her a hurried good-by and ventured forth with
misgivings. And almost around the corner of the second cabin, which
she had to pass, and before she had time to recover her composure,
she saw Wilson Moore, hobbling along on a crutch, holding a
bandaged foot off the ground. He had seen her; he was hurrying to
avoid a meeting, or to get behind the corrals there before she
observed him.

“Wilson!” she called, involuntarily. The instant the name left
her lips she regretted it. But too late! The cowboy halted, slowly
turned.

Then Columbine walked swiftly up to him, suddenly as brave as
she had been fearful. Sight of him had changed her.

“Wilson Moore, you meant to avoid me,” she said, with
reproach.

“Howdy, Columbine!” he drawled, ignoring her words.

“Oh, I was so sorry you were hurt!” she burst out. “And now I’m
so glad–you’re–you’re … Wilson, you’re thin and pale–you’ve
suffered!”

“It pulled me down a bit,” he replied.

Columbine had never before seen his face anything except bronzed
and lean and healthy, but now it bore testimony to pain and strain
and patient endurance. He looked older. Something in the fine,
dark, hazel eyes hurt her deeply.

“You never sent me word,” she went on, reproachfully. “No one
would tell me anything. The boys said they didn’t know. Dad was
angry when I asked him. I’d never have asked Jack. And the
freighter who drove up–he lied to me. So I came down here to-day
purposely to ask news of you, but I never dreamed you were here….
Now I’m glad I came.”

What a singular, darkly kind, yet strange glance he gave
her!

“That was like you, Columbine,” he said. “I knew you’d feel
badly about my accident. But how could I send word to you?”

“You saved–Pronto,” she returned, with a strong tremor in her
voice. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“That was a funny thing. Pronto went out of his head. I hope
he’s all right.”

“He’s almost well. It took some time to pick all the splinters
out of him. He’ll be all right soon–none the worse for that–that
cowboy trick of Mister Jack Belllounds.”

Columbine finished bitterly. Moore turned his thoughtful gaze
away from her.

“I hope Old Bill is well,” he remarked, lamely.

“Have you told your folks of your accident?” asked Columbine,
ignoring his remark.

“No.”

“Oh, Wilson, you ought to have sent for them, or have written at
least.”

“Me? To go crying for them when I got in trouble? I couldn’t see
it that way.”

“Wilson, you’ll be going–home–soon–to Denver–won’t you?” she
faltered.

“No,” he replied, shortly.

“But what will you do? Surely you can’t work–not so soon?”

“Columbine, I’ll never–be able to ride again–like I used to,”
he said, tragically. “I’ll ride, yes, but never the old way.”

“Oh!” Columbine’s tone, and the exquisite softness and
tenderness with which she placed a hand on the rude crutch would
have been enlightening to any one but these two absorbed in
themselves. “I can’t bear to believe that.”

“I’m afraid it’s true. Bad smash, Columbine! I just missed being
club-footed.”

“You should have care. You should have…. Wilson, do you intend
to stay here with the Andrews?”

“Not much. They have troubles of their own. Columbine, I’m going
to homestead one hundred and sixty acres.”

“Homestead!” she exclaimed, in amaze. “Where?”

“Up there under Old White Slides. I’ve long intended to. You
know that pretty little valley under the red bluff. There’s a fine
spring. You’ve been there with me. There by the old cabin built by
prospectors?”

“Yes, I know. It’s a pretty place–fine valley, but Wils, you
can’t live there,” she expostulated.

“Why not, I’d like to know?”

“That little cubby-hole! It’s only a tiny one-room cabin, roof
all gone, chinks open, chimney crumbling…. Wilson, you don’t mean
to tell me you want to live there alone?”

“Sure. What ‘d you think?” he replied, with sarcasm.

“Expect me to marry some girl? Well, I wouldn’t, even if
any one would have a cripple.”

“Who–who will take care of you?” she asked, blushing
furiously.

“I’ll take care of myself,” he declared. “Good Lord! Columbine,
I’m not an invalid yet. I’ve got a few friends who’ll help me fix
up the cabin. And that reminds me. There’s a lot of my stuff up in
the bunk-house at White Slides. I’m going to drive up soon to haul
it away.”

“Wilson Moore, do you mean it?” she asked, with grave wonder.
“Are you going to homestead near White Slides Ranch–and
live there–when–“

She could not finish. An overwhelming disaster, for which she
had no name, seemed to be impending.

“Yes, I am,” he replied. “Funny how things turn out, isn’t
it?”

“It’s very–very funny,” she said, dazedly, and she turned
slowly away without another word.

“Good-by, Columbine,” he called out after her, with farewell,
indeed, in his voice.

All the way home Columbine was occupied with feelings that
swayed her to the exclusion of rational consideration of the
increasing perplexity of her situation. And to make matters worse,
when she arrived at the ranch it was to meet Jack Belllounds with a
face as black as a thunder-cloud.

“The old man wants to see you,” he announced, with an accent
that recalled his threat of a few hours back.

“Does he?” queried Columbine, loftily. “From the courteous way
you speak I imagine it’s important.”

Belllounds did not deign to reply to this. He sat on the porch,
where evidently he had awaited her return, and he looked anything
but happy.

“Where is dad?” continued Columbine.

Jack motioned toward the second door, beyond which he sat, the
one that opened into the room the rancher used as a kind of office
and storeroom. As Columbine walked by Jack he grasped her
skirt.

“Columbine! you’re angry?” he said, appealingly.

“I reckon I am,” replied Columbine.

“Don’t go in to dad when you’re that way,” implored Jack. “He’s
angry, too–and–and–it’ll only make matters worse.”

From long experience Columbine could divine when Jack had done
something in the interest of self and then had awakened to possible
consequences. She pulled away from him without replying, and
knocked on the office door.

“Come in,” called the rancher.

Columbine went in. “Hello, dad! Do you want me?”

Belllounds sat at an old table, bending over a soiled ledger,
with a stubby pencil in his huge hand. When he looked up Columbine
gave a little start.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked, gruffly.

“I’ve been calling on Mrs. Andrews,” replied Columbine.

“Did you go thar to see her?”

“Why–certainly!” answered Columbine, with a slow break in her
speech.

“You didn’t go to meet Wilson Moore?”

“No.”

“An’ I reckon you’ll say you hadn’t heerd he was there?”

“I had not,” flashed Columbine.

“Wal, did you see him?”

“Yes, sir, I did, but quite by accident.”

“Ahuh! Columbine, are you lyin’ to me?”

The hot blood flooded to Columbine’s cheeks, as if she had been
struck a blow.

“Dad!” she cried, in hurt amaze.

Belllounds seemed thick, imponderable, as if something had
forced a crisis in him and his brain was deeply involved. The
habitual, cool, easy, bold, and frank attitude in the meeting of
all situations seemed to have been encroached upon by a break, a
bewilderment, a lessening of confidence.

“Wal, are you lyin’?” he repeated, either blind to or unaware of
her distress.

“I could not–lie to you,” she faltered, “even–if–I wanted
to.”

The heavy, shadowed gaze of his big eyes was bent upon her as if
she had become a new and perplexing problem.

“But you seen Moore?”

“Yes–sir.” Columbine’s spirit rose.

“An’ talked with him?”

“Of course.”

“Lass, I ain’t likin’ thet, an’ I ain’t likin’ the way you look
an’ speak.”

“I am sorry. I can’t help either.”

“What’d this cowboy say to you?”

“We talked mostly about his injured foot.”

“An’ what else?” went on Belllounds, his voice rising.

“About–what he meant to do now.”

“Ahuh! An’ thet’s homesteadin’ the Sage Creek Valley?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you want him to do thet?”

“I! Indeed I didn’t.”

“Columbine, not so long ago you told me this fellar wasn’t sweet
on you. An’ do you still say that to me–are you still insistin’ he
ain’t in love with you?”

“He never said so–I never believed it … and now I’m sure–he
isn’t!”

“Ahuh! Wal, thet same day you was jest as sure you didn’t care
anythin’ particular fer him. Are you thet sure now?”

“No!” whispered Columbine, very low. She trembled with a
suggestion of unknown forces. Not to save a new and growing pride
would she evade any question from this man upon whom she had no
claim, to whom she owed her life and her bringing up. But something
cold formed in her.

Belllounds, self-centered and serious as he strangely was,
seemed to check his probing, either from fear of hearing more from
her or from an awakening of former kindness. But her reply was a
shock to him, and, throwing down his pencil with the gesture of a
man upon whom decision was forced, he rose to tower over her.

“You’ve been like a daughter to me. I’ve done all I knowed how
fer you. I’ve lived up to the best of my lights. An’ I’ve loved
you,” he said, sonorously and pathetically. “You know what my hopes
are–fer the boy–an’ fer you…. We needn’t waste any more talk.
From this minnit you’re free to do as you like. Whatever you do
won’t make any change in my carin’ fer you…. But you gotta
decide. Will you marry Jack or not?”

“I promised you–I would. I’ll keep my word,” replied Columbine,
steadily.

“So far so good,” went on the rancher. “I’m respectin’ you fer
what you say…. An’ now, when will you marry him?”

The little room drifted around in Columbine’s vague, blank
sight. All seemed to be drifting. She had no solid anchor.

“Any–day you say–the sooner the–better,” she whispered.

“Wal, lass, I’m thankin’ you,” he replied, with voice that
sounded afar to her. “An’ I swear, if I didn’t believe it’s best
fer Jack an’ you, why I’d never let you marry…. So we’ll set the
day. October first! Thet’s the day you was fetched to me a
baby–more’n seventeen years ago.”

“October–first–then, dad,” she said, brokenly, and she kissed
him as if in token of what she knew she owed him. Then she went
out, closing the door behind her.

Jack, upon seeing her, hastily got up, with more than concern in
his pale face.

“Columbine!” he cried, hoarsely. “How you look!… Tell me. What
happened? Girl, don’t tell me you’ve–you’ve–“

“Jack Belllounds,” interrupted Columbine, in tragic amaze at
this truth about to issue from her lips, “I’ve promised to marry
you–on October first.”

He let out a shout of boyish exultation and suddenly clasped her
in his arms. But there was nothing boyish in the way he handled
her, in the almost savage evidence of possession. “Collie, I’m mad
about you,” he began, ardently. “You never let me tell you. And
I’ve grown worse and worse. To-day I–when I saw you going down
there–where that Wilson Moore is–I got terribly jealous. I was
sick. I’d been glad to kill him!… It made me see how I loved you.
Oh, I didn’t know. But now … Oh, I’m mad for you!” He crushed her
to him, unmindful of her struggles; his face and neck were red; his
eyes on fire. And he began trying to kiss her mouth, but failed, as
she struggled desperately. His kisses fell upon cheek and ear and
hair.

“Let me–go!” panted Columbine. “You’ve no–no–Oh, you might
have waited.” Breaking from him, she fled, and got inside her room
with the door almost closed, when his foot intercepted it.

Belllounds was half laughing his exultation, half furious at her
escape, and altogether beside himself.

“No,” she replied, so violently that it appeared to awake him to
the fact that there was some one besides himself to consider.

“Aw!” He heaved a deep sigh. “All right. I won’t try to get in.
Only listen…. Collie, don’t mind my–my way of showing you how I
felt. Fact is, I went plumb off my head. Is that any wonder,
you–you darling–when I’ve been so scared you’d never have me?
Collie, I’ve felt that you were the one thing in the world I wanted
most and would never get. But now…. October first! Listen. I
promise you I’ll not drink any more–nor gamble–nor nag dad for
money. I don’t like his way of running the ranch, but I’ll do it,
as long as he lives. I’ll even try to tolerate that club-footed
cowboy’s brass in homesteading a ranch right under my nose.
I’ll–I’ll do anything you ask of me.”

“Then–please–go away!” cried Columbine, with a sob.

When he was gone Columbine barred the door and threw herself
upon her bed to shut out the light and to give vent to her
surcharged emotions. She wept like a girl whose youth was ending;
and after the paroxysm had passed, leaving her weak and strangely
changed, she tried to reason out what had happened to her. Over and
over again she named the appeal of the rancher, the sense of her
duty, the decision she had reached, and the disgust and terror
inspired in her by Jack Belllounds’s reception of her promise.
These were facts of the day and they had made of her a palpitating,
unhappy creature, who nevertheless had been brave to face the
rancher and confess that which she had scarce confessed to herself.
But now she trembled and cringed on the verge of a catastrophe that
withheld its whole truth.

“I begin to see now,” she whispered, after the thought had come
and gone and returned to change again. “If Wilson had–cared for me
I–I might have–cared, too…. But I do–care–something. I
couldn’t lie to dad. Only I’m not sure–how much. I never dreamed
of–of loving him, or any one. It’s so strange. All at once
I feel old. And I can’t understand these–these feelings that shake
me.”

So Columbine brooded over the trouble that had come to her,
never regretting her promise to the old rancher, but growing keener
in the realization of a complexity in her nature that sooner or
later would separate the life of her duty from the life of her
desire. She seemed all alone, and when this feeling possessed her a
strange reminder of the hunter Wade flashed up. She stifled another
impulse to confide in him. Wade had the softness of a woman, and
his face was a record of the trials and travails through which he
had come unhardened, unembittered. Yet how could she tell her
troubles to him? A stranger, a rough man of the wilds, whose name
had preceded him, notorious and deadly, with that vital tang of the
West in its meaning! Nevertheless, Wade drew her, and she thought
of him until the recurring memory of Jack Belllounds’s rude clasp
again crept over her with an augmenting disgust and fear. Must she
submit to that? Had she promised that? And then Columbine felt the
dawning of realities.

CHAPTER VII

Columbine was awakened in the gray dawn by the barking of
coyotes. She dreaded the daylight thus heralded. Never before in
her life had she hated the rising of the sun. Resolutely she put
the past behind her and faced the future, believing now that with
the great decision made she needed only to keep her mind off what
might have been, and to attend to her duty.

At breakfast she found the rancher in better spirits than he had
been for weeks. He informed her that Jack had ridden off early for
Kremmling, there to make arrangements for the wedding on October
first.

“Jack’s out of his head,” said Belllounds. “Wal, thet comes only
onct in a man’s life. I remember … Jack’s goin’ to drive you to
Kremmlin’ an’ ther take stage fer Denver. I allow you’d better put
in your best licks on fixin’ up an’ packin’ the clothes you’ll
need. Women-folk naturally want to look smart on
weddin’-trips.”

“Dad!” exclaimed Columbine, in dismay. “I never thought of
clothes. And I don’t want to leave White Slides.”

“But, lass, you’re goin’ to be married!” expostulated
Belllounds.

“Didn’t it occur to Jack to take me to Kremmling? I can’t make
new dresses out of old ones.”

“Wal, I reckon neither of us thought of thet. But you can buy
what you like in Denver.”

Columbine resigned herself. After all, what did it matter to
her? The vague, haunting dreams of girlhood would never come true.
So she went to her wardrobe and laid out all her wearing apparel.
Taking stock of it this way caused her further dismay, for she had
nothing fit to wear in which either to be married or to take a trip
to Denver. There appeared to be nothing to do but take the
rancher’s advice, and Columbine set about refurbishing her meager
wardrobe. She sewed all day.

What with self-control and work and the passing of hours,
Columbine began to make some approach to tranquillity. In her
simplicity she even began to hope that being good and steadfast and
dutiful would earn her a little meed of happiness. Some haunting
doubt of this flashed over her mind like a swift shadow of a black
wing, but she dispelled that as she had dispelled the fear and
disgust which often rose up in her mind.

To Columbine’s surprise and to the rancher’s concern the
prospective bridegroom did not return from Kremmling on the second
day. When night came Belllounds reluctantly gave up looking for
him.

Jack’s non-appearance suited Columbine, and she would have been
glad to be let alone until October first, which date now seemed
appallingly close. On the afternoon of Jack’s third day of absence
from the ranch Columbine rode out for some needed exercise. Pronto
not being available, she rode another mustang and one that kept her
busy. On the way back to the ranch she avoided the customary trail
which led by the cabins of Wade and the cowboys. Columbine had not
seen one of her friends since the unfortunate visit to the Andrews
ranch. She particularly shrank from meeting Wade, which feeling was
in strange contrast to her former impulses.

As she rode around the house she encountered Wilson Moore seated
in a light wagon. Her mustang reared, almost unseating her. But she
handled him roughly, being suddenly surprised and angry at this
unexpected meeting with the cowboy.

“Howdy, Columbine!” greeted Wilson, as she brought the mustang
to his feet. “You’re sure learning to handle a horse–since I left
this here ranch. Wonder who’s teaching you! I never could get you
to rake even a bronc!”

The cowboy had drawled out his admiring speech, half amused and
half satiric.

“I’m–mad!” declared Columbine. “That’s why.”

“What’re you mad at?” queried Wilson.

She did not reply, but kept on gazing steadily at him. Moore
still looked pale and drawn, but he had improved since last she saw
him.

“Aren’t you going to speak to a fellow?” he went on.

“How are you, Wils?” she asked.

“Pretty good for a club-footed has-been cow puncher.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call yourself such names,” rejoined
Columbine, peevishly. “You’re not a club-foot. I hate that
word!”

“Me, too. Well, joking aside, I’m better. My foot is fine. Now,
if I don’t hurt it again I’ll sure never be a club-foot.”

“You must be careful,” she said, earnestly.

“Sure. But it’s hard for me to be idle. Think of me lying still
all day with nothing to do but read! That’s what knocked me out. I
wouldn’t have minded the pain if I could have gotten about….
Columbine, I’ve moved in!”

“What! Moved in?” she queried, blankly.

“Sure. I’m in my cabin on the hill. It’s plumb great. Tom
Andrews and Bert and your hunter Wade fixed up the cabin for me.
That Wade is sure a good fellow. And say! what he can do with his
hands! He’s been kind to me. Took an interest in me, and between
you and me he sort of cheered me up.”

“Cheered you up! Wils, were you unhappy?” she asked,
directly.

“Well, rather. What’d you expect of a cowboy who’d crippled
himself–and lost his girl?”

Columbine felt the smart of tingling blood in her face, and she
looked from Wilson to the wagon. It contained saddles, blankets,
and other cowboy accoutrements for which he had evidently come.

“That’s a double misfortune,” she replied, evenly. “It’s too bad
both came at once. It seems to me if I were a cowboy and–and felt
so toward a girl, I’d have let her know.”

“This girl I mean knew, all right,” he said, nodding his
head.

“She didn’t–she didn’t!” cried Columbine.

“How do you know?” he queried, with feigned surprise. He was
bent upon torturing her.

“You meant me. I’m the girl you lost!”

“Yes, you are–God help me!” replied Moore, with genuine
emotion.

“But you–you never told me–you never told me,” faltered
Columbine, in distress.

“Never told you what? That you were my girl?”

“No–no. But that you–you cared–“

“Columbine Belllounds, I told you–let you see–in every way
under the sun,” he flashed at her.

“Let me see–what?” faltered Columbine, feeling as if the world
were about to end.

“That I loved you.”

“Oh!… Wilson!” whispered Columbine, wildly.

“Yes–loved you. Could you have been so innocent–so blind you
never knew? I can’t believe it.”

“But I never dreamed you–you–” She broke off dazedly,
overwhelmed by a tragic, glorious truth.

“Collie!… Would it have made any difference?”

“Oh, all the difference in the world!” she wailed.

“What difference?” he asked, passionately.

Columbine gazed wide-eyed and helpless at the young man. She did
not know how to tell him what all the difference in the world
really was.

Suddenly Wilson turned away from her to listen. Then she heard
rapid beating of hoofs on the road.

“That’s Buster Jack,” said the cowboy. “Just my luck! There
wasn’t any one here when I arrived. Reckon I oughtn’t have stayed.
Columbine, you look pretty much upset.”

“What do I care how I look!” she exclaimed, with a sharp
resentment attending this abrupt and painful break in her
agitation.

Next moment Jack Belllounds galloped a foam-lashed horse into
the courtyard and hauled up short with a recklessness he was noted
for. He swung down hard and violently cast the reins from him.

“Ahuh! I gambled on just this,” he declared, harshly.

Columbine’s heart sank. His gaze was fixed on her face, with its
telltale evidences of agitation.

“What’ve you been crying about?” he demanded.

“I haven’t been,” she retorted.

His bold and glaring eyes, hot with sudden temper, passed slowly
from her to the cowboy. Columbine became aware then that Jack was
under the influence of liquor. His heated red face grew darker with
a sneering contempt.

“Where’s dad?” he asked, wheeling toward her.

“I don’t know. He’s not here,” replied Columbine, dismounting.
The leap of thought and blood to Jack’s face gave her a further
sinking of the heart. The situation unnerved her.

Wilson Moore had grown a shade paler. He gathered up his reins,
ready to drive off.

“Belllounds, I came up after my things I’d left in the bunk,” he
said, coolly. “Happened to meet Columbine and stopped to chat a
minute.”

“That’s what you say,” sneered Belllounds. “You were
making love to Columbine. I saw that in her face. You know it–and
she knows it–and I know it…. You’re a liar!”

“Belllounds, I reckon I am,” replied Moore, turning white. “I
did tell Columbine what I thought she knew–what I ought to have
told long ago.”

“Ahuh! Well, I don’t want to hear it. But I’m going to search
that wagon.”

“What!” ejaculated the cowboy, dropping his reins as if they
stung him.

“You just hold on till I see what you’ve got in there,” went on
Belllounds, and he reached over into the wagon and pulled at a
saddle.

“Say, do you mean anything?… This stuff’s mine, every strap of
it. Take your hands off.”

Belllounds leaned on the wagon and looked up with insolent, dark
intent.

“Moore, I wouldn’t trust you. I think you’d steal anything you
got your hands on.”

Columbine uttered a passionate little cry of shame and
protest.

“Jack, how dare you!”

“You shut up! Go in the house!” he ordered.

“You insult me,” she replied, in bitter humiliation.

“Will you go in?” he shouted.

“No, I won’t.”

“All right, look on, then. I’d just as lief have you.” Then he
turned to the cowboy. “Moore, show up that wagon-load of stuff
unless you want me to throw it out in the road.”

“Belllounds, you know I can’t do that,” replied Moore, coldly.
“And I’ll give you a hunch. You’d better shut up yourself and let
me drive on…. If not for her sake, then for your own.”

Belllounds grasped the reins, and with a sudden jerk pulled them
out of the cowboy’s hands.

“You damn club-foot! Your gift of gab doesn’t go with me,”
yelled Belllounds, as he swung up on the hub of the wheel. But it
was manifest that his desire to search the wagon was only a
pretense, for while he pulled at this and that his evil gaze was on
the cowboy, keen to meet any move that might give excuse for
violence. Moore evidently read this, for, gazing at Columbine, he
shook his head, as if to acquaint her with a situation impossible
to help.

“Columbine, please hand me up the reins,” he said. “I’m lame,
you know. Then I’ll be going.”

Columbine stepped forward to comply, when Belllounds, leaping
down from the wheel, pushed her hack with masterful hand.
Opposition to him was like waving a red flag in the face of a bull.
Columbine recoiled from his look as well as touch.

“You keep out of this or I’ll teach you who’s boss here,” he
said, stridently.

“You’re going too far!” burst out Columbine.

Meanwhile Wilson had laboriously climbed down out of the wagon,
and, utilizing his crutch, he hobbled to where Belllounds had
thrown the reins, and stooped to pick them up. Belllounds shoved
Columbine farther back, and then he leaped to confront the
cowboy.

“I’ve got you now, Moore,” he said, hoarse and low. Stripped of
all pretense, he showed the ungovernable nature of his temper. His
face grew corded and black. The hand he thrust out shook like a
leaf. “You smooth-tongued liar! I’m on to your game. I know you’d
put her against me. I know you’d try to win her–less than a week
before her wedding-day…. But it’s not for that I’m going to beat
hell out of you! It’s because I hate you! Ever since I can remember
my father held you up to me! And he sent me to–to–he sent me away
because of you. By God! that’s why I hate you!”

All that was primitive and violent and base came out with
strange frankness in Belllounds’s tirade. Only when calm could his
mind be capable of hidden calculation. The devil that was in him
now seemed rampant.

“Belllounds, you’re mighty brave to stack up this way against a
one-legged man,” declared the cowboy, with biting sarcasm.

“If you had two club-feet I’d only be the gladder,” yelled
Belllounds, and swinging his arm, he slapped Moore so that it
nearly toppled him over. Only the injured foot, coming down hard,
saved him.

When Columbine saw that, and then how Wilson winced and grew
deathly pale, she uttered a low cry, and she seemed suddenly rooted
to the spot, weak, terrified at what was now inevitable, and
growing sick and cold and faint.

“It’s a damn lucky thing for you I’m not packing a gun,” said
Moore, grimly. “But you knew–or you’d never hit me–you
coward.”

“I’ll make you swallow that,” snarled Belllounds, and this time
he swung his fist, aiming a heavy blow at Moore.

Then the cowboy whirled aloft the heavy crutch. “If you hit at
me again I’ll let out what little brains you’ve got. God knows
that’s little enough!… Belllounds, I’m going to call you to your
face–before this girl your bat-eyed old man means to give you.
You’re not drunk. You’re only ugly–mean. You’ve got a chance now
to lick me because I’m crippled. And you’re going to make the most
of it. Why, you cur, I could come near licking you with only one
leg. But if you touch me again I’ll brain you!… You never were
any good. You’re no good now. You never will be anything but Buster
Jack–half dotty, selfish as hell, bull-headed and mean!… And
that’s the last word I’ll ever waste on you.”

“I’ll kill you!” bawled Belllounds, black with fury.

Moore wielded the crutch menacingly, but as he was not steady on
his feet he was at the disadvantage his adversary had calculated
upon. Belllounds ran around the cowboy, and suddenly plunged in to
grapple with him. The crutch descended, but to little purpose.
Belllounds’s heavy onslaught threw Moore to the ground. Before he
could rise Belllounds pounced upon him.

Columbine saw all this dazedly. As Wilson fell she closed her
eyes, fighting a faintness that almost overcame her. She heard
wrestling, threshing sounds, and sodden thumps, and a scattering of
gravel. These noises seemed at first distant, then grew closer. As
she gazed again with keener perception, Moore’s horse plunged away
from the fiercely struggling forms that had rolled almost under his
feet. During the ensuing moments it was an equal battle so far as
Columbine could tell. Repelled, yet fascinated, she watched. They
beat each other, grappled and rolled over, first one on top, then
the other. But the advantage of being uppermost presently was
Belllounds’s. Moore was weakening. That became noticeable more and
more after each time he had wrestled and rolled about. Then
Belllounds, getting this position, lay with his weight upon Moore,
holding him down, and at the same time kicking with all his might.
He was aiming to disable the cowboy by kicking the injured foot.
And he was succeeding. Moore let out a strangled cry, and struggled
desperately. But he was held and weighted down. Belllounds raised
up now and, looking backward, he deliberately and furiously kicked
Moore’s bandaged foot; once, twice, again and again, until the
straining form under him grew limp. Columbine, slowly freezing with
horror, saw all this. She could not move. She could not scream. She
wanted to rush in and drag Jack off of Wilson, to hurt him, to kill
him, but her muscles were paralyzed. In her agony she could not
even look away. Belllounds got up astride his prostrate adversary
and began to beat him brutally, swinging heavy, sodden blows. His
face then was terrible to see. He meant murder.

Columbine heard approaching voices and the thumping of hasty
feet. That unclamped her cloven tongue. Wildly she screamed. Old
Bill Belllounds appeared, striding off the porch. And the hunter
Wade came running down the path.

“Dad! he’s killing Wilson!” cried Columbine.

“Hyar, you devil!” roared the rancher.

Jack Belllounds got up. Panting, disheveled, with hair ruffled
and face distorted, he was not a pleasant sight for even the
father. Moore lay unconscious, with ghastly, bloody features, and
his bandaged foot showed great splotches of red.

“My Gawd, son!” gasped Old Bill. “You didn’t pick on this hyar
crippled boy?”

The evidence was plain, in Moore’s quiet, pathetic form, in the
panting, purple-faced son. Jack Belllounds did not answer. He was
in the grip of a passion that had at last been wholly unleashed and
was still unsatisfied. Yet a malignant and exultant gratification
showed in his face.

“That–evens us–up, Moore,” he panted, and stalked away.

By this time Wade reached the cowboy and knelt beside him.
Columbine came running to fall on her knees. The old rancher seemed
stricken.

“Oh–Oh! it was terrible–” cried Columbine. “Oh–he’s so
white–and the blood–“

“Now, lass, that’s no way for a woman,” said Wade, and there was
something in his kind tone, in his look, in his presence, that
calmed Columbine. “I’ll look after Moore. You go get some water an’
a towel.”

Columbine rose to totter into the house. She saw a red stain on
the hand she had laid upon the cowboy’s face, and with a strange,
hot, bursting sensation, strong and thrilling, she put that red
place to her lips. Running out with the things required by Wade,
she was in time to hear the rancher say, “Looks hurt bad, to
me.”

“Yes, I reckon,” replied Wade.

While Columbine held Moore’s head upon her lap the hunter bathed
the bloody face. It was battered and bruised and cut, and in some
places, as fast as Wade washed away the red, it welled out
again.

Columbine watched that quiet face, while her heart throbbed and
swelled with emotions wholly beyond her control and understanding.
When at last Wilson opened his eyes, fluttering at first, and then
wide, she felt a surge that shook her whole body. He smiled wanly
at her, and at Wade, and then his gaze lifted to Belllounds.

“I guess–he licked me,” he said, in weak voice. “He kept
kicking my sore foot–till I fainted. But he licked me–all
right.”

“Wils, mebbe he did lick you,” replied the old rancher,
brokenly, “but I reckon he’s damn little to be proud of–lickin’ a
crippled man–thet way.”

“Boss, Jack’d been drinking,” said Moore, weakly. “And he sure
had–some excuse for going off his head. He caught me–talking
sweet to Columbine … and then–I called him all the names–I
could lay my tongue to.”

“Ahuh!” The old man seemed at a loss for words, and presently he
turned away, sagging in the shoulders, and plodded into the
house.

The cowboy, supported by Wade on one side, with Columbine on the
other, was helped to an upright position, and with considerable
difficulty was gotten into the wagon. He tried to sit up, but made
a sorry showing of it.

“I’ll drive him home an’ look after him,” said Wade. “Now, Miss
Collie, you’re upset, which ain’t no wonder. But now you brace. It
might have been worse. Just you go to your room till you’re sure of
yourself again.”

Moore smiled another wan smile at her. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“What for? Me?” she asked.

“I mean I’m sorry I was so infernal unlucky–running into
you–and bringing all this distress–to you. It was my fault. If
I’d only kept–my mouth shut!”

“You need not be sorry you met me,” she said, with her eyes
straight upon his. “I’m glad…. But oh! if your foot is badly hurt
I’ll never–never–‘

“Don’t say it,” interrupted Wilson.

“Lass, you’re bent on doin’ somethin’,” said Wade, in his gentle
voice.

“Bent?” she echoed, with something deep and rich in her voice.
“Yes, I’m bent–bent like your name–to speak my mind!”

Then she ran toward the house and up on the porch, to enter the
living-room with heaving breast and flashing eyes. Manifestly the
rancher was berating his son. The former gaped at sight of her and
the latter shrank.

“Jack Belllounds,” she cried, “you’re not half a man…. You’re
a coward and a brute!”

One tense moment she stood there, lightning scorn and passion in
her gaze, and then she rushed out, impetuously, as she had
come.

CHAPTER VIII

Columbine did not leave her room any more that day. What she
suffered there she did not want any one to know. What it cost her
to conquer herself again she had only a faint conception of. She
did conquer, however, and that night made up the sleep she had lost
the night before.

Strangely enough, she did not feel afraid to face the rancher
and his son. Recent happenings had not only changed her, but had
seemed to give her strength. When she presented herself at the
breakfast-table Jack was absent. The old rancher greeted her with
more thar usual solicitude.

“Jack’s sick,” he remarked, presently.

“Indeed,” replied Columbine.

“Yes. He said it was the drinkin’ he’s not accustomed to. Wal, I
reckon it was what you called him. He didn’t take much store on
what I called him, which was wuss…. I tell you, lass, Jack’s set
his heart so hard on you thet it’s turrible.”

“Queer way he has of showing the–the affections of his heart,”
replied Columbine, shortly.

“Thet was the drink,” remonstrated the old man, pathetic and
earnest in his motive to smooth over the quarrel.

“But he promised me he would not drink any more.”

Belllounds shook his gray old head sadly.

“Ahuh! Jack fires up an’ promises anythin’. He means it at the
time. But the next hankerin’ thet comes over him wipes out the
promise. I know…. But he’s had good excuse fer this break. The
boys in town began celebratin’ fer October first. Great wonder Jack
didn’t come home clean drunk.”

“Dad, you’re as good as gold,” said Columbine, softening. How
could she feel hard toward him?

“Collie, then you’re not agoin’ back on the ole man?”

“No.”

“I was afeared you’d change your mind about marryin’ Jack.”

“When I promised I meant it. I didn’t make it on
conditions.”

“But, lass, promises can be broke,” he said, with the sonorous
roll in his voice.

“I never yet broke one of mine.”

“Wal, I hev. Not often, mebbe, but I hev…. An’, lass, it’s
reasonable. Thar’s times when a man jest can’t live up to what he
swore by. An’ fer a girl–why, I can see how easy she’d change an’
grow overnight. It’s only fair fer me to say that no matter what
you think you owe me you couldn’t be blamed now fer dislikin’
Jack.”

“Dad, if by marrying Jack I can help him to be a better son to
you, and more of a man, I’ll be glad,” she replied.

“Lass, I’m beginnin’ to see how big an’ fine you are,” replied
Belllounds, with strong feeling. “An’ it’s worryin’ me…. My
neighbors hev always accused me of seein’ only my son. Only Buster
Jack! I was blind an’ deaf as to him!… Wal, I’m not so damn blind
as I used to be. The scales are droppin’ off my ole eyes…. But
I’ve got one hope left as far as Jack’s concerned. Thet’s marryin’
him to you. An’ I’m stickin’ to it.”

“So will I stick to it, dad,” she replied. “I’ll go through with
October first!”

Columbine broke off, vouchsafing no more, and soon left the
breakfast-table, to take up the work she had laid out to do. And
she accomplished it, though many times her hands dropped idle and
her eyes peered out of her window at the drab slides of the old
mountain.

Later, when she went out to ride, she saw the cowboy Lem working
in the blacksmith shop.

“Wal, Miss Collie, air you-all still hangin’ round this hyar
ranch?” he asked, with welcoming smile.

“Lem, I’m almost ashamed now to face my good friends, I’ve
neglected them so long,” she replied.

“Aw, now, what’re friends fer but to go to?… You’re lookin’
pale, I reckon. More like thet thar flower I see so much on the
hills.”

“Lem, I want to ride Pronto. Do you think he’s all right,
now?”

“I reckon some movin’ round will do Pronto good. He’s eatin’ his
haid off.”

The cowboy went with her to the pasture gate and whistled Pronto
up. The mustang came trotting, evidently none the worse for his
injuries, and eager to resume the old climbs with his mistress. Lem
saddled him, paying particular attention to the cinch.

“Reckon we’d better not cinch him tight,” said Lem. “You jest be
careful an’ remember your saddle’s loose.”

“All right, Lem,” replied Columbine, as she mounted. “Where are
the boys this morning?”

“Blud an’ Jim air repairin’ fence up the crick.”

“And where’s Ben?”

“Ben? Oh, you mean Wade. Wal, I ‘ain’t seen him since yestidday.
He was skinnin’ a lion then, over hyar on the ridge. Thet was in
the mawnin’. I reckon he’s around, fer I seen some of the
hounds.”

“Then, Lem–you haven’t heard about the fight yesterday between
Jack and Wilson Moore?”

Lem straightened up quickly. “Nope, I ‘ain’t heerd a word.”

“Well, they fought, all right,” said Columbine, hurriedly. “I
saw it. I was the only one there. Wilson was badly used up before
dad and Ben got there. Ben drove off with him.”

“But, Miss Collie, how’d it come off? I seen Wils the other day.
Was up to his homestead. An’ the boy jest manages to rustle round
on a crutch. He couldn’t fight.”

“That was just it. Jack saw his opportunity, and he forced
Wilson to fight–accused him of stealing. Wils tried to avoid
trouble. Then Jack jumped him. Wilson fought and held his own until
Jack began to kick his injured foot. Then Wilson fainted and–and
Jack beat him.”

Lem dropped his head, evidently to hide his expression. “Wal,
dog-gone me!” he ejaculated. “Thet’s too bad.”

Columbine left the cowboy and rode up the lane toward Wade’s
cabin. She did not analyze her deliberate desire to tell the truth
about that fight, but she would have liked to proclaim it to the
whole range and to the world. Once clear of the house she felt
free, unburdened, and to talk seemed to relieve some congestion of
her thoughts.

The hounds heralded Columbine’s approach with a deep and booming
chorus. Sampson and Jim lay upon the porch, unleashed. The other
hounds were chained separately in the aspen grove a few rods
distant. Sampson thumped the boards with his big tail, but he did
not get up, which laziness attested to the fact that there had been
a lion chase the day before and he was weary and stiff. If Wade had
been at home he would have come out to see what had occasioned the
clamor. As Columbine rode by she saw another fresh lion-pelt pegged
upon the wall of the cabin.

She followed the brook. It had cleared since the rains and was
shining and sparkling in the rough, swift places, and limpid and
green in the eddies. She passed the dam made by the solitary beaver
that inhabited the valley. Freshly cut willows showed how the
beaver was preparing for the long winter ahead. Columbine
remembered then how greatly pleased Wade had been to learn about
this old beaver; and more than once Wade had talked about trapping
some younger beavers and bringing them there to make company for
the old fellow.

The trail led across the brook at a wide, shallow place, where
the splashing made by Pronto sent the trout scurrying for deeper
water. Columbine kept to that trail, knowing that it led up into
Sage Valley, where Wilson Moore had taken up the homestead
property. Fresh horse tracks told her that Wade had ridden along
there some time earlier. Pronto shied at the whirring of sage-hens.
Presently Columbine ascertained they were flushed by the hound
Kane, that had broken loose and followed her. He had done so
before, and the fact had not displeased her.

“Kane! Kane! come here!” she called. He came readily, but halted
a rod or so away, and made an attempt at wagging his tail, a
function evidently somewhat difficult for him. When she resumed
trotting he followed her.

Old White Slides had lost all but the drabs and dull yellows and
greens, and of course those pale, light slopes that had given the
mountain its name. Sage Valley was only one of the valleys at its
base. It opened out half a mile wide, dominated by the looming
peak, and bordered on the far side by an aspen-thicketed slope. The
brook babbled along under the edge of this thicket. Cattle and
horses grazed here and there on the rich, grassy levels, Columbine
was surprised to see so many cattle and wondered to whom they
belonged. All of Belllounds’s stock had been driven lower down for
the winter. There among the several horses that whistled at her
approach she espied the white mustang Belllounds had given to
Moore. It thrilled her to see him. And next, she suffered a pang to
think that perhaps his owner might never ride him again. But
Columbine held her emotions in abeyance.

The cabin stood high upon a level terrace, with clusters of
aspens behind it, and was sheltered from winter blasts by a gray
cliff, picturesque and crumbling, with its face overgrown by
creeping vines and colorful shrubs, Wilson Moore could not have
chosen a more secluded and beautiful valley for his homesteading
adventure. The little gray cabin, with smoke curling from the stone
chimney, had lost its look of dilapidation and disuse, yet there
was nothing new that Columbine could see. The last quarter of the
ascent of the slope, and the few rods across the level terrace,
seemed extraordinarily long to Columbine. As she dismounted and
tied Pronto her heart was beating and her breath was coming
fast.

The door of the cabin was open. Kane trotted past the hesitating
Columbine and went in.

“You son-of-a-hound-dog!” came to Columbine’s listening ears in
Wade’s well-known voice. “I’ll have to beat you–sure as you’re
born.”

“I heard a horse,” came in a lower voice, that was Wilson’s.

“Darn me if I’m not gettin’ deafer every day,” was the
reply.

Then Wade appeared in the doorway.

“It’s nobody but Miss Collie,” he announced, as he made way for
her to enter.

“Good morning!” said Columbine, in a voice that had more than
cheerfulness in it.

“Collie!… Did you come to see me?”

She heard this incredulous query just an instant before she saw
Wilson at the far end of the room, lying under the light of a
window. The inside of the cabin seemed vague and unfamiliar.

“I surely did,” she replied, advancing. “How are you?”

“Oh, I’m all right. Tickled to death, right now. Only, I hate to
have you see this battered mug of mine.”

“You needn’t–care,” said Columbine, unsteadily. And indeed, in
that first glance she did not see him clearly. A mist blurred her
sight and there was a lump in her throat. Then, to recover herself,
she looked around the cabin.

“Well–Wils Moore–if this isn’t fine!” she ejaculated, in amaze
and delight. Columbine sustained an absolute surprise. A magic hand
had transformed the interior of that rude old prospector’s abode. A
carpenter and a mason and a decorator had been wonderfully at work.
From one end to the other Columbine gazed; from the big window
under which Wilson lay on a blanketed couch to the open fireplace
where Wade grinned she looked and looked, and then up to the clean,
aspen-poled roof and down to the floor, carpeted with deer hides.
The chinks between the logs of the walls were plastered with red
clay; the dust and dirt were gone; the place smelled like sage and
wood-smoke and fragrant, frying meat. Indeed, there were a glowing
bed of embers and a steaming kettle and a smoking pot; and the way
the smoke and steam curled up into the gray old chimney attested to
its splendid draught. In each corner hung a deer-head, from the
antlers of which depended accoutrements of a cowboy–spurs, ropes,
belts, scarfs, guns. One corner contained cupboard, ceiling high,
with new, clean doors of wood, neatly made; and next to it stood a
table, just as new. On the blank wall beyond that were pegs holding
saddles, bridles, blankets, clothes.

“He did it–all this inside,” burst out Moore, delighted with
her delight. “Quicker than a flash! Collie, isn’t this great? I
don’t mind being down on my back. And he says they call him
Hell-Bent Wade. I call him Heaven-Sent Wade!”

When Columbine turned to the hunter, bursting with her pleasure
and gratitude, he suddenly dropped the forked stick he used as a
lift, and she saw his hand shake when he stooped to recover it. How
strangely that struck her!

“Ben, it’s perfectly possible that you’ve been sent by Heaven,”
she remarked, with a humor which still held gravity in it.

“Me! A good angel? That’d be a new job for Bent Wade,” he
replied, with a queer laugh. “But I reckon I’d try to live up to
it.”

There were small sprigs of golden aspen leaves and crimson oak
leaves on the wall above the foot of Wilson’s bed. Beneath them, on
pegs, hung a rifle. And on the window-sill stood a glass jar
containing columbines. They were fresh. They had just been picked.
They waved gently in the breeze, sweetly white and blue, strangely
significant to the girl.

Moore laughed defiantly.

“Wade thought to fetch these flowers in,” he explained. “They’re
his favorites as well as mine. It won’t be long now till the frost
kills them … and I want to be happy while I may!”

Again Columbine felt that deep surge within her, beyond her
control, beyond her understanding, but now gathering and swelling,
soon to be reckoned with. She did not look at Wilson’s face then.
Her downcast gaze saw that his right hand was bandaged, and she
touched it with an unconscious tenderness.

“Your hand! Why is it all wrapped up?”

The cowboy laughed with grim humor.

“Have you seen Jack this morning?”

“No,” she replied, shortly.

“Well, if you had, you’d know what happened to my fist.”

“Did you hurt it on him?” she asked, with a queer little shudder
that was not unpleasant.

“Collie, I busted that fist on his handsome face.”

“Oh, it was dreadful!” she murmured. “Wilson, he meant to kill
you.”

“Sure. And I’d cheerfully have killed him.”

“You two must never meet again,” she went on.

“I hope to Heaven we never do,” replied Moore, with a dark
earnestness that meant more than his actual words.

“Wilson, will you avoid him–for my sake?” implored Columbine,
unconsciously clasping the bandaged hand.

“I will. I’ll take the back trails. I’ll sneak like a coyote.
I’ll hide and I’ll watch…. But, Columbine Belllounds, if he ever
corners me again–“

“Why, you’ll leave him to Hell-Bent Wade,” interrupted the
hunter, and he looked up from where he knelt, fixing those great,
inscrutable eyes upon the cowboy. Columbine saw something beyond
his face, deeper than the gloom, a passion and a spirit that drew
her like a magnet. “An’ now, Miss Collie,” he went on, “I reckon
you’ll want to wait on our invalid. He’s got to be fed.”

“I surely will,” replied Columbine, gladly, and she sat down on
the edge of the bed. “Ben, you fetch that box and put his dinner on
it.”

While Wade complied, Columbine, shyly aware of her nearness to
the cowboy, sought to keep up conversation. “Couldn’t you help
yourself with your left hand?” she inquired.

“That’s one worse,” he answered, taking it from under the
blanket, where it had been concealed.

“Oh!” cried Columbine, in dismay.

“Broke two bones in this one,” said Wilson, with animation.
“Say, Collie, our friend Wade is a doctor, too. Never saw his
beat!”

“And a cook, too, for here’s your dinner. You must sit up,”
ordered Columbine.

“Fold that blanket and help me up on it,” replied Moore.

How strange and disturbing for Columbine to bend over him, to
slip her arms under him and lift him! It recalled a long-forgotten
motherliness of her doll-playing days. And her face flushed
hot.

“Can’t you move?” she asked, suddenly becoming aware of how dead
a weight the cowboy appeared.

“Not–very much,” he replied. Drops of sweat appeared on his
bruised brow. It must have hurt him to move.

“You said your foot was all right.”

“It is,” he returned. “It’s still on my leg, as I know darned
well.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Columbine, dubiously. Without further comment
she began to feed him.

“It’s worth getting licked to have this treat,” he said.

“Nonsense!” she rejoined.

“I’d stand it again–to have you come here and feed me…. But
not from him.”

“Wilson, I never knew you to be facetious before. Here, take
this.”

Apparently he did not see her outstretched hand.

“Collie, you’ve changed. You’re older. You’re a woman, now–and
the prettiest–“

“Are you going to eat?” demanded Columbine.

“Huh!” exclaimed the cowboy, blankly. “Eat? Oh yes, sure. I’m
powerful hungry. And maybe Heaven-Sent Wade can’t cook!”

But Columbine had trouble in feeding him. What with his
helplessness, and his propensity to watch her face instead of her
hands, and her own mounting sensations of a sweet, natural joy and
fitness in her proximity to him, she was hard put to it to show
some dexterity as a nurse. And all the time she was aware of Wade,
with his quiet, forceful presence, hovering near. Could he not see
her hands trembling? And would he not think that weakness strange?
Then driftingly came the thought that she would not shrink from
Wade’s reading her mind. Perhaps even now he understood her better
than she understood herself.

“I can’t–eat any more,” declared Moore, at last.

“You’ve done very well for an invalid,” observed Columbine.
Then, changing the subject, she asked, “Wilson, you’re going to
stay here–winter here, dad would call it?”

“Yes.”

“Are those your cattle down in the valley?”

“Sure. I’ve got near a hundred head. I saved my money and bought
cattle.”

“That’s a good start for you. I’m glad. But who’s going to take
care of you and your stock until you can work again?”

“Why, my friend there, Heaven-Sent Wade,” replied Moore,
indicating the little man busy with the utensils on the table, and
apparently hearing nothing.

“Can I fetch you anything to eat–or read?” she inquired.

“Fetch yourself,” he replied, softly.

“But, boy, how could I fetch you anything without fetching
myself?”

“Sure, that’s right. Then fetch me some jam and a
book–to-morrow. Will you?”

“I surely will.”

“That’s a promise. I know your promises of old.”

“Then good-by till to-morrow. I must go. I hope you’ll be
better.”

“I’ll stay sick in bed till you stop coming.”

Columbine left rather precipitously, and when she got outdoors
it seemed that the hills had never been so softly, dreamily gray,
nor their loneliness so sweet, nor the sky so richly and deeply
blue. As she untied Pronto the hunter came out with Kane at his
heels.

“Miss Collie, if you’ll go easy I’ll ketch my horse an’ ride
down with you,” he said.

She mounted, and walked Pronto out to the trail, and slowly
faced the gradual descent. It was really higher up there than she
had surmised. And the view was beautiful. The gray, rolling
foothills, so exquisitely colored at that hour, and the
black-fringed ranges, one above the other, and the distant peaks,
sunset-flushed across the purple, all rose open and clear to her
sight, so wildly and splendidly expressive of the Colorado she
loved.

At the foot of the slope Wade joined her.

“Lass, I’m askin’ you not to tell Belllounds that I’m carin’ for
Wils,” he said, in his gentle, persuasive way.

“I won’t. But why not tell dad? He wouldn’t mind. He’d do that
sort of thing himself.”

“Reckon he would. But this deal’s out of the ordinary. An’
Wils’s not in as good shape as he thinks. I’m not takin’ any
chances. I don’t want to lose my job, an’ I don’t want to be
hindered from attendin’ to this boy.”

They had ridden as far as the first aspen grove when Wade
concluded this remark. Columbine halted her horse, causing her
companion to do likewise. Her former misgivings were augmented by
the intelligence of Wade’s sad, lined face.

“Ben, tell me,” she whispered, with a hand going to his arm.

“Miss Collie, I’m a sort of doctor in my way. I studied some
medicine an’ surgery. An’ I know. I wouldn’t tell you this if it
wasn’t that I’ve got to rely on you to help me.”

“I will–but go on–tell me,” interposed Columbine trying to
fortify herself.

“Wils’s foot is all messed up. Buster Jack kicked it all out of
shape. An’ it’s a hundred times worse than ever. I’m afraid of
blood-poisonin’ an’ gangrene. You know gangrene is a dyin’ an’
rottin’ of the flesh…. I told the boy straight out that he’d
better let me cut his foot off. An’ he swore he’d keep his foot or
die! Well, if gangrene does set in we can’t save his leg, an’ maybe
not his life.”

“Oh, it can’t be as bad as all that!” cried Columbine. “Oh, I
knew–I knew there was something…. Ben, you mean even at best
now–he’ll be a–” She broke off, unable to finish.

“Miss Collie, in any case Wils’ll never ride again–not like a
cowboy.”

That for Columbine seemed the worst and the last straw. Hot
tears blinded her, hot blood gushed over her, hot heart-beats
throbbed in her throat.

“Poor boy! That’ll–ruin him,” she cried. “He loved–a horse. He
loved to ride. He was the–best rider of them all. And now he’s
ruined! He’ll be lame–a cripple–club-footed!… All because of
that Jack Belllounds! The brute–the coward! I hate him! Oh, I
hate him!… And I’ve got to marry him–on October first!
Oh, God pity me!”

Blindly Columbine reeled out of her saddle and slowly dropped to
the grass, where she burst into a violent storm of sobs and tears.
It shook her every fiber. It was hopeless, terrible grief. The dry
grass received her flood of tears and her incoherent words.

Wade dismounted and, kneeling beside her, placed a gentle hand
upon her heaving shoulder, but he spoke no word. By and by, when
the storm had begun to subside, he raised her head.

“Lass, nothin’ is ever so bad as it seems,” he said, softly.
“Come, sit up. Let me talk to you.”

“Oh, Ben, something terrible has happened,” she cried.
“It’s in me! I don’t know what it is. But it’ll kill
me.”

“I know,” he replied, as her head fell upon his shoulder. “Miss
Collie, I’m an old fellow that’s had everythin’ happen to him, an’
I’m livin’ yet, tryin’ to help people along. No one dies so easy.
Why, you’re a fine, strong girl–an’ somethin’ tells me you was
made for happiness. I know how things turn out. Listen–“

“But, Ben–you don’t know–about me,” she sobbed. “I’ve told
you–I–hate Jack Belllounds. But I’ve–got to marry him!… His
father raised me–from a baby. He brought me up. I owe him–my
life…. I’ve no relation–no mother–no father! No one loves
me–for myself!”

“Nobody loves you!” echoed Wade, with an exquisite tone of
repudiation. “Strange how people fool themselves! Lass, you’re
huggin’ your troubles too hard. An’ you’re wrong. Why, everybody
loves you! Lem an’ Jim–why you just brighten the hard world they
live in. An’ that poor, hot-headed Jack–he loves you as well as he
can love anythin’. An’ the old man–no daughter could be loved
more…. An’ I–I love you, lass, just like–as if you–might have
been my own. I’m goin’ to be the friend–the brother you need. An’
I reckon I can come somewheres near bein’ a mother, if you’ll let
me.”

Something, some subtle power or charm, stole over Columbine,
assuaging her terrible sense of loss, of grief. There was
tenderness in this man’s hands, in his voice, and through them
throbbed strong and passionate life and spirit.

“Do you really love me–love me?” she whispered, somehow
comforted, somehow feeling that what he offered was what she had
missed as a child. “And you want to be all that for me?”

“Yes, lass, an’ I reckon you’d better try me.”

“Oh, how good you are! I felt that–the very first time I was
with you. I’ve wanted to come to you–to tell you my troubles. I
love dad and he loves me, but he doesn’t understand. Dad is wrapped
up in his son. I’ve had no one. I never had any one.”

“You have some one now,” returned Wade, with a rich, deep
mellowness in his voice that soothed Columbine and made her wonder.
“An’ because I’ve been through so much I can tell you what’ll help
you…. Lass, if a woman isn’t big an’ brave, how will a man ever
be? There’s more in women than in men. Life has given you a hard
knock, placin’ you here–no real parents–an’ makin’ you
responsible to a man whose only fault is blinded love for his son.
Well, you’ve got to meet it, face it, with what a woman has more of
than any man. Courage! Suppose you do hate this Buster Jack.
Suppose you do love this poor, crippled Wilson Moore…. Lass,
don’t look like that! Don’t deny. You do love that boy…. Well,
it’s hell. But you can never tell what’ll happen when you’re honest
and square. If you feel it your duty to pay your debt to the old
man you call dad–to pay it by marryin’ his son, why do it, an’ be
a woman. There’s nothin’ as great as a woman can be. There’s
happiness that comes in strange, unheard-of ways. There’s more in
this life than what you want most. You didn’t place yourself
in this fix. So if you meet it with courage an’ faithfulness to
yourself, why, it’ll not turn out as you dread…. Some day, if you
ever think you’re broken-hearted, I’ll tell you my story. An’ then
you’ll not think your lot so hard. For I’ve had a broken heart an’
ruined life, an’ yet I’ve lived on an’ on, findin’ happiness I
never dreamed would come, fightin’ or workin’. An’ how I found the
world beautiful, an’ how I love the flowers an’ hills an’ wild
things so well–that, just that would be enough to live for!… An’
think, lass, of what a wonderful happiness will come to me in
showin’ all this to you. That’ll be the crownin’ glory. An’ if it’s
that much to me, then you be sure there’s nothin’ on earth I won’t
do for you.”

Columbine lifted her tear-stained face with a light of
inspiration.

“Oh, Wilson was right!” she murmured. “You are Heaven-sent! And
I’m going to love you!”

CHAPTER IX

A new spirit, or a liberation of her own, had fired Columbine,
and was now burning within her, unquenchable and unutterable. Some
divine spark had penetrated into that mysterious depth of her, to
inflame and to illumine, so that when she arose from this hour of
calamity she felt that to the tenderness and sorrow and fidelity in
her soul had been added the lightning flash of passion.

“Oh, Ben–shall I be able to hold onto this?” she cried,
flinging wide her arms, as if to embrace the winds of heaven.

“This what, lass?” he asked.

“This–this woman!” she answered, passionately, with her
hands sweeping back to press her breast.

“No woman who wakes ever goes back to a girl again,” he said,
sadly.

“I wanted to die–and now I want to live–to fight…. Ben,
you’ve uplifted me. I was little, weak, miserable…. But in my
dreams, or in some state I can’t remember or understand, I’ve
waited for your very words. I was ready. It’s as if I knew you in
some other world, before I was born on this earth; and when you
spoke to me here, so wonderfully–as my mother might have
spoken–my heart leaped up in recognition of you and your call to
my womanhood!… Oh, how strange and beautiful!”

“Miss Collie,” he replied, slowly, as he bent to his
saddle-straps, “you’re young, an’ you’ve no understandin’ of what’s
strange an’ terrible in life. An’ beautiful, too, as you say….
Who knows? Maybe in some former state I was somethin’ to you. I
believe in that. Reckon I can’t say how or what. Maybe we were
flowers or birds. I’ve a weakness for that idea.”

“Birds! I like the thought, too,” replied Columbine. “I love
most birds. But there are hawks, crows, buzzards!”

“I reckon. Lass, there’s got to be balance in nature. If it
weren’t for the ugly an’ the evil, we wouldn’t know the beautiful
an’ good…. An’ now let’s ride home. It’s gettin’ late.”

“Ben, ought I not go back to Wilson right now?” she asked,
slowly.

“What for?”

“To tell him–something–and why I can’t come to-morrow, or ever
afterward,” she replied, low and tremulously.

Wade pondered over her words. It seemed to Columbine that her
sharpened faculties sensed something of hostility, of opposition in
him.

“Reckon to-morrow would be better,” he said, presently.
“Wilson’s had enough excitement for one day.”

“Then I’ll go to-morrow,” she returned.

In the gathering, cold twilight they rode down the trail in
silence.

“Good night, lass,” said Wade, as he reached his cabin. “An’
remember you’re not alone any more.”

“Good night, my friend,” she replied, and rode on.

Columbine encountered Jim Montana at the corrals, and it was not
too dark for her to see his foam-lashed horse. Jim appeared
non-committal, almost surly. But Columbine guessed that he had
ridden to Kremmling and back in one day, on some order of
Jack’s.

“Miss Collie, I’ll tend to Pronto,” he offered. “An’ yore
supper’ll be waitin’.”

A bright fire blazed on the living-room hearth. The rancher was
reading by its light.

“Hello, rosy-cheeks!” greeted the rancher, with unusual
amiability. “Been ridin’ ag’in’ the wind, hey? Wal, if you ain’t
pretty, then my eyes are pore!”

“It’s cold, dad,” she replied, “and the wind stings. But I
didn’t ride fast nor far…. I’ve been up to see Wilson Moore.”

“Ahuh! Wal, how’s the boy?” asked Belllounds, gruffly.

“He said he was all right, but–but I guess that’s not so,”
responded Columbine.

“Any friends lookin’ after him?”

“Oh yes–he must have friends–the Andrewses and others. I’m
glad to say his cabin is comfortable. He’ll be looked after.”

“Wal, I’m glad to hear thet. I’ll send Lem or Wade up thar an’
see if we can do anythin’ fer the boy.”

“Dad–that’s just like you,” replied Columbine, with her hand
seeking his broad shoulder.

“Ahuh! Say, Collie, hyar’s letters from ‘most everybody in
Kremmlin’ wantin’ to be invited up fer October first. How about
askin’ ’em?”

“The more the merrier,” replied Columbine.

“Wal, I reckon I’ll not ask anybody.”

“Why not, dad?”

“No one can gamble on thet son of mine, even on his
weddin’-day,” replied Belllounds, gloomily.

“Dad, what’d Jack do to-day?”

“I’m not sayin’ he did anythin’,” answered the rancher.

“Dad, you can gamble on me.”

“Wal, I should smile,” he said, putting his big arm around her.
“I wish you was Jack an’ Jack was you.”

At that moment the young man spoken of slouched into the room,
with his head bandaged, and took a seat at the supper-table.

“Wal, Collie, let’s go an’ get it,” said the rancher, cheerily.
“I can always eat, anyhow.”

“I’m hungry as a bear,” rejoined Columbine, as she took her
seat, which was opposite Jack.

“Where ‘ye you been?” he asked, curiously.

“Why, good evening, Jack! Did you finally notice me?… I’ve
been riding Pronto, the first time since he was hurt. Had a lovely
ride–up through Sage Valley.”

Jack glowered at her with the one unbandaged eye, and growled
something under his breath, and then began to stab meat and
potatoes with his fork.

“What’s the matter, Jack? Aren’t you well?” asked Columbine,
with a solicitude just a little too sweet to be genuine.

“Yes, I’m well,” snapped Jack.

“But you look sick. That is, what I can see of your face looks
sick. Your mouth droops at the corners. You’re very pale–and red
in spots. And your one eye glows with unearthly woe, as if you were
not long for this world!”

The amazing nature of this speech, coming from the girl who had
always been so sweet and quiet and backward, was attested to by the
consternation of Jack and the mirth of his father.

“Are you making fun of me?” demanded Jack.

“Why, Jack! Do you think I would make fun of you? I only wanted
to say how queer you look…. Are you going to be married with one
eye?”

Jack collapsed at that, and the old man, after a long stare of
open-mouthed wonder, broke out: “Haw! Haw! Haw!… By Golly!
lass–I’d never believed thet was in you…. Jack, be game an’ take
your medicine…. An’ both of you forgive an’ forget. Thar’ll be
quarrels enough, mebbe, without rakin’ over the past.”

When alone again Columbine reverted to a mood vastly removed
from her apparent levity with the rancher and his son. A grave and
inward-searching thought possessed her, and it had to do with the
uplift, the spiritual advance, the rise above mere personal
welfare, that had strangely come to her through Bent Wade. From
their first meeting he had possessed a singular attraction for her
that now, in the light of the meaning of his life, seemed to
Columbine to be the man’s nobility and wisdom, arising out of his
travail, out of the terrible years that had left their record upon
his face.

And so Columbine strove to bind forever in her soul the spirit
which had arisen in her, interpreting from Wade’s rude words of
philosophy that which she needed for her own light and
strength.

She appreciated her duty toward the man who had been a father to
her. Whatever he asked that would she do. And as for the son she
must live with the rest of her life, her duty there was to be a
good wife, to bear with his faults, to strive always to help him by
kindness, patience, loyalty, and such affection as was possible to
her. Hate had to be reckoned with, and hate, she knew, had no place
in a good woman’s heart. It must be expelled, if that were humanly
possible. All this was hard, would grow harder, but she accepted
it, and knew her mind.

Her soul was her own, unchangeable through any adversity. She
could be with that alone always, aloof from the petty cares and
troubles common to people. Wade’s words had thrilled her with their
secret, with their limitless hope of an unknown world of thought
and feeling. Happiness, in the ordinary sense, might never be hers.
Alas for her dreams! But there had been given her a glimpse of
something higher than pleasure and contentment. Dreams were but
dreams. But she could still dream of what had been, of what might
have been, of the beauty and mystery of life, of something in
nature that called sweetly and irresistibly to her. Who could rob
her of the rolling, gray, velvety hills, and the purple peaks and
the black ranges, among which she had been found a waif, a little
lost creature, born like a columbine under the spruces?

Love, sudden-dawning, inexplicable love, was her secret, still
tremulously new, and perilous in its sweetness. That only did she
fear to realize and to face, because it was an unknown factor, a
threatening flame. Her sudden knowledge of it seemed inextricably
merged with the mounting, strong, and steadfast stream of her
spirit.

“I’ll go to him. I’ll tell him,” she murmured. “He shall have
that!… Then I must bid him–good-by–forever!”

To tell Wilson would be sweet; to leave him would be bitter.
Vague possibilities haunted her. What might come of the telling?
How dark loomed the bitterness! She could not know what hid in
either of these acts until they were fulfilled. And the hours
became long, and sleep far off, and the quietness of the house a
torment, and the melancholy wail of coyotes a reminder of happy
girlhood, never to return.

When next day the long-deferred hour came Columbine selected a
horse that she could run, and she rode up the winding valley swift
as the wind. But at the aspen grove, where Wade’s keen, gentle
voice had given her secret life, she suffered a reaction that made
her halt and ascend the slope very slowly and with many stops.

Sight of Wade’s horse haltered near the cabin relieved Columbine
somewhat of a gathering might of emotion. The hunter would be
inside and so she would not be compelled at once to confess her
secret. This expectancy gave impetus to her lagging steps. Before
she reached the open door she called out.

“Collie, you’re late,” answered Wilson, with both joy and
reproach, as she entered. The cowboy lay upon his bed, and he was
alone in the room.

“Oh!… Where is Ben?” exclaimed Columbine.

“He was here. He cooked my dinner. We waited, but you never
came. The dinner got cold. I made sure you’d backed out–weren’t
coming at all–and I couldn’t eat…. Wade said he knew you’d come.
He went off with the hounds, somewhere … and oh, Collie, it’s all
right now!”

Columbine walked to his bedside and looked down upon him with a
feeling as if some giant hand was tugging at her heart. He looked
better. The swelling and redness of his face were less marked. And
at that moment no pain shadowed his eyes. They were soft, dark,
eloquent. If Columbine had not come with her avowed resolution and
desire to unburden her heart she would have found that look in his
eyes a desperately hard one to resist. Had it ever shone there
before? Blind she had been.

“You’re better,” she said, happily.

“Sure–now. But I had a bad night. Didn’t sleep till near
daylight. Wade found me asleep…. Collie, it’s good of you to
come. You look so–so wonderful! I never saw your face glow like
that. And your eyes–oh!”

“You think I’m pretty, then?” she asked, dreamily, not occupied
at all with that thought.

He uttered a contemptuous laugh.

“Come closer,” he said, reaching for her with a clumsy bandaged
hand.

Down upon her knees Columbine fell. Both hands flew to cover her
face. And as she swayed forward she shook violently, and there
escaped her lips a little, muffled sound.

“Why–Collie!” cried Moore, astounded. “Good Heavens! Don’t cry!
I–I didn’t mean anything. I only wanted to feel you–touch your
hand.”

“Here,” she answered, blindly holding out her hand, groping for
his till she found it. Her other was still pressed to her eyes. One
moment longer would Columbine keep her secret–hide her eyes–revel
in the unutterable joy and sadness of this crisis that could come
to a woman only once.

“What in the world?” ejaculated the cowboy, now bewildered. But
he possessed himself of the trembling hand offered. “Collie, you
act so strange…. You’re not crying!… Am I only locoed, or
flighty, or what? Dear, look at me.”

Columbine swept her hand from her eyes with a gesture of utter
surrender.

“Wilson, I’m ashamed–and sad–and gloriously happy,” she said,
with swift breathlessness.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because of–of something I have to tell you,” she
whispered.

“What is that?”

She bent over him.

“Can’t you guess?”

He turned pale, and his eyes burned with intense fire.

“I won’t guess … I daren’t guess.”

“It’s something that’s been true for years–forever, it
seems–something I never dreamed of till last night,” she went on,
softly.

“Collie!” he cried. “Don’t torture me!”

“Do you remember long ago–when we quarreled so
dreadfully–because you kissed me?” she asked.

“Do you think I could kiss you–and live to forget?”

“I love you!” she whispered, shyly, feeling the hot blood burn
her.

That whisper transformed Wilson Moore. His arm flashed round her
neck and pulled her face down to his, and, holding her in a close
embrace, he kissed her lips and cheeks and wet eyes, and then again
her lips, passionately and tenderly.

Then he pressed her head down upon his breast.

“My God! I can’t believe! Say it again!” he cried, hoarsely.

Columbine buried her flaming face in the blanket covering him,
and her hands clutched it tightly. The wildness of his joy, the
strange strength and power of his kisses, utterly changed her. Upon
his breast she lay, without desire to lift her face. All seemed
different, wilder, as she responded to his appeal: “Yes, I love
you! Oh, I love–love–love you!”

“Dearest!… Lift your face…. It’s true now. I know. It’s
proved. But let me look at you.”

Columbine lifted herself as best she could. But she was blinded
by tears and choked with utterance that would not come, and in the
grip of a shuddering emotion that was realization of loss in a
moment when she learned the supreme and imperious sweetness of
love.

“Kiss me, Columbine,” he demanded.

Through blurred eyes she saw his face, white and rapt, and she
bent to it, meeting his lips with her first kiss which was her
last.

“Again, Collie–again!” he begged.

“No–no more,” she whispered, very low, and encircling his neck
with her arms she hid her face and held him convulsively, and
stifled the sobs that shook her.

Then Moore was silent, holding her with his free hand, breathing
hard, and slowly quieting down. Columbine felt then that he knew
that there was something terribly wrong, and that perhaps he dared
not voice his fear. At any rate, he silently held her, waiting.
That silent wait grew unendurable for Columbine. She wanted to
prolong this moment that was to be all she could ever surrender.
But she dared not do so, for she knew if he ever kissed her again
her duty to Belllounds would vanish like mist in the sun.

To release her hold upon him seemed like a tearing of her
heartstrings. She sat up, she wiped the tears from her eyes, she
rose to her feet, all the time striving for strength to face him
again.

A loud voice ringing from the cliffs outside, startled
Columbine. It came from Wade calling the hounds. He had returned,
and the fact stirred her.

“I’m to marry Jack Belllounds on October first.”

The cowboy raised himself up as far as he was able. It was
agonizing for Columbine to watch the changing and whitening of his
face!

“No–no!” he gasped.

“Yes, it’s true,” she replied, hopelessly.

“No!” he exclaimed, hoarsely.

“But, Wilson, I tell you yes. I came to tell you. It’s true–oh,
it’s true!”

“But, girl, you said you love me,” he declared, transfixing her
with dark, accusing eyes.

“That’s just as terribly true.”

He softened a little, and something of terror and horror took
the place of anger.

Just then Wade entered the cabin with his soft tread, hesitated,
and then came to Columbine’s side. She could not unrivet her gaze
from Moore to look at her friend, but she reached out with
trembling hand to him. Wade clasped it in a horny palm.

Wilson fought for self-control in vain.

“Collie, if you love me, how can you marry Jack Belllounds?” he
demanded.

“I must.”

“Why must you?”

“I owe my life and my bringing up to his father. He wants me to
do it. His heart is set upon my helping Jack to become a man….
Dad loves me, and I love him. I must stand by him. I must repay
him. It is my duty.”

“You’ve a duty to yourself–as a woman!” he rejoined,
passionately. “Belllounds is wrapped up in his son. He’s blind to
the shame of such a marriage. But you’re not.”

“Shame?” faltered Columbine.

“Yes. The shame of marrying one man when you love another. You
can’t love two men…. You’ll give yourself. You’ll be his
wife! Do you understand what that means?”

“I–I think–I do,” replied Columbine, faintly. Where had
vanished all her wonderful spirit? This fire-eyed boy was breaking
her heart with his reproach.

“But you’ll bear his children,” cried Wilson. “Mother
of–them–when you love me!… Didn’t you think of that?”

“Oh no–I never did–I never did!” wailed Columbine.

“Then you’ll think before it’s too late?” he implored, wildly.
“Dearest Collie, think! You won’t ruin yourself! You won’t? Say you
won’t!”

“But–Oh, Wilson, what can I say? I’ve got to marry him.”

“Collie, I’ll kill him before he gets you.”

“You mustn’t talk so. If you fought again–if anything terrible
happened, it’d kill me.”

“You’d be better off!” he flashed, white as a sheet.

Columbine leaned against Wade for support. She was fast
weakening in strength, although her spirit held. She knew what was
inevitable. But Wilson’s agony was rending her.

“Listen,” began the cowboy again. “It’s your life–your
happiness–your soul…. Belllounds is crazy over that spoiled boy.
He thinks the sun rises and sets in him…. But Jack Belllounds is
no good on this earth! Collie dearest, don’t think that’s my
jealousy. I am horribly jealous. But I know him. He’s not worth
you! No man is–and he the least. He’ll break your heart, drag you
down, ruin your health–kill you, as sure as you stand there. I
want you to know I could prove to you what he is. But don’t make
me. Trust me, Collie. Believe me.”

“Wilson, I do believe you,” cried Columbine. “But it doesn’t
make any difference. It only makes my duty harder.”

“He’ll treat you like he treats a horse or a dog. He’ll beat
you–“

“He never will! If he ever lays a hand on me–“

“If not that, he’ll tire of you. Jack Belllounds never stuck to
anything in his life, and never will. It’s not in him. He wants
what he can’t have. If he gets it, then right off he doesn’t want
it. Oh, I’ve known him since he was a kid…. Columbine, you’ve a
mistaken sense of duty. No girl need sacrifice her all because some
man found her a lost baby and gave her a home. A woman owes more to
herself than to any one.”

“Oh, that’s true, Wilson. I’ve thought it all…. But you’re
unjust–hard. You make no allowance for–for some possible good in
every one. Dad swears I can reform Jack. Maybe I can. I’ll pray for
it.”

“Reform Jack Belllounds! How can you save a bad egg? That damned
coward! Didn’t he prove to you what he was when he jumped on me and
kicked my broken foot till I fainted?… What do you want?”

“Don’t say any more–please,” cried Columbine. “Oh, I’m so
sorry…. I oughtn’t have come…. Ben, take me home.”

“But, Collie, I love you,” frantically urged Wilson. “And he–he
may love you–but he’s–Collie–he’s been–“

Here Moore seemed to bite his tongue, to hold back speech, to
fight something terrible and desperate and cowardly in himself.

Columbine heard only his impassioned declaration of love, and to
that she vibrated.

“You speak as if this was one–sided,” she burst out, as once
more the gush of hot blood surged over her. “You don’t love me any
more than I love you. Not as much, for I’m a woman!… I love with
all my heart and soul!”

Moore fell back upon the bed, spent and overcome.

“Wade, my friend, for God’s sake do something,” he whispered,
appealing to the hunter as if in a last hope. “Tell Collie what
it’ll mean for her to marry Belllounds. If that doesn’t change her,
then tell her what it’ll mean to me. I’ll never go home. I’ll never
leave here. If she hadn’t told me she loved me then, I might have
stood anything. But now I can’t. It’ll kill me, Wade.”

“Boy, you’re talkin’ flighty again,” replied Wade. “This mornin’
when I come you were dreamin’ an’ talkin’–clean out of your
head…. Well, now, you an’ Collie listen. You’re right an’ she’s
right. I reckon I never run across a deal with two people fixed
just like you. But that doesn’t hinder me from feelin’ the same
about it as I’d feel about somethin’ I was used to.”

He paused, and, gently releasing Columbine, he went to Moore,
and retied his loosened bandage, and spread out the disarranged
blankets. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and bent over a
little, running a roughened hand through the scant hair that had
begun to silver upon his head. Presently he looked up, and from
that sallow face, with its lines and furrows, and from the deep,
inscrutable eyes, there fell a light which, however sad and wise in
its infinite understanding of pain and strife, was still ruthless
and unquenchable in its hope.

“Wade, for God’s sake save Columbine!” importuned Wilson.

“Oh, if you only could!” cried Columbine, impelled beyond her
power to resist by that prayer.

“Lass, you stand by your convictions,” he said, impressively.
“An’ Moore, you be a man an’ don’t make it so hard for her. Neither
of you can do anythin’…. Now there’s old Belllounds–he’ll never
change. He might r’ar up for this or that, but he’ll never change
his cherished hopes for his son…. But Jack might change! Lookin’
back over all the years I remember many boys like this Buster Jack,
an’ I remember how in the nature of their doin’s they just hanged
themselves. I’ve a queer foresight about people whose trouble I’ve
made my own. It’s somethin’ that never fails. When their trouble’s
goin’ to turn out bad then I feel a terrible yearnin’ to tell the
story of Hell-Bent Wade. That foresight of trouble gave me my
name…. But it’s not operatin’ here…. An’ so, my young friends,
you can believe me when I say somethin’ will happen. As far as
October first is concerned, or any time near, Collie isn’t goin’ to
marry Jack Belllounds.”

CHAPTER X

One day Wade remarked to Belllounds: “You can never tell what a
dog is until you know him. Dogs are like men. Some of ’em look
good, but they’re really bad. An’ that works the other way round.
If a dog’s born to run wild an’ be a sheep-killer, that’s what
he’ll be. I’ve known dogs that loved men as no humans could have
loved them. It doesn’t make any difference to a dog if his master
is a worthless scamp.”

“Wal, I reckon most of them hounds I bought had no good masters,
judgin’ from the way they act,” replied the rancher.

“I’m developin’ a first-rate pack,” said Wade. “Jim hasn’t any
faults exceptin’ he doesn’t bay enough. Sampson’s not as true-nosed
as Jim, but he’ll follow Jim, an’ he has a deep, heavy bay you can
hear for miles. So that makes up for Jim’s one fault. These two
hounds hang together, an’ with them I’m developin’ others. Denver
will split off of bear or lion tracks when he jumps a deer. I
reckon he’s not young enough to be cured of that. Some of the
younger hounds are comin’ on fine. But there’s two dogs in the
bunch that beat me all hollow.”

“Which ones?” asked Belllounds.

“There’s that bloodhound, Kane,” replied the hunter. “He’s sure
a queer dog. I can’t win him. He minds me now because I licked him,
an’ once good an’ hard when he bit me…. But he doesn’t cotton to
me worth a damn. He’s gettin’ fond of Miss Columbine, an’ I believe
might make a good watch-dog for her. Where’d he come from,
Belllounds?”

“Wal, if I don’t disremember he was born in a prairie-schooner,
comin’ across the plains. His mother was a full-blood, an’ come
from Louisiana.”

“That accounts for an instinct I see croppin’ out in Kane,”
rejoined Wade. “He likes to trail a man. I’ve caught him doin’ it.
An’ he doesn’t take to huntin’ lions or bear. Why, the other day,
when the hounds treed a lion an’ went howlin’ wild, Kane came up,
an’ he looked disgusted an’ went off by himself. He hunts by
himself, anyhow. First off I thought he might be a sheep-killer.
But I reckon not. He can trail men, an’ that’s about all the good
he is. His mother must have been a slave-hunter, an’ Kane inherits
that trailin’ instinct.”

“Ahuh! Wal, train him on trailin’ men, then. I’ve seen times
when a dog like thet’d come handy. An’ if he takes to Collie an’
you approve of him, let her have him. She’s been coaxin’ me fer a
dog.”

“That isn’t a bad idea. Miss Collie walks an’ rides alone a good
deal, an’ she never packs a gun.”

“Funny about thet,” said Belllounds. “Collie is game in most
ways, but she’d never kill anythin’…. Wade, you ain’t thinkin’
she ought to stop them lonesome walks an’ rides?”

“No, sure not, so long as she doesn’t go too far away.”

“Ahuh! Wal, supposin’ she rode up out of the valley, west on the
Black Range?”

“That won’t do, Belllounds,” replied Wade, seriously. “But Miss
Collie’s not goin’ to, for I’ve cautioned her. Fact is I’ve run
across some hard-lookin’ men between here an’ Buffalo Park. They’re
not hunters or prospectors or cattlemen or travelers.”

“Wal, you don’t say!” rejoined Belllounds. “Now, Wade, are you
connectin’ up them strangers with the stock I missed on this last
round-up?”

“Reckon I can’t go as far as that,” returned Wade. “But I didn’t
like their looks.”

“Thet comin’ from you, Wade, is like the findin’s of a jury….
It’s gettin’ along toward October. Snow’ll be flyin’ soon. You
don’t reckon them strangers will winter in the woods?”

“No, I don’t. Neither does Lewis. You recollect him?”

“Yes, thet prospector who hangs out around Buffalo Park, lookin’
fer gold. He’s been hyar. Good fellar, but crazy on gold.”

“I’ve met Lewis several times, one place and another. I lost the
hounds day before yesterday. They treed a lion an’ Lewis heard the
racket, an’ he stayed with them till I come up. Then he told me
some interestin’ news. You see he’s been worryin’ about this gang
thet’s rangin’ around Buffalo Park, an’ he’s tried to get a line on
them. Somebody took a shot at him in the woods. He couldn’t swear
it was one of that outfit, but he could swear he wasn’t near shot
by accident. Now Lewis says these men pack to an’ fro from Elgeria,
an’ he has a hunch they’re in cahoots with Smith, who runs a place
there. You know Smith?”

“No, I don’t, an’ haven’t any wish to,” declared Belllounds,
shortly. “He always looked shady to me. An’ he’s not been square
with friends of mine in Elgeria. But no one ever proved him
crooked, whatever was thought. Fer my part, I never missed a guess
in my life. Men don’t have scars on their face like his fer
nothin’.”

“Boss, I’m confidin’ what I want kept under your hat,” said
Wade, quietly. “I knew Smith. He’s as bad as the West makes them. I
gave him that scar…. An’ when he sees me he’s goin’ for his
gun.”

“Wal, I’ll be darned! Doesn’t surprise me. It’s a small
world…. Wade, I’ll keep my mouth shut, sure. But what’s your
game?”

“Lewis an’ I will find out if there is any connection between
Smith an’ this gang of strangers–an’ the occasional loss of a few
head of stock.”

“Ahuh! Wal, you have my good will, you bet…. Sure thar’s been
some rustlin’ of cattle. Not enough to make any rancher holler, an’
I reckon there never will be any more of thet in Colorado. Still,
if we get the drop on some outfit we sure ought to corral
them.”

“Boss, I’m tellin’ you–“

“Wade, you ain’t agoin’ to start thet tellin’ hell-bent
happenin’s to come hyar at White Slides?” interrupted Belllounds,
plaintively.

“No, I reckon I’ve no hunch like that now,” responded Wade,
seriously. “But I was about to say that if Smith is in on any
rustlin’ of cattle he’ll be hard to catch, an’ if he’s caught
there’ll be shootin’ to pay. He’s cunnin’ an’ has had long
experience. It’s not likely he’d work openly, as he did years ago.
If he’s stealin’ stock or buyin’ an’ sellin’ stock that some one
steals for him, it’s only on a small scale, an’ it’ll be hard to
trace.”

“Wal, he might be deep,” said Belllounds, reflectively. “But men
like thet, no matter how deep or cunnin’ they are, always come to a
bad end. Jest works out natural…. Had you any grudge ag’in’
Smith?”

“What I give him was for somebody else, an’ was sure little
enough. He’s got the grudge against me.”

“Ahuh! Wal, then, don’t you go huntin’ fer trouble. Try an’ make
White Slides one place thet’ll disprove your name. All the same,
don’t shy at sight of anythin’ suspicious round the ranch.”

The old man plodded thoughtfully away, leaving the hunter
likewise in a brown study.

“He’s gettin’ a hunch that I’ll tell him of some shadow hoverin’
black over White Slides,” soliloquized Wade. “Maybe–maybe so. But
I don’t see any yet…. Strange how a man will say what he didn’t
start out to say. Now, I started to tell him about that amazin’ dog
Fox.”

Fox was the great dog of the whole pack, and he had been
absolutely overlooked, which fact Wade regarded with contempt for
himself. Discovery of this particular dog came about by accident.
Somewhere in the big corral there was a hole where the smaller dogs
could escape, but Wade had been unable to find it. For that matter
the corral was full of holes, not any of which, however, it
appeared to Wade, would permit anything except a squirrel to pass
in and out.

One day when the hunter, very much exasperated, was prowling
around and around inside the corral, searching for this mysterious
vent, a rather small dog, with short gray and brown woolly hair,
and shaggy brows half hiding big, bright eyes, came up wagging his
stump of a tail.

“Well, what do you know about it?” demanded Wade. Of course he
had noticed this particular dog, but to no purpose. On this
occasion the dog repeated so unmistakably former overtures of
friendship that Wade gave him close scrutiny. He was neither young
nor comely nor thoroughbred, but there was something in his
intelligent eyes that struck the hunter significantly. “Say, maybe
I overlooked somethin’? But there’s been a heap of dogs round here
an’ you’re no great shucks for looks. Now, if you’re talkin’ to me
come an’ find that hole.”

Whereupon Wade began another search around the corral. It
covered nearly an acre of ground, and in some places the
fence-poles had been sunk near rocks. More than once Wade got down
upon his hands and knees to see if he could find the hole. The dog
went with him, watching with knowing eyes that the hunter imagined
actually laughed at him. But they were glad eyes, which began to
make an appeal. Presently, when Wade came to a rough place, the dog
slipped under a shelving rock, and thence through a half-concealed
hole in the fence; and immediately came back through to wag his
stump of a tail and look as if the finding of that hole was easy
enough.

“You old fox,” declared Wade, very much pleased, as he patted
the dog. “You found it for me, didn’t you? Good dog! Now I’ll fix
that hole, an’ then you can come to the cabin with me. An’ your
name’s Fox.”

That was how Fox introduced himself to Wade, and found his
opportunity. The fact that he was not a hound had operated against
his being taken out hunting, and therefore little or no attention
had been paid him. Very shortly Fox showed himself to be a dog of
superior intelligence. The hunter had lived much with dogs and had
come to learn that the longer he lived with them the more there was
to marvel at and love.

Fox insisted so strongly on being taken out to hunt with the
hounds that Wade, vowing not to be surprised at anything, let him
go. It happened to be a particularly hard day on hounds because of
old tracks and cross-tracks and difficult ground. Fox worked out a
labyrinthine trail that Sampson gave up and Jim failed on. This
delighted Wade, and that night he tried to find out from Andrews,
who sold the dog to Belllounds, something about Fox. All the
information obtainable was that Andrews suspected the fellow from
whom he had gotten Fox had stolen him. Belllounds had never noticed
him at all. Wade kept the possibilities of Fox to himself and
reserved his judgment, and every day gave the dog another chance to
show what he knew.

“I’m beginnin’ to feel that I couldn’t let her marry that Buster
Jack,”
soliloquized Wade, as he rode along the grassy trail.

Long before the end of that week Wade loved Fox and decided that
he was a wonderful animal. Fox liked to hunt, but it did not matter
what he hunted. That depended upon the pleasure of his master. He
would find hobbled horses that were hiding out and standing still
to escape detection. He would trail cattle. He would tree squirrels
and point grouse. Invariably he suited his mood to the kind of game
he hunted. If put on an elk track, or that of deer, he would follow
it, keeping well within sight of the hunter, and never uttering a
single bark or yelp; and without any particular eagerness he would
stick until he had found the game or until he was called off. Bear
and cat tracks, however, roused the savage instinct in him, and
transformed him. He yelped at every jump on a trail, and whenever
his yelp became piercing and continuous Wade well knew the quarry
was in sight. He fought bear like a wise old dog that knew when to
rush in with a snap and when to keep away. When lions or wildcats
were treed Fox lost much of his ferocity and interest. Then the
matter of that particular quarry was ended. His most valuable
characteristic, however, was his ability to stick on the track upon
which he was put. Wade believed if he put Fox on the trail of a
rabbit, and if a bear or lion were to cross that trail ahead of
him, Fox would stick to the rabbit. Even more remarkable was it
that Fox would not steal a piece of meat and that he would fight
the other dogs for being thieves.

Fox and Kane, it seemed to the hunter in his reflective
foreshadowing of events at White Slides, were destined to play most
important parts.

Upon a certain morning, several days before October first–which
date rankled in the mind of Wade–he left Moore’s cabin, leading a
pack-horse. The hounds he had left behind at the ranch, but Fox
accompanied him.

“Wade, I want some elk steak,” old Belllounds had said the day
before. “Nothin’ like a good rump steak! I was raised on elk meat.
Now hyar, more’n a week ago I told you I wanted some. There’s elk
all around. I heerd a bull whistle at sunup to-day. Made me wish I
was young ag’in!… You go pack in an elk.”

“I haven’t run across any bulls lately,” Wade had replied, but
he did not mention that he had avoided such a circumstance. The
fact was Wade admired and loved the elk above all horned wild
animals. So strange was his attitude toward elk that he had gone
meat-hungry many a time with these great stags bugling near his
camp.

As he climbed the yellow, grassy mountain-side, working round
above the valley, his mind was not centered on the task at hand,
but on Wilson Moore, who had come to rely on him with the
unconscious tenacity of a son whose faith in his father was
unshakable. The crippled cowboy kept his hope, kept his cheerful,
grateful spirit, obeyed and suffered with a patience that was fine.
There had been no improvement in his injured foot. Wade worried
about that much more than Moore. The thing that mostly occupied the
cowboy was the near approach of October first, with its terrible
possibility for him. He did not talk about it, except when fever
made him irrational, but it was plain to Wade how he prayed and
hoped and waited in silence. Strange how he trusted Wade to avert
catastrophe of Columbine’s marriage! Yet such trust seemed familiar
to Wade, as he reflected over past years. Had he not wanted such
trust–had he not invited it?

For twenty years no happiness had come to Wade in any sense
comparable to that now secretly his, as he lived near Columbine
Belllounds, divining more and more each day how truly she was his
own flesh and the image of the girl he had loved and married and
wronged. Columbine was his daughter. He saw himself in her. And
Columbine, from being strongly attracted to him and trusting in him
and relying upon him, had come to love him. That was the most
beautiful and terrible fact of his life–beautiful because it
brought back the past, her babyhood, and his barren years, and gave
him this sudden change, where he lived transported with the sense
and the joy of his possession. It was terrible because she was
unhappy, because she was chained to duty and honor, because ruin
faced her, and lastly because Wade began to have the vague, gloomy
intimations of distant tragedy. Far off, like a cloud on the
horizon, but there! Long ago he had learned the uselessness of
fighting his morbid visitations. But he clung to hope, to faith in
life, to the victory of the virtuous, to the defeat of evil. A
thousand proofs had strengthened him in that clinging.

There were personal dread and poignant pain for Wade in
Columbine Belllounds’s situation. After all, he had only his subtle
and intuitive assurance that matters would turn out well for her in
the end. To trust that now, when the shadow began to creep over his
own daughter, seemed unwise–a juggling with chance.

“I’m beginnin’ to feel that I couldn’t let her marry that Buster
Jack,” soliloquized Wade, as he rode along the grassy trail. “Fust
off, seein’ how strong was her sense of duty an’ loyalty, I wasn’t
so set against it. But somethin’s growin’ in me. Her love for that
crippled boy, now, an’ his for her! Lord! they’re so young an’ life
must be so hot an’ love so sweet! I reckon that’s why I couldn’t
let her marry Jack…. But, on the other hand, there’s the old
man’s faith in his son, an’ there’s Collie’s faith in herself an’
in life. Now I believe in that. An’ the years have proved to me
there’s hope for the worst of men…. I haven’t even had a talk
with this Buster Jack. I don’t know him, except by hearsay. An’ I’m
sure prejudiced, which’s no wonder, considerin’ where I saw him in
Denver…. I reckon, before I go any farther, I’d better meet this
Belllounds boy an’ see what’s in him.”

It was characteristic of Wade that this soliloquy abruptly ended
his thoughtful considerations for the time being. This was owing to
the fact that he rested upon a decision, and also because it was
time he began to attend to the object of his climb.

Bench after bench he had ascended, and the higher he got the
denser and more numerous became the aspen thickets and the more
luxuriant the grass. Presently the long black slope of spruce
confronted him, with its edge like a dark wall. He entered the
fragrant forest, where not a twig stirred nor a sound pervaded the
silence. Upon the soft, matted earth the hoofs of the horses made
no impression and scarcely a perceptible thud.

Wade headed to the left, avoiding rough, rocky defiles of
weathered cliff and wind-fallen trees, and aimed to find easy going
up to the summit of the mountain bluff far above. This was new
forest to him, consisting of moderate-sized spruce-trees growing so
closely together that he had to go carefully to keep from snapping
dead twigs. Fox trotted on in the lead, now and then pausing to
look up at his master, as if for instructions.

A brightening of the dark-green gloom ahead showed the hunter
that he was approaching a large glade or open patch, where the
sunlight fell strongly. It turned out to be a swale, or swampy
place, some few acres in extent, and directly at the foot of a last
steep, wooded slope. Here Fox put his nose into the air and
halted.

“What’re you scentin’, Fox, old boy?” asked Wade, with low
voice, as he peered ahead. The wind was in the wrong direction for
him to approach close to game without being detected. Fox wagged
his stumpy tail and looked up with knowing eyes. Wade proceeded
cautiously. The swamp was a rank growth of long, weedy grasses and
ferns, with here and there a green-mossed bog half hidden and a
number of dwarf oak-trees. Wade’s horse sank up to his knees in the
mire. On the other side showed fresh tracks along the wet margin of
the swale.

“It’s elk, all right,” said Wade, as he dismounted. “Heard us
comin’. Now, Fox, stick your nose in that track. An’ go slow.”

With rifle ready Wade began the ascent of the slope on foot,
leading his horse. An old elk trail showed a fresh track. Fox
accommodated his pace to that of the toiling hunter. The ascent was
steep and led up through dense forest. At intervals, when Wade
halted to catch his breath and listen, he heard faint snapping of
dead branches far above. At length he reached the top of the
mountain, to find a wide, open space, with heavy forest in front,
and a bare, ghastly, burned-over district to his right. Fox
growled, and appeared about to dash forward. Then, in an opening
through the forest, Wade espied a large bull elk, standing at gaze,
evidently watching him. He was a gray old bull, with broken
antlers. Wade made no move to shoot, and presently the elk walked
out of sight.

“Too old an’ tough, Fox,” explained the hunter to the anxious
dog. But perhaps that was not all Wade’s motive in sparing him.

Once more mounted, Wade turned his attention to the burned
district. It was a dreary, hideous splotch, a blackened slash in
the green cover of the mountain. It sloped down into a wide hollow
and up another bare slope. The ground was littered with bleached
logs, trees that had been killed first by fire and then felled by
wind. Here and there a lofty, spectral trunk still withstood the
blasts. Across the hollow sloped a considerable area where all
trees were dead and still standing–a melancholy sight. Beyond, and
far round and down to the left, opened up a slope of spruce and
bare ridge, where a few cedars showed dark, and then came black,
spear-tipped forest again, leading the eye to the magnificent
panorama of endless range on range, purple in the distance.

Wade found patches of grass where beds had been recently
occupied.

“Mountain-sheep, by cracky!” exclaimed the hunter. “An’ fresh
tracks, too!… Now I wonder if it wouldn’t do to kill a sheep an’
tell Belllounds I couldn’t find any elk.”

The hunter had no qualms about killing mountain-sheep, but he
loved the lordly stags and would have lied to spare them. He rode
on, with keen gaze shifting everywhere to catch a movement of
something in this wilderness before him. If there was any living
animal in sight it did not move. Wade crossed the hollow, wended a
circuitous route through the upstanding forest of dead timber, and
entered a thick woods that skirted the rim of the mountain.
Presently he came out upon the open rim, from which the depths of
green and gray yawned mightily. Far across, Old White Slides loomed
up, higher now, with a dignity and majesty unheralded from
below.

Wade found fresh sheep tracks in the yellow clay of the rim,
small as little deer tracks, showing that they had just been made
by ewes and lambs. Not a ram track in the group!

“Well, that lets me out,” said Wade, as he peered under the
bluff for sight of the sheep. They had gone over the steep rim as
if they had wings. “Beats hell how sheep can go down without
fallin’! An’ how they can hide!”

He knew they were near at hand and he wasted time peering to spy
them out. Nevertheless, he could not locate them. Fox waited
impatiently for the word to let him prove how easily he could rout
them out, but this permission was not forthcoming.

“We’re huntin’ elk, you Jack-of-all-dogs,” reprovingly spoke the
hunter to Fox.

So they went on around the rim, and after a couple of miles of
travel came to the forest, and then open heads of hollows that
widened and deepened down. Here was excellent pasture and cover for
elk. Wade left the rim to ride down these slow-descending half-open
ridges, where cedars grew and jack-pines stood in clumps, and
little grassy-bordered brooks babbled between. He saw tracks where
a big buck deer had crossed ahead of him, and then he flushed a
covey of grouse that scared the horses, and then he saw where a
bear had pulled a rotten log to pieces. Fox did not show any
interest in these things.

By and by Wade descended to the junction of these hollows, where
three tiny brooklets united to form a stream of pure, swift, clear
water, perhaps a foot deep and several yards wide.

“I reckon this’s the head of the Troublesome,” said Wade.
“Whoever named this brook had no sense…. Yet here, at its source,
it’s gatherin’ trouble for itself. That’s the way of youth.”

The grass grew thickly and luxuriantly and showed signs of
recent grazing. Elk had been along the brook that morning. There
were many tracks, like cow tracks, only smaller, deeper, and more
oval; and there were beds where elk had lain, and torn-up places
where bulls had plowed and stamped with heavy hoofs.

Fox trailed the herd to higher ground, where evidently they had
entered the woods. Here Wade tied his horses, and, whispering to
Fox, he proceeded stealthily through this strip of spruce. He came
out to an open point, taking care, however, to keep well screened,
from which he had a glimpse of a parklike hollow, grassy and
watered. Working round to better vantage, he soon espied what had
made Fox stand so stiff and bristling. A herd of elk were trooping
up the opposite slope, scarcely a hundred yards distant. They had
heard or scented him, but did not appear alarmed. They halted to
look back. The hunter’s quick estimate credited nearly two dozen to
the herd, mostly cows. A magnificent bull, with wide-spreading
antlers, and black head and shoulders and gray hind quarters,
stalked out from the herd, and stood an instant, head aloft,
splendidly significant of the wild. Then he trotted into the woods,
his antlers noiselessly spreading the green. Others trotted off
likewise. Wade raised his rifle and looked through the sight at the
bull, and let him pass. Then he saw another over his rifle, and
another. Reluctant and forced, he at last aimed and pulled trigger.
The heavy Henry boomed out in the stillness. Fox dashed down with
eager barks. When the smoke cleared away Wade saw the opposite
slope bare except for one fallen elk.

Then he returned to his horses, and brought them back to where
Fox perched beside the dead quarry.

“Well, Fox, that stag’ll never bugle any more of a sunrise,”
said Wade. “Strange how we’re made so we have to eat meat! I’d ‘a’
liked it otherwise.”

He cut up the elk, and packed all the meat the horse could
carry, and hung the best of what was left out of the reach of
coyotes. Mounting once more, he ascended to the rim and found a
slope leading down to the west. Over the basin country below he had
hunted several days. This way back to the ranch was longer, he
calculated, but less arduous for man and beast. His pack-horse
would have hard enough going in any event. From time to time Wade
halted to rest the burdened pack-animal. At length he came to a
trail he had himself made, which he now proceeded to follow. It led
out of the basin, through burned and boggy ground and down upon the
forest slope, thence to the grassy and aspened uplands. One aspen
grove, where he had rested before, faced the west, and, for reasons
hard to guess, had suffered little from frost. All the leaves were
intact, some still green, but most of them a glorious gold against
the blue. It was a large grove, sloping gently, carpeted with
yellow grass and such a profusion of purple asters as Wade had
never seen in his flower-loving life. Here he dismounted and sat
against an aspen-tree. His horses ruthlessly cropped the purple
blossoms.

Nature in her strong prodigality had outdone herself here. Pale
white the aspen-trees shone, and above was the fluttering,
quivering canopy of gold tinged with green, and below clustered the
asters, thick as stars in the sky, waving, nodding, swaying
gracefully to each little autumn breeze, lilac-hued and lavender
and pale violet, and all the shades of exquisite purple.

Wade lingered, his senses predominating. This was one of those
moments that colored his lonely wanderings. Only to see was enough.
He would have shut out the encroaching thoughts of self, of others,
of life, had that been wholly possible. But here, after the first
few moments of exquisite riot of his senses, where fragrance of
grass and blossom filled the air, and blaze of gold canopied the
purple, he began to think how beautiful the earth was, how Nature
hid her rarest gifts for those who loved her most, how good it was
to live, if only for these blessings. And sadness crept into his
meditations because all this beauty was ephemeral, all the gold
would soon be gone, and the asters, so pale and pure and purple,
would soon be like the glory of a dream that had passed.

Yet still followed the saving thought that frost and winter must
again yield to sun, and spring, summer, autumn would return with
the flowers of their season, in that perennial birth so gracious
and promising. The aspen leaves would quiver and slowly gild, the
grass would wave in the wind, the asters would bloom, lifting
star-pale faces to the sky. Next autumn, and every year, and
forever, as long as the sun warmed the earth!

It was only man who would not always return to the haunts he
loved.

CHAPTER XI

When Bent Wade desired opportunities they seemed to gravitate to
him.

Upon riding into the yard of White Slides Ranch he espied Jack
Belllounds sitting in idle, moping posture on the porch. Something
in his dejected appearance roused Wade’s pity. No one else was in
sight, so the hunter took advantage of the moment.

“Hey, Belllounds, will you give me a lift with this meat?”
called Wade.

“Sure,” replied Jack, readily enough, and he got up. Wade led
the pack-horse to the door of the store-cabin, which stood back of
the kitchen and was joined to it by a roof. There, with Jack’s
assistance, he unloaded the meat and hung it up on pegs. This done,
Wade set to work with knife in hand.

“I reckon a little trimmin’ will improve the looks of this
carcass,” observed Wade.

“Wade, we never had any one round except dad who could cut up a
steer or elk,” said Jack. “But you’ve got him beat.”

“I’m pretty handy at most things.”

“Handy!… I wish I could do just one thing as well as you. I
can ride, but that’s all. No one ever taught me anything.”

“You’re a young fellow yet, an’ you’ve time, if you only take
kindly to learnin’. I was past your age when I learned most I
know.”

The hunter’s voice and his look, and that fascination which
subtly hid in his presence, for the first time seemed to find the
response of interest in young Belllounds.

“I can’t stick, dad says, and he swears at me,” replied
Belllounds. “But I’ll bet I could learn from you.”

“Reckon you could. Why can’t you stick to anythin’?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been as enthusiastic over work as over
riding mustangs. To ride came natural, but in work, when I do it
wrong, then I hate it.”

“Ahuh! That’s too bad. You oughtn’t to hate work. Hard work
makes for what I reckon you like in a man, but don’t understand. As
I look back over my life–an’ let me say, young fellar, it’s been a
tough one–what I remember most an’ feel best over are the hardest
jobs I ever did, an’ those that cost the most sweat an’ blood.”

As Wade warmed to his subject, hoping to sow a good seed in
Belllounds’s mind, he saw that he was wasting his earnestness.
Belllounds did not keep to the train of thought. His mind wandered,
and now he was examining Wade’s rifle.

“Old Henry forty-four,” he said. “Dad has one. Also an old
needle-gun. Say, can I go hunting with you?”

“Glad to have you. How do you handle a rifle?”

“I used to shoot pretty well before I went to Denver,” he
replied. “Haven’t tried since I’ve been home…. Suppose you let me
take a shot at that post?” And from where he stood in the door he
pointed to a big hitching-post near the corral gate.

The corral contained horses, and in the pasture beyond were
cattle, any of which might be endangered by such a shot. Wade saw
that the young man was in earnest, that he wanted to respond to the
suggestion in his mind. Consequences of any kind did not awaken
after the suggestion.

“Sure. Go ahead. Shoot low, now, a little below where you want
to hit,” said Wade.

Belllounds took aim and fired. A thundering report shook the
cabin. Dust and splinters flew from the post.

“I hit it!” he exclaimed, in delight. “I was sure I wouldn’t,
because I aimed ‘way under.”

“Reckon you did. It was a good shot.”

Then a door slammed and Old Bill Belllounds appeared, his hair
upstanding, his look and gait proclaiming him on the rampage.

“Jack! What’n hell are you doin’?” he roared, and he stamped up
to the door to see his son standing there with the rifle in his
hands. “By Heaven! If it ain’t one thing it’s another!”

“Boss, don’t jump over the traces,” said Wade. “I’ll allow if
I’d known the gun would let out a bellar like that I’d not have
told Jack to shoot. Reckon it’s because we’re under the open roof
that it made the racket. I’m wantin’ to clean the gun while it’s
hot.”

“Ahuh! Wal, I was scared fust, harkin’ back to Indian days, an’
then I was mad because I figgered Jack was up to mischief…. Did
you fetch in the meat?”

“You bet. An’ I’d like a piece for myself,” replied Wade.

“Help yourself, man. An’ say, come down an’ eat with us fer
supper.”

“Much obliged, boss. I sure will.”

Then the old rancher trudged back to the house.

“Wade, it was bully of you!” exclaimed Jack, gratefully. “You
see how quick dad’s ready to jump me? I’ll bet he thought I’d
picked a shooting-scrape with one of the cowboys.”

“Well, he’s gettin’ old an’ testy,” replied Wade. “You ought to
humor him. He’ll not be here always.”

Belllounds answered to that suggestion with a shadowing of eyes
and look of realization, affection, remorse. Feelings seemed to
have a quick rise and play in him, but were not lasting. Wade
casually studied him, weighing his impressions, holding them in
abeyance for a sum of judgment.

“Belllounds, has anybody told you about Wils Moore bein’ bad
hurt?” abruptly asked the hunter.

“He is, is he?” replied Jack, and to his voice and face came
sudden change. “How bad?”

“I reckon he’ll be a cripple for life,” answered Wade,
seriously, and now he stopped in his work to peer at Belllounds.
The next moment might be critical for that young man.

“Club-footed!… He won’t lord it over the cowboys any more–or
ride that white mustang!” The softer, weaker expression of his
face, that which gave him some title to good looks, changed to an
ugliness hard for Wade to define, since it was neither glee, nor
joy, nor gratification over his rival’s misfortune. It was rush of
blood to eyes and skin, a heated change that somehow to Wade
suggested an anxious, selfish hunger. Belllounds lacked something,
that seemed certain. But it remained to be proved how deserving he
was of Wade’s pity.

“Belllounds, it was a dirty trick–your jumpin’ Moore,” declared
Wade, with deliberation.

“The hell you say!” Belllounds flared up, with scarlet in his
face, with sneer of amaze, with promise of bursting rage. He
slammed down the gun.

“Yes, the hell I say,” returned the hunter. “They call me
Hell-Bent Wade!”

“Are you friends with Moore?” asked Belllounds, beginning to
shake.

“Yes, I’m that with every one. I’d like to be friends with
you.”

“I don’t want you. And I’m giving you notice–you won’t last
long at White Slides.”

“Neither will you!”

Belllounds turned dead white, not apparently from fury or fear,
but from a shock that had its birth within the deep, mysterious,
emotional reachings of his mind. He was utterly astounded, as if
confronting a vague, terrible premonition of the future. Wade’s
swift words, like the ring of bells, had not been menacing, but
prophetic.

“Young fellar, you need to be talked to, so if you’ve got any
sense at all it’ll get a wedge in your brain,” went on Wade. “I’m a
stranger here. But I happen to be a man who sees through things,
an’ I see how your dad handles you wrong. You don’t know who I am
an’ you don’t care. But if you’ll listen you’ll learn what might
help you…. No boy can answer to all his wild impulses without
ruinin’ himself. It’s not natural. There are other people–people
who have wills an’ desires, same as you have. You’ve got to live
with people. Here’s your dad an’ Miss Columbine, an’ the cowboys,
an’ me, an’ all the ranchers, so down to Kremmlin’ an’ other
places. These are the people you’ve got to live with. You can’t go
on as you’ve begun, without ruinin’ yourself an’ your dad an’
the–the girl…. It’s never too late to begin to be better. I know
that. But it gets too late, sometimes, to save the happiness of
others. Now I see where you’re headin’ as clear as if I had
pictures of the future. I’ve got a gift that way…. An’,
Belllounds, you’ll not last. Unless you begin to control your
temper, to forget yourself, to kill your wild impulses, to be kind,
to learn what love is–you’ll never last!… In the very nature of
things, one comin’ after another like your fights with Moore, an’
your scarin’ of Pronto, an’ your drinkin’ at Kremmlin’, an’ just
now your r’arin’ at me–it’s in the very nature of life that goin’
on so you’ll sooner or later meet with hell! You’ve got to change,
Belllounds. No half-way, spoiled-boy changin’, but the straight
right-about-face of a man!… It means you must see you’re no good
an’ have a change of heart. Men have revolutions like that. I was
no good. I did worse than you’ll ever do, because you’re not big
enough to be really bad, an’ yet I’ve turned out worth livin’….
There, I’m through, an’ I’m offerin’ to be your friend an’ to help
you.”

Belllounds stood with arms spread outside the door, still
astounded, still pale; but as the long admonition and appeal ended
he exploded stridently. “Who the hell are you?… If I
hadn’t been so surprised–if I’d had a chance to get a word in–I’d
shut your trap! Are you a preacher masquerading here as hunter? Let
me tell you, I won’t be talked to like that–not by any man. Keep
your advice an’ friendship to yourself.”

“You don’t want me, then?”

“No,” Belllounds snapped.

“Reckon you don’t need either advice or friend, hey?”

“No, you owl-eyed, soft-voiced fool!” yelled Belllounds.

It was then Wade felt a singular and familiar sensation, a cold,
creeping thing, physical and elemental, that had not visited him
since he had been at White Slides.

“I reckoned so,” he said, with low and gloomy voice, and he
knew, if Belllounds did not know, that he was not acquiescing with
the other’s harsh epithet, but only greeting the advent of
something in himself.

Belllounds shrugged his burly shoulders and slouched away.

Wade finished his dressing of the meat. Then he rode up to spend
an hour with Moore. When he returned to his cabin he proceeded to
change his hunter garb for the best he owned. It was a proof of his
unusual preoccupation that he did this before he fed the hounds. It
was sunset when he left his cabin. Montana Jim and Lem hailed as he
went by. Wade paused to listen to their good-natured raillery.

“See hyar, Bent, this ain’t Sunday,” said Lem.

“You’re spruced up powerful fine. What’s it fer?” added
Montana.

“Boss asked me down to supper.’

“Wal, you lucky son-of-a-gun! An’ hyar we’ve no invite,”
returned Lem. “Say, Wade, I heerd Buster Jack roarin’ at you. I was
ridin’ in by the storehouse…. ‘Who the hell are you?’ was what
collared my attention, an’ I had to laugh. An’ I listened to all he
said. So you was offerin’ him advice an’ friendship?”

“I reckon.”

“Wal, all I say is thet you was wastin’ yore breath,” declared
Lem. “You’re a queer fellar, Wade.”

“Queer? Aw, Lem, he ain’t queer,” said Montana. “He’s jest
white. Wade, I feel the same as you. I’d like to do somethin’ fer
thet locoed Buster Jack.”

“Montana, you’re the locoed one,” rejoined Lem. “Buster Jack
knows what he’s doin’. He can play a slicker hand of poker than
you.”

“Wal, mebbe. Wade, do you play poker?”

“I’d hate to take your money,” replied Wade.

“You needn’t be so all-fired kind about thet. Come over to-night
an’ take some of it. Buster Jack invited himself up to our bunk.
He’s itchin’ fer cards. So we says shore. Blud’s goin’ to sit in.
Now you come an’ make it five-handed.”

“Wouldn’t young Belllounds object to me?”

“What? Buster Jack shy at gamblin’ with you? Not much. He’s a
born gambler. He’d bet with his grandmother an’ he’d cheat the
coppers off a dead nigger’s eyes.”

“Slick with cards, eh?” inquired Wade.

“Naw, Jack’s not slick. But he tries to be. An’ we jest go him
one slicker.”

“Wouldn’t Old Bill object to this card-playin’?”

“He’d be ory-eyed. But, by Golly! we’re not leadin’ Jack astray.
An’ we ain’t hankerin’ to play with him. All the same a little game
is welcome enough.”

“I’ll come over,” replied Wade, and thoughtfully turned
away.

When he presented himself at the ranch-house it was Columbine
who let him in. She was prettily dressed, in a way he had never
seen her before, and his heart throbbed. Her smile, her voice added
to her nameless charm, that seemed to come from the past. Her look
was eager and longing, as if his presence might bring something
welcome to her.

Then the rancher stalked in. “Hullo, Wade! Supper’s ‘most ready.
What’s this trouble you had with Jack? He says he won’t eat with
you.”

“I was offerin’ him advice,” replied Wade.

“What on?”

“Reckon on general principles.”

“Humph! Wal, he told me you harangued him till you was black in
the face, an’–“

“Jack had it wrong. He got black in the face,” interrupted
Wade.

“Did you say he was a spoiled boy an’ thet he was no good an’
was headin’ plumb fer hell?”

“That was a little of what I said,” returned Wade, gently.

“Ahuh! How’d thet come about?” queried Belllounds, gruffly. A
slight stiffening and darkening overcast his face.

Wade then recalled and recounted the remarks that had passed
between him and Jack; and he did not think he missed them very far.
He had a great curiosity to see how Belllounds would take them, and
especially the young man’s scornful rejection of a sincerely
offered friendship. All the time Wade was talking he was aware of
Columbine watching him, and when he finished it was sweet to look
at her.

“Wade, wasn’t you takin’ a lot on yourself?” queried the
rancher, plainly displeased.

“Reckon I was. But my conscience is beholden to no man. If Jack
had met me half-way that would have been better for him. An’ for
me, because I get good out of helpin’ any one.”

His reply silenced Belllounds. No more was said before supper
was announced, and then the rancher seemed taciturn. Columbine did
the serving, and most all of the talking. Wade felt strangely at
ease. Some subtle difference was at work in him, transforming him,
but the moment had not yet come for him to question himself. He
enjoyed the supper. And when he ventured to look up at Columbine,
to see her strong, capable hands and her warm, blue glance, glad
for his presence, sweetly expressive of their common secret and
darker with a shadow of meaning beyond her power to guess, then
Wade felt havoc within him, the strife and pain and joy of the
truth he never could reveal. For he could never reveal his identity
to her without betraying his baseness to her mother. Otherwise, to
hear her call him father would have been earning that happiness
with a lie. Besides, she loved Belllounds as her father, and were
this trouble of the present removed she would grow still closer to
the old man in his declining days. Wade accepted the inevitable,
She must never know. If she might love him it must be as the
stranger who came to her gates, it must be through the mysterious
affinity between them and through the service he meant to
render.

Wade did not linger after the meal was ended despite the fact
that Belllounds recovered his cordiality. It was dark when he went
out. Columbine followed him, talking cheerfully. Once outside she
squeezed his hand and whispered, “How’s Wilson?”

The hunter nodded his reply, and, pausing at the porch step, he
pressed her hand to make his assurance stronger. His reward was
instant. In the bright starlight she stood white and eloquent,
staring down at him with dark, wide eyes.

Presently she whispered: “Oh, my friend! It wants only three
days till October first!”

“Lass, it might be a thousand years for all you need worry,” he
replied, his voice low and full. Then it seemed, as she flung up
her arms, that she was about to embrace him. But her gesture was an
appeal to the stars, to Heaven above, for something she did not
speak.

Wade bade her good night and went his way.

The cowboys and the rancher’s son were about to engage in a game
of poker when Wade entered the dimly lighted, smoke-hazed room.
Montana Jim was sticking tallow candles in the middle of a rude
table; Lem was searching his clothes, manifestly for money; Bludsoe
shuffled a greasy deck of cards, and Jack Belllounds was filling
his pipe before a fire of blazing logs on the hearth.

“Dog-gone it! I hed more money ‘n thet,” complained Lem. “Jim,
you rode to Kremmlin’ last. Did you take my money?”

“Wal, come to think of it, I reckon I did,” replied Jim, in
surprise at the recollection.

“An’ whar’s it now?”

“Pard, I ‘ain’t no idee. I reckon it’s still in Kremmlin’. But
I’ll pay you back.”

“I should smile you will. Pony up now.”

“Bent Wade, did you come over calkilated to git skinned?”
queried Bludsoe.

“Boys, I was playin’ poker tolerable well in Missouri when you
all was nursin’,” replied Wade, imperturbably.

“I heerd he was a card-sharp,” said Jim. “Wal, grab a box or a
chair to set on an’ let’s start. Come along, Jack; you don’t look
as keen to play as usual.”

Belllounds stood with his back to the fire and his manner did
not compare favorably with that of the genial cowboys.

“I prefer to play four-handed,” he said.

This declaration caused a little check in the conversation and
put an end to the amiability. The cowboys looked at one another,
not embarrassed, but just a little taken aback, as if they had
forgotten something that they should have remembered.

“You object to my playin’?” asked Wade, quietly.

“I certainly do,” replied Belllounds.

“Why, may I ask?”

“For all I know, what Montana said about you may be true,”
returned Belllounds, insolently.

Such a remark flung in the face of a Westerner was an insult.
The cowboys suddenly grew stiff, with steady eyes on Wade. He,
however, did not change in the slightest.

“I might be a card-sharp at that,” he replied, coolly. “You
fellows play without me. I’m not carin’ about poker any more. I’ll
look on.”

Thus he carried over the moment that might have been dangerous.
Lem gaped at him; Montana kicked a box forward to sit upon, and his
action was expressive; Bludsoe slammed the cards down on the table
and favored Wade with a comprehending look. Belllounds pulled a
chair up to the table.

“What’ll we make the limit?” asked Jim.

“Two bits,” replied Lem, quickly.

Then began an argument. Belllounds was for a dollar limit. The
cowboys objected.

“Why, Jack, if the ole man got on to us playin’ a dollar limit
he’d fire the outfit,” protested Bludsoe.

This reasonable objection in no wise influenced the old man’s
son. He overruled the good arguments, and then hinted at the
cowboys’ lack of nerve. The fun faded out of their faces. Lem, in
fact, grew red.

“Wal, if we’re agoin’ to gamble, thet’s different,” he said,
with a cold ring in his voice, as he straddled a box and sat down.
“Wade, lemme some money.”

Wade slipped his hand into his pocket and drew forth a goodly
handful of gold, which he handed to the cowboy. Not improbably, if
this large amount had been shown earlier, before the change in the
sentiment, Lem would have looked aghast and begged for mercy. As it
was, he accepted it as if he were accustomed to borrowing that much
every day. Belllounds had rendered futile the easy-going, friendly
advances of the cowboys, as he had made it impossible to play a
jolly little game for fun.

The game began, with Wade standing up, looking on. These boys
did not know what a vast store of poker knowledge lay back of
Wade’s inscrutable eyes. As a boy he had learned the intricacies of
poker in the country where it originated; and as a man he had
played it with piles of yellow coins and guns on the table. His
eagerness to look on here, as far as the cowboys were concerned,
was mere pretense. In Belllounds’s case, however, he had a profound
interest. Rumors had drifted to him from time to time, since his
advent at White Slides, regarding Belllounds’s weakness for
gambling. It might have been cowboy gossip. Wade held that there
was nothing in the West as well calculated to test a boy, to prove
his real character, as a game of poker.

Belllounds was a feverish better, an exultant winner, a poor
loser. His understanding of the game was rudimentary. With him, the
strong feeling beginning to be manifested to Wade was not the fun
of matching wits and luck with his antagonists, nor a desire to
accumulate money–for his recklessness disproved that–but the
liberation of the gambling passion. Wade recognized that when he
met it. And Jack Belllounds was not in any sense big. He was
selfish and grasping in the numberless little ways common to the
game, and positive about his own rights, while doubtful of the
claims of others. His cheating was clumsy and crude. He held out
cards, hiding them in his palm; he shuffled the deck so he left
aces at the bottom, and these he would slip off to himself, and he
was so blind that he could not detect his fellow-player in tricks
as transparent as his own. Wade was amazed and disgusted. The pity
he had felt for Belllounds shifted to the old father, who believed
in his son with stubborn and unquenchable faith.

“Haven’t you got something to drink?” Jack asked of his
companions.

“Nope. Whar’d we git it?” replied Jim.

Belllounds evidently forgot, for presently he repeated the
query. The cowboys shook their heads. Wade knew they were lying,
for they did have liquor in the cabin. It occurred to him, then, to
offer to go to his own cabin for some, just to see what this young
man would say. But he refrained.

The luck went against Belllounds and so did the gambling. He was
not a lamb among wolves, by any means, but the fleecing he got
suggested that. According to Wade he was getting what he deserved.
No cowboys, even such good-natured and fine fellows as these, could
be expected to be subjects for Belllounds’s cupidity. And they won
all he had.

“I’ll borrow,” he said, with feverish impatience. His face was
pale, clammy, yet heated, especially round the swollen bruises; his
eyes stood out, bold, dark, rolling and glaring, full of sullen
fire. But more than anything else his mouth betrayed the weakling,
the born gambler, the self-centered, spoiled, intolerant youth. It
was here his bad blood showed.

“Wal, I ain’t lendin’ money,” replied Lem, as he assorted his
winnings. “Wade, here’s what you staked me, an’ much obliged.”

“I’m out, an’ I can’t lend you any,” said Jim.

Bludsoe had a good share of the profits of that quick game, but
he made no move to lend any of it. Belllounds glared impatiently at
them.

“Hell! you took my money. I’ll have satisfaction,” he broke out,
almost shouting.

“We won it, didn’t we?” rejoined Lem, cool and easy. “An’ you
can have all the satisfaction you want, right now or any time.”

Wade held out a handful of money to Belllounds.

“Here,” he said, with his deep eyes gleaming in the dim room.
Wade had made a gamble with himself, and it was that Belllounds
would not even hesitate to take money.

“Come on, you stingy cowpunchers,” he called out, snatching the
money from Wade. His action then, violent and vivid as it was, did
not reveal any more than his face.

But the cowboys showed amaze, and something more. They fell
straightway to gambling, sharper and fiercer than before, actuated
now by the flaming spirit of this son of Belllounds. Luck,
misleading and alluring, favored Jack for a while, transforming him
until he was radiant, boastful, exultant. Then it changed, as did
his expression. His face grew dark.

“I tell you I want drink,” he suddenly demanded. “I know damn
well you cowpunchers have some here, for I smelled it when I came
in.”

“Jack, we drank the last drop,” replied Jim, who seemed less
stiff than his two bunk-mates.

“I’ve some very old rye,” interposed Wade, looking at Jim, but
apparently addressing all. “Fine stuff, but awful strong an’
hot!… Makes a fellow’s blood dance.”

“Go get it!” Belllounds’s utterance was thick and full, as if he
had something in his mouth.

Wade looked down into the heated face, into the burning eyes;
and through the darkness of passion that brooked no interference
with its fruition he saw this youth’s stark and naked soul. Wade
had seen into the depths of many such abysses.

“See hyar, Wade,” broke in Jim, with his quiet force, “never
mind fetchin’ thet red-hot rye to-night. Some other time, mebbe,
when Jack wants more satisfaction. Reckon we’ve got a drop or so
left.”

“All right, boys,” replied Wade, “I’ll be sayin’ good
night.”

He left them playing and strode out to return to his cabin. The
night was still, cold, starlit, and black in the shadows. A
lonesome coyote barked, to be answered by a wakeful hound. Wade
halted at his porch, and lingered there a moment, peering up at the
gray old peak, bare and star-crowned.

“I’m sorry for the old man,” muttered the hunter, “but I’d see
Jack Belllounds in hell before I’d let Columbine marry him.”

October first was a holiday at White Slides Ranch. It happened
to be a glorious autumn day, with the sunlight streaming gold and
amber over the grassy slopes. Far off the purple ranges loomed
hauntingly.

Wade had come down from Wilson Moore’s cabin, his ears ringing
with the crippled boy’s words of poignant fear.

Fox favored his master with unusually knowing gaze. There was
not going to be any lion-chasing or elk-hunting this day. Something
was in the wind. And Fox, as a privileged dog, manifested his
interest and wonder.

Before noon a buckboard with team of sweating horses halted in
the yard of the ranch-house. Besides the driver it contained two
women whom Belllounds greeted as relatives, and a stranger, a pale
man whose dark garb proclaimed him a minister.

“Come right in, folks,” welcomed Belllounds, with hearty
excitement.

It was Wade who showed the driver where to put the horses.
Strangely, not a cowboy was in sight, an omission of duty the
rancher had noted. Wade might have informed him where they
were.

The door of the big living-room stood open, and from it came the
sound of laughter and voices. Wade, who had returned to his seat on
the end of the porch, listened to them, while his keen gaze seemed
fixed down the lane toward the cabins. How intent must he have been
not to hear Columbine’s step behind him!

“Good morning, Ben,” she said.

Wade wheeled as if internal violence had ordered his
movement.

“Lass, good mornin’,” he replied. “You sure look sweet this
October first–like the flower for which you’re named.”

“My friend, it is October first–my marriage day!”
murmured Columbine.

Wade felt her intensity, and he thrilled to the brave, sweet
resignation of her face. Hope and faith were unquenchable in her,
yet she had fortified herself to the wreck of dreams and love.

“I’d seen you before now, but I had some job with Wils,
persuadin’ him that we’d not have to offer you congratulations yet
awhile,” replied Wade, in his slow, gentle voice.

“Oh!” breathed Columbine.

Wade saw her full breast swell and the leaping blood wave over
her pale face. She bent to him to see his eyes. And for Wade, when
she peered with straining heart and soul, all at once to become
transfigured, that instant was a sweet and all-fulfilling reward
for his years of pain.

“You drive me mad!” she whispered.

The heavy tread of the rancher, like the last of successive
steps of fate in Wade’s tragic expectancy, sounded on the
porch.

“Wal, lass, hyar you are,” he said, with a gladness deep in his
voice. “Now, whar’s the boy?”

“Dad–I’ve not–seen Jack since breakfast,” replied Columbine,
tremulously.

“Sort of a laggard in love on his weddin’-day,” rejoined the
rancher. His gladness and forgetfulness were as big as his heart.
“Wade, have you seen Jack?”

“No–I haven’t,” replied the hunter, with slow, long-drawn
utterance. “But–I see–him now.”

Wade pointed to the figure of Jack Belllounds approaching from
the direction of the cabins. He was not walking straight.

Old man Belllounds shot out his gray head like a striking
eagle.

“What the hell?” he muttered, as if bewildered at this strange,
uneven gait of his son. “Wade, what’s the matter with Jack?”

Wade did not reply. That moment had its sorrow for him as well
as understanding of the wonder expressed by Columbine’s cold little
hand trembling in his.

The rancher suddenly recoiled.

“So help me Gawd–he’s drunk!” he gasped, in a distress that
unmanned him.

Then the parson and the invited relatives came out upon the
porch, with gay voices and laughter that suddenly stilled when old
Belllounds cried, brokenly: “Lass–go–in–the house.”

But Columbine did not move, and Wade felt her shaking as she
leaned against him.

The bridegroom approached. Drunk indeed he was; not hilariously,
as one who celebrated his good fortune, but sullenly, tragically,
hideously drunk.

Old Belllounds leaped off the porch. His gray hair stood up like
the mane of a lion. Like a giant’s were his strides. With a lunge
he met his reeling son, swinging a huge fist into the sodden red
face. Limply Jack fell to the ground.

“Lay there, you damned prodigal!” he roared, terrible in his
rage. “You disgrace me–an’ you disgrace the girl who’s been a
daughter to me!… if you ever have another weddin’-day it’ll not
be me who sets it!”

CHAPTER XII

November was well advanced before there came indications that
winter was near at hand.

One morning, when Wade rode up to Moore’s cabin, the whole world
seemed obscured in a dense gray fog, through which he could not see
a rod ahead of him. Later, as he left, the fog had lifted
shoulder-high to the mountains, and was breaking to let the blue
sky show. Another morning it was worse, and apparently thicker and
grayer. As Wade climbed the trail up toward the mountain-basin,
where he hunted most these days, he expected the fog to lift. But
it did not. The trail under the hoofs of the horse was scarcely
perceptible to him, and he seemed lost in a dense, gray, soundless
obscurity.

Suddenly Wade emerged from out the fog into brilliant sunshine.
In amaze he halted. This phenomenon was new to him. He was high up
on the mountain-side, the summit of which rose clear-cut and bold
into the sky. Below him spread what resembled a white sea. It was
an immense cloud-bank, filling all the valleys as if with creamy
foam or snow, soft, thick, motionless, contrasting vividly with the
blue sky above. Old White Slides stood out, gray and bleak and
brilliant, as if it were an island rock in a rolling sea of fleece.
Far across this strange, level cloud-floor rose the black line of
the range. Wade watched the scene with a kind of rapture. He was
alone on the heights. There was not a sound. The winds were
stilled. But there seemed a mighty being awake all around him, in
the presence of which Wade felt how little were his sorrows and
hopes.

Another day brought dull-gray scudding clouds, and gusts of wind
and squalls of rain, and a wailing through the bare aspens. It grew
colder and bleaker and darker. Rain changed to sleet and sleet to
snow. That night brought winter.

Next morning, when Wade plodded up to Moore’s cabin, it was
through two feet of snow. A beautiful glistening white mantle
covered valley and slope and mountain, transforming all into a
world too dazzlingly brilliant for the unprotected gaze of man.

When Wade pushed open the door of the cabin and entered he
awakened the cowboy.

“Mornin’, Wils,” drawled Wade, as he slapped the snow from boots
and legs. “Summer has gone, winter has come, an’ the flowers lay in
their graves! How are you, boy?”

Moore had grown paler and thinner during his long confinement in
bed. A weary shade shone in his face and a shadow of pain in his
eyes. But the spirit of his smile was the same as always.

“Hello, Bent, old pard!” replied Moore. “I guess I’m fine.
Nearly froze last night. Didn’t sleep much.”

“Well, I was worried about that,” said the hunter. “We’ve got to
arrange things somehow.”

“I heard it snowing. Gee! how the wind howled! And I’m snowed
in?”

“Sure are. Two feet on a level. It’s good I snaked down a lot of
fire-wood. Now I’ll set to work an’ cut it up an’ stack it round
the cabin. Reckon I’d better sleep up here with you, Wils.”

“Won’t Old Bill make a kick?”

“Let him kick. But I reckon he doesn’t need to know anythin’
about it. It is cold in here. Well, I’ll soon warm it up…. Here’s
some letters Lem got at Kremmlin’ the other day. You read while I
rustle some grub for you.”

Moore scanned the addresses on the several envelopes and
sighed.

“From home! I hate to read them.”

“Why?” queried Wade.

“Oh, because when I wrote I didn’t tell them I was hurt. I feel
like a liar.”

“It’s just as well, Wils, because you swear you’ll not go
home.”

“Me? I should smile not…. Bent–I–I–hoped Collie might
answer the note you took her from me.”

“Not yet. Wils, give the lass time.”

“Time? Heavens! it’s three weeks and more.”

“Go ahead an’ read your letters or I’ll knock you on the head
with one of these chunks,” ordered Wade, mildly.

The hunter soon had the room warm and cheerful, with steaming
breakfast on the red-hot coals. Presently, when he made ready to
serve Moore, he was surprised to find the boy crying over one of
the letters.

“Wils, what’s the trouble?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing. I–I–just feel bad, that’s all,” replied
Moore.

“Ahuh! So it seems. Well, tell me about it?”

“Pard, my father–has forgiven me.”

“The old son-of-a-gun! Good! What for? You never told me you’d
done anythin’.”

“I know–but I did–do a lot. I was sixteen then. We quarreled.
And I ran off up here to punch cows. But after a while I wrote home
to mother and my sister. Since then they’ve tried to coax me to
come home. This letter’s from the old man himself. Gee!… Well, he
says he’s had to knuckle. That he’s ready to forgive me. But I must
come home and take charge of his ranch. Isn’t that great?… Only I
can’t go. And I couldn’t–I couldn’t ever ride a horse again–if I
did go.”

“Who says you couldn’t?” queried Wade. “I never said so. I only
said you’d never be a bronco-bustin’ cowboy again. Well, suppose
you’re not? You’ll be able to ride a little, if I can save that
leg…. Boy, your letter is damn good news. I’m sure glad. That
will make Collie happy.”

The cowboy had a better appetite that morning, which fact
mitigated somewhat the burden of Wade’s worry. There was burden
enough, however, and Wade had set this day to make important
decisions about Moore’s injured foot. He had dreaded to remove the
last dressing because conditions at that time had been unimproved.
He had done all he could to ward off the threatened gangrene.

“Wils, I’m goin’ to look at your foot an’ tell you things,”
declared Wade, when the dreaded time could be put off no
longer.

“Go ahead…. And, pard, if you say my leg has to be cut
off–why just pass me my gun!”

The cowboy’s voice was gay and bantering, but his eyes were
alight with a spirit that frightened the hunter.

“Ahuh!… I know how you feel. But, boy, I’d rather live with
one leg an’ be loved by Collie Belllounds than have nine legs for
some other lass.”

Wilson Moore groaned his helplessness.

“Damn you, Bent Wade! You always say what kills me!… Of course
I would!”

“Well, lie quiet now, an’ let me look at this poor, messed-up
foot.”

Wade’s deft fingers did not work with the usual precision and
speed natural to them. But at last Moore’s injured member lay bare,
discolored and misshapen. The first glance made the hunter quicker
in his movements, closer in his scrutiny. Then he yelled his
joy.

“Boy, it’s better! No sign of gangrene! We’ll save your
leg!”

“Pard, I never feared I’d lose that. All I’ve feared was that
I’d be club-footed…. Let me look,” replied the cowboy, and he
raised himself on his elbow. Wade lifted the unsightly foot.

“My God, it’s crooked!” cried Moore, passionately. “Wade, it’s
healed. It’ll stay that way always! I can’t move it!… Oh, but
Buster Jack’s ruined me!”

The hunter pushed him back with gentle hands. “Wils, it might
have been worse.”

“But I never gave up hope,” replied Moore, in poignant grief. “I
couldn’t. But now!… How can you look at that–that
club-foot, and not swear?”

“Well, well, boy, cussin’ won’t do any good. Now lay still an’
let me work. You’ve had lots of good news this mornin’. So I think
you can stand to hear a little bad news.”

“What! Bad news?” queried Moore, with a start.

“I reckon. Now listen…. The reason Collie hasn’t answered your
note is because she’s been sick in bed for three weeks.”

“Oh no!” exclaimed the cowboy, in amaze and distress.

“Yes, an’ I’m her doctor,” replied Wade, with pride. “First off
they had Mrs. Andrews. An’ Collie kept askin’ for me. She was out
of her head, you know. An’ soon as I took charge she got
better.”

“Heavens! Collie ill and you never told me!” cried Moore. “I
can’t believe it. She’s so healthy and strong. What ailed her,
Bent?”

“Well, Mrs. Andrews said it was nervous breakdown. An’ Old Bill
was afraid of consumption. An’ Jack Belllounds swore she was only
shammin’.”

The cowboy cursed violently.

“Here–I won’t tell you any more if you’re goin’ to cuss that
way an’ jerk around,” protested Wade.

“I–I’ll shut up,” appealed Moore.

“Well, that puddin’-head Jack is more’n you called him, if you
care to hear my opinion…. Now, Wils, the fact is that none of
them know what ails Collie. But I know. She’d been under a high
strain leadin’ up to October first. An’ the way that weddin’-day
turned out–with Old Bill layin’ Jack cold, an’ with no marriage at
all–why, Collie had a shock. An’ after that she seemed pale an’
tired all the time an’ she didn’t eat right. Well, when Buster Jack
got over that awful punch he’d got from the old man he made up to
Collie harder than ever. She didn’t tell me then, but I saw it. An’
she couldn’t avoid him, except by stayin’ in her room, which she
did a good deal. Then Jack showed a streak of bein’ decent. He
surprised everybody, even Collie. He delighted Old Bill. But he
didn’t pull the wool over my eyes. He was like a boy spoilin’ for a
new toy, an’ he got crazy over Collie. He’s sure terribly in love
with her, an’ for days he behaved himself in a way calculated to
make up for his drinkin’ too much. It shows he can behave himself
when he wants to. I mean he can control his temper an’ impulse.
Anyway, he made himself so good that Old Bill changed his mind,
after what he swore that day, an’ set another day for the weddin’.
Right off, then, Collie goes down on her back…. They didn’t send
for me very soon. But when I did get to see her, an’ felt the way
she grabbed me–as if she was drownin’–then I knew what ailed her.
It was love.”

“Love!” gasped Moore, breathlessly.

“Sure. Jest love for a dog-gone lucky cowboy named Wils
Moore!… Her heart was breakin’, an’ she’d have died but for me!
Don’t imagine, Wils, that people can’t die of broken hearts. They
do. I know. Well, all Collie needed was me, an’ I cured her ravin’
and made her eat, an’ now she’s comin’ along fine.”

“Wade, I’ve believed in Heaven since you came down to White
Slides,” burst out Moore, with shining eyes. “But tell me–what did
you tell her?”

“Well, my particular medicine first off was to whisper in her
ear that she’d never have to marry Jack Belllounds. An’ after that
I gave her daily doses of talk about you.”

“Pard! She loves me–still?” he whispered.

“Wils, hers is the kind that grows stronger with time. I
know.”

Moore strained in his intensity of emotion, and he clenched his
fists and gritted his teeth.

“Oh God! this’s hard on me!” he cried. “I’m a man. I love that
girl more than life. And to know she’s suffering for love of
me–for fear of that marriage being forced upon her–to know that
while I lie here a helpless cripple–it’s almost unbearable.”

“Boy, you’ve got to mend now. We’ve the best of hope now–for
you–for her–for everythin’.”

“Wade, I think I love you, too,” said the cowboy. “You’re saving
me from madness. Somehow I have faith in you–to do whatever you
want. But how could you tell Collie she’d never have to marry
Buster Jack?”

“Because I know she never will,” replied Wade, with his slow,
gentle smile.

“You know that?”

“Sure.”

“How on earth can you prevent it? Belllounds will never give up
planning that marriage for his son. Jack will nag Collie till she
can’t call her soul her own. Between them they will wear her down.
My friend, how can you prevent it?”

“Wils, fact is, I haven’t reckoned out how I’m goin’ to save
Collie. But that’s no matter. Sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof. I will do it. You can gamble on me, Wils. You must use
that hope an’ faith to help you get well. For we mustn’t forget
that you’re in more danger than Collie.”

“I will gamble on you–my life–my very soul,” replied
Moore, fervently. “By Heaven! I’ll be the man I might have been.
I’ll rise out of despair. I’ll even reconcile myself to being a
cripple.”

“An’, Wils, will you rise above hate?” asked Wade, softly.

“Hate! Hate of whom?”

“Jack Belllounds.”

The cowboy stared, and his lean, pale face contracted.

“Pard, you wouldn’t–you couldn’t expect me to–to forgive
him?”

“No. I reckon not. But you needn’t hate him. I don’t. An’ I
reckon I’ve some reason, more than you could guess…. Wils, hate
is a poison in the blood. It’s worse for him who feels it than for
him against whom it rages. I know…. Well, if you put thought of
Jack out of your mind–quit broodin’ over what he did to you–an’
realize that he’s not to blame, you’ll overcome your hate. For the
son of Old Bill is to be pitied. Yes, Jack Belllounds needs pity.
He was ruined before he was born. He never should have been born.
An’ I want you to understand that, an’ stop hatin’ him. Will you
try?”

“Wade, you’re afraid I’ll kill him?” whispered Moore.

“Sure. That’s it. I’m afraid you might. An’ consider how hard
that would be for Columbine. She an’ Jack were raised sister an’
brother, almost. It would be hard on her. You see, Collie has a
strange an’ powerful sense of duty to Old Bill. If you killed Jack
it would likely kill the old man, an’ Collie would suffer all her
life. You couldn’t cure her of that. You want her to be happy.”

“I do–I do. Wade, I swear I’ll never kill Buster Jack. And for
Collie’s sake I’ll try not to hate him.”

“Well, that’s fine. I’m sure glad to hear you promise that. Now
I’ll go out an’ chop some wood. We mustn’t let the fire go out any
more.”

“Pard, I’ll write another note–a letter to Collie. Hand me the
blank-book there. And my pencil…. And don’t hurry with the
wood.”

Wade went outdoors with his two-bladed ax and shovel. The
wood-pile was a great mound of snow. He cleaned a wide space and a
path to the side of the cabin. Working in snow was not unpleasant
for him. He liked the cleanness, the whiteness, the absolute purity
of new-fallen snow. The air was crisp and nipping, the frost
crackled under his feet, the smoke from his pipe seemed no thicker
than the steam from his breath, the ax rang on the hard aspens.
Wade swung this implement like a born woodsman. The chips flew and
the dead wood smelled sweet. Some logs he chopped into three-foot
pieces; others he chopped and split. When he tired a little of
swinging the ax he carried the cut pieces to the cabin and stacked
them near the door. Now and then he would halt a moment to gaze
away across the whitened slopes and rolling hills. The sense of his
physical power matched something within, and his heart warmed with
more than the vigorous exercise.

When he had worked thus for about two hours and had stacked a
pile of wood almost as large as the cabin he considered it
sufficient for the day. So he went indoors. Moore was so busily and
earnestly writing that he did not hear Wade come in. His face wore
an eloquent glow.

“Say, Wils, are you writin’ a book?” he inquired.

“Hello! Sure I am. But I’m ‘most done now…. If Columbine
doesn’t answer this …”

“By the way, I’ll have two letters to give her, then–for I
never gave her the first one,” replied Wade.

“You son-of-a-gun!”

“Well, hurry along, boy. I’ll be goin’ now. Here’s a pole I’ve
fetched in. You keep it there, where you can reach it, an’ when the
fire needs more wood you roll one of these logs on. I’ll be up
to-night before dark, an’ if I don’t fetch you a letter it’ll be
because I can’t persuade Collie to write.”

“Pard, if you bring me a letter I’ll obey you–I’ll lie
still–I’ll sleep–I’ll stand anything.”

“Ahuh! Then I’ll fetch one,” replied Wade, as he took the little
book and deposited it in his pocket. “Good-by, now, an’ think of
your good news that come with the snow.”

“Good-by, Heaven-Sent Hell-Bent Wade!” called Moore. “It’s no
joke of a name any more. It’s a fact.”

Wade plodded down through the deep snow, stepping in his old
tracks, and as he toiled on his thoughts were deep and comforting.
He was thinking that if he had his life to live over again he would
begin at once to find happiness in other people’s happiness. Upon
arriving at his cabin he set to work cleaning a path to the dog
corral. The snow had drifted there and he had no easy task. It was
well that he had built an inclosed house for the hounds to winter
in. Such a heavy snow as this one would put an end to hunting for
the time being. The ranch had ample supply of deer, bear, and elk
meat, all solidly frozen this morning, that would surely keep well
until used. Wade reflected that his tasks round the ranch would be
feeding hounds and stock, chopping wood, and doing such chores as
came along in winter-time. The pack of hounds, which he had thinned
out to a smaller number, would be a care on his hands. Kane had
become a much-prized possession of Columbine’s and lived at the
house, where he had things his own way, and always greeted Wade
with a look of disdain and distrust. Kane would never forgive the
hand that had hurt him. Sampson and Jim and Fox, of course, shared
Wade’s cabin, and vociferously announced his return.

Early in the afternoon Wade went down to the ranch-house. The
snow was not so deep there, having blown considerably in the open
places. Some one was pounding iron in the blacksmith shop; horses
were cavorting in the corrals; cattle were bawling round the
hay-ricks in the barn-yard.

The hunter knocked on Columbine’s door.

“Come in,” she called.

Wade entered, to find her alone. She was sitting up in bed,
propped up with pillows, and she wore a warm, woolly jacket or
dressing-gown. Her paleness was now marked, and the shadows under
her eyes made them appear large and mournful.

“Ben Wade, you don’t care for me any more!” she exclaimed,
reproachfully.

“Why not, lass?” he asked.

“You were so long in coming,” she replied, now with petulance.
“I guess now I don’t want you at all.”

“Ahuh! That’s the reward of people who worry an’ work for
others. Well, then, I reckon I’ll go back an’ not give you what I
brought.”

He made a pretense of leaving, and he put a hand to his pocket
as if to insure the safety of some article. Columbine blushed. She
held out her hands. She was repentant of her words and curious as
to his.

“Why, Ben Wade, I count the minutes before you come,” she said.
“What’d you bring me?”

“Who’s been in here?” he asked, going forward. “That’s a poor
fire. I’ll have to fix it.”

“Mrs. Andrews just left. It was good of her to drive up. She
came in the sled, she said. Oh, Ben, it’s winter. There was snow on
my bed when I woke up. I think I am better to-day. Jack hasn’t been
in here yet!”

At this Wade laughed, and Columbine followed suit.

“Well, you look a little sassy to-day, which I take is a good
sign,” said Wade. “I’ve got some news that will come near to makin’
you well.”

“Oh, tell it quick!” she cried.

“Wils won’t lose his leg. It’s gettin’ well. An’ there was a
letter from his father, forgivin’ him for somethin’ he never told
me.”

“My prayers were answered!” whispered Columbine, and she closed
her eyes tight.

“An’ his father wants him to come home to run the ranch,” went
on Wade.

“Oh!” Her eyes popped open with sudden fright. “But he can’t–he
won’t go?”

“I reckon not. He wouldn’t if he could. But some day he will,
an’ take you home with him.”

Columbine covered her face with her hands, and was silent a
moment.

“Such prophecies! They–they–” She could not conclude.

“Ahuh! I know. The strange fact is, lass, that they all come
true. I wish I had all happy ones, instead of them black, croakin’
ones that come like ravens…. Well, you’re better to-day?”

“Yes. Oh yes. Ben, what have you got for me?”

“You’re in an awful hurry. I want to talk to you, an’ if I show
what I’ve got then there will be no talkin’. You say Jack hasn’t
been in to-day?”

“Not yet, thank goodness.”

“How about Old Bill?”

“Ben, you never call him my dad. I wish you would. When you
don’t it always reminds me that he’s really not my
dad.”

“Ahuh! Well, well!” replied Wade, with his head bowed. “It is
just queer I can never remember…. An’ how was he to-day?”

“For a wonder he didn’t mention poor me. He was full of talk
about going to Kremmling. Means to take Jack along. Do you know,
Ben, dad can’t fool me. He’s afraid to leave Jack here alone with
me. So dad talked a lot about selling stock an’ buying supplies,
and how he needed Jack to go, and so forth. I’m mighty glad he
means to take him. But my! won’t Jack be sore.”

“I reckon. It’s time he broke out.”

“And now, dear Ben–what have you got for me? I know it’s from
Wilson,” she coaxed.

“Lass, would you give much for a little note from Wils?” asked
Wade, teasingly.

“Would I? When I’ve been hoping and praying for just that!”

“Well, if you’d give so much for a note, how much would you give
me for a whole bookful that took Wils two hours to write?”

“Ben! Oh, I’d–I’d give–” she cried, wild with delight. “I’d
kiss you!”

“You mean it?” he queried, waving the book aloft.

“Mean it? Come here!”

There was fun in this for Wade, but also a deep and beautiful
emotion that quivered through him. Bending over her, he placed the
little book in her hand. He did not see clearly, then, as she
pulled him lower and kissed him on the cheek, generously, with
sweet, frank gratitude and affection.

Moments strong and all-satisfying had been multiplying for Bent
Wade of late. But this one magnified all. As he sat back upon the
chair he seemed a little husky of voice.

“Well, well, an’ so you kissed ugly old Bent Wade?”

“Yes, and I’ve wanted to do it before,” she retorted. The dark
excitation in her eyes, the flush of her pale cheeks, made her
beautiful then.

“Lass, now you read your letter an’ answer it. You can tear out
the pages. I’ll sit here an’ be makin’ out to be readin’ aloud out
of this book here, if any one happens in sudden-like!”

“Oh, how you think of everything!”

The hunter sat beside her pretending to be occupied with the
book he had taken from the table when really he was stealing
glances at her face. Indeed, she was more than pretty then. Illness
and pain had enhanced the sweetness of her expression. As she read
on it was manifest that she had forgotten the hunter’s presence.
She grew pink, rosy, scarlet, radiant. And Wade thrilled with her
as she thrilled, loved her more and more as she loved. Moore must
have written words of enchantment. Wade’s hungry heart suffered a
pang of jealousy, but would not harbor it. He read in her perusal
of that letter what no other dreamed of, not even the girl herself;
and it was certitude of tragic and brief life for her if she could
not live for Wilson Moore. Those moments of watching her were
unutterably precious to Wade. He saw how some divine guidance had
directed his footsteps to this home. How many years had it taken
him to get there! Columbine read and read and reread–a girl with
her first love-letter. And for Wade, with his keen eyes that seemed
to see the senses and the soul, there shone something infinite
through her rapture. Never until that unguarded moment had he
divined her innocence, nor had any conception been given him of the
exquisite torture of her maiden fears or the havoc of love fighting
for itself. He learned then much of the mystery and meaning of a
woman’s heart.

CHAPTER XIII

Dear Wilson,–The note and letter from you have taken
my breath away. I couldn’t tell–I wouldn’t dare tell, how they
made me feel.

“Your good news fills me with joy. And when Ben told me you
wouldn’t lose your leg–that you would get well–then my eyes
filled and my heart choked me, and I thanked God, who’d answered my
prayers. After all the heartache and dread, it’s so wonderful to
find things not so terrible as they seemed. Oh, I am thankful! You
have only to take care of yourself now, to lie patiently and wait,
and obey Ben, and soon the time will have flown by and you will be
well again. Maybe, after all, your foot will not be so bad. Maybe
you can ride again, if not so wonderfully as before, then well
enough to ride on your father’s range and look after his stock.
For, Wilson dear, you’ll have to go home. It’s your duty. Your
father must be getting old now. He needs you. He has forgiven
you–you bad boy! And you are very lucky. It almost kills me to
think of your leaving White Slides. But that is selfish. I’m going
to learn to be like Ben Wade. He never thinks of himself.

“Rest assured, Wilson, that I will never marry Jack Belllounds. It
seems years since that awful October first. I gave my word then,
and I would have lived up to it. But I’ve changed. I’m older. I see
things differently. I love dad as well. I feel as sorry for Jack
Belllounds. I still think I might help him. I still believe in my
duty to his father. But I can’t marry him. It would be a sin. I
have no right to marry a man whom I do not love. When it comes to
thought of his touching me, then I hate him. Duty toward dad is one
thing, and I hold it high, but that is not reason enough for a
woman to give herself. Some duty to myself is higher than that.
It’s hard for me to tell you–for me to understand. Love of you has
opened my eyes. Still I don’t think it’s love of you that makes me
selfish. I’m true to something in me that I never knew before. I
could marry Jack, loving you, and utterly sacrifice myself, if it
were right. But it would be wrong. I never realized this until you
kissed me. Since then the thought of anything that approaches
personal relations–any hint of intimacy with Jack fills me with
disgust.

“So I’m not engaged to Jack Belllounds, and I’m never going to be.
There will be trouble here. I feel it. I see it coming. Dad keeps
at me persistently. He grows older. I don’t think he’s failing, but
then there’s a loss of memory, and an almost childish obsession in
regard to the marriage he has set his heart on. Then his passion
for Jack seems greater as he learns little by little that Jack is
not all he might be. Wilson, I give you my word; I believe if dad
ever really sees Jack as I see him or you see him, then something
dreadful will happen. In spite of everything dad still believes in
Jack. It’s beautiful and terrible. That’s one reason why I’ve
wanted to help Jack. Well, it’s not to be. Every day, every hour,
Jack Belllounds grows farther from me. He and his father will try
to persuade me to consent to this marriage. They may even try to
force me. But in that way I’ll be as hard and as cold as Old White
Slides. No! Never! For the rest, I’ll do my duty to dad. I’ll stick
to him. I could not engage myself to you, no matter how much I love
you. And that’s more every minute!… So don’t mention taking me to
your home–don’t ask me again. Please, Wilson; your asking shook my
very soul! Oh, how sweet that would be–your wife!… But if dad
turns me away–I don’t think he would. Yet he’s so strange and like
iron for all concerning Jack. If ever he turned me out I’d have no
home. I’m a waif, you know. Then–then, Wilson … Oh, it’s
horrible to be in the position I’m in. I won’t say any more. You’ll
understand, dear.

“It’s your love that awoke me, and it’s Ben Wade who has saved me.
Wilson, I love him almost as I do dad, only strangely. Do you know
I believe he had something to do with Jack getting drunk that awful
October first. I don’t mean Ben would stoop to get Jack drunk. But
he might have cunningly put that opportunity in Jack’s way. Drink
is Jack’s weakness, as gambling is his passion. Well, I know that
the liquor was some fine old stuff which Ben gave to the cowboys.
And it’s significant now how Jack avoids Ben. He hates him. He’s
afraid of him. He’s jealous because Ben is so much with me. I’ve
heard Jack rave to dad about this. But dad is just to others, if he
can’t be to his son.

“And so I want you to know that it’s Ben Wade who has saved me.
Since I’ve been sick I’ve learned more of Ben. He’s like a woman.
He understands. I never have to tell him anything. You, Wilson,
were sometimes stupid or stubborn (forgive me) about little things
that girls feel but can’t explain. Ben knows. I tell you this
because I want you to understand how and why I love him. I think I
love him most for his goodness to you. Dear boy, if I hadn’t loved
you before Ben Wade came I’d have fallen in love with you since,
just listening to his talk of you. But this will make you
conceited. So I’ll go on about Ben. He’s our friend. Why, Wilson,
that sweetness, softness, gentleness about him, the heart that
makes him love us, that must be only the woman in him. I don’t know
what a mother would feel like, but I do know that I seem strangely
happier since I’ve confessed my troubles to this man. It was Lem
who told me how Ben offered to be a friend to Jack. And Jack
flouted him. I’ve a queer notion that the moment Jack did this he
turned his back on a better life.

“To repeat, then, Ben Wade is our friend, and to me something more
that I’ve tried to explain. Maybe telling you this will make you
think more of him and listen to his advice. I hope so. Did any boy
and girl ever before so need a friend? I need that something he
instils in me. If I lost it I’d be miserable. And, Wilson, I’m such
a coward. I’m so weak. I have such sinkings and burnings and
tossings. Oh, I’m only a woman! But I’ll die fighting. That is what
Ben Wade instils into me. While there was life this strange little
man would never give up hope. He makes me feel that he knows more
than he tells. Through him I shall get the strength to live up to
my convictions, to be true to myself, to be faithful to you.

“With love,
     “COLUMBINE.”

“December 3d.

“DEAREST COLLIE,–Your last was only a note, and I told Wade if he
didn’t fetch more than a note next time there would be trouble
round this bunk-house. And then he brought your letter!

“I’m feeling exuberant (I think it’s that) to-day. First time I’ve
been up. Collie, I’m able to get up! WHOOPEE! I walk with a crutch,
and don’t dare put my foot down. Not that it hurts, but that my
boss would have a fit! I’m glad you’ve stopped heaping praise upon
our friend Ben. Because now I can get over my jealousy and be half
decent. He’s the whitest man I ever knew.

“Now listen, Collie. I’ve had ideas lately. I’ve begun to eat and
get stronger and to feel good. The pain is gone. And to think I
swore to Wade I’d forgive Jack Belllounds and never hate him–or
kill him!… There, that’s letting the cat out of the bag, and it’s
done now. But no matter. The truth is, though, that I never could
stop hating Jack while the pain lasted. Now I could shake hands
with him and smile at him.

“Well, as I said, I’ve ideas. They’re great. Grab hold of the
pommel now so you won’t get thrown! I’m going to pitch!… When I
get well–able to ride and go about, which Ben says will be in the
spring–I’ll send for my father to come to White Slides. He’ll
come. Then I’ll tell him everything, and if Ben and I can’t win him
to our side then you can. Father never could resist you.
When he has fallen in love with you, which won’t take long, then
we’ll go to old Bill Belllounds and lay the case before him. Are
you still in the saddle, Collie?

“Well, if you are, be sure to get a better hold, for I’m going to
run some next. Ben Wade approved of my plan. He says Belllounds can
be brought to reason. He says he can make him see the ruin for
everybody were you forced to marry Jack. Strange, Collie, how Wade
included himself with, you, me, Jack, and the old man, in the
foreshadowed ruin! Wade is as deep as the cañon there.
Sometimes when he’s thoughtful he gives me a creepy feeling. At
others, when he comes out with one of his easy, cool assurances
that we are all right–that we will get each other–why, then
something grim takes possession of me. I believe him, I’m happy,
but there crosses my mind a fleeting realization–not of what our
friend is now, but what he has been. And it disturbs me, chills me.
I don’t understand it. For, Collie, though I understand your
feeling of what he is, I don’t understand mine. You see, I’m a man.
I’ve been a cowboy for ten years and more. I’ve seen some hard
experiences and worked with a good many rough boys and men.
Cowboys, Indians, Mexicans, miners, prospectors, ranchers,
hunters–some of whom were bad medicine. So I’ve come to see men as
you couldn’t see them. And Bent Wade has been everything a man
could be. He seems all men in one. And despite all his kindness and
goodness and hopefulness, there is the sense I have of something
deadly and terrible and inevitable in him.

“It makes my heart almost stop beating to know I have this man on
my side. Because I sense in him the man element, the physical–oh,
I can’t put it in words, but I mean something great in him that
can’t be beaten. What he says must come true!… And so I’ve
already begun to dream and to think of you as my wife. If you ever
are–no! when you are, then I will owe it to Bent Wade. No
man ever owed another for so precious a gift. But, Collie, I can’t
help a little vague dread–of what, I don’t know, unless it’s a
sense of the possibilities of Hell–Bent Wade…. Dearest, I don’t
want to worry you or frighten you, and I can’t follow out my own
gloomy fancies. Don’t you mind too much what I think. Only you must
realize that Wade is the greatest factor in our hopes of the
future. My faith in him is so unshakable that it’s foolish. Next to
you I love him best. He seems even dearer to me than my own people.
He has made me look at life differently. Likewise he has inspired
you. But you, dearest Columbine, are only a sensitive, delicate
girl, a frail and tender thing like the columbine flowers of the
hills. And for your own sake you must not be blind to what Wade is
capable of. If you keep on loving him and idealizing him, blind to
what has made him great, that is, blind to the tragic side of him,
then if he did something terrible here for you and for me the shock
would be bad for you. Lord knows I have no suspicions of Wade. I
have no clear ideas at all. But I do know that for you he would not
stop at anything. He loves you as much as I do, only differently.
Such power a pale, sweet-faced girl has over the lives of men!

“Good-by for this time.

“Faithfully,
     “WILSON.”

“January 10th.

“DEAR WILSON,–In every letter I tell you I’m better! Why, pretty
soon there’ll be nothing left to say about my health. I’ve been up
and around now for days, but only lately have I begun to gain.
Since Jack has been away I’m getting fat. I eat, and that’s one
reason I suppose. Then I move around more.

“You ask me to tell you all I do. Goodness! I couldn’t and I
wouldn’t. You are getting mighty bossy since you’re able to hobble
around, as you call it. But you can’t boss me! However, I’ll
be nice and tell you a little. I don’t work very much. I’ve helped
dad with his accounts, all so hopelessly muddled since he let Jack
keep the books. I read a good deal. Your letters are worn out!
Then, when it snows, I sit by the window and watch. I love to see
the snowflakes fall, so fleecy and white and soft! But I don’t like
the snowy world after the storm has passed. I shiver and hug the
fire. I must have Indian in me. On moonlit nights to look out at
Old White Slides, so cold and icy and grand, and over the white
hills and ranges, makes me shudder. I don’t know why. It’s all
beautiful. But it seems to me like death…. Well, I sit idly a lot
and think of you and how terribly big my love has grown, and …
but that’s all about that!

“As you know, Jack has been gone since before New Year’s Day. He
said he was going to Kremmling. But dad heard he went to Elgeria.
Well, I didn’t tell you that dad and Jack quarreled over money.
Jack kept up his good behavior for so long that I actually believed
he’d changed for the better. He kept at me, not so much on the
marriage question, but to love him. Wilson, he nearly drove me
frantic with his lovemaking. Finally I got mad and I pitched into
him. Oh, I convinced him! Then he came back to his own self again.
Like a flash he was Buster Jack once more. “You can go to hell!” he
yelled at me. And such a look!… Well, he went out, and that’s
when he quarreled with dad. It was about money. I couldn’t help but
hear some of it. I don’t know whether or not dad gave Jack money,
but I think he didn’t. Anyway, Jack went.

“Dad was all right for a few days. Really, he seemed nicer and
kinder for Jack’s absence. Then all at once he sank into the
glooms. I couldn’t cheer him up. When Ben Wade came in after supper
dad always got him to tell some of those terrible stories. You know
what perfectly terrible stories Ben can tell. Well, dad had to hear
the worst ones. And poor me, I didn’t want to listen, but I
couldn’t resist. Ben can tell stories. And oh, what he’s
lived through!

“I got the idea it wasn’t Jack’s absence so much that made dad sit
by the hour before the fire, staring at the coals, sighing, and
looking so God-forsaken. My heart just aches for dad. He broods and
broods. He’ll break out some day, and then I don’t want to be here.
There doesn’t seem to be any idea when Jack will come home. He
might never come. But Ben says he will. He says Jack hates work and
that he couldn’t be gambler enough or wicked enough to support
himself without working. Can’t you hear Ben Wade say that? ‘I’ll
tell you,’ he begins, and then comes a prophecy of trouble or evil.
And, on the other hand, think how he used to say: ‘Wait! Don’t give
up! Nothin’ is ever so bad as it seems at first! Be true to what
your heart says is right! It’s never too late! Love is the only
good in life! Love each other and wait and trust! It’ll all come
right in the end!’… And, Wilson, I’m bound to confess that both
his sense of calamity and his hope of good seem infallible. Ben
Wade is supernatural. Sometimes, just for a moment, I dare to let
myself believe in what he says–that our dream will come true and
I’ll be yours. Then oh! oh! oh! joy and stars and bells and heaven!
I–I … But what am I writing? Wilson Moore, this is quite
enough for to-day. Take care you don’t believe I’m so–so
very much in love.

“Ever,
     “COLUMBINE.”

“February —-.

“DEAREST COLLIE,–I don’t know the date, but spring’s coming.
To-day I kicked Bent Wade with my once sore foot. It didn’t hurt
me, but hurt Wade’s feelings. He says there’ll be no holding me
soon. I should say not. I’ll eat you up. I’m as hungry as the
mountain-lion that’s been prowling round my cabin of nights. He’s
sure starved. Wade tracked him to a hole in the cliff.

“Collie, I can get around first rate. Don’t need my crutch any
more. I can make a fire and cook a meal. Wade doesn’t think so, but
I do. He says if I want to hold your affection, not to let you eat
anything I cook. I can rustle around, too. Haven’t been far yet. My
stock has wintered fairly well. This valley is sheltered, you know.
Snow hasn’t been too deep. Then I bought hay from Andrews. I’m
hoping for spring now, and the good old sunshine on the gray sage
hills. And summer, with its columbines! Wade has gone back to his
own cabin to sleep. I miss him. But I’m glad to have the nights
alone once more. I’ve got a future to plan! Read that over,
Collie.

“To-day, when Wade came with your letter, he asked me, sort of
queer, ‘Say, Wils, do you know how many letters I’ve fetched you
from Collie?’ I said, ‘Lord, no, I don’t, but they’re a lot.’ Then
he said there were just forty-seven letters. Forty-seven! I
couldn’t believe it, and told him he was crazy. I never had such
good fortune. Well, he made me count them, and, dog-gone it, he was
right. Forty-seven wonderful love-letters from the sweetest girl on
earth! But think of Wade remembering every one! It beats me. He’s
beyond understanding.

“So Jack Belllounds still stays away from White Slides. Collie, I’m
sure sorry for his father. What it would be to have a son like
Buster Jack! My God! But for your sake I go around yelling and
singing like a locoed Indian. Pretty soon spring will come. Then,
you wild-flower of the hills, you girl with the sweet mouth and the
sad eyes–then I’m coming after you! And all the king’s horses and
all the king’s men can never take you away from me again!

“Your faithful
     “WILSON.”

“March 19th.

“DEAREST WILSON,–Your last letters have been read and reread, and
kept under my pillow, and have been both my help and my weakness
during these trying days since Jack’s return.

“It has not been that I was afraid to write–though, Heaven knows,
if this letter should fall into the hands of dad it would mean
trouble for me, and if Jack read it–I am afraid to think of
that! I just have not had the heart to write you. But all the time
I knew I must write and that I would. Only, now, what to say
tortures me. I am certain that confiding in you relieves me. That’s
why I’ve told you so much. But of late I find it harder to tell
what I know about Jack Belllounds. I’m in a queer state of mind,
Wilson dear. And you’ll wonder, and you’ll be sorry to know I
haven’t seen much of Ben lately–that is, not to talk to. It seems
I can’t bear his faith in me, his hope, his love–when
lately matters have driven me into torturing doubt.

“But lest you might misunderstand, I’m going to try to tell you
something of what is on my mind, and I want you to read it to Ben.
He has been hurt by my strange reluctance to be with him.

“Jack came home on the night of March second. You’ll remember that
day, so gloomy and dark and dreary. It snowed and sleeted and
rained. I remember how the rain roared on the roof. It roared so
loud we didn’t hear the horse. But we heard heavy boots on the
porch outside the living-room, and the swish of a slicker thrown to
the floor. There was a bright fire. Dad looked up with a wild joy.
All of a sudden he changed. He blazed. He recognized the heavy
tread of his son. If I ever pitied and loved him it was then. I
thought of the return of the Prodigal Son!… There came a knock on
the door. Then dad recovered. He threw it open wide. The streaming
light fell upon Jack Belllounds, indeed, but not as I knew him. He
entered. It was the first time I ever saw Jack look in the least
like a man. He was pale, haggard, much older, sullen, and bold. He
strode in with a ‘Howdy, folks,’ and threw his wet hat on the
floor, and walked to the fire. His boots were soaked with water and
mud. His clothes began to steam.

“When I looked at dad I was surprised. He seemed cool and bright,
with the self-contained force usual for him when something critical
is about to happen.

“‘Ahuh! So you come back,’ he said.

“‘Yes, I’m home,’ replied Jack.

“‘Wal, it took you quite a spell to get hyar.’

“‘Do you want me to stay?’

“This question from Jack seemed to stump dad. He stared. Jack had
appeared suddenly, and his manner was different from that with
which he used to face dad. He had something up his sleeve, as the
cowboys say. He wore an air of defiance and indifference.

“‘I reckon I do,’ replied dad, deliberately. ‘What do you mean by
askin’ me thet?’

“‘I’m of age, long ago. You can’t make me stay home. I can do as I
like.’

“‘Ahuh! I reckon you think you can. But not hyar at White Slides.
If you ever expect to get this property you’ll not do as you
like.’

“‘To hell with that. I don’t care whether I ever get it or
not.’

“Dad’s face went as white as a sheet. He seemed shocked. After a
moment he told me I’d better go to my room. I was about to go when
Jack said: ‘No, let her stay. She’d best hear now what I’ve got to
say. It concerns her.’

“‘So ho! Then you’ve got a heap to say?’ exclaimed dad, queerly.
‘All right, you have your say first.’

“Jack then began to talk in a level and monotonous voice, so unlike
him that I sat there amazed. He told how early in the winter,
before he left the ranch, he had found out that he was honestly in
love with me. That it had changed him–made him see he had never
been any good–and inflamed him with the resolve to be better. He
had tried. He had succeeded. For six weeks he had been all that
could have been asked of any young man. I am bound to confess that
he was!… Well, he went on to say how he had fought it out with
himself until he absolutely knew he could control himself.
The courage and inspiration had come from his love for me. That was
the only good thing he’d ever felt. He wanted dad and he wanted me
to understand absolutely, without any doubt, that he had found a
way to hold on to his good intentions and good feelings. And that
was for me!… I was struck all a-tremble at the truth. It
was true! Well, then he forced me to a decision. Forced me, without
ever hinting of this change, this possibility in him. I had told
him I couldn’t love him. Never! Then he said I could go to
hell and he gave up. Failing to get money from dad he stole it,
without compunction and without regret! He had gone to Kremmling,
then to Elgeria.

“‘I let myself go,’ he said, without shame, ‘and I drank and
gambled. When I was drunk I didn’t remember Collie. But when I was
sober I did. And she haunted me. That grew worse all the time. So I
drank to forget her…. The money lasted a great deal longer than I
expected. But that was because I won as much as I lost, until
lately. Then I borrowed a good deal from those men I gambled with,
but mostly from ranchers who knew my father would be
responsible…. I had a shooting-scrape with a man named Elbert, in
Smith’s place at Elgeria. We quarreled over cards. He cheated. And
when I hit him he drew on me. But he missed. Then I shot him…. He
lived three days–and died. That sobered me. And once more there
came to me truth of what I might have been. I went back to
Kremmling. And I tried myself out again. I worked awhile for
Judson, who was the rancher I had borrowed most from. At night I
went into town and to the saloons, where I met my gambling cronies.
I put myself in the atmosphere of drink and cards. And I resisted
both. I could make myself indifferent to both. As soon as I was
sure of myself I decided to come home. And here I am.’

“This long speech of Jack’s had a terrible effect upon me. I was
stunned and sick. But if it did that to me what did it do to
dad? Heaven knows, I can’t tell you. Dad gave a lurch, and a great
heave, as if at the removal of a rope that had all but strangled
him.

“Ahuh-huh!’ he groaned. ‘An’ now you’re hyar–what’s thet
mean?’

“It means that it’s not yet too late,’ replied Jack. ‘Don’t
misunderstand me. I’m not repenting with that side of me which is
bad. But I’ve sobered up. I’ve had a shock. I see my ruin. I still
love you, dad, despite–the cruel thing you did to me. I’m your son
and I’d like to make up to you for all my shortcomings. And so help
me Heaven! I can do that, and will do it, if Collie will marry me.
Not only marry me–that’d not be enough–but love me–I’m crazy for
her love. It’s terrible.’

“You spoiled weaklin’!’ thundered dad. ‘How ‘n hell can I believe
you?’

“Because I know it,’ declared Jack, standing right up to his
father, white and unflinching.

“Then dad broke out in such a rage that I sat there scared so stiff
I could not move. My heart beat thick and heavy. Dad got livid of
face, his hair stood up, his eyes rolled. He called Jack every name
I ever heard any one call him, and then a thousand more. Then he
cursed him. Such dreadful curses! Oh, how sad and terrible to hear
dad!

“Right you are!’ cried Jack, bitter and hard and ringing of voice.
‘Right, by God! But am I all to blame? Did I bring myself here on
this earth!… There’s something wrong in me that’s not all my
fault…. You can’t shame me or scare me or hurt me. I could fling
in your face those damned three years of hell you sent me to! But
what’s the use for you to roar at me or for me to reproach you? I’m
ruined unless you give me Collie–make her love me. That will save
me. And I want it for your sake and hers–not for my own. Even if I
do love her madly I’m not wanting her for that. I’m no good. I’m
not fit to touch her…. I’ve just come to tell you the truth. I
feel for Collie–I’d do for Collie–as you did for my mother! Can’t
you understand? I’m your son. I’ve some of you in me. And I’ve
found out what it is. Do you and Collie want to take me at my
word?’

“I think it took dad longer to read something strange and
convincing in Jack than it took me. Anyway, dad got the stunning
consciousness that Jack knew by some divine or intuitive
power that his reformation was inevitable, if I loved him. Never
have I had such a distressing and terrible moment as that
revelation brought to me! I felt the truth. I could save Jack
Belllounds. No woman is ever fooled at such critical moments of
life. Ben Wade once said that I could have reformed Jack were it
possible to love him. Now the truth of that came home to me, and
somehow it was overwhelming.

“Dad received this truth–and it was beyond me to realize what it
meant to him. He must have seen all his earlier hopes fulfilled,
his pride vindicated, his shame forgotten, his love rewarded. Yet
he must have seen all that, as would a man leaning with one foot
over a bottomless abyss. He looked transfigured, yet conscious of
terrible peril. His great heart seemed to leap to meet this last
opportunity, with all forgiveness, with all gratitude; but his will
yielded with a final and irrevocable resolve. A resolve dark and
sinister!

“He raised his huge fists higher and higher, and all his body
lifted and strained, towering and trembling, while his face was
that of a righteous and angry god.

“‘My son, I take your word!’ he rolled out, his voice filling the
room and reverberating through the house. ‘I give you Collie!…
She will be yours!… But, by the love I bore your mother–I
swear–if you ever steal again–I’ll kill you!’

“I can’t say any more–

“COLUMBINE.”

CHAPTER XIV

Spring came early that year at White Slides Ranch. The snow
melted off the valleys, and the wild flowers peeped from the
greening grass while yet the mountain domes were white. The long
stone slides were glistening wet, and the brooks ran full-banked,
noisy and turbulent and roily.

Soft and fresh of color the gray old sage slopes came out from
under their winter mantle; the bleached tufts of grass waved in the
wind and showed tiny blades of green at the roots; the aspens and
oaks, and the vines on fences and cliffs, and the round-clumped,
brook-bordering willows took on a hue of spring.

The mustangs and colts in the pastures snorted and ran and
kicked and cavorted; and on the hillsides the cows began to climb
higher, searching for the tender greens, bawling for the new-born
calves. Eagles shrieked the release of the snow-bound peaks, and
the elks bugled their piercing calls. The grouse-cocks spread their
gorgeous brown plumage in parade before their twittering mates, and
the jays screeched in the woods, and the sage-hens sailed along the
bosom of the gray slopes.

Black bears, and browns, and grizzlies came out of their
winter’s sleep, and left huge, muddy tracks on the trails; the
timber wolves at dusk mourned their hungry calls for life, for
meat, for the wildness that was passing; the coyotes yelped at
sunset, joyous and sharp and impudent.

But winter yielded reluctantly its hold on the mountains. The
black, scudding clouds, and the squalls of rain and sleet and snow,
whitening and melting and vanishing, and the cold, clear nights,
with crackling frost, all retarded the work of the warming sun. The
day came, however, when the greens held their own with the grays;
and this was the assurance of nature that spring could not be
denied, and that summer would follow.

Bent Wade was hiding in the willows along the trail that
followed one of the brooks. Of late, on several mornings, he had
skulked like an Indian under cover, watching for some one. On this
morning, when Columbine Belllounds came riding along, he stepped
out into the trail in front of her.

“Oh, Ben! you startled me!” she exclaimed, as she held hard on
the frightened horse.

“Good mornin’, Collie,” replied Wade. “I’m sorry to scare you,
but I’m particular anxious to see you. An’ considerin’ how you
avoid me these days, I had to waylay you in regular road-agent
style.”

Wade gazed up searchingly at her. It had been some time since he
had been given the privilege and pleasure of seeing her close at
hand. He needed only one look at her to confirm his fears. The
pale, sweet, resolute face told him much.

“Well, now you’ve waylaid me, what do you want?” she queried,
deliberately.

“I’m goin’ to take you to see Wils Moore,” replied Wade,
watching her closely.

“No!” she cried, with the red staining her temples.

“Collie, see here. Did I ever oppose anythin’ you wanted to
do?”

“Not–yet,” she said.

“I reckon you expect me to?”

She did not answer that. Her eyes drooped, and she nervously
twisted the bridle reins.

“Do you doubt my–my good intentions toward you–my love for
you?” he asked, in gentle and husky voice.

“Oh, Ben! No! No! It’s that I’m afraid of your love for me! I
can’t bear–what I have to bear–if I see you, if I listen to
you.”

“Then you’ve weakened? You’re no proud, high-strung,
thoroughbred girl any more? You’re showin’ yellow?”

“Ben Wade, I deny that,” she answered, spiritedly, with an
uplift of her head. “It’s not weakness, but strength I’ve
found.”

“Ahuh! Well, I reckon I understand. Collie, listen. Wils let me
read your last letter to him.”

“I expected that. I think I told him to. Anyway, I wanted you to
know–what–what ailed me.”

“Lass, it was a fine, brave letter–written by a girl facin’ an
upheaval of conscience an’ soul. But in your own trouble you forget
the effect that letter might have on Wils Moore.”

“Ben!… I–I’ve lain awake at night–Oh, was he hurt?”

“Collie, I reckon if you don’t see Wils he’ll kill himself or
kill Buster Jack,” replied Wade, gravely.

“I’ll see–him!” she faltered. “But oh, Ben–you don’t mean that
Wilson would be so base–so cowardly?”

“Collie, you’re a child. You don’t realize the depths to which a
man can sink. Wils has had a long, hard pull this winter. My
nursin’ an’ your letters have saved his life. He’s well, now, but
that long, dark spell of mind left its shadow on him. He’s
morbid.”

“What does he–want to see me–for?” asked Columbine,
tremulously. There were tears in her eyes. “It’ll only cause more
pain–make matters worse.”

“Reckon I don’t agree with you. Wils just wants an’ needs to
see you. Why, he appreciated your position. I’ve heard him
cry like a woman over it an’ our helplessness. What ails him is
lovesickness, the awful feelin’ which comes to a man who believes
he has lost his sweetheart’s love.”

“Poor boy! So he imagines I don’t love him any more? Good
Heavens! How stupid men are!… I’ll see him, Ben. Take me to
him.”

For answer, Wade grasped the bridle of her horse and, turning
him, took a course leading away behind the hill that lay between
them and the ranch-house. The trail was narrow and brushy, making
it necessary for him to walk ahead of the horse. So the hunter did
not speak to her or look at her for some time. He plodded on with
his eyes downcast. Something tugged at Wade’s mind, an old,
familiar, beckoning thing, vague and mysterious and black, a
presage of catastrophe. But it was only an opening wedge into his
mind. It had not entered. Gravity and unhappiness occupied him. His
senses, nevertheless, were alert. He heard the low roar of the
flooded brook, the whir of rising grouse ahead, the hoofs of deer
on stones, the song of spring birds. He had an eye also for the wan
wild flowers in the shaded corners. Presently he led the horse out
of the willows into the open and up a low-swelling, long slope of
fragrant sage. Here he dropped back to Columbine’s side and put his
hand upon the pommel of her saddle. It was not long until her own
hand softly fell upon his and clasped it. Wade thrilled under the
warm touch. How well he knew her heart! When she ceased to love any
one to whom she had given her love then she would have ceased to
breathe.

“Lass, this isn’t the first mornin’ I’ve waited for you,” he
said, presently. “An’ when I had to go back to Wils without
you–well, it was hard.”

“Then he wants to see me–so badly?” she asked.

“Reckon you’ve not thought much about him or me lately,” said
Wade.

“No. I’ve tried to put you out of my mind. I’ve had so much to
think of–why, even the sleepless nights have flown!”

“Are you goin’ to confide in me–as you used to?”

“Ben, there’s nothing to confide. I’m just where I left off in
that letter to Wilson. And the more I think the more muddled I
get.”

Wade greeted this reply with a long silence. It was enough to
feel her hand upon his and to have the glad comfort and charm of
her presence once more. He seemed to have grown older lately. The
fragrant breath of the sage slopes came to him as something
precious he must feel and love more. A haunting transience mocked
him from these rolling gray hills. Old White Slides loomed gray and
dark up into the blue, grim and stern reminder of age and of
fleeting time. There was a cloud on Wade’s horizon.

“Wils is waitin’ down there,” said Wade, pointing to a grove of
aspens below. “Reckon it’s pretty close to the house, an’ a trail
runs along there. But Wils can’t ride very well yet, an’ this
appeared to be the best place.”

“Ben, I don’t care if dad or Jack know I’ve met Wilson. I’ll
tell them,” said Columbine.

“Ahuh! Well, if I were you I wouldn’t,” he replied.

They went down the slope and entered the grove. It was an open,
pretty spot, with grass and wild flowers, and old, bleached logs,
half sunny and half shady under the new-born, fluttering aspen
leaves. Wade saw Moore sitting on his horse. And it struck the
hunter significantly that the cowboy should be mounted when an hour
back he had left him sitting disconsolately on a log. Moore wanted
Columbine to see him first, after all these months of fear and
dread, mounted upon his horse. Wade heard Columbine’s glad little
cry, but he did not turn to look at her then. But when they reached
the spot where Moore stood Wade could not resist the desire to see
the meeting between the lovers.

Columbine, being a woman, and therefore capable of hiding
agitation, except in moments of stress, met that trying situation
with more apparent composure than the cowboy. Moore’s long,
piercing gaze took the rose out of Columbine’s cheeks.

“Oh, Wilson! I’m so happy to see you on your horse again!” she
exclaimed. “It’s too good to be true. I’ve prayed for that more
than anything else. Can you get up into your saddle like you used
to? Can you ride well again?… Let me see your foot.”

Moore held out a bulky foot. He wore a shoe, and it was
slashed.

“I can’t wear a boot,” he explained.

“Oh, I see!” exclaimed Columbine, slowly, with her glad smile
fading. “You can’t put that–that foot in a stirrup, can you?”

“No.”

“But–it–it will–you’ll be able to wear a boot soon,” she
implored.

“Never again, Collie,” he said, sadly.

And then Wade perceived that, like a flash, the old spirit
leaped up in Columbine. It was all he wanted to see.

“Now, folks,” he said, “I reckon two’s company an’ three’s a
crowd. I’ll go off a little ways an’ keep watch.”

“Ben, you stay here,” replied Columbine, hurriedly.

“Why, Collie? Are you afraid–or ashamed to be with me alone?”
asked Moore, bitterly.

Columbine’s eyes flashed. It was seldom they lost their sweet
tranquillity. But now they had depth and fire.

“No, Wilson, I’m neither afraid nor ashamed to be with you
alone,” she declared. “But I can be as natural–as much myself with
Ben here as I could be alone. Why can’t you be? If dad and Jack
heard of our meeting the fact of Ben’s presence might make it look
different to them. And why should I heap trouble upon my
shoulders?”

“I beg pardon, Collie,” said the cowboy. “I’ve just been afraid
of–of things.”

“My horse is restless,” returned Columbine. “Let’s get off and
talk.”

So they dismounted. It warmed Wade’s gloomy heart to see the
woman-look in Columbine’s eyes as she watched the cowboy get off
and walk. For a crippled man he did very well. But that moment was
fraught with meaning for Wade. These unfortunate lovers, brave and
fine in their suffering, did not realize the peril they invited by
proximity. But Wade knew. He pitied them, he thrilled for them, he
lived their torture with them.

“Tell me–everything,” said Columbine, impulsively.

Moore, with dragging step, approached an aspen log that lay off
the ground, propped by the stump, and here he leaned for support.
Columbine laid her gloves on the log.

“There’s nothing to tell that you don’t know,” replied Moore. “I
wrote you all there was to write, except”–here he dropped his
head–“except that the last three weeks have been hell.”

“They’ve not been exactly heaven for me,” replied Columbine,
with a little laugh that gave Wade a twinge.

Then the lovers began to talk about spring coming, about horses
and cattle, and feed, about commonplace ranch matters not
interesting to them, but which seemed to make conversation and hide
their true thoughts. Wade listened, and it seemed to him that he
could read their hearts.

“Lass, an’ you, Wils–you’re wastin’ time an’ gettin’ nowhere,”
interposed Wade. “Now let me go, so’s you’ll be alone.”

“You stay right there,” ordered Moore.

“Why, Ben, I’m ashamed to say that I actually forgot you were
here,” said Columbine.

“Then I’ll remind you,” rejoined the hunter. “Collie, tell us
about Old Bill an’ Jack.”

“Tell you? What?”

“Well, I’ve seen changes in both. So has Wils, though Wils
hasn’t seen as much as he’s heard from Lem an’ Montana an’ the
Andrews boys.”

“Oh!…” Columbine choked a little over her exclamation of
understanding. “Dad has gotten a new lease on life, I guess. He’s
happy, like a boy sometimes, an’ good as gold…. It’s all because
of the change in Jack. That is remarkable. I’ve not been able to
believe my own eyes. Since that night Jack came home and had
the–the understanding with dad he has been another person. He has
left me alone. He treats me with deference, but not a familiar word
or look. He’s kind. He offers the little civilities that occur, you
know. But he never intrudes upon me. Not one word of the past! It
is as if he would earn my respect, and have that or nothing….
Then he works as he never worked before–on dad’s books, in the
shop, out on the range. He seems obsessed with some thought all the
time. He talks little. All the old petulance, obstinacy,
selfishness, and especially his sudden, queer impulses, and
bull-headed tenacity–all gone! He has suffered physical distress,
because he never was used to hard work. And more, he’s suffered
terribly for the want of liquor. I’ve heard him say to dad: ‘It’s
hell–this burning thirst. I never knew I had it. I’ll stand it, if
it kills me…. But wouldn’t it be easier on me to take a drink now
and then, at these bad times?’… And dad said: ‘No, son. Break off
for keeps! This taperin’ off is no good way to stop drinkin’. Stand
the burnin’. An’ when it’s gone you’ll be all the gladder an’ I’ll
be all the prouder.’… I have not forgotten all Jack’s former
failings, but I am forgetting them, little by little. For dad’s
sake I’m overjoyed. For Jack’s I am glad. I’m convinced now that
he’s had his lesson–that he’s sowed his wild oats–that he has
become a man.”

Moore listened eagerly, and when she had concluded he
thoughtfully bent his head and began to cut little chips out of the
log with his knife.

“Collie, I’ve heard a good deal of the change in Jack,” he said,
earnestly. “Honest Injun, I’m glad–glad for his father’s sake, for
his own, and for yours. The boys think Jack’s locoed. But his
reformation is not strange to me. If I were no good–just like he
was–well, I could change as greatly for–for you.”

Columbine hastily averted her face. Wade’s keen eyes, apparently
hidden under his old hat, saw how wet her lashes were, how her lips
trembled.

“Wilson, you think then–you believe Jack will last–will stick
to his new ways?” she queried, hurriedly.

“Yes, I do,” he replied, nodding.

“How good of you! Oh! Wilson, it’s like you to be
noble–splendid. When you might have–when it’d have been so
natural for you to doubt–to scorn him!”

“Collie, I’m honest about that. And now you be just as honest.
Do you think Jack will stand to his colors? Never drink–never
gamble–never fly off the handle again?”

“Yes, I honestly believe that–providing he gets–providing
I–“

Her voice trailed off faintly.

Moore wheeled to address the hunter.

“Pard, what do you think? Tell me now. Tell us. It will help me,
and Collie, too. I’ve asked you before, but you wouldn’t–Tell us
now, do you believe Buster Jack will live up to his new
ideals?”

Wade had long parried that question, because the time to answer
it had not come till this moment.

“No,” he replied, gently.

Columbine uttered a little cry.

“Why not?” demanded Moore, his face darkening.

“Reckon there are reasons that you young folks wouldn’t think
of, an’ couldn’t know.”

“Wade, it’s not like you to be hopeless for any man,” said
Moore.

“Yes, I reckon it is, sometimes,” replied Wade, wagging his head
solemnly. “Young folks, I’m grantin’ all you say as to Jack’s
reformation, except that it’s permanent. I’m grantin’ he’s
sincere–that he’s not playin’ a part–that his vicious instincts
are smothered under a noble impulse to be what he ought to be. It’s
no trick. Buster Jack has all but done the impossible.”

“Then why isn’t his sincerity and good work to be permanent?”
asked Moore, impatiently, and his gesture was violent.

“Wils, his change is not moral force. It’s passion.”

The cowboy paled. Columbine stood silent, with intent eyes upon
the hunter. Neither of them seemed to understand him well enough to
make reply.

“Love can work marvels in any man,” went on Wade. “But love
can’t change the fiber of a man’s heart. A man is born so an’ so.
He loves an’ hates an’ feels accordin’ to the nature. It’d be
accordin’ to nature for Jack Belllounds to stay reformed if his
love for Collie lasted. An’ that’s the point. It can’t last. Not in
a man of his stripe.”

“Why not?” demanded Moore.

“Because Jack’s love will never be returned–satisfied. It takes
a man of different caliber to love a woman who’ll never love him.
Jack’s obsessed by passion now. He’d perform miracles. But that’s
not possible. The miracle necessary here would be for him to change
his moral force, his blood, the habits of his mind. That’s beyond
his power.”

Columbine flung out an appealing hand.

“Ben, I could pretend to love him–I might make myself
love him, if that would give him the power.”

“Lass, don’t delude yourself. You can’t do that,” replied
Wade.

“How do you know what I can do?” she queried, struggling with
her helplessness.

“Why, child, I know you better than you know yourself.”

“Wilson, he’s right, he’s right!” she cried. “That’s why it’s so
terrible for me now. He knows my very heart. He reads my soul…. I
can never love Jack Belllounds. Nor ever pretend
love!”

“Collie, if Ben knows you so well, you ought to listen to him,
as you used to,” said Moore, touching her hand with infinite
sympathy.

Wade watched them. His pity and affection did not obstruct the
ruthless expression of his opinions or the direction of his
intentions.

“Lass, an’ you, Wils, listen,” he said, with all his gentleness.
“It’s bad enough without you makin’ it worse. Don’t blind
yourselves. That’s the hell with so many people in trouble. It’s
hard to see clear when you’re sufferin’ and fightin’. But I
see clear…. Now with just a word I could fetch this new Jack
Belllounds back to his Buster Jack tricks!”

“Oh, Ben! No! No! No!” cried Columbine, in a distress that
showed how his force dominated her.

Moore’s face turned as white as ashes.

Wade divined then that Moore was aware of what he himself knew
about Jack Belllounds. And to his love for Moore was added an
infinite respect.

“I won’t unless Collie forces me to,” he said,
significantly.

This was the critical moment, and suddenly Wade answered to it
without restraint. He leaped up, startling Columbine.

“Wils, you call me pard, don’t you? I reckon you never knew me.
Why, the game’s `most played out, an’ I haven’t showed my hand!…
I’d see Jack Belllounds in hell before I’d let him have Collie. An’
if she carried out her strange an’ lofty idea of duty–an’ married
him right this afternoon–I could an’ I would part them before
night!”

He ended that speech in a voice neither had ever heard him use
before. And the look of him must have been in harmony with it.
Columbine, wide-eyed and gasping, seemed struck to the heart.
Moore’s white face showed awe and fear and irresponsible primitive
joy. Wade turned away from them, the better to control the passion
that had mastered him. And it did not subside in an instant. He
paced to and fro, his head bowed. Presently, when he faced around,
it was to see what he had expected to see.

Columbine was clasped in Moore’s arms.

“Collie, you didn’t–you haven’t–promised to marry
him–again!”

“No, oh–no! I haven’t! I was only–only trying to–to make up
my mind. Wilson, don’t look at me so terribly!”

“You’ll not agree again? You’ll not set another day?” demanded
Moore, passionately. He strained her to him, yet held her so he
could see her face, thus dominating her with both strength and
will. His face was corded now, and darkly flushed. His jaw
quivered. “You’ll never marry Jack Belllounds! You’ll not let
sudden impulse–sudden persuasion or force change you? Promise!
Swear you’ll never marry him. Swear!”

“Oh, Wilson, I promise–I swear!” she cried. “Never! I’m yours.
It would be a sin. I’ve been mad to–to blind myself.”

“You love me! You love me!” he cried, in a sudden transport.

“Oh, yes, yes! I do.”

“Say it then! Say it–so I’ll never doubt–never suffer
again!”

“I love you, Wilson! I–I love you–unutterably,” the whispered.
“I love you–so–I’m broken-hearted now. I’ll never live without
you. I’ll die–I love you so!”

“You–you flower–you angel!” he whispered in return. “You
woman! You precious creature! I’ve been crazed at loss of you!”

Wade paced out of earshot, and this time he remained away for a
considerable time. He lived again moments of his own past,
unforgetable and sad. When at length he returned toward the young
couple they were sitting apart, composed once more, talking
earnestly. As he neared them Columbine rose to greet him with
wonderful eyes, in which reproach blended with affection.

“Ben, so this is what you’ve done!” she exclaimed.

“Lass, I’m only a humble instrument, an’ I believe God guides me
right,” replied the hunter.

“I love you more, it seems, for what you make me suffer,” she
said, and she kissed him with a serious sweetness. “I’m only a leaf
in the storm. But–let what will come…. Take me home.”

They said good-by to Wilson, who sat with head bowed upon his
hands. His voice trembled as he answered them. Wade found the trail
while Columbine mounted. As they went slowly down the gentle slope,
stepping over the numerous logs fallen across the way, Wade caught
out of the tail of his eye a moving object along the outer edge of
the aspen grove above them. It was the figure of a man, skulking
behind the trees. He disappeared. Wade casually remarked to
Columbine that now she could spur the pony and hurry on home. But
Columbine refused. When they got a little farther on, out of sight
of Moore and somewhat around to the left, Wade espied the man
again. He carried a rifle. Wade grew somewhat perturbed.

“Collie, you run on home,” he said, sharply.

“Why? You’ve complained of not seeing me. Now that I want to be
with you … Ben, you see some one!”

Columbine’s keen faculties evidently sensed the change in Wade,
and the direction of his uneasy glance convinced her.

“Oh, there’s a man!… Ben, it is–yes, it’s Jack,” she
exclaimed, excitedly.

“Reckon you’d have it better if you say Buster Jack,” replied
Wade, with his tragic smile.

“Ah!” whispered Columbine, as she gazed up at the aspen slope,
with eyes lighting to battle.

“Run home, Collie, an’ leave him to me,” said Wade.

“Ben, you mean he–he saw us up there in the grove? Saw me in
Wilson’s arms–saw me kissing him?”

“Sure as you’re born, Collie. He watched us. He saw all your
love-makin’. I can tell that by the way he walks. It’s Buster Jack
again! Alas for the new an’ noble Jack! I told you, Collie. Now you
run on an’ leave him to me.”

Wade became aware that she turned at his last words and regarded
him attentively. But his gaze was riveted on the striding form of
Belllounds.

“Leave him to you? For what reason, my friend?” she asked.

“Buster Jack’s on the rampage. Can’t you see that? He’ll insult
you. He’ll–“

“I will not go,” interrupted Columbine, and, halting her pony,
she deliberately dismounted.

Wade grew concerned with the appearance of young Belllounds, and
it was with a melancholy reminder of the infallibility of his
presentiments. As he and Columbine halted in the trail,
Belllounds’s hurried stride lengthened until he almost ran. He
carried the rifle forward in a most significant manner. Black as a
thunder-cloud was his face. Alas for the dignity and pain and
resolve that had only recently showed there!

Belllounds reached them. He was frothing at the mouth. He cocked
the rifle and thrust it toward Wade, holding low down.

“You–meddling sneak! If you open your trap I’ll bore you!” he
shouted, almost incoherently.

Wade knew when danger of life loomed imminent. He fixed his
glance upon the glaring eyes of Belllounds.

“Jack, seein’ I’m not packin’ a gun, it’d look sorta natural,
along with your other tricks, if you bored me.”

His gentle voice, his cool mien, his satire, were as giant’s
arms to drag Belllounds back from murder. The rifle was raised, the
hammer reset, the butt lowered to the ground, while Belllounds,
snarling and choking, fought for speech.

“I’ll get even–with you,” he said, huskily. “I’m on to your
game now. I’ll fix you later. But–I’ll do you harm now if you mix
in with this!”

Then he wheeled to Columbine, and as if he had just recognized
her, a change that was pitiful and shocking convulsed his face. He
leaned toward her, pointing with shaking, accusing hand.

“I saw you–up there. I watched–you,” he panted.

Columbine faced him, white and mute.

“It was you–wasn’t it?” he yelled.

“Yes, of course it was.”

She might have struck him, for the way he flinched.

“What was that–a trick–a game–a play all fixed up for my
benefit?”

“I don’t understand you,” she replied.

“Bah! You–you white-faced cat!… I saw you! Saw you in Moore’s
arms! Saw him hug you–kiss you!… Then–I saw–you put up your
arms–round his neck–kiss him–kiss him–kiss him!… I saw all
that–didn’t I?”

“You must have, since you say so,” she returned, with perfect
composure.

“But did you?” he almost shrieked, the blood cording and
bulging red, as if about to burst the veins of temples and
neck.

“Yes, I did,” she flashed. There was primitive woman uppermost
in her now, and a spirit no man might provoke with impunity.

“You love him?” he asked, very low, incredulously, with
almost insane eagerness for denial in his query.

Then Wade saw the glory of her–saw her mother again in that
proud, fierce uplift of face, that flamed red and then blazed
white–saw hate and passion and love in all their primal
nakedness.

“Love him! Love Wilson Moore? Yes, you fool! I love him! Yes!
Yes! YES!”

That voice would have pierced the heart of a wooden image, so
Wade thought, as all his strung nerves quivered and thrilled.

Belllounds uttered a low cry of realization, and all his
instinctive energy seemed on the verge of collapse. He grew limp,
he sagged, he tottered. His sensorial perceptions seemed
momentarily blunted.

Wade divined the tragedy, and a pang of great compassion
overcame him. Whatever Jack Belllounds was in character, he had
inherited his father’s power to love, and he was human. Wade felt
the death in that stricken soul, and it was the last flash of pity
he ever had for Jack Belllounds.

“You–you–” muttered Belllounds, raising a hand that gathered
speed and strength in the action. The moment of a great blow had
passed, like a storm-blast through a leafless tree. Now the
thousand devils of his nature leaped into ascendancy. “You!–” He
could not articulate. Dark and terrible became his energy. It was
like a resistless current forced through leaping thought and
leaping muscle.

He struck her on the mouth, a cruel blow that would have felled
her but for Wade: and then he lunged away, bowed and trembling, yet
with fierce, instinctive motion, as if driven to run with the
spirit of his rage.

CHAPTER XV

Wade noticed that after her trying experience with him and
Wilson and Belllounds Columbine did not ride frequently.

He managed to get a word or two with her whenever he went to the
ranch-house, and he needed only look at her to read her sensitive
mind. All was well with Columbine, despite her trouble. She
remained upheld in spirit, while yet she seemed to brood over an
unsolvable problem. She had said, “But–let what will come!”–and
she was waiting.

Wade hunted for more than lions and wolves these days. Like an
Indian scout who scented peril or heard an unknown step upon his
trail, Wade rode the hills, and spent long hours hidden on the
lonely slopes, watching with somber, keen eyes. They were eyes that
knew what they were looking for. They had marked the strange sight
of the son of Bill Belllounds, gliding along that trail where Moore
had met Columbine, sneaking and stooping, at last with many a
covert glance about, to kneel in the trail and compare the horse
tracks there with horseshoes he took from his pocket. That alone
made Bent Wade eternally vigilant. He kept his counsel. He worked
more swiftly, so that he might have leisure for his peculiar
seeking. He spent an hour each night with the cowboys, listening to
their recounting of the day and to their homely and shrewd
opinions. He haunted the vicinity of the ranch-house at night,
watching and listening for that moment which was to aid him in the
crisis that was impending. Many a time he had been near when
Columbine passed from the living-room to her corner of the house.
He had heard her sigh and could almost have touched her.

Buster Jack had suffered a regurgitation of the old driving and
insatiate temper, and there was gloom in the house of Belllounds.
Trouble clouded the old man’s eyes.

May came with the spring round-up. Wade was called to use a rope
and brand calves under the order of Jack Belllounds, foreman of
White Slides. That round-up showed a loss of one hundred head of
stock, some branded steers, and yearlings, and many calves, in all
a mixed herd. Belllounds received the amazing news with a roar. He
had been ready for something to roar at. The cowboys gave as
reasons winter-kill, and lions, and perhaps some head stolen since
the thaw. Wade emphatically denied this. Very few cattle had fallen
prey to the big cats, and none, so far as he could find, had been
frozen or caught in drifts. It was the young foreman who stunned
them all. “Rustled,” he said, darkly. “There’s too many loafers and
homesteaders in these hills!” And he stalked out to leave his
hearers food for reflection.

Jack Belllounds drank, but no one saw him drunk, and no one
could tell where he got the liquor. He rode hard and fast; he drove
the cowboys one way while he went another; he had grown shifty,
cunning, more intolerant than ever. Some nights he rode to
Kremmling, or said he had been there, when next day the cowboys
found another spent and broken horse to turn out. On other nights
he coaxed and bullied them into playing poker. They won more of his
money than they cared to count.

Columbine confided to Wade, with mournful whisper, that Jack
paid no attention to her whatever, and that the old rancher
attributed this coldness, and Jack’s backsliding, to her
irresponsiveness and her tardiness in setting the wedding-day that
must be set. To this Wade had whispered in reply, “Don’t ever
forget what I said to you an’ Wils that day!”

So Wade upheld Columbine with his subtle dominance, and watched
over her, as it were, from afar. No longer was he welcome in the
big living-room. Belllounds reacted to his son’s influence.

Twice in the early mornings Wade had surprised Jack Belllounds
in the blacksmith shop. The meetings were accidental, yet Wade ever
remembered how coincidence beckoned him thither and how
circumstance magnified strange reflections. There was no reason why
Jack should not be tinkering in the blacksmith shop early of a
morning. But Wade followed an uncanny guidance. Like his hound Fox,
he never split on trails. When opportunity afforded he went into
the shop and looked it over with eyes as keen as the nose of his
dog. And in the dust of the floor he had discovered little circles
with dots in the middle, all uniform in size. Sight of them did not
shock him until they recalled vividly the little circles with dots
in the earthen floor of Wilson Moore’s cabin. Little marks made by
the end of Moore’s crutch! Wade grinned then like a wolf showing
his fangs. And the vitals of a wolf could no more strongly have
felt the instinct to rend.

For Wade, the cloud on his horizon spread and darkened, gathered
sinister shape of storm, harboring lightning and havoc. It was the
cloud in his mind, the foreshadowing of his soul, the prophetic
sense of like to like. Where he wandered there the blight fell!

Significant was the fact that Belllounds hired new men. Bludsoe
had quit. Montana Jim grew surly these days and packed a gun. Lem
Billings had threatened to leave. New and strange hands for Jack
Belllounds to direct had a tendency to release a strain and tide
things over.

Every time the old rancher saw Wade he rolled his eyes and
wagged his head, as if combating superstition with an intelligent
sense of justice. Wade knew what troubled Belllounds, and it
strengthened the gloomy mood that, like a poison lichen, seemed
finding root.

Every day Wade visited his friend Wilson Moore, and most of
their conversation centered round that which had become a ruling
passion for both. But the time came when Wade deviated from his
gentleness of speech and leisure of action.

“Bent, you’re not like you were,” said Moore, once, in surprise
at the discovery. “You’re losing hope and confidence.”

“No. I’ve only somethin’ on my mind.”

“What?”

“I reckon I’m not goin’ to tell you now.”

“You’ve got hell on your mind!” flashed the cowboy, in
grim inspiration.

Wade ignored the insinuation and turned the conversation to
another subject.

“Wils, you’re buyin’ stock right along?”

“Sure am. I saved some money, you know. And what’s the use to
hoard it? I’ll buy cheap. In five years I’ll have five hundred,
maybe a thousand head. Wade, my old dad will be pleased to find out
I’ve made the start I have.”

“Well, it’s a fine start, I’ll allow. Have you picked up any
unbranded stock?”

“Sure I have. Say, pard, are you worrying about this two-bit
rustler work that’s been going on?”

“Wils, it ain’t two bits any more. I reckon it’s gettin’ into
the four-bit class.”

“I’ve been careful to have my business transactions all in
writing,” said Moore. “It makes these fellows sore, because some of
them can’t write. And they’re not used to it. But I’m starting this
game in my own way.”

“Have you sold any stock?”

“Not yet. But the Andrews boys are driving some thirty-odd head
to Kremmling for me to be sold.”

“Ahuh! Well, I’ll be goin’,” Wade replied, and it was
significant of his state of mind that he left his young friend
sorely puzzled. Not that Wade did not see Moore’s anxiety! But the
drift of events at White Slides had passed beyond the stage where
sympathetic and inspiring hope might serve Wade’s purpose. Besides,
his mood was gradually changing as these events, like many fibers
of a web, gradually closed in toward a culminating knot.

That night Wade lounged with the cowboys and new hands in front
of the little storehouse where Belllounds kept supplies for all. He
had lounged there before in the expectation of seeing the rancher’s
son. And this time anticipation was verified. Jack Belllounds
swaggered over from the ranch-house. He met civility and obedience
now where formerly he had earned but ridicule and opposition. So
long as he worked hard himself the cowboys endured. The subtle
change in him seemed of sterner stuff. The talk, as usual, centered
round the stock subjects and the banter and gossip of ranch-hands.
Wade selected an interval when there was a lull in the
conversation, and with eyes that burned under the shadow of his
broad-brimmed sombrero he watched the son of Belllounds.

“Say, boys, Wils Moore has begun sellin’ cattle,” remarked Wade,
casually. “The Andrews brothers are drivin’ for him.”

“Wal, so Wils’s spread-eaglin’ into a real rancher!” ejaculated
Lem Billings. “Mighty glad to hear it. Thet boy shore will git
rich.”

Wade’s remark incited no further expressions of interest. But it
was Jack Belllounds’s secret mind that Wade wished to pierce. He
saw the leaping of a thought that was neither interest nor
indifference nor contempt, but a creative thing which lent a
fleeting flash to the face, a slight shock to the body. Then Jack
Belllounds bent his head, lounged there for a little while longer,
lost in absorption, and presently he strolled away.

Whatever that mounting thought of Jack Belllounds’s was it
brought instant decision to Wade. He went to the ranch-house and
knocked upon the living-room door. There was a light within,
sending rays out through the windows into the semi-darkness.
Columbine opened the door and admitted Wade. A bright fire crackled
in the hearth. Wade flashed a reassuring look at Columbine.

“Evenin’, Miss Collie. Is your dad in?”

“Oh, it’s you, Ben!” she replied, after her start. “Yes, dad’s
here.”

The old rancher looked up from his reading. “Howdy, Wade! What
can I do fer you?”

“Belllounds, I’ve cleaned out the cats an’ most of the varmints
on your range. An’ my work, lately, has been all sorts, not leavin’
me any time for little jobs of my own. An’ I want to quit.”

“Wade, you’ve clashed with Jack!” exclaimed the rancher, jerking
erect.

“Nothin’ of the kind. Jack an’ me haven’t had words a good
while. I’m not denyin’ we might, an’ probably would clash sooner or
later. But that’s not my reason for quittin’.”

Manifestly this put an entirely different complexion upon the
matter. Belllounds appeared immensely relieved.

“Wal, all right. I’ll pay you at the end of the month. Let’s
see, thet’s not long now. You can lay off to-morrow.”

Wade thanked him and waited for further remarks. Columbine had
fixed big, questioning eyes upon Wade, which he found hard to
endure. Again he tried to flash her a message of reassurance. But
Columbine did not lose her look of blank wonder and gravity.

“Ben! Oh, you’re not going to leave White Slides?” she
asked.

“Reckon I’ll hang around yet awhile,” he replied.

Belllounds was wagging his head regretfully and ponderingly.

“Wal, I remember the day when no man quit me. Wal, wal!–times
change. I’m an old man now. Mebbe, mebbe I’m testy. An’ then thar’s
thet boy!”

With a shrug of his broad shoulders he dismissed what seemed an
encroachment of pessimistic thought.

“Wade, you’re packin’ off, then, on the trail? Always on the go,
eh?”

“No, I’m not hurryin’ off,” replied Wade.

“Wal, might I ask what you’re figgerin’ on?”

“Sure. I’m considerin’ a cattle deal with Moore. He’s a pretty
keen boy an’ his father has big ranchin’ interests. I’ve saved a
little money an’ I’m no spring chicken any more. Wils has begun to
buy an’ sell stock, so I reckon I’ll go in with him.”

“Ahuh!” Belllounds gave a grunt of comprehension. He frowned,
and his big eyes set seriously upon the blazing fire. He grasped
complications in this information.

“Wal, it’s a free country,” he said at length, and evidently his
personal anxieties were subjected to his sense of justice. “Owin’
to the peculiar circumstances hyar at my range, I’d prefer thet
Moore an’ you began somewhar else. Thet’s natural. But you’ve my
good will to start on an’ I hope I’ve yours.”

“Belllounds, you’ve every man’s good will,” replied Wade. “I
hope you won’t take offense at my leavin’. You see I’m on Wils
Moore’s side in–in what you called these peculiar circumstances.
He’s got nobody else. An’ I reckon you can look back an’ remember
how you’ve taken sides with some poor devil an’ stuck to him. Can’t
you?”

“Wal, I reckon I can. An’ I’m not thinkin’ less of you fer
speakin’ out like thet.”

“All right. Now about the dogs. I turn the pack over to you, an’
it’s a good one. I’d like to buy Fox.”

“Buy nothin’, man. You can have Fox, an’ welcome.”

“Much obliged,” returned the hunter, as he turned to go. “Fox
will sure be help for me. Belllounds, I’m goin’ to round up this
outfit that’s rustlin’ your cattle. They’re gettin’ sort of
bold.”

“Wade, you’ll do thet on your own hook?” asked the rancher, in
surprise.

“Sure. I like huntin’ men more than other varmints. Then I’ve a
personal interest. You know the hint about homesteaders hereabouts
reflects some on Wils Moore.”

“Stuff!” exploded the rancher, heartily. “Do you think any
cattleman in these hills would believe Wils Moore a rustler?”

“The hunch has been whispered,” said Wade. “An’ you know how all
ranchers say they rustled a little on the start.”

“Aw, hell! Thet’s different. Every new rancher drives in a few
unbranded calves an’ keeps them. But stealin’ stock–thet’s
different. An’ I’d as soon suspect my own son of rustlin’ as Wils
Moore.”

Belllounds spoke with a sincere and frank ardor of defense for a
young man once employed by him and known to be honest. The
significance of the comparison he used had not struck him. His was
the epitome of a successful rancher, sure in his opinions, speaking
proudly and unreflectingly of his own son, and being just to
another man.

Wade bowed and backed out of the door. “Sure that’s what I’d
reckon you’d say, Belllounds…. I’ll drop in on you if I find any
sign in the woods. Good night.”

Columbine went with him to the end of the porch, as she had used
to go before the shadow had settled over the lives of the
Belllounds.

“Ben, you’re up to something,” she whispered, seizing him with
hands that shook.

“Sure. But don’t you worry,” he whispered back.

“Do they hint that Wilson is a rustler?” she asked,
intensely.

“Somebody did, Collie.”

“How vile! Who? Who?” she demanded, and her face gleamed
white.

“Hush, lass! You’re all a-tremble,” he returned, warily, and he
held her hands.

“Ben, they’re pressing me hard to set another wedding-day. Dad
is angry with me now. Jack has begun again to demand. Oh, I’m
afraid of him! He has no respect for me. He catches at me with
hands like claws. I have to jerk away…. Oh, Ben, Ben! dear
friend, what on earth shall I do?”

“Don’t give in. Fight Jack! Tell the old man you must have time.
Watch your chance when Jack is away an’ ride up the Buffalo Park
trail an’ look for me.”

Wade had to release his hands from her clasp and urge her gently
back. How pale and tragic her face gleamed!

Wade took his horses, his outfit, and the dog Fox, and made his
abode with Wilson Moore. The cowboy hailed Wade’s coming with joy
and pestered him with endless questions.

From that day Wade haunted the hills above White Slides, early
and late, alone with his thoughts, his plans, more and more feeling
the suspense of happenings to come. It was on a June day when Jack
Belllounds rode to Kremmling that Wade met Columbine on the Buffalo
Park trail. She needed to see him, to find comfort and strength.
Wade far exceeded his own confidence in his effort to uphold her.
Columbine was in a strange state, not of vacillation between two
courses, but of a standstill, as if her will had become obstructed
and waited for some force to upset the hindrance. She did not
inquire as to the welfare of Wilson Moore, and Wade vouchsafed no
word of him. But she importuned the hunter to see her every day or
no more at all. And Wade answered her appeal and her need by
assuring her that he would see her, come what might. So she was to
risk more frequent rides.

During the second week of June Wade rode up to visit the
prospector, Lewis, and learned that which complicated the matter of
the rustlers. Lewis had been suspicious, and active on his own
account. According to the best of his evidence and judgment there
had been a gang of rough men come of late to Gore Peak, where they
presumably were prospecting. This gang was composed of strangers to
Lewis. They had ridden to his cabin, bought and borrowed of him,
and, during his absence, had stolen from him. He believed they were
in hiding, probably being guilty of some depredation in another
locality. They gave both Kremmling and Elgeria a wide berth. On the
other hand, the Smith gang from Elgeria rode to and fro, like
ranchers searching for lost horses. There were only three in this
gang, including Smith. Lewis had seen these men driving unbranded
stock. And lastly, Lewis casually imparted the information, highly
interesting to Wade, that he had seen Jack Belllounds riding
through the forest. The prospector did not in the least, however,
connect the appearance of the son of Belllounds with the other
facts so peculiarly interesting to Wade. Cowboys and hunters rode
trails across the range, and though they did so rather
infrequently, there was nothing unusual about encountering
them.

Wade remained all night with Lewis, and next morning rode six
miles along the divide, and then down into a valley, where at
length he found a cabin described by the prospector. It was well
hidden in the edge of the forest, where a spring gushed from under
a low cliff. But for water and horse tracks Wade would not have
found it easily. Rifle in hand, and on foot, he slipped around in
the woods, as a hunter might have, to stalk drinking deer. There
were no smoke, no noise, no horses anywhere round the cabin, and
after watching awhile Wade went forward to look at it. It was an
old ramshackle hunter’s or prospector’s cabin, with dirt floor, a
crumbling fireplace and chimney, and a bed platform made of boughs.
Including the door, it had three apertures, and the two smaller
ones, serving as windows, looked as if they had been intended for
port-holes as well. The inside of the cabin was large and unusually
well lighted, owing to the windows and to the open chinks between
the logs. Wade saw a deck of cards lying bent and scattered in one
corner, as if a violent hand had flung them against the wall.
Strange that Wade’s memory returned a vivid picture of Jack
Belllounds in just that act of violence! The only other thing
around the place which earned scrutiny from Wade was a number of
horseshoe tracks outside, with the left front shoe track familiar
to him. He examined the clearest imprints very carefully. If they
had not been put there by Wilson Moore’s white mustang, Spottie,
then they had been made by a horse with a strangely similar hoof
and shoe. Spottie had a hoof malformed, somewhat in the shape of a
triangle, and the iron shoe to fit it always had to be bent, so
that the curve was sharp and the ends closer together than those of
his other shoes.

Wade rode down to White Slides that day, and at the evening meal
he casually asked Moore if he had been riding Spottie of late.

“Sure. What other horse could I ride? Do you think I’m up to
trying one of those broncs?” asked Moore, in derision.

“Reckon you haven’t been leavin’ any tracks up Buffalo Park
way?”

The cowboy slammed down his knife. “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. The sun had risen. All the mountain world of black range and
gray hill and green valley, with its shining stream, was
transformed as if by magic color. Wade sat down with his back to an
aspen-tree, his gaze down upon the ranch-house and the corrals. A
lazy column of blue smoke curled up toward the sky, to be lost
there. The burros were braying, the calves were bawling, the colts
were whistling. One of the hounds bayed full and clear.

The scene was pastoral and beautiful. Wade saw it clearly and
whole. Peace and plenty, a happy rancher’s home, the joy of the
dawn and the birth of summer, the rewards of toil–all seemed
significant there. But Wade pondered on how pregnant with life that
scene was–nature in its simplicity and freedom and hidden cruelty,
and the existence of people, blindly hating, loving, sacrificing,
mostly serving some noble aim, and yet with baseness among them,
the lees with the wine, evil intermixed with good.

By and by the cowboys appeared on their spring mustangs, and in
twos and threes they rode off in different directions. But none
rode Wade’s way. The sun rose higher, and there was warmth in the
air. Bees began to hum by Wade, and fluttering moths winged
uncertain flight over him.

At the end of another hour Jack Belllounds came out of the
house, gazed around him, and then stalked to the barn where he kept
his horses. For a little while he was not in sight; then he
reappeared, mounted on a white horse, and he rode into the pasture,
and across that to the hay-field, and along the edge of this to the
slope of the hill. Here he climbed to a small clump of aspens. This
grove was not so far from Wilson Moore’s cabin; in fact, it marked
the boundary-line between the rancher’s range and the acres that
Moore had acquired. Jack vanished from sight here, but not before
Wade had made sure he was dismounting.

“Reckon he kept to that grassy ground for a reason of his
own–and plainer to me than any tracks,” soliloquized Wade, as he
strained his eyes. At length Belllounds came out of the grove, and
led his horse round to where Wade knew there was a trail leading to
and from Moore’s cabin. At this point Jack mounted and rode west.
Contrary to his usual custom, which was to ride hard and fast, he
trotted the white horse as a cowboy might have done when going out
on a day’s work. Wade had to change his position to watch
Belllounds, and his somber gaze followed him across the hill, down
the slope, along the willow-bordered brook, and so on to the
opposite side of the great valley, where Jack began to climb in the
direction of Buffalo Park.

After Belllounds had disappeared and had been gone for an hour,
Wade went down on the other side of the hill, found his horse where
he had left him, in a thicket, and, mounting, he rode around to
strike the trail upon which Belllounds had ridden. The imprint of
fresh horse tracks showed clear in the soft dust. And the left
front track had been made by a shoe crudely triangular in shape,
identical with that peculiar to Wilson Moore’s horse.

“Ahuh!” muttered Wade, in greeting to what he had expected to
see. “Well, Buster Jack, it’s a plain trail now–damn your 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. The forest above was open. No doubt
Belllounds would drive the cattle somewhere and turn them over to
his accomplices.

“Buster Jack’s outbusted himself this time, sure,” soliloquized
Wade. “He’s double-crossin’ his rustler friends, same as he is
Moore. For he’s goin’ to blame this cattle-stealin’ onto Wils. An’
to do that he’s layin’ his tracks so he can follow them, or so any
good trailer can. It doesn’t concern me so much now who’re his
pards in this deal. Reckon it’s Smith an’ some of his gang.”

Suddenly it dawned upon Wade that Jack Belllounds was stealing
cattle from his father. “Whew!” he whistled softly. “Awful hard on
the old man! Who’s to tell him when all this comes out? Aw, I’d
hate to do it. I wouldn’t. There’s some things even I’d not
tell.”

Straightway this strange aspect of the case confronted Wade and
gripped his soul. He seemed to feel himself changing inwardly, as
if a gray, gloomy, sodden hand, as intangible as a ghostly dream,
had taken him bodily from himself and was now leading him into
shadows, into drear, lonely, dark solitude, where all was cold and
bleak; and on and on over naked shingles that marked the world of
tragedy. Here he must tell his tale, and as he plodded on his
relentless leader forced him to tell his tale anew.

Wade recognized this as his black mood. It was a morbid
dominance of the mind. He fought it as he would have fought a
devil. And mastery still was his. But his brow was clammy and his
heart was leaden when he had wrested that somber, mystic control
from his will.

“Reckon I’d do well to take up this trail to-morrow an’ see
where it leads,” he said, and as a gloomy man, burdened with
thought, he retraced his way down the long slope, and over the
benches, to the grassy slopes and aspen groves, and thus to the
sage hills.

It was dark when he reached the cabin, and Moore had supper
almost ready.

“Well, old-timer, you look fagged out,” called out the cowboy,
cheerily. “Throw off your boots, wash up, and come and get it!”

“Pard Wils, I’m not reboundin’ as natural as I’d like. I reckon
I’ve lived some years before I got here, an’ a lifetime since.”

“Wade, you have a queer look, lately,” observed Moore, shaking
his head solemnly. “Why, I’ve seen a dying man look just like
you–now–round the mouth–but most in the eyes!”

“Maybe the end of the long trail is White Slides Ranch,” replied
Wade, sadly and dreamily, as if to himself.

“If Collie heard you say that!” exclaimed Moore, in anxious
concern.

“Collie an’ you will hear me say a lot before long,” returned
Wade. “But, as it’s calculated to make you happy–why, all’s well.
I’m tired an’ hungry.”

Wade did not choose to sit round the fire that night, fearing to
invite interrogation from his anxious friend, and for that matter
from his other inquisitively morbid self.

Next morning, though Wade felt rested, and the sky was blue and
full of fleecy clouds, and the melody of birds charmed his ear, and
over all the June air seemed thick and beating with the invisible
spirit he loved, he sensed the oppression, the nameless something
that presaged catastrophe.

Therefore, when he looked out of the door to see Columbine
swiftly riding up the trail, her fair hair flying and shining in
the sunlight, he merely ejaculated, “Ahuh!”

“What’s that?” queried Moore, sharp to catch the inflection.

“Look out,” replied Wade, as he began to fill his pipe.

“Heavens! It’s Collie! Look at her riding! Uphill, too!”

Wade followed him outdoors. Columbine was not long in arriving
at the cabin, and she threw the bridle and swung off in the same
motion, landing with a light thud. Then she faced them, pale,
resolute, stern, all the sweetness gone to bitter strength–another
and a strange Columbine.

“I’ve not slept a wink!” she said. “And I came as soon as I
could get away.”

Moore had no word for her, not even a greeting. The look of her
had stricken him. It could have only one meaning.

“Mornin’, lass,” said the hunter, and he took her hand. “I
couldn’t tell you looked sleepy, for all you said. Let’s go into
the cabin.”

So he led Columbine in, and Moore followed. The girl manifestly
was in a high state of agitation, but she was neither trembling nor
frightened nor sorrowful. Nor did she betray any lack of an
unflinching and indomitable spirit. Wade read the truth of what she
imagined was her doom in the white glow of her, in the matured
lines of womanhood that had come since yesternight, in the
sustained passion of her look.

“Ben! Wilson! The worst has come!” she announced.

Moore could not speak. Wade held Columbine’s hand in both of
his.

“Worst! Now, Collie, that’s a terrible word. I’ve heard it many
times. An’ all my life the worst’s been comin’. An’ it hasn’t come
yet. You–only twenty years old–talkin’ wild–the worst has
come!… Tell me your trouble now an’ I’ll tell you where you’re
wrong.”

“Jack’s a thief–a cattle-thief!” rang Columbine’s voice, high
and clear.

“Ahuh! Well, go on,” said Wade.

“Jack has taken money from rustlers–for cattle stolen from
his father!“

Wade felt the lift of her passion, and he vibrated to it.

“Reckon that’s no news to me,” he replied.

Then she quivered up to a strong and passionate delivery of the
thing that had transformed her.

“I’M GOING TO MARRY JACK BELLLOUNDS!”

Wilson Moore leaped toward her with a cry, to be held back by
Wade’s hand.

“Now, Collie,” he soothed, “tell us all about it.”

Columbine, still upheld by the strength of her spirit, related
how she had ridden out the day before, early in the afternoon, in
the hope of meeting Wade. She rode over the sage hills, along the
edges of the aspen benches, everywhere that she might expect to
meet or see the hunter, but as he did not appear, and as she was
greatly desirous of talking with him, she went on up into the
woods, following the line of the Buffalo Park trail, though keeping
aside from it. She rode very slowly and cautiously, remembering
Wade’s instructions. In this way she ascended the aspen benches,
and the spruce-bordered ridges, and then the first rise of the
black forest. Finally she had gone farther than ever before and
farther than was wise.

When she was about to turn back she heard the thud of hoofs
ahead of her. Pronto shot up his ears. Alarmed and anxious,
Columbine swiftly gazed about her. It would not do for her to be
seen. Yet, on the other hand, the chances were that the approaching
horse carried Wade. It was lucky that she was on Pronto, for he
could be trusted to stand still and not neigh. Columbine rode into
a thick clump of spruces that had long, shelving branches, reaching
down. Here she hid, holding Pronto motionless.

Presently the sound of hoofs denoted the approach of several
horses. That augmented Columbine’s anxiety. Peering out of her
covert, she espied three horsemen trotting along the trail, and one
of them was Jack Belllounds. They appeared to be in strong
argument, judging from gestures and emphatic movements of their
heads. As chance would have it they halted their horses not half a
dozen rods from Columbine’s place of concealment. The two men with
Belllounds were rough-looking, one of them, evidently a leader,
having a dark face disfigured by a horrible scar.

Naturally they did not talk loud, and Columbine had to strain
her ears to catch anything. But a word distinguished here and
there, and accompanying actions, made transparent the meaning of
their presence and argument. The big man refused to ride any
farther. Evidently he had come so far without realizing it. His
importunities were for “more head of stock.” His scorn was for a
“measly little bunch not worth the risk.” His anger was for
Belllounds’s foolhardiness in “leavin’ a trail.” Belllounds had
little to say, and most of that was spoken in a tone too low to be
heard. His manner seemed indifferent, even reckless. But he wanted
“money.” The scar-faced man’s name was “Smith.” Then Columbine
gathered from Smith’s dogged and forceful gestures, and his words,
“no money” and “bigger bunch,” that he was unwilling to pay what
had been agreed upon unless Belllounds promised to bring a larger
number of cattle. Here Belllounds roundly cursed the rustler, and
apparently argued that course “next to impossible.” Smith made a
sweeping movement with his arm, pointing south, indicating some
place afar, and part of his speech was “Gore Peak.” The little man,
companion of Smith, got into the argument, and, dismounting from
his horse, he made marks upon the smooth earth of the trail. He was
drawing a rude map showing direction and locality. At length, when
Belllounds nodded as if convinced or now informed, this third
member of the party remounted, and seemed to have no more to say.
Belllounds pondered sullenly. He snatched a switch from off a bough
overhead and flicked his boot and stirrup with it, an action that
made his horse restive. Smith leered and spoke derisively, of which
speech Columbine heard, “Aw hell!” and “yellow streak,” and “no
one’d ever,” and “son of Bill Belllounds,” and “rustlin’ stock.”
Then this scar-faced man drew out a buckskin bag. Either the
contempt or the gold, or both, overbalanced vacillation in the weak
mind of Jack Belllounds, for he lifted his head, showing his face
pale and malignant, and without trace of shame or compunction he
snatched the bag of gold, shouted a hoarse, “All right, damn you!”
and, wheeling the white mustang, he spurred away, quickly
disappearing.

The rustlers sat their horses, gazing down the trail, and Smith
wagged his dark head doubtfully. Then he spoke quite distinctly, “I
ain’t a-trustin’ thet Belllounds pup!” and his comrade replied,
“Boss, we ain’t stealin’ the stock, so what th’ hell!” Then they
turned their horses and trotted out of sight and hearing up the
timbered slope.

Columbine was so stunned, and so frightened and horrified, that
she remained hidden there for a long time before she ventured
forth. Then, heading homeward, she skirted the trail and kept to
the edge of the forest, making a wide detour over the hills,
finally reaching the ranch at sunset. Jack did not appear at the
evening meal. His father had one of his spells of depression and
seemed not to have noticed her absence. She lay awake all night
thinking and praying.

Columbine concluded her narrative there, and, panting from her
agitation and hurry, she gazed at the bowed figure of Moore, and
then at Wade.

“I had to tell you this shameful secret,” she began
again. “I’m forced. If you do not help me, if something is not
done, there’ll be a horrible–end to all!”

“We’ll help you, but how?” asked Moore, raising a white
face.

“I don’t know yet. I only feel–I only feel what
may happen, if I don’t prevent it…. Wilson, you must go home–at
least for a while.”

“It’ll not look right for Wils to leave White Slides now,”
interposed Wade, positively.

“But why? Oh, I fear–“

“Never mind now, lass. It’s a good reason. An’ you mustn’t fear
anythin’. I agree with you–we’ve got to prevent this–this that’s
goin’ to happen.”

“Oh, Ben, my dear friend, we must prevent it–you
must!“

“Ahuh!… So I was figurin’.”

“Ben, you must go to Jack an’ tell him–show him the
peril–frighten him terribly–so that he will not do–do this
shameful thing again.”

“Lass, I reckon I could scare Jack out of his skin. But what
good would that do?”

“It’ll stop this–this madness…. Then I’ll marry him–and keep
him safe–after that!”

“Collie, do you think marryin’ Buster Jack will stop his bustin’
out?”

“Oh, I know it will. He had conquered over the evil in
him. I saw that. I felt it. He conquered over his baser nature for
love of me. Then–when he heard–from my own lips–that I loved
Wilson–why, then he fell. He didn’t care. He drank again. He let
go. He sank. And now he’ll ruin us all. Oh, it looks as if he meant
it that way!… But I can change him. I will marry him. I will love
him–or I will live a lie! I will make him think I love
him!”

Wilson Moore, deadly pale, faced her with flaming eyes.

“Collie, why? For God’s sake, explain why you will shame
your womanhood and ruin me–all for that coward–that thief?”

Columbine broke from Wade and ran to Wilson, as if to clasp him,
but something halted her and she stood before him.

“Because dad will kill him!” she cried.

“My God! what are you saying?” exclaimed Moore, incredulously.
“Old Bill would roar and rage, but hurt that boy of
his–never!”

“Wils, I reckon Collie is right. You haven’t got Old Bill
figured. I know,” interposed Wade, with one of his forceful
gestures.

“Wilson, listen, and don’t set your heart against me. For I
must do this thing,” pleaded Columbine. “I heard dad swear
he’d kill Jack. Oh, I’ll never forget! He was terrible! If he ever
finds out that Jack stole from his own father–stole cattle like a
common rustler, and sold them for gold to gamble and drink with–he
will kill him!… That’s as true as fate…. Think how horrible
that would be for me! Because I’m to blame here, mostly. I fell in
love with you, Wilson Moore, otherwise I could have saved
Jack already.

“But it’s not that I think of myself. Dad has loved me. He has
been as a father to me. You know he’s not my real father. Oh, if I
only had a real one!… And I owe him so much. But then it’s not
because I owe him or because I love him. It’s because of his own
soul!… That splendid, noble old man, who has been so good to
every one–who had only one fault, and that love of his son–must
he be let go in blinded and insane rage at the failure of his life,
the ruin of his son–must he be allowed to kill his own flesh and
blood?… It would be murder! It would damn dad’s soul to
everlasting torment. No! No! I’ll not let that be!”

“Collie–how about–your own soul?” whispered Moore, lifting
himself as if about to expend a tremendous breath.

“That doesn’t matter,” she replied.

“Collie–Collie–” he stammered, but could not go on.

Then it seemed to Wade that they both turned to him unconscious
of the inevitableness of his relation to this catastrophe, yet
looking to him for the spirit, the guidance that became habitual to
them. It brought the warm blood back to Wade’s cold heart. It was
his great reward. How intensely and implacably did his soul mount
to that crisis!

“Collie, I’ll never fail you,” he said, and his gentle voice was
deep and full. “If Jack can be scared into haltin’ in his mad ride
to hell–then I’ll do it. I’m not promisin’ so much for him. But
I’ll swear to you that Old Belllounds’s hands will never be stained
with his son’s blood!”

“Oh, Ben! Ben!” she cried, in passionate gratitude. “I’ll love
you–bless you all my life!”

“Hush, lass! I’m not one to bless…. An’ now you must do as I
say. Go home an’ tell them you’ll marry Jack in August. Say August
thirteenth.”

“So long! Oh, why put it off? Wouldn’t it be better–safer, to
settle it all–once and forever?”

“No man can tell everythin’. But that’s my judgment.”

“Why August thirteenth?” she queried, with strange curiosity.
“An unlucky date!”

“Well, it just happened to come to my mind–that date,” replied
Wade, in his slow, soft voice of reminiscence. “I was married on
August thirteenth–twenty-one years ago…. An’, Collie, my wife
looked somethin’ like you. Isn’t that strange, now? It’s a little
world…. An’ she’s been gone eighteen years!”

“Ben, I never dreamed you ever had a wife,” said Columbine,
softly, with her hands going to his shoulder. “You must tell me of
her some day…. But now–if you want time–if you think it
best–I’ll not marry Jack till August thirteenth.”

“That’ll give me time,” replied Wade. “I’m thinkin’ Jack ought
to be–reformed, let’s call it–before you marry him. If all you
say is true–why we can turn him round. Your promise will do
most…. So, then, it’s settled?”

“Yes–dear–friends,” faltered the girl, tremulously, on the
verge of a breakdown, now that the ordeal was past.

Wilson Moore stood gazing out of the door, his eyes far away on
the gray slopes.

“Queer how things turn out,” he said, dreamily. “August
thirteenth!… That’s about the time the columbines blow on the
hills…. And I always meant columbine-time–“

Here he sharply interrupted himself, and the dreamy musing gave
way to passion. “But I mean it yet! I’ll–I’ll die before I give up
hope of you!”

CHAPTER XVI

Wade, watching Columbine ride down the slope on her homeward
way, did some of the hardest thinking he had yet been called upon
to do. It was not necessary to acquaint Wilson Moore with the
deeper and more subtle motives that had begun to actuate him. It
would not utterly break the cowboy’s spirit to live in suspense.
Columbine was safe for the present. He had insured her against
fatality. Time was all he needed. Possibility of an actual
consummation of her marriage to Jack Belllounds did not lodge for
an instant in Wade’s consciousness. In Moore’s case, however, the
present moment seemed critical. What should he tell Moore–what
should he conceal from him?

“Son, come in here,” he called to the cowboy.

“Pard, it looks–bad!” said Moore, brokenly.

Wade looked at the tragic face and cursed under his breath.

“Buck up! It’s never as bad as it looks. Anyway, we know
now what to expect, an’ that’s well.”

Moore shook his head. “Couldn’t you see how like steel Collie
was?… But I’m on to you, Wade. You think by persuading Collie to
put that marriage off that we’ll gain time. You’re gambling with
time. You swear Buster Jack will hang himself. You won’t quit
fighting this deal.”

“Buster Jack has slung the noose over a tree, an’ he’s about
ready to slip his head into it,” replied Wade.

“Bah!… You drive me wild,” cried Moore, passionately. “How can
you? Where’s all that feeling you seemed to have for me? You nursed
me–you saved my leg–and my life. You must have cared about me.
But now–you talk about that dolt–that spoiled old man’s pet–that
damned cur, as if you believed he’d ruin himself. No such luck! no
such hope!… Every day things grow worse. Yet the worse they grow
the stronger you seem! It’s all out of proportion. It’s dreams.
Wade, I hate to say it, but I’m sure you’re not always–just right
in your mind.”

“Wils, now ain’t that queer?” replied Wade, sadly. “I’m agreein’
with you.”

“Aw!” Moore shook himself savagely and laid an affectionate and
appealing arm on his friend’s shoulder. “Forgive me, pard!… It’s
me who’s out of his head…. But my heart’s broken.”

“That’s what you think,” rejoined Wade, stoutly. “But a man’s
heart can’t break in a day. I know…. An’ the God’s truth is
Buster Jack will hang himself!”

Moore raised his head sharply, flinging himself back from his
friend so as to scrutinize his face. Wade felt the piercing power
of that gaze.

“Wade, what do you mean?”

“Collie told us some interestin’ news about Jack, didn’t she?
Well, she didn’t know what I know. Jack Belllounds had laid a
cunnin’ an’ devilish trap to prove you guilty of rustlin’ his
father’s cattle.”

“Absurd!” ejaculated Moore, with white lips.

“I’d never given him credit for brains to hatch such a plot,”
went on Wade. “Now listen. Not long ago Buster Jack made a remark
in front of the whole outfit, includin’ his father, that the
homesteaders on the range were rustlin’ cattle. It fell sort of
flat, that remark. But no one could calculate on his infernal
cunnin’. I quit workin’ for Belllounds that night, an’ I’ve put my
time in spyin’ on the boy. In my day I’ve done a good deal of
spyin’, but I’ve never run across any one slicker than Buster Jack.
To cut it short–he got himself a white-speckled mustang that’s a
dead ringer for Spottie. He measured the tracks of your horse’s
left front foot–the bad hoof, you know, an’ he made a shoe exactly
the same as Spottie wears. Also, he made some kind of a contraption
that’s like the end of your crutch. These he packs with him. I saw
him ride across the pasture to hide his tracks, climb up the sage
for the same reason, an’ then hide in that grove of aspens over
there near the trail you use. Here, you can bet, he changed shoes
on the left front foot of his horse. Then he took to the trail, an’
he left tracks for a while, an’ then he was careful to hide them
again. He stole his father’s stock an’ drove it up over the grassy
benches where even you or I couldn’t track him next day. But up on
top, when it suited him, he left some horse tracks, an’ in the mud
near a spring-hole he gets off his horse, steppin’ with one
foot–an’ makin’ little circles with dots like those made by the
end of your crutch. Then ‘way over in the woods there’s a cabin
where he meets his accomplices. Here he leaves the same horse
tracks an’ crutch tracks…. Simple as a b c, Wils, when you see
how he did it. But I’ll tell you straight–if I hadn’t been
suspicious of Buster Jack–that trick of his would have made you a
rustler!”