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 whatyousay," 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--bentlike 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.
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 fromhim."
"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, Ihatehim!... 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 terriblehashappened," she cried. "It's inme! 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--loveme?" 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.Youdidn'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!"