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 gothellon 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.
"Ihadto 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 onlyfeel--I onlyfeelwhat 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--youmust!"
"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, Iknowit 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 willlive 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 Imustdo 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 withyou, 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 bemurder!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!"
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, weknownow 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!"
"Damn him!" hissed the cowboy, in utter consternation and fury.
"Ahuh! That's my sentiment exactly."
"I swore to Collie I'd never kill him!"
"Sure you did, son. An' you've got to keep that oath. I pin you down to it. You can't break faith with Collie.... An' you don't want his bad blood on your hands."
"No! No!" he replied, violently. "Of course I don't. I won't. But God! how sweet it would be to tear out his lying tongue--to--"
"I reckon it would. Only don't talk about that," interrupted Wade, bluntly. "You see, now, don't you, how he's about hanged himself."
"No, pard, I don't. We can't squeal that on him, any more than we can squeal what Collie told us."
"Son, you're young in dealin' with crooked men. You don't get the drift of motives. Buster Jack is not only robbin' his father an' hatchin' a dirty trap for you, but he's double-crossin' the rustlers he's sellin' the cattle to. He's riskin' their necks. He's goin' to findyourtracks, showin' you dealt with them. Sure, he won't give them away, an' he's figurin' on their gettin' out of it, maybe by leavin' the range, or a shootin'-fray, or some way. The big thing with Jack is that he's goin' to accuse you of rustlin' an' show your tracks to his father. Well, that's a risk he's given the rustlers. It happens that I know this scar-face Smith. We've met before. Now it's easy to see from what Collie heard that Smith is not trustin' Buster Jack. So, all underneath this Jack Belllounds's game, there's forces workin' unbeknown to him, beyond his control, an' sure to ruin him."
"I see. I see. By Heaven! Wade, nothing else but ruin seems possible!... But suppose it works out his way!... What then? What of Collie?"
"Son, I've not got that far along in my reckonin'," replied Wade.
"But for my sake--think. If Buster Jack gets away with his trick--if he doesn't hang himself by some blunder or fit of temper or spree--what then of Collie?"
Wade could not answer this natural and inevitable query for the reason that he had found it impossible of consideration.
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," he replied.
"Wade, you've said that before. It helped me. But now I need more than a few words from the Bible. My faith is low. I ... oh, I tried to pray because Collie told me she had prayed! But what are prayers? We're dealing with a stubborn, iron-willed old man who idolizes his son; we're dealing with a crazy boy, absolutely self-centered, crafty, and vicious, who'll stop at nothing. And, lastly, we're dealing with a girl who's so noble and high-souled that she'll sacrifice her all--her life to pay her debt. If she were really Bill Belllounds's daughter she'dnevermarry Jack, saying, of course, that he was not her brother.... Do you know that it willkillher, if she marries him?"
"Ahuh! I reckon it would," replied Wade, with his head bowed. Moore roused his gloomy forebodings. He did not care to show this feeling or the effect the cowboy's pleading had upon him.
"Ah! so you admit it? Well, then, what of Collie?"
"Ifshe marries him--she'll have to die, I suppose," replied Wade.
Then Wilson Moore leaped at his friend and with ungentle hands lifted him, pushed him erect.
"Damn you, Wade! You're not square with me! You don't tell me all!" he cried, hoarsely.
"Now, Wils, you're set up. I've told you all I know. I swear that."
"But you couldn't stand the thought of Collie dying for that brute! You couldn't! Oh, I know. I can feel some things that are hard to tell. So, you're either out of your head or you've something up your sleeve. It's hard to explain how you affect me. One minute I'm ready to choke you for that damned strangeness--whatever it is. The next minute I feel it--I trust it, myself.... Wade, you're not--youcan'tbe infallible!"
"I'm only a man, Wils, an' your friend. I reckon you do find me queer. But that's no matter. Now let's look at this deal--each from his own side of the fence. An' each actin' up to his own lights! You do what your conscience dictates, always thinkin' of Collie--not of yourself! An' I'll live up to my principles. Can we do more?"
"No, indeed, Wade, we can't," replied Moore, eloquently.
"Well, then, here's my hand. I've talked too much, I reckon. An' the time for talkin' is past."
In silence Moore gripped the hand held out to him, trying to read Wade's mind, apparently once more uplifted and strengthened by that which he could not divine.
Wade's observations during the following week brought forth the fact that Jack Belllounds was not letting any grass grow under his feet. He endeavored to fulfil his agreement with Smith, and drove a number of cattle by moonlight. These were part of the stock that the rancher had sold to buyers at Kremmling, and which had been collected and held in the big, fenced pasture down the valley next to the Andrews ranch. The loss was not discovered until the cattle had been counted at Kremmling. Then they were credited to loss by straying. In driving a considerable herd of half-wild steers, with an inadequate force of cowboys, it was no unusual thing to lose a number.
Wade, however, was in possession of the facts not later than the day after this midnight steal in the moonlight. He was forced to acknowledge that no one would have believed it possible for Jack Belllounds to perform a feat which might well have been difficult for the best of cowboys. But Jack accomplished it and got back home before daylight. And Wade was bound to admit that circumstantial evidence against Wilson Moore, which, of course, Jack Belllounds would soon present, would be damning and apparently irrefutable.
Waiting for further developments, Wade closely watched the ranch-house, which duty interfered with his attention to the outlying trails. What he did not want to miss was being present when Jack Belllounds accused Wilson Moore of rustling cattle.
So it chanced that Wade was chatting with the cowboys one Sunday afternoon when Jack, accompanied by three strangers, all mounted on dusty, tired horses, rode up to the porch and dismounted.
Lem Billings manifested unusual excitement.
"Montana, ain't thet Sheriff Burley from Kremmlin'?" he queried.
"Shore looks like him.... Yep, thet's him. Now, what's doin'?"
The cowboys exchanged curious glances, and then turned to Wade.
"Bent, what do you make of thet?" asked Lem, as he waved his hand toward the house. "Buster Jack ridin' up with Sheriff Burley."
The rancher, Belllounds, who was on the porch, greeted the visitors, and then they all went into the house.
"Boys, it's what I've been lookin' for," replied Wade.
"Shore. Reckon we all have idees. An' if my idee is correct I'm agoin' to git pretty damn sore pronto," declared Lem.
They were all silent for a few moments, meditating over this singular occurrence, and watching the house. Presently Old Bill Belllounds strode out upon the porch, and, walking out into the court, he peered around as if looking for some one. Then he espied the little group of cowboys.
"Hey!" he yelled. "One of you boys ride up an' fetch Wils Moore down hyar!"
"All right, boss," called Lem, in reply, as he got up and gave a hitch to his belt.
The rancher hurried back, head down, as if burdened.
"Wade, I reckon you want to go fetch Wils?" queried Lem.
"If it's all the same to you. I'd rather not," replied Wade.
"By Golly! I don't blame you. Boys, shore'n hell, Burley's after Wils."
"Wal, suppos'n' he is," said Montana. "You can gamble Wils ain't agoin' to run. I'd jest like to see him face thet outfit. Burley's a pretty square fellar. An' he's no fool."
"It's as plain as your nose, Montana, an' thet's shore big enough," returned Lem, with a hard light in his eyes. "Buster Jack's busted out, an' he's figgered Wils in some deal thet's rung in the sheriff. Wal, I'll fetch Wils." And, growling to himself, the cowboy slouched off after his horse.
Wade got up, deliberate and thoughtful, and started away.
"Say, Bent, you're shore goin' to see what's up?" asked Montana, in surprise.
"I'll be around, Jim," replied Wade, and he strolled off to be alone. He wanted to think over this startling procedure of Jack Belllounds's. Wade was astonished. He had expected that an accusation would be made against Moore by Jack, and an exploitation of such proofs as had been craftily prepared, but he had never imagined Jack would be bold enough to carry matters so far. Sheriff Burley was a man of wide experience, keen, practical, shrewd. He was also one of the countless men Wade had rubbed elbows with in the eventful past. It had been Wade's idea that Jack would be satisfied to face his father with the accusation of Moore, and thus cover his tracks. Whatever Old Belllounds might have felt over the loss of a few cattle, he would never have hounded and arrested a cowboy who had done well by him. Burley, however, was a sheriff, and a conscientious one, and he happened to be particularly set against rustlers.
Here was a complication of circumstances. What would Jack Belllounds insist upon? How would Columbine take this plot against the honor and liberty of Wilson Moore? How would Moore himself react to it? Wade confessed that he was helpless to solve these queries, and there seemed to be a further one, insistent and gathering--what was to be his own attitude here? That could not be answered, either, because only a future moment, over which he had no control, and which must decide events, held that secret. Worry beset Wade, but he still found himself proof against the insidious gloom ever hovering near, like his shadow.
He waited near the trail to intercept Billings and Moore on their way to the ranch-house; and to his surprise they appeared sooner than it would have been reasonable to expect them. Wade stepped out of the willows and held up his hand. He did not see anything unusual in Moore's appearance.
"Wils, I reckon we'd do well to talk this over," said Wade.
"Talk what over?" queried the cowboy, sharply.