“I can’t — eat any more,” declared Moore, at last.

  “You’ve done very well for an invalid,” observed Columbine. Then, changing the subject, she asked, “Wilson, you’re going to stay here — winter here, dad would call it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are those your cattle down in the valley?”

  “Sure. I’ve got near a hundred head. I saved my money and bought cattle.”

  “That’s a good start for you. I’m glad. But who’s going to take care of you and your stock until you can work again?”

  “Why, my friend there, Heaven-Sent Wade,” replied Moore, indicating the little man busy with the utensils on the table, and apparently hearing nothing.

  “Can I fetch you anything to eat — or read?” she inquired.

  “Fetch yourself,” he replied, softly.

  “But, boy, how could I fetch you anything without fetching myself?”

  “Sure, that’s right. Then fetch me some jam and a book — to-morrow. Will you?”

  “I surely will.”

  “That’s a promise. I know your promises of old.”

  “Then good-by till to-morrow. I must go. I hope you’ll be better.”

  “I’ll stay sick in bed till you stop coming.”

  Columbine left rather precipitously, and when she got outdoors it seemed that the hills had never been so softly, dreamily gray, nor their loneliness so sweet, nor the sky so richly and deeply blue. As she untied Pronto the hunter came out with Kane at his heels.

  “Miss Collie, if you’ll go easy I’ll ketch my horse an’ ride down with you,” he said.

  She mounted, and walked Pronto out to the trail, and slowly faced the gradual descent. It was really higher up there than she had surmised. And the view was beautiful. The gray, rolling foothills, so exquisitely colored at that hour, and the black-fringed ranges, one above the other, and the distant peaks, sunset-flushed across the purple, all rose open and clear to her sight, so wildly and splendidly expressive of the Colorado she loved.

  At the foot of the slope Wade joined her.

  “Lass, I’m askin’ you not to tell Belllounds that I’m carin’ for Wils,” he said, in his gentle, persuasive way.

  “I won’t. But why not tell dad? He wouldn’t mind. He’d do that sort of thing himself.”

  “Reckon he would. But this deal’s out of the ordinary. An’ Wils’s not in as good shape as he thinks. I’m not takin’ any chances. I don’t want to lose my job, an’ I don’t want to be hindered from attendin’ to this boy.”

  They had ridden as far as the first aspen grove when Wade concluded this remark. Columbine halted her horse, causing her companion to do likewise. Her former misgivings were augmented by the intelligence of Wade’s sad, lined face.

  “Ben, tell me,” she whispered, with a hand going to his arm.

  “Miss Collie, I’m a sort of doctor in my way. I studied some medicine an’ surgery. An’ I know. I wouldn’t tell you this if it wasn’t that I’ve got to rely on you to help me.”

  “I will — but go on — tell me,” interposed Columbine trying to fortify herself.

  “Wils’s foot is all messed up. Buster Jack kicked it all out of shape. An’ it’s a hundred times worse than ever. I’m afraid of blood-poisonin’ an’ gangrene. You know gangrene is a dyin’ an’ rottin’ of the flesh.... I told the boy straight out that he’d better let me cut his foot off. An’ he swore he’d keep his foot or die! Well, if gangrene does set in we can’t save his leg, an’ maybe not his life.”

  “Oh, it can’t be as bad as all that!” cried Columbine. “Oh, I knew — I knew there was something.... Ben, you mean even at best now — he’ll be a—” She broke off, unable to finish.

  “Miss Collie, in any case Wils’ll never ride again — not like a cowboy.”

  That for Columbine seemed the worst and the last straw. Hot tears blinded her, hot blood gushed over her, hot heart-beats throbbed in her throat.

  “Poor boy! That’ll — ruin him,” she cried. “He loved — a horse. He loved to ride. He was the — best rider of them all. And now he’s ruined! He’ll be lame — a cripple — club-footed!... All because of that Jack Belllounds! The brute — the coward! I hate him! Oh, I hate him!... And I’ve got to marry him — on October first! Oh, God pity me!”

  Blindly Columbine reeled out of her saddle and slowly dropped to the grass, where she burst into a violent storm of sobs and tears. It shook her every fiber. It was hopeless, terrible grief. The dry grass received her flood of tears and her incoherent words.

  Wade dismounted and, kneeling beside her, placed a gentle hand upon her heaving shoulder, but he spoke no word. By and by, when the storm had begun to subside, he raised her head.

  “Lass, nothin’ is ever so bad as it seems,” he said, softly. “Come, sit up. Let me talk to you.”

  “Oh, Ben, something terrible has happened,” she cried. “It’s in me! I don’t know what it is. But it’ll kill me.”

  “I know,” he replied, as her head fell upon his shoulder. “Miss Collie, I’m an old fellow that’s had everythin’ happen to him, an’ I’m livin’ yet, tryin’ to help people along. No one dies so easy. Why, you’re a fine, strong girl — an’ somethin’ tells me you was made for happiness. I know how things turn out. Listen—”

  “But, Ben — you don’t know — about me,” she sobbed. “I’ve told you — I — hate Jack Belllounds. But I’ve — got to marry him!... His father raised me — from a baby. He brought me up. I owe him — my life.... I’ve no relation — no mother — no father! No one loves me — for myself!”

  “Nobody loves you!” echoed Wade, with an exquisite tone of repudiation. “Strange how people fool themselves! Lass, you’re huggin’ your troubles too hard. An’ you’re wrong. Why, everybody loves you! Lem an’ Jim — why you just brighten the hard world they live in. An’ that poor, hot-headed Jack — he loves you as well as he can love anythin’. An’ the old man — no daughter could be loved more.... An’ I — I love you, lass, just like — as if you — might have been my own. I’m goin’ to be the friend — the brother you need. An’ I reckon I can come somewheres near bein’ a mother, if you’ll let me.”

  Something, some subtle power or charm, stole over Columbine, assuaging her terrible sense of loss, of grief. There was tenderness in this man’s hands, in his voice, and through them throbbed strong and passionate life and spirit.

  “Do you really love me — love me?” she whispered, somehow comforted, somehow feeling that what he offered was what she had missed as a child. “And you want to be all that for me?”

  “Yes, lass, an’ I reckon you’d better try me.”

  “Oh, how good you are! I felt that — the very first time I was with you. I’ve wanted to come to you — to tell you my troubles. I love dad and he loves me, but he doesn’t understand. Dad is wrapped up in his son. I’ve had no one. I never had any one.”

  “You have some one now,” returned Wade, with a rich, deep mellowness in his voice that soothed Columbine and made her wonder. “An’ because I’ve been through so much I can tell you what’ll help you.... Lass, if a woman isn’t big an’ brave, how will a man ever be? There’s more in women than in men. Life has given you a hard knock, placin’ you here — no real parents — an’ makin’ you responsible to a man whose only fault is blinded love for his son. Well, you’ve got to meet it, face it, with what a woman has more of than any man. Courage! Suppose you do hate this Buster Jack. Suppose you do love this poor, crippled Wilson Moore.... Lass, don’t look like that! Don’t deny. You do love that boy.... Well, it’s hell. But you can never tell what’ll happen when you’re honest and square. If you feel it your duty to pay your debt to the old man you call dad — to pay it by marryin’ his son, why do it, an’ be a woman. There’s nothin’ as great as a woman can be. There’s happiness that comes in strange, unheard-of ways. There’s more in this life than what you want most. You didn’t place yourself in this fix. So if you meet it with courage an’ faithfulness to yourself, why, it’ll not turn out as you dread.... Some day, if you ever think you’re broken-hearted, I’ll tell you my story. An’ then you’ll not think your lot so hard. For I’ve had a broken heart an’ ruined life, an’ yet I’ve lived on an’ on, findin’ happiness I never dreamed would come, fightin’ or workin’. An’ how I found the world beautiful, an’ how I love the flowers an’ hills an’ wild things so well — that, just that would be enough to live for!... An’ think, lass, of what a wonderful happiness will come to me in showin’ all this to you. That’ll be the crownin’ glory. An’ if it’s that much to me, then you be sure there’s nothin’ on earth I won’t do for you.”

  Columbine lifted her tear-stained face with a light of inspiration.

  “Oh, Wilson was right!” she murmured. “You are Heaven-sent! And I’m going to love you!”

  CHAPTER IX

  A NEW SPIRIT, or a liberation of her own, had fired Columbine, and was now burning within her, unquenchable and unutterable. Some divine spark had penetrated into that mysterious depth of her, to inflame and to illumine, so that when she arose from this hour of calamity she felt that to the tenderness and sorrow and fidelity in her soul had been added the lightning flash of passion.

  “Oh, Ben — shall I be able to hold onto this?” she cried, flinging wide her arms, as if to embrace the winds of heaven.

  “This what, lass?” he asked.

  “This — this woman!” she answered, passionately, with her hands sweeping back to press her breast.

  “No woman who wakes ever goes back to a girl again,” he said, sadly.

  “I wanted to die — and now I want to live — to fight.... Ben, you’ve uplifted me. I was little, weak, miserable.... But in my dreams, or in some state I can’t remember or understand, I’ve waited for your very words. I was ready. It’s as if I knew you in some other world, before I was born on this earth; and when you spoke to me here, so wonderfully — as my mother might have spoken — my heart leaped up in recognition of you and your call to my womanhood!... Oh, how strange and beautiful!”

  “Miss Collie,” he replied, slowly, as he bent to his saddle-straps, “you’re young, an’ you’ve no understandin’ of what’s strange an’ terrible in life. An’ beautiful, too, as you say.... Who knows? Maybe in some former state I was somethin’ to you. I believe in that. Reckon I can’t say how or what. Maybe we were flowers or birds. I’ve a weakness for that idea.”

  “Birds! I like the thought, too,” replied Columbine. “I love most birds. But there are hawks, crows, buzzards!”

  “I reckon. Lass, there’s got to be balance in nature. If it weren’t for the ugly an’ the evil, we wouldn’t know the beautiful an’ good.... An’ now let’s ride home. It’s gettin’ late.”

  “Ben, ought I not go back to Wilson right now?” she asked, slowly.

  “What for?”

  “To tell him — something — and why I can’t come to-morrow, or ever afterward,” she replied, low and tremulously.

  Wade pondered over her words. It seemed to Columbine that her sharpened faculties sensed something of hostility, of opposition in him.

  “Reckon to-morrow would be better,” he said, presently. “Wilson’s had enough excitement for one day.”

  “Then I’ll go to-morrow,” she returned.

  In the gathering, cold twilight they rode down the trail in silence.

  “Good night, lass,” said Wade, as he reached his cabin. “An’ remember you’re not alone any more.”

  “Good night, my friend,” she replied, and rode on.

  Columbine encountered Jim Montana at the corrals, and it was not too dark for her to see his foam-lashed horse. Jim appeared non-committal, almost surly. But Columbine guessed that he had ridden to Kremmling and back in one day, on some order of Jack’s.

  “Miss Collie, I’ll tend to Pronto,” he offered. “An’ yore supper’ll be waitin’.”

  A bright fire blazed on the living-room hearth. The rancher was reading by its light.

  “Hello, rosy-cheeks!” greeted the rancher, with unusual amiability. “Been ridin’ ag’in’ the wind, hey? Wal, if you ain’t pretty, then my eyes are pore!”

  “It’s cold, dad,” she replied, “and the wind stings. But I didn’t ride fast nor far.... I’ve been up to see Wilson Moore.”

  “Ahuh! Wal, how’s the boy?” asked Belllounds, gruffly.

  “He said he was all right, but — but I guess that’s not so,” responded Columbine.

  “Any friends lookin’ after him?”

  “Oh yes — he must have friends — the Andrewses and others. I’m glad to say his cabin is comfortable. He’ll be looked after.”

  “Wal, I’m glad to hear thet. I’ll send Lem or Wade up thar an’ see if we can do anythin’ fer the boy.”

  “Dad — that’s just like you,” replied Columbine, with her hand seeking his broad shoulder.

  “Ahuh! Say, Collie, hyar’s letters from ‘most everybody in Kremmlin’ wantin’ to be invited up fer October first. How about askin’ ‘em?”

  “The more the merrier,” replied Columbine.

  “Wal, I reckon I’ll not ask anybody.”

  “Why not, dad?”

  “No one can gamble on thet son of mine, even on his weddin’-day,” replied Belllounds, gloomily.

  “Dad, what’d Jack do to-day?”

  “I’m not sayin’ he did anythin’,” answered the rancher.

  “Dad, you can gamble on me.”

  “Wal, I should smile,” he said, putting his big arm around her. “I wish you was Jack an’ Jack was you.”

  At that moment the young man spoken of slouched into the room, with his head bandaged, and took a seat at the supper-table.

  “Wal, Collie, let’s go an’ get it,” said the rancher, cheerily. “I can always eat, anyhow.”

  “I’m hungry as a bear,” rejoined Columbine, as she took her seat, which was opposite Jack.

  “Where ‘ye you been?” he asked, curiously.

  “Why, good evening, Jack! Did you finally notice me?... I’ve been riding Pronto, the first time since he was hurt. Had a lovely ride — up through Sage Valley.”

  Jack glowered at her with the one unbandaged eye, and growled something under his breath, and then began to stab meat and potatoes with his fork.

  “What’s the matter, Jack? Aren’t you well?” asked Columbine, with a solicitude just a little too sweet to be genuine.

  “Yes, I’m well,” snapped Jack.

  “But you look sick. That is, what I can see of your face looks sick. Your mouth droops at the corners. You’re very pale — and red in spots. And your one eye glows with unearthly woe, as if you were not long for this world!”

  The amazing nature of this speech, coming from the girl who had always been so sweet and quiet and backward, was attested to by the consternation of Jack and the mirth of his father.

  “Are you making fun of me?” demanded Jack.

  “Why, Jack! Do you think I would make fun of you? I only wanted to say how queer you look.... Are you going to be married with one eye?”

  Jack collapsed at that, and the old man, after a long stare of open-mouthed wonder, broke out: “Haw! Haw! Haw!... By Golly! lass — I’d never believed thet was in you.... Jack, be game an’ take your medicine.... An’ both of you forgive an’ forget. Thar’ll be quarrels enough, mebbe, without rakin’ over the past.”

  When alone again Columbine reverted to a mood vastly removed from her apparent levity with the rancher and his son. A grave and inward-searching thought possessed her, and it had to do with the uplift, the spiritual advance, the rise above mere personal welfare, that had strangely come to her through Bent Wade. From their first meeting he had possessed a singular attraction for her that now, in the light of the meaning of his life, seemed to Columbine to be the man’s nobility and wisdom, arising out of his travail, out of the terrible years that had left their record upon his face.

  And so Columbine strove to bind forever in her soul the spirit which had arisen in her, interpreting from Wade’s rude words of philosophy that which she needed for her own light and strength.

  She appreciated her duty toward the man who had been a father to her. Whatever he asked that would she do. And as for the son she must live with the rest of her life, her duty there was to be a good wife, to bear with his faults, to strive always to help him by kindness, patience, loyalty, and such affection as was possible to her. Hate had to be reckoned with, and hate, she knew, had no place in a good woman’s heart. It must be expelled, if that were humanly possible. All this was hard, would grow harder, but she accepted it, and knew her mind.

  Her soul was her own, unchangeable through any adversity. She could be with that alone always, aloof from the petty cares and troubles common to people. Wade’s words had thrilled her with their secret, with their limitless hope of an unknown world of thought and feeling. Happiness, in the ordinary sense, might never be hers. Alas for her dreams! But there had been given her a glimpse of something higher than pleasure and contentment. Dreams were but dreams. But she could still dream of what had been, of what might have been, of the beauty and mystery of life, of something in nature that called sweetly and irresistibly to her. Who could rob her of the rolling, gray, velvety hills, and the purple peaks and the black ranges, among which she had been found a waif, a little lost creature, born like a columbine under the spruces?

  Love, sudden-dawning, inexplicable love, was her secret, still tremulously new, and perilous in its sweetness. That only did she fear to realize and to face, because it was an unknown factor, a threatening flame. Her sudden knowledge of it seemed inextricably merged with the mounting, strong, and steadfast stream of her spirit.

  “I’ll go to him. I’ll tell him,” she murmured. “He shall have that!... Then I must bid him — good-by — forever!”