Columbine did not leave her room any more that day. What she suffered
there she did not want any one to know. What it cost her to conquer
herself again she had only a faint conception of. She did conquer,
however, and that night made up the sleep she had lost the night before.
Strangely enough, she did not feel afraid to face the rancher and his
son. Recent happenings had not only changed her, but had seemed to give
her strength. When she presented herself at the breakfast-table Jack was
absent. The old rancher greeted her with more thar usual solicitude.
"Jack's sick," he remarked, presently.
"Indeed," replied Columbine.
"Yes. He said it was the drinkin' he's not accustomed to. Wal, I reckon
it was what you called him. He didn't take much store on what I called
him, which was wuss.... I tell you, lass, Jack's set his heart so hard
on you thet it's turrible."
"Queer way he has of showing the--the affections of his heart," replied
Columbine, shortly.
"Thet was the drink," remonstrated the old man, pathetic and earnest in
his motive to smooth over the quarrel.
"But he promised me he would not drink any more."
Belllounds shook his gray old head sadly.
"Ahuh! Jack fires up an' promises anythin'. He means it at the time.
But the next hankerin' thet comes over him wipes out the promise. I
know.... But he's had good excuse fer this break. The boys in town began
celebratin' fer October first. Great wonder Jack didn't come home
clean drunk."
"Dad, you're as good as gold," said Columbine, softening. How could she
feel hard toward him?
"Collie, then you're not agoin' back on the ole man?"
"No."
"I was afeared you'd change your mind about marryin' Jack."
"When I promised I meant it. I didn't make it on conditions."
"But, lass, promises can be broke," he said, with the sonorous roll in
his voice.
"I never yet broke one of mine."
"Wal, I hev. Not often, mebbe, but I hev.... An', lass, it's reasonable.
Thar's times when a man jest can't live up to what he swore by. An' fer
a girl--why, I can see how easy she'd change an' grow overnight. It's
only fair fer me to say that no matter what you think you owe me you
couldn't be blamed now fer dislikin' Jack."
"Dad, if by marrying Jack I can help him to be a better son to you, and
more of a man, I'll be glad," she replied.
"Lass, I'm beginnin' to see how big an' fine you are," replied
Belllounds, with strong feeling. "An' it's worryin' me.... My neighbors
hev always accused me of seein' only my son. Only Buster Jack! I was
blind an' deaf as to him!... Wal, I'm not so damn blind as I used to be.
The scales are droppin' off my ole eyes.... But I've got one hope left
as far as Jack's concerned. Thet's marryin' him to you. An' I'm
stickin' to it."
"So will I stick to it, dad," she replied. "I'll go through with October
first!"
Columbine broke off, vouchsafing no more, and soon left the
breakfast-table, to take up the work she had laid out to do. And she
accomplished it, though many times her hands dropped idle and her eyes
peered out of her window at the drab slides of the old mountain.
Later, when she went out to ride, she saw the cowboy Lem working in the
blacksmith shop.
"Wal, Miss Collie, air you-all still hangin' round this hyar ranch?" he
asked, with welcoming smile.
"Lem, I'm almost ashamed now to face my good friends, I've neglected
them so long," she replied.
"Aw, now, what're friends fer but to go to?... You're lookin' pale, I
reckon. More like thet thar flower I see so much on the hills."
"Lem, I want to ride Pronto. Do you think he's all right, now?"
"I reckon some movin' round will do Pronto good. He's eatin' his haid
off."
The cowboy went with her to the pasture gate and whistled Pronto up. The
mustang came trotting, evidently none the worse for his injuries, and
eager to resume the old climbs with his mistress. Lem saddled him,
paying particular attention to the cinch.
"Reckon we'd better not cinch him tight," said Lem. "You jest be careful
an' remember your saddle's loose."
"All right, Lem," replied Columbine, as she mounted. "Where are the boys
this morning?"
"Blud an' Jim air repairin' fence up the crick."
"And where's Ben?"
"Ben? Oh, you mean Wade. Wal, I 'ain't seen him since yestidday. He was
skinnin' a lion then, over hyar on the ridge. Thet was in the mawnin'. I
reckon he's around, fer I seen some of the hounds."
"Then, Lem--you haven't heard about the fight yesterday between Jack and
Wilson Moore?"
Lem straightened up quickly. "Nope, I 'ain't heerd a word."
"Well, they fought, all right," said Columbine, hurriedly. "I saw it. I
was the only one there. Wilson was badly used up before dad and Ben got
there. Ben drove off with him."
"But, Miss Collie, how'd it come off? I seen Wils the other day. Was up
to his homestead. An' the boy jest manages to rustle round on a crutch.
He couldn't fight."
"That was just it. Jack saw his opportunity, and he forced Wilson to
fight--accused him of stealing. Wils tried to avoid trouble. Then Jack
jumped him. Wilson fought and held his own until Jack began to kick his
injured foot. Then Wilson fainted and--and Jack beat him."
Lem dropped his head, evidently to hide his expression. "Wal, dog-gone
me!" he ejaculated. "Thet's too bad."
Columbine left the cowboy and rode up the lane toward Wade's cabin. She
did not analyze her deliberate desire to tell the truth about that
fight, but she would have liked to proclaim it to the whole range and to
the world. Once clear of the house she felt free, unburdened, and to
talk seemed to relieve some congestion of her thoughts.
The hounds heralded Columbine's approach with a deep and booming chorus.
Sampson and Jim lay upon the porch, unleashed. The other hounds were
chained separately in the aspen grove a few rods distant. Sampson
thumped the boards with his big tail, but he did not get up, which
laziness attested to the fact that there had been a lion chase the day
before and he was weary and stiff. If Wade had been at home he would
have come out to see what had occasioned the clamor. As Columbine rode
by she saw another fresh lion-pelt pegged upon the wall of the cabin.
She followed the brook. It had cleared since the rains and was shining
and sparkling in the rough, swift places, and limpid and green in the
eddies. She passed the dam made by the solitary beaver that inhabited
the valley. Freshly cut willows showed how the beaver was preparing for
the long winter ahead. Columbine remembered then how greatly pleased
Wade had been to learn about this old beaver; and more than once Wade
had talked about trapping some younger beavers and bringing them there
to make company for the old fellow.
The trail led across the brook at a wide, shallow place, where the
splashing made by Pronto sent the trout scurrying for deeper water.
Columbine kept to that trail, knowing that it led up into Sage Valley,
where Wilson Moore had taken up the homestead property. Fresh horse
tracks told her that Wade had ridden along there some time earlier.
Pronto shied at the whirring of sage-hens. Presently Columbine
ascertained they were flushed by the hound Kane, that had broken loose
and followed her. He had done so before, and the fact had not
displeased her.
"Kane! Kane! come here!" she called. He came readily, but halted a rod
or so away, and made an attempt at wagging his tail, a function
evidently somewhat difficult for him. When she resumed trotting he
followed her.
Old White Slides had lost all but the drabs and dull yellows and greens,
and of course those pale, light slopes that had given the mountain its
name. Sage Valley was only one of the valleys at its base. It opened out
half a mile wide, dominated by the looming peak, and bordered on the far
side by an aspen-thicketed slope. The brook babbled along under the edge
of this thicket. Cattle and horses grazed here and there on the rich,
grassy levels, Columbine was surprised to see so many cattle and
wondered to whom they belonged. All of Belllounds's stock had been
driven lower down for the winter. There among the several horses that
whistled at her approach she espied the white mustang Belllounds had
given to Moore. It thrilled her to see him. And next, she suffered a
pang to think that perhaps his owner might never ride him again. But
Columbine held her emotions in abeyance.
The cabin stood high upon a level terrace, with clusters of aspens
behind it, and was sheltered from winter blasts by a gray cliff,
picturesque and crumbling, with its face overgrown by creeping vines and
colorful shrubs, Wilson Moore could not have chosen a more secluded and
beautiful valley for his homesteading adventure. The little gray cabin,
with smoke curling from the stone chimney, had lost its look of
dilapidation and disuse, yet there was nothing new that Columbine could
see. The last quarter of the ascent of the slope, and the few rods
across the level terrace, seemed extraordinarily long to Columbine. As
she dismounted and tied Pronto her heart was beating and her breath was
coming fast.
The door of the cabin was open. Kane trotted past the hesitating
Columbine and went in.
"You son-of-a-hound-dog!" came to Columbine's listening ears in Wade's
well-known voice. "I'll have to beat you--sure as you're born."
"I heard a horse," came in a lower voice, that was Wilson's.
"Darn me if I'm not gettin' deafer every day," was the reply.
Then Wade appeared in the doorway.
"It's nobody but Miss Collie," he announced, as he made way for her to
enter.
"Good morning!" said Columbine, in a voice that had more than
cheerfulness in it.
"_Collie!_... Did you come to see me?"
She heard this incredulous query just an instant before she saw Wilson
at the far end of the room, lying under the light of a window. The
inside of the cabin seemed vague and unfamiliar.
"I surely did," she replied, advancing. "How are you?"
"Oh, I'm all right. Tickled to death, right now. Only, I hate to have
you see this battered mug of mine."
"You needn't--care," said Columbine, unsteadily. And indeed, in that
first glance she did not see him clearly. A mist blurred her sight and
there was a lump in her throat. Then, to recover herself, she looked
around the cabin.
"Well--Wils Moore--if this isn't fine!" she ejaculated, in amaze and
delight. Columbine sustained an absolute surprise. A magic hand had
transformed the interior of that rude old prospector's abode. A
carpenter and a mason and a decorator had been wonderfully at work. From
one end to the other Columbine gazed; from the big window under which
Wilson lay on a blanketed couch to the open fireplace where Wade grinned
she looked and looked, and then up to the clean, aspen-poled roof and
down to the floor, carpeted with deer hides. The chinks between the logs
of the walls were plastered with red clay; the dust and dirt were gone;
the place smelled like sage and wood-smoke and fragrant, frying meat.
Indeed, there were a glowing bed of embers and a steaming kettle and a
smoking pot; and the way the smoke and steam curled up into the gray old
chimney attested to its splendid draught. In each corner hung a
deer-head, from the antlers of which depended accoutrements of a
cowboy--spurs, ropes, belts, scarfs, guns. One corner contained
cupboard, ceiling high, with new, clean doors of wood, neatly made; and
next to it stood a table, just as new. On the blank wall beyond that
were pegs holding saddles, bridles, blankets, clothes.
"He did it--all this inside," burst out Moore, delighted with her
delight. "Quicker than a flash! Collie, isn't this great? I don't mind
being down on my back. And he says they call him Hell-Bent Wade. I call
him Heaven-Sent Wade!"
When Columbine turned to the hunter, bursting with her pleasure and
gratitude, he suddenly dropped the forked stick he used as a lift, and
she saw his hand shake when he stooped to recover it. How strangely that
struck her!
"Ben, it's perfectly possible that you've been sent by Heaven," she
remarked, with a humor which still held gravity in it.
"Me! A good angel? That'd be a new job for Bent Wade," he replied, with
a queer laugh. "But I reckon I'd try to live up to it."
There were small sprigs of golden aspen leaves and crimson oak leaves on
the wall above the foot of Wilson's bed. Beneath them, on pegs, hung a
rifle. And on the window-sill stood a glass jar containing columbines.
They were fresh. They had just been picked. They waved gently in the
breeze, sweetly white and blue, strangely significant to the girl.
Moore laughed defiantly.
"Wade thought to fetch these flowers in," he explained. "They're his
favorites as well as mine. It won't be long now till the frost kills
them ... and I want to be happy while I may!"
Again Columbine felt that deep surge within her, beyond her control,
beyond her understanding, but now gathering and swelling, soon to be
reckoned with. She did not look at Wilson's face then. Her downcast gaze
saw that his right hand was bandaged, and she touched it with an
unconscious tenderness.
"Your hand! Why is it all wrapped up?"
The cowboy laughed with grim humor.
"Have you seen Jack this morning?"
"No," she replied, shortly.
"Well, if you had, you'd know what happened to my fist."
"Did you hurt it on him?" she asked, with a queer little shudder that
was not unpleasant.
"Collie, I busted that fist on his handsome face."
"Oh, it was dreadful!" she murmured. "Wilson, he meant to kill you."
"Sure. And I'd cheerfully have killed him."
"You two must never meet again," she went on.
"I hope to Heaven we never do," replied Moore, with a dark earnestness
that meant more than his actual words.
"Wilson, will you avoid him--for my sake?" implored Columbine,
unconsciously clasping the bandaged hand.
"I will. I'll take the back trails. I'll sneak like a coyote. I'll hide
and I'll watch.... But, Columbine Belllounds, if he ever corners
me again--"
"Why, you'll leave him to Hell-Bent Wade," interrupted the hunter, and
he looked up from where he knelt, fixing those great, inscrutable eyes
upon the cowboy. Columbine saw something beyond his face, deeper than
the gloom, a passion and a spirit that drew her like a magnet. "An' now,
Miss Collie," he went on, "I reckon you'll want to wait on our invalid.
He's got to be fed."
"I surely will," replied Columbine, gladly, and she sat down on the
edge of the bed. "Ben, you fetch that box and put his dinner on it."
While Wade complied, Columbine, shyly aware of her nearness to the
cowboy, sought to keep up conversation. "Couldn't you help yourself with
your left hand?" she inquired.
"That's one worse," he answered, taking it from under the blanket, where
it had been concealed.
"Oh!" cried Columbine, in dismay.
"Broke two bones in this one," said Wilson, with animation. "Say,
Collie, our friend Wade is a doctor, too. Never saw his beat!"
"And a cook, too, for here's your dinner. You must sit up," ordered
Columbine.
"Fold that blanket and help me up on it," replied Moore.
How strange and disturbing for Columbine to bend over him, to slip her
arms under him and lift him! It recalled a long-forgotten motherliness
of her doll-playing days. And her face flushed hot.
"Can't you move?" she asked, suddenly becoming aware of how dead a
weight the cowboy appeared.
"Not--very much," he replied. Drops of sweat appeared on his bruised
brow. It must have hurt him to move.
"You said your foot was all right."
"It is," he returned. "It's still on my leg, as I know darned well."
"Oh!" exclaimed Columbine, dubiously. Without further comment she began
to feed him.
"It's worth getting licked to have this treat," he said.
"Nonsense!" she rejoined.
"I'd stand it again--to have you come here and feed me.... But not from
_him_."
"Wilson, I never knew you to be facetious before. Here, take this."
Apparently he did not see her outstretched hand.
"Collie, you've changed. You're older. You're a woman, now--and the
prettiest--"
"Are you going to eat?" demanded Columbine.
"Huh!" exclaimed the cowboy, blankly. "Eat? Oh yes, sure. I'm powerful
hungry. And maybe Heaven-Sent Wade can't cook!"
But Columbine had trouble in feeding him. What with his helplessness,
and his propensity to watch her face instead of her hands, and her own
mounting sensations of a sweet, natural joy and fitness in her proximity
to him, she was hard put to it to show some dexterity as a nurse. And
all the time she was aware of Wade, with his quiet, forceful presence,
hovering near. Could he not see her hands trembling? And would he not
think that weakness strange? Then driftingly came the thought that she
would not shrink from Wade's reading her mind. Perhaps even now he
understood her better than she understood herself.
"I can't--eat any more," declared Moore, at last.
"You've done very well for an invalid," observed Columbine. Then,
changing the subject, she asked, "Wilson, you're going to stay
here--winter here, dad would call it?"
"Yes."
"Are those your cattle down in the valley?"
"Sure. I've got near a hundred head. I saved my money and bought
cattle."
"That's a good start for you. I'm glad. But who's going to take care of
you and your stock until you can work again?"
"Why, my friend there, Heaven-Sent Wade," replied Moore, indicating the
little man busy with the utensils on the table, and apparently
hearing nothing.
"Can I fetch you anything to eat--or read?" she inquired.
"Fetch yourself," he replied, softly.
"But, boy, how could I fetch you anything without fetching myself?"
"Sure, that's right. Then fetch me some jam and a book--to-morrow. Will
you?"
"I surely will."
"That's a promise. I know your promises of old."
"Then good-by till to-morrow. I must go. I hope you'll be better."
"I'll stay sick in bed till you stop coming."
Columbine left rather precipitously, and when she got outdoors it seemed
that the hills had never been so softly, dreamily gray, nor their
loneliness so sweet, nor the sky so richly and deeply blue. As she
untied Pronto the hunter came out with Kane at his heels.
"Miss Collie, if you'll go easy I'll ketch my horse an' ride down with
you," he said.
She mounted, and walked Pronto out to the trail, and slowly faced the
gradual descent. It was really higher up there than she had surmised.
And the view was beautiful. The gray, rolling foothills, so exquisitely
colored at that hour, and the black-fringed ranges, one above the other,
and the distant peaks, sunset-flushed across the purple, all rose open
and clear to her sight, so wildly and splendidly expressive of the
Colorado she loved.
At the foot of the slope Wade joined her.
"Lass, I'm askin' you not to tell Belllounds that I'm carin' for Wils,"
he said, in his gentle, persuasive way.
"I won't. But why not tell dad? He wouldn't mind. He'd do that sort of
thing himself."
"Reckon he would. But this deal's out of the ordinary. An' Wils's not in
as good shape as he thinks. I'm not takin' any chances. I don't want to
lose my job, an' I don't want to be hindered from attendin' to
this boy."
They had ridden as far as the first aspen grove when Wade concluded this
remark. Columbine halted her horse, causing her companion to do
likewise. Her former misgivings were augmented by the intelligence of
Wade's sad, lined face.
"Ben, tell me," she whispered, with a hand going to his arm.
"Miss Collie, I'm a sort of doctor in my way. I studied some medicine
an' surgery. An' I know. I wouldn't tell you this if it wasn't that I've
got to rely on you to help me."
"I will--but go on--tell me," interposed Columbine trying to fortify
herself.
"Wils's foot is all messed up. Buster Jack kicked it all out of shape.
An' it's a hundred times worse than ever. I'm afraid of blood-poisonin'
an' gangrene. You know gangrene is a dyin' an' rottin' of the flesh....
I told the boy straight out that he'd better let me cut his foot off.
An' he swore he'd keep his foot or die! Well, if gangrene does set in we
can't save his leg, an' maybe not his life."
"Oh, it can't be as bad as all that!" cried Columbine. "Oh, I knew--I
knew there was something.... Ben, you mean even at best now--he'll be
a--" She broke off, unable to finish.
"Miss Collie, in any case Wils'll never ride again--not like a cowboy."
That for Columbine seemed the worst and the last straw. Hot tears
blinded her, hot blood gushed over her, hot heart-beats throbbed in
her throat.
"Poor boy! That'll--ruin him," she cried. "He loved--a horse. He loved
to ride. He was the--best rider of them all. And now he's ruined! He'll
be lame--a cripple--club-footed!... All because of that Jack Belllounds!
The brute--the coward! I hate him! Oh, I _hate_ him!... And I've got to
marry him--on October first! Oh, God pity me!"
Blindly Columbine reeled out of her saddle and slowly dropped to the
grass, where she burst into a violent storm of sobs and tears. It shook
her every fiber. It was hopeless, terrible grief. The dry grass received
her flood of tears and her incoherent words.
Wade dismounted and, kneeling beside her, placed a gentle hand upon her
heaving shoulder, but he spoke no word. By and by, when the storm had
begun to subside, he raised her head.
"Lass, nothin' is ever so bad as it seems," he said, softly. "Come, sit
up. Let me talk to you."
"Oh, Ben, something terrible _has_ happened," she cried. "It's in _me_!
I don't know what it is. But it'll kill me."
"I know," he replied, as her head fell upon his shoulder. "Miss Collie,
I'm an old fellow that's had everythin' happen to him, an' I'm livin'
yet, tryin' to help people along. No one dies so easy. Why, you're a
fine, strong girl--an' somethin' tells me you was made for happiness. I
know how things turn out. Listen--"
"But, Ben--you don't know--about me," she sobbed. "I've told
you--I--hate Jack Belllounds. But I've--got to marry him!... His father
raised me--from a baby. He brought me up. I owe him--my life.... I've no
relation--no mother--no father! No one loves me--for myself!"
"Nobody loves you!" echoed Wade, with an exquisite tone of repudiation.
"Strange how people fool themselves! Lass, you're huggin' your troubles
too hard. An' you're wrong. Why, everybody loves you! Lem an' Jim--why
you just brighten the hard world they live in. An' that poor, hot-headed
Jack--he loves you as well as he can love anythin'. An' the old man--no
daughter could be loved more.... An' I--I love you, lass, just like--as
if you--might have been my own. I'm goin' to be the friend--the brother
you need. An' I reckon I can come somewheres near bein' a mother, if
you'll let me."
Something, some subtle power or charm, stole over Columbine, assuaging
her terrible sense of loss, of grief. There was tenderness in this man's
hands, in his voice, and through them throbbed strong and passionate
life and spirit.
"Do you really love me--_love_ me?" she whispered, somehow comforted,
somehow feeling that what he offered was what she had missed as a child.
"And you want to be all that for me?"
"Yes, lass, an' I reckon you'd better try me."
"Oh, how good you are! I felt that--the very first time I was with you.
I've wanted to come to you--to tell you my troubles. I love dad and he
loves me, but he doesn't understand. Dad is wrapped up in his son. I've
had no one. I never had any one."
"You have some one now," returned Wade, with a rich, deep mellowness in
his voice that soothed Columbine and made her wonder. "An' because I've
been through so much I can tell you what'll help you.... Lass, if a
woman isn't big an' brave, how will a man ever be? There's more in women
than in men. Life has given you a hard knock, placin' you here--no real
parents--an' makin' you responsible to a man whose only fault is blinded
love for his son. Well, you've got to meet it, face it, with what a
woman has more of than any man. Courage! Suppose you do hate this
Buster Jack. Suppose you do love this poor, crippled Wilson Moore....
Lass, don't look like that! Don't deny. You do love that boy.... Well,
it's hell. But you can never tell what'll happen when you're honest and
square. If you feel it your duty to pay your debt to the old man you
call dad--to pay it by marryin' his son, why do it, an' be a woman.
There's nothin' as great as a woman can be. There's happiness that comes
in strange, unheard-of ways. There's more in this life than what you
want most. _You_ didn't place yourself in this fix. So if you meet it
with courage an' faithfulness to yourself, why, it'll not turn out as
you dread.... Some day, if you ever think you're broken-hearted, I'll
tell you my story. An' then you'll not think your lot so hard. For I've
had a broken heart an' ruined life, an' yet I've lived on an' on,
findin' happiness I never dreamed would come, fightin' or workin'. An'
how I found the world beautiful, an' how I love the flowers an' hills
an' wild things so well--that, just that would be enough to live for!...
An' think, lass, of what a wonderful happiness will come to me in
showin' all this to you. That'll be the crownin' glory. An' if it's that
much to me, then you be sure there's nothin' on earth I won't do
for you."
Columbine lifted her tear-stained face with a light of inspiration.
"Oh, Wilson was right!" she murmured. "You are Heaven-sent! And I'm
going to love you!"