"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 p.r.o.nto 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 p.r.o.nto 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.

"La.s.s, 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, G.o.d pity me!"

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

"La.s.s, 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!"

"n.o.body loves you!" echoed Wade, with an exquisite tone of repudiation.

"Strange how people fool themselves! La.s.s, 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, la.s.s, 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, a.s.suaging her terrible sense of loss, of grief. There was tenderness in this man's hands, in his voice, and through them throbbed strong and pa.s.sionate 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, la.s.s, 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.... La.s.s, 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....

La.s.s, don't look like that! Don't deny. You do love that boy.... Well, it's h.e.l.l. 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, la.s.s, 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!"