he held out the nodding flowers
toward him. "Take one.... Do you like them?"

"Yes. I like columbine," he replied, taking one of them. His keen hazel
eyes, softened, darkened. "Colorado's flower."

"Columbine!... It is my name."

"Well, could you have a better? It sure suits you."

"Why?" she asked, and she looked at him again.

"You're slender--graceful. You sort of hold your head high and proud.
Your skin is white. Your eyes are blue. Not bluebell blue, but columbine
blue--and they turn purple when you're angry."

"Compliments! Wilson, this is new kind of talk for you," she said.

"You're different to-day."

"Yes, I am." She looked across the valley toward the westering sun, and
the slight flush faded from her cheeks. "I have no right to hold my head
proud. No one knows who I am--where I came from."

"As if that made any difference!" he exclaimed.

"Belllounds is not my dad. I have no dad. I was a waif. They found me in
the woods--a baby--lost among the flowers. Columbine Belllounds I've
always been. But that is not my name. No one can tell what my name
really is."

"I knew your story years ago, Columbine," he replied, earnestly.
"Everybody knows. Old Bill ought to have told you long before this. But
he loves you. So does--everybody. You must not let this knowledge sadden
you.... I'm sorry you've never known a mother or a sister. Why, I could
tell you of many orphans who--whose stories were different."

"You don't understand. I've been happy. I've not longed for any--any one
except a mother. It's only--"

"What don't I understand?"

"I've not told you all."

"No? Well, go on," he said, slowly.

Meaning of the hesitation and the restraint that had obstructed her
thought now flashed over Columbine. It lay in what Wilson Moore might
think of her prospective marriage to Jack Belllounds. Still she could
not guess why that should make her feel strangely uncertain of the
ground she stood on or how it could cause a constraint she had to fight
herself to hide. Moreover, to her annoyance, she found that she was
evading his direct request for the news she had withheld.

"Jack Belllounds is coming home to-night or to-morrow," she said. Then,
waiting for her companion to reply, she kept an unseeing gaze upon the
scanty pines fringing Old White Slides. But no reply appeared to be
forthcoming from Moore. His silence compelled her to turn to him. The
cowboy's face had subtly altered; it was darker with a tinge of