en you and me he sort of
cheered me up."

"Cheered you up! Wils, were you unhappy?" she asked, directly.

"Well, rather. What'd you expect of a cowboy who'd crippled
himself--and lost his girl?"

Columbine felt the smart of tingling blood in her face, and she looked
from Wilson to the wagon. It contained saddles, blankets, and other
cowboy accoutrements for which he had evidently come.

"That's a double misfortune," she replied, evenly. "It's too bad both
came at once. It seems to me if I were a cowboy and--and felt so toward
a girl, I'd have let her know."

"This girl I mean knew, all right," he said, nodding his head.

"She didn't--she didn't!" cried Columbine.

"How do you know?" he queried, with feigned surprise. He was bent upon
torturing her.

"You meant me. I'm the girl you lost!"

"Yes, you are--God help me!" replied Moore, with genuine emotion.

"But you--you never told me--you never told me," faltered Columbine, in
distress.

"Never told you what? That you were my girl?"

"No--no. But that you--you cared--"

"Columbine Belllounds, I told you--let you see--in every way under the
sun," he flashed at her.

"Let me see--what?" faltered Columbine, feeling as if the world were
about to end.

"That I loved you."

"Oh!... Wilson!" whispered Columbine, wildly.

"Yes--loved you. Could you have been so innocent--so blind you never
knew? I can't believe it."

"But I never dreamed you--you--" She broke off dazedly, overwhelmed by a
tragic, glorious truth.

"Collie!... Would it have made any difference?"

"Oh, all the difference in the world!" she wailed.

"What difference?" he asked, passionately.

Columbine gazed wide-eyed and helpless at the young man. She did not
know how to tell him what all the difference in the world really was.

Suddenly Wilson turned away from her to listen. Then she heard rapid
beating of hoofs on the road.

"That's Buster Jack," said the cowboy. "Just my luck! There wasn't any
one here when I arrived. Reckon I oughtn't have stayed. Columbine, you
look pretty much upset."

"What do I care how I look!" she exclaimed, with a sharp resentment
attending this abrupt and painful break in her agitation.

Next moment Jack Belllounds galloped a foam-lashed horse into the
courtyard and hauled up short with a recklessness he was noted for. He
swung down hard and violently cast the reins from him.

"Ahuh! I gambled on just this," he declared, harshly.

Columbine's heart s