But the significance of the
price began to dawn upon her.

"It will change my whole life," she whispered, aghast.

But how? Columbine pondered. She must go over the details of that
change. No mother had ever taught her. The few women that had been in
the Belllounds home from time to time had not been sympathetic or had
not stayed long enough to help her much. Even her school life in Denver
had left her still a child as regarded the serious problems of women.

"If I'm his wife," she went on, "I'll have to be with him--I'll have to
give up this little room--I'll never be free--alone--happy, any more."

That was the first detail she enumerated. It was also the last.
Realization came with a sickening little shudder. And that moment gave
birth to the nucleus of an unconscious revolt.

The coyotes were howling. Wild, sharp, sweet notes! They soothed her
troubled, aching head, lulled her toward sleep, reminded her of the
gold-and-purple sunset, and the slopes of sage, the lonely heights, and
the beauty that would never change. On the morrow, she drowsily thought,
she would persuade Wilson not to kill all the coyotes; to leave a few,
because she loved them.

* * * * *

Bill Belllounds had settled in Middle Park in 1860. It was wild country,
a home of the Ute Indians, and a natural paradise for elk, deer,
antelope, buffalo. The mountain ranges harbored bear. These ranges
sheltered the rolling valley land which some explorer had named Middle
Park in earlier days.

Much of this inclosed table-land was prairie, where long grass and wild
flowers grew luxuriantly. Belllounds was a cattleman, and he saw the
possibilities there. To which end he sought the friendship of Piah,
chief of the Utes. This noble red man was well disposed toward the white
settlers, and his tribe, during those troublous times, kept peace with
these invaders of their mountain home.

In 1868 Belllounds was instrumental in persuading the Utes to relinquish
Middle Park. The slopes of the hills were heavily timbered; gold and
silver had been found in the mountains. It was a country that attracted
prospectors, cattlemen, lumbermen. The summer season was not long enough
to grow grain, and the nights too frosty for corn; otherwise Middle Park
would have increased rapidly in population.

In the years that succeeded the departure of the Utes Bill Belllounds
developed several cattle-ranches and acquired others. White Slides Ranch