an' if she ever
marries Jack Belllounds she can come up to visit my grave among the
columbines on the hill."

Strange how Wade experienced comfort in thus torturing her! She was
rosy at the beginning of his speech and white at its close. "Oh, it's
true! it's true!" she whispered. "It'll kill him, as it will me!"

"Cheer up, Columbine," said Wade. "It's a long time till August
thirteenth.... An' now tell me, why did Old Bill run when he saw
me comin'?"

"Ben, I suspect dad has the queerest notion you want to tell him some
awful bloody story about the rustlers."

"Ahuh! Well, not yet.... An' how's Jack Belllounds actin' these days?"

Wade felt the momentousness of that query, but it seemed her face had
been telltale enough, without confirmation of words.

"My friend, somehow I hate to tell you. You're always so hopeful, so
ready to think good instead of evil.... But Jack has been rough with me,
almost brutal. He was drunk once. Every day he drinks, sometimes a
little, sometimes more. But drink changes him. And it's dragging dad
down. Dad doesn't say so, yet I feel he's afraid of what will come
next.... Jack has nagged me to marry him right off. He wanted to the day
he came back from Kremmling. He's eager to leave White Slides. Dad knows
that, also, and it worries him. But of course I refused."

The presence of Columbine, so vivid and sweet and stirring, and all
about her the sunlight, the golden gleams on the sage hills, and Wade's
heart and brain and spirit sustained a subtle transformation. It was as
if what had been beautiful with light had suddenly, strangely darkened.
Then Wade imagined he stood alone in a gloomy house, which was his own
heart, and he was listening to the arrival of a tragic messenger whose
foot sounded heavy on the stairs, whose hand turned slowly upon the
knob, whose gray presence opened the door and crossed the threshold.

"Buster Jack didn't break off with you, Collie?" asked the hunter.

"Break off with me!... No, indeed! Whatever possessed you to say that?"

"An' he didn't offer to give you up to Wils Moore?"

"Ben, are you crazy?" cried Columbine.

"Collie; listen. I'll tell you." The old urge knocked at Wade's mind.
"Buster Jack was in the cabin, gamblin' with the rustlers, when I
cornered them. You remember I meant to scare Buster Jack within an inch
of his life? Well, I made use of my opportunity. I worked up the
rustlers. Then I told Jack I'd give away his secret. He made to