"Belllounds, you're not her real father."

The rancher gave a start, and he stared as he had stared before, fixedly
and perplexedly at Wade.

"No, I'm not."

"If she _were_ your real daughter--your own flesh an' blood--an' Jack
Belllounds was _my_ son, would you let her marry him?"

"Wal, Wade, I reckon I wouldn't."

"Then how can you expect my consent to her marriage with your son?"

"WHAT!" Belllounds lunged over to Wade, leaned down, shaken by
overwhelming amaze.

"Collie is my daughter!"

A loud expulsion of breath escaped Belllounds. Lower he leaned, and
looked with piercing gaze into the face and eyes that in this moment
bore strange resemblance to Columbine.

"So help me Gawd!... That's the secret?... Hell-Bent Wade! An' you've
been on my trail!"

He staggered to his big chair and fell into it. No trace of doubt showed
in his face. The revelation had struck home because of its very
greatness.

Wade took the chair opposite. His likeness to Columbine had faded now.
It had been love, a spirit, a radiance, a glory. It was gone. And Wade's
face became the emblem of tragedy.

"Listen, Belllounds. I'll tell you!... The ways of God are inscrutable.
I've been twenty years tryin' to atone for the wrong I did Collie's
mother. I've been a prospector for the trouble of others. I've been a
bearer of their burdens. An' if I can save Collie's happiness an' her
soul, I reckon I won't be denied the peace of meetin' her mother in the
other world.... I recognized Collie the moment I laid eyes on her. She
favors her mother in looks, an' she has her mother's sensitiveness, her
fire an' pride, an' she even has her voice. It's low an' sweet--alto,
they used to call it.... But I'd recognized Collie as my own if I'd been
blind an' deaf.... It's over eighteen years ago that we had the trouble.
I was no boy, but I was terribly in love with Lucy. An' she loved me
with a passion I never learned till too late. We came West from
Missouri. She was born in Texas. I had a rovin' disposition an' didn't
stick long at any kind of work. But I was lookin' for a ranch. My wife
had some money an' I had high hopes. We spent our first year of married
life travelin' through Kansas. At Dodge I got tied up for a while. You
know, in them days Dodge was about the wildest camp on the plains. My
wife's brother run a place there. He wasn't much good. But she thought
he was perfect. Strange how blood-relations can't see the truth about
their own