r of them."

"Then you'll make dad and me happy. You'll be happy, too."

Columbine thrilled at the touch of fineness coming out in him. There was
good in him, whatever the mad, wild pranks of his boyhood.

"Dad wants us to marry," he said, suddenly, with shyness and a strange,
amused smile. "Isn't that funny? You and me--who used to fight like cat
and dog! Do you remember the time I pushed you into the old mud-hole?
And you lay in wait for me, behind the house, to hit me with a
rotten cabbage?"

"Yes, I remember," replied Columbine, dreamily. "It seems so long ago."

"And the time you ate my pie, and how I got even by tearing off your
little dress, so you had to run home almost without a stitch on?"

"Guess I've forgotten that," replied Columbine, with a blush. "I must
have been very little then."

"You were a little devil.... Do you remember the fight I had with
Moore--about you?"

She did not answer, for she disliked the fleeting expression that
crossed his face. He remembered too well.

"I'll settle that score with Moore," he went on. "Besides, I won't have
him on the ranch."

"Dad needs good hands," she said, with her eyes on the gray sage slopes.
Mention of Wilson Moore augmented the aloofness in her. An annoyance
pricked along her veins.

"Before we get any farther I'd like to know something. Has Moore ever
made love to you?"

Columbine felt that prickling augment to a hot, sharp wave of blood. Why
was she at the mercy of strange, quick, unfamiliar sensations? Why did
she hesitate over that natural query from Jack Belllounds?

"No. He never has," she replied, presently.

"That's damn queer. You used to like him better than anybody else. You
sure hated me.... Columbine, have you outgrown that?"

"Yes, of course," she answered. "But I hardly hated you."

"Dad said you were willing to marry me. Is that so?"

Columbine dropped her head. His question, kindly put, did not affront
her, for it had been expected. But his actual presence, the meaning of
his words, stirred in her an unutterable spirit of protest. She had
already in her will consented to the demand of the old man; she was
learning now, however, that she could not force her flesh to consent to
a surrender it did not desire.

"Yes, I'm willing," she replied, bravely.

"Soon?" he flashed, with an eager difference in his voice.

"If I had my way it'd not be--too soon," she faltered. Her downcast eyes
had seen the stride he had made closer