dden her mustang far up the
valley slope where she could be alone. Standing on the verge of the
bluff, she suddenly became aware that the quiet and solitude of her
lonely resting-place had been disrupted. Cattle were bawling below her
and along the slope of old White Slides and on the grassy uplands above.
She had forgotten that the cattle were being driven down into the
lowlands for the fall round-up. A great red-and-white-spotted herd was
milling in the park just beneath her. Calves and yearlings were making
the dust fly along the mountain slope; wild old steers were crashing in
the sage, holding level, unwilling to be driven down; cows were running
and lowing for their lost ones. Melodious and clear rose the clarion
calls of the cowboys. The cattle knew those calls and only the wild
steers kept up-grade.

Columbine also knew each call and to which cowboy it belonged. They sang
and yelled and swore, but it was all music to her. Here and there along
the slope, where the aspen groves clustered, a horse would flash across
an open space; the dust would fly, and a cowboy would peal out a lusty
yell that rang along the slope and echoed under the bluff and lingered
long after the daring rider had vanished in the steep thickets.

"I wonder which is Wils," murmured Columbine, as she watched and
listened, vaguely conscious of a little difference, a strange check in
her remembrance of this particular cowboy. She felt the change, yet did
not understand. One after one she recognized the riders on the slopes
below, but Wilson Moore was not among them. He must be above her, then,
and she turned to gaze across the grassy bluff, up the long, yellow
slope, to where the gleaming aspens half hid a red bluff of
mountain, towering aloft. Then from far to her left, high up a
scrubby ridge of the slope, rang down a voice that thrilled her:
"_Go--aloong--you-ooooo_." Red cattle dashed pell-mell down the slope,
raising the dust, tearing the brush, rolling rocks, and letting out
hoarse bawls.

"_Whoop-ee_!" High-pitched and pealing came a clearer yell.

Columbine saw a white mustang flash out on top of the ridge, silhouetted
against the blue, with mane and tail flying. His gait on that edge of
steep slope proved his rider to be a reckless cowboy for whom no heights
or depths had terrors. She would have recognized him from the way he
rode, if she had not known the slim, erect figure. The cowboy saw her
instantly. He pulled the mustang, about