Columbine was awakened in the gray dawn by the barking of coyotes. She dreaded the daylight thus heralded. Never before in her life had she hated the rising of the sun. Resolutely she put the past behind her and faced the future, believing now that with the great decision made she needed only to keep her mind off what might have been, and to attend to her duty.
At breakfast she found the rancher in better spirits than he had been for weeks. He informed her that Jack had ridden off early for Kremmling, there to make arrangements for the wedding on October first.
"Jack's out of his head," said Belllounds. "Wal, thet comes only onct in a man's life. I remember ... Jack's goin' to drive you to Kremmlin' an' ther take stage fer Denver. I allow you'd better put in your best licks on fixin' up an' packin' the clothes you'll need. Women-folk naturally want to look smart on weddin'-trips."
"Dad!" exclaimed Columbine, in dismay. "I never thought of clothes. And I don't want to leave White Slides."
"But, lass, you're goin' to be married!" expostulated Belllounds.
"Didn't it occur to Jack to take me to Kremmling? I can't make new dresses out of old ones."
"Wal, I reckon neither of us thought of thet. But you can buy what you like in Denver."
Columbine resigned herself. After all, what did it matter to her? The vague, haunting dreams of girlhood would never come true. So she went to her wardrobe and laid out all her wearing apparel. Taking stock of it this way caused her further dismay, for she had nothing fit to wear in which either to be married or to take a trip to Denver. There appeared to be nothing to do but take the rancher's advice, and Columbine set about refurbishing her meager wardrobe. She sewed all day.
What with self-control and work and the passing of hours, Columbine began to make some approach to tranquillity. In her simplicity she even began to hope that being good and steadfast and dutiful would earn her a little meed of happiness. Some haunting doubt of this flashed over her mind like a swift shadow of a black wing, but she dispelled that as she had dispelled the fear and disgust which often rose up in her mind.
To Columbine's surprise and to the rancher's concern the prospective bridegroom did not return from Kremmling on the second day. When night came Belllounds reluctantly gave up looking for him.
Jack's non-appearance suited Columbine, and she would have been glad to be let alone until October first, which date now seemed appallingly close. On the afternoon of Jack's third day of absence from the ranch Columbine rode out for some needed exercise. Pronto not being available, she rode another mustang and one that kept her busy. On the way back to the ranch she avoided the customary trail which led by the cabins of Wade and the cowboys. Columbine had not seen one of her friends since the unfortunate visit to the Andrews ranch. She particularly shrank from meeting Wade, which feeling was in strange contrast to her former impulses.
As she rode around the house she encountered Wilson Moore seated in a light wagon. Her mustang reared, almost unseating her. But she handled him roughly, being suddenly surprised and angry at this unexpected meeting with the cowboy.
"Howdy, Columbine!" greeted Wilson, as she brought the mustang to his feet. "You're sure learning to handle a horse--since I left this here ranch. Wonder who's teaching you! I never could get you to rake even a bronc!"
The cowboy had drawled out his admiring speech, half amused and half satiric.
"I'm--mad!" declared Columbine. "That's why."
"What're you mad at?" queried Wilson.
She did not reply, but kept on gazing steadily at him. Moore still looked pale and drawn, but he had improved since last she saw him.
"Aren't you going to speak to a fellow?" he went on.
"How are you, Wils?" she asked.
"Pretty good for a club-footed has-been cow puncher."
"I wish you wouldn't call yourself such names," rejoined Columbine, peevishly. "You're not a club-foot. I hate that word!"
"Me, too. Well, joking aside, I'm better. My foot is fine. Now, if I don't hurt it again I'll sure never be a club-foot."
"You must be careful," she said, earnestly.
"Sure. But it's hard for me to be idle. Think of me lying still all day with nothing to do but read! That's what knocked me out. I wouldn't have minded the pain if I could have gotten about.... Columbine, I've moved in!"
"What! Moved in?" she queried, blankly.
"Sure. I'm in my cabin on the hill. It's plumb great. Tom Andrews and Bert and your hunter Wade fixed up the cabin for me. That Wade is sure a good fellow. And say! what he can do with his hands! He's been kind to me. Took an interest in me, and between you and me he sort of cheered me up."
"Cheered you up! Wils, were you unhappy?" she asked, directly.
"Well, rather. What'd you expect of a cowboy who'd crippled himself--and lost his girl?"
Columbine felt the smart of tingling blood in her face, and she looked from Wilson to the wagon. It contained saddles, blankets, and other cowboy accoutrements for which he had evidently come.
"That's a double misfortune," she replied, evenly. "It's too bad both came at once. It seems to me if I were a cowboy and--and felt so toward a girl, I'd have let her know."
"This girl I mean knew, all right," he said, nodding his head.
"She didn't--she didn't!" cried Columbine.
"How do you know?" he queried, with feigned surprise. He was bent upon torturing her.
"You meant me. I'm the girl you lost!"
"Yes, you are--God help me!" replied Moore, with genuine emotion.
"But you--you never told me--you never told me," faltered Columbine, in distress.
"Never told you what? That you were my girl?"
"No--no. But that you--you cared--"
"Columbine Belllounds, I told you--let you see--in every way under the sun," he flashed at her.
"Let me see--what?" faltered Columbine, feeling as if the world were about to end.
"That I loved you."
"Oh!... Wilson!" whispered Columbine, wildly.
"Yes--loved you. Could you have been so innocent--so blind you never knew? I can't believe it."
"But I never dreamed you--you--" She broke off dazedly, overwhelmed by a tragic, glorious truth.
"Collie!... Would it have made any difference?"
"Oh, all the difference in the world!" she wailed.
"What difference?" he asked, passionately.
Columbine gazed wide-eyed and helpless at the young man. She did not know how to tell him what all the difference in the world really was.
Suddenly Wilson turned away from her to listen. Then she heard rapid beating of hoofs on the road.
"That's Buster Jack," said the cowboy. "Just my luck! There wasn't any one here when I arrived. Reckon I oughtn't have stayed. Columbine, you look pretty much upset."
"What do I care how I look!" she exclaimed, with a sharp resentment attending this abrupt and painful break in her agitation.
Next moment Jack Belllounds galloped a foam-lashed horse into the courtyard and hauled up short with a recklessness he was noted for. He swung down hard and violently cast the reins from him.
"Ahuh! I gambled on just this," he declared, harshly.
Columbine's heart sank. His gaze was fixed on her face, with its telltale evidences of agitation.
"What've you been crying about?" he demanded.
"I haven't been," she retorted.
His bold and glaring eyes, hot with sudden temper, passed slowly from her to the cowboy. Columbine became aware then that Jack was under the influence of liquor. His heated red face grew darker with a sneering contempt.
"Where's dad?" he asked, wheeling toward her.
"I don't know. He's not here," replied Columbine, dismounting. The leap of thought and blood to Jack's face gave her a further sinking of the heart. The situation unnerved her.
Wilson Moore had grown a shade paler. He gathered up his reins, ready to drive off.
"Belllounds, I came up after my things I'd left in the bunk," he said, coolly. "Happened to meet Columbine and stopped to chat a minute."
"That's what you say," sneered Belllounds. "You were making love to Columbine. I saw that in her face. You know it--and she knows it--and I know it.... You're a liar!"
"Belllounds, I reckon I am," replied Moore, turning white. "I did tell Columbine what I thought she knew--what I ought to have told long ago."
"Ahuh! Well, I don't want to hear it. But I'm going to search that wagon."
"What!" ejaculated the cowboy, dropping his reins as if they stung him.
"You just hold on till I see what you've got in there," went on Belllounds, and he reached over into the wagon and pulled at a saddle.
"Say, do you mean anything?... This stuff's mine, every strap of it. Take your hands off."
Belllounds leaned on the wagon and looked up with insolent, dark intent.
"Moore, I wouldn't trust you. I think you'd steal anything you got your hands on."
Columbine uttered a passionate little cry of shame and protest.
"Jack, how dare you!"
"You shut up! Go in the house!" he ordered.
"You insult me," she replied, in bitter humiliation.
"Will you go in?" he shouted.
"No, I won't."
"All right, look on, then. I'd just as lief have you." Then he turned to the cowboy. "Moore, show up that wagon-load of stuff unless you want me to throw it out in the road."
"Belllounds, you know I can't do that," replied Moore, coldly. "And I'll give you a hunch. You'd better shut up yourself and let me drive on.... If not for her sake, then for your own."
Belllounds grasped the reins, and with a sudden jerk pulled them out of the cowboy's hands.
"You damn club-foot! Your gift of gab doesn't go with me," yelled Belllounds, as he swung up on the hub of the wheel. But it was manifest that his desire to search the wagon was only a pretense, for while he pulled at this and that his evil gaze was on the cowboy, keen to meet any move that might give excuse for violence. Moore evidently read this, for, gazing at Columbine, he shook his head, as if to acquaint her with a situation impossible to help.
"Columbine, please hand me up the reins," he said. "I'm lame, you know. Then I'll be going."
Columbine stepped forward to comply, when Belllounds, leaping down from the wheel, pushed her hack with masterful hand. Opposition to him was like waving a red flag in the face of a bull. Columbine recoiled from his look as well as touch.
"You keep out of this or I'll teach you who's boss here," he said, stridently.
"You're going too far!" burst out Columbine.
Meanwhile Wilson had laboriously climbed down out of the wagon, and, utilizing his crutch, he hobbled to where Belllounds had thrown the reins, and stooped to pick them up. Belllounds shoved Columbine farther back, and then he leaped to confront the cowboy.
"I've got you now, Moore," he said, hoarse and low. Stripped of all pretense, he showed the ungovernable nature of his temper. His face grew corded and black. The hand he thrust out shook like a leaf. "You smooth-tongued liar! I'm on to your game. I know you'd put her against me. I know you'd try to win her--less than a week before her wedding-day.... But it's not for that I'm going to beat hell out of you! It's because I hate you! Ever since I can remember my father held you up to me! And he sent me to--to--he sent me away because of you. By God! that's why I hate you!"
All that was primitive and violent and base came out with strange frankness in Belllounds's tirade. Only when calm could his mind be capable of hidden calculation. The devil that was in him now seemed rampant.
"Belllounds, you're mighty brave to stack up this way against a one-legged man," declared the cowboy, with biting sarcasm.
"If you had two club-feet I'd only be the gladder," yelled Belllounds, and swinging his arm, he slapped Moore so that it nearly toppled him over. Only the injured foot, coming down hard, saved him.
When Columbine saw that, and then how Wilson winced and grew deathly pale, she uttered a low cry, and she seemed suddenly rooted to the spot, weak, terrified at what was now inevitable, and growing sick and cold and faint.
"It's a damn lucky thing for you I'm not packing a gun," said Moore, grimly. "But you knew--or you'd never hit me--you coward."
"I'll make you swallow that," snarled Belllounds, and this time he swung his fist, aiming a heavy blow at Moore.
Then the cowboy whirled aloft the heavy crutch. "If you hit at me again I'll let out what little brains you've got. God knows that's little enough!... Belllounds, I'm going to call you to your face--before this girl your bat-eyed old man means to give you. You're not drunk. You're only ugly--mean. You've got a chance now to lick me because I'm crippled. And you're going to make the most of it. Why, you cur, I could come near licking you with only one leg. But if you touch me again I'll brain you!... You never were any good. You're no good now. You never will be anything but Buster Jack--half dotty, selfish as hell, bull-headed and mean!... And that's the last word I'll ever waste on you."
"I'll kill you!" bawled Belllounds, black with fury.
Moore wielded the crutch menacingly, but as he was not steady on his feet he was at the disadvantage his adversary had calculated upon. Belllounds ran around the cowboy, and suddenly plunged in to grapple with him. The crutch descended, but to little purpose. Belllounds's heavy onslaught threw Moore to the ground. Before he could rise Belllounds pounced upon him.
Columbine saw all this dazedly. As Wilson fell she closed her eyes, fighting a faintness that almost overcame her. She heard wrestling, threshing sounds, and sodden thumps, and a scattering of gravel. These noises seemed at first distant, then grew closer. As she gazed again with keener perception, Moore's horse plunged away from the fiercely struggling forms that had rolled almost under his feet. During the ensuing moments it was an equal battle so far as Columbine could tell. Repelled, yet fascinated, she watched. They beat each other, grappled and rolled over, first one on top, then the other. But the advantage of being uppermost presently was Belllounds's. Moore was weakening. That became noticeable more and more after each time he had wrestled and rolled about. Then Belllounds, getting this position, lay with his weight upon Moore, holding him down, and at the same time kicking with all his might. He was aiming to disable the cowboy by kicking the injured foot. And he was succeeding. Moore let out a strangled cry, and struggled desperately. But he was held and weighted down. Belllounds raised up now and, looking backward, he deliberately and furiously kicked Moore's bandaged foot; once, twice, again and again, until the straining form under him grew limp. Columbine, slowly freezing with horror, saw all this. She could not move. She could not scream. She wanted to rush in and drag Jack off of Wilson, to hurt him, to kill him, but her muscles were paralyzed. In her agony she could not even look away. Belllounds got up astride his prostrate adversary and began to beat him brutally, swinging heavy, sodden blows. His face then was terrible to see. He meant murder.
Columbine heard approaching voices and the thumping of hasty feet. That unclamped her cloven tongue. Wildly she screamed. Old Bill Belllounds appeared, striding off the porch. And the hunter Wade came running down the path.
"Dad! he's killing Wilson!" cried Columbine.
"Hyar, you devil!" roared the rancher.
Jack Belllounds got up. Panting, disheveled, with hair ruffled and face distorted, he was not a pleasant sight for even the father. Moore lay unconscious, with ghastly, bloody features, and his bandaged foot showed great splotches of red.
"My Gawd, son!" gasped Old Bill. "You didn't pick on this hyar crippled boy?"
The evidence was plain, in Moore's quiet, pathetic form, in the panting, purple-faced son. Jack Belllounds did not answer. He was in the grip of a passion that had at last been wholly unleashed and was still unsatisfied. Yet a malignant and exultant gratification showed in his face.
"That--evens us--up, Moore," he panted, and stalked away.
By this time Wade reached the cowboy and knelt beside him. Columbine came running to fall on her knees. The old rancher seemed stricken.
"Oh--Oh! it was terrible--" cried Columbine. "Oh--he's so white--and the blood--"
"Now, lass, that's no way for a woman," said Wade, and there was something in his kind tone, in his look, in his presence, that calmed Columbine. "I'll look after Moore. You go get some water an' a towel."
Columbine rose to totter into the house. She saw a red stain on the hand she had laid upon the cowboy's face, and with a strange, hot, bursting sensation, strong and thrilling, she put that red place to her lips. Running out with the things required by Wade, she was in time to hear the rancher say, "Looks hurt bad, to me."
"Yes, I reckon," replied Wade.
While Columbine held Moore's head upon her lap the hunter bathed the bloody face. It was battered and bruised and cut, and in some places, as fast as Wade washed away the red, it welled out again.
Columbine watched that quiet face, while her heart throbbed and swelled with emotions wholly beyond her control and understanding. When at last Wilson opened his eyes, fluttering at first, and then wide, she felt a surge that shook her whole body. He smiled wanly at her, and at Wade, and then his gaze lifted to Belllounds.
"I guess--he licked me," he said, in weak voice. "He kept kicking my sore foot--till I fainted. But he licked me--all right."
"Wils, mebbe he did lick you," replied the old rancher, brokenly, "but I reckon he's damn little to be proud of--lickin' a crippled man--thet way."
"Boss, Jack'd been drinking," said Moore, weakly. "And he sure had--some excuse for going off his head. He caught me--talking sweet to Columbine ... and then--I called him all the names--I could lay my tongue to."
"Ahuh!" The old man seemed at a loss for words, and presently he turned away, sagging in the shoulders, and plodded into the house.
The cowboy, supported by Wade on one side, with Columbine on the other, was helped to an upright position, and with considerable difficulty was gotten into the wagon. He tried to sit up, but made a sorry showing of it.
"I'll drive him home an' look after him," said Wade. "Now, Miss Collie, you're upset, which ain't no wonder. But now you brace. It might have been worse. Just you go to your room till you're sure of yourself again."
Moore smiled another wan smile at her. "I'm sorry," he said.
"What for? Me?" she asked.
"I mean I'm sorry I was so infernal unlucky--running into you--and bringing all this distress--to you. It was my fault. If I'd only kept--my mouth shut!"
"You need not be sorry you met me," she said, with her eyes straight upon his. "I'm glad.... But oh! if your foot is badly hurt I'll never--never--'
"Don't say it," interrupted Wilson.
"Lass, you're bent on doin' somethin'," said Wade, in his gentle voice.
"Bent?" she echoed, with something deep and rich in her voice. "Yes, I'm bent--bent like your name--to speak my mind!"
Then she ran toward the house and up on the porch, to enter the living-room with heaving breast and flashing eyes. Manifestly the rancher was berating his son. The former gaped at sight of her and the latter shrank.
"Jack Belllounds," she cried, "you're not half a man.... You're a coward and a brute!"
One tense moment she stood there, lightning scorn and passion in her gaze, and then she rushed out, impetuously, as she had come.
