“He did it—all this inside,” burst out Moore, delighted with her delight. “Quicker than a flash! Collie, isn't this great? I don't mind being down on my back. And he says they call him Hell-Bent Wade. I call him Heaven-Sent Wade!”
When Columbine turned to the hunter, bursting with her pleasure and gratitude, he suddenly dropped the forked stick he used as a lift, and she saw his hand shake when he stooped to recover it. How strangely that struck her!
“Ben, it's perfectly possible that you've been sent by Heaven,” she remarked, with a humor which still held gravity in it.
“Me! A good angel? That'd be a new job for Bent Wade,” he replied, with a queer laugh. “But I reckon I'd try to live up to it.”
There were small sprigs of golden aspen leaves and crimson oak leaves on the wall above the foot of Wilson's bed. Beneath them, on pegs, hung a rifle. And on the window-sill stood a glass jar containing columbines. They were fresh. They had just been picked. They waved gently in the breeze, sweetly white and blue, strangely significant to the girl.
Moore laughed defiantly.
“Wade thought to fetch these flowers in,” he explained. “They're his favorites as well as mine. It won't be long now till the frost kills them ... and I want to be happy while I may!”
Again Columbine felt that deep surge within her, beyond her control, beyond her understanding, but now gathering and swelling, soon to be reckoned with. She did not look at Wilson's face then. Her downcast gaze saw that his right hand was bandaged, and she touched it with an unconscious tenderness.
“Your hand! Why is it all wrapped up?”
The cowboy laughed with grim humor.
“Have you seen Jack this morning?”
“No,” she replied, shortly.
“Well, if you had, you'd know what happened to my fist.”
“Did you hurt it on him?” she asked, with a queer little shudder that was not unpleasant.
“Collie, I busted that fist on his handsome face.”
“Oh, it was dreadful!” she murmured. “Wilson, he meant to kill you.”
“Sure. And I'd cheerfully have killed him.”
“You two must never meet again,” she went on.
“I hope to Heaven we never do,” replied Moore, with a dark earnestness that meant more than his actual words.
“Wilson, will you avoid him—for my sake?” implored Columbine, unconsciously clasping the bandaged hand.
“I will. I'll take the back trails. I'll sneak like a coyote. I'll hide and I'll watch.... But, Columbine Belllounds, if he ever corners me again—”
“Why, you'll leave him to Hell-Bent Wade,” interrupted the hunter, and he looked up from where he knelt, fixing those great, inscrutable eyes upon the cowboy. Columbine saw something beyond his face, deeper than the gloom, a passion and a spirit that drew her like a magnet. “An' now, Miss Collie,” he went on, “I reckon you'll want to wait on our invalid. He's got to be fed.”
“I surely will,” replied Columbine, gladly, and she sat down on the edge of the bed. “Ben, you fetch that box and put his dinner on it.”
While Wade complied, Columbine, shyly aware of her nearness to the cowboy, sought to keep up conversation. “Couldn't you help yourself with your left hand?” she inquired.
“That's one worse,” he answered, taking it from under the blanket, where it had been concealed.
“Oh!” cried Columbine, in dismay.
“Broke two bones in this one,” said Wilson, with animation. “Say, Collie, our friend Wade is a doctor, too. Never saw his beat!”
“And a cook, too, for here's your dinner. You must sit up,” ordered Columbine.
“Fold that blanket and help me up on it,” replied Moore.
How strange and disturbing for Columbine to bend over him, to slip her arms under him and lift him! It recalled a long-forgotten motherliness of her doll-playing days. And her face flushed hot.
“Can't you move?” she asked, suddenly becoming aware of how dead a weight the cowboy appeared.
“Not—very much,” he replied. Drops of sweat appeared on his bruised brow. It must have hurt him to move.
“You said your foot was all right.”
“It is,” he returned. “It's still on my leg, as I know darned well.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Columbine, dubiously. Without further comment she began to feed him.
“It's worth getting licked to have this treat,” he said.
“Nonsense!” she rejoined.
“I'd stand it again—to have you come here and feed me.... But not fromhim .”
“Wilson, I never knew you to be facetious before. Here, take this.”
Apparently he did not see her outstretched hand.
“Collie, you've changed. You're older. You're a woman, now—and the prettiest—”
“Are you going to eat?” demanded Columbine.
“Huh!” exclaimed the cowboy, blankly. “Eat? Oh yes, sure. I'm powerful hungry. And maybe Heaven-Sent Wade can't cook!”
But Columbine had trouble in feeding him. What with his helplessness, and his propensity to watch her face instead of her hands, and her own mounting sensations of a sweet, natural joy and fitness in her proximity to him, she was hard put to it to show some dexterity as a nurse. And all the time she was aware of Wade, with his quiet, forceful presence, hovering near. Could he not see her hands trembling? And would he not think that weakness strange? Then driftingly came the thought that she would not shrink from Wade's reading her mind. Perhaps even now he understood her better than she understood herself.
“I can't—eat any more,” declared Moore, at last.
“You've done very well for an invalid,” observed Columbine. Then, changing the subject, she asked, “Wilson, you're going to stay here—winter here, dad would call it?”
“Yes.”
“Are those your cattle down in the valley?”
“Sure. I've got near a hundred head. I saved my money and bought cattle.”
“That's a good start for you. I'm glad. But who's going to take care of you and your stock until you can work again?”
“Why, my friend there, Heaven-Sent Wade,” replied Moore, indicating the little man busy with the utensils on the table, and apparently hearing nothing.
“Can I fetch you anything to eat—or read?” she inquired.
“Fetch yourself,” he replied, softly.
“But, boy, how could I fetch you anything without fetching myself?”
“Sure, that's right. Then fetch me some jam and a book—to-morrow. Will you?”
“I surely will.”
“That's a promise. I know your promises of old.”
“Then good-by till to-morrow. I must go. I hope you'll be better.”
“I'll stay sick in bed till you stop coming.”
Columbine left rather precipitously, and when she got outdoors it seemed that the hills had never been so softly, dreamily gray, nor their loneliness so sweet, nor the sky so richly and deeply blue. As she untied Pronto the hunter came out with Kane at his heels.