Her blue eyes clouded, and a tremor changed the expression of her sweet lips.
“I am unhappy, Ben,” she said. “But what could we expect? It might be worse. For instance, you might have been killed. I've much to be thankful for.”
“I reckon so. We all have.... I fetched a message from Wils, but I oughtn't tell it.”
“Please do,” she begged, wistfully.
“Well, Wils says, tell Collie I love her every day more an' more, an' that my love keeps up my courage an' my belief in God, an' if she ever marries Jack Belllounds she can come up to visit my grave among the columbines on the hill.”
Strange how Wade experienced comfort in thus torturing her! She was rosy at the beginning of his speech and white at its close. “Oh, it's true! it's true!” she whispered. “It'll kill him, as it will me!”
“Cheer up, Columbine,” said Wade. “It's a long time till August thirteenth.... An' now tell me, why did Old Bill run when he saw me comin'?”
“Ben, I suspect dad has the queerest notion you want to tell him some awful bloody story about the rustlers.”
“Ahuh! Well, not yet.... An' how's Jack Belllounds actin' these days?”
Wade felt the momentousness of that query, but it seemed her face had been telltale enough, without confirmation of words.
“My friend, somehow I hate to tell you. You're always so hopeful, so ready to think good instead of evil.... But Jack has been rough with me, almost brutal. He was drunk once. Every day he drinks, sometimes a little, sometimes more. But drink changes him. And it's dragging dad down. Dad doesn't say so, yet I feel he's afraid of what will come next.... Jack has nagged me to marry him right off. He wanted to the day he came back from Kremmling. He's eager to leave White Slides. Dad knows that, also, and it worries him. But of course I refused.”
The presence of Columbine, so vivid and sweet and stirring, and all about her the sunlight, the golden gleams on the sage hills, and Wade's heart and brain and spirit sustained a subtle transformation. It was as if what had been beautiful with light had suddenly, strangely darkened. Then Wade imagined he stood alone in a gloomy house, which was his own heart, and he was listening to the arrival of a tragic messenger whose foot sounded heavy on the stairs, whose hand turned slowly upon the knob, whose gray presence opened the door and crossed the threshold.
“Buster Jack didn't break off with you, Collie?” asked the hunter.
“Break off with me!... No, indeed! Whatever possessed you to say that?”
“An' he didn't offer to give you up to Wils Moore?”
“Ben, are you crazy?” cried Columbine.
“Collie; listen. I'll tell you.” The old urge knocked at Wade's mind. “Buster Jack was in the cabin, gamblin' with the rustlers, when I cornered them. You remember I meant to scare Buster Jack within an inch of his life? Well, I made use of my opportunity. I worked up the rustlers. Then I told Jack I'd give away his secret. He made to jump an' run, I reckon. But he hadn't the nerve. I shot a piece out of his ear, just to begin the fun. An' then I told the rustlers how Jack had double-crossed them. Folsom, the boss rustler, roared like a mad steer. He was wild to kill Jack. He begged for a gun to shoot out Jack's eyes. An' so were the other rustlers burnin' to kill him. Bad outfit. There was a fight, which, I'm bound to confess, was not short an' sweet. There was a lot of shootin'. An' in a cabin gun-shots almost lift the roof. Folsom was on his knees, dyin', wavin' his gun, whisperin' in fiendish glee that he had done for me. When he saw Jack an' remembered he shook so with fury that he scattered blood all over. An' he took long aim at Jack, tryin' to steady his gun. He couldn't, an' he missed, an' then fell over dead with his head on Jack's knees. That left the red-bearded rustler, who had hid behind the chimney. Jack watched the rest of that fight, an' for a youngster it must have been nerve-rackin'. I broke the rustler's arm, an' then his knee, an' then I got him in the hip two more times before he hobbled out to his finish. He'd shot me up considerable, so that when I braced Jack I must have been a hair-raisin' sight. I made Jack believe I meant to murder him. He begged an' cried, an' he got to prayin' for his life for your sake. It was sickenin', but it was what I wanted. So then I made him swear he'd free you an' give you up to Moore.”
“Oh! Oh, Ben, how awful!” whispered Columbine, shuddering. “Howcould you tell me such a horrible story?”
“Reckon I wanted you to know how Jack come to make the promises an' what they were.”
“Promises! What are promises or oaths to Jack Belllounds?” she cried, in passionate contempt. “You wasted your breath. Coward—liar that he is!”
“Ahuh!” Wade looked straight ahead of him as if he saw some expected and unpleasant thing far in the distance. Then with irresistible steps, neither swift nor slow, but ponderous, he strode to the porch and mounted the steps.
“Why, Ben, where are you going?” called Columbine, in surprise, as she followed him.
He did not answer. He approached the closed door of the living-room.
“Ben!” cried Columbine, in alarm.
But he had no reply for her—indeed, no thought of her. Without knocking, he opened the door with rude and powerful hand, and, striding in, closed it after him.
Bill Belllounds was standing, back against the great stone chimney, arms folded, a stolid and grim figure, apparently fortified against an intrusion he had expected.
“Wal, what do you want?” he asked, gruffly. He had sensed catastrophe in the first sight of the hunter.
“Belllounds, I reckon I want a hell of a lot,” replied Wade. “An' I'm askin' you to see we're not disturbed.”
“Bar the door.”
Wade dropped the bar in place, and then, removing his sombrero, he wiped his moist brow.
“Do you see an enemy in me?” he asked, curiously.
“Speakin' out fair, Wade, there ain't any reason I can see that you're an enemy to me,” replied Belllounds. “But I feel somethin'. It ain't because I'm takin' my son's side. It's more than that. A queer feelin', an' one I never had before. I got it first when you told the story of the Gunnison feud.”
“Belllounds, we can't escape our fates. An' it was written long ago I was to tell you a worse an' harder story than that.”
“Wal, mebbe I'll listen an' mebbe I won't. I ain't promisin', these days.”
“Are you goin' to make Collie marry Jack?” demanded the hunter.
“She's willin'.”
“You know that's not true. Collie's willin' to sacrifice love, honor, an' life itself, to square her debt to you.”
The old rancher flushed a burning red, and in his eyes flared a spirit of earlier years.
“Wade, you can go too far,” he warned. “I'm appreciatin' your good-heartedness. It sort of warms me toward you.... But this is my business. You've no call to interfere. You've done that too much already. An' I'm reckonin' Collie would be married to Jack now if it hadn't been for you.”