“What don't I understand?”
“I've not told you all.”
“No? Well, go on,” he said, slowly.
Meaning of the hesitation and the restraint that had obstructed her thought now flashed over Columbine. It lay in what Wilson Moore might think of her prospective marriage to Jack Belllounds. Still she could not guess why that should make her feel strangely uncertain of the ground she stood on or how it could cause a constraint she had to fight herself to hide. Moreover, to her annoyance, she found that she was evading his direct request for the news she had withheld.
“Jack Belllounds is coming home to-night or to-morrow,” she said. Then, waiting for her companion to reply, she kept an unseeing gaze upon the scanty pines fringing Old White Slides. But no reply appeared to be forthcoming from Moore. His silence compelled her to turn to him. The cowboy's face had subtly altered; it was darker with a tinge of red under the bronze; and his lower lip was released from his teeth, even as she looked. He had his eyes intent upon the lasso he was coiling. Suddenly he faced her and the dark fire of his eyes gave her a shock.
I've been expecting that shorthorn back for months.” he said, bluntly.
“You—never—liked Jack?” queried Columbine, slowly. That was not what she wanted to say, but the thought spoke itself.
“I should smile I never did.”
“Ever since you and he fought—long ago—all over—”
His sharp gesture made the coiled lasso loosen.
“Ever since I licked him good—don't forget that,” interrupted Wilson. The red had faded from the bronze.
“Yes, you licked him,” mused Columbine. “I remember that. And Jack's hated you ever since.”
“There's been no love lost.”
“But, Wils, you never before talked this way—spoke out so—against Jack,” she protested.
“Well, I'm not the kind to talk behind a fellow's back. But I'm not mealy-mouthed, either, and—and—”
He did not complete the sentence and his meaning was enigmatic. Altogether Moore seemed not like himself. The fact disturbed Columbine. Always she had confided in him. Here was a most complex situation—she burned to tell him, yet somehow feared to—she felt an incomprehensible satisfaction in his bitter reference to Jack—she seemed to realize that she valued Wilson's friendship more than she had known, and now for some strange reason it was slipping from her.
“We—we were such good friends—pards,” said Columbine, hurriedly and irrelevantly.
“Who?” He stared at her.
“Why, you—and me.”
“Oh!” His tone softened, but there was still disapproval in his glance. “What of that?”
“Something has happened to make me think I've missed you—lately—that's all.”
“Ahuh!” His tone held finality and bitterness, but he would not commit himself. Columbine sensed a pride in him that seemed the cause of his aloofness.
“Wilson, why have you been different lately?” she asked, plaintively.
“What's the good to tell you now?” he queried, in reply.
That gave her a blank sense of actual loss. She had lived in dreams and he in realities. Right now she could not dispel her dream—see and understand all that he seemed to. She felt like a child, then, growing old swiftly. The strange past longing for a mother surged up in her like a strong tide. Some one to lean on, some one who loved her, some one to help her in this hour when fatality knocked at the door of her youth—how she needed that!
“It might be bad for me—to tell me, but tell me, anyhow,” she said, finally, answering as some one older than she had been an hour ago—to something feminine that leaped up. She did not understand this impulse, but it was in her.
“No!” declared Moore, with dark red staining his face. He slapped the lasso against his saddle, and tied it with clumsy hands. He did not look at her. His tone expressed anger and amaze.
“Dad says I must marry Jack,” she said, with a sudden return to her natural simplicity.
“I heard him tell that months ago,” snapped Moore.
“You did! Was that—why?” she whispered.
“It was,” he answered, ringingly.
“But that was no reason for you to be—be—to stay away from me,” she declared, with rising spirit.
He laughed shortly.
“Wils, didn't you like me any more after dad said that?” she queried.
“Columbine, a girl nineteen years and about to—to get married—ought not be a fool,” he replied, with sarcasm.
“I'm not a fool,” she rejoined, hotly.
“You ask fool questions.”
“Well, you
