“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 from
