“Yes. The shame of marrying one man when you love another. You can't love two men.... You'll give yourself. You'll be his
“I—I think—I do,” replied Columbine, faintly. Where had vanished all her wonderful spirit? This fire-eyed boy was breaking her heart with his reproach.
“But you'll bear his children,” cried Wilson. “Mother of—them—when you love me!... Didn't you think of that?”
“Oh no—I never did—I never did!” wailed Columbine.
“Then you'll think before it's too late?” he implored, wildly. “Dearest Collie, think! You won't ruin yourself! You won't? Say you won't!”
“But—Oh, Wilson, what can I say? I've got to marry him.”
“Collie, I'll kill him before he gets you.”
“You mustn't talk so. If you fought again—if anything terrible happened, it'd kill me.”
“You'd be better off!” he flashed, white as a sheet.
Columbine leaned against Wade for support. She was fast weakening in strength, although her spirit held. She knew what was inevitable. But Wilson's agony was rending her.
“Listen,” began the cowboy again. “It's your life—your happiness—your soul.... Belllounds is crazy over that spoiled boy. He thinks the sun rises and sets in him.... But Jack Belllounds is no good on this earth! Collie dearest, don't think that's my jealousy. I am horribly jealous. But I know him. He's not worth you! No man is—and he the least. He'll break your heart, drag you down, ruin your health—kill you, as sure as you stand there. I want you to know I could prove to you what he is. But don't make me. Trust me, Collie. Believe me.”
“Wilson, I do believe you,” cried Columbine. “But it doesn't make any difference. It only makes my duty harder.”
“He'll treat you like he treats a horse or a dog. He'll beat you—”
“He never will! If he ever lays a hand on me—”
“If not that, he'll tire of you. Jack Belllounds never stuck to anything in his life, and never will. It's not in him. He wants what he can't have. If he gets it, then right off he doesn't want it. Oh, I've known him since he was a kid.... Columbine, you've a mistaken sense of duty. No girl need sacrifice her all because some man found her a lost baby and gave her a home. A woman owes more to herself than to any one.”
“Oh, that's true, Wilson. I've thought it all.... But you're unjust—hard. You make no allowance for—for some possible good in every one. Dad swears I can reform Jack. Maybe I can. I'll pray for it.”
“Reform Jack Belllounds! How can you save a bad egg? That damned coward! Didn't he prove to you what he was when he jumped on me and kicked my broken foot till I fainted?... What do you want?”
“Don't say any more—please,” cried Columbine. “Oh, I'm so sorry.... I oughtn't have come.... Ben, take me home.”
“But, Collie, I love you,” frantically urged Wilson. “And he—he may love you—but he's—Collie—he's been —”
Here Moore seemed to bite his tongue, to hold back speech, to fight something terrible and desperate and cowardly in himself.
Columbine heard only his impassioned declaration of love, and to that she vibrated.
“You speak as if this was one—sided,” she burst out, as once more the gush of hot blood surged over her. “You don't love me any more than I love you. Not as much, for I'm a woman!... I love with all my heart and soul!”
Moore fell back upon the bed, spent and overcome.
“Wade, my friend, for God's sake do something,” he whispered, appealing to the hunter as if in a last hope. “Tell Collie what it'll mean for her to marry Belllounds. If that doesn't change her, then tell her what it'll mean to me. I'll never go home. I'll never leave here. If she hadn't told me she loved me then, I might have stood anything. But now I can't. It'll kill me, Wade.”
“Boy, you're talkin' flighty again,” replied Wade. “This mornin' when I come you were dreamin' an' talkin'— clean out of your head.... Well, now, you an' Collie listen. You're right an' she's right. I reckon I never run across a deal with two people fixed just like you. But that doesn't hinder me from feelin' the same about it as I'd feel about somethin' I was used to.”
He paused, and, gently releasing Columbine, he went to Moore, and retied his loosened bandage, and spread out the disarranged blankets. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and bent over a little, running a roughened hand through the scant hair that had begun to silver upon his head. Presently he looked up, and from that sallow face, with its lines and furrows, and from the deep, inscrutable eyes, there fell a light which, however sad and wise in its infinite understanding of pain and strife, was still ruthless and unquenchable in its hope.
“Wade, for God's sake save Columbine!” importuned Wilson.
“Oh, if you only could!” cried Columbine, impelled beyond her power to resist by that prayer.
“Lass, you stand by your convictions,” he said, impressively. “An' Moore, you be a man an' don't make it so hard for her. Neither of you can do anythin'.... Now there's old Belllounds—he'll never change. He might r'ar up for this or that, but he'll never change his cherished hopes for his son.... But Jack might change! Lookin' back over all the years I remember many boys like this Buster Jack, an' I remember how in the nature of their doin's they just hanged themselves. I've a queer foresight about people whose trouble I've made my own. It's somethin' that never fails. When their trouble's goin' to turn out bad then I feel a terrible yearnin' to tell the story of Hell-Bent Wade. That foresight of trouble gave me my name.... But it's not operatin' here.... An' so, my young friends, you can believe me when I say somethin' will happen. As far as October first is concerned, or any time near, Collie isn't goin' to marry Jack Belllounds.”
CHAPTER X
