LITMIR.BIZ

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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 didn't like me afterward or you'd never have mistreated me."

      "If you say I mistreated you--you say what's untrue," he replied, just as hotly.

      They had never been so near a quarrel before. Columbine experienced a sensation new to her--a commingling of fear, heat, and pang, it seemed, all in one throb. Wilson was hurting her. A quiver ran all over her, along her veins, swelling and tingling.

      "You mean I lie?" she flashed.

      "Yes, I do--if--"

      But before he could conclude she slapped his face. It grew pale then, while she began to tremble.

      "Oh--I didn't intend that. Forgive me," she faltered.

      He rubbed his cheek. The hurt had not been great, so far as the blow was concerned. But his eyes were dark with pain and anger.

      "Oh, don't distress yourself," he burst out. "You slapped me before--once, years ago--for kissing you. I--I apologize for saying you lied. You're only out of your head. So am I."

      That poured oil upon the troubled waters. The cowboy appeared to be hesitating between sudden flight and the risk of staying longer.

      "Maybe that's it," replied Columbine, with a half-laugh. She was not far from tears and fury with herself. "Let us make up--be friends again."

      Moore squared around aggressively. He seemed to fortify himself against something in her. She felt that. But his face grew harder and older than she had ever seen it.

      "Columbine, do you know where Jack Belllounds has been for these three years?" he asked, deliberately, entirely ignoring her overtures of friendship.

      "No. Somebody said Denver. Some one else said Kansas City. I never asked dad, because I knew Jack had been sent away. I've supposed he was working--making a man of himself."

      "Well, I hope to Heaven--for your sake--what you suppose comes true," returned Moore, with exceeding bitterness.

      "Do you know where he has been?" asked Columbine. Some strange feeling prompted that. There was a mystery here. Wilson's agitation seemed strange and deep.

      "Yes, I do." The cowboy bit that out through closing teeth, as if locking them against an almost overmastering temptation.

      Columbine lost her curiosity. She was woman enough to realize that there might well be facts which would only make her situation harder.

      "Wilson," she began, hurriedly, "I owe all I am to dad. He has cared for me--sent me to school. He has been so good to me. I've loved him always. It would be a shabby return for all his protection and love if--if I refused--"

      "Old Bill is the best man ever," interrupted Moore, as if to repudiate any hint of disloyalty to his employer. "Everybody in Middle Park and all over owes Bill something. He's sure good. There never was anything wrong with him except his crazy blindness about his son. Buster Jack--the--the--"

      Columbine put a hand over Moore's lips.

      "The man I must marry," she said, solemnly.

      "You must--you will?" he demanded.

      "Of course. What else could I do? I never thought of refusing."

      "Columbine!" Wilson's cry was so poignant, his gesture so violent, his dark eyes so piercing that Columbine sustained a shock that held her trembling and mute. "How can you love Jack Belllounds? You were twelve years old when you saw him last. How can you love him?"

      "I don't" replied Columbine.

      "Then how could you marry him?"

      "I owe dad obedience. It's his hope that I can steady Jack."

      "Steady Jack!" exclaimed Moore, passionately. "Why, you girl--you white-faced flower! You with your innocence and sweetness steady that

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