Wade greeted this reply with a long silence.  It was enough to feel her hand upon his and to have the glad comfort and charm of her presence once more.  He seemed to have grown older lately.  The fragrant breath of the sage slopes came to him as something precious he must feel and love more.  A haunting transience mocked him from these rolling gray hills.  Old White Slides loomed gray and dark up into the blue, grim and stern reminder of age and of fleeting time.  There was a cloud on Wade’s horizon.

“Wils is waitin’ down there,” said Wade, pointing to a grove of aspens below.  “Reckon it’s pretty close to the house, an’ a trail runs along there.  But Wils can’t ride very well yet, an’ this appeared to be the best place.”

“Ben, I don’t care if dad or Jack know I’ve met Wilson.  I’ll tell them,” said Columbine.

“Ahuh!  Well, if I were you I wouldn’t,” he replied.

They went down the slope and entered the grove.  It was an open, pretty spot, with grass and wild flowers, and old, bleached logs, half sunny and half shady under the new-born, fluttering aspen leaves.  Wade saw Moore sitting on his horse.  And it struck the hunter significantly that the cowboy should be mounted when an hour back he had left him sitting disconsolately on a log.  Moore wanted Columbine to see him first, after all these months of fear and dread, mounted upon his horse.  Wade heard Columbine’s glad little cry, but he did not turn to look at her then.  But when they reached the spot where Moore stood Wade could not resist the desire to see the meeting between the lovers.

Columbine, being a woman, and therefore capable of hiding agitation, except in moments of stress, met that trying situation with more apparent composure than the cowboy.  Moore’s long, piercing gaze took the rose out of Columbine’s cheeks.

“Oh, Wilson!  I’m so happy to see you on your horse again!” she exclaimed.  “It’s too good to be true.  I’ve prayed for that more than anything else.  Can you get up into your saddle like you used to?  Can you ride well again?...  Let me see your foot.”

Moore held out a bulky foot.  He wore a shoe, and it was slashed.

“I can’t wear a boot,” he explained.

“Oh, I see!” exclaimed Columbine, slowly, with her glad smile fading.  “You can’t put that—­that foot in a stirrup, can you?”

“No.”

“But—­it—­it will—­you’ll be able to wear a boot soon,” she implored.

“Never again, Collie,” he said, sadly.

And then Wade perceived that, like a flash, the old spirit leaped up in Columbine.  It was all he wanted to see.

“Now, folks,” he said, “I reckon two’s company an’ three’s a crowd.  I’ll go off a little ways an’ keep watch.”

“Ben, you stay here,” replied Columbine, hurriedly.

“Why, Collie?  Are you afraid—­or ashamed to be with me alone?” asked Moore, bitterly.

Columbine’s eyes flashed.  It was seldom they lost their sweet tranquillity.  But now they had depth and fire.