They said good-by to Wilson, who sat with head bowed upon his hands.  His voice trembled as he answered them.  Wade found the trail while Columbine mounted.  As they went slowly down the gentle slope, stepping over the numerous logs fallen across the way, Wade caught out of the tail of his eye a moving object along the outer edge of the aspen grove above them.  It was the figure of a man, skulking behind the trees.  He disappeared.  Wade casually remarked to Columbine that now she could spur the pony and hurry on home.  But Columbine refused.  When they got a little farther on, out of sight of Moore and somewhat around to the left, Wade espied the man again.  He carried a rifle.  Wade grew somewhat perturbed.

“Collie, you run on home,” he said, sharply.

“Why?  You’ve complained of not seeing me.  Now that I want to be with you ...  Ben, you see some one!”

Columbine’s keen faculties evidently sensed the change in Wade, and the direction of his uneasy glance convinced her.

“Oh, there’s a man!...  Ben, it is—­yes, it’s Jack,” she exclaimed, excitedly.

“Reckon you’d have it better if you say Buster Jack,” replied Wade, with his tragic smile.

“Ah!” whispered Columbine, as she gazed up at the aspen slope, with eyes lighting to battle.

“Run home, Collie, an’ leave him to me,” said Wade.

“Ben, you mean he—­he saw us up there in the grove?  Saw me in Wilson’s arms—­saw me kissing him?”

“Sure as you’re born, Collie.  He watched us.  He saw all your love-makin’.  I can tell that by the way he walks.  It’s Buster Jack again!  Alas for the new an’ noble Jack!  I told you, Collie.  Now you run on an’ leave him to me.”

Wade became aware that she turned at his last words and regarded him attentively.  But his gaze was riveted on the striding form of Belllounds.

“Leave him to you?  For what reason, my friend?” she asked.

“Buster Jack’s on the rampage.  Can’t you see that?  He’ll insult you.  He’ll—­”

“I will not go,” interrupted Columbine, and, halting her pony, she deliberately dismounted.

Wade grew concerned with the appearance of young Belllounds, and it was with a melancholy reminder of the infallibility of his presentiments.  As he and Columbine halted in the trail, Belllounds’s hurried stride lengthened until he almost ran.  He carried the rifle forward in a most significant manner.  Black as a thunder-cloud was his face.  Alas for the dignity and pain and resolve that had only recently showed there!

Belllounds reached them.  He was frothing at the mouth.  He cocked the rifle and thrust it toward Wade, holding low down.

“You—­meddling sneak!  If you open your trap I’ll bore you!” he shouted, almost incoherently.

Wade knew when danger of life loomed imminent.  He fixed his glance upon the glaring eyes of Belllounds.

“Jack, seein’ I’m not packin’ a gun, it’d look sorta natural, along with your other tricks, if you bored me.”