He struck her on the mouth, a cruel blow that would have felled her but for Wade:  and then he lunged away, bowed and trembling, yet with fierce, instinctive motion, as if driven to run with the spirit of his rage.

CHAPTER XV

Wade noticed that after her trying experience with him and Wilson and Belllounds Columbine did not ride frequently.

He managed to get a word or two with her whenever he went to the ranch-house, and he needed only look at her to read her sensitive mind.  All was well with Columbine, despite her trouble.  She remained upheld in spirit, while yet she seemed to brood over an unsolvable problem.  She had said, “But—­let what will come!”—­and she was waiting.

Wade hunted for more than lions and wolves these days.  Like an Indian scout who scented peril or heard an unknown step upon his trail, Wade rode the hills, and spent long hours hidden on the lonely slopes, watching with somber, keen eyes.  They were eyes that knew what they were looking for.  They had marked the strange sight of the son of Bill Belllounds, gliding along that trail where Moore had met Columbine, sneaking and stooping, at last with many a covert glance about, to kneel in the trail and compare the horse tracks there with horseshoes he took from his pocket.  That alone made Bent Wade eternally vigilant.  He kept his counsel.  He worked more swiftly, so that he might have leisure for his peculiar seeking.  He spent an hour each night with the cowboys, listening to their recounting of the day and to their homely and shrewd opinions.  He haunted the vicinity of the ranch-house at night, watching and listening for that moment which was to aid him in the crisis that was impending.  Many a time he had been near when Columbine passed from the living-room to her corner of the house.  He had heard her sigh and could almost have touched her.

Buster Jack had suffered a regurgitation of the old driving and insatiate temper, and there was gloom in the house of Belllounds.  Trouble clouded the old man’s eyes.

May came with the spring round-up.  Wade was called to use a rope and brand calves under the order of Jack Belllounds, foreman of White Slides.  That round-up showed a loss of one hundred head of stock, some branded steers, and yearlings, and many calves, in all a mixed herd.  Belllounds received the amazing news with a roar.  He had been ready for something to roar at.  The cowboys gave as reasons winter-kill, and lions, and perhaps some head stolen since the thaw.  Wade emphatically denied this.  Very few cattle had fallen prey to the big cats, and none, so far as he could find, had been frozen or caught in drifts.  It was the young foreman who stunned them all.  “Rustled,” he said, darkly.  “There’s too many loafers and homesteaders in these hills!” And he stalked out to leave his hearers food for reflection.