“Four!” exclaimed Belllounds.  But any word would have expressed his humiliation.

“I should have said three, leavin’ Jack out.  I meant Collie’s an’ yours an’ Wils Moore’s.”

“Moore’s is about ruined already, I’ve a hunch.”

“You can get hunches you never dreamed of, Belllounds, old as you are.  An’ I’ll give you one presently....  But we drift off.  Can’t you keep cool?”

“Cool!  With you rantin’ hell-bent for election?  Haw!  Raw!...  Wade, you’re locoed.  You always struck me queer....  An’ if you’ll excuse me, I’m gettin’ tired of this talk.  We’re as far apart as the poles.  An’ to save what good feelin’s we both have, let’s quit.”

“You don’t love Collie, then?” queried Wade, imperturbably.

“Yes, I do.  That’s a fool idee of yours.  It puts me out of patience.”

“Belllounds, you’re not her real father.”

The rancher gave a start, and he stared as he had stared before, fixedly and perplexedly at Wade.

“No, I’m not.”

“If she were your real daughter—­your own flesh an’ blood—­an’ Jack Belllounds was my son, would you let her marry him?”

“Wal, Wade, I reckon I wouldn’t.”

“Then how can you expect my consent to her marriage with your son?”

“WHAT!” Belllounds lunged over to Wade, leaned down, shaken by overwhelming amaze.

“Collie is my daughter!”

A loud expulsion of breath escaped Belllounds.  Lower he leaned, and looked with piercing gaze into the face and eyes that in this moment bore strange resemblance to Columbine.

“So help me Gawd!...  That’s the secret?...  Hell-Bent Wade!  An’ you’ve been on my trail!”

He staggered to his big chair and fell into it.  No trace of doubt showed in his face.  The revelation had struck home because of its very greatness.

Wade took the chair opposite.  His likeness to Columbine had faded now.  It had been love, a spirit, a radiance, a glory.  It was gone.  And Wade’s face became the emblem of tragedy.

“Listen, Belllounds.  I’ll tell you!...  The ways of God are inscrutable.  I’ve been twenty years tryin’ to atone for the wrong I did Collie’s mother.  I’ve been a prospector for the trouble of others.  I’ve been a bearer of their burdens.  An’ if I can save Collie’s happiness an’ her soul, I reckon I won’t be denied the peace of meetin’ her mother in the other world....  I recognized Collie the moment I laid eyes on her.  She favors her mother in looks, an’ she has her mother’s sensitiveness, her fire an’ pride, an’ she even has her voice.  It’s low an’ sweet—­alto, they used to call it....  But I’d recognized Collie as my own if I’d been blind an’ deaf....  It’s over eighteen years ago that we had the trouble.  I was no boy, but I was terribly in love with Lucy.  An’ she loved me with a passion I never learned till too late.  We came West from Missouri.  She was born in Texas.