“Yes—­my son—­Jack—­he’s comin’ home,” said Belllounds, with a break in his voice.  “An’, Collie—­now I must tell you somethin’.”

“Yes, dad,” she had replied, with strong clasp of the heavy hand on her shoulder.

“Thet’s just it, lass.  I ain’t your dad.  I’ve tried to be a dad to you an’ I’ve loved you as my own.  But you’re not flesh an’ blood of mine.  An’ now I must tell you.”

The brief story followed.  Seventeen years ago miners working a claim of Belllounds’s in the mountains above Middle Park had found a child asleep in the columbines along the trail.  Near that point Indians, probably Arapahoes coming across the mountains to attack the Utes, had captured or killed the occupants of a prairie-schooner.  There was no other clue.  The miners took the child to their camp, fed and cared for it, and, after the manner of their kind, named it Columbine.  Then they brought it to Belllounds.

“Collie,” said the old rancher, “it needn’t never have been told, an’ wouldn’t but fer one reason.  I’m gettin’ old.  I reckon I’d never split my property between you an’ Jack.  So I mean you an’ him to marry.  You always steadied Jack.  With a wife like you’ll be—­wal, mebbe Jack’ll—­”

“Dad!” burst out Columbine.  “Marry Jack!...  Why I—­I don’t even remember him!”

“Haw!  Haw!” laughed Belllounds.  “Wal, you dog-gone soon will.  Jack’s in Kremmlin’, an’ he’ll be hyar to-night or to-morrow.”

“But—­I—­I don’t l-love him,” faltered Columbine.

The old man lost his mirth; the strong-lined face resumed its hard cast; the big eyes smoldered.  Her appealing objection had wounded him.  She was reminded of how sensitive the old man had always been to any reflection cast upon his son.

“Wal, thet’s onlucky;” he replied, gruffly.  “Mebbe you’ll change.  I reckon no girl could help a boy much, onless she cared for him.  Anyway, you an’ Jack will marry.”

He had stalked away and Columbine had ridden her mustang far up the valley slope where she could be alone.  Standing on the verge of the bluff, she suddenly became aware that the quiet and solitude of her lonely resting-place had been disrupted.  Cattle were bawling below her and along the slope of old White Slides and on the grassy uplands above.  She had forgotten that the cattle were being driven down into the lowlands for the fall round-up.  A great red-and-white-spotted herd was milling in the park just beneath her.  Calves and yearlings were making the dust fly along the mountain slope; wild old steers were crashing in the sage, holding level, unwilling to be driven down; cows were running and lowing for their lost ones.  Melodious and clear rose the clarion calls of the cowboys.  The cattle knew those calls and only the wild steers kept up-grade.

Columbine also knew each call and to which cowboy it belonged.  They sang and yelled and swore, but it was all music to her.  Here and there along the slope, where the aspen groves clustered, a horse would flash across an open space; the dust would fly, and a cowboy would peal out a lusty yell that rang along the slope and echoed under the bluff and lingered long after the daring rider had vanished in the steep thickets.