Wade thoughtfully nodded his head, as if he understood, and was pondering other possibilities.

“Is he the only child?”

“There’s a girl, but she’s not Bill’s kin.  He adopted her when she was a baby.  An’ Jack’s mother hated this child—­jealous, we used to think, because it might grow up an’ get some of Bill’s money.’

“What’s the girl’s name?” asked Wade.

“Columbine.  She was over here last summer with Old Bill.  They stayed with me.  It was then Bill had hard words with Smith across the street.  Bill was resentin’ somethin’ Smith put in my way.  Wal, the lass’s the prettiest I ever seen in Colorado, an’ as good as she’s pretty.  Old Bill hinted to me he’d likely make a match between her an’ his son Jack.  An’ I ups an’ told him, if Jack hadn’t turned over a new leaf when he comes home, thet such a marriage would be tough on Columbine.  Whew, but Old Bill was mad.  He jest can’t stand a word ag’in’ thet Buster Jack.”

“Columbine Belllounds,” mused Wade.  “Queer name.”

“Oh, I’ve knowed three girls named Columbine.  Don’t you know the flower?  It’s common in these parts.  Very delicate, like a sago lily, only paler.”

“Were you livin’ in Kremmlin’ when Belllounds adopted the girl?” asked Wade.

“Laws no!” was the reply.  “Thet was long before I come to Middle Park.  But I heerd all about it.  The baby was found by gold-diggers up in the mountains.  Must have got lost from a wagon-train thet Indians set on soon after—­so the miners said.  Anyway, Old Bill took the baby an’ raised her as his own.”

“How old is she now?” queried Wade, with a singular change in his tone.

“Columbine’s around nineteen.”

Bent Wade lowered his head a little, hiding his features under the old, battered, wide-brimmed hat.  The amiable innkeeper did not see the tremor that passed over him, nor the slight stiffening that followed, nor the gray pallor of his face.  She went on talking until some one called her.

Wade went outdoors, and with bent head walked down the street, across a little river, out into green pasture-land.  He struggled with an amazing possibility.  Columbine Belllounds might be his own daughter.  His heart leaped with joy.  But the joy was short-lived.  No such hope in this world for Bent Wade!  This coincidence, however, left him with a strange, prophetic sense in his soul of a tragedy coming to White Slides Ranch.  Wade possessed some power of divination, some strange gift to pierce the veil of the future.  But he could not exercise this power at will; it came involuntarily, like a messenger of trouble in the dark night.  Moreover, he had never yet been able to draw away from the fascination of this knowledge.  It lured him on.  Always his decision had been to go on, to meet this boding circumstance, or to remain and meet it, in the hope that he might take some one’s burden upon his shoulders.  He sensed it now, in the keen, poignant clairvoyance