“I wonder which is Wils,” murmured Columbine, as she watched and listened, vaguely conscious of a little difference, a strange check in her remembrance of this particular cowboy.  She felt the change, yet did not understand.  One after one she recognized the riders on the slopes below, but Wilson Moore was not among them.  He must be above her, then, and she turned to gaze across the grassy bluff, up the long, yellow slope, to where the gleaming aspens half hid a red bluff of mountain, towering aloft.  Then from far to her left, high up a scrubby ridge of the slope, rang down a voice that thrilled her:  “Go—­aloong—­you-ooooo.”  Red cattle dashed pell-mell down the slope, raising the dust, tearing the brush, rolling rocks, and letting out hoarse bawls.

“Whoop-ee!” High-pitched and pealing came a clearer yell.

Columbine saw a white mustang flash out on top of the ridge, silhouetted against the blue, with mane and tail flying.  His gait on that edge of steep slope proved his rider to be a reckless cowboy for whom no heights or depths had terrors.  She would have recognized him from the way he rode, if she had not known the slim, erect figure.  The cowboy saw her instantly.  He pulled the mustang, about to plunge down the slope, and lifted him, rearing and wheeling.  Then Columbine waved her hand.  The cowboy spurred his horse along the crest of the ridge, disappeared behind the grove of aspens, and came in sight again around to the right, where on the grassy bench he slowed to a walk in descent to the bluff.

The girl watched him come, conscious of an unfamiliar sense of uncertainty in this meeting, and of the fact that she was seeing him differently from any other time in the years he had been a playmate, a friend, almost like a brother.  He had ridden for Belllounds for years, and was a cowboy because he loved cattle well and horses better, and above all a life in the open.  Unlike most cowboys, he had been to school; he had a family in Denver that objected to his wild range life, and often importuned him to come home; he seemed aloof sometimes and not readily understood.

While many thoughts whirled through Columbine’s mind she watched the cowboy ride slowly down to her, and she became more concerned with a sudden restraint.  How was Wilson going to take the news of this forced change about to come in her life?  That thought leaped up.  It gave her a strange pang.  But she and he were only good friends.  As to that, she reflected, of late they had not been the friends and comrades they formerly were.  In the thrilling uncertainty of this meeting she had forgotten his distant manner and the absence of little attentions she had missed.

By this time the cowboy had reached the level, and with the lazy grace of his kind slipped out of the saddle.  He was tall, slim, round-limbed, with the small hips of a rider, and square, though not broad shoulders.  He stood straight like an Indian.  His eyes were hazel, his features regular, his face bronzed.  All men of the open had still, lean, strong faces, but added to this in him was a steadiness of expression, a restraint that seemed to hide sadness.