“That’s just it.  He’s not much to look at, but you forget his homeliness right off,” replied Columbine, warmly.  “You feel something behind all his—­his looks.”

“Wal, you an’ me are women, an’ we feel different,” replied Mrs. Andrews.  “Now my men-folks take much store on what Wade can do.  He fixed up Tom’s gun, that’s been out of whack for a year.  He made our clock run ag’in, an’ run better than ever.  Then he saved our cow from that poison-weed.  An’ Tom gave her up to die.”

“The boys up home were telling me Mr. Wade had saved some of our cattle.  Dad was delighted.  You know he’s lost a good many head of stock from this poison-weed.  I saw so many dead steers on my last ride up the mountain.  It’s too bad our new man didn’t get here sooner to save them.  I asked him how he did it, and he said he was a doctor.”

“A cow-doctor,” laughed Mrs. Andrews.  “Wal, that’s a new one on me.  Accordin’ to Tom, this here Wade, when he seen our sick cow, said she’d eat poison-weed—­larkspur, I think he called it—­an’ then when she drank water it formed a gas in her stomach an’ she swelled up turrible.  Wade jest stuck his knife in her side a little an’ let the gas out, and she got well.”

“Ughh!...  What cruel doctoring!  But if it saves the cattle, then it’s good.”

“It’ll save them if they can be got to right off,” replied Mrs. Andrews.

“Speaking of doctors,” went on Columbine, striving to make her query casual, “do you know whether or not Wilson Moore had his foot treated by a doctor at Kremmling?”

“He did not,” answered Mrs. Andrews.  “Wasn’t no doctor there.  They’d had to send to Denver, an’, as Wils couldn’t take that trip or wait so long, why, Mrs. Plummer fixed up his foot.  She made a good job of it, too, as I can testify.”

“Oh, I’m—­very thankful!” murmured Columbine.  “He’ll not be crippled or—­or club-footed, then?”

“I reckon not.  You can see for yourself.  For Wils’s here.  He was drove up night before last an’ is stayin’ with my brother-in-law—­in the other cabin there.”

Mrs. Andrews launched all this swiftly, with evident pleasure, but with more of woman’s subtle motive.  Her eyes were bent with shrewd kindness upon the younger woman.

“Here!” exclaimed Columbine, with a start, and for an instant she was at the mercy of conflicting surprise and joy and alarm.  Alternately she flushed and paled.

“Sure he’s here,” replied Mrs. Andrews, now looking out of the door.  “He ought to be in sight somewheres.  He’s walkin’ with a crutch.”

“Crutch!” cried Columbine, in dismay.

“Yes, crutch, an’ he made it himself....  I don’t see him nowheres.  Mebbe he went in when he see you comin’.  For he’s powerful sensitive about that crutch.”

“Then—­if he’s so—­so sensitive, perhaps I’d better go,” said Columbine, struggling with embarrassment and discomfiture.  What if she happened to meet him!  Would he imagine her purpose in coming there?  Her heart began to beat unwontedly.