Belllounds did not deign to reply to this.  He sat on the porch, where evidently he had awaited her return, and he looked anything but happy.

“Where is dad?” continued Columbine.

Jack motioned toward the second door, beyond which he sat, the one that opened into the room the rancher used as a kind of office and storeroom.  As Columbine walked by Jack he grasped her skirt.

“Columbine! you’re angry?” he said, appealingly.

“I reckon I am,” replied Columbine.

“Don’t go in to dad when you’re that way,” implored Jack.  “He’s angry, too—­and—­and—­it’ll only make matters worse.”

From long experience Columbine could divine when Jack had done something in the interest of self and then had awakened to possible consequences.  She pulled away from him without replying, and knocked on the office door.

“Come in,” called the rancher.

Columbine went in.  “Hello, dad!  Do you want me?”

Belllounds sat at an old table, bending over a soiled ledger, with a stubby pencil in his huge hand.  When he looked up Columbine gave a little start.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked, gruffly.

“I’ve been calling on Mrs. Andrews,” replied Columbine.

“Did you go thar to see her?”

“Why—­certainly!” answered Columbine, with a slow break in her speech.

“You didn’t go to meet Wilson Moore?”

“No.”

“An’ I reckon you’ll say you hadn’t heerd he was there?”

“I had not,” flashed Columbine.

“Wal, did you see him?”

“Yes, sir, I did, but quite by accident.”

“Ahuh!  Columbine, are you lyin’ to me?”

The hot blood flooded to Columbine’s cheeks, as if she had been struck a blow.

“Dad!” she cried, in hurt amaze.

Belllounds seemed thick, imponderable, as if something had forced a crisis in him and his brain was deeply involved.  The habitual, cool, easy, bold, and frank attitude in the meeting of all situations seemed to have been encroached upon by a break, a bewilderment, a lessening of confidence.

“Wal, are you lyin’?” he repeated, either blind to or unaware of her distress.

“I could not—­lie to you,” she faltered, “even—­if—­I wanted to.”

The heavy, shadowed gaze of his big eyes was bent upon her as if she had become a new and perplexing problem.

“But you seen Moore?”

“Yes—­sir.”  Columbine’s spirit rose.

“An’ talked with him?”

“Of course.”

“Lass, I ain’t likin’ thet, an’ I ain’t likin’ the way you look an’ speak.”

“I am sorry.  I can’t help either.”

“What’d this cowboy say to you?”

“We talked mostly about his injured foot.”

“An’ what else?” went on Belllounds, his voice rising.

“About—­what he meant to do now.”

“Ahuh!  An’ thet’s homesteadin’ the Sage Creek Valley?”