So Columbine brooded over the trouble that had come to her, never regretting her promise to the old rancher, but growing keener in the realization of a complexity in her nature that sooner or later would separate the life of her duty from the life of her desire.  She seemed all alone, and when this feeling possessed her a strange reminder of the hunter Wade flashed up.  She stifled another impulse to confide in him.  Wade had the softness of a woman, and his face was a record of the trials and travails through which he had come unhardened, unembittered.  Yet how could she tell her troubles to him?  A stranger, a rough man of the wilds, whose name had preceded him, notorious and deadly, with that vital tang of the West in its meaning!  Nevertheless, Wade drew her, and she thought of him until the recurring memory of Jack Belllounds’s rude clasp again crept over her with an augmenting disgust and fear.  Must she submit to that?  Had she promised that?  And then Columbine felt the dawning of realities.

CHAPTER VII

Columbine was awakened in the gray dawn by the barking of coyotes.  She dreaded the daylight thus heralded.  Never before in her life had she hated the rising of the sun.  Resolutely she put the past behind her and faced the future, believing now that with the great decision made she needed only to keep her mind off what might have been, and to attend to her duty.

At breakfast she found the rancher in better spirits than he had been for weeks.  He informed her that Jack had ridden off early for Kremmling, there to make arrangements for the wedding on October first.

“Jack’s out of his head,” said Belllounds.  “Wal, thet comes only onct in a man’s life.  I remember ...  Jack’s goin’ to drive you to Kremmlin’ an’ ther take stage fer Denver.  I allow you’d better put in your best licks on fixin’ up an’ packin’ the clothes you’ll need.  Women-folk naturally want to look smart on weddin’-trips.”

“Dad!” exclaimed Columbine, in dismay.  “I never thought of clothes.  And I don’t want to leave White Slides.”

“But, lass, you’re goin’ to be married!” expostulated Belllounds.

“Didn’t it occur to Jack to take me to Kremmling?  I can’t make new dresses out of old ones.”

“Wal, I reckon neither of us thought of thet.  But you can buy what you like in Denver.”

Columbine resigned herself.  After all, what did it matter to her?  The vague, haunting dreams of girlhood would never come true.  So she went to her wardrobe and laid out all her wearing apparel.  Taking stock of it this way caused her further dismay, for she had nothing fit to wear in which either to be married or to take a trip to Denver.  There appeared to be nothing to do but take the rancher’s advice, and Columbine set about refurbishing her meager wardrobe.  She sewed all day.

What with self-control and work and the passing of hours, Columbine began to make some approach to tranquillity.  In her simplicity she even began to hope that being good and steadfast and dutiful would earn her a little meed of happiness.  Some haunting doubt of this flashed over her mind like a swift shadow of a black wing, but she dispelled that as she had dispelled the fear and disgust which often rose up in her mind.