“Belllounds, I came up after my things I’d left in the bunk,” he said, coolly.  “Happened to meet Columbine and stopped to chat a minute.”

“That’s what you say,” sneered Belllounds.  “You were making love to Columbine.  I saw that in her face.  You know it—­and she knows it—­and I know it....  You’re a liar!”

“Belllounds, I reckon I am,” replied Moore, turning white.  “I did tell Columbine what I thought she knew—­what I ought to have told long ago.”

“Ahuh!  Well, I don’t want to hear it.  But I’m going to search that wagon.”

“What!” ejaculated the cowboy, dropping his reins as if they stung him.

“You just hold on till I see what you’ve got in there,” went on Belllounds, and he reached over into the wagon and pulled at a saddle.

“Say, do you mean anything?...  This stuff’s mine, every strap of it.  Take your hands off.”

Belllounds leaned on the wagon and looked up with insolent, dark intent.

“Moore, I wouldn’t trust you.  I think you’d steal anything you got your hands on.”

Columbine uttered a passionate little cry of shame and protest.

“Jack, how dare you!”

“You shut up!  Go in the house!” he ordered.

“You insult me,” she replied, in bitter humiliation.

“Will you go in?” he shouted.

“No, I won’t.”

“All right, look on, then.  I’d just as lief have you.”  Then he turned to the cowboy.  “Moore, show up that wagon-load of stuff unless you want me to throw it out in the road.”

“Belllounds, you know I can’t do that,” replied Moore, coldly.  “And I’ll give you a hunch.  You’d better shut up yourself and let me drive on....  If not for her sake, then for your own.”

Belllounds grasped the reins, and with a sudden jerk pulled them out of the cowboy’s hands.

“You damn club-foot!  Your gift of gab doesn’t go with me,” yelled Belllounds, as he swung up on the hub of the wheel.  But it was manifest that his desire to search the wagon was only a pretense, for while he pulled at this and that his evil gaze was on the cowboy, keen to meet any move that might give excuse for violence.  Moore evidently read this, for, gazing at Columbine, he shook his head, as if to acquaint her with a situation impossible to help.

“Columbine, please hand me up the reins,” he said.  “I’m lame, you know.  Then I’ll be going.”

Columbine stepped forward to comply, when Belllounds, leaping down from the wheel, pushed her hack with masterful hand.  Opposition to him was like waving a red flag in the face of a bull.  Columbine recoiled from his look as well as touch.

“You keep out of this or I’ll teach you who’s boss here,” he said, stridently.

“You’re going too far!” burst out Columbine.

Meanwhile Wilson had laboriously climbed down out of the wagon, and, utilizing his crutch, he hobbled to where Belllounds had thrown the reins, and stooped to pick them up.  Belllounds shoved Columbine farther back, and then he leaped to confront the cowboy.