“It might be bad for me—­to tell me, but tell me, anyhow,” she said, finally, answering as some one older than she had been an hour ago—­to something feminine that leaped up.  She did not understand this impulse, but it was in her.

“No!” declared Moore, with dark red staining his face.  He slapped the lasso against his saddle, and tied it with clumsy hands.  He did not look at her.  His tone expressed anger and amaze.

“Dad says I must marry Jack,” she said, with a sudden return to her natural simplicity.

“I heard him tell that months ago,” snapped Moore.

“You did!  Was that—­why?” she whispered.

“It was,” he answered, ringingly.

“But that was no reason for you to be—­be—­to stay away from me,” she declared, with rising spirit.

He laughed shortly.

“Wils, didn’t you like me any more after dad said that?” she queried.

“Columbine, a girl nineteen years and about to—­to get married—­ought not be a fool,” he replied, with sarcasm.

“I’m not a fool,” she rejoined, hotly.

“You ask fool questions.”

“Well, you didn’t like me afterward or you’d never have mistreated me.”

“If you say I mistreated you—­you say what’s untrue,” he replied, just as hotly.

They had never been so near a quarrel before.  Columbine experienced a sensation new to her—­a commingling of fear, heat, and pang, it seemed, all in one throb.  Wilson was hurting her.  A quiver ran all over her, along her veins, swelling and tingling.

“You mean I lie?” she flashed.

“Yes, I do—­if—­”

But before he could conclude she slapped his face.  It grew pale then, while she began to tremble.

“Oh—­I didn’t intend that.  Forgive me,” she faltered.

He rubbed his cheek.  The hurt had not been great, so far as the blow was concerned.  But his eyes were dark with pain and anger.

“Oh, don’t distress yourself,” he burst out.  “You slapped me before—­once, years ago—­for kissing you.  I—­I apologize for saying you lied.  You’re only out of your head.  So am I.”

That poured oil upon the troubled waters.  The cowboy appeared to be hesitating between sudden flight and the risk of staying longer.

“Maybe that’s it,” replied Columbine, with a half-laugh.  She was not far from tears and fury with herself.  “Let us make up—­be friends again.”

Moore squared around aggressively.  He seemed to fortify himself against something in her.  She felt that.  But his face grew harder and older than she had ever seen it.

“Columbine, do you know where Jack Belllounds has been for these three years?” he asked, deliberately, entirely ignoring her overtures of friendship.

“No.  Somebody said Denver.  Some one else said Kansas City.  I never asked dad, because I knew Jack had been sent away.  I’ve supposed he was working—­making a man of himself.”