“This—­this woman!” she answered, passionately, with her hands sweeping back to press her breast.

“No woman who wakes ever goes back to a girl again,” he said, sadly.

“I wanted to die—­and now I want to live—­to fight....  Ben, you’ve uplifted me.  I was little, weak, miserable....  But in my dreams, or in some state I can’t remember or understand, I’ve waited for your very words.  I was ready.  It’s as if I knew you in some other world, before I was born on this earth; and when you spoke to me here, so wonderfully—­as my mother might have spoken—­my heart leaped up in recognition of you and your call to my womanhood!...  Oh, how strange and beautiful!”

“Miss Collie,” he replied, slowly, as he bent to his saddle-straps, “you’re young, an’ you’ve no understandin’ of what’s strange an’ terrible in life.  An’ beautiful, too, as you say....  Who knows?  Maybe in some former state I was somethin’ to you.  I believe in that.  Reckon I can’t say how or what.  Maybe we were flowers or birds.  I’ve a weakness for that idea.”

“Birds!  I like the thought, too,” replied Columbine.  “I love most birds.  But there are hawks, crows, buzzards!”

“I reckon.  Lass, there’s got to be balance in nature.  If it weren’t for the ugly an’ the evil, we wouldn’t know the beautiful an’ good....  An’ now let’s ride home.  It’s gettin’ late.”

“Ben, ought I not go back to Wilson right now?” she asked, slowly.

“What for?”

“To tell him—­something—­and why I can’t come to-morrow, or ever afterward,” she replied, low and tremulously.

Wade pondered over her words.  It seemed to Columbine that her sharpened faculties sensed something of hostility, of opposition in him.

“Reckon to-morrow would be better,” he said, presently.  “Wilson’s had enough excitement for one day.”

“Then I’ll go to-morrow,” she returned.

In the gathering, cold twilight they rode down the trail in silence.

“Good night, lass,” said Wade, as he reached his cabin.  “An’ remember you’re not alone any more.”

“Good night, my friend,” she replied, and rode on.

Columbine encountered Jim Montana at the corrals, and it was not too dark for her to see his foam-lashed horse.  Jim appeared non-committal, almost surly.  But Columbine guessed that he had ridden to Kremmling and back in one day, on some order of Jack’s.

“Miss Collie, I’ll tend to Pronto,” he offered.  “An’ yore supper’ll be waitin’.”

A bright fire blazed on the living-room hearth.  The rancher was reading by its light.

“Hello, rosy-cheeks!” greeted the rancher, with unusual amiability.  “Been ridin’ ag’in’ the wind, hey?  Wal, if you ain’t pretty, then my eyes are pore!”

“It’s cold, dad,” she replied, “and the wind stings.  But I didn’t ride fast nor far....  I’ve been up to see Wilson Moore.”

“Ahuh!  Wal, how’s the boy?” asked Belllounds, gruffly.