“Humph!  Wal, he told me you harangued him till you was black in the face, an’—­”

“Jack had it wrong.  He got black in the face,” interrupted Wade.

“Did you say he was a spoiled boy an’ thet he was no good an’ was headin’ plumb fer hell?”

“That was a little of what I said,” returned Wade, gently.

“Ahuh!  How’d thet come about?” queried Belllounds, gruffly.  A slight stiffening and darkening overcast his face.

Wade then recalled and recounted the remarks that had passed between him and Jack; and he did not think he missed them very far.  He had a great curiosity to see how Belllounds would take them, and especially the young man’s scornful rejection of a sincerely offered friendship.  All the time Wade was talking he was aware of Columbine watching him, and when he finished it was sweet to look at her.

“Wade, wasn’t you takin’ a lot on yourself?” queried the rancher, plainly displeased.

“Reckon I was.  But my conscience is beholden to no man.  If Jack had met me half-way that would have been better for him.  An’ for me, because I get good out of helpin’ any one.”

His reply silenced Belllounds.  No more was said before supper was announced, and then the rancher seemed taciturn.  Columbine did the serving, and most all of the talking.  Wade felt strangely at ease.  Some subtle difference was at work in him, transforming him, but the moment had not yet come for him to question himself.  He enjoyed the supper.  And when he ventured to look up at Columbine, to see her strong, capable hands and her warm, blue glance, glad for his presence, sweetly expressive of their common secret and darker with a shadow of meaning beyond her power to guess, then Wade felt havoc within him, the strife and pain and joy of the truth he never could reveal.  For he could never reveal his identity to her without betraying his baseness to her mother.  Otherwise, to hear her call him father would have been earning that happiness with a lie.  Besides, she loved Belllounds as her father, and were this trouble of the present removed she would grow still closer to the old man in his declining days.  Wade accepted the inevitable, She must never know.  If she might love him it must be as the stranger who came to her gates, it must be through the mysterious affinity between them and through the service he meant to render.

Wade did not linger after the meal was ended despite the fact that Belllounds recovered his cordiality.  It was dark when he went out.  Columbine followed him, talking cheerfully.  Once outside she squeezed his hand and whispered, “How’s Wilson?”

The hunter nodded his reply, and, pausing at the porch step, he pressed her hand to make his assurance stronger.  His reward was instant.  In the bright starlight she stood white and eloquent, staring down at him with dark, wide eyes.

Presently she whispered:  “Oh, my friend!  It wants only three days till October first!”