To the ranch comes “Hell-Bent” Wade, the mysterious man of the plains.  He applies for a job, and not only that, but he gets it, which gives him a chance to let us know that: 

“EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO HE HAD DRIVEN THE WOMAN HE LOVED AWAY FROM HIM, OUT INTO THE WORLD WITH HER BABY GIRL ...  JEALOUS FOOL!...  TOO LATE HAD HE DISCOVERED HIS FATAL BLUNDER....  THAT WAS BENT WADE’S SECRET.” (Fancy sketch of a secret.)

And as we already know that Columbine is almost nineteen (I think she told herself this fact aloud once when she was out riding alone, just to convince herself), the shock is not so great as it might have been to hear Wade murmur aloud (doubtless to convince himself too), “Baby would have been—­let’s see—­’most nineteen years old now—­if she’d lived.”

Any bets on who Columbine really is?

* * * * *

Let us digress from the scenario a minute to cite a scintillating passage, one of many in the book.  Wade is speaking: 

“’You can never tell what a dog is until you know him.  Dogs are like men.  Some of ’em look good, but they’re really bad.  An’ that works the other way round.’”

Oscar Wilde stuff, that is.  How often have you felt the truth of what Mr. Grey says here, and yet have never been able to put it into words!  It is this ability to put thoughts into words that makes him one of our most popular authors today.

* * * * *

But enough of this.  “Hell-Bent” Wade determines that his little gel shall not know him as her father, and, furthermore, that she shall not marry Jack Belllounds.  So he goes to the cabin of Wils Moore and tells him that Columbine is unhappy at the thought of her approaching—­you guessed it—­nuptials.

“PARD!  SHE LOVES ME—­STILL?”

“WILS, HERS IS THE KIND THAT GROWS STRONGER WITH TIME, I KNOW.” (Heart and an hour-glass intertwined.)

* * * * *

Let it be said right here, however, that Jack Belllounds, rough and villainous as he is, is the kind of cow-puncher who says to his father:  “I still love you, dad, despite the cruel thing you did to me.”  No cow-puncher who says “despite” can be entirely bad.  Neither can he be a cow-puncher.

It is later, after a thrilling series of physical encounters, that Columbine tells Jack Belllounds in so many words that she loves Wils Moore.  “Then Wade saw the glory of her—­saw her mother again in that proud, fierce uplift of face that flamed red and then blazed white—­saw hate and passion and love in all their primal nakedness.

“LOVE HIM!  LOVE WILSON MOORE?  YES, YOU FOOL!  I LOVE HIM!  YES!  YES!  YES!” (Decorative heart, in which a little door slowly opens, showing the face of Columbine.)

* * * * *

But time is short and there is a Semon comedy to follow immediately after this.  So all that we can divulge is that Jack has Wils Moore wrongly accused of cattle-rustling, bringing down on his own head the following chatty bit from his affianced bride: