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"Lass, I ain't likin' thet, an' I ain't likin' the way you look an' speak." "I am sorry. I can't help either." "What'd this cowboy say to you?" "We talked mostly about his injured foot." "An' what else?" went on Belllounds, his voice rising. "About what he meant to do now." "Ahuh! An' thet's homesteadin' the Sage Creek Valley?" "Yes, sir." "Did you want him to do thet?" "I! Indeed I didn't."
"Go ahead.... And, pard, if you say my leg has to be cut off why just pass me my gun!" The cowboy's voice was gay and bantering, but his eyes were alight with a spirit that frightened the hunter. "Ahuh!... I know how you feel. But, boy, I'd rather live with one leg an' be loved by Collie Belllounds than have nine legs for some other lass." Wilson Moore groaned his helplessness.
No one knows who I am where I came from." "As if that made any difference!" he exclaimed. "Belllounds is not my dad. I have no dad. I was a waif. They found me in the woods a baby lost among the flowers. Columbine Belllounds I've always been. But that is not my name. No one can tell what my name really is." "I knew your story years ago, Columbine," he replied, earnestly. "Everybody knows.
I have my own reasons," replied Belllounds, gruffly, as he resumed eating. Columbine believed she could guess the cause of the old rancher's unreasonable antipathy for this cowboy. Not improbably it was because Wilson had always been superior in every way to Jack Belllounds. The boys had been natural rivals in everything pertaining to life on the range.
He's the rustler who stole your cattle!... Your pet son a sneakin' thief!" Jack Belllounds came riding down the valley trail. His horse was in a lather of sweat. Both hair and blood showed on the long spurs this son of a great pioneer used in his pleasure rides. He had never loved a horse. At a point where the trail met the brook there were thick willow patches, with open, grassy spots between.
In the brilliant sunlight of the summer morning Wade bent his resistless steps down toward White Slides Ranch. The pendulum had swung. The hours were propitious. Seemingly, events that already cast their shadows waited for him. He saw Jack Belllounds going out on the fast and furious ride which had become his morning habit. Columbine intercepted Wade.
The night was still, cold, starlit, and black in the shadows. A lonesome coyote barked, to be answered by a wakeful hound. Wade halted at his porch, and lingered there a moment, peering up at the gray old peak, bare and star-crowned. "I'm sorry for the old man," muttered the hunter, "but I'd see Jack Belllounds in hell before I'd let Columbine marry him."
"Wade, I've heerd of you fer years. Some bad, but most good, an' I reckon I'm jest as glad to meet you as if you'd been somebody else." "You'll give me the job?" "I should smile." "I'm thankin' you. Reckon I was some worried. Jobs are hard for me to get an' harder to keep." "Thet's not onnatural, considerin' the hell which's said to camp on your trail," replied Belllounds, dryly.
Wade held that there was nothing in the West as well calculated to test a boy, to prove his real character, as a game of poker. Belllounds was a feverish better, an exultant winner, a poor loser. His understanding of the game was rudimentary.
In her agony she could not even look away. Belllounds got up astride his prostrate adversary and began to beat him brutally, swinging heavy, sodden blows. His face then was terrible to see. He meant murder. Columbine heard approaching voices and the thumping of hasty feet. That unclamped her cloven tongue. Wildly she screamed. Old Bill Belllounds appeared, striding off the porch.
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