Collected Works of Zane Grey

by Zane Grey

  The three hounds leaped up with barks and wagging tails. They welcomed this visitor. Kane lost still more of his canine aloofness.

  Wade’s breast heaved. The blue sky, the gray hills, the green willows, all blurred in his sight, that seemed to hold clear only the face floating closer.

  “I’m Columbine Belllounds,” said a voice.

  It stilled the storm in Wade. It was real. It was a voice of twenty years ago. The burden on his breast lifted. Then flashed the spirit, the old self-control of a man whose life had held many terrible moments.

  “Mornin’, miss. I’m glad to meet you,” he replied, and there was no break, no tone unnatural in his greeting.

  So they gazed at each other, she with that instinctive look peculiar to women in its intuitive powers, but common to all persons who had lived far from crowds and to whom a new-comer was an event. Wade’s gaze, intense and all-embracing, found that face now closer in resemblance to the imagined Lucy’s — a pretty face, rather than beautiful, but strong and sweet — its striking qualities being a colorless fairness of skin that yet held a rose and golden tint, and the eyes of a rare and exquisite shade of blue.

  “Oh! Are you feeling ill?” she asked. “You look so — so pale.”

  “No. I’m only tuckered out,” replied Wade, easily, as he wiped the clammy drops from his brow. “It was a long ride to get here.”

  “I’m the lady of the house,” she said, with a smile. “I’m glad to welcome you to White Slides, and hope you’ll like it.”

  “Well, Miss Columbine, I reckon I will,” he replied, returning the smile. “Now if I was younger I’d like it powerful much.”

  She laughed at that. “Men are all alike, young or old.”

  “Don’t ever think so,” said Wade, earnestly.

  “No? I guess you’re right about that. I’ve fetched you up some things for your cabin. May I peep in?”

  “Come in,” replied Wade, rising. “You must excuse my manners. It’s long indeed since I had a lady caller.”

  She went in, and Wade, standing on the threshold, saw her survey the room with a woman’s sweeping glance.

  “I told dad to put some—”

  “Miss, your dad told me to go get them, an’ I’ve not done it yet. But I will presently.”

  “Very well. I’ll leave these things and come back later,” she replied, depositing a bundle upon the floor. “You won’t mind if I try to — to make you a little comfortable. It’s dreadful the way outdoor men live when they do get indoors.”

  “I reckon I’ll be slow in lettin’ you see what a good housekeeper I am,” he replied. “Because then, maybe, I’ll see more of you.”

  “Weren’t you a sad flatterer in your day?” she queried, archly.

  Her intonation, the tilt of her head, gave Wade such a pang that he could not answer. And to hide his momentary restraint he turned back to the hounds. Then she came out upon the porch.

  “I love hounds,” she said, patting Denver, which caress immediately made Jim and Sampson jealous. “I’ve gotten on pretty well with these, but that Kane won’t make up. Isn’t he splendid? But he’s afraid — no, not afraid of me, but he doesn’t like me.”

  “It’s mistrust. He’s been hurt. I reckon he’ll get over that after a while.”

  “You don’t beat dogs?” she asked, eagerly.

  “No, miss. That’s not the way to get on with hounds or horses.”

  Her glance was a blue flash of pleasure.

  “How glad that makes me! Why, I quit coming here to see and feed the dogs because somebody was always kicking them around.”

  Wade handed the rope to her. “You hold them, so when I come out with some meat they won’t pile over me.” He went inside, took all that was left of the deer haunch out of his pack, and, picking up his knife, returned to the porch. The hounds saw the meat and yelped. They pulled on the rope.

  “You hounds behave,” ordered Wade, as he sat down on the step and began to cut the meat. “Jim, you’re the oldest an’ hungriest. Here.... Now you, Sampson. Here!”... The big hound snapped at the meat. Whereupon Wade slapped him. “Are you a pup or a wolf that you grab for it? Here.” Sampson was slower to act, but he snapped again. Whereupon Wade hit him again, with open hand, not with violence or rancor, but a blow that meant Sampson must obey.

  Next time the hound did not snap. Denver had to be cuffed several times before he showed deference to this new master. But the bloodhound Kane refused to take any meat out of Wade’s hand. He growled and showed his teeth, and sniffed hungrily.

  “Kane will have to be handled carefully,” observed Wade. “He’d bite pretty quick.”

  “But, he’s so splendid,” said the girl. “I don’t like to think he’s mean. You’ll be good to him — try to win him?”

  “I’ll do my best with him.”

  “Dad’s full of glee that he has a real hunter at White Slides at last. Now I’m glad, and sorry, too. I hate to think of little calves being torn and killed by lions and wolves. And it’s dreadful to know bears eat grown-up cattle. But I love the mourn of a wolf and the yelp of a coyote. I can’t help hoping you don’t kill them all — quite.”

  “It’s not likely, miss,” he replied. “I’ll be pretty sure to clean out the lions an’ drive off the bears. But the wolf family can’t be exterminated. No animal so cunnin’ as a wolf!... I’ll tell you.... Some years ago I went to cook on a ranch north of Denver, on the edge of the plains. An’ right off I began to hear stories about a big lobo — a wolf that was an old residenter. He’d been known for long, an’ he got meaner an’ wiser as he was hunted. His specialty got to be yearlings, an’ the ranchers all over rose up in arms against him. They hired all the old hunters an’ trappers in the country to kill him. No good! Old Lobo went right on pullin’ down yearlings. Every night he’d get one or more. An’ he was so cute an’ so swift that he’d work on different ranches on different nights. Finally he killed eleven yearlings for my boss on one night. Eleven! Think of that. An’ then I said to my boss, ‘I reckon you’d better let me go kill that gray butcher.’ An’ my boss laughed at me. But he let me go. He’d have tried anythin’. I took a hunk of meat, a blanket, my gun, an’ a pair of snow-shoes, an’ I set out on old Lobo’s tracks.... An’, Miss Columbine, I walked old Lobo to death in the snow!”

  “Why, how wonderful!” exclaimed the girl, breathless and glowing with interest. “Oh, it seems a pity such a splendid brute should be killed. Wild animals are cruel. I wish it were different.”

  “Life is cruel, miss, an’ I echo your wish,” replied Wade, sadly.

  “You have had great experiences. Dad said to me, ‘Collie, here at last is a man who can tell you enough stories!’... But I don’t believe you ever could.”

  “You like stories?” asked Wade, curiously.

  “Love them. All kinds, but I like adventure best. I should have been a boy. Isn’t it strange, I can’t hurt anything myself or bear to see even a steer slaughtered? But you can’t tell too bloody and terrible stories for me. Except I hate Indian stories. The very thought of Indians makes me shudder.... Some day I’ll tell you a story.”

  Wade could not find his tongue readily.

  “I must go now,” she continued, and moved off the porch. Then she hesitated, and turned with a smile that was wistful and impulsive. “I — I believe we’ll be good friends.”

  “Miss Columbine, we sure will, if I can live up to my part,” replied Wade.

  Her smile deepened, even while her gaze grew unconsciously penetrating. Wade felt how subtly they were drawn to each other. But she had no inkling of that.

  “It takes two to make a bargain,” she replied, seriously. “I’ve my part. Good-by.”

  Wade watched her lithe stride, and as she drew away the restraint he had put upon himself loosened. When she disappeared his feeling burst all bounds. Dragging the dogs inside, he closed the door. Then, like one broken and spent, he fell face against the wall, with the hoarsely whispered words, “I’m thankin�
� God!”

  CHAPTER VI

  SEPTEMBER’S GLORY OF gold and red and purple began to fade with the autumnal equinox. It rained enough to soak the frost-bitten leaves, and then the mountain winds sent them flying and fluttering and scurrying to carpet the dells and spot the pools in the brooks and color the trails. When the weather cleared and the sun rose bright again many of the aspen thickets were leafless and bare, and the willows showed stark against the gray sage hills, and the vines had lost their fire. Hills and valleys had sobered with subtle change that left them none the less beautiful.

  A mile or more down the road from White Slides, in a protected nook, nestled two cabins belonging to a cattleman named Andrews, who had formerly worked for Belllounds and had recently gone into the stock business for himself. He had a rather young wife, and several children, and a brother who rode for him. These people were the only neighbors of Belllounds for some ten miles on the road toward Kremmling.

  Columbine liked Mrs. Andrews and often rode or walked down there for a little visit and a chat with her friend and a romp with the children.

  Toward the end of September Columbine found herself combating a strong desire to go down to the Andrews ranch and try to learn some news about Wilson Moore. If anything had been heard at White Slides it certainly had not been told her. Jack Belllounds had ridden to Kremmling and back in one day, but Columbine would have endured much before asking him for information.

  She did, however, inquire of the freighter who hauled Belllounds’s supplies, and the answer she got was awkwardly evasive. That nettled Columbine. Also it raised a suspicion which she strove to subdue. Finally it seemed apparent that Wilson Moore’s name was not to be mentioned to her.

  First, in her growing resentment, she had an impulse to go to her new friend, the hunter Wade, and confide in him not only her longing to learn about Wilson, but also other matters that were growing daily more burdensome. How strange for her to feel that in some way Jack Belllounds had come between her and the old man she loved and called father! Columbine had not divined that until lately. She felt it now in the fact that she no longer sought the rancher as she used to, and he had apparently avoided her. But then, Columbine reflected, she might be entirely wrong, for when Belllounds did meet her at meal-times, or anywhere, he seemed just as affectionate as of old. Still he was not the same man. A chill, an atmosphere of shadow, had pervaded the once wholesome ranch. And so, feeling not yet well enough acquainted with Wade to confide so intimately in him, she stifled her impulses and resolved to make some effort herself to find out what she wanted to know.

  As luck would have it, when she started out to walk down to the Andrews ranch she encountered Jack Belllounds.

  “Where are you going?” he inquired, inquisitively.

  “I’m going to see Mrs. Andrews,” she replied.

  “No, you’re not!” he declared, quickly, with a flash.

  Columbine felt a queer sensation deep within her, a hot little gathering that seemed foreign to her physical being, and ready to burst out. Of late it had stirred in her at words or acts of Jack Belllounds. She gazed steadily at him, and he returned her look with interest. What he was thinking she had no idea of, but for herself it was a recurrence and an emphasis of the fact that she seemed growing farther away from this young man she had to marry. The weeks since his arrival had been the most worrisome she could remember.

  “I am going,” she replied, slowly.

  “No!” he replied, violently. “I won’t have you running off down there to — to gossip with that Andrews woman.”

  “Oh, you won’t?” inquired Columbine, very quietly. How little he understood her!

  “That’s what I said.”

  “You’re not my boss yet, Mister Jack Belllounds,” she flashed, her spirit rising. He could irritate her as no one else.

  “I soon will be. And what’s a matter of a week or a month?” he went on, calming down a little.

  “I’ve promised, yes,” she said, feeling her face blanch, “and I keep my promises.... But I didn’t say when. If you talk like that to me it might be a good many weeks — or — or months before I name the day.”

  “Columbine!” he cried, as she turned away. There was genuine distress in his voice. Columbine felt again an assurance that had troubled her. No matter how she was reacting to this new relation, it seemed a fearful truth that Jack was really falling in love with her. This time she did not soften.

  “I’ll call dad to make you stay home,” he burst out again, his temper rising.

  Columbine wheeled as on a pivot.

  “If you do you’ve got less sense than I thought.”

  “I know why you’re going. It’s to see that club-footed cowboy Moore!...

  Don’t let me catch you with him.”

  Passion claimed him then.

  “I know why you’re going. It’s to see that club-footed cowboy Moore!... Don’t let me catch you with him!”

  Columbine turned her back upon Belllounds and swung away, every pulse in her throbbing and smarting. She hurried on into the road. She wanted to run, not to get out of sight or hearing, but to fly from something, she knew not what.

  “Oh! it’s more than his temper!” she cried, hot tears in her eyes. “He’s mean — mean — MEAN! What’s the use of me denying that — any more — just because I love dad?... My life will be wretched.... It is wretched!”

  Her anger did not last long, nor did her resentment. She reproached herself for the tart replies that had inflamed Jack. Never again would she forget herself!

  “But he — he makes me furious,” she cried, in sudden excuse for herself. “What did he say? ‘That club-footed cowboy Moore’!... Oh, that was vile. He’s heard, then, that poor Wilson has a bad foot, perhaps permanently crippled.... If it’s true.... But why should he yell that he knew I wanted to see Wilson?... I did not! I do not.... Oh, but I do, I do!”

  And then Columbine was to learn straightway that she would forget herself again, that she had forgotten, and that a sadder, stranger truth was dawning upon her — she was discovering another Columbine within herself, a wilful, passionate, different creature who would no longer be denied.

  Almost before Columbine realized that she had started upon the visit she was within sight of the Andrews ranch. So swiftly had she walked! It behooved her to hide such excitement as had dominated her. And to that end she slowed her pace, trying to put her mind on other matters.

  The children saw her first and rushed upon her, so that when she reached the cabin door she could not well have been otherwise than rosy and smiling. Mrs. Andrews, ruddy and strong, looked the pioneer rancher’s hard-working wife. Her face brightened at the advent of Columbine, and showed a little surprise and curiosity as well.

  “Laws, but it’s good to see you, Columbine,” was her greeting. “You ‘ain’t been here for a long spell.”

  “I’ve been coming, but just put it off,” replied Columbine.

  And so, after the manner of women neighbors, they began to talk of the fall round-up, and the near approach of winter with its loneliness, and the children, all of which naturally led to more personal and interesting topics.

  “An’ is it so, Columbine, that you’re to marry Jack Belllounds?” asked Mrs. Andrews, presently.

  “Yes, I guess it is,” replied Columbine, smiling.

  “Humph! I’m no relative of yours or even a particular, close friend, but I’d like to say—”

  “Please don’t,” interposed Columbine.

  “All right, my girl. I guess it’s better I don’t say anythin’. It’s a pity, though, onless you love this Buster Jack. An’ you never used to do that, I’ll swan.”

  “No, I don’t love Jack — yet — as I ought to love a husband. But I’ll try, and if — if I — I never do — still, it’s my duty to marry him.”

  “Some woman ought to talk to Bill Belllounds,” declared Mrs. Andrews with a grimness that boded ill for the old rancher.

  “Did you know we had a new
man up at the ranch?” asked Columbine, changing the subject.

  “You mean the hunter, Hell-Bent Wade?”

  “Yes. But I hate that ridiculous name,” said Columbine.

  “It’s queer, like lots of names men get in these parts. An’ it’ll stick. Wade’s been here twice; once as he was passin’ with the hounds, an’ the other night. I like him, Columbine. He’s true-blue, for all his strange name. My men-folks took to him like ducks to water.”

  “I’m glad. I took to him almost like that,” rejoined Columbine. “He has the saddest face I ever saw.”

  “Sad? Wal, yes. That man has seen a good deal of what they tacked on to his name. I laughed when I seen him first. Little lame fellar, crooked-legged an’ ragged, with thet awful homely face! But I forgot how he looked next time he came.”

  “That’s just it. He’s not much to look at, but you forget his homeliness right off,” replied Columbine, warmly. “You feel something behind all his — his looks.”

  “Wal, you an’ me are women, an’ we feel different,” replied Mrs. Andrews. “Now my men-folks take much store on what Wade can do. He fixed up Tom’s gun, that’s been out of whack for a year. He made our clock run ag’in, an’ run better than ever. Then he saved our cow from that poison-weed. An’ Tom gave her up to die.”

  “The boys up home were telling me Mr. Wade had saved some of our cattle. Dad was delighted. You know he’s lost a good many head of stock from this poison-weed. I saw so many dead steers on my last ride up the mountain. It’s too bad our new man didn’t get here sooner to save them. I asked him how he did it, and he said he was a doctor.”

  “A cow-doctor,” laughed Mrs. Andrews. “Wal, that’s a new one on me. Accordin’ to Tom, this here Wade, when he seen our sick cow, said she’d eat poison-weed — larkspur, I think he called it — an’ then when she drank water it formed a gas in her stomach an’ she swelled up turrible. Wade jest stuck his knife in her side a little an’ let the gas out, and she got well.”

  “Ughh!... What cruel doctoring! But if it saves the cattle, then it’s good.”