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!