hat you've done!" she exclaimed.

"Lass, I'm only a humble instrument, an' I believe God guides me right,"
replied the hunter.

"I love you more, it seems, for what you make me suffer," she said, and
she kissed him with a serious sweetness. "I'm only a leaf in the storm.
But--let what will come.... Take me home."

They said good-by to Wilson, who sat with head bowed upon his hands. His
voice trembled as he answered them. Wade found the trail while Columbine
mounted. As they went slowly down the gentle slope, stepping over the
numerous logs fallen across the way, Wade caught out of the tail of his
eye a moving object along the outer edge of the aspen grove above them.
It was the figure of a man, skulking behind the trees. He disappeared.
Wade casually remarked to Columbine that now she could spur the pony and
hurry on home. But Columbine refused. When they got a little farther on,
out of sight of Moore and somewhat around to the left, Wade espied the
man again. He carried a rifle. Wade grew somewhat perturbed.

"Collie, you run on home," he said, sharply.

"Why? You've complained of not seeing me. Now that I want to be with you
... Ben, you see some one!"

Columbine's keen faculties evidently sensed the change in Wade, and the
direction of his uneasy glance convinced her.

"Oh, there's a man!... Ben, it is--yes, it's Jack," she exclaimed,
excitedly.

"Reckon you'd have it better if you say Buster Jack," replied Wade, with
his tragic smile.

"Ah!" whispered Columbine, as she gazed up at the aspen slope, with eyes
lighting to battle.

"Run home, Collie, an' leave him to me," said Wade.

"Ben, you mean he--he saw us up there in the grove? Saw me in Wilson's
arms--saw me kissing him?"

"Sure as you're born, Collie. He watched us. He saw all your
love-makin'. I can tell that by the way he walks. It's Buster Jack
again! Alas for the new an' noble Jack! I told you, Collie. Now you run
on an' leave him to me."

Wade became aware that she turned at his last words and regarded him
attentively. But his gaze was riveted on the striding form of
Belllounds.

"Leave him to you? For what reason, my friend?" she asked.

"Buster Jack's on the rampage. Can't you see that? He'll insult you.
He'll--"

"I will not go," interrupted Columbine, and, halting her pony, she
deliberately dismounted.

Wade grew concerned with the appearance of young Belllounds, and it was
with a melancholy reminder of the infallibility of his p