t do as I say. Go
home an' tell them you'll marry Jack in August. Say August thirteenth."

"So long! Oh, why put it off? Wouldn't it be better--safer, to settle it
all--once and forever?"

"No man can tell everythin'. But that's my judgment."

"Why August thirteenth?" she queried, with strange curiosity. "An
unlucky date!"

"Well, it just happened to come to my mind--that date," replied Wade, in
his slow, soft voice of reminiscence. "I was married on August
thirteenth--twenty-one years ago.... An', Collie, my wife looked
somethin' like you. Isn't that strange, now? It's a little world.... An'
she's been gone eighteen years!"

"Ben, I never dreamed you ever had a wife," said Columbine, softly, with
her hands going to his shoulder. "You must tell me of her some day....
But now--if you want time--if you think it best--I'll not marry Jack
till August thirteenth."

"That'll give me time," replied Wade. "I'm thinkin' Jack ought to
be--reformed, let's call it--before you marry him. If all you say is
true--why we can turn him round. Your promise will do most.... So,
then, it's settled?"

"Yes--dear--friends," faltered the girl, tremulously, on the verge of a
breakdown, now that the ordeal was past.

Wilson Moore stood gazing out of the door, his eyes far away on the gray
slopes.

"Queer how things turn out," he said, dreamily. "August thirteenth!...
That's about the time the columbines blow on the hills.... And I always
meant columbine-time--"

Here he sharply interrupted himself, and the dreamy musing gave way to
passion. "But I mean it yet! I'll--I'll die before I give up hope
of you!"

CHAPTER XVI

Wade, watching Columbine ride down the slope on her homeward way, did
some of the hardest thinking he had yet been called upon to do. It was
not necessary to acquaint Wilson Moore with the deeper and more subtle
motives that had begun to actuate him. It would not utterly break the
cowboy's spirit to live in suspense. Columbine was safe for the present.
He had insured her against fatality. Time was all he needed. Possibility
of an actual consummation of her marriage to Jack Belllounds did not
lodge for an instant in Wade's consciousness. In Moore's case, however,
the present moment seemed critical. What should he tell Moore--what
should he conceal from him?

"Son, come in here," he called to the cowboy.

"Pard, it looks--bad!" said Moore, brokenly.

Wade looked at the tragic face and cursed under his breath