The Mysterious Rider. Zane Grey

his glance and steps toward the girl. The cowboys dropped their heads and shuffled on their way.

      "There's only one girl on the ranch," said Belllounds, "so you must be Columbine."

      "Yes. And you're Jack," she replied, and slipped off the fence. "I'm glad to welcome you home."

      She offered her hand, and he held it until she extricated it. There was genuine surprise and pleasure in his expression.

      "Well, I'd never have known you," he said, surveying her from head to foot. "It's funny. I had the clearest picture of you in mind. But you're not at all like I imagined. The Columbine I remember was thin, white-faced, and all eyes."

      "It's been a long time. Seven years," she replied. "But I knew you. You're older, taller, bigger, but the same Buster Jack."

      "I hope not," he said, frankly condemning that former self. "Dad needs me. He wants me to take charge here--to be a man. I'm back now. It's good to be home. I never was worth much. Lord! I hope I don't disappoint him again."

      "I hope so, too," she murmured. To hear him talk frankly, seriously, like this counteracted the unfavorable impression she had received. He seemed earnest. He looked down at the ground, where he was pushing little pebbles with the toe of his boot. She had a good opportunity to study his face, and availed herself of it. He did look like his father, with his big, handsome head, and his blue eyes, bolder perhaps from their prominence than from any direct gaze or fire. His face was pale, and shadowed by worry or discontent. It seemed as though a repressed character showed there. His mouth and chin were undisciplined. Columbine could not imagine that she despised anything she saw in the features of this young man. Yet there was something about him that held her aloof. She had made up her mind to do her part unselfishly. She would find the best in him, like him for it, be strong to endure and to help. Yet she had no power to control her vague and strange perceptions. Why was it that she could not feel in him what she liked in Jim Montana or Lem or Wilson Moore?

      "This was my second long stay away from home," said Belllounds. "The first was when I went to school in Kansas City. I liked that. I was sorry when they turned me out--sent me home. … But the last three years were hell."

      His face worked, and a shade of dark blood rippled over it.

      "Did you work?" queried Columbine.

      "Work! It was worse than work. … Sure I worked," he replied.

      Columbine's sharp glance sought his hands. They looked as soft and unscarred as her own. What kind of work had he done, if he told the truth?

      "Well, if you work hard for dad, learn to handle the cowboys, and never take up those old bad habits--"

      "You mean drink and cards? I swear I'd forgotten them for three years--until yesterday. I reckon I've the better of them."

      "Then you'll make dad and me happy. You'll be happy, too."

      Columbine thrilled at the touch of fineness coming out in him. There was good in him, whatever the mad, wild pranks of his boyhood.

      "Dad wants us to marry," he said, suddenly, with shyness and a strange, amused smile. "Isn't that funny? You and me--who used to fight like cat and dog! Do you remember the time I pushed you into the old mud-hole? And you lay in wait for me, behind the house, to hit me with a rotten cabbage?"

      "Yes, I remember," replied Columbine, dreamily. "It seems so long ago."

      "And the time you ate my pie, and how I got even by tearing off your little dress, so you had to run home almost without a stitch on?"

      "Guess I've forgotten that," replied Columbine, with a blush. "I must have been very little then."

      "You were a little devil. … Do you remember the fight I had with Moore--about you?"

      She did not answer, for she disliked the fleeting expression that crossed his face. He remembered too well.

      "I'll settle that score with Moore," he went on. "Besides, I won't have him on the ranch."

      "Dad needs good hands," she said, with her eyes on the gray sage slopes. Mention of Wilson Moore augmented the aloofness in her. An annoyance pricked along her veins.

      "Before we get any farther I'd like to know something. Has Moore ever made love to you?"

      Columbine felt that prickling augment to a hot, sharp wave of blood. Why was she at the mercy of strange, quick, unfamiliar sensations? Why did she hesitate over that natural query from Jack Belllounds?

      "No. He never has," she replied, presently.

      "That's damn queer. You used to like him better than anybody else. You sure hated me. … Columbine, have you outgrown that?"

      "Yes, of course," she answered. "But I hardly hated you."

      "Dad said you were willing to marry me. Is that so?"

      Columbine dropped her head. His question, kindly put, did not affront her, for it had been expected. But his actual presence, the meaning of his words, stirred in her an unutterable spirit of protest. She had already in her will consented to the demand of the old man; she was learning now, however, that she could not force her flesh to consent to a surrender it did not desire.

      "Yes, I'm willing," she replied, bravely.

      "Soon?" he flashed, with an eager difference in his voice.

      "If I had my way it'd not be--too soon," she faltered. Her downcast eyes had seen the stride he had made closer to her, and she wanted to run.

      "Why? Dad thinks it'd be good for me," went on Belllounds, now, with strong, self-centered thought. "It'd give me responsibility. I reckon I need it. Why not soon?"

      "Wouldn't it be better to wait awhile?" she asked. "We do not know each other--let alone care--"

      "Columbine, I've fallen in love with you." he declared, hotly.

      "Oh, how could you!" cried Columbine, incredulously.

      "Why, I always was moony over you--when we were kids," he said. "And now to meet you grown up like this--so pretty and sweet--such a--a healthy, blooming girl. … And dad's word that you'd be my wife soon--mine--why, I just went off my head at sight of you."

      Columbine looked up at him and was reminded of how, as a boy, he had always taken a quick, passionate longing for things he must and would have. And his father had not denied him. It might really be that Jack had suddenly fallen in love with her.

      "Would you want to take me without my--my love?" she asked, very low. "I don't love you now. I might some time, if you were good--if you made dad happy--if you conquered--"

      "Take you! I'd take you if you--if you hated me," he replied, now in the grip of passion.

      "I'll tell dad how I feel," she said, faintly, "and--and marry you when he says."

      He kissed her, would have embraced her had she not put him back.

      "Don't! Some--some one will see."

      "Columbine, we're engaged," he asserted, with a laugh of possession. "Say, you needn't look so white and scared. I won't eat you. But I'd like to. … Oh, you're a sweet girl! Here I was hating to come home. And look at my luck!"