by Zane Grey
“Strange how it seems good to live—when I look at a columbine—or watch a beaver at his work—or listen to the bugle of an elk!” mused Bent Wade. He wondered why, with all his life behind him, he could still find comfort in these things.
Then he rode on his way. The grassy valley, with its winding stream, slowly descended and widened, and left foothill and mountain far behind. Far across a wide plain rose another range, black and bold against the blue. In the afternoon Wade reached Elgeria, a small hamlet, but important by reason of its being on the main stage line, and because here miners and cattlemen bought supplies. It had one street, so wide it appeared to be a square, on which faced a line of bold board houses with high, flat fronts. Wade rode to the inn where the stagecoaches made headquarters. It suited him to feed and rest his horses there, and partake of a meal himself, before resuming his journey.
The proprietor was a stout, pleasant-faced little woman, loquacious and amiable, glad to see a stranger for his own sake rather than from considerations of possible profit. Though Wade had never before visited Elgeria, he soon knew all about the town, and the miners up in the hills, and the only happenings of moment—the arrival and departure of stages.
“Prosperous place,” remarked Wade. “I saw that. An’ it ought to be growin’.”
“Not so prosperous fer me as it uster be,” replied the lady. “We did well when my husband was alive, before our competitor come to town. He runs a hotel where miners can drink an’ gamble. I don’t.… But I reckon I’ve no cause to complain. I live.”
“Who runs the other hotel?”
“Man named Smith. Reckon thet’s not his real name. I’ve had people here who—but it ain’t no matter.”
“Men change their names,” replied Wade.
“Stranger, air you packin’ through or goin’ to stay?”
“On my way to White Slides Ranch, where I’m goin’ to work for Bellounds. Do you know him?”
“Know Bellounds? Me? Wal, he’s the best friend I ever had when I was at Kremmlin’. I lived there several years. My husband had stock there. In fact, Bill started us in the cattle business. But we got out of there an’ come here, where Bob died, an’ I’ve been stuck ever since.”
“Everybody has a good word for Bellounds,” observed Wade.
“You’ll never hear a bad one,” replied the woman, with cheerful warmth. “Bill never had but one fault, an’ people loved him fer thet.”
“What was it?”
“He’s got a wild boy thet he thinks the sun rises an’ sets in. Buster Jack, they call him. He used to come here often. But Bill sent him away somewhere. The boy was spoiled. I saw his mother years ago—she’s dead this long time—an’ she was no wife fer Bill Bellounds. Jack took after her. An’ Bill was thet woman’s slave. When she died all his big heart went to the son, an’ thet accounts. Jack will never be any good.”
Wade thoughtfully nodded his head, as if he understood, and was pondering other possibilities.
“Is he the only child?”
“There’s a girl, but she’s not Bill’s kin. He adopted her when she was a baby. An’ Jack’s mother hated this child—jealous, we used to think, because it might grow up an’ get some of Bill’s money.”
“What’s the girl’s name?” asked Wade.
“Columbine. She was over here last summer with Old Bill. They stayed with me. It was then Bill had hard words with Smith across the street. Bill was resentin’ somethin’ Smith put in my way. Wal, the lass’s the prettiest I ever seen in Colorado, an’ as good as she’s pretty. Old Bill hinted to me he’d likely make a match between her an’ his son Jack. An’ I ups an’ told him, if Jack hadn’t turned over a new leaf when he comes home, thet such a marriage would be tough on Columbine. Whew, but Old Bill was mad. He jest can’t stand a word ag’in’ thet Buster Jack.”
“Columbine Bellounds,” mused Wade. “Queer name.”
“Oh, I’ve knowed three girls named Columbine. Don’t you know the flower? It’s common in these parts. Very delicate, like a sago lily, only paler.”
“Were you livin’ in Kremmlin’ when Bellounds adopted the girl?” asked Wade.
“Laws no!” was the reply. “Thet was long before I come to Middle Park. But I heerd all about it. The baby was found by gold-diggers up in the mountains. Must have got lost from a wagon-train thet Indians set on soon after—so the miners said. Anyway, Old Bill took the baby an’ raised her as his own.”
“How old is she now?” queried Wade, with a singular change in his tone.
“Columbine’s around nineteen.”
Bent Wade lowered his head a little, hiding his features under the old, battered, wide-brimmed hat. The amiable innkeeper did not see the tremor that passed over him, nor the slight stiffening that followed, nor the gray pallor of his face. She went on talking until someone called her.
Wade went outdoors, and with bent head walked down the street, across a little river, out into green pasture-land. He struggled with an amazing possibility. Columbine Bellounds might be his own daughter. His heart leaped with joy. But the joy was short-lived. No such hope in this world for Bent Wade! This coincidence, however, left him with a strange, prophetic sense in his soul of a tragedy coming to White Slides Ranch. Wade possessed some power of divination, some strange gift to pierce the veil of the future. But he could not exercise this power at will; it came involuntarily, like a messenger of trouble in the dark night. Moreover, he had never yet been able to draw away from the fascination of this knowledge. It lured him on. Always his decision had been to go on, to meet this boding circumstance, or to remain and meet it, in the hope that he might take someone’s burden upon his shoulders. He sensed it now, in the keen, poignant clairvoyance of the moment—the tangle of life that he was about to enter. Old Bill Bellounds, big and fine, victim of love for a wayward son; Buster Jack, the waster, the tearer-down, the destroyer, the wild youth at a wild time; Columbine, the girl of unknown birth, good and loyal, subject to a condition sure to ruin her. Wade’s strange mind revolved a hundred outcomes to this conflict of characters, but not one of them was the one that was written. That remained dark. Never had he received so strong a call out of the unknown, nor had he ever felt such intense curiosity. Hope had long been dead in him, except the one that he might atone in some way for the wrong he had done his wife. So the pangs of emotion that recurred, in spite of reason and bitterness, were not recognized by him as lingering hopes. Wade denied the human in him, but he thrilled at the thought of meeting Columbine Bellounds. There was something here beyond all his comprehension.
“It might—be true!” he whispered. “I’ll know when I see her.”
Then he walked back toward the inn. On the way he looked into the barroom of the hotel run by Smith. It was a hard-looking place, half full of idle men, whose faces were as open pages to Bent Wade. Curiosity did not wholly control the impulse that made him wait at the door till he could have a look at the man Smith. Somewhere, at some time, Wade had met most of the veterans of western Colorado. So much he had traveled! But the impulse that held him was answered and explained when Smith came in—a burly man, with an ugly scar marring one eye. Bent Wade recognized Smith. He recognized the scar. For that scar was his own mark, dealt to this man, whose name was not Smith, and who had been as evil as he looked, and whose nomadic life was not due to remorse or love of travel.
Wade passed on without being seen. This recognition meant less to him than it would have ten years ago, as he was not now the kind of man who hunted old enemies for revenge or who went to great lengths to keep out of their way. Men there were in Colorado who would shoot at him on sight. There had been more than one that had shot to his cost.
* * * *
That night Wade camped in the foothills east of Elgeria, and upon the following day, at sunrise, his horses were breaking the frosty grass and ferns of the timbered range. This he crossed, rode down into a valley where a lonely cabin nestled, and followed an old, blazed trail that wound up the course of a
brook. The water was of a color that made rock and sand and moss seem like gold. He saw no signs or tracks of game. A gray jay now and then screeched his approach to unseen denizens of the woods. The stream babbled past him over mossy ledges, under the dark shade of clumps of spruces, and it grew smaller as he progressed toward its source. At length it was lost in a swale of high, rank grass, and the blazed trail led on through heavy pine woods. At noon he reached the crest of the divide, and, halting upon an open, rocky eminence, he gazed down over a green and black forest, slow-descending to a great irregular park that was his destination for the night.
Wade needed meat, and to that end, as he went on, he kept a sharp lookout for deer, especially after he espied fresh tracks crossing the trail. Slipping along ahead of his horses, that followed, him almost too closely to permit of his noiseless approach to game, he hunted all the way down to the great open park without getting a shot.
This park was miles across and miles long, covered with tall, waving grass, and it had straggling arms that led off into the surrounding belt of timber. It sloped gently toward the center, where a round, green acreage of grass gave promise of water. Wade rode toward this, keeping somewhat to the right, as he wanted to camp at the edge of the woods. Soon he rode out beyond one of the projecting peninsulas of forest to find the park spreading wider in that direction. He saw horses grazing with elk, and far down at the notch, where evidently the park had outlet in a narrow valley, he espied the black, hump-shaped, shaggy forms of buffalo. They bobbed off out of sight. Then the elk saw or scented him, and they trotted away, the antlered bulls ahead of the cows. Wade wondered if the horses were wild. They showed great interest, but no fear. Beyond them was a rising piece of ground, covered with pine, and it appeared to stand aloft from the forest on the far side as well as upon that by which he was approaching. Riding a mile or so farther he ascertained that this bit of wooded ground resembled an island in a lake. Presently he saw smoke arising above the treetops.
A tiny brook welled out of the green center of the park and meandered around to pass near the island of pines. Wade saw unmistakable signs of prospecting along this brook, and farther down, where he crossed it, he found tracks made that day.
The elevated plot of ground appeared to be several acres in extent, covered with small-sized pines, and at the far edge there was a little log cabin. Wade expected to surprise a lone prospector at his evening meal. As he rode up a dog ran out of the cabin, barking furiously. A man, dressed in fringed buckskin, followed. He was tall, and had long, iron-gray hair over his shoulders. His bronzed and weather-beaten face was a mass of fine wrinkles where the grizzled hair did not hide them, and his shining, red countenance proclaimed an honest, fearless spirit.
“Howdy, stranger!” he called, as Wade halted several rods distant. His greeting was not welcome, but it was civil. His keen scrutiny, however, attested to more than his speech.
“Evenin’, friend,” replied Wade. “Might I throw my pack here?”
“Sure. Get down,” answered the other. “I calkilate I never seen you in these diggin’s.”
“No. I’m Bent Wade, an’ on my way to White Slides to work for Bellounds.”
“Glad to meet you. I’m new hereabouts, myself, but I know Bellounds. My name’s Lewis. I was jest cookin’ grub. An’ it’ll burn, too, if I don’t rustle. Turn your hosses loose an’ come in.”
Wade presented himself with something more than his usual methodical action. He smelled buffalo steak, and he was hungry. The cabin had been built years ago, and was a ramshackle shelter at best. The stone fireplace, however, appeared well preserved. A bed of red coals glowed and cracked upon the hearth.
“Reckon I sure smelled buffalo meat,” observed Wade, with much satisfaction. “It’s long since I chewed a hunk of that.”
“All ready. Now pitch in.… Yes, thar’s some buffalo left in here. Not hunted much. Thar’s lots of elk an’ herds of deer. After a little snow you’d think a drove of sheep had been trackin’ around. An’ some bear.”
Wade did not waste many words until he had enjoyed that meal. Later, while he helped his host, he recurred to the subject of game.
“If there’s so many deer then there’s lions an’ wolves.”
“You bet. I see tracks every day. Had a shot at a lofer not long ago. Missed him. But I reckon thar’s more varmints over in the Troublesome country back of White Slides.”
“Troublesome! Do they call it that?” asked Wade, with a queer smile.
“Sure. An’ it is troublesome. Bellounds has been tryin’ to hire a hunter. Offered me big wages to kill off the wolves an’ lions.”
“That’s the job I’m goin’ to take.”
“Good!” exclaimed Lewis. “I’m sure glad. Bellounds is a nice fellar. I felt sort of cheap till I told him I wasn’t really a hunter. You see, I’m prospectin’ up here, an’ pretendin’ to be a hunter.”
“What do you make that bluff for?” queried Wade.
“You couldn’t fool anyone who’d ever prospected for gold. I saw your signs out here.”
“Wal, you’ve sharp eyes, thet’s all. Wade, I’ve some ondesirable neighbors over here. I’d just as lief they didn’t see me diggin’ gold. Lately I’ve had a hunch they’re rustlin’ cattle. Anyways, they’ve sold cattle in Kremmlin’ thet came from over around Elgeria.”
“Wherever there’s cattle there’s sure to be some stealin’,” observed Wade.
“Wal, you needn’t say anythin’ to Bellounds, because mebbe I’m wrong. An’ if I found out I was right I’d go down to White Slides an’ tell it myself. Bellounds done some favors.”
“How far to White Slides?” asked Wade, with a puff on his pipe.
“Roundabout trail, an’ rough, but you’ll make it in one day, easy. Beautiful country. Open, big peaks an’ ranges, with valleys an’ lakes. Never seen such grass!”
“Did you ever see Bellounds’s son?”
“No. Didn’t know he hed one. But I seen his gal the fust day I was thar. She was nice to me. I went thar to be fixed up a bit. Nearly chopped my hand off. The gal—Columbine, she’s called—doctored me up. Fact is, I owe considerable to thet White Slides Ranch. There’s a cowboy, Wils somethin’, who rode up here with some medicine fer me—some they didn’t have when I was thar. You’ll like thet boy. I seen he was sweet on the gal an’ I sure couldn’t blame him.”
Bent Wade removed his pipe and let out a strange laugh, significant with its little note of grim confirmation.
“What’s funny about thet?” demanded Lewis, rather surprised.
“I was only laughin’,” replied Wade. “What you said about the cowboy bein’ sweet on the girl popped into my head before you told it. Well, boys will be boys. I was young once an’ had my day.”
Lewis grunted as he bent over to lift a red coal to light his pipe, and as he raised his head he gave Wade a glance of sympathetic curiosity.
“Wal, I hope I’ll see more of you,” he said, as his guest rose, evidently to go.
“Reckon you will, as I’ll be chasin’ hounds all over. An’ I want a look at them neighbors you spoke of that might be rustlers.… I’ll turn in now. Good night.”
CHAPTER V
Bent Wade rode out of the forest to look down upon the White Slides country at the hour when it was most beautiful.
“Never seen the beat of that!” he exclaimed, as he halted.
The hour was sunset, with the golden rays and shadows streaking ahead of him down the rolling sage hills, all rosy and gray with rich, strange softness. Groves of aspens stood isolated from one another—here crowning a hill with blazing yellow, and there fringing the brow of another with gleaming gold, and lower down reflecting the sunlight with brilliant red and purple. The valley seemed filled with a delicate haze, almost like smoke. White Slides Ranch was hidden from sight, as it lay in the bottomland. The gray old peak towered proud and aloof, clear-cut and sunset-flushed against the blue. The eastern slope of the valley was a vast sweep of sage and hill and gra
ssy bench and aspen bench, on fire with the colors of autumn made molten by the last flashing of the sun. Great black slopes of forest gave sharp contrast, and led up to the red-walled ramparts of the mountain range.
Wade watched the scene until the fire faded, the golden shafts paled and died, the rosy glow on sage changed to cold steel gray. Then he rode out upon the foothills. The trail led up and down slopes of sage. Grass grew thicker as he descended. Once he startled a great flock of prairie-chickens, or sage-hens, large gray birds, lumbering, swift fliers, that whirred up, and soon plumped down again into the sage. Twilight found him on a last long slope of the foothills, facing the pasture-land of the valley, with the ranch still five miles distant, now showing misty and dim in the gathering shadows.
Wade made camp where a brook ran near an aspen thicket. He had no desire to hurry to meet events at White Slides Ranch, although he longed to see this girl that belonged to Bellounds. Night settled down over the quiet foothills. A pack of roving coyotes visited Wade, and sat in a half-circle in the shadows back of the camp-fire. They howled and barked. Nevertheless sleep visited Wade’s tired eyelids the moment he lay down and closed them.
* * * *
Next morning, rather late, Wade rode down to White Slides Ranch. It looked to him like the property of a rich rancher who held to the old and proven customs of his generation. The corrals were new, but their style was old. Wade reflected that it would be hard for rustlers or horse-thieves to steal out of those corrals. A long lane led from the pasture-land, following the brook that ran through the corrals and by the back door of the rambling, comfortable-looking cabin. A cowboy was leading horses across a wide square between the main ranch-house and a cluster of cabins and sheds. He saw the visitor and waited.
“Mornin’,” said Wade, as he rode up.
“Hod do,” replied the cowboy.
Then these two eyed each other, not curiously nor suspiciously, but with that steady, measuring gaze common to Western men.