"TODAY GIRLISH ORDEALS AND GRIEFS SEEMED BACK IN THE PAST: SHE WAS A WOMAN AT NINETEEN AND FACE TO FACE WITH THE FIRST GREAT PROBLEM IN HER LIFE." (Suggestion for title decoration: A pair of reluctant feet standing at the junction of a brook and a river.)
She stops to pick some columbines and soliloquizes. The author says: "She spoke aloud, as if the sound of her voice might convince her," but it is not clear from the text just what she expected to be convinced of. Here is her argument to herself:
"COLUMBINE!... SO THEY NAMED ME—THOSE MINERS WHO FOUND ME—A BABY—LOST IN THE WOODS—ASLEEP AMONG THE COLUMBINES." (Decorative nasturtiums.)
Having convinced herself in these reassuring words as she stands alone on the ridge in God's great outdoors, she explains that she has promised to marry Jack Belllounds, the worthless son of her foster-father, although any one can tell that she is in love with Wilson Moore, a cow-puncher on the ranch. You will understand what a sacrifice this [pg 223]was to be when the author says that "the lower part of Jack Belllounds's face was weak."
To the ranch comes "Hell-Bent" Wade, the mysterious man of the plains. He applies for a job, and not only that, but he gets it, which gives him a chance to let us know that:
"EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO HE HAD DRIVEN THE WOMAN HE LOVED AWAY FROM HIM, OUT INTO THE WORLD WITH HER BABY GIRL ... JEALOUS FOOL!... TOO LATE HAD HE DISCOVERED HIS FATAL BLUNDER.... THAT WAS BENT WADE'S SECRET." (Fancy sketch of a secret.)
And as we already know that Columbine is almost nineteen (I think she told herself this fact aloud once when she was out riding alone, just to convince herself), the shock is not so great as it might have been to hear Wade murmur aloud (doubtless to convince himself too), "Baby would have been—let's see—'most nineteen years old now—if she'd lived."
Any bets on who Columbine really is?
Let us digress from the scenario a minute to cite a scintillating passage, one of many in the book. Wade is speaking:
"'You can never tell what a dog is until you [pg 224]know him. Dogs are like men. Some of 'em look good, but they're really bad. An' that works the other way round.'"