Wade saw her full breast swell and the leaping blood wave over her pale face. She bent to him to see his eyes. And for Wade, when she peered with straining heart and soul, all at once to become transfigured, that instant was a sweet and all-fulfilling reward for his years of pain.
"You drive me mad!" she whispered.
The heavy tread of the rancher, like the last of successive steps of fate in Wade's tragic expectancy, sounded on the porch.
"Wal, lass, hyar you are," he said, with a gladness deep in his voice. "Now, whar's the boy?"
"Dad--I've not--seen Jack since breakfast," replied Columbine, tremulously.
"Sort of a laggard in love on his weddin'-day," rejoined the rancher. His gladness and forgetfulness were as big as his heart. "Wade, have you seen Jack?"
"No--I haven't," replied the hunter, with slow, long-drawn utterance. "But--I see--him now."
Wade pointed to the figure of Jack Belllounds approaching from the direction of the cabins. He was not walking straight.
Old man Belllounds shot out his gray head like a striking eagle.
"What the hell?" he muttered, as if bewildered at this strange, uneven gait of his son. "Wade, what's the matter with Jack?"