Moore did not explain what he meant. For a crippled man, he made quick time in getting to his horse and mounting.
"Collie, I'll ride down there. I'm afraid something has happened.... I never understood him!... I forgot he was Hell-Bent Wade! If there's been a--a fight or any trouble--I'll ride back and meet you."
Then he rode down the trail.
Columbine had come without her horse, and she started homeward on foot. Her steps dragged. She knew something dreadful had happened. Her heart beat slowly and painfully; there was an oppression upon her breast; her brain whirled with contending tides of thought. She remembered Wade's face. How blind she had been! It exhausted her to walk, though she went so slowly. There seemed to be a chill and a darkening in the atmosphere, an unreality in the familiar slopes and groves, a strangeness and shadow upon White Slides Valley.
Moore did not return to meet her. His white horse grazed in the pasture opposite the first clump of willows, where Sage Valley merged into the larger valley. Then she saw other horses, among them Lem Billings's bay mustang. Columbine faltered on, when suddenly she recognized the horse Jack had ridden--a sorrel, spent and foam-covered, standing saddled, with bridle down and riderless--then certainty of something awful clamped her with horror. Men's husky voices reached her throbbing ears. Some one was running. Footsteps thudded and died away. Then she saw Lem Billings come out of the willows, look her way, and hurry toward her. His awkward, cowboy gait seemed too slow for his earnestness. Columbine felt the piercing gaze of his eyes as her own became dim.
"Miss Collie, thar's been--turrible fight!" he panted.
"Oh, Lem!... I know. It was Ben--and Jack," she cried.
"Shore. Your hunch's correct. An' it couldn't be no wuss!"
Columbine tried to see his face, the meaning that must have accompanied his hoarse voice; but she seemed going blind.
"Then--then--" she whispered, reaching out for Lem.