"Don't You Just Detest People Who Say You Can't Under; 
 Things Because You're Too Young"
 
 Columbine 
 Time 
 
 By WILL IRWIN 
 
 Author of The Next War^ etc. 
 
 1921 
 THE STRATFORD COMPANY 
 
 Boston, Massachusetts
 
 Copyright, 1921, By The Stratford Company, Publishers 
 Copyright, 1921, By Will Irwin 
 
 The Alpine Press, Boston, Mass., U. S. A.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter 
 
 Page 
 
 I . 
 
 1 
 
 II . 
 
 16 
 
 Ill . 
 
 35 
 
 IX . 
 
 43 
 
 V . 
 
 50 
 
 VI . 
 
 57 
 
 VII . 
 
 75 
 
 VIII . 
 
 98 
 
 IX . 
 
 106 
 
 X . 
 
 . . . .139 
 
 XI . 
 
 , 163 
 
 2136460
 
 List of Illustrations 
 
 "Don't You Just Detest People Who Say You 
 Can't Understand Things Because You're Too 
 Young?" ...... Frontispiece 
 
 Three Cabins Were Roaring Furnaces. Another 
 Was Breaking Into Flames. The Crowd Fell 
 Open at the Clang of the Gong . . . Page 77 
 
 Without Effort of His Will for Will Had Noth- 
 ing to Do With It His Arm Went Round 
 Her Page 87
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Columbine Time 
 
 JUNE as it grew late and lush brought the 
 great virginal white columbines, as August, 
 wanton of the decadent year, was to bring 
 their flaunting sisters in red and yellow. The 
 transformations of those valleys among the 
 peaks are violent and sudden; as violent as the 
 lives they cradle, as sudden as mountain 
 passions. One June evening the hillsides lay 
 in a pattern of brown and fresh springlike 
 green, but no white; that was all above, where 
 the perpetual snows of the peaks sent down on 
 each fresh breeze little flurries of winter. 
 Through that pattern the columbine bushes lay 
 in domes of dark green still unillumined, as 
 being creatures waiting for a soul. Then one 
 night, at about that period when the sun stands 
 on the northern border of his realm, the first 
 novice among the virgin sisterhood would put 
 on her veil and turn her snowy bosom to the 
 summer moon. By morning the hillside would
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 be dotted as with flakes of snow; by another day 
 it was like a summer snowfall. The white was 
 all upon their upper surfaces; beneath, they 
 were of a transparent blue the colors of the 
 Virgin. 
 
 They are as whimsically impermanent, these 
 novices of the mountains, as young love itself. 
 No one may gather the snow columbine, any 
 more than he may bring to young love fulfill- 
 ment of all its airy imaginings. When you have 
 broken the stem the spell is past. What was 
 columbine is now a shower of white petals, 
 formed like an elfin shoe, fallen upon the green 
 dome of its habitation to wither while you look, 
 to fade within a summer hour into a prosaic 
 nothingness. 
 
 That morning, as the Cottonwood stage 
 stopped beyond the ford of Bear Creek, Tommy 
 Coulter stood posed knee-deep in columbine 
 domes. On the surface of things this was pure 
 accident. Tommy, partner in a grubstake 
 above the canon a mile to the north, had 
 developed a sudden aversion to tunneling for a 
 hypothetical gold lode, had made to himself the 
 excuse that he must borrow a spirit level from
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 the North Star outfit down the creek, had sud- 
 denly dropped his pick and started on foot 
 down the white hill-slope. There among the 
 peaks June is a belated spring. Tommy being 
 somewhat unread in the poets did not know 
 that spring is the season when the Lord of 
 Life knocks at the door of human hearts, lays 
 subtle traps for young and unwary feet. All 
 he knew was that, as he threaded the winding 
 trail among the domes of columbine bush, he 
 found himself looking with a vague and poig- 
 nant pleasure, a kind of ghost of rapture, upon 
 the great white-elf bells and the whimsical 
 mariposa lilies sprinkled between. 
 
 I ask you to believe that it was the Lord of 
 Life who drew him so to the ford of prosaically 
 named Bear Creek. It is harder logically to 
 account for the action of the rattailed white 
 bronco which served that day as nigh leader 
 on the Cottonwood stage. For just as the team 
 scrambled up the bank and started on to the 
 turn round the point of the hill, his wild soul 
 revolted at the late indignity of a cold-water 
 plunge and at the general state of being a horse. 
 He threw back his ears, stopped; and when the 
 
 [3]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 driver, stifling his oaths in consideration for 
 the ladies, began to pour leather, bucked clean 
 out of the traces. The snaffle of his nigh rein 
 parted close to the bit. His teammate seized 
 upon this excuse to raise the devil. 
 
 Even the big sober American wheelers caught 
 the infection. The whole team became a 
 scrimmage of dancing hoofs, tossing manes, 
 kicks, plunges and squeals. The express mes- 
 senger and a horseman among the outside 
 passengers hit the ground almost simultane- 
 ously. The white disturber of the lead team, at 
 the gentle but steady pull of a horse-master 
 hand upon his bit, let his storm of panic subside 
 into a gentle dancing and trembling. His fear 
 had been stage-managed, anyhow; and in this 
 gradual subsidence he was merely saving his 
 face. 
 
 Tommy, who started to run forward when 
 he saw the trouble begin, stopped short by the 
 side of the road when he saw it die away. He 
 stood there among the white-mottled domes of 
 the columbine bushes, which made behind him 
 a most inappropriate background if you took 
 into consideration that this was a very mascu- 
 
 [4]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 line young male, standing five feet eleven in 
 his bare feet, his frame spring-hung with wiry 
 muscles in that age of human muscle when it 
 seems capable of anything. At second and less 
 prejudiced sight you might have realized that 
 a floral background was not so inappropriate 
 after all; for the clear-eyed young creature, 
 with one lock of sun-gilded hair escaping from 
 under the brim of his flapping sombrero, had a 
 sturdy beauty. It is true that his features were 
 irregular; too much jaw, and a line of the nose 
 which defied the conventionalties of Grecian 
 sculpture. It is also true, however, that his 
 blond skin had tanned to a rich gold, which 
 showed off to advantage a pair of dark blue 
 eyes as clear and yet as deep as the pools in the 
 creeks below. 
 
 Also as he posed there among the columbines, 
 his weight slightly on the right foot, his hips 
 a little out of line, one hand resting carelessly 
 on the band of his overalls, he had a most manly 
 stand. It showed a confident repose, an ab- 
 solute stillness which, you felt by instinct, 
 might awaken at any moment to swift dynamic 
 action. And the open collar of his blue flannel 
 
 [5]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 shirt revealed a throat and neck like a pillar of 
 the temple. 
 
 So he stood at watch, his eyes alone moving, 
 until the white disturber of the lead team was 
 quelled to meek submission, until the driver had 
 begun to install a new rein from the tool box. 
 The show being over, Tommy had turned, 
 blurring the picture which he was unconsciusly 
 making against the hillside, when he was 
 startled into new immobility by a woman's 
 voice addressing him. 
 
 " Young man," said the voice, " would you 
 mind bringing me some of those flowers?" 
 
 Then for the first time he noticed the stage- 
 coach itself. From the open window section 
 above the door a woman's head was leaning. 
 He was aware of a bonnet whose red roses made 
 a splash in the shadows of the coach door, of 
 a yellow kid glove as tight over the hand as 
 the skin of a sausage, of an aura of city ways, 
 before he saw that a plump and middle-aged 
 but pleasing countenance was smiling out at 
 him. 
 
 "Oh, yes," he replied after just a moment of 
 
 [6]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 embarrassed hesitation. And then : ' ' I 'm afraid 
 they won't last." 
 
 As he set himself carefully to pluck the 
 nearest stalks with his stubby fingers he be- 
 came conscious that there was another woman 
 inside; a colloquy in feminine tones, the words 
 indistinguishable, came softly, thrillingly to his 
 ears. He lifted his bunch of flowers carefully; 
 but as he advanced to the window a shower of 
 white petals strewed his way. 
 
 "Only two or three of them stuck, ma'am," 
 he said as he handed them carefully over. Then 
 again he froze momentarily into stillness at 
 what he saw in the seat beyond the middle- 
 aged woman. At first it was only the eyes 
 big and deep brown, and fixed on his face can- 
 didly yet with a curiously intent expression. 
 He felt somewhere within his brain a little 
 shock like a hammer blow, a focus of sensation 
 from which thrills and shivers, disturbing but 
 delicious, coursed through his nerves. Then, 
 as though his sight were growing accustomed to 
 a strong sudden light, the young face which 
 framed those eyes became clear to his vision. 
 
 With that olive skin, with those eyes, it 
 
 [7]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 should have been oval. It started out to be oval, 
 too ; but at about the point where a wisp of her 
 fine, wavy, blue-black hair escaped from the 
 confines of her fashionable bonnet it changed 
 intention and moved downward to a kind of 
 delicious, piquant squareness. Her lips were 
 the color of roses overlaid by a morning mist. 
 He was about to catalogue her nose when 
 
 " Thanks," said the elder woman. " Didn't 
 many of them last, just as you said." 
 
 The words brought him to action with a jerk. 
 I am not sure but that for his coat of tan you 
 might have observed that Tommy was blushing. 
 He handed over the flowers with a slight 
 awkwardness, and the last of the petals 
 sprinkled themselves among their own leaves. 
 
 ' ' Why, the idea gone already ! ' ' exclaimed 
 the older woman. But as she took them she 
 looked down; and Tommy boldly ventured 
 another glance at the girl. She was still looking 
 innocently, intently, on his face. He formulated 
 to himself, this time, her expression. It held 
 something sweetly familiar; only long after- 
 ward was he to realize that his young mother 
 used to bend upon him the same look. And now 
 
 [8]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 she spoke for the first time spoke in a soft 
 low voice with an accent a little unfamiliar to 
 his Western ears. The syllables, indeed, came 
 out slightly but deliciously blurred, thereby be- 
 traying, had Tommy only known it, her youth. 
 
 ' * What a dreadful pity ! ' ' said the girl. " It 's 
 almost a shame we picked them. ' ' Tommy liked 
 that "we." "And they looked so beautiful, 
 growing there!" 
 
 For the first time the flicker of a smile 
 trembled upon her lips, faded into her expres- 
 sion of sweet seriousness. 
 
 Tommy deprived himself for a moment of 
 that feast for his eyes to note that the driver, 
 having put in the spare rein, was going over the 
 harness on suspicion of further damage; that 
 there would be a little more time. 
 
 "I'll try again!" he said shortly in the big 
 bass rumble of his masculine voice. 
 
 His accents, like the girl's, were unformed. 
 He was aware then that it was the first time 
 he had spoken to the girl, and again unaccount- 
 ably he blushed. 
 
 ' * I can 't see that it 's any use, ' ' said the older 
 woman. 
 
 [9]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 Tommy turned away, nevertheless, reg- 
 istering with his glance that she had the same 
 dark hair, the same piquant squareness of coun- 
 tenance as the girl; that they must be mother 
 and daughter. Most carefully now he broke off 
 just three stalks of columbine, carried them 
 back with the intentness of movement and face 
 of a juggler balancing a pole. But when he 
 reached the window he did not put them into 
 the outstretched, gloved hands of the older 
 woman. With that same intent eye upon his 
 job he passed them into the dim recesses of the 
 coach. The girl gave just a little start, as one 
 awakened from reverie, reached out and took 
 them. 
 
 "Careful, Nellie!" said her mother. 
 
 The girl's ten ungloved fingers, flower stalks 
 themselves of an untold whiteness and pinkness, 
 closed gently about the stalks of their sister 
 flowers. She sat straight upright now, her 
 navy-blue jersey of the eighties defining a 
 waist which needed no corset to make it slender, 
 her young bosom curving delicately upward into 
 a line of beauty. The petals had not yet fallen. 
 Scarcely breathing, she held the stalks upright 
 
 [10]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 like a scepter; and Tommy thought of an old 
 sacred picture he had seen in the cathedral at 
 Albuquerque. Then the girl gave the very 
 shadow of a start, as though remembering her 
 manners. 
 
 ' ' Thank you ! ' ' she said, her grave brown eyes 
 turning on his and again illuminating a lamp 
 within his soul. 
 
 The words seemed to have been produced on 
 an intake of her breath ; and Tommy was aware 
 of a faint, delicious odor. Then she spoke more 
 openly and naturally, but still with that young 
 blurring of the syllables. 
 
 "Oh, I hope I can keep them all the way to 
 Carbonado," she said. "They would look so 
 pretty in our rooms at the Marlborough ! ' ' 
 
 At this the older woman turned and shot one 
 swift glance at the younger. She was looking, 
 however, at the columbines, from which one 
 pure bell nodded toward her profile, bringing 
 out by resemblance its flowerlike delicacy of 
 line, by contrast its creamy richness of tone. 
 
 Just then the stage driver, who had clamb- 
 ered back to the box, sprang his regular joke 
 
 ["I
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 without which the Cottonwood stage could not 
 possibly have run. 
 
 "All aboard all who can't get a board get 
 a shingle," he called. 
 
 The white disturber, at the emphatic crack 
 of leather by his ear, threw himself into the 
 collar. The stage lurched forward. A shower 
 of petals fell from the stalks to the girl's lap; 
 but that one virgin sister of hers still remained 
 true to its stem, still made obeisance to higher 
 beauty. The coach door jerked abruptly from 
 Tommy's range of vision. 
 
 "Thanks good-by!" said the older woman. 
 
 "You're welcome good-by!" called Tommy; 
 and he fancied that he heard from within a 
 faint echo of his own last word. The coach was 
 gone. 
 
 Someone else was gone, had Tommy only 
 possessed the clairvoyant sense to see the in- 
 visible someone trailing rosy vapors from 
 white wings as he coursed over the peaks. The 
 Lord of Life, having laid carefully and true 
 those plots to which he gives his personal atten- 
 tion, never trifles with details. He leaves them 
 to human will and ingenuity mostly, mark 
 
 [12]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 you, to the will and ingenuity of his favored sex, 
 woman. 
 
 Besides, he was very busy that morning. An 
 Indian rajah, temporarily much bored with life, 
 would in five minutes more pass the doorway of 
 a house from which, in the torchlight, he would 
 glimpse the black eyes of a high-caste maiden 
 shining behind a loosened hookah veil. That 
 needed further arrangement. Ten minutes 
 hence a young gentleman of France would be 
 taking a one-horse shay to make his formal pro- 
 posal for an arranged marriage. He must be 
 impelled to change his course so as to pass a 
 garden of Tours where a daughter of destiny 
 was at that moment training a vine. A young 
 man in the coffee business, just returned from 
 ten years of Brazil, was now strolling north- 
 ward on Broadway, atingle with the sights of 
 home. Southward on Broadway walked a 
 freshling school-teacher, toward her boarding 
 house and luncheon. Somewhere in the region 
 of Grace Church their ways would cross. To 
 baffle those odd conventionalties by which 
 humanity feebly tries to beat his purposes the 
 Lord of Life must manage a street accident.
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 These were only the very special cases to 
 which he gives his personal attention, the per- 
 fect instances worthy of a connoisseur. The 
 rest he leaves sometimes to his assistants, but 
 mostly to those forces which he implanted in the 
 beginning, when the first cell in the primal slum 
 crept to its pulpy mate. 
 
 Tommy walked dreamily back up the 
 flower-dotted hillside and along the crest of 
 sparse dwarf pines, to the mouth of his tunnel 
 about the canon. He had completely forgotten 
 the spirit level he had gone to borrow. His eyes 
 were looking far away, so that he stumbled 
 upon the loose rocks along the trail. And once 
 the softened expression about his eyes expressed 
 itself in articulate speech. 
 
 "She's a lulu!" said Tommy to himself, to 
 the mountains, to the columbines. 
 
 Only that; but the tone held the sweetness of 
 all the love sonnets ever sung. 
 
 At about the same moment Mrs. Amanda 
 Bates, widow, unpacking her valises and carpet- 
 bag in the best chamber of the Hotel Marl- 
 borough, spoke sharply to her daughter. 
 
 "For goodness and all," said Mrs. Bates, 
 
 [14]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 "what ever are you doing, with all these things 
 to unpack and the trunks still downstairs and 
 yourself to dress up and Mr. Sabin calling at 
 noon!" 
 
 "Nothing, mother," replied her daughter. 
 And she put down, slyly and rather hastily, the 
 paper-covered volume of Molly Bawn, by The 
 Duchess, in which she had just pressed a 
 blossom of blue-and- white columbine. 
 
 [is]
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IN THOSE days there were forty-niners still 
 in the land. Old fellows of grizzled heads 
 and knotted hands, the failures of that 
 immortal company, they were still clumping 
 along the trails with burro and pack, still 
 following new paths to the fortune which ever 
 eluded them. They had the cynicism born of 
 failure, but they enjoyed in the community the 
 tolerant respect justly due to experience. Such 
 was Marty McGuire, chief partner of the three 
 who were driving on a grubstake the Big Hope 
 Tunnel above the Lone Grave Canon. 
 
 Under the flickering glare of their miner's 
 lamps Marty was at this moment pounding a 
 drill held by Jim Tewson, third partner on the 
 grubstake. 
 
 " Tommy seems to be gone some time," said 
 Jim, turning the drill. 
 
 Marty dropped a stroke accurate and true 
 upon the drill head, and let his breath explode 
 in a grunt before he said: "Got his excuse I 
 
 guess. ' ' 
 
 [16]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 "Well," said Jim, turning the drill head 
 again, "it ought to be a good one. He's a nice 
 hard-working kid." 
 
 "H'm!" exclaimed Marty cynically at the 
 end of his next blow and grunt. 
 
 As though this bit of conversation were 
 working up to a stage entrance, a shadow blotted 
 the distant spot of light made by the tunnel 
 mouth and a miner's lamp became visible, bob- 
 bing larger and large as it approached. Marty 
 pounded and grunted explosively, Jim turned 
 mechanically, until Tommy himself stood be- 
 side them, the lamp on his cap no brighter than 
 his excited eye. 
 
 "I want to get off to go to Carbonado," said 
 Tommy without further ado. 
 
 His partners regarded him for a moment in 
 silence, Marty with the sledge held back ready 
 for a stroke, Jim gripping the drill in place. 
 Then the sledge dropped from Marty's nerve- 
 less, disgusted hands. 
 
 "You want to go to Carbonado, do you? 
 You want to go to Carbonado ! What fur I ' ' His 
 tone expressed the righteous disgust of a judge 
 
 [17]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 sentencing a felon for some especially low 
 crime. * * To git biled ?' ' 
 
 "Sho, Marty," put in the tolerant Jim, ''you 
 know the kid's too young to be goin' after that 
 stuff!" 
 
 ' * Hell he is ! " replied Marty, looking over the 
 offender with an eye that gleamed cynically, 
 skeptically, in the triple lamplight. "Last week 
 he split a new pick handle, didn 't he f And he 's 
 gittin old enough to vote, ain't he?" Now he 
 addressed Tommy again. "What fur!" he 
 repeated. "And how long? What fur?" 
 
 Tommy dropped his gaze. 
 
 "Nothin'!"hesaid. 
 
 "Didn't I tell you?" roared Marty. "Some- 
 thin' he's plumb ashamed of, that's what!" 
 
 ' ' Now look here ! ' ' put in Jim. " It 's all right 
 goin ' away once in a while. I have to git in my 
 bust myself. But right now it's summer, and 
 we ain't got but three or four months before she 
 begins to freeze up and not a streak showin ' 
 yet. Can 't you put it off ? " 
 
 "I want to go to Carbonado," replied Tommy 
 stubbornly. His lower lip had the expression of 
 a naughty child. 
 
 [18]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 "All right," said Marty. "All right all- 
 righty. And John W. Sabin will see you there 
 swellin' round in your store clothes, an' he'll 
 think he knows what we're doin' with the cash 
 he put up for this here grubstake. You don't 
 expect this claim is goin' to back your little 
 bust, do you?" 
 
 Tommy momentarily took the offensive. 
 
 "I've got two hundred dollars in the bank 
 that I made working in the General Longstreet 
 last winter," he said. "Guess I can do what I 
 want with it, can 't I T " 
 
 "It's once out, always out, on this claim," 
 said Marty, with baneful foreboding in his 
 voice. "You go to Carbonado now and you go 
 for good. ' ' 
 
 "All right!" said Tommy, his voice giving 
 the effect of one who is impersonating heavy 
 defiance. "All right!" 
 
 Jim said nothing; but when the kid's lamp 
 was only an intermittent spark, already dim- 
 ming in the light of the tunnel mouth, he rested 
 a moment from pouring water into the drill 
 hole and remarked, ' ' I bet it 's a girl ! ' ' 
 
 [19]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 * ' Sure it 's a girl, ' ' said Marty. * ' Ain 't I been 
 married three times, not to mention Injuns ? ' ' 
 
 "He'll come back," said Jim. 
 
 ' ' He will, ' ' said Marty. < < An ' I '11 be just fool 
 enough when she shows to let him in on this 
 grubstake again." 
 
 The good-natured Jim, who had been waiting 
 to learn just this, said nothing but only smiled 
 down on the drill head. 
 
 Out at the log cabin over the tunnel mouth 
 Tommy had already pushed back the door of 
 gunny sacking, was tearing open the buttons of 
 his blue working shirt. With a haste almost 
 unseemly he opened his valise and proceeded to 
 shave no great job and to array himself in 
 his store clothes with his new blue necktie. He 
 finished by shining his fashionable square-cut 
 shoes from the blacking box under Jim's bed. 
 When these sartorial cares were done he did 
 not, like a young man sincerely intending to 
 quit the job, pack all his belongings. He merely 
 gathered up and threw helter-skelter into the 
 valise such objects as he needed to make a 
 proper fashionable appearance in Carbonado 
 as three clean shirts, his extra neckties and half 
 
 [20]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 a dozen collars. His working clothes, his books, 
 his accordion and his rifle he left as they were, 
 thus proving that he, young though he was, 
 assessed Marty's threats at their proper value. 
 He did, however, complete the costume appro- 
 priate to a gentleman in that region and period 
 by slipping a double-action .38 into the appro- 
 priate pocket. Then he clumped up the trail, 
 carefully picking the way to preserve the shine 
 of his shoes. Where the trail met the Car- 
 bonado road he hailed a passing freighter and 
 borrowed a ride into town on the box. 
 
 He had drawn his two hundred dollars from 
 the First National Bank; he had registered at 
 the Marlborough, agreeing to pay ten dollars a 
 day, American plan; he had been installed in a 
 luxurious twelve-by-fourteen room on the 
 second floor; he was washing off the dust of 
 travel before he woke as from a trance and 
 wondered what on earth he was doing there. 
 From the moment when he handed a bunch of 
 columbines to that dim vision in the shadows 
 of the Cottonwood stage he had moved more 
 like an automaton than like a reasoning human 
 being with a free will. Looking back he could 
 
 [21]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 not even tell at what moment he Ijad absorbed 
 or acquired the conviction that he must go to 
 the Marlborough. But there he was; and of 
 course down in the depths of his heart he knew 
 why. What astonished him, now that he had 
 awakened from his trance, was the speed and 
 certainty with which he had acted. He felt a 
 kind of emptiness of purpose, a vague specula- 
 tion as to the next move. He blushed as he won- 
 dered if Marty and Jim would ever guess what 
 a fool he was making of himself. 
 
 The clang of a gong, resounding through the 
 corridors and echoing in the upper hallways of 
 the Marlborough, roused him from these soli- 
 tary meditations. It was dinner-time, and 
 Tommy's attack of love, malignant though it 
 was, had not yet dulled in him the wolfish 
 hunger bred from work, fresh air and twenty 
 years. He finished his washing hastily, de- 
 scended, joined the crowd of tourists and ore 
 buyers trooping into the dining room. He had 
 finished a plate of oyster soup and the biscuit 
 shooter was arraying the rest of the menu about 
 him in little platters of thick white crockery and 
 birds' bathtubs, when a kind of hush in the 
 
 [22]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 general conversation made him pause with a 
 fork poised and become aware of his external 
 surroundings. 
 
 Tommy had to look down a moment to conceal 
 his sudden flush. When he dared look up again 
 he could almost have reached out and touched 
 the hem of her skirt. Escorted with pomp and 
 ceremony by the white-clad head waitress, she 
 had reached the next table to his she, of all 
 the world, she. Now she was sinking into her 
 seat, her head and shoulders and bust rising 
 from a white and Nile-green foam created by 
 billow on billow of organdie over her bustle. 
 Her hands began to flutter over a napkin no 
 whiter than they. The rest of the guests got 
 along with small Turkey-red napkins ; and even 
 these were a recent touch of Eastern luxury. 
 But the napkins at the special table of John W. 
 Sabin, owner of the hotel and of almost every- 
 thing else worth owning in Carbonado, were of 
 white linen. 
 
 In the rush of surprise and perplexity Tommy 
 registered this fact. She was a guest at John 
 W. Sabin 's table. 
 
 She was speaking now; and Tommy, follow-
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 ing the direction of her eyes, saw that she had 
 not entered alone, that the elder woman of the 
 meeting by the ford, very stiff in jet-trimmed 
 garnet surah silk, was seating herself with her 
 back toward him. Then, the range of vision 
 widening as the first dazzle of her died away 
 from his eyes, he beheld what confirmed his 
 fears and ruined the perfection of the moment. 
 There was a third member of the party. 
 Between mother and daughter appeared the 
 hawklike profile, the drooping grizzled mus- 
 tache, the seamed, tanned skin of John W. 
 Sabin, magnate of the camp, upon whose grub- 
 stake Tommy was at that moment loafing. 
 
 The rush of blood which was making flashes 
 across Tommy's vision seemed to have affected 
 his hearing. Though he sat at the next table 
 he caught at first no word of their conversation. 
 He was aware, though, that John W. Sabin was 
 addressing the girl; that the mother, whose 
 pose of back indicated an intense interest in the 
 conversation, was taking no part in it; that the 
 girl was smiling demurely but with reserve. 
 Then her eyes traveled for a moment past Mr. 
 Sabin and caught Tommy's. He fancied that 
 
 [24]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 she gave the very shade of a start. The 
 prettiest tangle, as of perplexity, agitated the 
 smooth strip of forehead below her black, deli- 
 cate film of bang, to be succeeded by a faint 
 light of recognition. Demurely and with the 
 proper reserve, she bowed; and Tommy man- 
 aged an awkward bob of his head. John W. 
 Sabin with his own simple native directness, 
 turned, looked Tommy squarely over; but 
 fortunately his face held no look of recognition. 
 The mother threw a glance across her shoulder; 
 then she, too, gave a bow, which made a light 
 tinkling among the jet ornaments of her 
 corsage ; but it was stiff, formal and impersonal. 
 Tommy heard a word or two passed in under- 
 tones; doubtless they were identifying him. He 
 felt somehow a quick spurt of injury. 
 
 Now, as he methodically took his time about 
 eating, he could catch the conversation here and 
 there. 
 
 "She's a permanent camp, all right," Mr. 
 Sabin was saying to the girl. "Denver won't 
 be a patch on her when we get her where she 
 ought to be. We're goin' to be the state capital 
 before we get through. ' ' 
 
 [25]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 "It's very picturesque. I just adore it!" 
 said the girl. 
 
 "Oh, 'tain't much now," said Mr. Sabin, 
 "but you wait till we git the railroad through. 
 We're goin' to have three new brick blocks 
 a-buildin' before the first engine has stopped 
 tooting. Yes, sir, and our congressman has got 
 orders to rush an appropriation for a hundred- 
 thousand-dollar post office. And next will be 
 an operay house. ' ' 
 
 The mother murmured her appreciation. 
 "They tell me you've done wonders for the 
 town already," Tommy heard her say. 
 
 "Oh, not very much," said Mr. Sabin; "but 
 pretty good, I guess, for an old busted pros- 
 pector who had just one burro and one shirt to 
 his back when he staked out the first claim in 
 Carbonado three years ago. ' ' 
 
 "Only three years!" exclaimed the mother. 
 
 "Three years the tenth of July, Mrs. Bates," 
 said Mr. Sabin. 
 
 That was her name, then Bates. Nellie 
 Bates he had the surname already. Nellie 
 Bates! The divine music of it! 
 
 "That's the day for the housewarming of 
 
 [26]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 the new shack," said Mr. Sabin. "I couldn't 
 wait for the railroad. When that comes in and 
 we can get bricks, I'm going to have a regular 
 house with a furnace and a bathroom and this 
 here tapestry wall paper that I saw in Denver. 
 Then I can sell the shack that I'm building now. 
 We're going to start a blaze under sassiety in 
 Carbonado with a Firemen's Ball next Friday 
 night. You've got to come! We're going to 
 get the band of the Little Casino for a regular 
 ball. Say ! What 's the matter with one of you 
 ladies leading the grand march with me f That 's 
 the ticket! We'll start her off with a regular 
 grand march. ' ' 
 
 The girl was at that moment looking down 
 upon her plate. She raised her liquid eyes not 
 at first toward Mr. Sabin but toward her 
 mother. Tommy saw a moment of hesitation, 
 could fancy that some signaling glance had 
 passed between the two women, before the girl 
 turned her eyes upon Mr. Sabin and said, "I'm 
 sure we 'd be delighted. ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Bates took up the conversation then, 
 Tommy eavesdropping without shame, while 
 eating by pure animal instinct. He could catch 
 
 [27]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 only an occasional word, however ; though once 
 or twice John W. Sabin laughed immoderately. 
 When the conversation again became audible 
 Mr. Sabin was talking, in a booming voice and 
 an accent which cut like steel, about his 
 matched two-twenty road team. It cost him, he 
 seemed willing to tell the world, two thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 "How interesting!" commented the girl. 
 
 "You're all goin for a spin behind 'em this 
 afternoon, too," said Mr. Sabin. "They sure 
 do eat up road. Tell you what you do; you 
 come out with me right after dinner to look over 
 the mines. ' ' 
 
 "We'll be delighted," murmured Mrs. Bates. 
 
 But the girl, when Mr. Sabin turned to her, 
 hesitated. She spoke at last, and more dis- 
 tinctly than usual. 
 
 * * I think the altitude has affected me a little, ' ' 
 she said. ' ' Would you mind if I napped for an 
 hour or sol Then, if you and Mr. Sabin aren't 
 back by three o 'clock, I might take a little walk 
 round town." 
 
 ' l Alone I ' ' queried her mother. 
 
 "Well, why not?" queried Mr. Sabin, with a 
 
 [28]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 touch of resentment in his tone. "A lady's as 
 safe in the streets of this camp as she would be 
 in any ballroom in the land." 
 
 By now the head waitress, attending per- 
 sonally to the wants of the Marlborough 's 
 eminent owner, had removed the fringes of 
 small dishes about the plates and was with 
 great ceremony laying out Indian pudding in 
 saucers. Their dinner was soon to end; and 
 Tommy, who had already finished, could see no 
 excuse for lingering. He rose, therefore; and 
 the motion brought a glance from the girl, 
 accompanied by the very ghost of a smile. In a 
 rosy haze he walked out into the lobby, already 
 filling with satisfied diners, who lolled in the 
 wooden chairs, smoking, plying toothpicks, com- 
 paring specimens. 
 
 That magic hour of three o 'clock had burned 
 into his mind, suggesting a plan so simple and 
 yet so daring that he flushed at the thought. For 
 the present he had an unaccountable fear of 
 being caught watching Mr. Sabin and party 
 emerge from the dining room. So, as nonchal- 
 antly as he could manage, he strolled out to the 
 plank sidewalk of Main Street. Past the six-
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 mule freight teams struggling through the dust, 
 past swinging doors which even at that hour 
 gave forth the sounds of loud pianos, past all 
 the soiled and dusty but romantic confusion of 
 a mining camp struggling toward the dignity 
 of a railroad and townhood, his feet seemed to 
 carry him involuntarily toward the Arizona 
 House. 
 
 Through its swinging door, unfurnished with 
 that modest protecting screen which usually 
 guarded vice from the eye of respectability in 
 the days when the Demon Rum held unchecked 
 sway, he passed into the barroom. This boasted 
 the longest solid-mahogany bar in the West, and 
 was beyond doubt the most elegantly furnished 
 room in Carbonado Camp. That bar was broken 
 in the midst of its polished length by an inser- 
 tion of plate glass four feet long, from beneath 
 which glittered dully a mosaic of five, ten and 
 twenty dollar gold pieces. The long mirrors 
 which reflected back the dull glint of this little 
 fortune were decorated with Spencerian scrolls 
 drawn in soap, surrounding such legends as 
 "Trust is dead; bad pay killed him," "All 
 mixed drinks, four bits," and "If you want 
 
 [30]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 trouble, find it outside. ' ' Scroll-worked cabinets 
 between the mirrors held bottles containing 
 those highly colored drinks for which no one 
 seemed to call in Carbonado Camp, but which 
 were necessary in those days to well-conducted 
 bars. Over all was draped an American flag, 
 its folds very dusty, its colors a little fly-specked. 
 The chandeliers which held the big oil lamps 
 were ornamented by frills and skirts of pink 
 and blue paper, cut into lace-like patterns. 
 There were other items suggesting elegance and 
 prosperity, such as a big genuine oil painting of 
 the Grand Canon and a cabinet containing speci- 
 mens of horn silver and free gold. This was the 
 club of the town, the place into which one drifted 
 when he had nothing else to do, the center of 
 gossip. 
 
 And gossip was already busy at the Arizona 
 House. Against the bar leaned half a dozen 
 miners in high boots, overalls and rough frieze 
 coats, drinking their afternoon draft democrat- 
 ically with mining men in glove-fitting store 
 clothes and large diamonds. To Tommy 'a ears, 
 sharpened and attuned that day to but a single 
 theme, came out this: "Well, both of them
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 ladies are lollapaloozers if anybody drives up 
 in a hack and asks you." 
 
 ''What are they doing here!" asked another 
 voice. 
 
 That miner who had spoken first he was a 
 foreman on Mr. Sabin's Wild Rose property 
 gave a sly wink. 
 
 "John W.," he said, "goes down to Denver 
 and they takes him out in sassiety. He meets 
 this here outfit at one of them dude swarries. 
 And he asks them up here to visit him at the 
 Marlborough, his shack not being ready. Seems 
 to be in a hurry, sort of suddenlike, as usual. 
 Well, it's time. He's been a bachelor long 
 enough, with the stake he's got. Nice-looking 
 girl, and a credit to the camp too. ' ' 
 
 "Somebody was telling me," remarked one 
 of the mining men, "that they're already en- 
 gaged." 
 
 "Nothin' in it," replied the foreman. "I 
 looked particular at her hand, and she wasn't 
 wearin ' no diamond ring on her wedding finger. 
 You don't suppose old John W. wouldn't do the 
 right thing by her, do you?" 
 
 [32]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 1 * Where do they come from the East?" in- 
 quired another voice. 
 
 A prospector who had hitherto refrained from 
 conversation parted his hairy lips and thusly 
 spake : "East nothin' ! I knew the old party as 
 soon as I sot eyes on her. She's Mrs. Bates, 
 that used to run the miners' boardin' house at 
 Clear Creek. Made a little stake somehow, she 
 did, an' moved to Denver, and now I hear she's 
 flyin ' high. First time I ever see the daughter, 
 but they tell me the old lady had her all that 
 time in one of them convents or seminaries or 
 somethin'." 
 
 1 'We 're gettin' kind of personal," said the 
 foreman; "and anyhow it ain't fittin', talkin' 
 over real ladies in a low groggery. Well, boys, 
 the precious metal is still to be extracted on 
 Sacramento Hill, and I'm overdue at the shaft. 
 Here 's to 'em ! ' ' 
 
 Tommy, who had stifled an impulse to break 
 into this group and thrash someone or other, 
 sank down midway of the conversation into a 
 chair by a poker table. John W. Sabin the 
 Great, in love with her! Reported engaged! 
 A black, immovable obstacle seemed to have 
 
 [33]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 settled down between him and that smiling 
 dreamland where columbines are not shaken 
 from their stems. 
 
 Yet on the other hand a miners' boarding 
 house ! She, who seemed so exalted in her East- 
 ern clothes, came from origins as humble as his 
 own. All that afternoon and all that sleepless 
 night he was to be working on love 's arithmetic, 
 balancing his hopes against his despairs. 
 
 [34]
 
 CHAPTEE III 
 
 JUST a stroke before the hour of three, be- 
 hold Tommy wandering with an assumed 
 nonchalance down Main Street. As when 
 he left the claim that morning, he seemed drawn 
 by a command superior to his will. During the 
 hour before, the balances in love's arithmetic 
 had been only minus quantities ; he had sat be- 
 side the poker table of the Arizona House imag- 
 ining picturesque plans for an exit from this sad 
 world. Enlisting in the United States Army to 
 fight the Sioux and being found on the battle- 
 field with a letter addressed to her over his 
 bleeding heart that seemed, on the whole, the 
 most feasible and satisfying. Nevertheless, he 
 had risen five minutes before the hour, dusted 
 off the shoulders of his new store clothes, flicked 
 the shine of his shoes with a handkerchief, and 
 started forth. 
 
 And as he approached the door of the Marl- 
 borough it opened to disgorge beauty. His in- 
 fatuated eyes registered that she was wearing 
 
 [351
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 blue, something which fitted as a bark its tree 
 over her virginal shoulders and breast; that a 
 little foam of feathers tossed above the black 
 film of bang on her forehead; that along her 
 arm sweetly slender, clad in a long brown 
 glove lay a folded white parasol from which 
 fluttered a pink ruffle. 
 
 For a fateful moment she hesitated at the 
 door. If she turned in the other direction 
 Tommy knew he could never summon the nerve 
 to follow her. But after a second of pretty hesi- 
 tation she turned toward him. Now would she 
 speak or would she overlook him? But fate de- 
 cided that moment also in favor of Tommy, for 
 as she drew near him her eyes, roving about the 
 sights of Main Street, fell on his. They lit with 
 recognition and, ' l Good afternoon ! ' ' she said in 
 a voice reserved and yet friendly. And she 
 seemed to hesitate slightly in her tripping walk. 
 
 ' * Good afternoon, ' ' he said, and then, manag- 
 ing to gulp the words out somehow: "Did they 
 last I n 
 
 At that she really stopped. 
 
 "Yes," she said; "one of them lasted all 
 the way to the hotel. I haven't had a chance 
 
 [36]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 to thank you before. They are very, very 
 beautiful. ' ' 
 
 Then, with the slow motion of a leaf which 
 sways in the breeze, she turned away as though 
 to resume her walk. But those eyes of hers held 
 that was it a too great shyness? which em- 
 boldened Tommy to the most daring act of his 
 life. 
 
 "Were you walking anywhere?" he asked; 
 and then blushed inwardly at the awkwardness 
 of his approach. 
 
 "I was just going out to see the town," she 
 said. 
 
 "Would you mind if I went with you to 
 show it to you?" he gulped. 
 
 She seemed to hesitate; then looked full on 
 him with eyes become like pools. 
 
 "It will be only a very short walk," she said. 
 
 "We might go up to the top of the hill," he 
 suggested, suddenly grown so bold as to aston- 
 ish himself. 
 
 So her high heels made a pleasant tapping 
 and his square-toed shoes a bass clumping be- 
 side each other on the board sidewalk. But they 
 were silent for a moment he because of a rush 
 
 [37]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 of warm, delicious, absolute bliss. She, if he 
 had only known it, was giving him a swift femi- 
 nine appraisal. He did not look half so roman- 
 tic in his black ready-made store clothes, his 
 blue necktie drawn through a gold ring, his 
 choker collar, as he had seemed there among the 
 columbines in his brown overalls tucked into 
 high boots, his belt sagging over one of his 
 manly hips, his blue shirt open at the throat. 
 But he still showed that fresh blond complexion 
 tanned to the color of a dark tea rose, those blue 
 eyes as clear as mountain brooks, and that en- 
 gaging smile. And he had shoulders; and he 
 strode with the gait of a strong man. 
 
 "It's my first visit to Carbonado," she said, 
 breaking the somewhat awkward silence and 
 answering the conventional question already 
 forming on his lips. 
 
 "You come from the East!" he asked, guiltily 
 concealing his knowledge. 
 
 "I do," she replied; "from the effete East. 
 I wasn't born a tenderfoot, but I'm a tender- 
 foot now. I've just been out of school since 
 April." 
 
 "I went to school off and on up to three years 
 
 [38]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 ago," he said. "Finished off with the Union 
 High School at Parkinsville, back in Nebraska. " 
 
 "What do they teach you in high school?" 
 she asked. ' * Mathematics and Latin and French 
 and Italian and all that sort of thing, just as 
 they do in a young ladies ' seminary? I suppose 
 they excuse the boys from embroidery and ball- 
 room deportment. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, I guess so," replied Tommy; "except 
 they go light on French, and I never heard of 
 their teaching Dago. I liked Latin, ' ' he added. 
 
 ' * So did I, ' ' said the girl. ' ' It was my favor- 
 ite study." 
 
 "Mine too!" he said; and they were both 
 silent for a moment, as though amazed by this 
 remarkable coincidence of tastes. 
 
 "Were you specially fond of Vergil, Mr. 
 " Here she paused. 
 
 ' ' Coulter Thomas J. Coulter, ' ' he said 
 promptly. He was becoming as bold as a lion. 
 
 "My name is Eleanor Bates," she said as 
 promptly. "Isn't it the strangest thing? We 
 have been just the same as introduced, and by 
 my mother; and yet I didn't even know your 
 name ! ' ' 
 
 [39]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 "Sure is queer," answered Tommy. "Say, 
 could you stand algebra?" 
 
 "Loathed it!" she replied. "But I liked 
 geometry. All those funny figures looked like 
 little pictures, if you know what I mean. ' * 
 
 "So did I like geom," said he. This was be- 
 coming more and more astonishing. "But since 
 I got out of school IVe pretty near forgotten 
 it. Been too busy with other things." 
 
 "What things?" she asked, picking her way 
 delicately over what was intended for a street 
 crossing and was only a dusty, humpy waste. 
 
 "Oh, punched cattle, took a turn at freight- 
 ing, and now I'm grubstaking for gold," he 
 said. 
 
 ' ' I know what grubstaking means. My father 
 grubstaked. He 's dead long ago, poor old dad, 
 but I was born on a claim in Wyoming. ' ' 
 
 Why, having recorded all that is necessary 
 of this conversation, should I further intrude 
 into this little stroll? Full of delicious discov- 
 eries, like that of the kindred taste for Latin, 
 it took halting steps toward acquaintance; and 
 each new step led to pleasant vistas. Before 
 they rounded that corner by the Arizona House 
 
 [40]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 which led to the residential section of log cabins, 
 board shacks and reenforced tents, they had 
 both discovered that they cared little for square 
 dances but loved to schottish and waltz. By 
 the time they started the ascent of the long 
 grade they had discovered through shy ap- 
 proaches that they both thought that all the 
 religion wasn't in the churches. Halfway up 
 the grade her chatter stopped and she breathed 
 with a delicate sighing; for she was not yet 
 acclimated to that two-mile altitude. As they 
 came to the steepest pull, therefore, he boldly 
 held out his arm and she let her hand rest ever 
 so lightly on his elbow, so that his breath caught 
 also but not with altitude. As her breathing 
 grew even more difficult they stopped and gath- 
 ered a bouquet of the little blue and pink daisies 
 which June had sprinkled along the trail. At 
 the summit they sat themselves down on a great 
 rock. 
 
 ' ' That 's the view, ' ' he said. 
 
 Below them lay the camp, in the center follow- 
 ing a regular geometric plan of streets bordered 
 by log cabins, by board shacks, by clapboarded 
 two-story business blocks. Beyond, log cabins
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 and reenf orced tents straggled irregularly along 
 the curving roads. Beyond that and between 
 lay heaped the fringe of abandoned tin cans 
 which always borders a mining camp. But the 
 distances were all mountain. Though the earth 
 up to the edges of the perpetual snows showed 
 only dull yellows and reds and browns, though 
 the straggling dwarf pine and fir forests offered 
 but little relief of color, the impression some- 
 how was of a heavenly whiteness, of an earth 
 in which nothing could fester or grow impure. 
 * ' Charming ! ' ' said she. ' * And don 't you just 
 detest people who say you can't understand 
 things because you 're too young I ' ' 
 
 [42]
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 JOHN W. SABIN and Mrs. Amelia Bates 
 had finished their visit to the rich and 
 flourishing General Longstreet mine, 
 where the lady had been received with the 
 honor due visiting royalty and its guest. Mrs. 
 Bates had even been offered a descent into the 
 shaft, and had declined with thanks. "Wouldn't 
 be any new experience for me," she said. 
 
 But she had gone over the new hoisting 
 apparatus with the chief engineer, had been 
 allowed to test the levers, had pronounced it 
 good ; she had been presented with a newly dug 
 specimen of wire silver, the pure, precious metal 
 lying like curls of venerable hair in the clefts 
 of its matrix; she had visited the newly in- 
 stalled miners' boarding house, where she had 
 offered valuable and expert suggestions to 
 Sammy the Dutchman, its manager and chef. 
 They had stopped, too, before John W.'s new 
 shack, upon which the painters were just then 
 slapping a first coat of pink and gray, into 
 
 [43]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 which a freighter was just then unloading a 
 set of shiny black-walnut dining-room furni- 
 ture, a dozen wicker chairs and a gleaming 
 brass bed; and she had mightily commended 
 the taste of her host. Now they were taking one 
 final turn over the hills to see the view; 
 John W., who on the level road had been 
 showing her how they could step, slacked his 
 matched chestnuts down to a walk as he reached 
 a bumpy, rocky stretch, and dug deeper into 
 the intimacies of conversation. 
 
 11 About your daughter Miss Nellie," he 
 began after several preliminary gulps; "I 
 suppose you guessed when I asked you both up 
 here that my intentions were serious, sort of." 
 
 "Now, Mr. Sabin," said Mrs. Bates, "when 
 an unmarried gentleman makes such advances 
 to an unmarried lady, everybody who knows 
 their way round knows that it ain't just a 
 matter of charity. When I caught you looking 
 at her in Mrs. Barstow 'a parlor I savvied right 
 away what you meant. ' ' 
 
 "Well, that makes it a heap easier," said 
 John W., absently flicking a fly from the back 
 of his nigh horse ; " a heap easier. You under- 
 
 [44]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 stand a person, you do. It figures out this way. 
 When I was broke, which I mostly was before 
 I struck it in this here General Longstreet, I 
 never wanted to get married. Then, when I 
 was past forty, this come my way. ' ' 
 
 John W. Sabin made a flash of a three-carat 
 diamond and of a five-carat ruby as he waved 
 his hand over the vista of Carbonado clustering 
 grayly in the hollow below, over the crumpled 
 hills, their bristle of pines broken here and 
 there by dun shaft houses and black dumps, 
 over the smelter smoke polluting here and there 
 the white purity of mountain distances. 
 
 "What am I goin' to do with a big house 
 when Carbonado gits to be the capital of the 
 state," John W. went on, "and no first lady of 
 the camp? I didn't need any first lady for the 
 cabins I had frequented and inhabited hitherto, 
 but now four million dollars my stake in this 
 camp stands me mines, real estate, every- 
 thing. All because I believed in this here 
 General Longstreet proposition three years ago 
 and wouldn't let go. And Lord knows how 
 much more it will come to before I'm through!" 
 
 [45]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 "It's been wonderful, astonishing," mur- 
 mured Mrs. Bates. 
 
 As she sat there her eyes like her daugh- 
 ter's, large and dark but somehow more direct 
 and fiery; her hair like her daughter's black 
 and without one touch of gray; her figure like 
 her daughter's erect though more broadly 
 curved she made a picture of soft and sym- 
 pathetic though mature comeliness. 
 
 "And you saw my Nellie at Mrs. Bar stow 's," 
 she put in. "And you thought, 'That's the 
 girl I want ! ' Not making any more bones about 
 it. I've always believed in coming right out 
 and speaking my mind. ' ' 
 
 "That's about right. Say, you get things 
 without telling, don't you?" said John W. 
 Sabin, turning upon her the equally penetrating 
 glare of two immense diamond studs and two 
 keen, trail-sharpened eyes. "You'll make an 
 A-l mother-in-law, you will! Tell you what 
 you do. When we've had our honeymoon 
 seein' things in Yurrup, you're comin' to live 
 with us. I can see by the way you went over 
 that boardin' house that you can give most 
 anybody points on runnin' a big place. And 
 
 [46]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 she 's got to be run to the nines. Yes, sir, when 
 this here camp is capital of the state " 
 
 "Well, as for runnin' a boarding house I 
 ought to know," broke in Mrs. Bates, abruptly 
 hauling him from the saddle of his hobby. " I Ve 
 been perfectly square with you in this affair, 
 Mr. Sabin," she added, unaccountably switch- 
 ing the angle of the conversation. "I could 
 have impersonated a society lady from the 
 East, with a daughter like that. But here's 
 the Lord's truth. Ever since her father died, 
 when she was seven and I was twenty-seven, 
 I've had my nose to the grindstone runnin' 
 miners ' boarding houses to make my own little 
 stake for her and give her the right kind of 
 education just to put her where she'd never 
 have to scratch and scrub like I 've always done. 
 Lord knows, I 'd be further along than I am, too, 
 if I hadn't went and fell for mining stock. 
 Somehow I always knew that she'd grow up 
 beautiful. 
 
 "And she's brainy, too," added Mrs. Bates 
 more softly. ' ' She always won the silver medal 
 in the seminary for English composition. Writes 
 poetry too. Sometimes I think she ought to 
 
 [47]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 take up literature. Some of her writings are 
 the grandest things ! Her report cards were a 
 regular joy. And the nicest disposition!" 
 
 1 'She's got all that." said John W., echoing 
 in his tone the softness of his mother-in-law 
 elect. " Could see it the moment I sighted her. 
 I says to myself, 'She's it! she's a looker.' I 
 always liked 'em dark. 'And she's sweet as 
 honey and she's got an education.' I want to 
 git an education myself. 'Tain't too late to 
 learn, I figure. There's a heap of things I 
 want to know about astronomy, for example. ' ' 
 
 "And of course you loved her," put in Mrs. 
 Bates. 
 
 1 ' Oh, HeU yes !" said John W. Sabin. ' ' Ain 't 
 I been tellin' you?" 
 
 "You sort of took it for granted a little while 
 ago," put in Mrs. Bates, her voice hardening 
 to a more practical tone, "that she was going 
 to have you. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, that's the question," replied John W., 
 his manner changing but growing not unduly 
 subdued. "After all, don't look very promising 
 that she wouldn't come out with us this after- 
 noon. How do you think I stand ? ' ' 
 
 [48]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 "Oh, as for not coming along," reassured 
 Mrs. Bates, "that was probably only girlish 
 coyness. I was going to warn you that you 
 can't rush things too much with a young girl, 
 any more 'n you can with a half -broken filly. If 
 you'd ask her now, you'd only drive her away. 
 A novel I read once had it just right. I can't 
 exactly remember what it was" Here Mrs. 
 Bates made a pretty pursing between her level 
 brows "but something in the Waverly 
 Weekly. It said, 'Would you pluck open a bud 
 before its time to bloom?' She must be wooed 
 gently. But she's attracted. A girl's mother 
 knows." 
 
 "Well, how do you know?" inquired John W., 
 almost shamefacedly. 
 
 "I suppose I oughtn't rightly to tell you 
 this," said Mrs. Bates, "but a mother's duty is 
 first to consider her daughter's good. Well, 
 this morning when I reminded her that you 
 were going to call at noon her back was toward 
 me but she didn't hide her neck. 
 
 "She was blushing. Sure as anything, she 
 was blushing. ' ' 
 
 "Was she?" said John W. Sabin softly. 
 "The cute little cuss!" 
 
 [49]
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 INTO the family suite of two small rooms at 
 the Marlborough entered Mrs. Bates. Her 
 expression as she bent her gaze upon the 
 back of her daughter Nellie, deliciously, color- 
 fully outlined against the black walnut of the 
 Marlborough 's star effect in bureaus, was bright 
 and yet soft. It displayed affection illuminated 
 with both hope and triumph. Nellie started 
 slightly and turned, revealing what she was 
 doing. She had been arranging in the water 
 pitcher a bouquet of pink and blue field daisies. 
 
 "Oh, mother you frightened me for a mo- 
 ment," she said. 
 
 Mrs. Bates tripped over to her though ma- 
 ture in figure she was astonishingly light of step 
 and dropped a kiss on her daughter's cheek. 
 
 "And what has my Nellie been doing this 
 afternoon?" she asked. "Did you take your 
 
 "Yes, mother," replied Nellie with all the 
 demureness in the world. "I walked a little 
 way up the hill." 
 
 [so]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 "And nobody annoyed you just as Mr. 
 Sabin said?" 
 
 "No, mother." 
 
 Nellie at this point seemed to note something 
 imperfect with the arrangement of the daisies. 
 She took a step to the bureau and plunged her 
 pink fingers among the blossoms, before she 
 went on. 
 
 "That young man whom we met when we 
 were in the stage the one who gave us the 
 columbines passed and asked me if there was 
 anything he could do to show me the town. ' ' 
 
 The face of Mrs. Bates, turned upon the pic- 
 ture by the bureau, played in three winks of an 
 eyelash a whole drama. From surprise her ex- 
 pression shaded to suspicion, from suspicion to 
 anger; then, as if by control of will and reason, 
 it ironed out to its usual good humor, tinged 
 perhaps by a shade of prim disapproval. 
 
 "But, Nellie," she said, "you've never been 
 introduced to him." 
 
 "I thought of that, mother," said Nellie in 
 her own primmest tone, "but after all I felt that 
 I'd really been introduced by you. He only 
 
 [si]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 talked to me a little. Then I gathered these 
 flowers and came home." 
 
 "A young lady can't be too reserved," said 
 Mrs. Bates. 
 
 "So they told me at the seminary," replied 
 Nellie. ; ' How did you like the mines f ' ' 
 
 But Mrs. Bates eluded this transparent at- 
 tempt to change the subject. 
 
 "What sort of young man is he?" she asked, 
 speaking with apparent indifference as she drew 
 off her gloves. 
 
 "Oh, he seems very well educated," replied 
 Nellie. "Of course I didn't have any conver- 
 sation with him to speak of. ' ' 
 
 "What does he do?" 
 
 Mrs. Bates had now stepped up to the mirror 
 and with apparent absorption was patting a 
 loose friz into place. 
 
 "What did he say? Oh, yes he says he 
 grubstakes!" 
 
 "H'm," said Mrs. Bates; but so lightly that 
 it might have been taken for an incipient cough. 
 Then she changed the subject. 
 
 "Well, it's a pity you missed it; but Mr. 
 Sabin says he'll take us out again to-morrow 
 
 [52]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 or day after. Mining's improved a lot since the 
 days I knew it. They wanted to take me down 
 the shaft and I was dying to go, but you look 
 such a frump in the things they put on you. 
 Mr. Sabin treated me like a prince. He has a 
 fine nature. He's the youngest man of his age 
 I ever knew." 
 
 She paused as though for a response, but none 
 came. She had by now unhooked her basque, 
 which after the fashion of the times confined 
 her figure like a vise. 
 
 "Whew! That's a relief!" she sighed. 
 
 She glanced then at the alarm clock on the 
 mantel, and her expression grew practical, 
 executive. 
 
 "We're going to have supper to-morrow at 
 the new Maison Eiche Eestaurant with Mr. 
 Sabin," she said, "and I for one hope they 
 don't give us canned stuff. My mouth tastes 
 of solder already! To-night, thank goodness, 
 we can catch a little sleep. I think we 'd better 
 go as we are you might put on a fresh jabot, 
 though. Oh," she added, "how did your ball 
 gown come out of the trunk? I didn't have 
 time to look it over this morning. It it's wrin- 
 
 [53]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 kled I don't know how I'll ever get it pressed 
 up here. ' ' 
 
 1 'It's only a little wrinkled, mother," re- 
 sponded Nellie. 
 
 She crossed to the tiny closet, unhung and 
 brought forth a huge foam of white and pink. 
 
 "Lay it out on the table," said Mrs. Bates. 
 
 The pink and white settled down on the Tur- 
 key red of thg tablecloth. Mrs. Bates inspected 
 the steels of the tight bodice, the lace about the 
 corsage, with a critical eye; but she spoke of 
 other things. 
 
 "Did that young man ask to call?" she in- 
 quired. 
 
 Nellie's face, turned on the downcast face of 
 her mother, was flicked by a sudden expression 
 of annoyance. She made a quick impatient out- 
 ward gesture. Then she let out a little "Oh!" 
 and stood looking blankly down on a calamity. 
 
 In their absorption with their unexpressed 
 thoughts both ladies failed to notice that a bot- 
 tle of ink stood on the Turkey-red tablecloth. 
 In the sweep of her sudden gesture Nellie had 
 struck it. The bottle bounced on the pink foam 
 of the skirt; the cork flew out; what had been 
 
 [54]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 unbroken pink silk was now an irregular pat- 
 tern of pink and black. 
 
 Mrs. Bates sprang to action ; seizing a towel 
 from the rack she began to sop up the ink. This 
 was a futile measure, as she realized after an 
 instant. Her fingers dripping with black, she 
 stood facing her daughter. 
 
 "Well, of all the awkwardness!" she blazed; 
 and then, in her most pathetic tone : * ' Oh, how- 
 ever did you come to do it!" 
 
 "Oh, mother, I'm so sorry!" said Nellie, on 
 the verge of tears. 
 
 "Well, sorry don't help now!" said Mrs. 
 Bates. "Let's see what's happened." 
 
 Bodice and skirt had completely escaped. The 
 great gathered pile of pink silk which tossed 
 over the bustle had sustained all the damage; 
 it was a ruin, past all hope of cleaning. 
 
 "Seven yards of silk, double width," mused 
 Mrs. Bates. "Let's see if there's any machine 
 sewing. No, only gathered. I could do it all 
 with a needle." 
 
 "Oh, mother, I'll do it!" volunteered Nellie. 
 "My pretty dress!" 
 
 The tears started in her eyes, suggesting that 
 
 [55]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 Nellie was still in that stage of womanhood 
 when a girl is capable of relapsing and playing 
 with dolls. 
 
 "Silk here will be ten dollars a yard at the 
 least," Mrs. Bates said, as though thinking 
 aloud. "But they must have those standard 
 shades." 
 
 She paused, lightly tapping a white front 
 tooth with a spotted finger. Then, unaccount- 
 able, she turned, went into her own room. 
 Nellie, dumbly fingering the wreckage of what 
 had been her ball gown, wondered vaguely why 
 her mother turned the key in the lock. 
 
 Mrs. Bates, alone, had drawn a buckskin bag 
 from under her skirt, had shaken its golden 
 contents out on her bureau, was counting them. 
 
 [56]
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE ladies of the Bates family supped 
 alone that evening. It was lodge night 
 for John W. Sabin, and in his capacity 
 of Grand Masterful Euler he could not shirk 
 this masculine duty, even for the soft indul- 
 gences of budding love. Tommy, having with 
 difficulty restrained his eagerness, carefully 
 managed things so as to enter after the ladies 
 were seated. Vaguely he hoped for the un- 
 attainable a place with them at that special 
 table of John W. Sabin. However, as he passed 
 them, making a prearranged detour, Mrs. Bates 
 merely nodded stiffly, and Nellie the divine gave 
 him only her most conventional seminary bow. 
 He seated himself in his own place, as pre- 
 determined by the head waitress at dinner time. 
 Then he had sat blessedly, blissfully alone. To- 
 night he found at his table a traveling salesman 
 for paints, varnishes, wall paper and window 
 glass, who presented his card at once, and 
 wanted to talk about the business opportunities 
 
 [57]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 of the camp. Tommy answered him politely but 
 in monosyllables, his eyes roving toward the 
 table at his right. The salesman caught one 
 of these glances, followed it. 
 
 ' ' She 's certainly a beaut ! " he said. 
 
 Whereupon Tommy fell into a grouchy 
 silence, refusing answer to all questions, so that 
 the salesman, with a grunt, settled down to 
 perusal of the Evening Clarion. Unembarrassed 
 now by that clacking in his ears, Tommy could 
 give his attention to the conversation at the next 
 table, could eavesdrop as he had done at lunch- 
 eon. But they were speaking in low tones. 
 Small wonder; the advent of these two exem- 
 plars of Eastern fashion had been in that camp 
 very short on the kind of women one is sup- 
 posed to acknowledge openly, still more short 
 on beauty and fashion a suppressed but ex- 
 citing sensation. Not a motion they made but 
 drew the searching, furtive scrutiny of two score 
 masculine eyes. And it was not until the biscuit 
 shooter was approaching with the dried-apple 
 pie that Tommy got anything meant distinctly 
 for him. He had just dared one of his veiled 
 glances ; and the girl, who had been avoiding his 
 
 [58]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 direct looks while conveying somehow that she 
 was conscious of them, now looked him a mo- 
 ment in the eye. 
 
 And he heard her say, "While you're out, 
 mother, I'll just read in the ladies' parlor. 
 Somehow, I hate our room. That gray wall 
 paper depresses me." 
 
 When, half an hour later, Mrs. Bates left 
 the hotel she wore an inconspicuous raincoat. 
 Though twilight still danced with rosy feet 
 among the peaks, the after-supper life of the 
 camp had begun. Before the Black Diamond 
 Vaudeville Theater a band was emitting, with 
 long mournful wails of the saxophone, Silver 
 Threads Among the Gold. The last note faded 
 into a silence, broken a moment later by the 
 band of the Little Casino, far down the street, 
 attacking the lively strains of Nancy Lee. The 
 big music box of the Arizona House bar cut 
 into the rests with the metallic notes of Over 
 the Garden Wall. The board sidewalks were 
 already full, so that pedestrians in a hurry 
 were taking to the unpaved wagonway between. 
 Heavy boots made a clanking upon the boards, 
 a bass note to the tenor of a thousand cheerful 
 
 [59]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 voices. Chips were already clattering, roulette 
 wheels whirring, behind the swinging doors of 
 the gambling halls. Far down the street intent 
 groups clustered about tables set upon the edges 
 of the sidewalk, where professional gamblers, 
 newly arrived, were calling out the allurements 
 of three-card monte, wheel of fortune or even 
 faro. 
 
 Mrs. Bates crossed the street, attracting more 
 polite curious attention than would, on Fifth 
 Avenue, a reigning and favorite actress. She 
 was quietly reconnoitering, while seeming 
 merely to glance curiously over the crowd. 
 That establishment which she had marked with 
 her shrewd, observing eye as she and John W. 
 Sabin started on their drive, lay just across the 
 street from the districts of swinging doors and 
 loud music. To enter it from Main Street, and 
 at that hour, would be a proceeding so open 
 that she might as well publish it in the Evening 
 Clarion. Mrs. Bates, as she wandered, assem- 
 bled in her mind her lore of mining camps. 
 There must be a ladies ' entrance somewhere at 
 the rear. 
 
 At this moment a newly arrived tenderfoot, 
 [60]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 unused to the combined effects of red-eye 
 whisky and altitude, came whooping down the 
 street, challenging the world to fight. Laughter 
 rippled before and behind him. The tenderfoot 
 balanced himself, drew his side arm and nour- 
 ished it. Half a dozen sudden Westerners 
 sprang from the crowd on the instant, fell upon 
 him, disarmed him. The laughter increased to 
 a continuous roar. 
 
 Mrs. Bates, standing now on a street corner, 
 reflected that this was the appointed moment 
 when she would be free from observation. 
 Swiftly but cannily she turned into the shades 
 of Sixth Street. The town was as yet without 
 street lights; hence its hold-up record. Main 
 Street depended for night illuminations upon 
 the glare from the uncurtained windows of 
 dance halls, concert halls and saloons. Galena 
 Avenue, which ran past the new Methodist 
 Church, would in another half hour become 
 blacker than a pocket ; and the Farren gang of 
 footpads, undeterred by the lynching last month, 
 would be plying their trade. But now it was 
 possible to pick one's way in the twilight. 
 
 Mrs. Bates bent her course toward Eighth 
 
 [61]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 Street, turned, stumbling along the worn wooden 
 sidewalk close to the shadows of the buildings, 
 toward Main Street. She paused before a plain 
 board sign, scrutinized it in the twilight, and 
 nodded as with mental satisfaction. " Ladies' 
 Entrance," it read. She darted into the door 
 beneath the sign, groped down an undecorated 
 hallway toward a quadrangle of light which out- 
 lined a carelessly hung door. As she opened it 
 her expression gave another dart of satisfac- 
 tion. She had not until that moment been quite 
 certain; " Ladies' Entrance" might mean the 
 way to most embarrassing places. But she was 
 in a little square room, papered with news- 
 papers and furnished with a long counter of 
 unplaned boards. Behind it were shelves heaped 
 with packages of miscellaneous sizes wrapped 
 in newspapers. From hooks along the top row 
 of shelves hung a row of violins, guitars, accor- 
 dions and other silent and battered musical 
 instruments. Across the farther end of the 
 room hung clothing, both male and female. A 
 small showcase on the counter threw back the 
 glitter of diamonds against the beams from the 
 reflector of the big oil lamp. 
 
 [62]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 A small man with black curly hair topped by 
 a skull cap was asking, "What can I do for you, 
 madam ? ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Bates seemed to hesitate. 
 
 "I suppose business here is strictly confi- 
 dential!" she asked. 
 
 "Strictly," said the little man. "We ask no 
 questions and tell no tales. ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Bates opened her purse. "What do I 
 get on that!" 
 
 The little man took the diamond ring she 
 offered, screwed a glass into his accustomed 
 eye, and asked, "Pawn or sale?" 
 
 "Pawn, of course," said Mrs. Bates. "And 
 I'll tell you now, the last time I hung it up it 
 brought three fifty. ' ' 
 
 "Give you three hundred," said the man. 
 "Diamonds is going down." 
 
 ' ' That 's highway robbery, ' ' began Mrs. Bates. 
 "That's" 
 
 Just then a heavy step sounded on the rough 
 floor of the passage without. Mrs. Bates stood 
 frozen to immobility. But this intruder, who- 
 ever he was, seemed merely to be making for 
 another door farther up the passage. Hinges 
 
 [63]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 creaked; there was a slamming; the footsteps 
 ceased. Mrs. Bates' color began to return. 
 
 She spoke instantly : " All right. Give me the 
 money and the ticket quick ! ' ' 
 
 When Mrs. Bates returned to the Marlbor- 
 ough she was carrying a large parcel wrapped 
 in brown paper. The damaged ball gown by 
 now lay on the table in her own room. She tore 
 open a corner of the paper parcel, matched 
 carefully, in the light of the oil lamp, the color 
 of the fabric within and that of the gathered 
 silk over the bustle of the dress. She nodded 
 with satisfaction, opened her sewing case and 
 prepared for work. Mrs. Bates, as she said, 
 had been frank with John W. Sabin as far as 
 she went. The most important thing she held 
 back from him was that in this dear and des- 
 perate game of hers she was playing now her 
 last stake. 
 
 In the meantime Tommy had conducted a 
 quiet reconnoitering expedition of his own. The 
 ladies' parlor of the Marlborough lay just be- 
 hind the main lobby. In that two-story, board- 
 and-shingle structure, already gaping at the 
 
 [641
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 joints with the warping of its hastily sawn, un- 
 seasoned timbers, this little apartment had been 
 laid out as one of the ground-floor bedrooms. 
 John W. Sabin had ruled, however, that pend- 
 ing the arrival of the railroad and the erection 
 of a modern brick hotel, the temporary Marl- 
 borough should have "all the dog there is"; 
 hence the ladies' parlor, where such real ladies 
 as visited the camp, before its transformation 
 into a metropolis and the state capital, could 
 receive their guests in conventionality and state. 
 In its decorations this apartment had been 
 especially favored. It had a Brussels carpet. 
 Sometimes when the weather was fresh the 
 mountain wind came through the warping ill- 
 matched boards of the floor and bulged out this 
 piece of decoration like a sail at sea. A set of 
 white Nottingham curtains, very stiffly starched 
 though by now a little dusty, filtered away the 
 more garish mountain light from the three 
 gilded chairs finished off by bows of pink rib- 
 bon. There were two sofas. One was of plain 
 black haircloth, the other, gilded like the chairs, 
 was upholstered in pink-and-gold rep as tightly 
 as a pincushion, so that it seemed always about 
 
 [65]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 to burst off its gilded buttons. Down upon this 
 scene looked a chromo of Ouster 's Last Charge, 
 set in a heavy gilt frame, covered against the 
 flies with white mosquito netting. Adding their 
 touch of feminine refinement and sentiment were 
 two matched colored engravings of childish inno- 
 cence, entitled Wide Awake and Fast Asleep. 
 A walnut center table, its heavy red-and-brown 
 cloth dropping little wool balls, held a stere- 
 opticon with views of the Rockies and a gilt- 
 edged book entitled Museum of Antiquity. In 
 the corner stood a base-burner stove, now cold, 
 trimmed with nickel most elegantly sculptured, 
 topped with a bronze knight in full armor. 
 
 Tommy, scouting out the approaches like a 
 good frontiersman, observed that the back stair- 
 way communicated with that hallway from 
 which opened the ladies' parlor. He shrewdly 
 guessed that his lady of the columbines would 
 avoid publicity by taking that route. So he 
 established himself in the lobby, where he 
 loafed away an interminable half hour, until 
 Mrs. Bates crossed the space between the main 
 stairway and the front door and disappeared. 
 For another eternal interval at least three 
 
 [66]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 minutes he restrained himself, then quietly 
 crossed the lobby, sidled through the rear en- 
 trance and furtively took his way past the open 
 door of the ladies' parlor. 
 
 He was not disappointed. The full beam from 
 the reflector of an oil lamp in the hall made 
 lights on the sheen of her black hair. She sat 
 on the gilded sofa, fully revealed in the spot- 
 light of the reflector sat with her hands folded 
 on the paper-covered novel in her lap. She was 
 wearing something which made him feel that 
 she was clad in spun sugar candy; a woman 
 would have described it as a dotted-Swiss mull 
 with salmon trimmings and sash. She was not 
 reading ; her eyes met his frankly. He had been 
 trying to hit upon some device for invading her 
 privacy, had mixed up his mind between six or 
 seven inventions, and found himself at this, the 
 moment of action, tongue-tied. So without a 
 word he entered, did it as simply and naturally 
 as though he had come by appointment. He 
 stood at the height of his full five feet eleven, 
 looking down on her with eyes soft yet intent. 
 And an expression he did not at the moment 
 fathom flicked across her dark eyes. It held a 
 
 [67]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 suggestion of fear, a shade of panic. Then she 
 dropped her gaze. 
 
 "Sit down," she said; and her voice was very 
 low. 
 
 Tommy let himself down delicately on one of 
 the frail, gilded, beribboned chairs, as though 
 he expected it to break beneath him. To his 
 surprise, it held. When she spoke again her 
 voice rang with its natural music. 
 
 * ' Tell me about yourself ! ' ' she ordered. 
 
 "Well," replied Tommy, "I guess I told you 
 this afternoon about all there was to tell. Cow- 
 punching, freighting, and now grubstaking " 
 
 "Not that," she said with a pretty little out- 
 ward gesture of her hand; "though I'm sure 
 you could tell me of some wonderful adventures. 
 But what you want to do what you'd like to 
 be!" 
 
 The life into which she was inquiring had 
 been passed not in contemplation and self- 
 analysis but in action ; and Tommy hesitated on 
 his answer. 
 
 "Well, ' ' he said, ' ' I guess I 'd like to make my 
 stake, of course and the Big Hope is a likely 
 prospect. And then I 'd fix up mother she lives 
 
 [68]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 with my married sister in Iowa and then I 
 guess I 'd like to travel, see the East and Europe. 
 But I wouldn't want to stay in the East," he 
 added hastily. * ' Out here growing up with the 
 country is good enough for me. ' ' 
 
 "I like that in you," she said, turning the sub- 
 ject unaccountably. "It must be wonderful to 
 be free to go where you wish to have no 
 bonds ! ' ' 
 
 She had leaned forward with the intensity of 
 some new sudden emotion, clasped her slender 
 hands in her lap. 
 
 "Yes, I suppose I can do pretty much as I 
 want," said Tommy; then, perceiving somehow 
 that he was on the wrong track, he spoke with 
 his own simple directness: "Aren't you free?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Is a woman ever free?" she countered. 
 "Oh, it would be wonderful," she went on, "to 
 burst these bonds, to live out here where I was 
 born simply. Do you know what I was think- 
 ing to-night ? I envied the little waitress at our 
 table. She is working for a living. She is doing 
 as she pleases so far as woman ever does." 
 She stopped here. 
 
 [69]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 what is holding you?" said Tommy 
 with his own simple directness. ' * Can I help 1 ' ' 
 
 "I'm afraid no one can help," she said, "but 
 it's good of you to offer. There now, I've said 
 enough about myself. Tell me about your days 
 as a cowboy. I don't know anything about the 
 cattle range. Were you ever in a stampede I ' ' 
 
 Her expression, her pose, were animated 
 again. And Tommy, with that sense of direct 
 vivid narrative universal in the old West, 
 plunged at once into the tale of the time when 
 a thunderclap set 'em off in the White River 
 country. But as the tale proceeded toward its 
 climax wherein he was caught in a rocky gut, 
 with the cattle piling up against him and his 
 bronco he began to run down and to lose in- 
 terest from lack of interest on the part of his 
 auditor. The light had been gradually going 
 from her eyes. Now they met his no more; 
 they searched the shadows under the oil lamp 
 in the hall. He stopped his narrative abruptly. 
 
 "Say, is there anything I can do to help 
 you?" he interrupted himself. "Anything?" 
 He repeated this last word with all the emphasis 
 he could command. 
 
 [70]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 She rose at this, the cloud of gathered muslin 
 above her bustle seeming to whisper daintiness 
 as she went to the window, parted the lace cur- 
 tains and looked out on the scattered lights dot- 
 ting the twilight. He rose, too, and was begin- 
 ning as though drawn by a magnet a step toward 
 her when she turned back, seated herself with 
 the pretty rustling and nutter of a full branch 
 settling in the wind. But he remained for a 
 time standing. 
 
 "To think," she said, "that I've known you 
 less than a day and I am talking to you like 
 this. It 's a proof of my desperation, I suppose. 
 What right have I?" 
 
 * ' You Ve got every right there is, ' ' said he. 
 
 And he might have said more had she not cut 
 in immediately with: "No one has a right to 
 thrust his troubles on a stranger." 
 
 "I wonder if we are strangers," he said. 
 
 "I wonder," said she. But the light glance 
 with which she said this lasted only a moment, 
 and again the shade fell upon her expression. 
 "Suppose," she said, low and deliberately, 
 "that I told you that in this next week and I 
 shall be in Carbonado only a week I am going
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 to face the climax of my life a very hopeless 
 climax too. For there is only one way out, I 
 imagine. ' ' 
 
 " There are always two ways out of every- 
 thing." 
 
 "Yes, one can always kill herself." 
 
 "You don't mean that!" 
 
 "No, of course I don't mean that. It's one 
 of the things you just think about and don 't do. 
 I hope I'm not a coward. I can face it, and 
 when it's done people will say I'm lucky." 
 
 Tommy cleared his throat inelegantly before 
 he clove nearer to the heart of the subject. 
 
 "It's a case of of thinking about getting 
 married, I guess." 
 
 "You have wonderful intuitions, don't you? 
 Yes, and if I could only do it of my own free 
 choice! If I could say I will sacrifice myself 
 because it is my duty ! But to be told I must ! ' ' 
 
 The idea that flashed into Tommy's sudden 
 young Western mind at that moment was so 
 overwhelming in its daring, its rapture and its 
 perils that it sent the blood rushing to his head, 
 blinded his vision, tied his tongue. Before he 
 could give it any more expression than showed 
 
 [72]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 in his countenance the girl's own countenance 
 had changed. Some panic, some dart of fear, 
 had opened her lips so that her white teeth 
 flashed in the lamplight, had widened her eyes. 
 And she rose as easily and as swiftly as a bird 
 taking flight. 
 
 "I must go!" she said. "Even this is dis- 
 obedient. No one ever uses that word 'obedient' 
 to you but I " She gathered up her book. 
 
 But Tommy, though he had lost the moment 
 of splendid action, retained a little of the bold- 
 ness that had so suddenly ebbed and flowed over 
 his spirit. 
 
 "When shall I see you again?" he asked, tak- 
 ing a step nearer. She retreated her own step 
 before answering. 
 
 "I don't know. Every moment to-morrow is 
 taken up I live my life by a program I'm 
 watched all the time perhaps the opportunity 
 will come " 
 
 "I want to help," he said. "Fve got to help. 
 I- -" 
 
 But whatever words he was going to say 
 were drowned by her interrupting, * ' Thank you 
 oh, thank you ! ' ' 
 
 [73]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 And she was gone, leaving a faint, indefinably 
 delicious fragrance to flavor the scent of new- 
 sawn pine given forth by the Marlborough 's 
 unseasoned timbers. 
 
 [74]
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 ACTION is the remedy for all sickness of 
 the spirit in youth. To Tommy, moon- 
 ing alone next evening in the Arizona 
 House after a day blessed by no more than a 
 glimpse at his lady of the columbines, action 
 arrived on the wings of salvation. The bell in 
 the new pine steeple of the Methodist Church 
 suddenly began to peal, not dolefully as for 
 services, but with the quick staccato rhythm of 
 a tocsin. This, the only bell in camp, hauled 
 over the peaks by ten mules, installed with ap- 
 propriate ceremony, did double duty as a fire 
 alarm. 
 
 The Arizona House voided itself instantly 
 to Main Street. Down toward the hill a blaze of 
 garish light spotted the dead blackness of a 
 moonless mountain sky. It illuminated the bob- 
 bing heads of all Carbonado, pouring out from 
 whatever diversion it was pursuing, to join in 
 the excitement. Spruce gamblers in black hats 
 ran beside miners in blue overalls; women 
 
 [75]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 dressed in the modesty of bonnet, shawl and 
 mantle beside women in short pink skirts or 
 in Mother Hubbard wrappers. 
 
 Tommy, sprinting forward ahead of the 
 crowd, heard someone calling, "It's Sipple's 
 store ! ' ' This, he reflected as he ran, would be 
 a big loss to the camp; Sipple's, painfully 
 stocked by freight wagon, was the one dry-goods 
 store as well as the great general grocery for 
 Carbonado. 
 
 "It's next to Sipple's!" came another voice. 
 At that moment he was aware of a gong clamor- 
 ing behind him, and stopped to watch the ma- 
 jestic, exciting passage of John W. Sabin Hose 
 No. 1. It was as yet a hose team only by 
 interpretation of hope. The town was waiting 
 the arrival of the railroad to put in its long- 
 projected water mains. For the present tank 
 wagons plied between Bear Creek and the camp, 
 doling out domestic supplies into whisky bar- 
 rels. But, omitting the hose, the outfit was 
 complete ; John W. Sabin had seen to that. The 
 eight-man team sprinted in red leather helmets 
 and red shirts, Sandy McNutt, champion runner 
 of the camp, loping on before. The nozzleman, 
 
 [76]
 
 M 
 
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 RJ 
 
 O 
 
 CO v 
 
 . -S 
 
 ID 
 
 jg (B 
 
 o O 
 
 5 
 
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 S B 
 
 ii 
 

 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 running in good order behind the outfit, had as 
 yet no machinery for plying his art ; he was con- 
 cerning himself with keeping the leather buckets 
 on their hooks and in dodging the water which 
 slopped from the barrel occupying that place 
 where a reel of hose was some day to stand. 
 
 Beside the team ran John W. Sabin himself, 
 puffing stertorously, but making a fine effort for 
 a middle-aged man. He had not found time to 
 put on a red shirt, but he wore the splendid red- 
 and-gold helmet of authority, and he waved a 
 bronze speaking trumpet. Like outriders ran 
 Jim Dugald, city marshal, and two deputies, 
 their black, corded Gr. A. R. hats marking their 
 authority. They were waving their formidable 
 forty-five-caliber revolvers as a warning to all 
 and sundry who would interfere with the fire 
 department. 
 
 Tommy did not wait to see the passage of 
 the distanced John W. Sabin Hook and Ladder 
 No. 2, whose gong was sounding far down the 
 street. He fell in beside the hose company, 
 sprinting with them. He could see the situation 
 now. Three cabins, only a vacant lot away 
 from Sipple 's, were roaring furnaces. Another 
 
 [77]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 just beyond was breaking into flames. The 
 crowd before the fire fell open at the clang of the 
 gong and the menacing shouts of Jim Dugald; 
 the hose team curved to a graceful stop, and its 
 puffing steeds set themselves to unstrip 
 buckets. 
 
 "You can't save them cabins," roared John 
 W. Sabin. "Wind's shifting bucket chain, 
 boys, and rustle ! Root hog or die ! ' ' 
 
 The hook and ladder had now curved into 
 position. As John W. Sabin said, the wind was 
 shifting. Sparks began to batter upon the dry 
 inflammable clapboards of the big store. Up 
 went the ladders; up clambered the bucket 
 chain. A shout from the crowd hailed the ar- 
 rival of a water wagon, another that of an 
 express wagon laden with two slopping whiskey 
 barrels. 
 
 John W. Sabin mounted the lowest rung of a 
 ladder. 
 
 "Water all the water ye can git!" he 
 bellowed through his speaking trumpet at the 
 crowd. In buckets, in more whisky barrels, in 
 pans, the water began to arrive. 
 
 The red-hatted firemen monopolized the posi- 
 
 [78]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 tions on the ladders and roof and at the win- 
 dows of Sipple's store. Certain plain citizens 
 not in uniform rushed forward to help; they 
 were driven back by the menace and majesty of 
 Marshal Jim Dugald, established at the foot of 
 the ladder. Tommy, who had been among these, 
 joined a group of plain ununiformed miners 
 filling and passing buckets from the whisky bar- 
 rels, and set violently to work. As they puffed, 
 grunted and wielded buckets the miners gos- 
 siped among themselves. 
 
 "Started in Old Calamity's cabin, I hear," 
 said one of them. ' * He was biled proper before 
 supper. Bet he kicked over his coal-oil lamp." 
 
 "Jest as well shet of him," commented an- 
 other. Then he paused, his bucket poised at the 
 edge of the whisky barrel. "Say, did he git 
 out? Has anybody seen Old Calamity?" 
 
 "Bet you he didn't," said Tommy, thrilled by 
 the prospect of action, and already bored with 
 passing buckets. "Let's look!" 
 
 Forthwith that squad dropped buckets and 
 pans, to be replaced by eager volunteers from 
 the crowd. Tommy, sprinting out before, 
 rounded the burning cabins, the middle one in 
 
 [79]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 the group of three now fallen to a bright fur- 
 nace. The shift of wind, which was blowing 
 sparks in showers against Sipple's store, made 
 them approachable from the rear. Tommy 
 vaulted the palisade fence, still unburned, which 
 set off the yard of the cabin at the right, ap- 
 proached as near as the heat allowed. Cer- 
 tainly, he reflected, if that notorious town drunk- 
 ard, Old Calamity so called because of his loud 
 pessimism when drunk were in there now, it 
 was an end of him. 
 
 Tommy by now had lost his companions ; he 
 was turning back to find them when he nearly 
 stumbled over what appeared like a bundle of 
 rags against the fence. A rising spurt of the 
 flame revealed the bloated unshaven face and 
 bald head of Old Calamity, lying inert. Tommy 
 stooped down. It was impossible, what with 
 the crackling of the fires and the roar of the 
 crowd, to find if he were still breathing, but 
 something about the feeling of him told Tom- 
 my's intuitions that he was alive. 
 
 Just then the cutting, uncertain wind of the 
 peaks veered again; sparks preceded by chok- 
 ing smoke began to blow in his direction. Where- 
 
 [80]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 upon Tommy kicked open the door of the pali- 
 sade fence, gathered in his arms the unsavory 
 upper parts of Old Calamity, and half carried, 
 half dragged him round the fire toward the 
 crowd, where someone more expert on smoke 
 asphyxiation than he might attend to the case. 
 As he made his last turn the wind gave another 
 whirl and shift. Smoke and sparks blew across 
 his course for a moment, so that he emerged 
 coughing. 
 
 In the meantime, Mrs. Bates and her daugh- 
 ter had been dining with John W. Sabin at the 
 newly opened Maison Biche Restaurant, on Main 
 Street dining in exceptional state and luxury. 
 A wagonload of canned cove oysters had arrived 
 in camp that afternoon; the first fruits of this 
 consignment came to John W.'s special table. 
 Moreover, Steinlen, the butcher, had just cut 
 up a cinnamon bear, killed a day before at Cop- 
 per Lake. The choicest steaks had been sent 
 to John W. with Mr. Steinlen 's compliments. 
 Finishing off this luxurious feast was cherry 
 pie, made, as John "W. particularly explained, 
 not from canned cherries but from a box of fresh 
 
 [81]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 ones the genuine California product the first 
 ever to arrive in camp. 
 
 They were lingering over the cherry pie 
 when the stern tocsin of the Methodist Church 
 sounded the alarm. 
 
 Waiting only to assure the ladies that he 
 would see them after the fire was out, and to 
 put them in the care of Bill Duffy, the pro- 
 prietor, John W. Sabin had sped to the fire- 
 house and action. But every moment the clamor 
 grew louder and louder, the shuffling, trampling 
 feet outside sounded a more rapid beat. 
 
 An excited voice from the crowd came in at 
 the open door, where the waiters were gath- 
 ered : ' * The hull camp 's goin ' ! " 
 
 At this Mrs. Bates could restrain her human 
 curiosity no longer. 
 
 "Come on, Nellie!" she said, and reached for 
 her mantle. 
 
 They would have been blocked by the crowd 
 a hundred yards away had not Deputy Marshal 
 Simpson spied them. He was thinning out the 
 rear ranks, and he was not unaware of the favor 
 of these two in the eyes of John W. Sabin. He 
 took them in hand, cleared majestically a way 
 
 [82]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 for them, set them in the front ranks as near the 
 smoke and flame as safety allowed, and just 
 where they could behold the expert work of the 
 fire companies. Being only a male man, with 
 the gallantry but also the stupid inconsiderate- 
 ness of that species, he failed to notice their 
 environment. He had dropped them down, in 
 fact, near a group of three other women, hat- 
 less, painted, the youngest in pink skirts, high- 
 heeled pink shoes and very low corsage; the 
 others in shawls thrown over fat shoulders and 
 Mother Hubbard wrappers. At the moment 
 they were silent, watching fire and firemen with 
 eyes that showed hard amusement. However, 
 Mrs. Bates being experienced in mining camps, 
 found herself dreading the time when conversa- 
 tion should begin. 
 
 * ' This way, dear, ' ' she began, and was already 
 edging her charge out from the forefront of the 
 crowd when a louder clamor of voices heralded 
 a new excitement. 
 
 The two ladies turned toward that point indi- 
 cated by all eyes and gestures. And this is 
 what they saw : Out of the smoke screen before 
 them staggered a man, young and stalwart, as
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 his motion showed. He was carrying in his 
 arms another man, whose feet dragged and 
 bumped as they proceeded, whose head lolled 
 weakly, inertly, against his shoulder. He 
 seemed, as he emerged into view, to stagger with 
 the weight, and he emitted a choking cough. At 
 a point not ten yards away from the little 
 pointed feet of the Bates ladies he stopped as 
 though exhausted, dropped his man, who flopped 
 like a half -filled sack, and stood coughing vio- 
 lently again. That was the affair as the crowd 
 saw it, including Nellie Bates. At the moment 
 when the young rescuer stood erect and faced 
 them she emitted a little * ' Oh " which had more 
 in it than fright and surprise. Her mother 
 turned quickly upon her. 
 
 1 ' It's all right, Nellie"; and then: "Oh, the 
 ninnies ! ' ' For the crowd, having taken in this 
 tableau, was running toward the group so dra- 
 matically outlined against the flames, was press- 
 ing and shoving so that the ladies involuntarily 
 went forward. But almost as soon John W. 
 Sabin was on the scene ; he and Jim Dugald, the 
 law in Carbonado, had pushed a way and were 
 
 [8 4 ]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 yelling in commanding tones, ' ' Get back all of 
 you get back ! ' ' 
 
 The crowd gave way. 
 
 "Is there a doctor present?" came in John 
 W.'s stentorian tones from the speaking 
 trumpet. 
 
 No answer for a moment, then shouts for 
 Doctor Jones; then a voice bawling, "I seen 
 him start for Pine Gulch!" 
 
 1 1 Never mind a doctor I know what to do, ' ' 
 said a confident feminine voice at the elbow of 
 John W. Sabin. He turned, to behold Mrs. 
 Bates, who had already thrown off her mantle, 
 was tossing it and her long gloves to Nellie. 
 She leaned over Old Calamity, John W. and 
 Jim Dugald pushing, commanding, threatening 
 the crowd back from her. By this time John 
 W. was plainly second in command ; Mrs. Bates 
 somehow dominated the drama. With surpris- 
 ing deftness she turned the victim over on his 
 back. 
 
 "That's right," she said as she worked; 
 "keep 'em off us and give him air." 
 She felt for the pulse of the inert Old Calam- 
 
 [85]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 ity; she knelt down and applied an ear to his 
 chest. 
 
 1 1 Still going, ' ' she announced briefly to John 
 W. Sabin, who, leaving Jim to hold back the 
 space they had won, now stepped up and leaned 
 over beside her. "Does this man drink I" 
 
 ' ' Like a fish. Like ' ' began John W. 
 
 "Thought so, the way he smells," said Mrs. 
 Bates. "No telling if it's smoke that's troub- 
 ling him or just plain drunk. But he's alive. 
 Well, we'll take no chances with smoke. Two 
 of you that man there, and that man come 
 here. Boll him on his face that 's right. Now 
 you lift his shoulders and I'll press." 
 
 In the meantime he who had been but a min- 
 ute before the central figure of the occasion 
 stood to one side, watching not the drama on 
 the ground but Nellie, who stood behind her 
 mother dutifully holding the mantle and gloves. 
 And she was not looking at her mother, but on 
 him. They approached each other as they 
 looked, walking with slow, unconscious steps as 
 sleepwalkers move on the stage. They were 
 close, and face to face now; and just then the 
 crowd, having recovered from its awe of the 
 
 [86]
 
 Without Effort of His Will for Will Had Nothing 
 to Do With it His Arm Went Round Her
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 village magnate and the minion of the law, gave 
 a thrust forward, coming between them and the 
 group on the ground. Unresisting, they were 
 forced still farther and farther back. He had 
 caught her under the arm, supporting her 
 against this rough jostling. As the outskirts 
 of the crowd, composed of the very young and 
 excited, pushed past them, he found her shrink- 
 ing close to him. 
 
 Without effort of his will for will had noth- 
 ing to do with it his arm went round her. So 
 they found themselves on that side of Sipple's 
 store which stood out of danger, and about 
 which the blaze threw a black shadow. Now, 
 his arm still supporting her, she looked up at 
 him in the shadow. 
 
 "Oh, are you hurt?" she asked in a tender 
 whisper. ' * You coughed so ! " 
 
 "Not a bit," he managed to say through the 
 panting of his breath and the beating of his 
 heart. "It wasn't anything just carried him 
 round the house." 
 
 "Nothing?" she said, very low and sweet. 
 "Nothing to break through the flames and res- 
 cue an old man? Heroes are always modest." 
 
 [87]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 He was going to tell her the truth, such being 
 his instinct at all times. If he did not it was 
 because a thing most unaccountable happened 
 to him, so that all the rest of his life he was 
 to marvel at it. The little truth he was going 
 to tell surged and merged into a greater truth 
 into truth universal, wherein soul holds back 
 nothing from soul. For the swift beating in 
 his blood had risen to an unbearable speed ; his 
 vision swam in red ; and a very ecstasy of daring 
 made a kind of brilliant warmth in all his being. 
 
 "God I love you how I love you I love 
 you ! ' ' 
 
 And with this explosion the hot flood in his 
 veins seemed to recede, to end as suddenly as 
 it had begun. Into its place began to creep a 
 chilling sense that he had spoiled everything 
 Yet she, half supporting herself on his arm, did 
 not withdraw herself, did not even sway back- 
 ward from him. 
 
 And now she spoke on the intake of a long 
 sigh : ' * Then kiss me, my hero kiss me ! " 
 
 They came presently out of the shadows, 
 flushed and with downcast looks; she, indeed, 
 controlling a quivering of all her limbs, he with 
 
 [88]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 eyes that seemed to have looked on miracles. 
 For no sooner had they kissed than she had 
 drawn back, saying, "People must not find us 
 this way. ' ' But they had kissed again and mur- 
 mured wild nothings before they came out into 
 the light. 
 
 The burning cabins had settled down now 
 from a pink glow to a deep red. The firemen, 
 having wet down the roof and the exposed side 
 of Sipple 's store, were simply killing occasional 
 sparks. The crowd, its first excitement passed, 
 was fast thinning out and returning to the vari- 
 ous lurid diversions of night life. But one group 
 remained, clustered about Sam Haney's express 
 wagon. John W. Sabin, his chief's hat on the 
 back of his head, was helping Jim Dugald to de- 
 posit Old Calamity in the wagon bed. Mrs. 
 Bates, still plainly in command of the operation, 
 was covering him with gunny sacks which Sam 
 Haney employed to keep boxes from bump- 
 ing, was tucking him in with a touch almost 
 motherly. 
 
 " There roll him into a bunk and let him 
 sleep it off," she was saying. "It was mostly 
 plain, paralyzed drunk, I'm certain of that, but 
 
 [89]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 maybe he took aboard a little smoke. Where's 
 Nellie? Oh, yes, one of you lay for the doctor 
 and have him look this drunk over when he gets 
 back. His heart's working all right, but you 
 can't make too certain." 
 
 Nellie was so far away at this moment that 
 she could not hear her mother 's call, but she did 
 see the raising of the figure, the turn of the head 
 and the gesture that accompanied it. 
 
 "I must go now dear dearest columbine 
 boy!" she whispered. 
 
 He was controlling his voice to ask when he 
 might see her again; but she anticipated that. 
 
 "Come to the Firemen's Ball to-morrow 
 night," she said. "Remember, I will save you 
 dances good night, love!" 
 
 He watched her tripping at a run through the 
 flickering shadows, seeming to move as lightly 
 and as mystically as they. The express wagon 
 was just rumbling away when she reached her 
 mother's side. 
 
 "Well, wherever have you been, Nellie?" 
 she asked a little sharply; and then her tone 
 softened as John W. Sabin turned toward her. 
 "Give me my mantle, dear! Br-r! These nights 
 
 [90]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 are chilly! I've got to go back to the hotel, Mr. 
 Sabin, and clean up. My hands smell like a 
 saloon. ' ' 
 
 John W. Sabin regarded the young girl with 
 a smile that softened the outlines of his sea-lion 
 mustache, the cinder-blackened creases of his 
 face. 
 
 "I'll tell you one thing, Miss Nellie Bates," 
 he said, "you've got a mother to be proud of! 
 For a cinch you have. A natural-born doctor, 
 that's what she is. Never saw anything 
 handled better." 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. Bates modestly as she 
 settled into her mantle and patted to place a 
 strayed friz of her black hair, ' ' I ought to know 
 how to handle drunks. Had enough exper- 
 ience. ' ' She stopped there, as though reflecting 
 that others were listening, and that she was 
 marring her picture of the perfect lady in a 
 rough camp. "If you'll accompany us to the 
 hotel, Mr. Sabin, ' ' she added, falling back grace- 
 fully into the pose, "we'll rejoin you after I've 
 made myself tidy. ' ' 
 
 As they passed down the street Nellie fell a 
 little behind her mother and searched with her
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 eyes. He was still standing where she had left 
 him. For an instant a flash of the dying flame 
 lit up his face. He was watching her, seeming 
 to look over the head of a little man who stood 
 writing on a paper pad. The light died out and 
 she dared no longer look back. 
 
 Tommy was, in fact, sustaining for the first 
 time in his life the annoyance of being inter- 
 viewed for the public press. Solly Watrous, 
 city editor and entire reportorial corps for the 
 Carbonado Clarion, had been yearning for a new 
 local sensation. Murders had become too trag- 
 ically common. Though he splashed their gory 
 details all over his front page he did it by now 
 perfunctorily. As for holdups, they were so 
 many and so much alike in detail that he lumped 
 them off in one-line items under the heading 
 The Footpad Becord. The lynching a month 
 before had given some play to his art; since 
 then nothing had happened so promising as 
 this fire and the dazzling rescue, which he had 
 seen with his own eyes. Waiting only to assure 
 himself that Old Calamity was going to pull 
 through, and to make notes on the work of Mrs. 
 Bates, he had started a search for the unknown 
 
 [92!
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 hero, whom presently he found standing in the 
 shadow of Sipple 's regarding the dying fire. 
 
 "I want your name and address, young 
 fellow, ' ' he said, poising a pencil above a wad 
 of folded paper. * ' You 're the man who rescued 
 Old Calamity." 
 
 "I didn't do anything special," said Tommy 
 rather absently, for his eyes were wandering 
 ever the head of Solly Watrous to the group 
 round the express wagon. 
 
 1 'Fine!" said Solly, making notes furiously. 
 "It's your play to say that. How did you get 
 to him? Beat in the flaming back door? And 
 did you remember that the way to get through 
 a fire is to crawl close to the ground ? ' ' 
 
 For the second time in ten minutes Tommy 
 walked up close to the truth, and then walked 
 away. The passage of the emotional storm 
 within him, the arrival of a great unexpected 
 happiness, had left a furious mental whirl, 
 wherein he could think of nothing clearly and 
 consecutively. It flashed into his mind that he 
 had let her believe this, that he would be some- 
 how disloyal to her if he told the truth first to 
 anyone else. 
 
 [931
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 "Yes sort of," he faltered, feeling that he 
 must say something. 
 
 "Where did you find him? On his bunk?" 
 asked Solly. This was just the moment when 
 Mr. Sabin and the Bates ladies passed, when 
 Tommy and Nellie exchanged glances. So 
 Tommy had not even heard the question. 
 Solly repeated it. 
 
 "I s'pose so," replied Tommy abstractedly. 
 
 "Found him on his bunk, overcome with the 
 smoke which presaged the hellish flames," 
 wrote Solly, giving play to his art even while 
 taking notes. * ' Hero seemed dazed, ' ' he jotted 
 down as an afterthought. "And I suppose you 
 paused even then to put your hand over his 
 heart and ascertain if rescue was too late I" 
 
 "Well, I knew he was alive," faltered 
 Tommy. 
 
 "All right, "said Solly. "Fine! Now what's 
 your name and your job ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' Thomas J. Coulter, ' ' said Tommy. " I I 
 work for a mine." 
 
 Suddenly the realization of what this was all 
 about struck him, chilled him to the bone. 
 
 "Say, what are you doing?" he asked, wak- 
 
 [94]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 ing up at last from the love trance. 
 aren't going to put this stuff in the papers, are 
 you?" 
 
 "Cert I am!" replied Solly, rapidly jotting 
 down: "Hero maintained modest attitude to 
 the end. ' ' 
 
 "But I didn't do anything!" Tommy per- 
 sisted. 
 
 "Course you didn't!" said Solly; and 
 snapping his wad of paper into his pocket he 
 sped away to the office that he might write the 
 story before it grew cold. 
 
 Peeling off his coat and turning up the oil 
 lamp he brushed a space among the loose ex- 
 changes on his desk, weighted down their 
 fluttering leaves with his trusty forty-five- 
 caliber rebuttal of libel charges, and let his 
 pencil fly. Solly had been trained as a cub on 
 the old New York Herald of James Gordon 
 Bennett, father of interviewing, and prided 
 himself on keeping to the sound traditions of 
 that school. From an introduction which ran 
 the whole spectrum of highly colored adjectives 
 he passed gracefully into the question-and- 
 answer method; whereof here is a sample:
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 "Q. How did you make an entrance to the 
 holocaust ? 
 
 "A. I did nothing. 
 
 "Q. Your modesty is to your credit. The 
 members of John W. Sabin Hose No. 1, who be- 
 held the daring rescue, know better. 
 
 "A. Well, then, I thrust my foot against 
 the back door, which I had found locked. It 
 yielded to my emphatic pressure " 
 
 Having finished and put the conventional 
 "30" at the bottom of the page, Solly wiped 
 the perspiration of inspiration from his brow 
 and set himself to compose headlines. In his 
 literary style Solly was a disciple of the old 
 New York Herald ; but he modeled his heads on 
 the famous one-line alliterative thrillers of the 
 contemporary Cincinnati Enquirer. And he 
 brought forth as follows : 
 
 BURST 
 THROUGH BURNING BUILDING 
 
 MAIN STREET MOB WITNESSES 
 DARING DEED 
 
 FIRST FIRE RESCUE IN 
 CARBONADO CAMP 
 
 [96]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 MODEST MINER SAVES PROMINENT 
 
 CITIZEN FROM CERTAIN AND HORRIBLE DEATH 
 
 AND ATTEMPTS TO DENY VALIANT ACT 
 
 Conflagration Consumes 
 Four Main-Street Residences 
 
 Sipple's Store 
 
 Saved by Brave Effort 
 
 of Fire Department and its 
 
 Heroic Chief 
 
 Nervously exhausted by now, Solley filed this, 
 his masterpiece, where the foreman would get 
 it for his first take in the morning, and strolled 
 over to renew his forces at the Arizona House. 
 
 [97]
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THAT day of the Firemen's Ball, Tommy 
 was to see his lady of the columbines and 
 of miracles only at breakfast. She 
 entered the dining room, lagging a little behind 
 her mother, and threw him one glance full of 
 softness and meaning, the while Mrs. Bates 
 bowed distantly. During breakfast she twice 
 looked in his direction when her mother's 
 attention was distracted. The second time her 
 lips pursed up lightly for an instant. 
 
 To anyone but Tommy, watching it would 
 have seemed merely an accidental expression. 
 But he knew it for what it was the ghost of 
 that kiss, the first she had ever given in love to 
 man, and which had been all a sleepless night 
 dying on his own lips a rapturous, lingering 
 death. She passed again ; and some instinct told 
 him he was not to see her at dinner. In fact that 
 was the day chosen by John W. Sabin for the 
 delayed visit of his guests to Sacramento Hill 
 and the mines. 
 
 [98]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 Having nothing else to do Tommy strolled 
 over to the Arizona House ; and there the situa- 
 tion which life had thrust upon him struck him 
 squarely in the face. From the gambling hall 
 next door, by night ringing with the clatter of 
 chips, the whir of the roulette wheel, the 
 monotone of the dealer and the babble of a 
 hundred excited voices, came now only a clatter 
 and swishing made by the porter in the act of 
 scrubbing out. The barroom was deserted 
 except for Mike the bartender and two pros- 
 pectors, lately returned from a small strike and 
 taking their vacation among the delights of 
 Main Street. 
 
 "Well, young fellow!" said Mike, who had 
 hitherto paid Tommy only perfunctory atten- 
 tion, ' ' you look fine for a man who went through 
 what you did last night. I hear Old Calamity 
 is all right again this morning. I guess he was 
 smoked an ' biled both ! ' ' 
 
 One of the two prospectors took a compara- 
 tively straight course from the bar to Tommy. 
 
 "Lemme shake your hand," he said a little 
 thickly. "I seen it. H'roic act. Jest went 
 straight to it an' done it like that!" He swung 
 
 [99]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 his hardened palm at Tommy's hand, missed it, 
 and swung again. 
 
 In fact Solly Watrous had spent most of the 
 night in the Arizona House. His glow of 
 artistic creation had not yet burned out; his 
 story still absorbed all his thoughts. The more 
 he drank, the more loudly he proclaimed to all 
 who would listen the remarkable nature of the 
 event which the camp had just witnessed. 
 
 "A regular heroic fire rescue!" he said. 
 "Thing you don't see one time in a million 
 fires ! ' ' 
 
 Mike the bartender and one or two regular 
 habitues of the Arizona House recognized the 
 hero from description as a young man who had 
 been mooning round the barroom for the past 
 few days. Truth to tell, no one had thought of 
 the event at the time as anything very unusual 
 in a region where man daily staked his like 
 against other men or against the cruel forces of 
 Nature. It took the golden tongue of Solly 
 Watrous, well oiled with red-eye whisky, to 
 make them see that it was remarkable. 
 
 Before the prospector had finished wringing 
 Tommy's hand, Sandy McNutt, captain of John 
 
 [100]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 W. Sabin Hose No. 1, thrust his neat and elegant 
 figure into the barroom for the purpose of 
 getting his morning fortification after a night 
 spent in too much public service and dalliance, 
 against a lively day in the real estate and insur- 
 ance business. 
 
 "That's him," said Mike the bartender, 
 indicating Tommy with a jerk of his head as he 
 poured the libation ' * the young fellow that 
 done it. ' ' 
 
 Sandy left his drink untasted, crossed to 
 Tommy and slapped him on the back before 
 offering his hand. "I'm the captain of Hose 
 No. 1," said Sandy, " and I want to tell you 
 that you made suckers of us all last night. Say, 
 you're a born fireman, you are! Saved my 
 reputation, you did. If anybody 'd got burned 
 up in that fire and no attempt at rescue, the 
 buck would have been passed to me for a 
 cinch ! ' ' 
 
 "I didn't do anything," faltered Tommy. 
 
 "It's your play to say that," replied Sandy. 
 ' * Say, can you run ? Don 't matter whether you 
 can or not, you Ve got to join us, honorary mem- 
 bership if nothing else. Why didn't you stick 
 
 [101]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 round last night? Everybody was looking for 
 you. Anyhow you're coming to the Firemen's 
 Ball in Masonic Hall to-night. Sure you are. 
 Have a drink ! ' ' 
 
 Tommy, accepting chose beer; and as he 
 drank, a little perplexity which had been 
 clouding his mind all day suddenly blew away. 
 He had been wondering vaguely how he was to 
 fulfill the first command laid upon him by the 
 mistress of his soul and get to the Firemen's 
 Ball. It was, he knew, a very select and private 
 occasion. The women in camp stood on two 
 separate sides of a distinct line. All those on 
 the brighter side would be invited to the Fire- 
 men's Ball. For the men, invitation was 
 limited to the members of the hose and hook 
 and ladder companies, what Solly Watrous 
 called the prominent business men, and great 
 persons like John W. Sabin. Here life had 
 dropped the grail of his quest into his lap . 
 
 By now his shame at accepting a crown he 
 had not earned was growing a little dimmer. 
 It troubled him less and less as the day 
 wore on and public adulation continued to 
 shower him with its favors. When the Evening 
 
 [102]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 Clarion came out on the streets and retired 
 in a far corner of the Arizona House bar he 
 read Solly's masterpiece, suggestion had 
 worked its miracle. He really believed it him- 
 self. After all, he had found Old Calamity. 
 After all, he had shipped some smoke when he 
 rounded the corner of the house. If he had 
 been a coward he would have dropped Old 
 Calamity right there and saved himself; but he 
 didn't; he kept on. If that house hadn't been a 
 furnace which no man could possibly enter he 
 would certainly have gone into it. This 
 reporter hadn 't exaggerated much ; only enough 
 to make the thing readable. When a little 
 later Tommy met Solly Watrous, ranging in 
 search of notes from the mines, and Solly 
 asked "What did you think of my story?" 
 Tommy only answered weakly, almost per- 
 functorily, "Well, I guess you touched it up a 
 bit." 
 
 Before night Old Calamity had put the cap- 
 stone on Tommy's fame. The victim of alcohol 
 and smoke, tucked into a bunk in Doc Jones' 
 temporary hospital back of the city marshal's 
 office, had recovered consciousness. Before 
 
 [103]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 Solly Watrous heard of this and raced to inter- 
 view him Old Calamity had read the article in 
 the Evening Clarion. Now all that Old 
 Calamity remembered of the night's events, 
 after a sudden fading of this exterior world in 
 the bar of the Arizona House, was a dim recol- 
 lection of rough handling. Solly Watrous 
 story, wherein he figured as a prominent mining 
 man, did more to revive him than the ministra- 
 tions of medical science ; for Old Calamity had 
 cherished always a yearning for fame. By the 
 time Solly Watrous arrived it needed only a 
 little suggestion to bring out of him a mar- 
 velous story wherein hope and struggle yielded 
 to despair, to resignation, to blackness, to 
 awakening, to joy, to gratitude. 
 
 Said Solly's story as he ripped it off for the 
 second and last edition: 
 
 "Q. You really believe, then, that but for 
 the heroic efforts of young Coulter you would 
 have perished in the holocaust? 
 
 "A. Unquestionably. I owe my preservation 
 to that brave young man. I shall seek the first 
 occasion to wring his hand and express my 
 sentiments of thanksgiving." 
 
 As false as history, the story of the great 
 
 [104]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 fire rescue had now become as permanent. 
 
 All day long Tommy swam in a pleasant 
 notoriety which made brighter that glow of 
 love triumphant burning within him. In that 
 mood he saw only fulfillment. Hitherto Mrs. 
 Bates, the dragon at the door of his lady, John 
 W. Sabin, the ogre waiting without, had 
 troubled his imagination. Now these were 
 things which had no existence. Obstacles? 
 They were nothing. He could dare anything. 
 
 She was not at the Marlborough for supper ; 
 John W. Sabin was banqueting the Bates ladies 
 at the mine. But he checked his moment of 
 disappointment by reflecting that he knew he 
 should see her at the Firemen's Ball. Besides, 
 he was now an object of attention; perfect 
 strangers insisted on sitting with him and 
 drawing him out on the subject of the rescue. 
 Standing after supper in the Marlborough lobby 
 he caught just one glimpse of her as she flitted 
 up the stairs ; but she managed to turn just be- 
 fore the shadow blotted her out, and to throw 
 a glance at him. Waiting no longer, he dressed 
 with unusual care, spending a quarter of an 
 hour in choosing between his three neckties.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE Little Casino got along with a single 
 piano player the night of the Firemen's 
 Ball ; and sharp at nine o 'clock the strains 
 of its band were heard far up the hill, strik- 
 ing hard with all power of brass and drum on 
 the stirring notes of Hail to the Chief. A minute 
 after, all Main Street was hushed with anticipa- 
 tion; five minutes later, to inspiring and in- 
 spired cheers, the procession swung past. First 
 came sundry honorary members, arrayed in 
 civilian clothes but carrying kerosene torches; 
 in their midst Pat Burke, city recorder, and Doc 
 Jones, the coroner, bore the American flag and 
 the red gonfalon of the fire department. There 
 followed John W. Sabin Hose No. 1, in full 
 uniform of red shirts, black trousers and gaudy 
 helmets, Sandy McNutt not pulling on the 
 leading lines, as he did during the moments of 
 splendid action, but marching before with his 
 trumpet held smartly under his arm. The hose 
 company did not propose to be caught napping 
 
 [106]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 in that community of high winds and wooden 
 buildings; so the cart carried, as usual, a full 
 barrel, which had already, in taking an espe- 
 cially severe bump, slopped over and wet down 
 the red shirt of the nozzle-man. Behind the 
 hook and ladder company marched, mimicked 
 and frolicked that following of small citizens on 
 foot without which no procession is complete in 
 any land a very small fringe in this case, 
 since families in Carbonado Camp were still 
 few. 
 
 John W. Sabin did not march with his merry 
 men, nor did he wear, on this especial occasion, 
 his uniform. He waited their coming by the 
 platform of Masonic Hall; and he was clad in 
 one of the only three dress suits in camp. 
 Down his frilled shirt ran a row of magnifi- 
 cent diamonds, giving back gleam for gleam to 
 the diamonds on his fingers. The ridges of his 
 leathery skin gleamed fresh from the razor; his 
 sea-lion mustache shone with pomade; the long 
 straight, grizzled locks of his front hair had 
 been combed over and plastered down with 
 bear's grease to conceal his bald spot. 
 
 About this central and ornamental figure 
 
 [107]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 Masonic Hall flaunted all the decoration within 
 the power of Carbonado camp. All day Sam 
 Haney 's express wagon had been hauling dwarf 
 pine trees and pine branches, cut in the sparse, 
 struggling woods by Bear Creek. The trees 
 were all posed about the walls; the branches 
 made above the platform an arch whose key- 
 stone was a sheaf of American flags. From tree 
 to tree about the wall ran the red and yellow of 
 the fire department in loops of cheesecloth. 
 Branches made a bower for the musicians and 
 half concealed a table in the corner, where Mike 
 the bartender presided in white jacket and 
 apron over a punch which he himself said 
 was warranted to make your hair curl. 
 
 About John W. Sabin were grouped those 
 prominent citizens who had chosen not to march 
 with the torchlights, and the ladies. The men 
 wore- their Sunday best, festally touched up 
 with such additions as white waistcoats and 
 diamond studs. As before mentioned, there 
 were two other dress suits in camp besides John 
 W. Sabin 's. One belonged to Willie Tutweiler, 
 the assayer, who had lately arrived from college 
 and the East. He had entered, indeed, wearing 
 
 [108]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 the final touch of decoration in the form of a 
 pair of white gloves, which, after one furtive 
 look round the hall, he surreptitiously peeled 
 off. The other a venerable antique belonged 
 to Bill Hayden, superintendent of the North 
 Star, who, as every one knew, enjoyed a college 
 education before he took to mining. 
 
 Already there were more men in the hall than 
 women; Tommy, entering a little before the 
 grand entry of the Firemen, felt his heart sink 
 as he reflected on the struggle that must ensue 
 for the favor of the ladies when the procession 
 should arrive. At that, the ball had drawn 
 every fireman on the respectable side of the per- 
 fectly definite line. In social position and in 
 costume they ranged all the way from Mrs. 
 Black, whose husband was beginning to vie 
 with John W. Sabin in prospects and impor- 
 tance, to the biscuit shooters at the Marl- 
 borough. Mrs. Black was little of frame; she 
 was dumpy with the twenty years of hard work 
 that had gone before the turn of the family 
 fortune; she was sallow with the old suns of 
 long trails. She blazed in a wine-colored silk 
 dress whose high tints only emphasized the 
 
 [109]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 yellowish tones of her skin, whose bodice con- 
 fined her so tightly that she seemed momen- 
 tarily about to pop out of it. Two great 
 diamond earrings frolicked with the light as 
 she bobbed her head in conversation. Hattie 
 Murchison, waitress at the Marlborough, and on 
 the other end of the social scale, wore simply the 
 gown of plain brown nun's veiling, draped 
 modestly yet modishly over a bustle, in which 
 she attended church on Sundays. Mrs. Hayden, 
 wife of the college-bred Bill, herself young and 
 blondly, innocuously pretty, wore black lace 
 over geranium red. 
 
 "The most stylish costume here," confided 
 Essie Singleton, the camp dressmaker, to her 
 confidante, Mrs. Jarmouth, the jeweler's wife. 
 "That lace guimpe I call tasty. What say I 
 copy it for that afternoon toilette of yours I As 
 for them de trop, my dear, de trop" Miss 
 Singleton culled French from the fashion 
 papers and loved to air it "do you suppose 
 there 's anything between the girl and John W. ? 
 To me it's as plain as day both of 'em are 
 setting their caps. I never could abide that 
 
 [no]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 brunet type! I've found them deceitful, if any- 
 one should ask me." 
 
 Other feminine eyes besides Miss Singleton's 
 were searching out the flaws in the two stranger 
 ladies, grouped near the platform beside John 
 W. Sabin ; other tongues were whispering criti- 
 cism. If Mrs. Bates was aware of this she 
 showed it only by a slightly more majestic 
 demeanor. As for Nellie, she wore her air of 
 sweet unconsciousness, lowering her eyes 
 modestly each time John W. introduced her to 
 a prominent citizen of the camp, raising them 
 prettily to respond with conventional nothings, 
 which became somethings with the music of 
 her voice and the play of her expression. 
 
 Tommy, standing back by the door, watched 
 the group at the platform with all his eyes. To 
 his first hot jealousy succeeded a sense of per- 
 plexity. She had promised him dances! To 
 claim them he must beard the dragon. He even 
 became guiltily conscious, for the first time in 
 two days, that he was loafing on the grubstake 
 of John W. Sabin. But the sense of recognized 
 heroism was still upon him; still was he in the 
 mood to attempt anything. And as luck would 
 
 [in]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 have it, just as he sidled unobtrusively across 
 the hall the band of the Little Casino, having 
 fortified itself for its evening labors at the 
 Pioneer Saloon next door, was seated and ready. 
 The snare drum emitted a thundering long roll, 
 bringing the whole company to attention; and 
 the brasses hit together the first note of Lo, the 
 Conquering Hero Comes! 
 
 That was the signal to Sandy McNutt, wait- 
 ing on the staircase. " Forward, march!" he 
 commanded, so loudly and masterfully that it 
 was heard above the best efforts of the Little 
 Casino. And into the hall, among roars from 
 within and without, swung the firemen, two by 
 two. 
 
 Tommy chose this moment of distraction in 
 the crowd to hurry up to the focus of his atten- 
 tion. John W. Sabin was looking upon the 
 spectacle, was dissertating to Mrs. Bates upon 
 the fire department they were going to have 
 when the railroad came through. "Got the 
 horses all picked out and trained in Denver!" 
 he said, and he glowed with a technical descrip- 
 tion of the points of the big nigh bay, so that 
 
 [112]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 Mrs. Bates, for very politeness, had to keep her 
 gaze on him. 
 
 Nellie greeted her lover with a soft flush of 
 her eyes. As he came near her she was holding 
 out her dance program, a magnificent specimen 
 of the work of the Clarion Press all spangles 
 and stars and rustic lettering. 
 
 "Quick here, and here, and here, and 
 here!" she whispered. 
 
 He rapidly wrote "Thomas J. Coulter" in the 
 four spaces she had indicated with the little 
 flower stalk of her finger. He looked down on 
 her when he had finished. He stood close; his 
 broad back was between her and the prying 
 world, so that she was safe in giving her expres- 
 sion play for a moment, in letting her lips 
 ripple like a river of roses with voiceless love 
 words. And at that instant John W. Sabin, 
 having paused for very want of adjectives to 
 express the future glory of Carbonado and its 
 fire department Mrs. Bates took occasion to 
 turn toward her daughter. 
 
 She could not see Nellie's face, though she 
 did read something in the droop of her neck; 
 but she caught the expression of the young man
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 -his widened eyes, his relaxed lips, a play of 
 color in his cheeks. 
 
 ' ' Come, Nellie, ' ' she began, ' ' we Ve 
 
 But Nellie, perfect mistress of herself and of 
 the situation, interrupted with: "Mother, you 
 know Mr. Coulter, I believe. You remember, 
 we met him coming in on the stage. ' ' 
 
 ' * Oh, yes indeed ! ' ' said Mrs. Bates, stiffening 
 her best society tone with a slight frigidity. 
 
 "And Mr. Sabin may I present Mr. 
 Coulter! He's the man who made that rescue 
 at the fire last night." 
 
 "Gee whiz!" exclaimed John W. Sabin, 
 wrapping his great, hardened palm round the 
 hand of Tommy. "Been waiting to run across 
 you all day. Say, it was great! Have the boys 
 asked you into the fire department yet? Say, 
 what's your job? I " 
 
 This embarrassing line of inquiry was cut 
 short by the stentorian voice of Doc Jones, the 
 coroner, in his capacity of floor manager, 
 bawling : * ' All out for the grand march I ' ' 
 
 By a consent so common that no one even 
 expressed it, John W. Sabin was to lead the 
 
 [114]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 Grand March, as he had led everything in Car- 
 bonado Camp. 
 
 "Come on, Nellie!" he exclaimed, starting 
 forward with feet which danced awkwardly to 
 the music, and an attempt at sprightly motion 
 which set him rolling like a bear. "We 're going 
 to show them ! ' ' 
 
 But Nellie had drawn back. 
 
 "Oh, but you're leading the grand march 
 with mother!" she said. 
 
 1 ' Thought it was you I asked, ' ' faltered John 
 W. Sabin, the quiver at the end of his sea-lion 
 mustache expressing that he was somewhat 
 taken aback. 
 
 Mrs. Bates looked upon her daughter and 
 their eyes met dark, glittering, pointed with 
 light like hostile, opposing lances. It lasted for 
 only a few seconds, that glance, but it was long 
 enough for a whole hidden drama of character. 
 Mrs. Bates had shirked the moment, which she 
 always knew was coming some day, when her 
 forthputting, creating will would meet in deci- 
 sive combat that will which she felt in her 
 daughter less active but as immobile as 
 granite. The battle had suddenly been joined.
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 The less aggressive of the two had forced it at a 
 time when it could not be fought with articulate 
 speech and speech was the best weapon Mrs. 
 Bates had in her armory. 
 
 It was the mother who first broke the hold of 
 her eyes and looked away. And in that little 
 effort of the tiny muscles which control the 
 human eyeball she momentarily surrendered to 
 her daughter as completely as though in sight of 
 all Carbonado Camp she had knelt on the ball- 
 room floor. 
 
 1 ' Thank you, Mr. Sabin, ' ' she said in her most 
 cordial society manner, "my daughter is quite 
 right. A young lady shouldn't make herself too 
 conspicious. ' ' 
 
 She thrust her hand under the black broad- 
 cloth of John W. Sabin 's arm. As she tripped 
 away she did not look back, but something 
 about the quiver among the jet spangles at the 
 rear of her corsage expressed a highly disturbed 
 mood. 
 
 Sandy McNutt and Pat Burke, men of action 
 both, were upon Nellie as soon as her mother 
 turned away. Simultaneously they asked for 
 the honor. 
 
 [116]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 But Tommy spoke up with an assuming 
 boldness which would have been impossible to 
 him a short twenty-four hours ago : * ' Miss Bates 
 promised me the grand march," he said. 
 
 Miss Bates did not speak ; but she did not hesi- 
 tate either. With an assenting smile, followed 
 by a sweet backward glance of conciliation on 
 the two unfortunate suitors, she slipped her 
 hand under Tommy's arm; through kid and 
 cloth, through blood and muscle, it radiated a 
 delicate warmth to the very marrow of his bones. 
 They floated on rosy clouds lighted by a star 
 mist to a place in the line at the rear of the other 
 mixed couples, just ahead of those firemen and 
 prominent citizens who, having lost in the 
 scramble for ladies, were paired off man with 
 man. Now looking straight ahead, a pleasant 
 but disguising mask of society expression over 
 her features, her voice so controlled that it 
 could not reach the couple ahead, she was 
 speaking: "Oh, columbine boy, you don't think 
 because I let you kiss me that I let anyone. 
 It was the first time. ' ' 
 
 "No No ! " he hastened to reply, and could
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 say no more then because he could not trust his 
 voice. 
 
 1 'And if you do not kiss me again I shall 
 never kiss anyone else never and mean it," 
 she said. "But oh, my beloved, my columbine 
 boy, my dearest -" 
 
 "Ladies and gents split out!" came the com- 
 mand of Doc Jones, dancing backward and for- 
 ward with the music, his arms beating rhythm- 
 ically. 
 
 So the warmth on Tommy's arm must give 
 place to a winter of longing until he had circled 
 the hall in the file of men dancers. Before and 
 behind him certain gamesome persons had be- 
 gun to do the lock step; Tommy joined in the 
 frolic mechanically. 
 
 Now the locked line had rounded the hall 
 and she was dancing toward him, her two little 
 hands extended like two white lilies of five 
 petals. 
 
 As they locked arms and resumed the march 
 she leaned her slight weight deliciously upon 
 him; and it was she who began to speak: 
 
 "I don't know why I have done it." 
 
 "Done what?" he managed to ask her. 
 
 [1*8]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 1 ' Everything all this last night you 
 know. Think, I saw you first only three days 
 ago. And I know nothing about you except 
 what you have told me. ' ' 
 
 "We don't need to know," he said with his 
 own direct simplicity. "All I know is that I 
 love you." 
 
 "And I loved you from the time I saw you 
 among the columbines. Isn't it wonderful that 
 I knew it that we both knew it? And now 
 what are we going to do I " 
 
 "I don't know something, I guess," he 
 answered vaguely, desperately. 
 
 "Ah, but we have four more dances to talk 
 of that, ' ' she said. * ' I want only to be near you 
 now to touch you to know that I love you 
 love you, my dearest, dearest columbine boy!" 
 
 They were silent for a moment, swimming in 
 clouds of ecstasy; then the voice of Doc Jones 
 bawled : * ; Forward in fours ! ' ' 
 
 Charlie Pringle, head clerk at the Marlbor- 
 ough, paired off with Hattie Murchison, the 
 biscuit shooter, swung in now at their right. 
 There was no more chance for this intimate 
 conversation even at the low, controlled tone
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 which Nellie had employed. There was still 
 less chance when it became "Forward by 
 eights!" and two pairs of mated firemen, 
 occasionaly scuffing and punching each other 
 in the ribs, marched at Tommy's left. There 
 were simply little almost hysterical touches and 
 pressures of her hand on his arm, little squeezes 
 of his arm on her hand. Even when Doc Jones 
 announced "Waltz your partners to their 
 places!" they did not speak, but simply yielded 
 themselves to the deliciousness of love, music 
 and motion. 
 
 When they returned from the floor Mrs. 
 Bates, as lady of the leading couple, had 
 resumed her place by the platform. Something 
 warned Tommy not to linger; he managed as 
 graceful a bow as he could muster and with- 
 drew. And now it rained men, making toward 
 Nellie to beg the favor of dances; a conven- 
 tionality risen from the scarcity of women 
 decreed that programs should not be filled in 
 advance. 
 
 Mrs. Bates spoke low and sharply: "Don't 
 take the first dance. I want to talk with you. ' ' 
 
 "Got any dances left?" inquired Sandy 
 
 [120]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 McNutt, whose speed had brought him to 
 Nellie's side one stride in advance of the rest. 
 
 "Yes, indeed. I can give you the first !" said 
 Nellie sweetly and without looking at her 
 mother. 
 
 The quick stab of a white tooth over Mrs. 
 Bates ' under lip was smothered almost instantly 
 by her serene expression of society calm. But 
 anyone who knew that lady might have traced 
 an undercurrent of determination. She had 
 lost the first skirmish and the second; she pro- 
 posed now to join decisive action with all her 
 forces. 
 
 And luck played with her. The cornet of the 
 Little Casino band, managed by Pop Bacon, 
 who had been a bugler in the Civil War, tooted 
 the assembly; whereupon Doc Jones strode for- 
 ward, his frock coat swishing about his fat 
 legs. 
 
 "Ladies and gentleman," he said, "I want to 
 introduce to your kind attention, Sam Smith, 
 champion buck-and-wing dancer of the Elite 
 Variety Theayter." 
 
 During the loud applause which followed, 
 Mrs. Bates looked about her. John W. Sabin 
 
 [121]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 had gone to the other side of the ballroom. 
 Sandy McNutt was watching the agile entry of 
 Sam Smith. Now, if ever, was the moment. 
 
 " Nellie," said Mrs. Bates slowly and icily, 
 "I want you should come to the ladies' room 
 with me. ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Bates had prepared herself for a refusal 
 and had planned further measures. 
 
 To her surprise Nellie responded airily, 
 "Very well, mother!" 
 
 Alone Mrs. Bates turned upon her offspring. 
 In her baffled rage she began with a strategic 
 mistake; she attacked with all her forces at 
 once. 
 
 "Eleanor Virginia Bates," she said, "I want 
 you should tell me right now what's between 
 you and that young man! ' ' 
 
 Nellie picked up a powder puff from the pine 
 bureau and began daintily to powder her nose, 
 the reflection powdering back from the nine- 
 inch mirror. And airily she replied, ' * I wonder 
 if that isn 't a matter between me and the young 
 man. ' ' 
 
 " 'Between you and the young man'!" 
 quoted Mrs. Bates with all the sarcasm she 
 
 [122]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 could put into her voice. "When did you fix 
 it up that he should take those four waltzes? 
 Tell me now I Ve seen your program." 
 
 "Last night at the fire," responded Nellie 
 casually, patting into place a curl that had 
 strayed from her bang. 
 
 * * How long has this thing been going on I " de- 
 manded Mrs. Bates. She was fast losing con- 
 trol of herself; the icy tone of a society woman, 
 which she had assumed at the beginning of this 
 vital interview, was shaken with little tremors. 
 * i Ever since we struck Carbonado, I suppose. ' ' 
 
 "About that time," replied Nellie, her own 
 airy tone not shaken in the least. 
 
 Now she had twisted her lace handkerchief 
 over a gloved little finger, was removing an 
 excess of powder from the delicate crease be- 
 side her nose. Her hand was absolutely steady. 
 
 "And Mr. Sabin is noticing," said Mrs. Bates. 
 Her voice now began audibly to quiver. "If he 
 wants to he can skin that little upstart whipper- 
 snapper alive. Thinks because he got his name 
 in the papers and him not even scorched. A 
 common, coarse " Her words ran into an 
 
 [123]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 ' ' a-a-a ' ' of disgust and she bit her lip as though 
 to enforce self control. 
 
 Now Nellie's voice was quivering ever so 
 slightly. 
 
 "And we are especially select and refined, 
 aren't we?" 
 
 Self-control deserted Mrs. Bates with a rush. 
 
 "Eleanor Bates!" she exploded. "I could 
 just spank you! I wish you were little enough 
 so I could switch you. That 's the manners they 
 taught you in the seminary, is it. That's " 
 
 And suddenly anger ran into action. Nellie 
 was facing her now. Mrs. Bates, with a sudden 
 spring amazingly quick for a woman so large, 
 so mature and so tightly laced, laid both 
 hands on her daughter's shoulders and shook 
 her energetically. Nellie did not struggle 
 against this violence. She yielded to it, quite 
 loose of body and inert. Something like terror 
 not unmixed with shame came across the flushed 
 countenance of Mrs. Bates. Her last violent 
 shake died down into nothing; she dropped her 
 hands from Nellie's shoulders; she noted now 
 that her daughter's eyes looked at her steadily, 
 
 [124]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 that her daughter's face was as expressionless 
 as the moon. 
 
 "I'm sor " 
 
 Midway on the syllable the other emotion 
 again rose within Mrs. Bates, again overflowed. 
 
 1 1 Me, grubbing and slaving all my life to put 
 you where you belong and now just when " 
 
 She checked herself; but she had already said 
 too much. Nellie, adjusting a hook of her 
 bodice which had shaken loose during these 
 proceedings, spoke in a perfectly controlled 
 voice. 
 
 "I thank you and Mr. Sabin for announcing 
 your plans, though it's true you've already 
 made them plain enough." 
 
 "Well, if I have," said Mrs. Bates, just the 
 suggestion of a wail weakening her tone, * ' ain 't 
 he a fine man? He's got the sweetest nature I 
 ever knew. ' ' Her tone hardened again. ' ' That 
 upstart you're having your low flirtation with 
 ain't good enough to black his boots." Mrs. 
 Bates, baffled, irritated to madness by this deep, 
 steely calm, was swinging back into the violent 
 mood. "If you don't cancel those four dances
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 I'll see that Mr. Sabin does something. I'll 
 see " 
 
 "I'll cancel those dances," responded Nellie 
 sweetly, "but if I do I'll cancel all Mr. Sabin 's 
 dances. I can make a scene too. ' ' 
 
 Here the ladies' battle stopped as suddenly 
 as when little boys, fighting it out in a back lot, 
 are interrupted by the policeman. For the 
 lively "turn-turn" of the band and the quick 
 rhythmic shuffle of feet which they had been 
 taking in subconsciously all the time, came to 
 an end, were succeeded by a roar of applause. 
 As it died away it let in the sound of the Little 
 Casino Band breaking into the strains of a 
 schottish. 
 
 ' ' I have this first dance, ' ' said Nellie. 
 
 Mrs. Bates had it too with John W. Sabin, 
 at the great magnate's special request. By 
 common unexpressed consent, therefore, they 
 both turned away. But as they crossed the 
 threshold into the glare and blare of Masonic 
 Hall, Mrs. Bates delivered her last shot. Of all 
 the mistakes to which rage and irritation had 
 led her during that losing battle of hers, this 
 was perhaps the greatest. 
 
 [126]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 "I'll have to take measures," she said in a 
 determined and superior tone. 
 
 "I can take measures myself," said Nellie, 
 still sweetly. 
 
 They must drop this subject; for now they 
 were floating cloudily, in the midst of the gath- 
 ered silks about their lips, across the ballroom 
 floor. They both looked especially lovely, what 
 with that underlying flush so vastly becoming 
 to a brunet skin. And toward them were skip- 
 ping to the music their partners for this dance 
 John W. Sabin and Sandy McNutt. 
 
 We will dance for a moment somewhat 
 jerkily, owing to the stiffened joints of the mas- 
 culine partner with John W. Sabin and Mrs. 
 Bates. The schottish is a lively measure for 
 persons in their forties. Mrs. Bates made a 
 delicious sighing as she swept round the hall, 
 and John W. frankly emitted puffs and grunts. 
 But still Mrs. Bates was a born dancer and as 
 she danced she planned. 
 
 1 ' Do you know anything about that young man 
 who carried Old Calamity out of the fire last 
 night?" she began from his shoulder . 
 
 "Nope," said John W. "Never set eyes on
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 him before. Seems a well-set-up kid. I notice 
 the boys got him into the fire department right 
 away. ' ' 
 
 "He appears to be paying a great deal of 
 attention to my Nellie, ' ' said Mrs. Bates. ' ' You 
 know how a mother is. ' ' 
 
 1 1 Yep, you 're sure a good mother, ' ' said John 
 W. Sabin. 
 
 "I can't say I exactly like his looks," pursued 
 Mrs. Bates, "and there's always a chance in a 
 mining camp that a man you don't know may be 
 a rough character. ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Bates spoke between puffs of breath; 
 emphatically the schottish is not a dance for 
 middle-aged persons suddenly transplanted to 
 a two-mile altitude. 
 
 "Well, if he does anything rough he'll be 
 chucked out on his ear," said John W. Sabin. 
 "Otherwise girls will be girls, same as boys 
 will be boys. She might as well have her fling 
 while she 's young. ' ' He paused to grunt for one 
 or two breaths. "Say," he remarked, turning 
 his trail-sharpened hawk's eyes down on the 
 top of his partner's head and rapidly changing 
 the subject, "you've got great hair! You don't 
 
 [128]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 need any transformers or false fronts, do you?" 
 
 "No," said Mrs. Bates, "hair runs in our 
 family. ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Bates spoke absently. She had been 
 trying to work on his jealousy, to goad him into 
 eliminating this young, disturbing upstart from 
 the scene. Her plan of action did not seem to be 
 working well at all. Swiftly she meditated 
 other plans, like declaring that Tommy had in- 
 sulted her daughter, getting him put out, by the 
 power of John W. Sabin, from the Firemen's 
 Ball and from Carbonado Camp. But when she 
 considered Nellie, remembered that firm "I can 
 take measures, too," she ceased to entertain 
 that course. By the time the schottish had 
 bobbed itself to a finish Mrs. Bates realized that 
 things must stand as they were for that evening. 
 When she got Nellie alone she would take her 
 own threatened measures. 
 
 With one last boom of the bass drum the 
 dance was over. John W. Sabin, on the way 
 back from the floor, regained his breath and his 
 power of conversation. 
 
 "I always like a lot of hair; your daughter's 
 well provided too, ' ' he remarked.
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 Now it is the third dance on the program and 
 the second waltz. Tommy with Mrs. Bates 
 affecting not to see him at all has floated 
 away with Nellie, enjoying, for the last time 
 this evening, the sensations of a rapid tour 
 through heaven to the music of golden harps. 
 For as they reached the center of the floor, as 
 Mrs. Bates, waltzing with Doc Jones, swung 
 off toward a corner of the hall, Nellie took one 
 long sad look up into Tommy's eyes and said 
 low and seriously : ' ' Do you know that I may not 
 see you again after to-night?" 
 
 "Why?" he asked, so loud as to bring a little 
 "Sh-h!" to her lips; and, dancers though they 
 both were, they lost step. 
 
 1 1 Now listen carefully, dearest, ' ' she said. ' ' I 
 am watched all the time. I must speak low. I 
 am to marry John W. Sabin and his money!" 
 
 "You aren't engaged, are you?" He spoke 
 low, but his burst of voice was sharp with agony. 
 
 * * I swear to you I am not ! ' ' she said. 
 
 An observer would have been struck by the 
 contrast between the expression of her face, 
 smiling mild conventional pleasure over 
 Tommy's shoulder, and the tragedy of her 
 
 [130]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 words culled, if the young lady must be be- 
 trayed, from much surreptitious seminary 
 reading of Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth and 
 Ouida. 
 
 ' * I have never come nearer him than to shake 
 his hand," she went on, still with the same 
 expression and tone, "but it's ajtl arranged 
 between them. And just now my she 
 objected to you. She made a scene. I told her 
 I would dance with you to-night, but I know 
 that they will not let me see you again." 
 
 "But I must see you again!" he said. 
 ' ' Always every day always ! " he burst 
 out, weakly repeating himself because he could 
 not find language that would express all that he 
 felt. 
 
 "Always and forever," she breathed from 
 the nest her cheek was making against his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " I 'm going to marry you ! I don 't care what 
 they do ! " said he. 
 
 It was the first time that word "marry" had 
 been mentioned between them; he realized this 
 as he spoke, realized too that it had always been 
 understood, and vaguely wondered.
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 "If we do it it will have to be quickly," 
 she said. 
 
 That same observer would have noticed here 
 that her expression of mild conventional 
 pleasure changed ever so slightly; that it took 
 on a shade of expectancy, of suspense. 
 
 If he did not answer it was because a rush of 
 emotions and ideas choked him. From it all, 
 as a great flame bursts from a smoldering fire, 
 came a dazzling plan of action. It was an idea 
 so bold that it would have been impossible to 
 the Tommy Coulter of a week ago, doing his 
 day's work and drawing his day's rations at the 
 Big Hope grubstake above Lone Grave Canon. 
 It might not have been possible a short twenty- 
 four hours ago. But now, not only had love 
 touched him but also praise of valor. Helped 
 by the artistry of Solly Watrous and the soft 
 appreciation of his beloved, he had persuaded 
 himself that he was a daredevil. The very fact 
 that he must do what he now meant to do for the 
 praise or blame of all the world seemed only to 
 stimulate him. So he was silent, his feet danc- 
 ing mechanically to the music; and she for her 
 own part did not further pursue this line of 
 
 [132]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 conversation, but only murmured now and then 
 a soft love-word as one who talks in rapturous 
 sleep. The last long-drawn note of the music 
 blended with applause ; the shouting and clatter 
 seemed to awaken them both. 
 
 "Leave me before we reach mother," she 
 said. * ' Oh, my dearest, it will be so long to that 
 next dance ! ' ' 
 
 It was indeed long for Tommy. He had 
 failed fortunately, he now felt to get any 
 dances except those four he had taken with 
 Nellie. Idly, mechanically, he drifted to that 
 corner behind the evergreen screen where Mike 
 the bartender presided over the punch bowl. 
 Mike had exceeded his instructions and smug- 
 gled in certain wet goods even more potent. 
 The corner was growing popular with firemen 
 who had lost out in the scramble for dances with 
 the ladies. It had long ago become far too 
 noisy, so that its babble could be heard even 
 above the strenuous pounding and tooting of 
 the band. Tommy was caught instantly in the 
 whirl of his own popularity, hauled to the 
 improvised bar, besought, commanded to 
 have a drink of "man-size stuff." Keeping his 
 
 [133]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 head he took only a glass of punch. Sandy 
 McNutt asked him to tell the story of the rescue ; 
 when Tommy blushed, dodged and tried to edge 
 away he enhanced his reputation for modesty; 
 whereas he was merely troubled with 
 embarrassment and desire to be alone. The 
 opportunity presented itself a few moments 
 later, when a half drunken argument started as 
 to the condition of Old Calamity one factor 
 maintaining that the old horse thief was as good 
 as ever, the other asserting that the old road 
 agent was still in danger. Everyone joined in. 
 "Leave it to Doc Jones!" said someone, and, 
 in the midst of loud calls for Doc Jones, Tommy 
 slipped away. By now his daring had evap- 
 orated a little; he was in that second stage of 
 determination when practical obstacles will 
 insist on pushing into the picture. As he 
 crossed the hall he caught a glimpse of Nellie, 
 dancing with John W. Sabin her torso drawn 
 back, his figure rolling bearlike in the measure 
 of a polka. And determination blazed again. 
 He wandered bareheaded out to the lights and 
 clamor of Main Street ; wandered in again before 
 the polka was ended; remained outside for
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 what seemed an eternity, entered this time by 
 the back way, to find a lancers started, and 
 Nellie dancing with Sandy McNutt. Again his 
 determination blazed. It was alternately 
 dimming and brightening all the eternal twenty 
 minutes during which he waited for that second 
 waltz; but at each increasing rhythm of its 
 fluctuations it burned brighter. 
 
 In one of the blazing moods he collected him- 
 self long enough to note and remember the 
 approaches to Masonic Hall. The front door 
 opened on to Main Street to the rush of its 
 crowds, the sound of its dance-hall orchestras, 
 its clicking stud-poker chips, its whirring rou- 
 lette wheels, its lively, optimistic clamor. The 
 back entrance opened from an anteroom used 
 customarily in the mystic ceremonies of the 
 lodge, but to-night serving as coat room for 
 both ladies and gentlemen. Behind it lay a dark 
 alley leading to Galena Avenue for all its 
 pretentious name a wayf are of small cabins and 
 shanties, long ago dark in sleep. Tommy took 
 a little excursion down Galena Avenue and 
 returned hurriedly to Masonic Hall. 
 
 The second waltz. No sooner had they begun 
 
 [135]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 dancing than decency prompted him to a line 
 of inquiry that he had dodged hitherto. 
 
 "If you should marry me," he said, "you 
 would have nothing. I 'm going to be rich some 
 day. I'm poor now. I've got just a hundred 
 and forty dollars in the world. ' ' 
 
 i ( My father had fifty dollars when he married 
 my mother," she said. "She's always talking 
 about how she slaved for him in those early 
 years and now You don 't suppose I 'd 
 want money, do you? I'd work my fingers to 
 the bone!" 
 
 "Then listen!" he said. "You're going to 
 marry me to-night if we can get away. I 
 know how." 
 
 He stopped now, waiting for her word of 
 refusal or of assent. She did not speak for a 
 moment. Her cheek was leaning against his 
 shoulder, and he could see no more than her 
 glittering crown of black hair, which radiated 
 a delicate perfume. 
 
 ' i Oh, I am afraid ! ' ' she whispered, and then : 
 "Yes, my dearest, and as soon as we can!" 
 
 He had intended to wait an opportunity later 
 in the evening had even planned, though
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 imperfectly, how to create a diversion. But at 
 this instant they were dancing toward that 
 cloakroom door. It drew him, as by a power 
 superior to his will. He waltzed her to the 
 threshold, stopped, opened the door. She gave 
 one backward glance. Her mother, in the 
 embrace of Pat Burke a close dancer was 
 swinging round a far corner of the hall. Nellie 
 did not look back again. 
 
 The door closed behind her. They were alone 
 in the cloakroom, where overcoats, mantles, 
 shawls and sealskin cloaks covered every inch 
 of the wall, made grotesque heaps on every 
 chair. 
 
 1 'Do you know where your wrap is?" he 
 asked. 
 
 1 ' There." 
 
 If he hesitated for a moment now it was not 
 because he was undecided but because he had 
 something more to say to her and was not sure 
 how she would take it. 
 
 "Do you want to leave word for your mother! 
 I guess you'd better " he began. 
 
 ' * I intended to do that, ' ' she said. 
 
 She began scribbling on the back of her dance 
 
 [137]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 program. When she had finished she stuffed it 
 into the pocket of her mother's sealskin coat. 
 She looked up now. Tommy was holding her 
 mantle for her. Into it she slipped; she seized 
 her hat, too, but made no movement to put it on, 
 for he had opened the outer door. Through it 
 they passed together. A moment later, hand in 
 hand, they were stumbling along the rough dark 
 roadway of Galena Avenue.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 JOHN W. SABIN, in his capacity of first 
 prominent citizen and general manager for 
 everything in Carbonado Camp, had edited 
 the program of dances at the Firemen's Ball 
 and had decreed that there should be no encores. 
 "We'll still be going it by the time the day 
 shift comes on if we let 'em repeat," he had 
 said. But after the second waltz a Strauss 
 selection and a specialty of the Little Casino 
 the demand became so loud and insistent as to 
 override all rules; and the band swung into a 
 dreamy encore. 
 
 During this dance Mrs. Bates, whenever Pat 
 Burke 's close hold allowed, was darting quick, 
 nervous glances about the ballroom. When Pat 
 Burke bowed her to her own corner she looked 
 still more nervously across the shifting kaleido- 
 scope made by black coats, red shirts and light 
 feminine pinks, blues and lavenders. Gradually 
 the kaleidoscope came to rest and its colors 
 massed the light tints along the wall, the red
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 and black in the corner beside Mike the bar- 
 tender's punch. 
 
 But neither Nellie nor Tommy emerged. Mrs. 
 Bates drew a mask of stately indifference over 
 her features, to hide the anxiety, tempered by 
 pure rage, which surged within. From the 
 group about the punch approached John W. 
 Sabin, his hawk 's face illumined by good humor. 
 The nervous strain of that evening had 
 sharpened all perceptions and memories in Mrs. 
 Bates. She glanced at her program. The next 
 dance was the Virginia Reel; Nellie had it, she 
 remembered, with John W. Sabin. She hesi- 
 tated a moment. Mr. Sabin stopped to pass a 
 remark to Mrs. Black. That gave her a little 
 time; and she decided not to wait and make 
 excuses, but to go forthwith on the hunt. 
 
 Ever since that quarrel in the ladies' room, 
 she realized now, she had been afraid of her 
 daughter's mood of the unsounded depths in 
 that nature which she had known so little 
 during the past ten years, and of what those 
 depths might bring forth. An intuition of her 
 disaster stabbed her for an instant. 
 
 But the thought was simply too dreadful to 
 
 [140]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 be entertained. She put it back. With dignity, 
 and with as much speed as she dared to show the 
 critical world of Carbonado Camp, she floated 
 in the midst of her draperies to the ladies ' room. 
 Nellie was not there. 
 
 She tried the front entrance in the angry 
 expectation that she might interrupt her 
 daughter and that young man in a tete-a-tete. 
 A group of firemen were rolling cigarettes and 
 debating loudly. They hushed their clamor as 
 she came among them, and stared at her 
 silently and respectfully as she opened the door 
 and took a frigid look over the crowd of loafers 
 and the activities of Main Street beyond. Now, 
 as she turned back toward the cloakroom and 
 traversed the hall, she was walking so fast, 
 spite of herself, that the waiting dancers along 
 the wall followed her with their looks. 
 
 Fritz, the cloakroom attendant in private 
 life porter at the Arizona House had been 
 temporarily absent when Tommy and Nellie 
 made their hurried entrance and exit ten 
 minutes before. Business being slack for him 
 at that hour of the night he had taken occasion 
 to slip over to the Pioneer Saloon for a drink.
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 Now he was sitting back on a pile of coats, 
 enjoying a smoke. At Mrs. Bates' sudden 
 entrance lie sprang up, making awkward efforts 
 to conceal his pipe. 
 
 Mrs. Bates took one long breath and gathered 
 her forces before she asked in a sweetly superior 
 tone : ' l Have you seen anything of a young lady 
 in a pink dress a dark young lady?" 
 
 "Your daughter, ma'am?" inquired Fritz. 
 
 "Yes, my daughter," replied Mrs. Bates 
 rather haughtily. 
 
 "No, ma'am haven't seen her," replied 
 Fritz. 
 
 "Not this whole evening?" inquired Mrs. 
 Bates a little more sharply. 
 
 "No, ma'am," said Fritz. Then he paused. 
 "Did see a couple goin' it up Galena Avenue 
 when I come in ten minutes or so back. The 
 girl might 'a' been her." 
 
 Had Fritz been dowered with keen and subtle 
 perceptions he would have read a whole drama 
 in the stiffening of Mrs. Bates' frame. As it 
 was, Fritz spoke again with the same polite if 
 stolid indifference : 
 
 "Guess I can tell whether it was her by seem'
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 if her wrap 's gone. ' ' He pawed over a pile on 
 a chair. "Yep. Her cloak was right there, 
 with yours. Yep. It 's gone. It was her. ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Bates, betraying her shock only by a 
 pallor over which her will had no control, looked 
 down on the pile. John had pawed her own 
 sealskin coat to the top. From its pocket stuck 
 an edge of white paper, which had certainly not 
 been there when she left it. Out of the sudden 
 shock over all her nerves came self-control 
 again. In that instant she formed her white lie. 
 
 "Very well," she said. "That's what I 
 wanted to know. My daughter wasn't feeling 
 very well and I sent her home. I was just 
 seeing if she had gone." Still acting, she 
 turned away, turned back again. "That's my 
 coat there? May I have it? I want to look for 
 my handkerchief." 
 
 Her hand jerked just once as she took out the 
 dance program, made a pretense of looking 
 through the pockets of the sealskin coat, handed 
 it back, turned away. At the door she stopped 
 and with an appearance of idle curiosity, 
 glanced over the program. Just one little in- 
 drawn "ah-h-h" escaped her as she read: 
 
 [143]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 ''Dearest Mother: I have gone away with 
 Tommy Coulter to get married. The other 
 could not be. I know you'll forgive me when 
 you see how splendid he is. I love you. 
 
 NELLIE. ' ' 
 
 The door opened, closed, shut out the view of 
 Mrs. Bates from the look, now frankly curious, 
 of Fritz the porter. "H'm!" he grunted as he 
 sank down again on the pile of coats and 
 resumed his pipe. 
 
 The cornet of Pop Bacon was just blaring for 
 attention and Doc Jones was announcing in his 
 carrying voice by now a little thickened 
 through the ministration of Mike the bartender 
 ' ' Git your partners for the Virginia Reel. ' ' 
 
 Couples were already moving out on the floor. 
 In Mrs. Bates' own corner she saw the black 
 coats and gleaming diamonds of John W. Sabin 
 and of Willie Tutweiler, her own partner for 
 the reel, both peering about the hall. As she 
 approached them Mrs. Bates permitted her 
 society expression to be tinged by a little 
 anxiety. 
 
 "I'm so sorry," she said to them both 
 equally. "My daughter has been taken sud-
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 denly a little ill. I've had her sent some. I 
 must go too. I know you'll excuse us." 
 
 "Can I do anything?" asked Mr. Tutweiler 
 conventionally. * ' Do you want Doctor Jones 1 ' ' 
 
 "Oh, no, indeed," replied Mrs. Bates some- 
 what hurriedly. "It's nothing serious and we 
 know exactly what to do. ' ' 
 
 Fortunately Mr. Tutweiler withdrew, mur- 
 muring sympathy, and Mrs. Bates turned to 
 Mr. Sabin. 
 
 "I want to see you alone at once!" she 
 said. 
 
 Even the sharp tone of her voice failed to 
 convey to the somewhat unimpressionable Mr. 
 Sabin a sense of calamity. His face showed a 
 little concern as he replied: "Don't see exactly 
 how we can get alone here. ' ' 
 
 "The cloakroom," said Mrs. Bates briefly 
 "if we can get rid of that attendant. ' ' 
 
 By now Doc Jones had shouted "Head lady 
 and foot gent forward and back ! " In the two 
 mixed sets, which included all the ladies, hands 
 were patting, feet clumping, voices humming 
 with the orchestra The Arkansaw Traveler. 
 The two unmixed sets, composed solely of fire- 
 
 [HS]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 men and male admirers, were much more lively, 
 thanks to Mike the bartender. In the nearest 
 set the head "lady," dancing up to the foot 
 gent, dug him a playful jolt in the body; the 
 gent countered ungallantly on the neck; they 
 squared off in a comedy boxing match. In the 
 other set the head ' * lady, ' ' who sported a four- 
 teen-inch black beard, squeaked ' ' Oh, Mortimer, 
 my darling!" and leaped into the embrace of 
 the head gent. They clinched. Hugging and 
 rolling like bears they bumped deliberately into 
 the line of ' l ladies, ' ' who playfully shoved them 
 back into place, digging their ribs the mean- 
 while. ' ' Oh, you horrid, coarse men ! ' ' squeaked 
 the "lady." 
 
 But with all this, Mrs. Bates, making for the 
 cloakroom with John W. Sabin in tow, had a 
 feeling that she was being watched, that the 
 general intelligence had suspected a crisis ; and 
 she tried to hold back her speed as she crossed 
 the floor. 
 
 Fritz the porter had resumed his smoke. 
 
 "Here's a dollar," said John W. Sabin to 
 Fritz. ' l Go and blow yourself to a drink. No 
 wait a minute don't want the footpads to 
 
 [146]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 get into these coats. You watch outside until I 
 tell you to come in. No, keep the dollar. ' ' 
 
 In the interval while Fritz was taking down 
 his hat and poking to the door Mrs. Bates 
 collected her thoughts and set herself in her 
 plan of action. Straightway she threw her few 
 low cards upon the table. 
 
 * ' She 's gone ! ' ' she burst out. ' ' Nellie 's gone. 
 Eun away with that young upstart. Gone to be 
 married ! Oh, what shall I do I " 
 
 A life passed on the intermittent verge of 
 eternity had schooled John W. Sabin into deadly 
 calm and swift mental action during crises. 
 Whatever emotion was agitating him within 
 showed only in a change of complexion to a 
 lighter tan, in a hard closing of the steel-trap 
 mouth under his great mustache. 
 
 ' ' How long ago I " he asked practically. 
 
 "Since the second waltz started," said Mrs. 
 Bates, herself brought toward calm by his 
 attitude. "They were seen going out of this 
 door ten or fifteen minutes ago and down the 
 street that fool there told me. ' ' 
 
 She waved her hand in the direction taken by 
 the absent Fritz. 
 
 [147]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 "How do you know it's to git married?" 
 asked John W., still with no more emotion in 
 his voice than as though he were a lawyer cross- 
 questioning a witness. 
 
 "She left me a note," said Mrs. Bates. "A 
 note saying they were going to be married. 
 Stuck it in the pocket of my coat. ' ' 
 
 It was all out now; and so suddenly that her 
 will was taken by surprise, there burst forth a 
 storm of tears. She sank down into a compara- 
 tively unencumbered chair; dropped her face 
 into her white gloves and her lace handker- 
 chief, which were suddenly bedewed with tears 
 like linen caught out in a thunderstorm. She 
 sobbed lightly but tensely, with little inarticu- 
 late "oh's." John W. Sabin was silent; he 
 merely stood looking down upon her. The 
 hawk glance in his eyes gradually softened ; the 
 color came back to his tan cheeks, became a 
 flush. When he spoke it was in that same low 
 voice, the syllables clipped as sharply as pistol 
 shots. 
 
 " It 's awful rough on you, ' ' he said, * ' but you 
 mustn 't take on so. We Ve got to do something 
 quick ! ' ' 
 
 [148]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 * * What can we do ? " breathed Mrs. 
 Bates between her dying sobs. 
 
 John W. Sabin did not answer her directly. 
 
 "What cloak is yours?" he asked. " Better 
 put it on don 't want to be seen, maybe, in a 
 ball gown." 
 
 When she had dabbed away the last drops of 
 her clearing storm Mrs. Bates found him 
 holding her wrap ready for her. Mrs. Bates, in 
 common with all her type, had the gift of crying 
 exquisitely not like those transparent blondes 
 whose pink-and-blue baby eyes simply grow 
 blobby with tears. The seriousness of her 
 expression, the touch of carmine coloring in her 
 cheeks and about her eyelids, rendered her only 
 the more comely. Now John W. Sabin was 
 taking down his own overcoat with the ostenta- 
 tious fur. collar, which occupied all alone a nail 
 of honor. Before he put it on, Mrs. Bates saw 
 him reach into the rig i hthand pocket, which 
 bulged with an innr weight, and glimpsed the 
 brown wooden butt of a standard forty-five 
 caliber side arm. 
 
 "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Don't! No gun 
 plays ! ' '
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 "Sure not," replied John W., "unless some- 
 body else starts it first." He turned on her a 
 sharp glance of inquiry. "You'd rather I 
 handled this matter alone, wouldn't you? Don't 
 want the police or a posse or anything!" 
 
 "Heavens, no!" exclaimed Mrs. Bates. 
 
 Without another word John W. opened the 
 door. With no word on her part, with no sure 
 idea whither they were going, Mrs. Bates pre- 
 ceded him into the night. The door closed; she 
 stumbled in the darkness. 
 
 "Give me your hand no, the other," said 
 John W. 
 
 He took her right hand, which was quivering 
 lightly, into his left ; his own right hand, had she 
 only known it, was clamped on the butt of the 
 revolver in his pocket. As they proceeded, he 
 seeming to thread the darkness with cat 's eyes, 
 she sobbed gently now and then. Once, indeed, 
 her sobs grew audible, threatening a new storm, 
 but the firm pressure of his hand steadied her 
 and the sound died away on a long sigh. They 
 were making toward a single light outlining a 
 window sash; and Mrs. Bates caught, through 
 the fresh scents of a mountain night, the smell
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 of horses. Then he spoke in his sharp clipped 
 accents of a man of action; and his question 
 seemed at first unaccountably far from the sub- 
 ject in hand. 
 
 "Say," he said, "is your daughter a 
 Catholic?" 
 
 "Why, no," said Mrs. Bates, vaguely wonder- 
 ing through all her anxiety and misery what this 
 had to do with the case. 
 
 * ' Then we won 't bother Father Casey, ' ' said 
 John W. 
 
 Now they stood opposite a big blank door, 
 vaguely outlined by the side beams from the 
 window. 
 
 "Hello, inside!" bawled John W., and lis- 
 tened. He got no answer. He drew his gun and 
 smote the door three sharp taps with the barrel. 
 
 "Who is it?" said a voice, so near and dis- 
 tinct as to prove that the speaker had been all 
 the time behind the door. 
 
 "John W. Sabin!" 
 
 At these magic words came a rattle of metal. 
 The big door slid back, revealing outlined 
 against the oil lamp the tousled head of a man 
 in his shirt sleeves.
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 "It's me, Bob," said John W. "First thing 
 have you let a team in the last half hour f ' ' 
 
 "Why, yes, Mr. Sabin," said Bob. "Not 
 more than a quarter of an hour back. To a 
 young fellow he came here a spell before that 
 and asked us to hitch up and a girl." The 
 blotched outline which was Bob's head turned 
 toward Mrs. Bates, whose face was now clear 
 in the rays of the lamplight. 
 
 "This lady's daughter, the girl was." 
 
 This rapid identification seemed to remind 
 John W. Sabin of the widespread curiosity in 
 the camp concerning the Bates women; for he 
 shot out: "Thanks. It's all right to tell that to 
 me. But if anybody else asks you, you don't 
 know nothin' you or Eddie, either. Get that? 
 You're to be a pair of graveyards on the sub- 
 jects of the events and incidents of this evenin', 
 now and subsequent. Where 's Eddie ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' Just turning in. Ed-die ! Mr. Sabin wants 
 you ! ' ' 
 
 "What rig did you give 'em?" 
 
 "Single rig phaeton and that little buck- 
 skin hoss." 
 
 "No speed I've drove him," mused John W.
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 aloud ; then his voice took on its sharp shooting 
 tone. "Now listen hard. Have you got your 
 riding horse saddled as usual? All right. 
 Eddie's to hitch up my bays to the light buck- 
 board as quick as the Lord will let him. You're 
 to jump on your cayuse and rustle round to 
 Parson Brown and that new Methodist preacher, 
 whatever his name is, and find whether they've 
 married anybody this evenin'. If you find 'em 
 marrying that special and particular couple, 
 stop it tell 'em I said it was to be stopped." 
 
 "How about Judge Larrabee and Justice of 
 the Peace Smith?" asked Bob. "They're au- 
 thorized " 
 
 "Now don't you go to assumin' nothin' from 
 my few brief remarks," said John W. "Judge 
 Larrabee and Al Smith were at the Firemen's 
 Ball, not marrying nobody when I left 'em." 
 
 They were interrupted by the slouching ap- 
 pearance of Eddie with a lantern. 
 
 "Git my bays into the buckboard, you and 
 quick!" said John W. "All right, Bob. You 
 ride. Anybody in the office there? No, never 
 mind, I'll tend to the lamp." 
 
 As Bob and Eddie turned away, John W. 
 
 [153]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 lighted a match, illuminating the untidy cubby- 
 hole which served for the office of the Elite 
 Livery and Boarding Stables. Before it went 
 out he had brushed the loose newspapers from 
 a chair and seated Mrs. Bates. 
 
 " Guess you won't want a light," he said. 
 ''There, there cry it out! I'm goin' to help 
 Eddie hitch up." 
 
 Three minutes later the bays stood harnessed 
 and stamping impatiently beside the open slid- 
 ing door. The side lamps on the buckboard were 
 both lighted. A few long minutes more, and the 
 clatter of hoofs announced Bob's return. Mrs. 
 Bates rose and stood clinging to the door frame 
 in the darkness. 
 
 "Well!" came the voice of John W. Sabin. 
 
 "No weddin's this evening," said Bob, dis- 
 mounting. "I pounded 'em both out of bed." 
 
 "Would you mind gettin' in?" came the voice 
 of John W. 
 
 Though darkness hid from her his face, Mrs. 
 Bates knew that the request was meant for her. 
 She clambered up into the seat ; John W. sprang 
 up beside her; Bob and Eddie loosed their hold 
 
 [154]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 on the bits of the eager bays ; they shot out into 
 Galena Avenue. 
 
 1 * Where are we going?" asked Mrs. Bates, 
 who had, as advised, cried a good deal of it out, 
 and now held control of her voice. Up to that 
 moment she had yielded herself unquestionably 
 to the commands of Mr. Sabin. 
 
 "I've covered everybody who could perform 
 a marriage in this here camp," said John W. 
 Sabin. ' * From the start I suspected that they 'd 
 get a rig and go to Beantown. ' ' 
 
 "Beantown?" inquired Mrs. Bates. 
 
 "Six miles over toward the range," said 
 John W. "Separate township, where I can't 
 stop anything. McDougall, who's city clerk 
 and J. P. there, is a crook. Always filing claims 
 we wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. And 
 marryin' people. The Harkness case got all 
 over the front page of the Clarion last week. 
 Figure that's what put it into her mind her 
 and her man." 
 
 Mrs. Bates, through the confusion of the 
 tangled black emotions that were rising up in 
 her again, found space to marvel that Mr. Sabin 
 spoke of both her daughter and the young man 
 
 [155]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 without a shade of asperity just as substantial, 
 impersonal facts. This brought to mind another 
 aspect of her misery the hopes she had held 
 for her daughter now, whatever else hap- 
 pened, dashed and broken. She had already 
 partially given way in the presence of Mr. 
 Sabin, which made it easier now to give way 
 completely. Through her sobs she began speak- 
 ing wildly, hysterically: 
 
 "She was always a little minx never could 
 tell what she was thinking about. And her 
 Latin and her French and her music in a 
 miner's shanty! And I worked so to educate 
 her and I loved her so oh-h ! ' ' 
 
 John W., master reinsman that he was, held 
 the lines gathered expertly in his left hand. He 
 transferred them to the hand which held the 
 whip and dropped a touch, heavy yet comfort- 
 ing, though not in the least familiar or assum- 
 ing, upon the sealskin shoulder beside him. But 
 he said nothing; and she, too, spoke no more, 
 as though this comforting touch were a com- 
 mand to silence. The storm beat itself out, 
 ended at last in a long sighing. 
 
 They were clear of the town now, and thread- 
 
 [156]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 ing a broken mesa whose clumps of sagebrush 
 showed here and there in the light of the side 
 lamps. The bays had settled down to their best, 
 steadiest stride. Suddenly the hand which Mr. 
 Sabin had rested upon the shoulder of his com- 
 panion shot to the reins, pulled them violently 
 inward even to his chest. But the bays needed 
 no pulling. They had checked themselves so 
 suddenly that the dashboard collided with their 
 rumps ; they were digging in their toes before a 
 newly-felled tree, which showed in the lamplight 
 across their path. 
 
 No sooner had they come to comparative rest 
 than John W. shot both reins to his left hand, 
 shot his right to the butt of his revolver. There 
 he checked himself. The presence of ladies is 
 always inconvenient in a purely masculine 
 affair. 
 
 And, as he expected, from behind the bushy 
 branches of the pine tree rose a hat and a 
 bearskin mask, came a voice saying thickly, 
 as though disguised: " Hands up! You're 
 covered ! ' ' 
 
 "Put up your hands," said John W. to Mrs. 
 
 [157]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 Bates, himself setting the example. "Them 
 pesterin' footpads!" 
 
 ' ' Line up there on the road ! ' ' said one voice. 
 * ' No monkeyin '. There 's three of us ! " 
 
 "Now look here, boys," said John W. Sabin, 
 "I'm out on a matter of life-and-death business. 
 I've got about a thousand dollars gold in my 
 jeans. You can have that. I'll chuck it to you 
 if you '11 let me put my hands down. You ought 
 to know I wouldn 't shoot, with a lady on board. ' ' 
 
 "Hell!" came the voice of First Footpad, 
 registering even through its disguise of pebbles 
 under the tongue both surprise and disgust. 
 "Who are you?" 
 
 "John W. Sabin," said the voice from the 
 buckboard, in the accents with which royalty 
 might announce ' ' The King. ' ' 
 
 "Sister Anne and Simple Simon!" came the 
 thick voice of First Footpad ; and the tone im- 
 plied a disappointment too great for ordinary 
 profanity. Whispers, mingled now and then 
 with an audible oath, proceeded from behind the 
 felled pine tree. 
 
 Then out came a disguised voice: "All right. 
 Push along. We ain't robbin' you." 
 
 [158]
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 " That's right good of you boys," said John 
 W. "Can I put down my hands to get these 
 lines? Thanks. That's right. Just pull that 
 tree back. Say ' ' he paused with the reins half 
 gathered, as one who is caught by a new idea 
 "if I chuck you fellers a handful of twenties 
 will you go home peaceable for the night and 
 leave this here road alone ? I may want it later, 
 and I '11 be in a hurry. ' ' 
 
 "All right!" came the muttering voice of 
 Second Footpad, who, dimly outlined by the 
 starlight, was dragging at the butt of the tree, 
 "Might as well knock off. Been a night of hard 
 luck." 
 
 Mr. Sabin reached to his trousers pocket, cast 
 out a shower which glinted in the side lamps, 
 which made a jingling on the roadway. 
 
 "Oh, say, you understand I'm forgettin' this 
 little episode! Get up!" he clucked to the 
 horses. 
 
 But Mrs. Bates, until now forgotten in this 
 purely masculine affair, spoke from the seat 
 beside him. 
 
 "Better ask them if they've seen Nellie!" 
 Her voice was perfectly firm.
 
 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 "Oh sure!" said John W., pulling up again. 
 "Boys, seen anything on this road of a single 
 rig phaeton, wall-eyed, rat-tailed buckskin 
 horse, couple of people aboard tall man, 
 young, and a girl?" 
 
 " , yes!" said the disguised voice 
 
 of Second Footpad. "Excuse me, lady. .That 
 was the first streak of hard luck this evenin'. 
 Stuck 'em up not five minutes ago, and got 
 nothin ' but drink money. ' ' 
 
 "How'd that happen?" asked John W. 
 casually. 
 
 * ' He couldn 't make no gunplay any more than 
 you could, because he had a lady aboard, ' ' said 
 First Footpad. He continued volubly though 
 thickly, as one glad to break the monotony of 
 a lonely calling by a little social converse: 
 "Females always was my bane and menace. 
 The girl talked us out of takin' anythin' off 
 him but a little tip of ten dollars. She allowed 
 they was just married and needed it to set up 
 housekeeping. ' ' 
 
 "Married!" The one word shot out of Mrs. 
 Bates before she could control herself. 
 
 ' ' Must have got married awful sudden, ' ' said 
 
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 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 John W., still affecting a casual, gossipy tone. 
 ' ' It 's the outfit we Ve been looking for, and they 
 weren 't married when last seen. ' ' 
 
 "Yep," said First Footpad, breaking into the 
 conversation. 1 1 They drawed all the luck that 's 
 loose to-night in this neck of the woods. We 
 didn't git none of it. They was makin' for 
 Beantown because they didn't want to git 
 hitched in Carbonado for some reason or other. 
 They bumped onto Judge McDougall a-drivin' 
 on the road. He got right down and hitched 
 'em on the spot. The little girl told us all about 
 it. Burn nice girl. The young feller's drew a 
 prize winner, all right. ' ' 
 
 " Where 've they gone now?" asked John W. 
 
 First Footpad let a laugh bubble through the 
 pebbles under his tongue. 
 
 1 ' That 's the joke of it ! " said he. ' ' They 're in 
 the funniest fix you ever did see, and they don 't 
 give a durn, as I figure it, on account of love's 
 young dream. For some reason or other they're 
 shy on Carbonado, but they're afraid if he holds 
 out that bronco he hired from the Elite Stables 
 he'll bump up against it for hoss stealin'. So 
 they've went into retirement until daybreak, 
 
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 when he figures he can hire somebody on the 
 road to drive the bronco back. Girl told us all 
 about it while we was congratulatin ' and 
 felicitatin' 'em. Oh, we had a regular party! 
 Only needed oyster stew and strawberry ice 
 cream to make it a Friday night sociable." 
 
 "But where are they holding out? asked John 
 W. with a laugh that sounded a little forced. 
 
 "Said they was goin' to them abandoned 
 cabins of the Jennie D., half a mile up the side 
 road over there," replied First Footpad. 
 
 "All right," said John W. Sabin. "Guess 
 we '11 go and congratulate 'em, too. Remember, 
 boys, nothin' happened to-night far's I'm con- 
 cerned or this lady either. But if I was you 
 I'd scoop up those twenties out there in the 
 road and use 'em to buy stage fare to some camp 
 over the Divide. You've treated me decent, so 
 I don't mind tellin' you, by way of returning 
 favors, that the city marshal is gettin' all ready 
 for a general roundup of the hull of you. Of 
 course if there's anythin' like lynchin', I'll say 
 a good word for you, but I wish you 'd save me 
 the trouble. Good night. Giddap." 
 
 [162]
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE married couple of an hour sat just in- 
 side the doorway of a half-ruined log 
 cabin, the second in the line of three 
 which marked the site of that notorious failure, 
 the Jennie D. Though now and then one or the 
 other stirred to kiss or to murmur rapturous 
 nothings, they were mostly silent. 
 
 The truth is that actuality was creeping into 
 the dream, as actuality will. With it came worry 
 as to the next move. Getting a job to support a 
 wife had seemed, in the inspiration of action, 
 like nothing at all. Now it seemed a very great 
 something. Carbonado was impracticable on 
 account of the baronlike power swayed by the 
 great and offended John W. The best chance 
 was Cottonwood Camp. Tommy was not sure 
 about the fare to Cottonwood. It would cer- 
 tainly make a big hole in the hundred and twenty 
 dollars that remained after paying Judge Mc- 
 Dougall 's fee and tipping the footpads. 
 
 To Nellie, actuality brought thoughts more 
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 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 distributing to the emotions. The face of her 
 mother, reading that note, would glance in and 
 out of her mental vision. At one instant she 
 felt like a very little girl who wants to tell her 
 mother she is sorry, to be cuddled and caressed. 
 To blot the picture and down the thought she 
 began speaking; and she, too, he noted, was 
 running on the subject of her dress. 
 
 "Most girls," she said, forcing a little laugh, 
 "want to get married in a white silk dress with 
 a veil and orange blossoms and lots of cut 
 flowers and ushers and bridesmaids and a wed- 
 ding reception. I never did. What I really 
 wanted to do was to elope, but I felt I didn't 
 care how I married so long as I loved the man. 
 But see I have been married in a fine silk dress 
 and white gloves, and my columbine boy was all 
 the flowers I wanted. And I did have a wedding 
 reception those robbers ! ' ' 
 
 Now her laugh was genuine. 
 
 "Sort of chivaree. Sort of " 
 
 He stopped suddenly on the word; and the 
 stiffening of his frame warned her also into 
 silence. Footsteps, cautious and muffled yet dis- 
 tinct, sounded from the trail below the first 
 
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 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 cabin. He was instantly on his feet, but 
 crouching. 
 
 "Get back in there as far back as you can 
 get and keep low," he commanded master- 
 fully. 
 
 He followed her; but he stopped just inside 
 the darkness beside the open door. Looking 
 back over her shoulder as she tiptoed, she could 
 see in the starlight that he was crouching; and 
 she heard a sharp metallic click. Silence for a 
 moment ; then the footsteps again. They seemed 
 now to have reached the ruins of the first cabin. 
 Tommy's voice came out so suddenly and clearly 
 that she started and cowered for an instant 
 against the wall. 
 
 * * Halt ! Who are you ? I 've got you covered ! ' ' 
 
 The footsteps ceased ; for perhaps ten seconds 
 the silence was again absolute. Then spoke a 
 voice which she recognized instantly as that of 
 John W. Sabin. 
 
 "If you're the young feller that's jest eloped 
 with Miss Bates, I wouldn't make no gun plays. 
 You're likely to hit your mother-in-law. If 
 you're anybody else, lemme call your attention 
 to the fact and circumstances that the barrel 
 
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 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 of your gat ain't browned, and I've got it 
 spotted. And also covered. Avoid nickel plate 
 on gun barrels. No, don't move it steady now. 
 I like to know jest where you are !" 
 
 "It's Mr. Sabin!" whispered Nellie from the 
 shadows. "Don't shoot," she called aloud. 
 "It's us, mother and we're married." 
 
 A feminine voice with a wail in it came out 
 of the darkness behind the ruins: "Yes, go on 
 and shoot. Do ! After what you Ve done to me 
 to-night " 
 
 Nellie had crossed the dark floor to her new 
 husband's side before she interrupted: "Now, 
 mother, don 't blame this on Tommy. He knows 
 as well as I do that I got him to do it. ' ' 
 
 "That's not so," interrupted Tommy in his 
 turn. "I'm responsible." 
 
 "I believe you," said Mrs. Bates, entirely 
 ignoring the interruption of her son-in-law. ' ' I 
 believe you I think you'd be capable of any- 
 thing. After all I've done to make you a lady! 
 Didn't I always know just how sly you were? 
 Didn 't I " Her voice choked. 
 
 "Mother," said Nellie, perfectly calmly, 
 "when you think it over you're going to see it 
 
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 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 was the only way. Mr. Sabin, she brought me 
 up here to marry you because you were rich. 
 And, Mr. Sabin, I didn 't want to marry you. I 
 wanted to marry Tommy from the first minute 
 I saw him. I have married him. And I 'm going 
 away to make a start with him if I have to work 
 my fingers to the bone. ' ' 
 
 She let her hand flutter to the shoulder of 
 Tommy, still holding his cocked revolver 
 trained in a general way on the darkness being 
 still uncertain as to the consequences of taking 
 it away. 
 
 "Him!" exclaimed Mrs. Bates. "Him! A 
 nobody from nowhere that you've only known 
 four days. Came and sneaked you from me. 
 Didn't have the manhood " 
 
 That's enough, mother!" cut in Nellie. 
 
 "And Mr. Sabin the finest man I ever knew 
 -Oh, if you'd been with me to-night you'd 
 know what a nature he's got!" 
 
 "I'm certain he is a fine man," Nellie said; 
 "and if you feel that way about it, why don't 
 you marry him yourself?" 
 
 A blank, dead silence followed. It was broken 
 first by the slight rustle made by Tommy as he 
 
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 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 rose from his uncomfortable position and gently 
 let down the hammer of his revolver. Nellie 
 touched him in the darkness. His free hand 
 went round her. He started to say something, 
 but she stopped him with a "Sh-h-h," and her 
 hand felt for his mouth. 
 
 Absolute silence again; then a smothered 
 colloquy from the ruins of the first cabin; then 
 John W. Sabin 's positive voice slashed the 
 darkness: "Well, I've just asked her!" 
 
 Nellie, from her nest in her husband's free 
 arm, gave a little shake of delight. 
 
 1 'What are you going to do about it, mother ? ' ' 
 she asked. 
 
 It was John W. Sabin who answered : 
 
 ' ' She says she won 't. She 's got a fool notion 
 that if she takes me now I '11 think she 's taking 
 me for my money. ' ' 
 
 "Now, Mr. Sabin," said Nellie, "I know 
 mother like a book. She 's been just crazy about 
 you from the minute she met you. I suppose 
 there's where I get this habit of love at first 
 sight." This last was partly for Tommy's 
 benefit, and Nellie punctuated her words by a 
 soft pat on his cheek. "Only she's always 
 
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 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 wanted me to marry well mother's been a 
 perfect dandy to me and she just wouldn't 
 entertain the idea. She's been talking about 
 you night and day and it wasn't for my 
 benefit, either. She was just keeping the idea 
 back weren't you, mother? because she 
 wanted me to be happy and she thought any- 
 body must be happy married to you. Of course, 
 there was the money, too she wanted me to 
 have money. Mother and I quarreled this even- 
 ing and I've treated her dreadfully. But, Mr. 
 Sabin, she's the most perfect dear!" 
 
 Nellie paused, as if to judge the effect of her 
 words. Only silence for a moment. 
 
 4 'Ask her if she wouldn't take you this very 
 moment if you were as poor as we are!" said 
 Nellie. 
 
 Again she listened. At first only silence, so 
 that the sound of a distant catamount complain- 
 ing of the night, the ripple of Bear Creek, the 
 gentle rustling of dwarf-pine branches, came 
 almost painfully loud. Then the murmuring 
 voices down in the shadows of the first cabin 
 began again, and Nellie gave another eager, 
 
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 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 exultant squirm against the shoulder of the 
 waiting Tommy. 
 
 And suddenly came the voice of John W. 
 Sabin, not with its customary firm attack, but 
 much more softly. 
 
 "Young feller, when that there Judge Mc- 
 Dougall stopped to marry you" on these 
 words both the lovers gave a start of surprise 
 "was he makin' for Carbonado or Bean- 
 town!" 
 
 "Going home to Beantown," said Tommy; 
 and realized that he had hitherto been very 
 much out of the conversation. 
 
 "All right," said John W. Sabin. "Say, 
 daughter-in-law, tell your man to hitch up that 
 wall-eyed buckskin and drive you back to 
 Carbonado. We'll meet you at the Maison 
 Eiche in an hour for the weddin ' supper. ' ' 
 
 Down the dark trail went Mr. Sabin and Mrs. 
 Bates. The lovers within the second cabin 
 wisely said nothing more, but only embraced 
 each other in the darkness, listening to the soft 
 murmur of conversation, to the rustling foot- 
 steps, to more low, inaudible conversation, 
 which like the footsteps died gradually into 
 
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 COLUMBINE TIME 
 
 nothing. Only one thing did they hear 
 distinctly. 
 
 It came toward the last, in the voice of Mrs. 
 Bates: "Well, I declare that child has had 
 her way with me again!" 
 
 (THE END)
 
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