Darkness settled down like a black mantle over the valley. Columbine rather hoped to find Wilsonwaiting to take care of her horse, as used to be his habit, but she was disappointed. No light showedfrom the cabin in which the cowboys lived; he had not yet come in from the round-up. Sheunsaddled, and turned Pronto loose in the pasture.The windows of the long, low ranch-house were bright squares in the blackness, sending cheerfulrays afar. Columbine wondered in trepidation if Jack Belllounds had come home. It required effortof will to approach the house. Yet since she must meet him, the sooner the ordeal was over thebetter. Nevertheless she tiptoed past the bright windows, and went all the length of the long porch, and turned around and went back, and then hesitated, fighting a slow drag of her spirit, anoppression upon her heart. The door was crude and heavy. It opened hard.Columbine entered a big room lighted by a lamp on the upper table and by blazing logs in a hugestone fireplace. This was the living-room, rather gloomy in the corners, and bare, but comfortable, for all simple needs. The logs were new and the chinks between them filled with clay, still white, showing that the house was of recent build.The rancher, Belllounds, sat in his easy-chair before the fire, his big, horny hands extended to thewarmth. He was in his shirt-sleeves, a gray, bold-faced man, of over sixty years, still muscular andrugged.At Columbine's entrance he raised his drooping head, and so removed the suggestion of sadness inhis posture."Wal, lass, hyar you are," was his greeting. "Jake has been hollerin' thet chuck was ready. Now wecan eat.""Dad--did--did your son come?" asked Columbine."No. I got word jest at sundown. One of Baker's cowpunchers from up the valley. He rode up fromKremmlin' an' stopped to say Jack was celebratin' his arrival by too much red liquor. Reckon hewon't be home to-night. Mebbe to-morro