I'll hide and I'll watch....

But, Columbine Belllounds, if he ever corners me again--" "Why, you'll leave him to Hell-Bent Wade," interrupted the hunter, and he looked up from where he knelt, fixing those great, inscrutable eyes upon the cowboy.

Columbine saw something beyond his face, deeper than the gloom, a passion and a spirit that drew her like a magnet.

"An' now, Miss Collie," he went on, "I reckon you'll want to wait on our invalid.
He's got to be fed." "I surely will," replied Columbine, gladly, and she sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Ben, you fetch that box and put his dinner on it." While Wade complied, Columbine, shyly aware of her nearness to the cowboy, sought to keep up conversation.