Jack, be game an' take your medicine....

An' both of you forgive an' forget.

Thar'll be quarrels enough, mebbe, without rakin' over the past." When alone again Columbine reverted to a mood vastly removed from her apparent levity with the rancher and his son.

A grave and inward-searching thought possessed her, and it had to do with the uplift, the spiritual advance, the rise above mere personal welfare, that had strangely come to her through Bent Wade.

From their first meeting he had possessed a singular attraction for her that now, in the light of the meaning of his life, seemed to Columbine to be the man's nobility and wisdom, arising out of his travail, out of the terrible years that had left their record upon his face.
And so Columbine strove to bind forever in her soul the spirit which had arisen in her, interpreting from Wade's rude words of philosophy that which she needed for her own light and strength.
She appreciated her duty toward the man who had been a father to her.
Whatever he asked that would she do.