an open space; the dust would fly, and a cowboy would peal out a lusty
yell that rang along the slope and echoed under the bluff and lingered
long after the daring rider had vanished in the steep thickets.

"I wonder which is Wils," murmured Columbine, as she watched and
listened, vaguely conscious of a little difference, a strange check in
her remembrance of this particular cowboy. She felt the change, yet did
not understand. One after one she recognized the riders on the slopes
below, but Wilson Moore was not among them. He must be above her, then,
and she turned to gaze across the grassy bluff, up the long, yellow
slope, to where the gleaming aspens half hid a red bluff of
mountain, towering aloft. Then from far to her left, high up a
scrubby ridge of the slope, rang down a voice that thrilled her:
"_Go--aloong--you-ooooo_." Red cattle dashed pell-mell down the slope,
raising the dust, tearing the brush, rolling rocks, and letting out
hoarse bawls.

"_Whoop-ee_!" High-pitched and pealing came a clearer yell.

Columbine saw a white mustang flash out on top of the ridge, silhouetted
against the blue, with mane and tail flying. His gait on that edge of
steep slope proved his rider to be a reckless cowboy for whom no heights
or depths had terrors. She would have recognized him from the way he
rode, if she had not known the slim, erect figure. The cowboy saw her
instantly. He pulled the mustang, about to plunge down the slope, and
lifted him, rearing and wheeling. Then Columbine waved her hand. The
cowboy spurred his horse along the crest of the ridge, disappeared
behind the grove of aspens, and came in sight again around to the right,
where on the grassy bench he slowed to a walk in descent to the bluff.