Columbine
A girl like a flower – gentle and beautiful, she was a child of a nature and lived in harmony with world around her. People and cattle loved her and she was always positive and smiling. But one day everything has changed: she was said to marry Jack Bellounds the only man in the earth she hated and she had to obey because she owed too much to Bill for his paternal love that she couldn’t reject. But she was in love with Wilson, and her heart was tearing apart between duty and feelings. She was lost. Nobody understood her; and then came Bent Wade, a stranger who became her friend, who cared about her like no one else and she believed that everything is possible and love is the most important thing in the world: “Love was the food of life, and hope was its spirituality, and beauty was its reward to the seeing eye”. It was unbearable for her to find out that he was her father after his death but she always remembered him and her daughter love was forever: “. I will have faith and hope and love, for I am his daughter”.
Wilson Moore
Wilson was a young hunter in the White Slides Rancho a good boy who did his duties well and liked that: “He was tall, slim, round-limbed, with the small hips of a rider, and square, though not broad shoulders. He stood straight like an Indian. His eyes were hazel, his features regular, his face bronzed. All men of the open had still, lean, strong faces, but added to this in him was a steadiness of expression, a restraint that seemed to hide sadness”. He was in love with Columbine and he hated Buster Jack because he separated them. Wilson was ready even to kill Jack but in their fight he was almost killed and was unable to care about himself for a long time. it was unbearable for him because he knew that Columbine is suffering and he can do nothing to help her. But there was one thing about him that helped to overcome that – he kept a faith in his heart. He always believed that if Columbine and he love each other then they must be together. So, in the end, it happens. Unfortunately, the price is too high but it helped to value their happiness even more.
Bent Wade
A mysterious rider, the man who appeared from nowhere, entered the life of these people and completely changed it: “Bent Wade—man of misery—who could find no peace on earth—whose presence unknit the tranquil lives of people and poisoned their blood and marked them for doom!”. He was a jack-of-all-trades and came to White Slides to work a hunter. He had bad reputation and a nickname Hell-Bent Wade because he was cruel and jealous in the past, he chased his wife and killed her friend because he thought he was her lover. When his wife was running away from him, she lost their child on the field among columbines and there the servant of Bill Bellounds found her. For almost 20 years Bent haven’t seen his daughter but from the first glance he recognized her. Columbine was his daughter. Since that time his life became meaningful. He never told her who is he, but she became her friend, her father, her mother, he always helped her and died for her. When she found out the truth, she realized that she loves him and she will try to live her life with honor to be the daughter of her father.
Jack Bellounds
Former prisoner, a thief, liar, Buster Jack is the main protagonist of the story. There is nothing good about him except his father Bill. Jack is cruel, he doesn’t care about feelings of other people and he doesn’t know what the love is. He drank and played cards, abused Columbine and Wilson because he was jealous and his heart knew nothing but hate, Columbine was afraid of him: “And to make matters worse, when she arrived at the ranch it was to meet Jack Bellounds with a face as black as a thunder-cloud”. . He doesn’t love his father because he steals his cattle, he doesn’t love Columbine he just wants her to be his and all his speeches that he wants to change and live a good decent life are nothing but lies.
Bill Bellounds
Rancher Bill Bellounds is described as a “pioneer and rancher, of huge frame and broad face, hard and scarred and grizzled, with big eyes of blue fire”. He is a good and honorable man with kind heart. Everybody in the White Slides loves and respects him, he is a professional and also a good father for Columbine but he is too good father for Jack. He forgives him everything and believes him, his main goal in life is to marry Columbine and Jack for Jack to be changed, in this case the feelings of Columbine don’t disturb him much.
