← catalogue

Judith of the Godless Valley

by Honoré Morrow · English · Gutenberg #14331 · 553,463 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Judith of the Godless Valley
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Judith of the Godless Valley

Author: Honoré Morrow


        
Release date: December 12, 2004 [eBook #14331]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14331

Credits: Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUDITH OF THE GODLESS VALLEY ***

                     JUDITH OF THE GODLESS VALLEY

                          BY HONORÉ WILLSIE

       Author of "The Enchanted Canyon," "The Forbidden Trail,"
       "Still Jim," "The Heart of the Desert," etc.

                                1922




CONTENTS


    I LOST CHIEF SCHOOLHOUSE
   II OSCAR JEFFERSON
  III THE GRADUATION DANCE
   IV THE HOUSE IN THE YELLOW CANYON
    V THE HUNT ON LOST CHIEF
   VI LITTLE SWIFT CROSSES THE DIVIDE
  VII THE POST-OFFICE CONFERENCE
 VIII JUDITH AT THE RODEO
   IX THE TRIP TO MOUNTAIN CITY
    X WILD HORSES
   XI THE LOG CHAPEL
  XII THE FIRST SERMON
 XIII PRINCE GOES MARCHING ON
  XIV THE BATTLE OF THE BULLS
   XV THE FLAME IN THE VALLEY
  XVI THE TRAIL OVER THE PASS
 XVII BLACK DEVIL PASS
XVIII ELIJAH NELSON'S RANCH
  XIX HOME




JUDITH OF THE GODLESS VALLEY




CHAPTER I

LOST CHIEF SCHOOLHOUSE

"To believe in a living God; to preach His Holy Writ without fear or
favor; to sacrifice self that others may find eternal life; this is true
happiness."

--_The Rev. James Fowler_.


It was Sunday in Lost Chief; Sunday and mid-winter. For the first time
in nearly ten years there was to be a sermon preached in the valley and
every one who could move was making his way to the schoolhouse.

Douglas Spencer drove his spurs into Buster and finished the last hundred
yards at a gallop. Judith, his foster sister, stood up in her stirrups,
lashed Swift vigorously over the flanks with the knotted reins and when
Buster slid on his haunches to the very doorstep, Swift brought her
gnarled fore legs down on his sweeping tail and slid with him. She
brought up when he did with her nose under his saddle blanket. The boy
and girl avoided a mix-up by leaping from their saddles and jerking their
mounts apart.

"Now look at here, Jude!" shouted Douglas, "you keep that ornery cow-pony
of yours off of me or I'll make you sorry for it!"

Judith put her thumb to her small red nose, and without touching the
stirrups leaped back into the saddle. Then she looked calmly about her.

"First ones here!" she said complacently. "Even the preacher hasn't
come."

"I suppose,"--Doug's voice was bitter--"that if I rode over toward Day's
to meet Jimmy you'd have to tag!"

"I sure-gawd would. Swift would like the extra exercise."

Douglas swept Judith's thin bay mare with a withering glance. "That
thing! Looks like the coyotes had been at it!"

Judith wore but one spur and this had a broken rowell, but she kicked
Swift with it and Swift whirled against the nervous Buster and bit him on
the cheek. Buster reared. "Take that back, you dogy cowboy you!" shrieked
Judith.

Douglas brought Buster round and raised his hand to strike the girl. She
eyed him fearlessly. The boy slowly lowered the threatening hand and
returned her gaze, belligerently.

Prince, a gray, short-haired dog, of intricate ancestry, squatted on his
haunches in the snow with his tongue between his teeth and his eyes on
the two horses. Swift sagged with a sigh onto three legs. Perhaps the
little mare deserved some of the aspersions Douglas and his father daily
cast upon her. She was a half-broken, half-fed little mare which Douglas'
father had cast off. She did not look strong enough to bear even Judith's
slim weight. But as the only horse Judith was permitted to call her own,
the little bay was the very apple of the young girl's eyes, and she
wheedled wonderful performances from Swift in endurance and cat-like
quickness.

Buster was a black which the older Spencer had bred as a cow-pony but had
given up because he could not be broken of bucking. Doug had begged his
father for the horse, and Buster, nervous, irritable and speedy, was a
joy to the boy's sixteen-year-old heart.

Douglas sat tall in the saddle. He measured, in fact, a full five feet
ten inches without his high-heeled riding-boots. He was so thin that
his leather rider's coat bellowed in the wind, and the modeling of his
cheekbones showed markedly under his tanned skin. His sombrero, pushed
back from his forehead, disclosed a thick thatch of bright yellow hair
above wide blue eyes that were set deep and far apart. His nose was
high bridged, and his mouth, though still immature, gave promise of
full-lipped strength in its curves.

Judith was fourteen and only a couple of inches shorter than Douglas. She
was even thinner than he, but, like him, glowing with intense vitality.
She had hung her cap on the pommel of her saddle and her curly black
hair whipped across her face. She had a short nose, a large mouth,
magnificent gray eyes and cheeks of flawless carmine. She wore a faded
plaid mackinaw, and arctics half-way up her long, thin legs.

"I hate you, Doug Spencer," she said finally and fiercely, "and I'm glad
you're not my real brother!"

"I don't see why my father ever married a woman with an ornery brat like
you!" retorted Douglas.

"I wouldn't stay to associate with you another minute if you offered me a
new pair of spurs! I'm going to meet Maud!" And Judith disappeared down
the trail.

Douglas eased back in his saddle and lighted a cigarette, while he
watched the distant figures approaching across the valley. The glory
of the landscape made little impression on him. He had been born in Lost
Chief and he saw only snow and his schoolmates racing over the converging
trails.

The Rockies in mid-winter! High northern cattle country with purple sage
deep blanketed in snow, with rarefied air below the zero mark, with sky
the purest, most crystalline deep sapphire, and Lost Chief Valley, high
perched in the ranges, silently awaiting the return of spring.

Fire Mesa, huge, profoundly striated, with red clouds forever forming on
its top and rolling over remoter mesas, stood with its greatest length
across the north end of the valley. At its feet lay Black Gorge, and
half-way up its steep red front projected the wide ledge on which the
schoolhouse stood. Dead Line Peak and Falkner's Peak abruptly closed the
south end of the valley. From between these two great mountains, Lost
Chief Creek swept down across the valley into the Black Gorge. Lost Chief
Range formed the west boundary of the valley, Indian Range, the east.
They were perhaps ten miles apart.

All this gives little of the picture Douglas might have been absorbing.
It tells nothing of the azure hue of the snow that buried Lost Chief
Creek and Lost Chief ranches. It gives no hint of the awful splendor of
Dead Line and Falkner's Peaks, all blue and bronze and crimson, backed by
myriads of other peaks, pure white, against the perfect sky.

It does not picture the brilliant yellow canyon wall which thrust Lost
Chief Range back from the valley, nor the peacock blue sides of the
Indian Range, clothed in wonder by the Forest Reserve. And finally, it
does not tell of the infinite silence that lay this prismatic Sunday
afternoon over the snow-cloaked world.

Douglas did not see the beauty of the valley, but as, far below, he saw
Judith trot up to the Day's corral, he was smitten suddenly by his sense
of loneliness. Too bad of Jude, he thought, always to be flying off at a
tangent like that! A guy couldn't offer the least criticism of her fool
horse, that she didn't lose her temper. Funny thing to see a girl with a
hot temper. Ordinary enough in a man, but girls were usually just mean
and spitty, like cats. A guy had to admit that there was nothing mean
about Judith. She was fearless and straight like a first-class fellow.
But temper! Whew! Funny things, tempers! He himself always found it hard
to let go of his rage. It smouldered deep and biting inside of him and
hard to get out into words. He usually had to tell himself to hit back.
Funny about that, when his father was always boiling over like Judith.
He wondered if her temper would grow worse as she grew older, as his
father's had. Funny things, tempers! People in a temper always looked and
acted fools. The guy that could keep hold was the guy that won out. Like
being able to control a horse with a good curb-bit. Funny why he felt
lonely. It was only lately that he had noticed it. Here was Buster and
here was Prince, and here was the approaching joke of the preacher. Why
then this sense of loneliness? Maybe loneliness wasn't the right word.
Maybe it was longing. And for what? Not for Jude! Lord, no! Not for that
young wildcat. But the feeling of emptiness was there, as real as hunger,
and at this moment as persistent. Funny thing, longing. What in the world
had a guy like him to long for?

A long coo-ee below the ledge interrupted his meditation. A young rider
leaped from the trail to the level before the schoolhouse, broke into a
gallop and slid, with sparks flying, to the door.

"Hello, Scott!" said Douglas, without enthusiasm.

"I thought Jude was here!" returned Scott. He was older and heavier than
Douglas, freckled of face and sandy of hair, with something hard in his
hazel eyes.

"He'd better leave Jude alone," thought Douglas, "the mangy pinto!"

There was a shriek and a gray horse, carrying a youth with the schoolmarm
clinging behind him, flew across the yard and reared to avoid breaking
his knees on the steps. The schoolmarm scrambled down, still screaming
protests at the grinning rider. One after another now arrived, perhaps a
dozen youngsters, varying in age from five to eighteen, each on his or
her own lean, half-broken horse, each appearing with the same flying leap
from the steep trail to the level, each racing across the yard as if with
intent to burst through the schoolhouse door, each bringing up with the
same pull back of foaming horse to its haunches. And with each horse came
a dog of highly varied breed.

The youngsters had been racing about the ledge for some time before
the grown people began to appear. The women, most of them very handsome,
were dressed dowdily in mackinaws and anomalous foot covering. But the
men were resplendent in chaps and short leather coats, with gay silk
neckerchiefs, with silver spurs and embossed saddles.

When Judith returned with Maud Day there were thirty or forty people and
almost as many dogs milling about the yard. The log school had weathered
against the red wall of the mesa for fifty years. There probably was not
a person in the crowd who had not gone to school there, who did not, like
Judith, love every log in its ugly sides. Judith caught Douglas' sardonic
gaze, tossed her curly head and urged Swift up the steps, where she
looked toward the road to the Pass, shading her fine eyes with a mittened
hand.

Finally she cried, "I see the preacher coming!"

"Somebody ought to go in and build the fire if we ain't going to freeze
to death!" exclaimed Grandma Brown, jogging up on a flea-bitten black
mule.

"He invited himself. Let him build his own fire!" cried Douglas.

Grandma pulled her spectacles down from her forehead to the bridge of her
capable nose, and stared at Douglas.

"Well! Well! Doesn't take 'em long away from the nursing bottle to get
smarty. Where's your father, Douglas?"

"Home with the toothache," replied Doug, flushed and irritated.

"Did he bring you up to let a stranger come to the house and build his
own fire?"

"No, but it's the schoolmarm's job to build this one," replied Douglas.

"Jimmy Day, you and Doug go in and get that old stove going!" ordered
Grandma.

Both boys dismounted slowly, tied their horses, and amidst a general
chuckle, disappeared into the schoolhouse.

Charleton Falkner, a black-browed rider of middle age, with a heavy black
mustache, turned his horse toward Grandma.

"That's right, Charleton," the old lady went on, "you come over here and
help me off of Abe. I ain't going to stay out here freezing till old
Fowler comes. Riding ain't the novelty to me it seems to be to the rest
of you."

This was the signal for all the grown people to tie up their horses and
enter the building. Shortly Douglas and Jimmy came out, and scarcely had
remounted when the minister rode slowly up over the ledge. He dismounted
at the door and greeted the youngsters. They replied with cat-calls.
Fowler stared at the group of robust young riders, his gray-bearded face
somber, then he shook his head and opened the door.

Douglas jumped from his horse and, giving the reins to Jimmy Day, he
followed the minister. The people within were seated quietly, and Doug
slid into a rear bench. His eyes were very bright and he watched the
preacher with eager interest. Mr. Fowler dropped his overcoat on a chair
and strode up to the platform, where he smiled half wistfully, half
benignly at his congregation. Then he raised his right hand.

"Let us pray!" he said. "O God, help me to speak truth to these people
who ten years ago laughed me from this room. Help me to open their eyes
that they may behold You! Show them that they lead a life of wickedness
from the babes in arms to the very aged, from--"

"Tain't any such thing!" interrupted Grandma Brown. "There you go again,
after all these years!"

"If you've come here to preach old-fashioned fire and brimstone, Fowler,"
said Charleton Falkner, "you might as well quit now. None of us believe a
word of it. We most of us think everything ends when they plant us in the
cemetery yonder, that is, if they put on enough rocks so the coyotes get
discouraged."

Douglas shivered. "I wonder if that's what I'll believe when I get to
thinking about such things," he thought. "Hanged if I'll think of 'em
till I'm old!"

"I'm with you, Charleton!" called Oscar Jefferson, rumpling his silvery
hair with his soft white cowman's hand.

The Reverend Mr. Fowler leaned over the desk. "Charleton Falkner, aren't
you man enough to admit that you folks here in Lost Chief lead a wicked
life?"

"How do you mean, wicked?" demanded Charleton.

"I mean that you steal cattle, that you shoot to kill, that there is
indecency among your children, that your young girls go unguarded and
that your young men are no better than wild horses. I mean that your
little girls drink whiskey. And I defy you to show me two mothers in
the valley who have taught their children to pray and to walk with God."

"Aw!" sniffed Oscar Jefferson, "if that's what you've come a hundred
miles to tell us, you'd better quit! That may do for foreigners and city
slums, but it won't go down with the Lost Chief cowman. We're Americans,
here."

"Americans!" cried Mr. Fowler. "How much does that mean?"

Jefferson rose to his full six feet. "By God, I'll tell you what it
means! It means our ancestors conquered the Indians, in New England, that
we fought the British in the Revolution and the rebels in the Civil War
and the hombres in the Spanish-American War. It means that fifty years
ago the father or the grandfather of every man in this room came out here
and fought the Indians and the wolves and the Mormons--"

Charleton Falkner interrupted with his twisted smile that showed even,
tobacco stained teeth. "Jeff, this ain't the Fourth of July celebration,
you know!"

Jefferson somewhat sheepishly subsided to the desk on which he had been
sitting.

"That's exactly why I came back!" cried the preacher. "I know that you
and Lost Chief belong to the heroic early history of America. This should
be a valley of old Puritan ideals. A church should stand here beside the
school. You never have built a church. You never have allowed a minister
to settle here. You never--"

Here Grandma Brown's brother-in-law, Johnny Brown, spoke. "I've deponed
that many a time to this crowd of mavericks! You'd ought to--"

"Keep quiet, Johnny!" ordered Grandma. "Fowler, if you are going to give
us a regular Bible sermon, go ahead. Otherwise, I'm going home. I can
jaw, myself."

"Also, cuss some, Grandma," suggested a slow voice. Grandma did not heed.

"If you're going to preach, preach," she said to the minister.

Mr. Fowler threw his head back. "Ten years ago I let you drive me out of
Lost Chief before I'd preached a sermon. God has never let me rest since,
no matter where I was, and when I was re-appointed to Mountain City,
before I preached my first sermon there, I came out here. You are going
to have the Word of God preached to you to-day if you shoot me for it.
And beware lest you come to Esau's fate for ye know how afterward, when
he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no
place for repentance, though he sought it carefully, with tears."

He paused, took a Bible from his pocket and opened it.

Douglas waited tensely. The preacher looked to him as if weighted with
mysterious knowledge, as if something infinitely illuminating were to
issue from his bearded lips. The boy had a sudden conviction that Fowler
was about to say something that would answer the longing that had so
oppressed him lately. He hunched his broad, thin shoulders forward, his
clear blue eyes on the preacher's face.

Fowler cleared his throat. "'Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me,
saying, Now thou son of man, wilt thou judge, wilt thou hide the guilty
city? Yea, thou shalt show her all her abominations.'"

He closed the Bible. "Friends, this is my message and my text. I am going
to show you your abominations of crookednesses. I am going to show you
that hell is yawning for such as you."

Douglas sighed. "Old fool!" he muttered. "As Grandma Brown says, she can
jaw. He's lost his chance with me." He slipped out of the door, mounted
his horse and nodded to the group of youngsters waiting for him. Then he
urged Buster up the steps, through the door and up the aisle. The others
followed him. A moment later, the schoolroom was chaos. Horses pranced
over the desks. Dogs barked and fought among the horses' legs. Babies
screamed. Oaths filled the air. Lost Chief rocked with laughter.

Fowler jumped upon the teacher's desk, appealing in dumb show for order.
A plunging horse tipped the desk over and the minister went down among
the prancing legs. In a moment he was up, and again he raised both hands
in a plea for silence. Douglas, laughing gaily, twirled his lariat, and
pinioned the two pleading hands, then, amidst shouts of laughter, he
backed Buster from the room, drawing the minister none too gently with
him.

Outside, whither the crowd quickly followed, Douglas halted and, still
laughing, allowed the preacher to free his hands.

"Now go on back to Mountain City, Mr. Preacher," he cried, "and don't
come back till you've learned not to scold like an old woman."

Fowler pulled on his overcoat which somebody tossed him, and mounted his
horse. Then he stood in his stirrups and pointed a trembling finger at
Douglas.

"Ye shall find no place for repentance, though ye seek for it with
tears."

"Why should I repent?" demanded Douglas.

"Aw, run him! Run the bastard!" shouted Scott Parsons.

But Doug rode between the preacher and the threatening young rider. "Let
him go, Scott. He's had enough!"

Fowler disappeared down the trail. Scott turned scowling toward Douglas,
but before he could do more Judith cried, "Come on, everybody! Let's go
down to the post-office and get Peter to open the hall for a dance!"

"I will if somebody brings whiskey," agreed Scott, turning his horse
toward Swift.

"I'll go over to Inez Rodman's and get some if Maud will go with me,"
volunteered Judith.

"Let's all go to Rodman's," cried Maud.

The older people were riding slowly down the trail to the valley. The
youngsters waited until the way was clear before leaving the school-yard,
agreeing in the meantime that Judith and Maud should go after the whiskey
while the others went to interview Peter; and the two girls departed
forthwith.

"Some one besides me will have to work on Peter," said Scott. "He's sore
at me. I tried to kick Sister."

"What did you do that for?" asked Jimmy Day. "Are you sick of living?"

"She bit Ginger on the shoulder. I hate that dog."

"Jude can handle Peter," said Douglas. "Come on, let's get going."

The little cavalcade moved noisily down the trail, crossed the deep snows
of Black Gorge and broke into a wild race when the road opened a mile
below the post-office. The horses lunged and kicked through the drifts,
the dogs barked, the girls squealed, the boys shouted. The post-office
lay in the middle of the valley with neither tree nor house in its
vicinity. It was a square log structure, two stories high, originally an
inner fort built as a final retreat from the Indians. The upper room was
now used as a dance-hall. The lower floor contained the post-office, a
general store, and Peter Knight's living quarters.

Peter Knight was the only outsider in Lost Chief. He had lived there a
scant twenty years. No one knew whence he came, nor why. He was a man
of education and an ardent lover of animals, a somewhat sardonic, very
lonely man, yet somehow having more influence in the valley than any
one save Grandma Brown. He showed no actual fondness for any particular
person save Judith and his big mongrel wolf-hound, Sister, Sister being
every inch a person! Douglas had sometimes thought that Peter showed
a real interest in him, but this interest was shown almost entirely by
scathing vituperations, so the boy made no attempt to form the interest
into friendship.

The crowd of riders drew up at the post-office, sparks and snow flying,
just as Maud and Judith lashed their horses in from the west trail.
Judith waved a bottle of whiskey.

"Some providers!" cried Scott, putting out his hand for the flask.
He took a pull, then passed it on. Boys and girls alike took a drink,
then Scott pocketed the bottle. During this procedure, the door of the
post-office opened and Peter Knight appeared.

He was about forty-five years old, very tall, very, very thin, and
as straight as he was thin. Thick, closely clipped gray hair stood up
straight from his forehead. His eyes were deep sunk in his head and a
piercing, light blue. He possessed a belligerent chin below an obstinate
lower lip and a close-cropped gray mustache. He wore a gray flannel shirt
and blue denim pants turned high over riding-boots.

He watched the passing of the whiskey bottle without comment.

"Hello, Peter!" called Judith. "Will you open the hall and let us have a
dance?"

"What have you been doing to your horse, Jude?" demanded Peter, eying the
panting and dejected Swift.

"Nothing!"

"Nothing! I tell you what, the way you little devils treat your horses
would draw tears out of a coyote. Starving 'em, beating 'em, running 'em!
You ought to be thrashed, every one of you worthless young slicks."

Curiously enough, none of the group which had shown so much temerity in
man-handling the preacher now attempted to reply to Peter. A great shaggy
gray dog, exactly like a coyote except that she was much larger, now
appeared in the door beside the postmaster. A chorus of growls and whines
immediately arose from the dogs congregated among the horses.

"What happened at the schoolhouse?" asked Peter abruptly.

"You're always preaching, yourself; I suppose that's why you didn't
attend," grinned Scott Parsons.

"My Yankee horse is sick," said Peter, "and I couldn't leave him. How did
it go?"

"We ran him out," laughed Douglas. "We gave him a chance to give us real
talk but he couldn't come across, so we roped him and ran him."

"I thought that would happen. Poor Fowler!" Peter's voice was grave.

"Listen, Peter," cried Judith, "I want to ask you a favor."

She mounted the steps and stood before the man. She was as thin as he and
as straight. Peter looked down at her, still scowling.

"Now, Peter, listen! You know I love Swift and wouldn't hurt her for
anything."

"Wouldn't hurt her! Haven't I told you a hundred times that running a
horse through drifts like you do ruins 'em? No, don't try to soft-soap
me, Judith! When you kids want a favor from me, don't come up with your
horses dripping sweat in below zero weather."

He jerked Sister back into the building and slammed the door.

Judith turned. "Well, we can all go over to Inez' place. She asked us."

"Who's there?" demanded Doug.

"Nobody. She says we can dance if we want to."

There was a silence, broken after a moment by Jimmy Day. "You can't go,
Maud."

"I am going if you do!" exclaimed Maud. "Make him let me go, Doug."

"What's the use of being so fussy about poor old Inez?" asked Scott.
"What harm is there in a dance at her place?"

"I don't see why, if my mother don't stop me, yours should stop you,"
protested Judith.

"O, your mother couldn't boss a day-old calf!" said Jimmy impatiently.

"Don't you knock my mother!" shrilled Judith.

"Your mother--" began Maud.

"Dry up, Maud, or I'll smack your mouth!" ordered Douglas.

"No you won't!" cried Jimmy.

"I will, anybody that says anything against Jude's mother," returned
Douglas promptly.

"Aw, if you folks are going to start fighting, as usual I'm going home,"
growled Scott Parsons. "Every time the crowd gets together, Jude has to
start a scrap. It's getting god-awful cold, anyhow, and I've got chores
to do." He spurred Ginger and was off.

"Same here!" chimed half a dozen voices, and more horses were spurred
away.

Douglas glared at Judith. "Always making trouble! I should think you'd
get sick of it."

"Let 'em not knock my mother, or my horse, or my dog, then," replied
Judith, tossing her head.

"Your dog! Prince is my dog, miss, and don't you forget it for a minute,"
cried Douglas.

He spurred Buster onto the main trail which lifted gradually toward Dead
Line Peak. Judith, after a pouting moment, followed him.

Except for this steady lift from seven thousand feet at Black Gorge to
eight thousand feet at the base of Dead Line and Falkner's Peaks, the
valley was as level as a floor. The sun was setting as the two left the
post-office. Lost Chief Range, on their right, was black against fire.
The snow of the valley was as blue as indigo. A gentle but bitterly
cold wind rose from the east. Prince, yelping, set off after a skulking
coyote. When he had disappeared beyond a distant herd grazing through the
snow, Judith pushed her horse up beside Buster.

"Doug, am I any scrappier than the rest of them?"

Douglas, his cigarette hanging negligently from a corner of his mouth,
nodded.

"Well, I have to be, Doug," insisted Judith.

"No, you don't. You just look for trouble, all the time. Why do you have
to be?"

"Who is there to look out for me?" demanded the girl, chin in the air.

"Pshaw! You don't need a guard, do you? Besides, what's the matter with
me?"

"Huh! You don't really care what happens to me. I'm not your real sister
and you never forget it. I'm lonely."

Douglas gave her a curious glance. Was she, he wondered, experiencing
that feeling of loneliness and longing which had been haunting him for
months? He wanted to ask her about it but he could not. She laughed at
him too easily.

They rode on in silence for a while, Judith's thin young body sagging
dejectedly in the saddle. The lavendar twilight was gathering. White
stars hung within hand touch. Prince returned to the trail and a coyote
barked derisively from beyond an alfalfa stack.

"Douglas," exclaimed Judith suddenly, "if I thought when I got married,
my husband would treat me like Dad does Mother, I'd never get married.
Getting married in real life isn't a bit like the books show it."

Douglas grunted. "I wouldn't worry about getting married for a few years
yet."

"I'm fourteen," returned Judith. "I've got a right to think about it.
Don't you ever?"

"No."

"You think about girls, though," insisted Judith.

"That isn't thinking about marrying, is it?"

"What do you think about mostly, Doug?"

Douglas sighed. "It's hard to say. I've been awful sad lately. I don't
know why. I think about that and I plan a lot about what I'm going to do
when I finish school."

"Would you like to marry Maud Day?"

"Who's talking about marrying!" shouted Doug with sudden and overwhelming
exasperation. "What makes you such a fool, Jude?"

"How can I help talking about it when it's my mother your father's so
rough with. Of course, you don't care."

"I do, too, care. I think a lot of her, but he don't mean half he says."

"Well, he'd better begin to stop knocking me around when he's mad, or
I'll run away."

"Especially in the winter, I suppose," sniffed Douglas, "when it would be
plain suicide."

"I don't care if it's in a blizzard," insisted Judith. "When I've had
enough, I'll go."

Douglas laughed. "Hanged if I don't think you would, too, Jude. You've
got the nerve of a wolverine."

"I hope Dad's tooth is better," said Judith, as dim buildings and a
lighted window shone though the dusk.

"Are you really afraid of Dad?" asked Douglas suddenly.

"No," replied Judith, thoughtfully, "but sometimes I hate him."

"I think he's a pretty good old scout in spite of his temper," said the
boy.

"Well," admitted Judith, "I guess I do too. At least, I can see why so
many women like him. He's awful good-looking. I can see that now I'm
growing up."

"Growing up!" mocked Douglas.

But before Judith could pick up the gauntlet, the horses came to pause
before the lighted window. Judith jumped from Swift, unsaddled her and
turned her into the corral. Then she went hurriedly into the house.
Douglas unsaddled more slowly, and strode toward the sheds where calves
were bellowing and cows lowing.

For half an hour he worked in the starlight, throwing alfalfa to the
crowding stock. It was so cold that by the time he had finished he
scarcely could turn the door-knob with his aching fingers. He entered the
kitchen.

It was a large room, with the log walls neatly chinked and whitewashed.
An unshaded kerosene lamp burned on the big table in the middle of the
room. Judith was cutting bread. The air was heavy with smoke from frying
beef. A tall, slender woman, with round shoulders, stood over the red-hot
stove, stirring the potatoes. She was a very beautiful, very worn edition
of Judith, though one wondered if she ever burned with even a small
portion of Judith's eager, wistful fires. She turned as Douglas came in
and gave him a quick smile.

"Cold, Douglas?" she asked.

The boy nodded. "Where's Dad?"

"In the other room. His tooth still aches, I guess."

"Is he sore because I'm late?" asked the boy, scowling.

Judith answered with a curious jerking of her breath. "He tried to kick
me. I hate him!"

Douglas grunted and marched through the inner door into the one other
room of the house. It was at least twenty-five feet square. The log walls
were whitewashed like the kitchen and from one of the huge pine rafters
hung a lamp which shed a pleasant light on a center table. Beds occupied
three corners of the room. There were several comfortable rocking-chairs,
a big mahogany bureau and a sewing-machine. Over the double bed hung an
ancient saber and over a low bookcase was a framed sampler. There were
several good old-fashioned engravings and some framed lithographs with
numerous books and piles of dilapidated magazines. Doug's father stood
by the table with a book in his hand.

John Spencer at forty-six was still a superb physical specimen, standing
six feet two in his felt slippers. His face, so like, yet so unlike his
son's, showed heavy lines from the nostril to the corner of the mouth.
Beneath his eyes were faint pouches. The thick thatch of yellow hair had
lost its yellow light and now was drab in tone. His flannel shirt,
unbuttoned at the throat, showed a strong neck, and the rider's belt that
circled the top of his blue denim pants outlined a waist as slim and hard
as Doug's.

He looked up. "What do you mean by coming in at this hour, you young
hound?"

"I think I might have Sunday afternoon to myself," said Douglas sulkily.

"So do I. But that don't mean you are to have all Sunday night, too. Did
you feed the calves?"

"Yes."

"Next Sunday you be here by five o'clock, understand?"

"Yes."

"Supper's ready!" called Judith.

The table was covered by a red-checked cloth. A huge platter of fried
beef, another of fried potatoes, another of baking-powder biscuits, and a
pot of coffee steamed on the table. John did not speak until his first
hunger had been satisfied. When he received his second cup of coffee,
however, he said, "Well, my tooth's better. What happened this afternoon,
children?"

Judith did not reply, but Douglas, with a chuckle, told the story of Mr.
Fowler's discomfiture. John and Mary shouted with laughter.

"By old Sitting Bull, it serves him right!" John wiped his eyes. "What
became of him?"

"O, he beat it for the Pass!" replied Douglas.

"What did you do after that?" inquired Mrs. Spencer.

"We went up to the post-office to get Peter to let us have a dance, but
there was nothing doing. He just gave us all a jaw because our horses
were sweating."

"I'll bet Swift was the worst off," chuckled John.

"That's right! Pick on me!" cried Judith.

"Judith! Be careful!" protested her mother.

"Let her alone, Mary." John's blue eyes twinkled as he watched the young
girl. "She's kept out of a row about as long as she can without choking."

"Some day, when you least expect it," said Judith with a little quiver in
her voice, "I'm going to run away."

The others laughed.

"Where to, Jude?" asked her stepfather.

"To some place where folks like me."

"I like you, Jude!" protested John.

Judith turned to him quickly. "Why do you thrash me and kick me, then?"

"Kids have to be trained, and you are as hard bitted as Buster," answered
John.

"No such thing!" Judith suddenly rose from the table. "It's just bad
temper."

"Judith! Judith! Don't!" pleaded her mother.

"Let her alone!" John's voice was not angry. He was eying Judith with
inscrutable gaze.

"The next time you even try to kick me, I'm going to run away."

She paused and suddenly Douglas thought, "Jude knows what real loneliness
is. She's a very lonely person." He leaned forward and watched her with
unwonted sympathy. She swallowed once or twice, and then went on:

"A woman, a dog, and a horse, you don't kick any of them. Peter Knight
says so. Maud Day's father never kicks her. He hits her with a belt,
maybe, when she doesn't get his horse quickly enough, and maybe he hits
her mother when he's drinking, but that's all." Judith began to gather
up the dishes with trembling fingers.

"How old are you, Judith?" asked John.

"You know. I was fourteen last spring."

"By jove, you are almost a woman grown!" John swept her with a look, then
rose and went into the living room.

Douglas followed him and, sitting down on the edge of his bed, he
unbuckled his spurs. John settled himself under the lamp with his book,
but he did not begin to read at once.

"Yes, Doug; that girl is a woman now and she has any woman in Lost Chief
beaten for beauty and nerve."

Douglas gave his father a startled glance; then he said, with elaborate
carelessness, "Rats! She's just a fighting kid!"

John chuckled. "I'm glad you're still only a sixteen-year-old fool,
Doug."

The boy said nothing more. He scowled and sat staring at his father long
after that strenuous person was absorbed in his book. Then he kicked off
his boots, pulled off his vest and trousers and crawled into bed. Not
long after, Mrs. Spencer came in, glanced at her husband, sighed wearily,
then she too went to bed. Judith finished wiping the dishes, sauntered in
to the center table and shortly was absorbed in "Bleak House." Mrs.
Spencer was snoring quietly and Douglas had not stirred for an hour when
he heard his father say in a low voice:

"Jude, old girl, I'm never going to lay finger on you again."

Jude gave a little gasp of surprise. "What's happened, Dad?"

"You've happened! By jove, you've grown to be a beautiful woman!"

"Huh! Doug says I'm a homely, pug-nosed outlaw."

"Doug's a fool kid. It takes a man like me that knows women to appreciate
you, Jude."

"Doug'll hear you," warned the girl.

"He's been dead for an hour. Give me a kiss, Judith."

"I don't think I will, I'm too sleepy and tired. Guess I'll go to bed!"
She rose, dropping "Bleak House" as she did so.

Mrs. Spencer woke with a start. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing! I just dropped a book." Judith retired to her own corner and
shortly she too was asleep.

But Douglas, new thoughts surging through his brain, lay awake long after
his father had turned out the light and crawled in beside Mary. Of a
sudden, he had seen Judith through his father's eyes and he found himself
very unwilling to permit John to see her so. Her loneliness had assumed
an entirely new aspect to him. It was the loneliness of girlhood, of
girlhood without father, mother, or brother. That was what it amounted
to, he told himself. He never had been a real brother to Judith, never
had looked out for her as if she had been his sister. And Jude's mother!
Just tired and sweet and broken, about as well fitted to cope with her
fiery daughter as with the unbroken Morgan colt which was John's pride.
As for his father--! Douglas turned over with a deep breath. Let his
father take heed! Judith! Judith with her glowing wistful eyes, her
crimson cheeks, her dauntless courage, her vivid mind! Judith, with her
loneliness, was his to guard from now on. Funny how a guy could feel so
all of a sudden! Funny, if he really should love old Jude, with her
fiery temper and more fiery tongue. And if this were love, love was not
so comfortable a feeling, after all. It was a profound uneasiness, that
uprooted every settled habit of his spiritual being. It was, he told
himself, before he fell asleep, a funny thing, love!




CHAPTER II

OSCAR JEFFERSON

"Help those that need help."

_--Grandma Brown_.


The next morning while Doug was feeding in the corral, his father hitched
a team to the hay wagon. Just as he prepared to climb over the wheel,
Judith came out, ready for her ride to the Days' ranch, where she was
to spend the day.

"Say, Jude," called John. "I want Doug to go to the old ranch after some
colts. You come with me and help feed. I'm going to get all I can out of
you two until school begins again."

Judith crossed silently to the wagon and climbed aboard. Douglas dropped
his pitchfork and walked deliberately toward the fence. As he climbed it,
he said, "Judith, you aren't going. You keep your date with Maud." He
dropped from the fence to his father's side.

John turned to him with a look of entire astonishment.

"Jude's growing up, as you say," explained Douglas heavily. "If you
aren't going to look out for her, I am."

"O, you are! And why?" demanded his father.

"Because!" replied Doug. "Jude, you get down and get started on Swift."

Astonishment, amusement, anger, pursued their way across the older man's
face. Judith put out her tongue at her brother.

"Chase yourself, Doug Spencer! You're not my boss, you bet!"

John put his foot on the hub. "Good-by, Doug; I hope you recover from
your insanity by to-night."

Douglas put an unsteady hand on his father's shoulder. "She can't go with
you, Dad!"

His father struck him roughly aside. Douglas ran around the wagon. Judith
was sitting on the edge of the rick. He reached up, pulled her into his
arms, ran her into the feed shed, turned the key in the padlock and
put the key in his pocket. As he turned, his father met him with a blow
between the eyes. Mary Spencer appeared on the doorstep, pale and
silent.

It was but the work of a moment to subdue the boy, and to unlock the
door.

"Get into the wagon, Judith!" ordered John.

Douglas strode uncertainly to his father's side. "Judith, you go get on
your horse!"

The young girl stood staring at the two, something impish in the curl of
her lips, something wistful and unafraid and puzzled in her beautiful
gray eyes. Back of the two men lay the unblemished blue white of the
snow-choked fields and in awful proximity to these, Dead Line Peak flung
its head against the cloudless heavens. Judith looked from the Peak to
father and son as though deliberately appraising them. John, with ashen
hair, with bloodshot eyes and the tell-tales lines from nose to lip
corner, but handsome, dominating, choleric, with his reputation as a
conqueror of women, as a subduer of horses, as a two-gun man. Douglas,
with his thatch of gold blowing in the cold morning air, thin, awkward,
only a boy but with a spirit glowing in his blue eyes that Judith never
before had seen there. The girls of Lost Chief were sophisticated almost
from the cradle. Judith could interpret the lines in her stepfather's
face. But she did not know what the strange light in Douglas' eyes might
mean. Suddenly she sprang to Swift's back and put her to the gallop.

"You know what to expect when you come back, miss!" roared John.

But Judith did not seem to hear. Spencer turned to his son. "Now, sir,
you go into the house and get the whip!"

Douglas did not stir. "You aren't going to whip me any more, Dad. If you
want to fight me, put up your fists."

Mary Spencer ran through the snow toward the two. "Don't fight him, John!
Don't! He's just a child!"

John whirled at her with his fists raised. Douglas jumped before his
step-mother and caught the blow on his raised elbow.

"And that'll be about enough of that, too, Dad!"

John caught his breath, then poured out a string of oaths and invectives,
ending with, "Now before I thrash the cussedness out of you, young
fellow, what excuse have you got to put up?"

"I haven't any." Douglas was still pale and his voice broke, childishly.
"Only, all of a sudden it seems cowardly to me for you to hit Mother.
She's not a child. You haven't got the excuse that you're training her.
And you know she can't hit you. You're a good fighter, but I notice you
don't hit Peter Knight or Charleton Falkner, any time they peeve you a
little. It was all right to lick me and Jude when we were little. But now
I warn you. I'm going to hit back. And you got to leave Judith and her
mother alone."

John Spencer stood staring at his son. Twice he raised his heavy fist
to strike him. Twice he dropped it. Douglas, still pale and trembling,
wondered at his own temerity. He always had been so terribly afraid
of his father!

"So you don't intend to obey me any more!" sneered John.

"Sure I do," replied Douglas. "Only I'm not going to be licked into doing
things blind, and I'm going to take care of Jude."

John uttered a contemptuous oath.

Doug swallowed with an effort but his steady temper was well under
control and he went on, "I'd like to be as good a rider and rancher as
you are and handle a gun as good as you do, but I'm hanged if I want my
woman to be as scared of me as Mother is of you."

"Think yourself a man, eh? Well, I'll tell you, young fellow, as long as
you live in that house, there, you'll obey and take the lickings I give
you. My father built that house and I was born in it and so were you.
Hemen come from our breed and only a sissy refuses to obey. I may not be
as well educated as my ancestors back East were, but I'm just as well
trained as any of 'em and you're going to be too. We Spencers boss our
own households. Go get me that whip!"

"No, sir, I won't do it," replied Douglas, a steady burning light in his
eyes.

"You mean you'll stand up to me and fight after you saw the way I could
handle you a few minutes ago?"

"Yes, sir, I do."

For a long moment there was silence, while Mrs. Spencer twisted her hands
together and Doug and his father stared at each other. Then John gave a
short laugh.

"By Sitting Bull! if you haven't got nerve, Doug! Go saddle Buster and
get up to the old ranch after those three-year-olds." Then he climbed
into the hay wagon, shouted at the team and was off.

Douglas' lips parted. The color returned to his face. Then he sat down
weakly on the lower bar of the buck fence and burst into tears, and he
was more frightened by his own tears than he had been by his father's
anger. Mary Spencer knelt in the snow before him and tried to pull his
head to her shoulder.

"Doug! Doug! You are a man!" she whispered. "You are a man!"

Douglas struggled heavily with the strangling sobs and after a moment sat
erect and embarrassed.

"Douglas, what happened? How did you come to do it?"

"Something he said to Jude last night scared me," mumbled Doug.

Mary tightened her hold on the boy's arm. "I've been so afraid! So
afraid! And no one to talk to!"

"Haven't you ever warned Jude about it?" demanded Douglas, with a sudden
sensing of a debt mothers owed to daughters that Mary might not be
discharging.

Mary shrank. "O, I couldn't, Doug!"

Douglas looked at her scornfully. "I don't see why that isn't your job."

Mary rose from her knees. She twisted her work-scarred hands together and
looked at the boy with pathetic wistfulness.

"Don't you see, Doug, that I couldn't make her understand? She's still
such a child she'd just laugh at me."

"Child!" scoffed Douglas, forgetting his own previous estimate of Judith.
"She knows a whole lot more than you do!"

Mary laughed drearily. "Now you're talking like a child!" Then her voice
cleared with unwonted purposefulness. "No one who hasn't been married can
possibly understand men, or fear them or despise them, like they ought to
be feared and despised. When I think what I was before I married and what
I am now, I feel like I wanted to put Judith where she never could see a
man. It's not right that a woman should suffer so. It's not right to lose
all your dreams like I've lost mine. Marriage was never meant to be so."

Douglas scowled in his astonishment. Mary had been feeling like this all
along when he'd been thinking of her as without nerve! Here, then, was
somebody else lonely, like himself and Judith.

"I'm sorry, Mother," he said awkwardly. "I'll do what I can to change
it."

"You can't do anything, my dear. What I'm suffering is in the nature of
things."

"Well, anyhow, you ought to warn Jude," repeated Douglas.

"I can't!" said Mary. "Doug, if I do she'd guess how cowardly I am and
how I suffer--in my mind, I mean," and she put her hands over her face
with a dry sob.

Douglas put his long young arm about her. "I'll take care of it for you,"
he said huskily. "Judith don't know it but she's got somebody besides old
Peter ridin' herd on her now. And you know I'm some little old herder,
Mother!"

"I know you're a man!" exclaimed Mary. "The kind of a man that's mighty
scarce in Lost Chief Valley." She turned away toward the house.

Douglas picked a bridle from the fence and started after Buster.

It was nearly supper time and Doug and his father were reading in the
living-room when Judith returned. The wind had risen and fine particles
of snow sifted under the eaves and over the table. The wood stove glowed
red hot and the smell of cedar mingled with that of frying beef in the
kitchen.

Judith, without waiting to take off her mackinaw, cheeks scarlet, eyes
brilliant, stood before her father.

"Here I am, Dad."

John looked up from his book. "Have you milked yet?"

"No, sir."

"Go out and do it."

"I want to know if you're going to lick me, Dad?"

"What did I promise you, last night?" he demanded.

"Do you mean to keep that promise?" asked Judith.

"Go out and tend to your milking!" roared John, rising to his feet and
throwing the book across the room. "Get out of my sight, you little fool,
you blankety-blank--" But Judith had fled and Douglas retired to the
kitchen.

Supper was a silent affair. But that evening when the family had gathered
under the lamp to read, Douglas said, "Scott Parsons wants me to take the
mail stage for him Wednesday."

"Where's he going?" asked John.

"Out after his registered bull. It's strayed again."

"Huh!" grunted John. "Are he and Oscar Jefferson still fighting over that
bull?"

"I guess so," replied Douglas. "Can I go, Dad?"

"It will put the dehorning off another day, but I guess you can go. That
extra money will come in handy. How would you like to drive the mail
regularly next winter, Douglas?"

The boy tossed "Treasure Island" on the table. "Do you mean you'd let me
have it?"

"What would you do with the money?"

Douglas hesitated.

Judith spoke. "I know what I'd do. I'd put half the money into books. The
other half I'd use to buy me some buckers and I'd go into training as a
lady bronco buster."

Everybody laughed, and Mrs. Spencer said, "You won't have time to keep
your nose in a book if you start in that line, Judith!"

"I'll always read," retorted Judith loftily.

"I'd buy me a silver-mounted saddle and silver spurs," said Douglas, "and
that dapple gray of Oscar Jefferson's and a good greyhound, and I'd go
into the wild horse catching business."

John groaned. "We've sure-gawd got an ambitious pair of kids here, Mary!
What about the money you get from this trip, Doug?"

"Will you let me keep it?" asked Douglas, eagerly.

"I'll see!" John picked up his book again.

"Let me go with you, Doug!" pleaded Judith.

"Nothing doing!" exclaimed her stepfather succinctly. "You go to bed now
before you get me aggravated."

Judith tossed her head but obediently retired to her corner of the room,
undressed and crawled into her bed. Douglas was not long in following her
example.

It was about eight o'clock Wednesday morning and twenty below zero when
the mail buckboard driven by Douglas took the rising trail from Black
Gorge eastward over the Mesa Pass. The snow was heavy and the trail
only indifferently opened. To add to the difficulties, Scott had hitched
Polly, a half-broken mule, to the stage in place of the mare who had gone
lame. James, the remaining horse, was steady, however, and Douglas had
only a moderate amount of trouble until the long steep grade up to the
Pass began. Here, after a quarter of an hour of reluctant going, the
mule balked. James did what he could to pull her along, Douglas plied the
blacksnake; but to no avail. When she finally did move it was to lie down
with deliberate slowness. Douglas jumped out into the drifts and by
risking his life among her agitated legs he managed to get her up. An
hour passed in the intense cold before she finally was harnessed and
meekly pulling more than her share.

At the top of the Pass, Douglas drew up to breathe the team. Bleak,
snow-covered rocks rose on either side of the trail, but opening beyond,
snow-topped ranges in rainbow tints gleamed against a sky of intensest
blue. Behind him, as he turned to look, lay Lost Chief Valley, with blue
clouds rolling from the tops of Dead Line and Falkner's Peaks. Douglas
shivered and urged the team on. But the mule again balked, and as Doug
gathered up the whip a gruff voice cried, "Hold up your hands!"

A six-shooter in a mittened fist appeared over a rock heap at the
roadside.

Douglas blanched, then looked keenly at the mitten. "Come out of that,
Jude! Darn it, I thought you'd gone to Grandma Brown's!"

Judith led Swift from behind the rock, and mounted. Her eyes were bright
with mischief.

"You turn right round and go home again, miss!" he cried, as Swift ranged
beside the buckboard.

Judith giggled. "You sure do need a hazer, Doug, while you're driving
that mule! I left a note for Mother."

"Go home! Don't speak to me. This is no trip for a girl!"

"You mean you want me to go home and help Dad feed the two-year-olds?"
demanded Judith.

Douglas glared at her. For all the biting cold, her old knit cap was
hanging to the pommel, her mackinaw was open at the throat. Her cheeks
were deep scarlet, her gray eyes half filled with tears.

Douglas scrowled and his mouth settled into sullen lines. This was a
man's trip. Judith had no business to make it seem easy enough for a
girl! And with this new feeling for Judith, she was making the adventure
too difficult. Hang it all! The place for a girl was at home! But he knew
Jude and he was not going to try to repeat the triumph of Monday morning.
He called to the team and started on.

Judith, having won her point, dropped behind the buckboard and the
journey continued in silence. They reached the half-way cabin late in the
afternoon. The little log hut, with a rude horse shelter beside it, stood
in a clump of cedar close beside the trail. The snow was fresh trampled,
for the up stage had left at three o'clock. Judith and Douglas were very
cold. They hastily unharnessed, broke the ice at the little spring and
watered the horses, then rushed into the cabin. There was a bunk, covered
by soiled and ragged quilts, a table, a few cooking utensils, and boxes
for seats. They lighted a candle and unearthed canned beans, coffee, and
canned brown bread from beneath the bunk. After he had eaten his supper,
Doug grinned for the first time.

"Forgiven me, huh?" asked Judith.

Douglas nodded. "It would be darned lonely without you. You'd better get
to bed, Jude."

"Who gets the bunk?" asked Judith.

"You of course!" Douglas' voice was suddenly harsh again.

Judith sat down on the edge of the bunk. In the uncertain light of the
candle she looked all eyes.

"Doug, what is the matter lately? I never know when you're going to take
my head plumb off."

"Oh, shut up, can't you! I don't see why girls can't let a fellow alone!"

"Tell me, Doug: Why did you keep me from going with Dad on Monday
morning?"

Douglas straightened up, his back to the stove, scowled, sighed, then
said, "I feel like I wanted you to be like the girls in books and not
like these wild women round here. And if you don't know what I mean, you
are a fool."

"Douglas Spencer, you know I'm just as good as any girl that ever lived
in any book!"

"I know that, and I propose to keep you so." Doug lighted a cigarette.

"Since when were you so interested, I'd like to know?"

"That is none of your business. Only, from now on you toe the mark,
miss."

"You're not my boss, Doug Spencer!"

"Yes, I am," returned Douglas serenely. He finished making up a bed on
the floor, rolled himself in two of the quilts and pulled the corner of
one over his head.

Judith put out her tongue at his muffled form and crept under the quilts
that remained on the bunk. By and by the moonlight appeared through the
window. The stove grew cold. The howling of the coyotes circled nearer
and nearer. Suddenly a rifle-shot rung out, then another. The shots did
not waken the sleeping boy and girl, but the mule brayed and began to
kick with the rapidity of machine-gun fire. They both jumped up and ran
out. The mule was just disappearing across the trail. Douglas jumped on
Swift's bare back, catching the lariat from the saddle that lay on the
manger.

"I'll come too, on James!" cried Judith. "I'll ride to the right!"

Douglas urged Swift through the drifts, circled a cedar grove, and saw
the mule stop to sniff at a horse which stood beside a dark heap in the
snow. Judith appeared around the opposite side of the grove and the mule
dashed away. They both hurried toward the quiet heap on the ground. A man
lay in the drifts, his rifle beside him. It was Oscar Jefferson, with
blood running out of his temple into the snow.

"Is he dead?" whispered Judith, crowding James up against Swift.

"I guess so. Must have been the shot that scared the mule. Come on,
Judith! We've got to get him into the cabin, somehow."

Judith began to cry. "I couldn't touch a dead man, Douglas!"

Douglas' own lips were very uncertain in the moonlight but he answered,
firmly enough, "We've got to do it. The coyotes will get him here."

"They'll say we shot him!" sobbed Judith.

Doug gave a start. "They sure-gawd will! What shall we do, Jude?"

"Go off and leave him and say nothing about it."

"With our horses' tracks all round him! You're crazy! Anyhow, we couldn't
go off and leave a neighbor like this. 'Tisn't Lost Chief manners."

"All right." Jude wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "Let's put the lariat
round his feet and let Jeff's horse pull him to the cabin. It won't hurt
him in the soft snow."

"Nothing will hurt him any more, poor old Jeff," said Douglas.

He dismounted and moved toward the body. Then, with teeth chattering
audibly, he tied the lariat round Jeff's feet and told Jude to get on to
the saddled horse.

"Guide him easy. I'll walk and lead the other horses and see that nothing
goes wrong."

Still whimpering, Judith obeyed, and the strange little procession moved
toward the cabin. When they reached the shed, Doug loosened the lariat.
"Judith," he said, "the best thing we can do is to put him in the
buckboard and take him home."

"I'm so afraid of a dead man, Doug!"

"So am I. But it's only poor old Oscar, after all, who's been our
next-door neighbor all our lives. We can't leave him here alone, like
a dead horse. We'll take him home. That's what Dad or any of the men
would do. Come on, Jude."

They established poor Oscar on the floor of the buckboard, among the mail
bags. They hitched up James and Oscar's big black, and tied Swift to the
tail end. All this time the moon shone coldly on the white hills, and the
coyotes howled nearer and nearer.

"Cover him deep with the quilts, Doug," whispered Judith. "I'm going to
make up a pot of hot coffee, before we start."

"How about that mule?" whispered Douglas.

"Let it go plumb to hell!" returned Judith. "Scott's the one should have
been shot, for sending you out with such a brute!"

"If it hadn't been for the mule, we'd never have found him," muttered
Douglas.

It was not much after eleven when the two, huddled together on the seat
of the buckboard, started back for Lost Chief. The cold was so intense
that they were obliged to take turns driving. When the road permitted,
they walked until even their hardy lungs demanded rest. Then they huddled
together again, their knees touching the dashboard, lest Oscar's poor
dead feet should thrust against theirs.

They talked very little except to guess as to the probable name of the
murderer. Toward dawn, when the moon had set and Douglas was trusting the
trail to the horses, he said:

"Do you remember at the schoolhouse Sunday, when Charleton said he didn't
believe in a hereafter, old Jeff chimed in and said, 'Me too'?"

"I remember," replied Judith.

"What do you suppose Jeff thinks about it now?"

"He ain't thinking. He's gone. There's no hereafter. Dad says so." Judith
huddled still closer.

"Isn't it horrible!" shuddered Douglas. "Horrible!"

Judith began to cry again. "If there was just a heaven," she sobbed, "I
wouldn't mind living or dying either."

"Well, there isn't any." Douglas heaved a great sigh. "I wonder if they
hang kids as young as us for murder?"

"Let them try hanging me, just once! That's all I've got to say!"
exclaimed Judith stoutly, in spite of her chattering teeth. "The worst
I ever did to Oscar Jefferson was to play bucking bronco on that old
milch cow, Jinny, of his. And she sure-gawd could buck! But I was only
a little girl then and I can prove it."

"Looks as if we might be in real trouble to me!" muttered Douglas.

"It's growing daylight and there's the Pass, at last!" suddenly cried
Judith.

Douglas drew a deep breath and urged on the weary horses.

It was full nine o'clock when the team drew up at the post-office door.
At Doug's halloo, Peter Knight appeared. Sister crowded out the door past
him, pricked her ears forward and ran to sniff at the rear of the
buckboard.

"What on earth brings you back at this hour?" demanded Peter.

"Trouble!" Douglas moistened his frost-cracked lips. "Oscar Jefferson was
shot last night. We got his body here."

"Who shot him?" asked Peter.

"We don't know."

"Where was it? Here, Sister, get back in the house!" Peter jerked the
door wide.

Judith answered. "Up beyond the cedars, across from the half-way house.
We found him while we were hunting for that devilish old mule."

Peter looked keenly at the two haggard young faces, then he said, "You
two come in and eat and get warm. I'll do some telephoning."

"I want to get home to my mother," half sobbed Judith.

"Sha'n't we take him on to his house?" asked Douglas.

Peter replied impatiently, "You know he was baching it alone while young
Jeff's in California. You come as I tell you!"

Stiffly the two stumbled out of the stage and into the warmth of
Peter's quarters. He had just begun his own breakfast and, at his orders,
Douglas and Judith devoured it while Peter went to the telephone. In an
incredibly short time John Spencer and Frank Day, the sheriff, galloped
up to the door. To them and to Peter, the young people told their story.

The sheriff asked a number of questions. After he had finished Douglas
queried anxiously:

"You ain't going to try and put it on us, Frank?"

Frank grinned. "Well, I might, if the suspicions I have as to another
party prove wrong."

"Don't torture 'em, Frank!" protested Peter. "They've been through a good
deal for kids."

"Scott Parsons was the only rider in the valley who didn't like Oscar,"
said John. "That war they've had for two years over the bull was bound to
end in trouble. I warned Oscar."

"Oscar was more to blame than Scott," said the sheriff. "He was the
meanest man for hanging out on a fool thing I ever knew. And I'm just as
fond of Oscar as the rest of you. What was a bull to Oscar! He could buy
a dozen of 'em. Scott hasn't a thing on earth except wages for riding and
that mangy little herd of slicks he's picked up."

"Picked up is right!" grunted John. "That bull, whoever it belonged to,
is standard bred."

"Scott was born with a nasty temper." Peter spoke thoughtfully. "He told
Oscar in front of me he would get him. That was about two weeks ago."

"Did Oscar tell any one he was going anywhere?" asked the sheriff.

"Not me," said Peter. "Why not let the kids go home?"

"Sure," agreed Frank. "You've done a good night's work, you two. Get some
sleep now."

"You'll find Buster tied to my saddle, Doug," said John. "Judith, can
Swift still move?"

"You bet she can!" replied Judith.

There was a laugh, and the two young people gladly mounted and trotted
into the home trail.

Oscar's wife had long been dead. His son was on a cattle-buying trip and
could not be reached. Oscar had been one of the richest men in the very
well conditioned valley, so, instead of taking the body up to the lonely
ranch house, it was laid out in state in the post-office.

Grandma Brown always officiated at deaths and births in Lost Chief. After
it was found impossible to get in touch with young Jeff and after the
sheriff had made a three days' investigation, she ordered the funeral
to take place at once.

"We could pack him down in the ice till a thaw opens up the cemetery a
little," suggested Charleton Falkner. "You know what a god-awful job it
is making a grave in the cemetery in winter, between the frost and the
rocks."

"He's going to be buried now, while he's in good trim," declared Grandma.
"I'm not going to have him ruined, waiting for spring. You men get to
work now, in shifts, like you did for old Ma Day."

Grandma's word was law in Lost Chief, and the grave forthwith was
prepared. John Spencer, Peter Knight, and Charleton Falkner were
appointed by the old lady to do the work, and Douglas accompanied his
father. Old Johnny Brown appeared while the work was in process.

The cemetery was fenced in, but except for a few simple headstones and
monuments, it was unadorned.

"Queer the women folks have never fixed this place up a little," said
Peter Knight, standing waist-deep in the grave, with John. "Most places
I've been, women keep the graves like they would a little garden."

Charleton Falkner, resting on a neighboring headstone, smiled
sardonically. "Lost Chief women have enough to do without dolling
up graves."

Cold sweat stood on Doug's forehead. He stared from the gaping grave to
the murmuring line of pines that marked the end of the cemetery and the
beginning of the Forest Reserve, and shuddered. He had not been sleeping
well since the night of the murder. Johnny Brown, small and very thin,
with a scraggly iron-gray beard hung with little icicles and his blue
eyes watering with the cold, moved away from the headstone against which
he had been resting after his turn in the grave.

"That boy," he said, jerking his elbow at Doug, "will be massified for
many a year for driving the preacher out of Lost Chief."

"How do you mean--massify!" demanded Doug, gruffly. Johnny might be
half-witted, but his remarks were curiously penetrating sometimes.

"I mean massify," grunted Johnny.

Peter Knight heaved a great frosted boulder out to the ground level.

"Charleton," he said slowly, "doesn't the thought of lying in a forgotten
grave give you dumb horrors?"

"Sometimes," replied Charleton laconically, as he beat his cold hands
together. "But only sometimes."

Douglas strained forward in the intensity of his interest.

Douglas' father straightened his broad shoulders. "If I let myself think
about it, I have to go out and get drunk," he muttered.

"You don't conject right about them things," cried Johnny. "You got to
listen to things."

No one heeded the sad-faced little man. Peter stooped for another frozen
clod. "I'd give my right hand for my mother's faith in a living God," he
said.

"But if there isn't any God, what is there?" cried Douglas, with
passionate protest in his voice.

"Don't you try to discuss matters you ain't old enough to understand,
son," ordered John Spencer.

"Unbelief is the price we pay for scientific progress," said Charleton.
"Me, I'm willing to pay."

"I'm not," growled Peter, "but I don't see any way round it. Come on,
Johnny, do your share."

"I ain't going to dig any more," declared the little man. "You all say
I ain't all here, and the part that ain't here is the part that works.
Sabez?"

Everybody laughed.

"And," Johnny went on, seriously, "I ain't sure it's a good idea to plant
'em so deep. It takes a long time to grow up to heaven. It's a gregus far
away place."

"Right you are, Johnny, old man," agreed Peter. "It sure is gregus far
away."

Nobody urged Johnny to return to the job and the rest of the work was
finished in silence.

That afternoon the funeral took place. There were services at the
post-office, where any one who wished spoke in praise of the dead man.
There were many speeches and it was late afternoon when the funeral
cortege reached the cemetery. The Forest Reserve was mysterious with
shadows and with the unending murmur of the pines. Snow gleamed blue over
the valley. The saddle horses and teams were hitched to the stout fence
that surrounded the cemetery, and Lost Chief Valley crowded about the
open grave.

John Spencer drove Mary down in the old bobsled but Judith and Douglas
rode Swift and Buster as usual. Judith had been nervous and irritable
ever since the trip to the half-way house, but she had refused to admit
that the murder had anything to do with her state of mind. She had a
boyish horror of admitting to fears, mental or physical. She stood
opposite Douglas, with a round beaver cap pulled down over her curly
hair, her cheeks not so red as usual, her dark eyes rimmed and puzzled.
Douglas wondered what she was puzzling over and resolved that after the
ceremonies were over, he would ask her.

Douglas could not know with what intensity his deep-set eyes turned from
Judith and fastened upon Grandma Brown, who stood at the head of the
grave. There was a contented assurance in the old lady's manner that
was vaguely comforting to the boy. He wondered what she knew that his
father and Peter and Charleton did not know.

As the coffin was lowered into the grave, Grandma said, "Does anybody
feel like saying a few last words?"

There was a silence broken only by the murmur of the Forest, then Johnny
Brown cleared his throat. "I might say a whole lot of things. I wasn't so
goldarned proud of Oscar like the rest of you seemed to be. He had a
gregus kind of a temper and oncet--"

Grandma turned on him. "Johnny Brown, ain't you ashamed of yourself!"

"No, I ain't! You say I ain't all here, and the part that I'd be ashamed
with is the part that's gone," returned Johnny firmly.

Judith gave an irrepressible snort, then fastened solemn eyes on the sky.
A restless clearing of throats swept the little assemblage; then Grandma,
indignation still in her kind old voice, spoke once more.

"Can't any of you men that knew Oscar all his life say something
comforting before you close his grave?" she urged. "Then I'll try to do
it. I was brought up religious, myself." She lifted her serene old face
to the evening sky. "O God, this man wandered far from You like all the
rest of us here. But an old woman like me believes You're there and that
you know Oscar hadn't a really bad hair in his head. Take his soul, Lord,
and be as good to him as You can. I am the Resurrection and the Life,
saith the Lord. He that believeth in me, even though he die, yet shall he
have Eternal Life."

The tears were running down many cheeks when the old lady finished.
Foolish old Johnny laughed, then he began to sing a hymn in which several
of the women joined.

"God be with you till we meet again,
By his counsels guide, uphold you,
With his sheep securely fold you,
God be with you till we meet again."

And so the earthly career of Oscar Jefferson ended.




CHAPTER III

THE GRADUATION DANCE

"Horses, dogs, guns, women, whiskey, the open country of the
Rockies--enough for any man."

--_Charleton Falkner_.


Instead of riding home with Judith, after the ceremony, Douglas, on
sudden impulse, took a roundabout way to the post-office, thence toward
the Browns' ranch. Dusk was settling in the valley. The quivering aspens
along Lost Chief creek were etched gray rose on the deep blue snow. Far
to the east a single scarlet mountain-top pierced through the twilight
blue. Buster loped swiftly through the swimming landscape.

When he reached the post-office Douglas did not stop but rode on along
Black Gulch trail to the Browns'. Grandma, returning by the direct route
from the cemetery, had been home for a half-hour before Doug arrived.
She was coming out of the cow stable, lantern in hand, when the boy
dismounted at the corral. Spurs clanking, brave chaps flapping, Douglas
ran to her like a child and caught her apron in his gauntleted hand.

"Grandma! Tell me something! Did you believe what you said at the grave?"

The old lady held the lantern up to his face. "Come into the cow stable
out of the wind, Doug."

Within the dim shelter she hung the lantern on a nail and sat down on a
box, indicating another to the young rider.

"Yes, I believed it, boy. Didn't you?"

"No, Grandma! And none of the men do that count in this valley. Is it
just old woman stuff, like they say?"

"Maybe!" sniffed Grandma.

"And if you believe it," Doug rushed on, "why did you let us run the
preacher out?"

"O, the preacher! Pooh! He's nothing but a blankety blank sissy like the
rest of the sky pilots!"

"But can't I believe like you do, Grandma? I'm just the unhappiest guy in
the world!"

"You mean," the old lady spoke deliberately, "that this is the first
funeral you've seen that's set you to thinking and the fear of death is
on you for the first time. I hope it'll do you good, Doug. You're an
awful rough little devil."

Douglas swallowed audibly. "Grandma," he cried passionately, "how can I
get to believe what you do?"

Grandma looked thoughtfully from her plump milch cow to the lantern, and
from the lantern to Douglas. "Doug, I don't think you can, living among
the folks you do. To have my kind of faith, you've got to have a mother
that breeds it in you from the time you're a baby."

Douglas, his face looking absurdly young above his broad shoulders, said
despairingly, "I don't believe you want to help me."

"Well," Grandma was still deliberate, "I don't believe a wild young devil
like you really wants help. You're just scared."

Douglas rose, drawing himself to his full height. He was deeply offended.
"I thought you might understand me!" he exclaimed. He strode out to
Buster and galloped home.

It was extremely difficult to find a moment alone with Judith in the
two-room cabin; but the chores were late that night and Judith, instead
of helping her mother with the supper preparations, went out to milk, and
so Doug's second interview that evening was in the cow shed, for when he
reached the home corral, Judith had not finished her task.

This time, he was not precipitate. He sauntered into the little stable
with a manner of large leisure.

"Hello, Jude!"

"Hello, Douglas! Finished feeding?"

"No. I just got back. What did you think of the funeral?"

"I'm not thinking of it at all."

"Jude, don't you believe there's any hereafter?"

"Doug, I don't want to talk about it."

"But, Judith, I'm lonely and I've got to talk to some one."

Judith turned an indignant face toward the tall boy. "Don't you suppose
I'm lonely, too? What good does talk do? Religion is all right for little
kids but you can't believe in fairy tales as you grow up."

"But what can we do?" insisted Douglas, the sweat breaking out above his
lips again. "Doesn't the thought of no God, no hereafter, just paralyze
you?"

"I tell you," repeated Judith obstinately, "I just don't let myself think
about it."

"Then what's made you so cross ever since that night?"

Judith rose and set the brimming milk pail in a feed box. Her eyes, in
the lantern light, widened with a horror so devastating that Douglas
clutched the manger behind him.

"How did you know? Doug, that's it and there's no place to go for help
because there isn't any help for that!"

The sudden revelation of her need roused Douglas. He moistened his lips
and said, "We've got to harden ourselves to stand it, like the rest of
'em do. And when it gets too bad we can talk to each other about it.
That'll help."

Judith clutched his arm as if she felt the need of touching a human
being. Douglas did not stir but as he stood looking down at her a strange
aching gladness at her nearness and at her splendid girlhood flooded the
horror out of his thought.

"I'll carry the milk pail in for you, Jude," he said.

"Fudge!" she returned scornfully. "As if I hadn't carried it in every
night for four years! You'd better do your feeding before Dad gets after
you."

Douglas suddenly laughed and went out.

For a day or so he was haunted, particularly after he went to bed, by the
thought of the grave scene and by the comments Grandma Brown had made.
But Doug was only sixteen, after all, and shortly he was absorbed by
other matters: the hunt for Scott Parsons, the preparations for the
dehorning, and his new and thrilling and secret feeling toward Judith.

The search for Scott delayed the round-up only for a short time. A day
or so after the funeral it snowed and removed the last chance of finding
Scott's tracks. The cold was intense, and the job really belonged to
Sheriff Frank Day, so the posse broke up after a few days and the
dehorning was undertaken.

Early in the morning, half a dozen young riders helped Douglas and Judith
to cut out of the great herd in the swamp field the steers in need of
dehorning. In proportion to their strength, Lost Chief girls were as
clever as the men in handling horses and cattle. Judith was easily the
best of them. There was a fire and vim about her work, a wild grace, that
the other girls lacked. Douglas, his vision sharpened by his new attitude
toward Judith, thought she never had looked so handsome as she did this
morning, in her beaver cap, her new scarlet mackinaw, curls flying,
sitting the excited little Swift as easily as a boy.

Out of the circular corral led a smaller one. A cedar fire burned in
the middle of the lesser enclosure. John Spencer and two helpers stood
near the fire, saws at hand, searing-iron heating, tar-pot simmering.
The herd bellowed in the outer corral. The riders, ropes in hand, sat
with laughing faces turned toward Judith, who was to rope the first
steer. Douglas wished that there were not so many of the riders with
admiration in their eyes. Judith sat Swift lightly, edging mischievously
now against one rider, now another. Swift bit Buster, who reared while
Douglas swore laughingly. Magpies swooped from the blue spruce at the
edge of the corral, black and white against pale blue. The cattle, all
Herefords, red and white, milled about and lowed and tossed worried
heads. The riders, sheepskin chaps flapping, bright neckerchiefs
fluttering, shouted and cursed and fingered their lariats. Dogs, yellow
dogs, black dogs, gray dogs, spotted dogs, continuously encroached
from without the fence and were ordered or lashed away.

Suddenly Swift shot from the group of horses. Judith spun her lariat
and a lusty young steer, well back toward the south fence, turned and
stumbled. Swift sat back on her haunches, turned as she rose and leaped
toward the dehorning corral. The bellowing steer was dragged backward,
his left foot securely roped. He fell as they reached the gate and
skidded helplessly on his side through the trampled yellow snow.

The men by the fire were ready. One of them perched on the steer's flank
and freed the lariat, while another sat astride his neck and amidst a
gush of blood sawed off the horns close to the head. John seared the
stubs with the hot iron dipped in tar. The poor brute bellowed with
fright and pain. Judith recoiled her lariat and made way for Jimmy Day,
who slid up with a protesting heifer.

"'Jude!" he shouted. "You're the cow ropingest girl in the Rockies! Say,
Jude, ain't you afraid that baa-baa you're riding will buck with you?
Swift! What a hell of a name for that thing!"

"She can beat you roping 'em at that, Jimmy!" cried Douglas.

"Better ride light, Jimmy," warned John. "She thinks more of that mare
than she does of me."

"All right, John," laughed Jimmy. "Take this heifer, fellows! She thinks
she's a moose!"

"She'll think she's a kitten when we finish with her," chuckled John.

There was an uproar now in the two corrals that echoed from mountain to
mountain. The trampled snow was crimson. White angora and sheepskin chaps
were gaumed with thick clots of blood. The horses, half frantic from the
smell of the bleeding cattle, tried every means in their not limited
repertoires to bolt the hateful job.

The work had gone fast and furiously for some time when Douglas touched
his father on the arm.

"Dad, look up on the shoulder of old Dead Line!"

John straightened his back and shaded his eyes. A rider leading a
Hereford was coming down the ridge.

"That's Scott's horse, Grover," said Douglas. "Can you make out the
rider?"

"Not yet." John continued to stare intently. Others noticed his posture
and followed his gaze.

"It's Scott Parsons!" cried Charleton Falkner.

"Shall we go get him?" exclaimed Jimmy Day.

"No. He's starved out and giving up. Let's hear what he has to say," said
John.

The dehorning went on. Half a dozen more bleeding steers had been
turned out before Scott, weary, gaunt, haggard beyond words, leading an
emaciated young bull, drew rein beside the smaller corral. The roping
came to a pause. John twisted a lariat round the neck of a steer he was
working on and led it to the fence. The others followed.

"Well, why the committee of welcome?" asked Scott hoarsely. His bloodshot
eyes turned from one to another.

"Where'd you find the bull, Scott?" asked John.

"First located him on Fire Mesa. Been round about considerable since."

"Whose bull is it now?" Charleton Falkner pushed Democrat toward the
fence.

"Mine!" Scott spoke shortly, his freckled face unmoved.

"Do you think it was worth the price?" demanded Spencer.

Scott looked searchingly at the crowd before him. The steer John was
holding had been dehorned but not seared. The blood had run down the
brute's white face and formed a crimson icicle on its under lip. John
had run his fingers through his ashen hair, leaving it blood-smeared.
Charleton was lighting a blood-stained cigarette with the hot
searing-iron. Judith pounded her half-frozen ringers together.

"What price did I pay?" asked Scott.

"Doug," commanded John, "you tell your story."

Douglas, with considerable embarrassment and assisted by Judith, told of
their trip with the mail stage. Scott listened with little apparent
interest. He said nothing when the story was done.

"It's like this, Scott," said John. "It looks like you killed him. You've
got a bad temper. So had Oscar. You fought for over a year about that
fool bull, first one of you branding it, then the other. You're young
and you'd better give yourself up. You'll stand a better chance."

"Go ahead, Scott!" cried Judith. "I'll stand your friend like you did
mine when I rode old Oscar's milch cow 'most to death!"

"Shut up, Jude!" exclaimed Douglas.

"Go ahead, Scott," John half smiled. "You needn't worry. You have a
friend!"

"A friend won't do him much good, if he's guilty," grunted Charleton
Falkner.

"Anybody's better off for at least one friend," repeated Judith stoutly.
"Darn it! All of you picking on poor old Scott!"

"Lean on me, Grandpa!" piped Jimmy Day.

Scott's haggard eyes focused on Judith. "I'll hold you to that, Jude! By
God, you're the only white man in the valley! I came in to give myself
up, Jude. The cold got me. I shot him, after he'd rebranded the bull
before my eyes and after he'd given me this."

He ripped open his mackinaw and shirt and tore a rag from his shoulder,
disclosing a vivid wound. "I ain't the only one that's quick on the
trigger!"

There was a quick murmur among the riders. John and Charleton, the oldest
men in the group, looked at each other.

"Charleton, you and Jimmy Day ride to Scott's house with him," said John.
"I'll go to the house and telephone to the sheriff." He mounted and rode
off.

"Can your horse carry you so far, Scott?" asked Judith.

Scott nodded, with something curiously like tears in his hard hazel eyes.
"You take the bull, Jude," he said. "I'd like for you to have him. He's
standard bred."

Judith's eyes shone like stars. "If Dad'll only let me! Do you think he
will, Doug?"

Douglas shrugged his shoulders. The bull was tied to the fence and Scott
rode slowly away with his escort. When John returned from telephoning he
gave a grudging consent to Judith's taking the bull, and the dehorning
went on. Not until the blue velvet shadow of Falkner's Peak lay heavy on
the incarnadined corral and the last bellowing steer had found solace at
the haystacks did the riders start homeward. Douglas followed Judith, as
she led the scare-crow bull.

"He's a good mate for Swift," he said.

"You're just jealous!" retorted Judith.

"Of what?" demanded Douglas.

"Of me starting a herd before you do!"

"Ha! Ha!" ejaculated Doug, without a smile, and nothing more was said
until they reached the house.

At supper that night John asked Judith why she had shown so much
friendship for Scott Parsons.

"I was sorry for him," she replied.

"But he killed our old neighbor!" exclaimed John.

"Yes, and Oscar had a notch on his gun, Dad; and you have one on yours."

"We put those notches there in the early days," returned John, "when
every cowman carried the law on his hip. It's different now. You're
altogether too highty-tighty, Jude, for a girl. You keep away from Scott
Parsons, or I'll make you regret it."

Judith made no reply.

Scott's trial took place in April. It was a matter of deep interest, of
course, to Lost Chief, and every one who could get to Mountain City by
horse, wagon, or automobile, attended the court sessions. Judith and
Douglas were chief witnesses and were royally entertained by young Jeff,
who had returned to Lost Chief a week or so after his father's funeral.

Scott was acquitted on the plea of self-defense but he did not return at
once to Lost Chief. The attitude of young Jeff did not make an early
return seem diplomatic.

Douglas, when he came home from the trial, had a curious feeling that the
winter just passed had ended his boyhood. He did not know why. He was not
old enough to realize that when the fires of desire and the fear of death
begin to sear a boy's mind, adolescence is passing and manhood has all
but arrived.

Judith, who had accomplished her fifteenth birthday in March, a day or so
before Doug arrived at the dignity of seventeen, had changed too. She had
been less profoundly affected by the murder than Douglas; not that she
was less sensitive or intelligent than he, but she was far less
introspective than her foster-brother. And Judith had two unfailing foods
for all hungers of the mind. One was her love of reading, the other, her
love of riding; both absorbing, to the elimination of self investigation.

Douglas read a great deal, himself. Books and magazines furnished the
only mental stimulants in the valley and it was a surprisingly well-read
community. But Douglas, caring for Judith as he did, found it impossible
to become fully absorbed in his old pastimes. He was restless, moody and
lonely as only youth can be.

He and Judith both graduated from the log school early in June. There was
the usual graduation dance at the post-office at which, as usual, Peter
Knight officiated. It was a heavenly moonlit night. The air was fragrant
from the acres of budding alfalfa and full of the lift and tingle that
can belong to June only in the high altitudes. The ever strong, steady
west wind of Lost Chief summers swirled down the valley.

The hall was dimly lighted by a single kerosene lamp. Cigarette smoke
mingled with the pungent smell of whiskey, which seemed to be the chief
ingredient of a concoction in a large pail, under the lamp. In the corner
opposite the pail was a phonograph over which Peter presided.

Everybody danced. Even the dogs were not prohibited the floor. Only when
Sister started a fight with Prince did any one protest and the dogs were
driven back, temporarily, under the benches.

The schoolgirls in their white dresses were, of course, the belles of the
occasion. Lost Chief, living its intensive life of isolation, probably
did not realize of what superb physique were the youngsters of its third
generation. Jimmy Day devoted himself to Little Marion Falkner, aged
fourteen. Marion was called little to distinguish her from her mother,
also Marion. The daughter at fourteen was five feet ten inches in height,
the mother an inch taller. Even a badly cut muslin dress could not fully
conceal the fine breadth of Little Marion's shoulders nor the splendid
length and straightness of her legs.

Jocelyn Brown, Grandma's grand-daughter, dancing frequently with
Charleton Falkner, was at twelve only slightly shorter than Little
Marion. She had the face of an angel, the vocabulary of a cowman, and was
built of steel.

Inez Rodman, very fair and slender, easily five feet nine, was scorned by
the older women but was brazenly popular with their husbands and the
younger set of boys and girls.

Judith danced all the time but only occasionally with Douglas, who took
her to task for her neglect.

"But, Doug, you and Dad are no novelty to dance with. What's the matter
with you anyhow? You never used to want to dance with me."

"I'm just trying to keep you from dancing with all these roughneck
riders." Douglas' chin was in the air above his bright blue silk neck
scarf.

Judith's eyes swept him appraisingly. His white silk shirt hung loose
on his thin, fine shoulders. His broad rider's belt, studded with blue
enameled rings, encircled a waist almost as slender as Jude's own. His
white duck trousers were turned up to display new riding boots, and his
spurs, a graduation gift, were of silver and chimed at his slightest
movement.

"You're almost as good-looking as Jimmy Day," she said with a sudden
chuckle. "Run along, Doug. You aren't old enough to protect me from these
bad men!" And she turned to dance with the waiting Jimmy.

It was nearing midnight when Douglas achieved his first dance with Inez.
She was the best dancer in the room, and Douglas told her so.

"I'll bet you haven't told that to the other girls," she said with a
flash of her white teeth.

"I have! I said it to Jude when she turned me down for Dad."

"Smart! Helps both you and me with Jude, of course!"

"Much you care about that!" retorted Douglas.

"I like to be liked, of course," said Inez.

"You do?" Douglas' voice was so honestly incredulous that Inez exclaimed
resentfully:

"Am I so much worse than a lot of the kids at school?"

Douglas shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Judith's straight. I've kept
her so."

Inez laughed. "Judith's straight because she's that kind of a girl. Why
don't you watch your dad instead of Jude?"

Douglas' lips tightened and Inez studied his face in silence for a
moment; then she went on, "Pretty fond of Jude, aren't you, Doug? Your
father is a devil with women--that big, bossy, good-looking kind always
is. I tell Jude so every time I see her."

"How often do you see her?" demanded Douglas quickly.

"I guess she has a right to come to my house as often as she wants to."

"No, she hasn't," brusquely.

Inez sniffed, then smiled. She had a frank and lovely smile. Douglas'
face softened and they finished the waltz in silence.

Not all the music was of the cheaply popular variety. Between dances
Peter slipped on occasional opera records. He was playing from _Martha_:

"Ah, so pure, so bright,
Burst her beauty upon my sight,
Ah, so mild, ah, so divine
She beguiled this heart of mine."

when a man called from the open door, "Good evening, folks!"

"Why, it's Scott Parsons!" cried Grandma Brown.

There was a pause, during which the tender voice of the phonograph
thrilled on. Young Jeff, his red face even redder than his visits to the
pail would warrant, put his hand to his hip. Judith darted before him and
ran the length of the room.

"Hello, Scott! Welcome home! The next dance is yours."

"No, it's not!" shouted John Spencer. "You let Judith alone, you blank
young outlaw you!"

"Get out of my way, Jude!" shouted Young Jeff. "I told Scott not to come
back to Lost Chief!"

He strode down the room, his hand still on his gun. Scott's hand had been
equally quick. Peter Knight turned off the machine. "Hold on, Jeff!" he
cried. "You turned Scott over to the law, and the law acquitted him. If
you'd wanted to take things in your own hands, you should have done so
before the trial. If you kill Scott, you're no better than he is."

"That's right!" cried Grandma Brown. "And your record ain't so clean,
Young Jeff, that you can afford to start anything!"

Judith tossed her head. "I don't see why Young Jeff should be allowed to
spoil a perfectly good party."

"If you can't put him out, Jude, I can!" cried Inez.

Everybody laughed. Jude seized one of Young Jeff's big hands, Inez the
other. There was an uproarious scuffle which ended in the three, laughing
immoderately, executing a hybrid folk dance to the one-step which Peter
began to play. And Scott danced unmolested during the remainder of the
night.

Charleton Falkner had drunk a good deal but was as yet little the worse
for it. He and Douglas met at the pail shortly after midnight. Charleton
gave the young man an amused glance.

"You look sort of bored, Doug! Come outside and talk a little."

Douglas gave a quick glance around the hall--at Judith, swooping in great
circles with Scott Parsons, at Inez dancing with his father. "All right!"
he said, and followed Charleton out into the moonlight. They perched
on the buck fence and smoked for a time in silence.

"That's a good horse of Young Jeff's, eh?" said Charleton finally.

"Not as good as the dapple gray he gave me will be when I get time to
break him," replied Douglas. "I don't know! I'm not as interested in
things as I was."

"What's the matter?" asked Charleton, sympathetically.

"I guess Oscar's killing upset me," said Douglas vaguely.

"I don't suppose you ever heard of Weltschmerz," mused Charleton. "It's a
kind of mental stomach-ache most young fellows get about the time they
begin to fall in love."

Douglas grunted.

"Though you were pretty young to run into Oscar that way," Charleton went
on thoughtfully.

"It isn't that; though I was scared stiff, of course. But it was seeing
Oscar laid in the ground to rot and hearing you and Peter and Dad say
that was all there was to it."

Charleton nodded. "I know! But you'll reach my state of don't give a
hoop-la, when you're a little older. Wine and women and a good horse.
They help."

Douglas drew a shuddering breath. "Is that all you've found out? All?"

"Of course, there's ambition," said Charleton. "I was ambitious, myself,
once. You know my father was a college man and he wanted me to go back
East to school. I almost went."

"Why didn't you go?" asked Douglas, immensely flattered at the mark of
confidence being shown him. Charleton Falkner was notoriously reticent
about himself.

"O, it's this easy life of the open! Why should I have gone into politics
as my father wanted me to, when I could be happier with an easy living
right here? And it would all end up there in the cemetery, anyhow. And
what had ambition to offer me in comparison to the sport of running wild
horses on Fire Mesa, or riding herd in the Reserve or hunting deer on
Falkner's Peak. Horses, dogs, guns, women, whiskey, the open country
of the Rockies. Enough for any man."

"Maybe!" muttered Douglas.

"What are you going to do now you're through school?" asked Charleton
abruptly.

"Ride for Dad. He's promised me a herd of my own when I'm twenty-one."

"Listen!" said Charleton. "How'd you like to do a little business with me
once in a while when John can spare you? You know, cattle, horses and
such!"

Douglas grinned delightedly. "Do you really mean it? Why, you know,
Charleton, as well as I do, there isn't a young rider in Lost Chief who
wouldn't give anything to go out on trips with you."

"Fine! I'll be tipping you the wink one of these days. In the meantime,
keep your mouth shut to every one but your father. Come in and we'll have
a drink on the new partnership."

Douglas had as yet acquired no great taste for such fiery pollutions as
the pail contained. But Charleton now applied himself so strenuously to
the business of getting drunk that shortly he was leaning on the
phonograph and reciting with powerful lungs:

"'Tis but a tent where takes his one day's rest
A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest;
The Sultan rises and the dark Ferrash
Strikes and prepares it for another Guest."

No one heeded him particularly. He smiled amiably at Peter, leaned
farther on the machine, and said, "Somebody will have to ease me to my
horse," then he drowsed forward over the phonograph. Douglas and Peter,
laughing, eased him to his horse, and Charleton, his arms around
Democrat's neck, jogged slowly off on the home trail.

June dawn was peering over the Indian Range when the party broke up.
Scott disappeared with Judith. When John discovered this, he bolted after
the two.

"You'd better go see that nothing happens, Doug," said Mary Spencer.
"John's drunk too much."

"I'm going home," declared Douglas. "I got some pride, and Judith's
treated me like a dog to-night. She's too fond of starting something she
don't know the finish of."

Mary and he were riding alone in the dawn. "You promised me you'd look
out for her. Don't you care for her any more, Douglas?"

"Yes, I do!"

"Have you ever told her so?"

"She's too young."

"No, she isn't, Douglas. You remember you told me she knew more than I
do."

Douglas said nothing; and after a moment, his step-mother said,
hesitatingly, "Doug, I hate to see you dancing so much with Inez."

"What harm was there in it?"

"I don't know that I can tell you, Doug. When I was a girl, going to the
log schoolhouse, we girls never thought of touching whiskey. Our mothers
would have killed us if we had."

"The world do move!" grunted Douglas.

"I don't believe it's the world. Not from the books I read. I think it's
just Lost Chief. The old folks in my day had real influence in the
valley. There were many like Grandma Brown. But now! Why, your father
will never be the good influence his father was, and I'd never be like
Grandma. I don't know why."

"You can't even train your own daughter," said Douglas with entire
frankness.

"Can the other mothers?" asked Mary resentfully. "What can I do when the
other mothers are so easy?"

"It ain't exactly easy." Douglas spoke thoughtfully. "The Lord knows, all
the kids in Lost Chief work hard enough and get walloped enough."

Mary sighed deeply. Douglas watched her face, so like Judith's but
bearing tragic lines it would have broken his heart to see around
Judith's young lips. With unwonted gentleness he leaned over to put his
hand on Mary's while he smiled at her half sadly.

"Poor Mother! We are an ornery lot! But you are as good as gold, and Jude
and I both know it!"

Quick tears stung Mary's gray eyes. She lifted his hand to her cheek for
a moment, then, as he drew it away, she tried to return his smile. But
nothing more was said until they reached home.

Just as they entered the living-room, Judith rushed in,

"I hate Dad! I hate him! Scott and I were jogging home by way of the west
trail as peaceful as anything when Dad has to come along and start a row
going!"

"Anybody hurt?" asked Douglas, watching Judith as she sat down on the
edge of her bed, big tears on her cheeks.

"No, but no thanks to Dad! Scott turned round and left because I asked
him to. There's Dad now!"

John clanked in, but before he could speak Judith rose and shook her
forefinger in his face.

"Now, Dad," she said steadily, "there's going to be no rowing and no
cursing. I'm sick of it! Right here and now I warn you to stop
interfering with me or I'll leave!"

John raised his ready fist.

"None of that!" Doug's voice was quiet. "Finish what you have to say,
Jude."

John scowled, breathing heavily, his eyes never leaving Judith.

"I'm sick of it," she repeated. "There must be places in the world where
there's something beside family rows."

"Are you through?" demanded John.

"Yes, I am."

"Then I've got one thing to say. You let Scott Parsons alone." John flung
himself on the bed, and before Mary had taken off his spurred riding
boots he was asleep.

Douglas went out to the corral where, soon after, Judith appeared with
her milking pail. The tender pink mists rolled slowly away from the
yellow wall of Lost Chief range. Judith, with heavy eyes and burning
cheeks, looked from the mists to Douglas, who leaned on the fence and
watched her.

"Jude," he said, "you are on the wrong foot. You ought to let whiskey and
Inez Rodman alone."

"Why don't you let 'em alone?" demanded Judith.

"It's different with a man!"

"O, don't give me that old stuff!" cried the girl. "We women do men's
work in this valley. We'll have the men's kind of fun if we want it!"

"That's not the point," returned Douglas. "Women have to pay a price the
men don't and that's all there is to it."

"It's not fair! It's not fair! I hate the world! I hate it! Looks like
you'd either got to be like Mother or Inez Rodman."

"Your mother's all right. Only Dad's broke her just like he broke old
Molly horse."

"Did I ever say my mother wasn't all right? Only I'll tell you one thing,
Doug Spencer, Inez Rodman's given me more sensible warnings about men
than my mother ever did."

Douglas wore a worried expression. "Seems like there's something wrong
about that. Mother knows all about those things." He cleared his throat.

The half angry look on Judith's face gave way to a smile.

"O Doug! Doug! You old owl! What's the matter with you? After all, it's
good to be alive! I wish I had a horse as good as Buster and I wouldn't
ask for much more in life."

"I'll give you Buster," said Douglas suddenly.

Judith's jaw dropped. "Give me Buster!"

"I mean it."

"But--but--why, Douglas, what's happened to you?"

"Judith!" Douglas tossed back his yellow; hair and put a brown hand over
Judith's. "Judith! I love you. Won't you be engaged to me?"

"Love _me_?" Judith's beautiful gray eyes opened their widest. "Why, it
doesn't seem more than yesterday that you were calling me a pug-nosed
maverick. And besides, I'm only fifteen and you're only seventeen."

"Is it Scott?" asked Douglas.

"It isn't anybody! Why, Douglas, you must be crazy!"

"Do I look crazy?"

Judith stared deep into Douglas' blue eyes. "No," slowly, "you don't."

"You can have Buster and Prince too," said Douglas.

"No, sir, Doug! Why, they're all you've got in the world!"

"I have that dapple gray Young Jeff gave me after the trial. He's old
enough to break now."

There were tears in Judith's eyes. "Douglas Spencer, you are a gentleman!
If I do have a horse like Buster, I can be lots more help handling the
cattle."

"He's yours from this minute," repeated Douglas. "And so am I yours. But
I'm not going to nag you about it. I'm just going to try to look out for
you."

There was something so sober, so gentle, and so determined about Douglas
that for once in her life Judith was at a loss for a reply. She started
slowly for the cow shed. Then she turned back.

"But I'm not going to take Prince, Douglas. That's too much!"

"Well," said Douglas. "Maybe I will keep Prince for a while. It'll be
kind of lonesome."

"Lonesome!" Judith repeated the phrase as though it struck a familiar
chord. "Life is lonesome, isn't it Doug! Seems as though I never dare to
be myself any more, since Oscar's death. That was the first time I ever
realized how lonely you can be."

Douglas nodded, his eyes full of an understanding that was pitiful. Youth
should not be allowed to contemplate this sort of loneliness. It is soul
searing.

"But remember, Judith," he said, "that you've always got me."

She gave him an enigmatic look and returned to her work.




CHAPTER IV

THE HOUSE IN THE YELLOW CANYON

"Beauty: to see it, to hear it, to feel it: that's all that makes life
worth while."

--_Inez Rodman_.


Douglas was both elated and dejected by his conversation with Judith. He
was elated to feel that at last Judith knew his feeling toward her. He
was dejected because he felt that she had no understanding of the depth
and sincerity of this feeling. And with that marvelously naive egotism of
the male, he gave many hours of heavy thought to Judith's weaknesses and
temptations, none at all to his own. Perhaps more than anything, Judith's
friendship with Inez began to worry him. The more he pondered on it, the
more perturbed he became; and finally, a week or so after the dance, he
resolved to ask Inez to break with Judith.

The Rodman house was built against the sheer yellow stone facing at the
base of Lost Chief range, known incorrectly as the Yellow Canyon. The
house of half a dozen rooms was the most picturesque cabin in the valley,
for Grandfather Rodman had built the roof with an overhang, giving the
house the hospitable shadows of a little Swiss chalet. There were several
hundred acres belonging to the ranch. Free range had grown small before
Inez' father died and he had gotten his acres well into grass and
alfalfa. But when he and Inez' mother were wiped out by smallpox, leaving
the ranch to Inez, the fields rapidly returned to the wild. Inez, fifteen
at the time of her parents' death, was unwilling to lead the life of a
ranch woman and for ten years the ranch had been going to pieces.

When Douglas rode up to the outer corral in the dusk of the June evening,
he was struck anew by the disorder of the place. Cattle tramped freely
about the house. An old steer was poking his head in at the kitchen
window. Chickens roosted on a saddle, which was flung in the stable muck.
Tin cans, old wagon wheels, the ruin of a sheep wagon, were heaped in
confusion at one end of the cabin. Three or four dogs barked as Doug rode
up on old Mike. He called Prince in and looked inquiringly at two other
horses tied to the dilapidated corral fence. They were Beauty, his
father's horse, and Yankee, Peter's roan.

As Doug sat hesitating, John and Peter came out of the kitchen laughing.
They swung, spurs clanking, up to the fence.

"What the devil are you doing here, Doug?" asked Peter Knight.

"Hasn't he got a right to call on the Harlot of the Canyon?" demanded
John, with a chuckle. "Hustle up, Peter! The crowd'll be there for the
game before you are."

"They can't get in till I unlock," replied Peter. "Here, John, take the
key and ride on. I want to talk to Doug."

John caught the key and trotted off. Sister snarled at Prince, who wagged
his tail apologetically.

"Sister's a shrew, all right," grinned Douglas.

"She sure can run coyotes, though," said Peter.

"She and Grandma Brown run this valley," added Douglas.

Peter laughed. "I'm strong for the ladies! Did you ever watch the moon
rise, Doug, from the top of the bench back of the cabin there?"

"No," answered Douglas.

"Come on up! It's not a long ride. I've been wanting to make you a
proposition for some time."

Douglas followed the postmaster silently. The horses were panting and
sweating by the time they reached the top, and the rim of the moon was
just peering over the edge of the Indian Range. All the valley lay in
darkness. The two dismounted and threw themselves down on the ledge.
Douglas lighted a cigarette while Peter filled his pipe.

"What are you planning to do with yourself now you're through school,
Douglas?"

"Ride for Dad."

"How'd you like to go East to school?"

"Nothing doing! I've got more education now than I'll need as a rancher."

"Well, I guess that's not particularly so," said Peter. "I was
thinking--you know I'm alone in the world--that I might help you out if
you had any leaning toward college or a profession."

"Ranching is good enough for me, thank you all the same, Peter."

For some moments Peter did not speak again. Coyotes wailed in the peaks
above them. The moon showed more of its golden face.

"Does your father ever talk to you about your own mother, Doug?"

"No; I quit asking him questions years ago. Peter, all I know about my
mother is that her name was Esther, that the smallpox wiped her folks
out, and that they owned the north half of our ranch. There's an old
photograph of her in Dad's bureau drawer. She was awful pretty."

"She was more than that, Doug! I knew her well. You see, I'm the only man
in the valley that's a stranger, as you might say. I've only lived here
twenty years. So I could appreciate your mother more than the natives.
I came here a roundabout way from Boston. So did your mother's folks,
about forty-five years ago. She looked as Yankee as her blood, thin and
delicate, with a refined face. And all the coarse work women have to
do in Lost Chief didn't coarsen her."

"How do you mean, coarse work?" asked Doug.

Dimly in the moonlight he saw the postmaster rub his hand across his
forehead.

"Why don't you put Buster to hauling and plowing?" asked Peter.

"Too light and nervous."

"So was your mother too light and nervous for the kind of ranch work
women have to do here. Women with blood and brains like most of the Lost
Chief women are best used to keep alive the decencies and gentler things
of life. Men lose those things in a cattle country unless the women keep
'em alive. If you keep women too close to the details of handling cattle
and horses, they get rough and coarse too. And I calculate that Lost
Chief and the world needs some decency and delicacy."

Douglas pondered over this for a long time, his eyes on the glory of the
Indian peaks. Then he said, "You knew my mother well?"

"Yes. I'd have married her, Doug, if she hadn't already married your
father. She--she was so devilishly overworked and unhappy! But she never
complained. Your father was crazy about her but he treats a woman like he
does a horse. He doesn't know any different."

"O, don't tell me any more!" said Douglas brokenly. "The poor little
thing! Seems as if I couldn't stand it. Peter, I'm glad she died!"

The older man was silent for a time, then went on. "Your mother came of
good people. Her grandfather was a friend of Emerson's. Tucked away
somewhere she had some letters the two men exchanged. Your grandfather
dreamed dreams about establishing a new New England out here. Those
letters should have been saved for you."

The radiant light now swept across Lost Chief creek and to the foot of
the wall, drenching the Rodman ranch in beauty and mystery. Sister
crowded against her master's back and snored. Prince whined dolefully as
he always did at the moon.

"So taking one thing with another," Peter Knight explained, "I thought I
might see if you had anything in your head except horse wrangling;
whether you're as much your Dad inside as outside."

"I don't see why ranching isn't a good enough profession for any one!"
protested the boy.

"In lots of places it is. But it's not in Lost Chief."

"I don't see why," repeated Douglas.

"It's awful hard here on the women is one reason. I never heard your
mother swear or use a foul word," said Peter. "I've been on ranches in
other places where the women would have been shocked at the idea. How
about Judith?"

"You know she only curses like the other women do around here."

"Do you like it?" asked the postmaster.

"I never thought anything about it."

"There you are!" groaned Peter. "If I can only make you see! Doug, a
woman lets down the first bar when she begins to swear and drink. She
begins where Judith is beginning. She's mighty apt to end where Inez is
ending. You just think about ranching in Lost Chief from your mother's
point of view. It's a rough kind of a community, Douglas, compared with
the same class of people in other communities. The talk itself is rough;
how rough you can't appreciate because you've never heard anything else."

There was another silence. Then Douglas asked heavily: "Peter, what am I
going to do to keep Judith from going to Inez for advice?"

"Might not be such bad advice! Inez has no illusions about what she's
doing or what she's paying."

"You don't mean to say Judith ought to go there?"

"No, I don't! But if a kid like you goes there himself, how can you
preach to Judith? And she only goes there for the dancing and fun."

"But I'm a man!"

"I don't care what you are. You can't preach good sermons with a foul
tongue. You ought to have the nerve to look at yourself as you are before
you try to bring up Judith. Lost Chief is still fairly honest. Even your
father calls Inez Rodman by her right title. There's hope in that!"

"But what shall I do about Judith, Peter?"

"Might make a man of yourself, Doug!"

"What's the matter with me?" demanded Doug, indignantly.

"Douglas, you haven't a clean-cut idea to your name. And a kid of
seventeen as self-satisfied as you are isn't worth baiting a coyote trap
with."

"There's not a guy in the valley works harder than I do!"

"Right! Nor uses his brain less!"

"I suppose you mean I ought to go to college and let Judith go to the
devil."

"Judith's pretty good stuff, herself," protested Peter. "A half-baked kid
like you can't influence Judith!"

Douglas started to his feet. "By God, I will! You'll see!"

"There's only one way. Show yourself fit to influence her. Don't get a
grouch at me, Doug. I've come a long, hard, lonely road. And all because
I thought everybody was wrong but myself. I don't want your mother's son
to make the same mistake, if I can help it."

"I'm the unhappiest guy in the world!" cried Douglas, passionately.

He mounted his horse and, followed joyfully by Prince, turned down the
trail. Peter did not stir. For a long time he sat with his arm around
Sister. The moon was high over the valley before he said aloud:

"O Esther! Esther! The years are long!" Then he too mounted and rode
away.

As Doug trotted through Rodman's door-yard, Inez crossed toward the
corral.

"Hello, Doug! Where've you been? What's the matter with Buster?"

Douglas drew up. "I gave him to Judith."

"Why, you blank little fool! It must have hurt you deep!"

"I guess Judith's worth it! Say, Inez, is there anything I can do for you
to get you to keep Judith away from here?"

"I won't hurt her, Doug."

"Aw, Inez, what's the use of saying that! Make out you're sore at her."

"I could, but that won't do so much for her. Judith ought to have
something to look forward to beside breeding calves and wrangling
firewood for some lazy dog of a rancher, before she or any other Lost
Chief girl will think keeping away from here is worth while."

There was a depth of bitterness in the woman's voice which Douglas felt
rather than understood. He sat in awkward silence. Inez put her hand on
his knee and looked up at him. Her face was tragically beautiful in the
moonlight.

"Douglas, do you ever stop to think how beautiful Lost Chief country is?"

"Not often," admitted Doug.

Inez went on. "Peter Knight's been all over the United States and he says
there's no place passes it in beauty. Sometimes when I see the valley
looking like it does to-night, I cry. Doug, you are more promising than
these other kids. When you ride round on the range try to keep your mind
a little bit off cattle and horses and women and keep it on that line of
the Forest Reserve the way it looks to-night. Or the way this yellow wall
looks in the snow and the sunrise on it. And then, when you get that
habit, tell Judith about it and get her to thinking the same way. Beauty
can't live on rot, Douglas. I know that now. I don't care what Charleton
quotes."

"Inez," asked Douglas huskily, "why don't you burn that old cabin up?"

"It's too late," replied Inez shortly; and she turned on her heel and
left him.

Douglas rode thoughtfully along the home trail. He was angry with Peter
and sorry for Inez, and he missed his mother as he never had missed her
before. He had been only a baby at the time of her death. This was the
first time that he had been told of the type of woman she was though he
had heard much of his mother's father, old Bill Douglas. He went to bed
that night with an entirely new set of thoughts.

The heaviest ranch work of the year was now at hand. The hay harvest was
begun. From dawn until dusk, Doug and Judith worked in the fields and
tumbled to bed at night as soon as the chores were done. They had many
opportunities during the day for conversations, however, for after the
hay was raked, Douglas and Judith drove one rick team, John and old
Johnny Brown the other. Heavy work it certainly was, but work of what
fragrance, under skies of what an unbelievably deep blue, in air of what
tingling warmth and clearness! What unthinkable distances were glimpsed
from the wild hay patch on the flank of Dead Line Peak! It seemed to
Douglas, lying at length, chin elbow-supported, on the top of the last
load, which Judith had insisted on driving, that he never before had
sensed the beauty of the haying season in Lost Chief Valley. And again
he seemed to see Inez's tragic eyes, which had shed tears over the beauty
of these very hills. He turned the memory of those eyes over in his mind
with a memory of the sardonic twist of Charleton's mouth as he had
uttered his philosophy of life, and suddenly Doug wished that he dared
to talk to his father about these things. He had asked John about the
Emerson letters but John professed never to have heard of them. And
Douglas fell to wondering about his grandfather's dream for Lost Chief.

They were pulling through the swamp road above the home corral. It was
heavy going and when they reached the shade of a little clump of blue
spruce and aspen, Judith pulled the team up for a short rest. She pushed
her broad straw hat back from her face and half turned to look at
Douglas.

"Have you seen that new litter of pups of Sister's?" she asked Douglas.

He shook his head and Judith went on. "Peter says I can have the pick of
the lot, but there's only one I'd look at. He's the image of Sister. I'm
going to train him so's I can take him out to run wild horses with me
when he grows up."

"Wild horses! The last time it was bronco busting you were going into.
What's it all about, anyhow, Jude?"

"You don't suppose I'm going to spend my life in Lost Chief, do you?"
demanded Judith.

Douglas swept the landscape with a lazy glance. "I don't see how you
could beat it."

"O, for looks and stunts, yes!" Judith's voice was impatient. "But it's
no place for a woman! I'm going to earn enough money to take me out where
I can go on with my education and amount to something."

"I guess Peter's been talking to you," said Douglas.

Judith nodded. "Yes, and he offered to loan me the money for college. But
I won't be beholden to a man outside the family. I'll earn it myself."

"What'll you do with a college education after you get it?" Doug's glance
was not lazy now, as it rested on the young girl's eager face.

"I'll do something beside cooking and horse wrangling for some old Lost
Chief rancher, I can tell you that!" cried Judith. "I'm going to get out
and see the world and know life!"

"And give up your horses and dogs and the big old mountains? Jude, you'll
never do it. I'd like to get out myself sometimes, but I know I'll never
be happy anywhere else."

"I don't expect to be happy, but I've got to know things."

"What things, Judith?"

The girl turned from Douglas to gaze at the far light on Fire Mesa.

"The truth about things," she said at last. "Inez says there's just one
big fact at the bottom of everything and that is sex, and that there's
only one thing worth living for, to make sex beautiful."

"She's a liar!" exclaimed Douglas indignantly, as if Inez had said
something shameful. "Where does she get that rotten stuff?"

"From Charleton and poetry, I guess. How do you know she's wrong, Doug?"

Douglas sat up, his clear eyes blazing like blue stars out of his
sunburned face. "Because I know! I want to have the biggest, finest ranch
in the Rockies. Is that sex? You want a good education. Is that sex?
Peter wants me to carry on some dreams my mother and grandfather had. Is
that sex? What does that woman think the world was made for, I'd like to
know?"

"That's just it," Judith sighed with all the sadness of sixteen, "what is
it made for?"

There was silence for a moment on the hay rick while the two young
questioners gazed at the incomparable grandeur about them. And as he
gazed there returned to Douglas the sense of panic that had harassed him
after Oscar's death. What did it all mean? Whither was he directed and by
what? How long before he too would be swept into the awful void beyond
the grave?

"That's what religion did for folks all these years," he said suddenly.
"They never asked these questions, I'll bet. I wish I had it."

"I don't want to believe fairy tales just because I'm scared!" Judith
tossed her head stoutly.

"I don't either," agreed Douglas dejectedly.

"I'm going to drive on home and get something to eat," said Judith,
lifting the reins. "Food's the only thing that'll rid me of the dumb
horrors."

Douglas settled back against the hay, and the rest of the ride was
continued in silence.

Old Johnny Brown stayed on for a day or so to clean up odd jobs neglected
during the haying season. He was a gentle, timid little chap, the butt of
the entire valley, of course, and particularly of John Spencer. Douglas
often wondered why old Johnny consented to work each year at this season
for his father. This wonderment was solved the day after Doug's and
Jude's conversation on the load of hay and in a manner destined in a
small way to have its influence on Douglas' affairs in the years to come.

Just before supper Judith returned from the post-office and rushed into
the kitchen with a huge, long-legged, ugly puppy in her arms. She set him
on the floor where his four knotty legs pointed in four different
directions and where his long back sagged like the letter U. He was
covered with rough gray hair and his eyes were huge and brown.

"Isn't he a perfect lamb? He's mine!" cried Judith, squatting beside him.

"Oh! A lamb!" grunted John, who was combing his hair at the wash-basin in
the corner. "I thought it was a buffalo calf."

"Don't be stupid!" cried Judith. "Of course, you're no judge of dogs, but
Peter says he's just like Sister was at two months, only bigger."

Mary Spencer looked him over critically, coffee-pot in hand. "Isn't he
awful homely, even for a mongrel, Judith?" she asked.

"Mongrel! What is the matter with all you folks?" exclaimed Judith. "He's
no more mongrel than anybody else! Come here to your missis, you
precious!" and she gathered the great pup into her lap, where he sat
complacently, his legs in a hopeless tangle.

"What's his name?" asked old Johnny, mildly.

"Wolf Cub. And you wait till I'm through with him! You'll see the best
trained dog in the valley, like Sioux will be the best trained bull and
Buster the best trained horse. O, look, Doug!" as Douglas came in. "See
what I've got!"

"I dare you to name its pedigree, Doug!" chuckled John.

Douglas lifted the pup to the floor and ran his hands over its skull,
along its back, and down its erratic legs. "Some dog, Judith! You'll have
to muzzle him by the time he's six months old."

Judith smiled triumphantly. "No, I won't! Wait till you see how I train
him."

"You get that from your mother, Judith. She was always gregus smart with
critters," said old Johnny.

Judith laughed skeptically. "She was!" The little old man nodded his
head. "I remember. I deponed that same thing to Peter the other day. How
Mary could break anything when she was a girl, like you."

"Well, but Mother won't touch anything that isn't broke now!" exclaimed
Judith.

"Just what I deponed," nodded Johnny. "John broke her just like he broke
old Molly horse, so she lost her nerve. I deponed just that. An awful
rough breaker. I deponed just that."

"O dry up, Johnny!" grunted John, drawing his chair up to the table.
"I've put up with an awful lot of drool from you, and I'm getting sick of
it."

Old Johnny was always most explanatory when he was most frightened. "I
wasn't drooling, John. I was just deponing. Any one can do that, can't
they? And Mary did used to be like Judith."

"Will you shut up!" shouted John.

The puppy, startled, gave a sudden loud howl.

"Put that thing out and come to supper, Jude! If he howls to-night, I'll
shoot him." Judith left the house indignantly.

"No, you won't, Dad," said Douglas quietly, as he buttered a biscuit.

"If you're going to give me back talk, young fellow, you leave the table
now, before I lose my temper."

"I'm not giving you any more back talk than you deserve," replied
Douglas. "Any man that would threaten to shoot a pup because it howls
deserves something more than back talk. Let's forget it. Johnny, how
about this stunt of Mother's breaking horses?"

Old Johnny gave John a timid glance. "I don't remember," he muttered.

Mary laughed. "What's the use of a woman breaking horses when she's got a
man to do it for her?"

"Did you ever see her break a horse, Johnny?" insisted Doug.

"Once," said the old man, "a lot of the boys tied me on a mule and the
mule ran away. It wasn't broke, that mule. Seem like it had run a gregus
long way when Mary come along. She was just a walking and she reached up
and grabbed the mule and she rode him back with me. And she made them
untie me. And I loved her ever since. I came up here every year to see
how John is treating her. I depone--"

John rose and, striding around the table, he seized the old man by the
collar. Douglas put his hand on his father's arm.

"Drop it, Dad, or I swear I'll think old Johnny is a better man than you.
I asked him to tell. Throw me out if you want to. Keep your hands off
this little chap. One thing is sure. He appreciates Mother more than any
of the rest of us have."

"Get the half-wit out of my sight, then," growled John, returning to his
seat.

"I wish a lot of folks with whole wits knew how to be as good a friend as
Johnny," said Douglas stoutly.

"So do I!" Mary's voice trembled, but her glance at the little old man
was very lovely.

The rest of the meal was finished in silence, Douglas turning over in
his mind this strange new picture of Judith's mother. Could anything,
he wondered, change Judith so? A curious anger against his father's
stupidity was at that moment born in Douglas' heart, an anger that never
was wholly to leave him.

That evening, as Douglas sat in his favorite place beside the alfalfa
stack, old Johnny led up his little gray mare.

"I'll be cowling myself along home now, Doug," he said. "John is awful
insidious to me. I just want to say, Doug, that you're the first man in
this valley ever stuck up for me and some day I depone I'll get even
with you."

"Good for you, Johnny!" nodded Douglas. "When I get my old ranch going,
you come up and work for me."

"I will so do," replied the old man solemnly, and he rode away in the
moonlight.

And Douglas returned to the new theme old Johnny had given him. Of
what were women made that they could be over-broken as his father had
over-broken Mary? And why should Lost Chief, so small that control was
simple, permit such a thing to be?




CHAPTER V

THE HUNT ON LOST CHIEF

"A guy that don't rustle cattle when the rustling is good, is a fool."

--_Scott Parsons_.


One hot afternoon in August Douglas had just unhitched the panting team
from the plow in the new oat field when Charleton Falkner trotted up on
Democrat.

"How's the fall plowing, Doug?"

"Just out of the woods, Charleton."

"Your father says he can spare you for a day or two. I wish you'd come
down to my place to-night. I'm planning a trip. I don't suppose John
would loan you Beauty for a couple of days?"

Douglas shook his head.

"Well," Charleton went on, "I guess Buster can stand up under the work."

"Buster belongs to Judith now. I've been trying to get time to break that
dapple gray Young Jeff gave me, after the trial. He's a good horse.
Darned if I don't think I can ride him now!"

"I know that horse and he is a good one," agreed Charleton. "Ride the
young moose if you can stick on him. You'll need all his wind and limb on
this trip!" and Charleton trotted away.

It was full starlight that night when Douglas freed his feet from the
stirrups before Charleton's door and jumped like lightning from the
saddle. His horse jumped with him, landing in the kitchen as Douglas
brought up against the door-jamb. There was a roar of laughter from
within, and as the horse lunged backward out of the door, Charleton
appeared.

"So you and the moose are here! Better hobble him, Doug!"

Douglas laughed and tied the rearing horse to a hayrack. Then he followed
Charleton into the kitchen. Scott Parsons was sitting by the table, hat
on the back of his head, spurred boots on the cold stove hearth. Mrs.
Falkner was just finishing the supper dishes. She greeted Douglas with
a tired smile.

Douglas, with a resentful glance at Scott, shifted his gun belt, shoved
his own hat to the back of his head, and sat down. Mrs. Falkner pitched
the dish water out the back door and went into the next room.

"Well, fellows," said Charleton cheerfully, as he tipped back his chair
and established his spurs beside Scott's, "there's a neat little job on
the horizon. You both know the big canyon beyond Lost Chief Peak, that
has the little creek that disappears under the range?"

The young men nodded, and Charleton continued.

"A Mormon named Elijah Nelson has settled there. I'm not certain of all
he intends to do but I know this much: He's to homestead that canyon up
there and hog the water rights on the creek. He's to be followed by nine
other Mormon families. Some of 'em are going to raise cattle in the
canyon. Some of 'em are going into the sheep business in the plains
country beyond the canyon, where we Lost Creek folks have been in the
habit of wintering our herd when the snow's too deep here. Some of us
older Lost Chief men realize that these folks are the beginning of a
march of Mormons up from Utah to run us Lost Chief folks out. And we're
going to harry them till they are sick of living. Mormons and sheep must
keep out of this country."

Douglas' eyes burned and his breath came quickly. Scott's hard young eyes
did not flicker.

"We're going to ride over the range to-morrow night and the next morning
gather up what we can of Nelson's herd that's grazing on Lost Chief.
We'll bring 'em to a certain place I know of. I'll divide half to me,
the other half to you two. Are you game?"

"I sure am," said Scott. "How many do you think we can gather in?"

"Not so many on one trip. Perhaps fifteen if we have good luck. A big
herd leaves a big trail."

"There's an old corral up near the Government elevation monument," said
Douglas. "It's all overgrown with bushes and young aspens so's I don't
think one person out of twenty, knows it's there. Maybe we could corral
'em there?"

Charleton gave Douglas a quick glance. "How'd you come to know about it?"

"I happened on it last summer tracking a bear."

"That's what I planned to use," nodded Charleton. "We'll make a real
cowman out of you yet. So you're ready to go, Doug?"

Douglas' eyes were blazing. "Go! You couldn't pay me enough to keep me
away! Nothing ever happens in this old valley."

"All right! Be here by nine o'clock to-morrow night, wearing chaps. It'll
be rough riding and that Moose of yours will be quite considerably broke
by the time we get back, Doug. I'll supply the grub."

"Fine!" said Scott, rising. "If that's all, I'll be running along. Stage
was late to-night and the crowd'll be there getting mail. I'll be with
you on time, Charleton."

"Me too!" exclaimed Douglas, following Scott.

Weary as he was, Douglas was long in getting to sleep that night.
Charleton Falkner was deeply admired by all the young men of Lost
Chief. Not only was he of the ultra-sophisticated type, dear to
adolescence, not only was he by far the cleverest hunter in the valley,
but, most important of all, his name was whispered in connection with
horse and cattle deals, never called questionable by Lost Chief but
always mentioned with a wink and a chuckle for their adroitness. To have
been asked by Charleton to go as a partner on one of his mysterious trips
was intoxicating enough to take the sting out of the fact that Scott met
Judith that evening at the post-office and rode home with her.

The next day Judith several times tried to discover where Doug was going
and with whom.

"Don't you try tagging me again, like you did on the trip to the half-way
house," he said with a warning grin, when they were finishing the evening
chores together.

"No danger! I got a date of my own!" This with a toss of her curly head.

"Who with?"

"Don't you wish you knew! Other folks beside you can have interesting
deals, Mr. Douglas Spencer!"

"Huh! Some little stunt with Maud, I suppose."

"No, it isn't either. Say, Doug, did you know Maud is going up to
Mountain City to stay with her aunt and go to school there?"

"I suppose that's what you'd like to do?" Doug watched the eager face
closely.

"Well, not just now," replied Judith with a little grin. "I want to keep
my date, first."

"Well, don't get into mischief, daughter; that's all I have to say about
your mysterious deal," said Douglas paternally.

Judith laughed and carried her pail of milk into the kitchen.

It was after ten o'clock that night when Charleton led his two young
henchman along the west trail, past Rodman's and up the canyon toward
the first shoulder of Lost Chief Peak. The Moose did not approve of
the trip. He showed his disapproval by plunging and side jumping with
nerve-racking persistency. Ginger and Democrat gave him ample turning
room, biting or kicking him if he drew too near them. Midway in the
canyon Charleton left the trail and turned abruptly to the left, up
the sheer shoulder of the mountain.

"Need a hazer, Doug?" he called.

"Where are you going to camp, Charleton?" laughed Douglas, as the Moose
refused the trail.

"On the west shoulder of the peak, just under the elevation monument."

"I'll find you there. I may be delayed for a while!"

Charleton laughed too. "Just so you get there by dawn!" he called; and
Douglas saw the two figures, dim in the starlight, move upward on the
barren shoulder of the mountain. He allowed the Moose to circle for a
moment, then he drove the rowells deep. The snorting horse leaped up the
steep incline, at a pace that shortly left him groaning for breath. But
Douglas spurred him relentlessly to the far tree line. Here he permitted
him to breathe while he listened to the receding thud of hoofs above.

When his horse had ceased to groan, Douglas turned him toward the dark
shadow of the forest. The Moose reared and turned, falling heavily. Doug
was out of the saddle when it cracked against the gravel and in it when
the trembling horse rolled to his feet. Doug brought the knotted reins
smartly across the animal's reeking flanks.

The Moose bolted. Doug laughed and swore and for a time made no effort
to guide his mount. The Moose leaped fallen trunks and low bushes. He
jumped black abysses. He thrashed into trees and rocks. But he could not
dislodge the figure that clung to his back with knee and spur. Douglas
did not know how long this mad fight lasted, but he was beginning to be
exhausted, himself, when the Moose stopped on the edge of a black drop.
The horse was shaking and groaning.

"Now listen here, you Moose," said Douglas. "If you expect to be friends
with me, you've got to begin to show some interest in me. I sure do
admire your speed and your nerve. You're a better horse than Buster,
and I don't want to break you more than I have to. But how about showing
interest in me? I'm here to stay, you know, so you might as well begin to
put me in your calculations. Now, just to show you're a changed horse,
suppose you push up here to the right. I think there's a clear space
there where I can see the stars and locate ourselves."

The Moose turned slowly under the rein, and carried Doug cleverly into an
open park. Here Doug studied the brilliant heavens.

"We'll just move south, old Moose," he announced, "climbing uphill all
the time, till we run into something."

The Moose worked steadily enough now, but it seemed a long time to
Douglas before he saw the faint glare of a fire through the trees.
Charleton and Scott looked up grinning as he rode into the circle of
light. Wide bare patches showed on Doug's chaps. One sleeve of his
flannel shirt was hanging by a thread. His face was bleeding from many
scratches, but he grinned amicably as he slid wearily from the saddle.

"Hello, Doug! Is your horse broke yet?" asked Charleton.

"Some," replied Douglas.

"We thought we heard you a while back!" said Scott. "Sounded as if a
grizzly had been bitten by a hydrophobia skunk."

"He ain't as nervous as he was," grinned Douglas. "Anything to drink?"

Charleton indicated the coffee-pot and said, "It's only a short time to
dawn. Better get what sleep you can!"

Douglas nodded, drank a tin cup of coffee, and then unsaddled the Moose.
Scott, rolled in his blanket, watched him with a twisted grin.

"Some horse to take on a trip like this," he said. "A half-broke mule
couldn't be worse. Funny if Doug don't gum the whole game for us,
Charleton."

"You go to hell, Scott!" grunted Douglas.

Scott sat up with a jerk. Charleton spoke sharply. "No scrapping! You two
get to sleep!"

Scott lay down reluctantly. Doug shrugged his broad shoulders, and
shortly, head in his saddle, feet to the fire, he was fast asleep.

The trees were black against gray light when Charleton called the two
young riders.

"Let's eat and be off," he said briefly.

Breakfast was a short affair of bread, bacon and coffee. While they were
bolting it, Charleton outlined the campaign.

"You'll see Nelson's cattle have been all through here. No one else
grazes hereabouts. Don't rope any cows with calves following 'em. They
make too much bellowing. Get what steers you can by mid-morning into the
old corral. There isn't one chance in a thousand we'll meet any one.
Nelson's making hay five miles below here. But if any one should come
along when you've roped a steer, get him to examine the brand for you,
and of course if the brand isn't yours, let the critter go."

"Where is the old corral from here?" asked Scott.

"Show him, Doug," ordered Charleton.

The camp had been made just within the tree line below the peak. Above,
against the glowing pink of the heavens, was etched the suave line of the
peak and topping this a heap of rocks, surmounted by a staff. West of the
staff and below it projected the top of a dead spruce on which sat an
eagle. To this Douglas pointed.

"Down the mountain on a line with the staff and the dead spruce in a
thick clump of young aspen, about an acre of it. The old corral is
there."

Scott nodded. They broke camp at once and trotted off, each one for
himself. The Moose was not yet a cow-pony, but, from Doug's viewpoint at
least, he was now quite manageable. Any one in Lost Chief could rope a
steer from a well-trained horse. Douglas proposed to repay Scott's sneer
by bringing in on his half-broken mount as many animals as either of his
companions on their seasoned cow-ponies. And although Doug risked his
life a hundred times, four of the dozen fat steers that were milling
about in the old corral by nine o'clock had been dragged in by the
snorting, trembling Moose.

When Doug closed the bars on his fourth steer, he waited for a short time
for Charleton and Scott, but as neither appeared, he set off after
another brute. He had ridden a good mile from the corral when he heard
the bellow of a bull and a shout from Charleton. He spurred the Moose in
the direction of the cry. Democrat was standing with the reins over his
head. Under a giant pine close by, Charleton was clinging desperately
to the horns of a red bull. Blood was running over the back of his gray
shirt. The bull was stamping in a circle in the vain attempt to trample
his victim.

"Don't shoot!" gasped Charleton. "Rope his hind legs and throw him! By
God, I'll keep him now!"

Twice Doug's lariat darted through the air before the loop caught. But
the third attempt was successful and he raced the half-maddened Moose
away and jerked the bull off his feet. Charleton rolled to his own lariat
lying on the ground near Democrat. He grasped the rope, rose to his knees
and twirled it. It twisted about the bull's mighty neck. Charleton sank
back to a sitting position and pulled the rope taut.

"Dismount and come up on him, Doug, and hog tie him," he panted.

Douglas obeyed, and shortly the bull was helpless although he continued
to bellow threateningly.

"He'll have Nelson up here even if he is five miles off," said Douglas
anxiously. "Better let him go."

"Take a look at my ankle, Doug," ordered Charleton. "If it's nothing
worse than a sprain, I'm in luck."

With many oaths on the part of Charleton, the high riding-boot was worked
off, disclosing an ankle already puffed and discolored.

"A sprain! Well, I can sit Democrat with that. Now take a look at my
shoulder."

Doug turned back the bloody shirt. The bull's horn had grazed the
shoulder but not deeply. Doug tied the wound up with Charleton's
neckerchief. He had just finished and was beginning with his own scarf on
the ankle when Scott galloped up.

"Say, you can hear that bull for a thousand miles! What the devil are you
up to? I want you both to come and help me get three I've roped down the
draw a couple of miles below here."

Douglas explained the accident.

"My gawd, Charleton, don't you know enough not to tackle a bull on foot?"

"How'd I know there was a bull around?" retorted the wounded man. "I
dropped my rope and when I dismounted to pick it up, he came after me
like a Kansas cyclone."

"Well, I'll take the bull to the corral and come back here for grub if
Douglas will fix it up. We will put plenty of whiskey and hot coffee in
you, Charleton. Do you think you can get home, while Doug and I ride
herd?"

"I sure can! Go ahead, Scott. You'd better blind the bull."

Scott nodded, and picking up several handsful of dry dirt, he threw them
into the bull's wide, bloodshot eyes. The animal snorted and tossed his
head. Scott continued with handful after handful until the bull's eyes
were only muddy blanks under his tossing forehead. His bellowing ceased.
Then Scott removed the ropes from his hind legs and, mounting, led him
away. The bull was silent and entirely occupied in attempting to rub the
dirt out of his streaming eyes.

"Make it as quick as you can, Scott," called Charleton. Then to Douglas,
"Get busy with the whiskey and coffee, Doug. He ought to be back by the
time you've fixed up a snack."

But Scott was long in returning.

"Oughtn't he to be back?" asked Doug, when the bacon was ready.

Charleton looked at his watch. "He's been gone over an hour. After you
eat, you go see what kind of trouble he's in, Doug."

Douglas devoured the bacon and bread, then mounted and rode slowly
through the silent, scented forest. His blue eyes danced with excitement,
his tanned cheeks burned as he guided the Moose through the quivering
aspens to the corral. Here he pulled up with a sudden oath. The corral
was empty, the fence torn open in half a dozen places.

"That blankety-blank old bull must have started a stampede!" gasped
Douglas. "I wouldn't have thought Scott would have left him free in
here!"

He rode through and around the corral. Cattle tracks led in every
direction. He trotted in widening circles. Perhaps a mile north of the
corral, he pulled up and looked closely at the ground. Single cattle
tracks here converged and a herd track led on northward. As he stared
at it, the bull came thundering down the trail. Doug put the Moose after
him but had not followed him for five minutes when Scott broke into the
chase from the right.

"What do you think you've done, blank you?" he shouted. "What have you
done with the rest of the herd?"

"Done with the herd?" roared Douglas. "What are you talking about?"

"I know you, you dogy rider, you! I told you that wild horse of yours
would gum the game. There ain't a steer left! What do you mean by riding
him into the corral?"

"You're drunk!" retorted Douglas. "You'd better ride after that bull or
Charleton will pull a gun on you."

"Ride after nothing! Chase him yourself!"

"On second thoughts, I think I will. It's your turn to play nurse. Go on
back and tell Charleton what's happened."

"Don't get fresh, young fellow!" snarled Scott.

Douglas pushed back his hat and the noon sun glimmered through the pines
on his yellow hair. His clear blue eyes studied Scott appraisingly.
Finally, he said, "I guess, on third thoughts, I'll take you back to
Charleton."

Scott laughed. "Now you're drunk!"

Douglas' six-shooter appeared casually between the Moose's twitching
ears. "Hold up your little brown hands, Scott, till I reach me your gun.
Fine! Now ride ahead of me till we reach Charleton. Some boy I am on the
draw, eh, old-timer?"

Scott swore, but rode ahead at a steady trot until they reached the
noonday camp. Charleton looked at them in astonishment.

"Call this damn fool off my back, will you, Charleton?" drawled Scott.
"He's mad because I called him for letting that wild cayuse of his
stampede the herd."

"He's a liar! This is as good a cow-pony as he ever rode and better.
Ain't a better horse in Lost Chief than this same Moose. He was after the
bull like a hound after a coyote when Scott broke in on us, the dirty--"

"Hold on," interrupted Charleton, "What's your story, Scott?"

"The corral is broke in forty places and all the stock gone. I suppose
this fool rode his wild horse into the herd and stampeded it. I found him
running the bull like he and his horse was both loco."

Douglas uttered an oath. "Nothing of the kind! When I got there, the herd
was gone and I'd just picked up the trail when the bull came along."

Charleton looked from one young man to the other. Doug with his long face
entirely expressionless, sitting easily sidewise in his saddle; Scott,
face flushed, eyes angry, standing tense in the stirrups. There came an
ugly twist to Charleton's lips, but after a moment he spoke coolly.

"You fellows help me up on Democrat and we'll beat it for home."

"But you don't believe the Moose--" began Doug. But Charleton
interrupted.

"If I wasn't crippled I'd mighty soon show you fellows what I believed.
As it is, I'm going home. But if I find either of you has double-crossed
me, I'll square accounts."

There was that in Charleton's eyes which caused the two riders to
dismount without a word. They heaved him into his saddle and, with his
lariat, arranged a sling for his injured ankle. When they had made him as
comfortable and secure as possible, Scott said politely:

"You don't need two of us, Charleton. I think I'll go after a bear I saw
in the raspberry patch beyond the corral."

"Nothing doing, Scott!" grunted Charleton.

"You've fallen down on the job, Charleton," Scott laughed, "so you've
lost your right to boss."

"No, he hasn't," said Douglas. "You come along!"

But this time Doug's six-shooter flashed no more quickly than Scott's.
Charleton, his face twisted with pain, waited for a thoughtful minute
before he said:

"Put up your guns, boys. Let him go, Doug," and he turned his horse
eastward.

Douglas reluctantly returned his gun to his hip and Scott disappeared at
a canter. The Moose followed after Democrat.

"What did you do that for, Charleton?" demanded Douglas, resentfully.
"That's just giving him the herd."

"If he has double-crossed me," returned the older man, "I'm in no shape
to handle him just now. He never came back to meet you till he'd turned
the herd over to an accomplice. In any case, I lose on this trick."

"But he didn't know you were going to meet up with a bull!"

"No, but he was going to keep us away from the corral, somehow. You
remember he said he'd come back to get us to help him bring in some
steers. Of course, you and he might be in cahoots on this, but Scott's
tricky so I'm giving you some of the benefits of the doubt." Charleton
turned in his saddle to favor Douglas with a suspicious stare.

"I didn't double-cross you, Charleton," said Douglas, not without a
simple dignity that may or may not have impressed his mentor. At any
rate, Charleton made no reply.

Douglas was entirely deflated. He drooped dejectedly in the saddle,
guiding the stiff and weary Moose without interest. His wonderful
expedition by which he was to establish his standing as a man with his
father and Judith had ended in ignominy. He watched Charleton's painfully
rigid back but he did not dare to speak to him until they were nearly
home. As they neared the edge of the first line, the ground became
tapestried with lilies, yellow, white and crimson. Tree-trunks turned
blue against the blue skies that belled over the valley. As they
descended, the Forest Reserve lifted gradually, a black green sea beyond
the burning brown level of the ranches. But Douglas was in no frame of
mind either to seek or to see beauty. He had a guilty sense that
Charleton believed that he had failed him, and finally he summoned
courage to call, "Doggone it, Charleton! I wanted to put it over, don't
you suppose?"

Charleton did not answer, and when they crossed the canyon back of
Rodman's, Douglas, hurt and resentful, turned the Moose onto the home
trail. He had gone almost beyond hailing distance before Charleton
called, "Come down and see me soon, old cattle rustler!"

Instantly Doug's spirits soared. He waved his hand with a grin and put
the Moose to a trot.

It was supper time when he clanked into the kitchen. His father and
mother were at the table.

"You're early, Doug!" exclaimed John.

Doug nodded. "Where's Judith?"

"Keeping that mysterious date of hers. Maud, of course! She won't be home
till late. I hope it's not with Inez. You look tired, Doug."

"I am. Jude makes me sick. She's harder to watch than a boy!"

John laughed enigmatically and went out to finish his chores. Shortly,
Douglas followed him and told the story of the miscarried adventure.

"I told Charleton not to let Scott in on it," exclaimed John. "Serves him
right. I sure got the laugh on Charleton this time."

"He's awful sore! Acts kind of suspicious of me," said Douglas ruefully.

"A guy like Charleton don't even trust himself." John pitched down a
forkful of hay. "Have you any idea what Maud and Jude are up to?"

"No, sir. Are you worried about her?"

John laughed. "As long as Scott Parsons was with you, why worry? We'd
ought to let Young Jeff run that crook out of the valley."

"I'll do it myself, some day." Douglas squared his big shoulders as he
spoke. He was still very thin and his clothes hung loose on him. But his
father, looking him over, did not smile.

"Go to it, boy," he said.

Douglas had planned to lie awake until Judith returned. But the minute he
touched his pillow he dropped into dreamless slumber from which he did
not waken until breakfast time. John was scolding Judith when Doug
reached the table.

"That's all right, to be so highty-tighty. You can get away with that
with your mother but not with me. It was nearly three o'clock this
morning when you came in."

"O, no, John! It wasn't that late," protested Mary anxiously.

"Now, Mary, don't put up one of your fool lies for the little devil.
I know what time it was. What excuse have you, miss?"

Judith, who was looking tired, but singularly self-satisfied, answered
demurely, "I was out on business, Dad. And I'm going to get pay for it,
too. A horse that will really buck."

John's face was flushing when Douglas spoke. "Aw, let her keep her
secret, Dad! I don't think she's done a thing but rope a stray pony."

Judith protested quickly. "Nothing of the kind! If you three just knew
what I have done, you'd respect me. Anyway, Doug, I know where you were.
Over on Fire Mesa with Charleton Falkner."

"Who told you that?" grinned Douglas.

"Somebody that knew. Dad, why don't you get after Doug like you do after
me? What was he doing over on Fire Mesa, all night?"

"That's right, Doug! What were you doing on Fire Mesa?" asked John, all a
broad smile now that infuriated Judith.

She jumped up from the table, took down her milking pail and went out.
Nor did she give Douglas opportunity to talk to her during the rest of
the day. Not until twilight had settled in the valley did Douglas find
her alone. Then, searching for her, he discovered her behind the corral,
curled up against the new alfalfa stack, her eyes on the sunset glow
above Lost Chief Peak.

Douglas sat down beside her. "I didn't mean to tease you, this morning,
Jude. I was just trying to steer Dad off."

"But you always do think my stunts never amount to anything, Doug!"

"Have I said a word like that, lately? I can't help being anxious, can I,
when a girl like you stays out until three in the morning?"

"Yes, you were so anxious your snores shook the house!" returned Judith.
"Now admit, Doug, that you really think it was nothing worth worrying
about."

"Well, I don't see how it could be anything so very important."

"There, I knew it! Doug, I'm so proud of myself that if I don't tell some
one, I'll burst. Give me your word of honor you'll never give it away and
I'll tell you."

"I swear I'll die before I'll peep!"

"Still think it's funny, don't you! All right, mister, prepare to faint!
I was out helping Scott Parsons run cattle."

Douglas gasped.

"There, Doug Spencer! You're such a wonder! Of course," honestly, "I
didn't do the hardest part. Scott had got 'em all together in a corral
before I got there. But I held the herd in a little canyon for a couple
of hours while he got old Nelson off the scent. Then we drove 'em across
the ridge, down into the desert country west of Mesa Pass. He's going to
sell 'em in Mountain City and my share is a good bucking horse, like I
told you."

Douglas sat perfectly still, so torn by conflicting emotions that for a
time he was speechless. Finally, from the chaos of his mind rose an
overwhelming anger.

"Do you think that's a decent thing to do? A girl, running cattle and
with a confessed murderer at that? I sure am ashamed of you, Jude!"

"Can you beat a man!" cried Judith to the flaming heavens. "He won't even
give me credit for being a cattle wrangler! And he says he loves me!"

Doug's voice was furious. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, stealing
cattle and running round with that Inez Rodman!"

"You just be careful of what you say, Doug Spencer!" "Careful! Why should
I be careful. You aren't careful!"

"I'm a whole lot better than you, at that! If it's so smart for you to do
all these things, why isn't it for me?"

"A woman has to be good. It's her job to be good. If she isn't good in a
cattle country like this, everything goes to pieces."

"It's a wonder you men don't set us women an example," said Judith
coolly.

"Don't I try to keep you straight?"

"Yeh! A wonderful example you set me!"

Douglas' voice broke with anger. "Don't talk like a fool! The world isn't
like that! The women have to be good. The men want 'em to be, no matter
how hard they try to make the women bad. And the more you care for a
girl, the more you want her to be perfect."

"The world is plumb loco and you with it!"

"You're as cold as a dead rabbit!" exclaimed Doug,

Judith laughed mirthlessly. "Yes, I'm cold! I'm as cold as fire!" And
suddenly she put her head down on her knees and burst into tears.

Instantly Douglas melted. He put his arms about. Judith and drew her head
to his shoulder. "O Jude! Don't! If I could only make you see it's my
love for you makes me so mad!"

"You,--you don't want me to have any fun!" sobbed Judith. "How'd you like
to be asked to give up everything yourself and stay home like a woman?"

"I wouldn't like it. But a regular girl oughtn't to want to do such
things."

"Why not? I like horses and dogs and the wind on Fire Mesa just as much
as you do. And dancing and hunting by moonlight and getting away with
somebody else's cattle and all of it. I love it! And you ask me to give
it up because you want me to be good. What do you call good, anyhow?"

Douglas did not answer at once. In the first place, Judith's flushed
cheek in his neck upset his equilibrium, and in the second place he was
overwhelmed with a sudden consciousness of the truth of Peter's
statement, that he had not a clean-cut idea to his name.

But finally he stammered, "Well, I call being good not drinking or
stealing or being loose with men or any of those things--for a girl."

"And for a man?" asked Judith, sitting erect.

"Aw, who wants a man to be good?" laughed Douglas.

"I do," replied Judith, with a sudden thrilling intensity in her young
voice. "I want his strength to be as the strength of ten, because his
heart is pure,"

"Judith, you really do?"

"Yes, I really do."

Douglas drew a long breath. "Judith, would you want me to be that way?"

"I sure would."

"Well, then, Judith, so help me God, I will be!"

Judith put her slender, muscular hand on Doug's, swallowed hard once or
twice, but said nothing. Then the tense moment past, she asked, "Honest,
Doug, don't you think that was kind of a smart stunt of mine?"

"I certainly do," with heart-felt conviction. "But I want you to promise
me one thing. That you won't run any more cattle. Will you, Jude?"

"I'll promise you, if you'll promise me," returned Judith promptly.

"But it's different with a man," repeated Douglas.

"But you promised about that other."

"That was different. It was something personal between you and me. The
other is business."

"All right! I don't promise unless you do."

"I can't promise, Jude. Honest, I can't."

Jude laughed and jumped to her feet. "You are a goose, Doug, but I sure
am fond of you." Then she left him.

Douglas sat still, his head pressed against the indescribable sweetness
of the alfalfa hay, eyes on the wonder of the stars. Finally he said
aloud, "I wish there was somebody a fellow could talk to that knows
things. I wish my grandfather Douglas was alive. Peter jaws too much.
What I want is to know facts, then judge for myself."

His father passed by the haystack, pitchfork on shoulder. "Who are you
talking to, Doug?" he asked.

"The biggest fool in Lost Chief," replied Douglas, rising and following
his father to the house.




CHAPTER VI

LITTLE SWIFT CROSSES THE DIVIDE

"Ride 'em till they drop, then break another. That's what Nature does and
that's what I do."

--_John Spencer_


The following afternoon when Douglas rode after the mail he went round by
the west trail to call on Charleton. He found the crippled philosopher
propped up in bed, reading the _Atlantic Monthly_ and smoking a pipe.
Mrs. Falkner and Little Marion were in the corral doing the chores.

"Well, how's the Moose after his disappointment?" asked Charleton.

"Going strong! Any news of Scott?"

"No; I don't expect any news for a week till I get on my feet."

"I guess we might as well let him go and try again without him," said
Doug, looking out the door at Little Marion, who was astride a saddleless
mule which was doing its best to climb the corral fence.

Charleton grinned. "No one can double-cross me without my taking the
trouble to show him he can't do it twice, can they, Marion?" as his wife
came in with an armload of wood she had just split.

"You are as revengeful as a wolf, if that's what you mean," replied Mrs.
Falkner. "Not that you've tried it on me."

Charleton gave her an amused glance not unmixed with admiration.

"I don't know that even a wolf would tackle a lynx cat," he chuckled.

Douglas looked from the beautiful woman around the homelike room. "You're
a lucky chap, Charleton," he said suddenly.

Mrs. Falkner had picked up her sewing-basket. "Nobody with a mind like
Charleton's is so awful lucky," she said.

"Ouch!" grinned Charleton, and lighted his pipe afresh.

Douglas pondered on Mrs. Falkner's remark on his way back to the
post-office. Peter was sitting on the doorstep with Sister. The mail
had been distributed and most of Lost Chief had come and gone.

"That horse is tired, Doug," said Peter. "What have you been doing?
Running him to break him?"

"Aw, he's all right," protested Douglas. "Don't climb a tree about him,
Peter. I want to talk to you. Make Sister move over."

"Sister," said Peter, "don't you want to go down and speak nice to your
old friend Prince?"

Prince, standing before the platform with slavering tongue, bright eyes
shining, wagged his tail in a conciliatory manner. Sister sniffed,
growled, whimpered, then walked deliberately down the steps and said
something to Prince. He barked and they trotted over to the plains east
of the post-office.

"She's got a dead coyote she keeps up there for her special friends,"
said Peter. "What's your trouble, Doug?"

Douglas sat down in Sister's place. "I've been over to see Charleton, and
his wife said something that struck me as queer." He repeated Marion's
comment.

Peter laughed. "The women in this valley beat any bunch I've seen
anywhere. If the men were their equals, there wouldn't be a spot in the
world could touch Lost Chief. What do you think of Charleton's mind,
Doug?"

"I think he's a wonder. He's lived, that guy."

"Any guy of forty has lived. It's the way they look at life that makes
men different. Charleton hasn't any faith in anything good. That's why
he's unlucky. Don't let him influence you too much, Doug. I like
Charleton but he's not good medicine for a boy of your kind. Have you
thought anything about my offer of a couple of months ago?"

"Not much. I'm putting in most of my time worrying about Jude."

"Has she been doing anything special?"

"Well, yes. If I could just make her care for me, it would be easy. But,
Peter, she cares a lot more for that poor old broken down Swift than she
does for me."

"She's just a child. You'll have to be patient, Doug."

"I am patient, Peter. But, in the meantime, Scott, or--" He hesitated,
then went on. "I tell you, this caring for a woman who don't care for you
is hell, Peter!"

Peter stared off toward Fire Mesa, with its rolling clouds of red, and
answered seriously, "Yes, it is, Douglas. But I told you in June all that
I could think of, in regard to Judith, and you got sore at me."

"Well, I'm not sore now. I was a fool. Here comes Jimmy Day. Give me my
mail, Peter, and I'll beat it. I'm in no frame of mind to talk to a kid."

Jimmy, who was perhaps a year older than Douglas, pulled his sweating
horse to its haunches. His dog, a mongrel collie, ran up the trail to
meet the returning Sister and Prince. There was a whining colloquy, then
the three dogs turned back.

"Must be a scandal somewhere," suggested Jimmy.

"No, just a dead coyote," said Peter. "Sister ran him down yesterday.
Ain't a dog in the State outside of a greyhound can touch her."

Douglas made a flying leap into the saddle while the Moose whirled on his
hind legs.

"Some horse, Doug!" exclaimed Jimmy. "I'll swap this and a two-year-older
heifer for him."

"I'm afraid he might hurt you. He's a regular man's horse, Jimmy." Doug
lighted a cigarette while the Moose reared.

"Thanks," grunted Jimmy. "Say, did you know Scott Parsons has had four
young calves by one milch cow, all the same age? Ree-markable man,
Scott. Say, I was by there the other day and there sat Scott in the
corral on Ginger cracking a black snake at this fool cow to make her
let those four slicks eat. He'll die rich, Scott will. He's the
calf-gettingest rider in the Rockies."

Douglas turned the Moose into the home trail. When he reached the ranch,
Judith was strolling in the main corral with her arm about the neck of
the bull Scott had given her. He would follow Judith about like a pet dog
but would allow no one else to touch him.

"When he is a little older, you won't be able to play with him that way,
Jude," said Douglas, eying the pair with admiration not untinctured with
apprehension.

It was a brilliant afternoon, with the western sun throwing long
golden shadows across old Dead Line Peak. The corral with its fringe of
quivering aspens a silvery lavender; the great red bull; the young girl
with her noble proportions, rubbing the brute's ferocious head with one
slender brown hand, made an unforgettable picture. The puppy, Wolf Cub,
was chewing an old boot beside the alfalfa stack.

"He'll always be fond of me if I handle him right," said Judith. "Won't
you, Sioux? I'm going to saddle him, some day, Doug."

"Well, not while I'm around," exclaimed the young rider, as he pulled the
bridle over the Moose's head. "Say, have you seen Scott yet?"

"No. Why?"

"I pity him. Charleton sure is after him."

"Charleton? Why?"

Douglas shrugged his shoulders. "You ask Scott why," and he strode off to
his chores.

Doug did not see Charleton again for several days. But one afternoon,
about a week after the return from the hunt, they met at the post-office
and Charleton, who wanted to see John, rode home with him.

"Scott is back," said Doug.

"Yes; I saw him yesterday." Charleton smiled. "I found out who was his
helper on that little deal."

"You did! How?" Douglas' voice was so sharp that the Moose jumped
nervously.

"I bought the information. Swapped him something for it."

"Who was it? Do you believe him?" Doug spoke a little breathlessly.

"I don't know. I'm going to check up on it now."

"Charleton, who did he say it was? Please, Charleton!"

The older man turned to look suspiciously at Doug. "How long have you
known it?"

"You've no call to speak that way to me," cried Douglas.

"Humph! Well, he says it was that young devil of a Jude."

"Look here, Charleton, don't say anything to my father about it. He'll go
crazy."

"I don't know what I'll do. I'll talk to Jude, first." And Charleton
would say no more.

He found Judith in the milking shed, and while he talked to her there
Douglas engaged his father's attention in the living-room. Here Judith
swept upon them.

"Doug Spencer, as long as I live, I'll not speak to you again! You
promise breaker, you--"

"Wait, Jude! I haven't told anybody. Did I tell you, Charleton?"

"I've told her that you didn't but she won't believe me," grinned
Charleton.

"Scott wouldn't have told. Doug was the only one that knew!" Judith paced
the floor.

"What the devil has broke loose?" demanded John.

"Now you have started something, Jude," groaned Douglas.

"Judith! Do calm down!" pleaded her mother, who had taken her hands out
of the biscuit dough and now stood, twisting her fingers, in the doorway.

"Well," said Charleton, "I don't know any reason why I should keep quiet
after the pretty names Jude has called me. It was Judith that helped
Scott double-cross us up on Lost Chief Peak. She claims she didn't know
it was our deal."

"She didn't, either!" cried Douglas stoutly.

John gasped, "Jude! She got away with your cattle, Charleton? That
sure-gawd is funny! Jude! O Lord!" And John burst into a tornado of
laughter that lasted until he dropped weakly on his bed.

Judith stared at him, uncertainly, as did her mother. Douglas scowled.
Charleton lighted a cigarette. "Of course, it has its humorous side,"
said Charleton, as John's shouts died down. "But I've served notice on
Scott and I serve notice on Judith now, that I'm not the man who kisses
the hand that spoils his deals."

This remark sobered John. "You're right, too, Charleton. Jude, how'd you
come to do such a fool thing?"

"How'd Doug and Charleton come to do such a fool thing?" asked Judith.
"Scott and I had as good a right to run cattle off them as they had off
Elijah Nelson."

"O Judith! Judith!" exclaimed her mother.

"You know how I feel about Scott Parsons!" cried John. "Jude, I'm going
to punish you for this so you'll never forget it.'"

"In other words, if Doug runs cattle, he's admired. If I run cattle, I'm
punished!" Jude's fine eyes were flashing, her tanned cheeks burning.

"Doug's a boy; you're a girl," replied John. "And I've told you to let
Scott Parsons alone."

"I wish I were dead!" exclaimed Jude.

"Well," said Charleton casually, "I must be getting back home." No one
heeded him as he clanked out the door.

"How are you going to punish Jude, Dad?'" demanded Douglas.

"Doug," cried Judith, "you keep out of my affairs from now on! I'll show
you that you can't break a promise to me."

"Judith, I tell you that I never breathed a word."

"I know better. Scott wouldn't be such a fool. And he told me not an hour
ago that Charleton said you'd given me away. And, anyhow, I think more of
Scott Parsons than I do of you and Dad put together! He's not always
jawing at me. He thinks I'm just right as I am."

Douglas drew himself up, angry and offended.

"You'll come after me, miss, before I speak to you again!"

"That's exactly what I want!" retorted Judith.

During this dialogue, Mary stood with the tears running down her cheeks,
begging the two to stop quarreling. John leaned against the table, his
eyes half closed, his mouth distorted.

"So that's how the land lies with Scott?" he shouted suddenly.

"Yes, and if you lay hands on me, I'll shoot you," said Judith
succinctly.

"I know how to get you, miss," sneered John.

He rushed out of the house. A moment later he galloped past the window on
Beauty. Judith walked defiantly to the door and looked after him. Douglas
went out to the corral. Shortly, John returned, leading Swift. He pulled
up in front of the door and dismounted. He kicked Swift in the haunch to
make her turn, and before Judith could do more than start toward him from
the door, he put his six-shooter to Swift's patient little head and
pulled the trigger. Swift dropped to her knees and rolled over.

"Now, Jude, try it again and I'll give Buster a dose," said John,
standing tense as he waited for the girl's attack.

But with a look of such horror that John recoiled, she stopped in her
tracks. She threw her arms about her head with a groan, ran across the
yard to the stable and climbed into the hay-loft. Douglas stood for a
moment as if turned to stone. Then he picked up a bridle and went into
the corral for the Moose. As he adjusted the saddle, John led Beauty to
the fence.

"You finish those chores, Doug!"

Douglas went on tightening the cinch.

"It was just a broken-down cow pony that should have been shot long ago,"
said John, sullenly.

Douglas leaped into the saddle, took the fence like a swallow, and was
gone. Prince yelped on the trail before him.

Where he was going, Doug did not know. He thrust the spurs into the
Moose and set him straight up the sheer barren side of Falkner's Peak
until the Moose was winded, then he dismounted and led him up and up
until they both were exhausted. Then Doug looped the reins over a clump
of sage-brush and dropped to the ground. Prince squatted beside him,
panting.

A blind despair had engulfed Doug. He could think of nothing to do.
Nothing that would adequately punish his father, nothing that would
solace Judith or bring her to her senses.

Nothing is so intolerably bitter to youth as its first realization of the
fact that one is helpless to change life as it is. Douglas, biting his
nails and railing at the heavens, was draining one of life's bitterest
drinks. He was in deep trouble, utterly alone, and he had no spiritual
star for guidance.

But when he finally descended the mountainside he had taken a resolve. He
was going to leave home for a while. He was going to work for Charleton,
who was greatly in need of a rider. He was not yet of age, but he was not
afraid of John's forcing him to return.

His father and mother were in bed when he reached home. Judith's bed was
empty. Douglas went out to the stable and climbed noiselessly to the
loft. On the hay close to the open door lay Judith, her face dimly
outlined in the moonlight. She was still sobbing in her sleep. Douglas
stood looking down on her till his own eyes were tear-blinded. Then he
knelt in the hay and kissed her softly on the lips. She stirred but did
not open her eyes, and he slipped back to the ladder and down, without a
sound.

He went to bed at once but was up in the morning before his father,
leaving a note on the kitchen table:

I am going to work for Charleton till things are better here at home.

_Douglas._

He found Charleton grooming Democrat. "Charleton," he said, "you made a
lot of trouble for Jude last night."

"What happened?" asked Charleton.

Douglas told him.

"That was a rotten trick!" exclaimed Charleton. "I just thought he'd lick
her. John's got a mean temper."

"I want to work for you a while, Charleton. I'm sick of the rows at
home."

"John willing?"

"I haven't asked him."

Charleton grinned. "I need a rider, sure. You finish currying Democrat
while I go in and talk to the missis. Little Marion's visiting at Lone
Bend. Maybe my wife will think it's too much cooking for two men."
But he came back in a little while, smiling cheerfully. "Come on in to
breakfast. It's all right."

So Douglas settled to riding for Charleton Falkner. His father did not
come after him, and when the two met on the Black Gorge trail a day or so
after Doug's departure, John returned Douglas' muttered greeting with a
silent, ugly stare. There was comment and conjecture in Lost Chief, but
the fall round-up was coming and this soon engrossed the attention of the
community. Of Scott, Douglas saw nothing.

The fall slipped into winter, which in Lost Chief country begins in
September, and Christmas passed with none of the Spencers at the
schoolhouse party excepting Judith, who attended with Scott. February
slipped into March and Douglas' eighteenth birthday passed unnoticed.
The snows were too deep to allow Charleton to undertake any of those
mysterious missions for which he was so much admired, and Elijah Nelson
was allowed to flourish unmolested. It was reported that the Mormon had
accused Lost Chief of running some of his cattle, but he evidently had no
desire to start a controversy with the valley. And Douglas came more and
more under Charleton's influence.

Peter Knight, watching the boy more closely than Doug at all realized,
was deeply troubled by what he felt might permanently distort Doug's
ideas of life.

"How are you and Judith making it, Doug?" Peter asked him one Sunday
afternoon early in April, when he and the young rider were sunning
themselves in the post-office door.

"You know Judith hasn't spoken to me since last August," replied Doug
impatiently.

"Too bad!" grunted Peter.

"O, I don't know," replied Douglas. "I don't see much to this marriage
game anyhow. Look at the couples round here and point me out any of 'em
that's been married over five years that're really in love. Just a
houseful of brats and a woman to nag you."

"Dry up, Doug! You are just quoting Charleton Falkner. I've heard plenty
of his empty ideas in the last twenty years. You've worked for him long
enough, anyhow. Better go back to your home; or if you're through with
Jude, take my offer and go East to school."

"Forget it, Peter! As soon as Fire Mesa opens up, I'm going after wild
horses with Charleton. And you can roast him all you want to, but he
knows life."

"Knows your foot!" snorted Peter. "If anybody could catch Charleton with
his skin off, we'd find he gets happiness and sorrow out of the same
things the rest of us do. He's just a big bluff, Charleton is."

"He's lived too much to let anything get him," said Douglas stoutly.

Peter laughed. "Nobody can accuse you of having lived too much, Douglas."
Then he added soberly, "You're disappointing me a lot, Douglas. I never
thought you'd let go of Jude."

"Jude let go of me," replied Douglas. "I suppose she thought I'd come
running back to her, but she's mistaken. I'm through with women."

"Don't talk like an idiot, Doug," said Peter, after a long careful look
at Douglas' face. "I know you. You are breaking your heart this minute
for Judith. And she misses you a whole lot more than she'll admit."

"How do you know? Have you talked to her?" asked Douglas quickly. "How
are things going up there?"

"Yes, I've talked to her. She's all right, but she's getting too many of
Inez' ideas in her head. She says John doesn't say ten words a day. You'd
better go back, Doug."

"Go back! With Jude believing I double-crossed her and nothing but rows
going all the time? I'll admit I'm unhappy, but at least it's peaceful at
Charleton's. He and his wife don't fight. I tell you that if home's just
a place to fight in, I don't want a home."

"What do you want, Douglas?" asked Peter.

"I don't know," muttered the young rider.

"I know," said Peter softly. "You want a guiding star, you want something
that's not to be found in this valley, an ideal fine enough to save your
soul alive. You come of stock that lived and died by a spiritual idea,
Doug, and you are going to be unhappy till you find one."

Douglas turned this over in his mind soberly for a few minutes. "Have you
got one, Peter?" he finally asked, wistfully.

"No! I might have had if your mother had lived. She was an idealist if
ever there was one. Work yourself out a plan, Doug, that is based on
something fine, then fight to put it over. That's the only way you'll
ever be contented."

"What I want," cried Douglas, "is something to take away this emptiness
inside of me."

"Exactly! And I'm telling you how. And the reason I know is because I
started out in life with the idea that women and the day's work were
enough. Maybe they are for a man like your father, though I doubt it.
But a man like you or me isn't built for promiscuity either in love or in
work. We are the kind that have to choose a fine, straight line and then
hew to it, keep our faith in it, never leave it."

He paused for so long a time that Douglas stirred uneasily, then said,
"How did you learn different, Peter?"

"By doing all the things that impulse and youth suggested, regardless of
any suggestions or advice, and arriving at middle life with my mind and
heart as empty as yours. Don't do it, Doug. It makes tragedy of old age."

Douglas rose slowly. "I don't see what in the world I can do with
myself," he said heavily, and he rode back to Charleton's ranch.

Books had perhaps been Douglas' greatest solace that long winter.
Charleton had a good many, mostly representing his young delvings
into the realms of agnosticism. His later purchases simmered down to
a few volumes of poetry. There were several of Shakespeare's plays
around the cabin and these Douglas read again and again. He did not see
much of Little Marion, who was a great gad-about, and who, when she was
at home, was monopolized by Jimmy Day. Mrs. Falkner he found immensely
companionable. She had a half-caustic wit which he enjoyed, but he liked
best to have her argue with Charleton on what she called his dog-eat-dog
theory of life.

He had reason, not long after his conversation with Peter, to recall the
postmaster's comments on Charleton. Very early one morning Charleton
roused him and told him to ride like forty furies after Grandma Brown.

Douglas obeyed him literally and arrived at the Brown ranch with the
Moose in a sweating lather. When he banged on the door, Grandma,
clutching her nightdress at the throat, put her head out.

"The baby, I suppose!" she snapped. "Is Little Marion there?"

"Yes!"

"Well, let me dress."

"Hurry, please, Grandma! Charleton seemed awful scared."

"Charleton! Huh! I'm going to get my proper clothes on and drink my
coffee, no matter how Charleton Falkner worries. He always was a baby.
You go saddle Abe."

Abe was saddled and the Moose was breathing normally before Grandma
appeared, plump and calm. Nor would she allow Abe to be hurried out of
his usual gentle trot.

"Douglas, when you've seen as many new eyes open and old eyes close as I
have, you'll quit hurrying," she said. "The Almighty generally looks out
for mothers, anyhow."

So, sedately, in the glory of the sun bursting over the top of the Indian
range, they trotted up to Falkner's cabin.

Charleton burst out of the door. "Where in the blank-blank have you been?
Hurry, Grandma! I've been nearly crazy!"

"I'll bet your wife ain't crazy." Grandma dismounted with Doug's help.
"Now, Douglas, you keep this lunatic outside, no matter what he says or
does. It's just the way he acted when Little Marion came." She stamped
into the house and closed the door.

"Let's go do the chores!" suggested Douglas.

"Chores! Chores! Don't you know that--"

"Yes, I know all about it," interrupted Doug. "Come on and get the
milking done. Are you afraid your wife will die, Charleton, or what?"

"Or what!" gasped Charleton. "You poor, half-baked idiot!"

For an hour, Douglas sweated with Charleton. Then, as they rested for a
time on the corral gate, the kitchen door opened and Grandma's head
appeared.

"You go, Doug," said Charleton feebly.

But Grandma did not wait. "It's a boy, Charleton!" she shrieked. "A fine,
big boy!" And she closed the door.

Charleton sat perfectly still on the fence. His lips moved but for
several seconds no sound came forth. Then he said, "Charleton Falkner,
Jr.! Charleton Falkner, Jr.! All my life I've been waiting for this
moment!" Tears were on his cheeks. "Doug, you go up and ask 'em how my
wife is and give her my love."

Douglas stared at his mentor, wonderingly, unwound his long legs from the
fence and crossed the yard. Grandma answered his timid rap.

"Charleton says how's his wife and sends his love."

"O, he does!" witheringly. "Why don't he go over to the post-office and
telephone us? You tell him she did fine like she always does everything.
You folks go up and get Peter to give you some breakfast."

"I'm not going near Peter till I see the boy and my wife!" called
Charleton.

Grandma slammed the door.

"I wouldn't go near the post-office," said Douglas, established again on
the fence beside Charleton.

"Why not?"

"If--if I felt like you do, I'd want to stay by myself, just take a ride
alone up to the top of Fire Mesa."

"I don't care what I do as long as the boy's here. Charleton Falkner,
Jr.! I'll tell you, Doug, you'll never know what happiness life can hold
for you till a woman like Marion gives you a son."

"Say!" cried Douglas in an outraged voice. "What's all this talk you've
been giving me for a year about whiskey and women and horses?"

Charleton did not hear him. "Charleton Falkner, Jr.!" he was murmuring
over an unlighted cigarette.

It seemed a very long time before they were admitted to the baby and
breakfast. Douglas was entirely unimpressed by the squirming red morsel
of humanity that Little Marion proudly brought into the kitchen for their
inspection. But Charleton was maudlin with admiration. It was, it seemed,
easily the first child ever born in Lost Chief, not excepting Little
Marion who had been a wonderful baby herself.

Douglas listened, eating his breakfast grimly the while, filled with an
embarrassed consternation at last beholding his mentor with, as Peter had
said, his outer skin off.

This, then, was what Charleton really wanted; not whiskey, or promiscuous
women, or wild horses, or Omar Khayham. What he wanted was a son, bone
of his bone, flesh of his flesh, to carry on his name. And yet what had
Charleton ever done to that name except to besmirch it? For Douglas now
in his heart had no illusions about the proper nomenclature for his
mentor's mysterious little deals.

"Charleton," he demanded suddenly, "do you want the kid to grow up to be
just like you?"

Charleton looked at Douglas in astonishment. "Like me? Listen, Doug,
old-timer, I'm going to spend the rest of my life licking out of him
anything I see in him like me!"

Douglas gave up in despair and went out to finish the chores.

It was a disjointed day, of course. In the afternoon Charleton went to a
choice gathering of spirits at the post-office; and Douglas, feeling
particularly lonely and unsettled, rode up the south trail after three of
Charleton's young mules which had strayed. He felt somehow that, with the
dereliction of Charleton, the last hold he had on reality had gone.




CHAPTER VII

THE POST-OFFICE CONFERENCE

"Ride with your finger on the trigger--but smile before you shoot."

--_Sheriff Frank Day_.


Douglas had no luck at all on his mule hunt. And as if to add to his
discomfort, while climbing down the trail from the cemetery, he saw
Judith on Buster, accompanied by the leaping Wolf Cub, overtake Scott
Parsons and saw them race toward the post-office. Twilight came on, with
the mud of the trail stiffening in the frosty air. An overpowering sense
of loneliness urged Douglas across the valley and brought him to pause
beside the Rodman corral. He dismounted at the buck fence and stood for a
moment in the shadow of the Moose, wondering why he had stopped here. He
had stood thus but a few moments when two riders came up the trail. They
trotted into the door-yard.

"I don't think I want to dance, after all, Scott," said Judith's voice.

"What harm is there in it?" demanded Scott.

"I make it a point never to go in here except when Inez is alone."

"I suppose you're afraid to meet Doug!" exclaimed Scott. "He's here half
the time."

Douglas leaped over the fence, rushed to Scott's side and struck him
twice.

"That's a lie! Get down and fight with your fists, you thief and
murderer!" Doug's voice was low with passion.

There was a quick movement of Scott's right hand to his hip and Douglas
felt a stinging pain in his left shoulder. Simultaneously with the shot,
Scott put the spurs to Ginger, and Doug reeled as the mare's shoulder
thrust against him. Judith jumped from Buster.

"Doug, did he get you?"

Douglas had not fallen. He pushed the girl aside and ran to the plunging
Moose. Inez Rodman called from the door.

"Who's shooting?"

Still without speaking, Douglas threw himself on his horse and was off
after the dim figure that raced down the west trail which led to the
Pass. He did not heed Judith's call nor the quick patter of hoofs behind
him. On and on through the frosty April night, Prince barking joyfully
before, the Moose galloping at top speed, the stars sliding overhead. On
past the Browns' noisy corral, past Falkner's brightly lighted cabin, and
up the lifting trail to the Pass. The broken black line of the Pass,
usually so clean-cut against the stars, looked wavering and uncertain.
Douglas dropped forward and put his arms about the neck of the Moose.

Once in a while a horse is born with as much acumen as a mule plus the
sensibility of a dog. The Moose, when he felt Doug's arms about his neck,
dropped from a gallop to a trot and from a trot to a walk. Shortly, when
Judith called, "Whoa-up, Moose!" he stopped and stood nickering uneasily.
Judith dismounted and pulled the reins over Buster's head. Then she ran
up to put her hand on Doug's knee.

"Doug! Doug! Where did he get you?"

"Don't hold me back, Jude!" said Douglas thickly. "Tie me onto the Moose
and leave me after him. I'm going to finish him, now."

"You can't catch him. You're hurt too bad. Let me take you home, Doug."

There was no reply for a moment. The Moose moved his head uneasily up and
down. Then, breathing heavily and brokenly, Douglas said, "Not--while
you--think I told--Charleton."

That was the last he knew for some time. When he returned to
consciousness, Peter and Judith were half dragging him, half lifting
him into the post-office.

"I don't care what you want, Jude," Peter was saying, "you aren't going
to drag him another hour over the trail. We'll get him onto my bed and
see how bad off he is."

"My shoulder!" grunted Douglas.

"All right, Doug! Now, Judith, one more heave onto the bed. Get off
there, Sister. Jude, pass me that bottle of whiskey, then go lock the
outside door so's no one can bother till I've finished. Then come back
here."

Judith, her eyes wide and brilliant, her cheeks feverish, obeyed without
a word. She drew off Doug's short leather rider's coat and cut off his
blood-saturated shirt and undershirt. Douglas watched her with beads of
sweat on his lips. Peter in the meantime had thrust his late supper back
from the front of the stove and had put a couple of disreputable looking
towels to boil in the dishpan. When Judith had finished and Doug's
beautiful thin torso lay white against the dingy Indian blanket, Peter
scoured his hands and examined the hole in the shoulder from which the
blood pulsed slowly.

"It's gone clean through from front to back," said Peter cheerfully.
"Guess I can fix him. Eight years in the regular service is useful
sometimes. Come here and hold him, Jude. I'm going to clean this hole
with peroxide and he'll try to climb the wall."

"No, I won't! Go to it!" whispered Douglas.

Nor did he, for as Peter, with a piece of stove-pipe wire he had boiled
as a probe, began his very thorough process of sterilization, Douglas
quietly fainted. When he came to his senses, his shoulder was bandaged
and Judith was pulling an old shirt of Peter's over his head.

"Now, Judith, make a fresh pot of coffee and drink some of it," said
Peter. "You are as white as a sheet. How are you, Doug, my boy?"

"Fine! Peter, you get me drunk. I'm going after Scott to-night."

"Let's have the story." Peter's lips were grim, "You begin, Judith."

Judith set the coffee-pot on the red-hot stove and perched on the edge
of the bed. She was wearing a middy blouse of dull blue. It was small for
her and showed her fine shoulder and full-muscled throat and chest. She
drew a deep breath and began at once.

"I was riding past Inez' place with Scott. He teased me to go in for a
dance. When I wouldn't go, he asked me if I was sore at Inez because
Douglas spent half his time there with her. Doug must have been behind
his horse. He came out like a crazy man, called Scott a liar and told him
to come down and fight, and hit him. Scott drew on him and shot him. Then
he rode away like mad, and Doug after him. I followed and caught Doug
part way up the Pass and brought him here."

Judith paused and Peter turned to Douglas. "All correct, Doug?"

But the young rider was staring at Judith. "Did you believe Scott,
Judith?" he demanded.

"How do I know what you've been up to? You were there to-night."

"I hadn't seen Inez. I haven't been near her place since I made you a
promise, once. I went over to-night because I was discouraged. I'd made
up my mind that there wasn't anything real about anybody. Even Charleton
isn't real. Now, Peter, you give me a quart of whiskey and help me onto
the Moose. I'll--"

"You'll calm down, that's what you'll do," said Judith succinctly. "Won't
he, Peter? When Scott finds he hasn't killed you, he'll be back and then
you can settle with him. Peter, you telephone my mother I'm going to stay
down here for a while and take care of Doug."

Peter hesitated. "I don't need you, Jude, though of course, it'll be
pleasant to have you here."

"It's just as well you feel that way," said Judith, "because I intend to
stay, anyhow."

Douglas blinked round eyed at Judith, then smiled seraphically and
closed his eyes. He was asleep before Peter had succeeded in getting
Mrs. Spencer on the telephone. All Lost Chief was on a party line and he
carried on his conversation not without difficulty. Judith sat listening
with a broad grin of appreciation.

"Hello, Mary. This is Peter Knight. Doug had an accident and I have
him here with me--O, Inez telephoned you. Well, Judith overtook him
and brought him here. He's in no particular danger--That you, Grandma?
How's Marion?--No, it was Scott drew on Doug.--Wait a minute till I
finish with his mother.--Listen, Mary! Don't get excited--You keep
quiet, Inez.--Everybody butt out! Now, listen, you folks, if you've got
to, but don't interrupt!--Scott said something that riled Doug and Doug
hit him. Scott drew and got Doug through the left shoulder, bad, but
clean, and I've got the wound dressed.--Say, if you women don't keep
quiet, I'll sure-gawd hang up. O, hello, Charleton! Yes, Scott made a
clean get-away.--Now, listen, Mary. I'm going to keep Judith here
to-night to help me and you can come down to-morrow.--Yes, that you,
John? Well, you come along now, but not Mary. She's too weepy.--What's
that you say, Inez? The sheriff and Jimmy gone out after Scott? When did
they start--Hello, Mrs. Day. Half an hour ago? That's good. Now, listen,
John. You stop by here before you go crazy. Understand me? All right!
Good-night, everybody!"

He turned from the telephone with a wry smile. "John's coming down."

"He's been worse than a wolverine since Doug left," said Judith.

"How do you and he get along?" asked Peter, sitting down to his belated
supper.

"O, I patch along for Mother's sake. But it's no way to live! I don't see
what Dad gets out of his own ugliness."

"You'd probably find out, if he'd tell you the truth, that John doesn't
consider himself ugly-tempered. He'd admit he was firm and misunderstood
and unappreciated." Peter smiled grimly.

Judith laughed. "Well, thank heaven John doesn't belong to me, and I
don't belong to him!" She sipped a cup of coffee slowly, her eyes on
Douglas in his uneasy sleep.

He was still asleep when John came in. He nodded to Peter then strode
over to the bed, where he stood for a moment scowling down at his son,
his lower lip caught between his teeth. Douglas opened his eyes.

"Douglas," said John hoarsely, "before I go out after Scott, tell me all
is straight between you and me. Judith made up, long ago."

"That's a whopper!" exclaimed Judith. "I'll never forgive you as long as
I live! I'm just sticking round for Mother's sake. My mother that once
could ride an unbroken mule. When I think of that--" She paused as Peter
laid a hand on her arm.

"It's not a matter of making up," said Douglas. "It wasn't a thing you
could make up. It was just one more fact to knock a fellow's faith in
life's being a straight deal."

John did not answer for a moment, but something very like a blush rolled
over his tanned face. For the first time in his life, perhaps, he felt
that he had done something shameful. But he made no admission.

"You'll come home and let us nurse you, Doug?" he asked when the blush
had gone.

"I guess I'd better stay with Peter. I never want to come home while
Judith believes I squealed to Charleton."

"Jude doesn't believe anything of the kind. She's just a flighty, fool
girl."

"Thanks, dear Father!" sniffed Judith.

John did not glance at the girl. He was watching Douglas eagerly. "I
thought it was me that kept you away from home. I can make Jude apologize
as soon as I get Scott back here. If I clear that up, then will you come
home, old boy?"

"Yes, I guess so. But that won't keep me from settling with Scott for
to-night."

"Sure! But you get well, Dougie!" John turned from the bed with the look
of sullenness wiped as by magic from his face.

Douglas stared at Judith. His mind was confused but he realized that the
loneliness and despondency of the day was gone. He was blindly angry with
Scott yet grateful to the event which had brought Judith to his aid.

John held a low-voiced colloquy with Peter as to the nature of Douglas'
wound; then with a cheerful goodnight, he went out. Douglas closed his
eyes.

"You fix yourself up a bed on the floor, Judith," said Peter. "I'll keep
the fire going and an eye on Douglas. To-morrow you can take your turn."

Judith answered pleadingly, "I'm not tired or sleepy, Peter. And I almost
never get a chance to talk alone with you. Let me sit up with you!"

Peter's long, harsh face softened. "All right, Jude! We'll keep the old
coffee-pot going and make a night of it. Then--"

He was interrupted by the sound of wordy altercation among the dogs
outside. Judith cocked a knowing ear. "Wolf Cub's in trouble! I'd better
let him in, Peter. He and Sister will snarl and quarrel all night. They
get along about like Dad and I do."

"It'll break Sister's heart, but go ahead. I always tell her, guests
first," said Peter.

Judith opened the door a crack and whistled. There was a rush outside of
many paws, and Wolf Cub's long gray muzzle appeared in the narrow
orifice. There was a scramble, a yip from Wolf Cub, and he was inside,
licking Judith's hand and trying to climb into Peter's lap at the same
time. He was two-thirds grown now and as big as a day-old calf. Judith
gazed at him with utter pride. "Isn't he a lamb, Peter? Now, you get
over in the corner, Wolf, and don't let me hear a sound from you
to-night!"

The great puppy looked up into her face with ears cocked, then turned
slowly and crept into the corner indicated and with a groan lay down.
Peter jerked his head in admiration.

"You are some person, Jude! Keep boiling water going. I'm going to wash
that wound of Doug's every hour. This cattle country is the devil for
infection."

"Oughtn't we to take him up to Mountain City?" asked Jude, in sudden
anxiety. "We could get Young Jeff's auto."

"At the first sign of trouble, I will," replied Peter. "But I think I've
had more experience with gunshot wounds than Doc Winston's had."

There was a renewed sound of scratching and whining at the door. Douglas
opened his eyes. "Better let Prince in long enough to see that I'm all
right," he said.

Peter groaned. "Another insult to Sister! However, if he and the pup
won't fight--"

"I'll answer for Wolf Cub." Judith tossed a warning glance at the corner
where gray ears were twitching restlessly.

Peter opened the door carefully. Sister and Prince stormed in. There was
a mix-up, during which the pup did not stir from his corner and Sister
was shoved out the door, snapping at Prince as she went. Prince wagged
his tail at Judith and Peter, then put his forepaws on the bed and gazed
anxiously at Douglas. He sniffed at the wounded shoulder, wriggled and
gave a short, sharp bark.

Doug opened his eyes. "It's all right, Prince."

Prince licked Doug's cheek.

"So that's understood," said Peter, taking Prince by the collar, "and you
can just step out and talk it over with gentle little Sister."

Douglas closed his eyes again. Judith sat down on the floor, her back
against the bed. Peter lighted his pipe and put a fresh panful of towels
on to boil, before settling himself in his homemade armchair.

"I understand Scott gave you a little blue roan that's a real bucker," he
said.

"He didn't give him to me. It was pay for some work I did for him."

"Uhuh! What do you aim to do with him?"

"Keep him unbroke for the Fourth of July rodeo. And, Peter, I'm going to
enter my Sioux bull for some stunts."

"Dangerous work, I'd say. What kind of stunts?"

The young girl chuckled. "You wait and see! That Sioux weighs a good two
thousand pounds and he thinks he's a bear cub!"

"Bear cub! I don't know what John Spencer's thinking of!" grunted Peter.

"John doesn't think. He just feels," said Judith. There was a short
silence which the girl broke by saying, "Peter, were you ever in love?"

The postmaster took his pipe from his mouth, stared at Judith's earnest
eyes, put the pipe back and replied, "Yes."

"How many times?"

"How many times? Can you really be in love more than once, Judith?"

"Now, what's the use of saying that to me, Peter? I'm not a baby!"

"In many ways you are," returned Peter, serenely. "Why this interest in
love? What's his name?"

"I'm not sure it's any one. But of course I think a lot about it. You
aren't laughing, are you, Peter?"

"God forbid! I feel much more like crying."

Judith smiled up at him, doubtfully.

"Crying?"

"Yes; you are so young, Jude. I hate to think of your dreams going by
you."

"Well, I'm not such a kid as you think I am. I'll bet I know all there is
to know about love."

"My God, Judith, you don't even know the real thing when it's offered
you. All you know is the rot you've seen all your life. Love!" Peter
snorted derisively.

Judith gave a little shiver of excitement. "Well, if you know so much
about love, Peter, what is it?"

"I don't know what it is, except that all of it, every aspect of it,
understand, is bred right here." He tapped his forehead. "It begins in
the brain, not in the body. Love is not lust, Judith."

Judith scowled thoughtfully. Peter let the thought soak in; then he said,
"And when real love comes, it takes possession of your mind and turns it
into heaven and hell."

"Is that the way it came to you, Peter?"

"Yes!"

"How many times?"

"Twice. And I wouldn't want to endure it again."

"There's a poem like that," said Judith, somewhat blushingly, "Do you
mind poetry? I read lots of it."

"One should at sixteen," returned the postmaster. "No, I don't mind
poetry. What were you thinking of?"

Judith, still blushing, gave a cautious glance at the bed and began:

"He who for love hath undergone
  The worst that can befall,
Is happier thousandfold than he
  Who never loved at all.

A grace within his soul hath reigned
  Which nothing else can bring.
Thank God for all that I have gained
  By that high suffering!"

Peter, watching Judith with something deeply sad in his blue eyes, nodded
when she had finished. "Youth!" he muttered. "Youth!"

"Do you believe it, Peter?" demanded Judith.

"Yes, I do. Girl, how much high suffering will you get out of your goings
on with Scott?"

"None at all, Peter."

"I wish I were twenty years younger," said Peter.

"If you were twenty years younger you wouldn't be as wise as you are
now."

"And what happiness has wisdom brought me?" exclaimed Peter.

"It must be mighty fine to really know things," said Judith.

"What kind of things?"

"O, love and all that kind of thing."

"I'd like a drink of water, please!" Douglas opened his eyes.

"Have you been listening, Douglas?" demanded Judith.

"I don't think I missed any of it," Doug smiled. "You're growing up,
Jude."

Judith tossed her head. "I think it was rotten of you to listen to my
conversation with another man!" And although she and Peter talked in a
desultory way until dawn, the vasty subject of love was not mentioned
again.

Abou

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/14331