"And have everybody in the crowd laughing at me like they are at you? I won't do anything against the old man, Douglas, for your sake. But that's all I'll promise."
"I'm not going to let you off that easy, Jude. Come up to supper to-night. I won't let him talk religion. Honest, he's as interesting as a book when he gets to telling some of his experiences."
Judith shook her head. "I'd rather stay at home with 'Pendennis.'"
"If I get Inez to come, will you?" urged Douglas.
Judith grinned impishly. "Yes, I'd come with Inez."
They returned from the post-office via the west trail and stopped at Inez' place. She was eating a belated dinner in her slatternly kitchen, and waved a hospitable hand over the table.
"Thanks, no," said Doug. "I just stopped by to see if you and Judith wouldn't come up and have supper with the sky pilot and me. I won't let him talk religion and he's got some good stories to tell."
Inez looked Douglas over. He and the tall Judith seemed to fill the kitchen. Doug finally had covered his big frame with muscles and he was a larger and handsomer man than his father.
"Doug," said Inez, "I am truly flattered. What are you trying to do?
Convert me?"
Douglas answered with simple sincerity. "I don't care a hang whether you get converted or not."
"O you don't! Well, just to spite you, I'll come and let the old fellow try his hand!"
"Not really, Inez?" gasped Judith.
"I'd do more than that for Doug and for Lost Chief," said Inez soberly,
"Doug isn't the only person who loves this old hole in the hills."
Judith turned to Douglas with a sudden wistfulness in her eyes, a sudden flare of a fire he had not seen in them before. He waited for her to speak but she only turned away toward the door.
"I'll look for you about six then, Inez," he said, and he followed
Judith.
When the girls appeared at the cabin that evening, the table was set and the steak was frying. Inez and Judith winked at each other when Mr. Fowler said grace but otherwise the meal progressed decorously enough. It was Inez who brought up the tabooed subject. They had been sitting round the stove listening to a tale of old lynch law which the preacher told with real skill, when Inez interrupted him with entire irrelevance.
"Mr. Fowler, do you really believe there is such a thing as right and wrong?"
The preacher paused, studying Inez' face. Her dark eyes were steady and thoughtful. Her mouth, except for the slightly heavy lower lip, was sensitive. Her whole expression was one of pride and independence.
"Yes, I believe in right and wrong," replied Mr. Fowler, deliberately.
"What makes you believe that a man who lived nearly two thousand years ago can decide what is right or wrong for Lost Chief?" she asked.
"The Bible," answered the preacher.
"But the Bible is full of things that I would call crooked. Those prophets were always putting slick tricks over on each other and the people. There was a lot of dirty work done in the name of the Lord by those ancient Jews."
The preacher leaned toward the woman. "Do you believe in right and wrong, Inez Rodman?"
"No, I don't. I believe in kindness and in beauty. That's all."
"How does one believe in beauty?" asked Mr. Fowler.
"I mean," she replied, "that if you fill your mind with the beauty of this Lost Chief country and with poetry, there is no room for anything ugly."
"What would you call ugly?"
"Being mean to other people is one kind of ugliness."
"That's what I believe too," said Judith suddenly.
"Then, of course, neither of you two would have anything to do with the attempt to run the preacher out," suggested Douglas.
"No, I wouldn't," replied Inez; "and I told Scott so. That doesn't mean that I don't consider you plumb loco, Doug. Mr. Fowler isn't the kind to make the folks see the beauty of these hills. If he was I'd be helping instead of indifferent."
"If the folks would let God enter their hearts," cried the preacher, "they'd see beauty in these hills they never dreamed of."
"Well, as far as beauty goes, Inez," Douglas spoke thoughtfully, "you can't say there isn't considerable of that in the Bible. Take the Songs of Solomon. There never was finer love-making than that!"
"The Songs of Solomon don't deal with human passion," said Mr. Fowler hastily. "They are a recital of man's love for the Almighty and His works."
"O, no, Mr. Fowler!" cried Doug. "'Behold thou art fair, my loved one, behold thou art fair. Thou hast doves eyes within thy locks.' No man ever said that about anything but a woman."
No one spoke for a moment. Old Prince, who was lying with his head baking under the stove, growled and barked, then made for the door. Wolf Cub barked without, and a dog answered.
"Sister!" exclaimed Inez. "Peter must be coming."
Douglas opened the door and Prince shot out. Shortly Peter, then Charleton, came in, stamping the snow from their spurs and pulling off their gauntlets.
"Where did you two come from?" asked Judith, as the newcomers established themselves on up-ended boxes close to the stove.
"Just met here," replied Peter. "I had supper at Spencer's and came up to argue with the sky pilot."
"I'm setting traps up on Lost Chief," said Charleton, lighting a cigarette.
"Look out you don't mistake any of Scott's traps for yours," suggested
Inez.
Everybody chuckled, and Peter said, "Elijah Nelson was down at my place yesterday. He's a pleasant, easy spoken man. I guess he and Scott have been having a lot of quiet fighting up there we haven't heard about."
"Is that what he came to see you about?" asked Doug.
"No. It seems his trail out to the Mountain City road is snowed up. He wants to get his mail over here if Scott will let him use his trail. He wants me to speak to Scott about it."
"What Scott will claim," Charleton smiled, "is that he positively must have a retired location and complete privacy on his trail."
There was another chuckle, during which the preacher looked from one keen face to another, but he did not speak.
"What has the scrapping been about, Peter?" asked Inez.
Douglas turned quietly to look at her. It suddenly occurred to him that Inez used Peter's name with a cadence that was new to him. He saw that she was watching Peter's thin sallow face with a shadow of strain about her eyes.
"O it's about a bull again," laughed Peter. "It seems that Scott has an old red bull that Nelson says is one of his, rebranded."
"But I thought," began Judith; then she caught Charleton's sardonic eye and subsided.
"What did you think, Judith?" asked Peter.
"Nothing. Go on with your story."
"There is no story to it. Scott's been keeping a six-shooter guard on the upper springs of Lost Chief, so's old Nelson hasn't had but half his usual allowance of water for his ditches. He is sorer about that than he is over the bull, though he certainly is determined to get the critter back. But he got small comfort out of me. I told him to keep his plural fingers off of Lost Chief Creek, or he would lose more than an old red bull."
"Right-o!" grunted Charleton.
"Are you going to ask Scott to let Nelson use his trail, Peter?" asked
Inez.
"Sure! Why not?" laughed Peter.
"You will make Scott sore at you," replied Inez. "I haven't any quarrel with Scott myself, but I know he has a mean streak in him. If he thinks you are in cahoots with Nelson he will make you trouble."
"I'm not afraid of Scott," said Peter.
"Well, you'll need to be if you mix up in his affairs. He holds grudges over nothing."
"Awful bad man, Scott!" Douglas spoke with his quiet smile.
"I'm telling you he is!" insisted Inez. "He's been more than half in love with Judith for years and he'd just as soon double-cross Jude as anybody else. I want you to let him alone, please, Peter."
Peter was watching Judith. Only Douglas seemed aware of the concentrated entreaty in Inez' voice. "Poor Inez," he thought, "if she's caring for Peter, she'll be having her own little double Hades for everything she's done." He looked at Peter. Judith was staring thoughtfully at the stove and the postmaster's deep eyes were fastened on the girl's fine, clean-cut features, with a burning fire that suddenly brought Doug's heart to his throat.
"What's your opinion of Scott, Judith?" asked Peter.
"The same as Inez'. But I can't help liking him. He's done me lots of favors and he's kept me from making a fool of myself a number of times, even if he did double-cross me once. And he admires me. He certainly does!" She laughed with girlish naïveté and the others joined her.
"Then you must like me too!" said Peter.
"You are a nice old gentleman," retorted Judith.
Peter's lips closed grimly.
The preacher spoke with sudden vehemence. "Yet you people are allowing this same Scott to try to destroy Douglas' dream for Lost Chief."
"I say Scott is a valuable citizen," drawled Charleton. "He guards us from Mormons, from Christians, and from wild women."
Douglas did not join in the laugh that greeted this sally. An entirely new fear had come upon him. He bit his lip and stared from Judith to Peter and back again.
Inez rose suddenly. "Well, the moon is up. Come, Judith! It's time for wild women to retire to their caves."
Judith gave a gigantic yawn, stretched her beautiful long body till the tips of her fingers almost touched the low rafters, and said, "It's a good thing Charleton and Peter will be going along to protect us from Scott, the bad man."
The four presently jingled off down the snowy trail. Prince took up his shivering night-watch on the steps. Douglas and Mr. Fowler looked at each other soberly and went to bed.
CHAPTER XIII
PRINCE GOES MARCHING ON
"A wise dog won't tackle a trapped wolverine."
—Old Prince.
The next morning Johnny Brown trotted up on his old cow-pony. The preacher and Douglas were at breakfast. All the world was bristling with frost and a million opalescent lights danced on every snowdrift. Douglas swung the door open.
"Well, Johnny, did you finally break away from everybody?"
The little old man slid briskly from the saddle, brushed the icicles from his beard, and grinned broadly.
"Even Inez, she tried to stop me. Says some one has got to get her some cedar wood for her heater stove. 'You get you some squaw-wood, Inez,' I deponed. 'Them that can't make the men chop regular wood for 'em, don't deserve nothing better than brittle stuff like alder. Get you some squaw-wood, Inez,' I deponed. Douglas, they are plumb jealous of you. Since you seen there was something to me beside a old half-wit, they've all been horning round, jealous like, to get me."
Douglas, his yellow hair a glory in the rising sun, nodded seriously.
"Look to your saddle, Johnny, then come in to breakfast. I've got a few steers I want to dehorn to-day, so you're just in time."
The preacher was still at breakfast when old Johnny came in. The two old men stared at each other with unmixed interest. Douglas stood with his back to the stove, a cigarette drooping from his lips, a remote twinkle in his eyes.
Johnny lushed down his second saucer of coffee before he attempted to marshall his thoughts into speech. But, having accomplished this, he said, "Doug and me are gregus great friends, Mr. Fowler. There ain't anybody in Lost Chief thinks as much of him as I do."
The preacher nodded. "Douglas says he's fond of you."
"I guess he is," returned Johnny, condescendingly. "I guess if the truth
be deponed he's fonder of me than he is of anybody—excepting maybe
Judith. And Judith, she sure-gawd don't apregate Doug like I do, even if
I am a half-wit. Judith's awful smart but she ain't got much sense."
"Judith is pretty fine, Johnny!" exclaimed Douglas, with the faint glow in his blue eyes that mention of her name always brought.
"Yes, she is," agreed Johnny. "But she's just like her mother was. All fire. And you can squench fire so it's just ashes. It would be a gregus good thing for the Valley if John Spencer was to break his neck."
"Don't say that, Johnny!" protested the preacher. "After all, he's one of God's creatures."
Johnny chuckled. "Now, who is half-witted, huh?"
"Young Jeff back on the mail route, Johnny?" asked Douglas hastily.
"Yes. Peter Knight, he's awful fond of Judith."
Douglas looked at Johnny keenly, his jaw setting as he did so. Was there, he thought, something obvious here, or was it only the half-wit's curiously sharp but confused intuition at work? At any rate, he must know the truth. He could not endure this added uneasiness.
"On second thoughts," he said aloud, "I think I'll not dehorn to-day. I want to get an order off for a new saddle on to-day's mail stage. Johnny, one of your main jobs is to guard the sky pilot and the chapel, when I'm not here. You're not to let anything happen to either of them."
"Shall I shoot on sight?" demanded the little old man.
Mr. Fowler smiled. Douglas shook his head. "No; let's not get into that kind of trouble. You don't carry a gun anyhow, do you?"
"No," plaintively. "Grandma won't let me. But I thought you'd loan me something."
"I haven't got anything but my old six-shooter, which I can't spare. Listen, Johnny! When you think somebody needs to be shot, you come to me and tell me about it, see? You know I know you have a lot more self-control than these Lost Chief folks think you have. You aren't one of these guys that shoots first and thinks afterward."
Johnny turned to the preacher triumphantly. "Didn't I tell you he was my friend?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Mr. Fowler, "and he's mine too, and you and I must take care of him. Lost Chief needs him."
Old Johnny rose and solemnly offered a gnarled hand to the preacher. Douglas laughed in an embarrassed way and went out to the corral, to saddle the Moose.
Judith was feeding the chickens as he trotted past the Spencer place. He waved his hand but would not permit himself to stop. He found Peter alone in his room, mending a belt.
"Well, Doug," he said, "how does the reform movement progress?"
"We added Johnny Brown to our side this morning," replied Douglas. "Some line-up, I'd say!"
"Old Johnny is certainly your man," Peter chuckled. "How do he and the sky pilot hit it off?"
"It's too early to say. By the way, did you have a run-in with Scott?"
"Not at all. Scott said Elijah was welcome to use the trail if he kept to it."
Doug's mouth opened and closed. He took a letter from his pocket and laid a pile of bills beside it on the table. "Will you send that mail order off for me to-day, Peter? I'm blowing myself to a new saddle."
"Must be money in staking a sky pilot," grinned the postmaster. "I didn't notice you taking up a collection on Sunday, though."
Douglas laughed. "It pays so well that I've got to ride the traps again this winter to pay for the grub-stake. Dad is so sore that he isn't allowing me all he might."
"I'll help you if you are too much squeezed. I hope you won't be as bull-headed about taking a loan from me as Judith is. By the way, how are matters coming between you and Jude, Douglas?"
"Report no progress!" grunted Doug.
"She's a restless young colt. I wish she could begin to get a sense of direction as you are. Maybe she will, now she can get a bird's-eye view of you. You've always lived too close to each other to understand each other. You'll learn a lot about Jude and she about you, now you've moved a few miles away."
"Do you honestly want me to have Judith, Peter?" asked Douglas with a sudden huskiness in his voice.
Peter, who was standing by the window examining the buckles of the belt, looked up at Douglas with surprise in the lift of his eyebrows. After a moment, he said, "What are you driving at, Doug?"
Douglas took a quick turn up and down the room, then halted before Peter, his sensitive mouth twitching, his blue eyes glowing. It seemed to him that he could not ask the question that must be asked; but finally he spoke, in a voice that was tense in the effort for self-control.
"Peter, I've thought of nothing else since last night. Something about the way you looked at her—! You are the best friend that I have, Peter, but I can't give Judith up, even to you; it would be like trying to tear the veins out of my body. She's my life, Judith is!"
The older man put the rider's belt carefully on the window-ledge, walked over to the table and slowly filled his pipe. When he had filled it, he laid it down beside the belt, put his hands in his pocket, and turned to Doug, who, with the cold sweat standing on his forehead, was watching Peter's every movement. The wind swept snow down through the sod roof. It hissed faintly on the stove. Peter's long face was knotted and hard.
"You have given me a shock, Douglas," he said at last. "You've given me a shock!"
Douglas' heart thudded heavily. It was true, then! Peter did care, though perhaps he had not realized it before.
Peter went on, with painful concentration on Douglas' blue eyes. "I hadn't known it, till this minute, Doug. I thought I was through. I'm fifty-six. God! Does life never finish with a man?" He laughed drearily. "Don't look at me like that, Douglas! You and I will never be rivals! This sort of thing can't undo me again. I swear it!"
He paced the room again, and once more paused before the young rider. "Not that I underestimate the strength of the thing. Who knows so well as I that love is the most powerful force in the world? Mind you, Doug, I make a sharp distinction between love and lust. Lust can be controlled by any one. Love can be controlled by a man as old as I am. But when love grips a young fellow like you, he is powerless to throw it off. I'd be a cur, Douglas, at my age, to refuse to throttle a love that would conflict with you—the man I like best in the world."
He paused. Douglas did not stir. Peter lifted his pipe, laid it down, and set a match carefully beside it.
"Douglas," he said, "my market is made. I sold my birthright for a mess of pottage. Whatever regrets or grief I may have are just. To contemplate a girl like Judith having any interest in me, is ghastly. Judith is yours, whether she realizes it or not. Will you stay for dinner?"
He put his pipe in his mouth, and lighted it. Douglas gave a long, uncertain sigh.
"No, thanks, Peter! I must get back to my sky pilot. You will be at the log chapel early on Sunday?"
"Yes. But you'd better let him handle the meeting. Have him preach on immortality. You've sort of got them going on that."
Douglas nodded, put his hand on the door-knob, then turned back.
"Peter, does life never finish with a man? Don't you find peace anywhere along the line?"
"Not your kind of a man. There are a number of sure springs in the desert, though, where a man can be certain of a mighty pleasant camp. But it's only a camp."
Douglas moistened his lips. "What can a fellow do about it?" he demanded.
"Well," replied the older man, "he can make up his mind to find it devilishly interesting, even the dry marches."
The young rider threw back his head. "Me—I'm going to find more than interest! I'll find color and some thrills, too. See if I don't!"
Peter laughed grimly. "Yes, you'll find a thrill or two but always where you least expect it."
Douglas' smile was twisted. He opened the door and went out into the wind-swept day. Smoke drove horizontally from the low chimneys that dotted the valley. Cattle bellowed as if in disconsolate protest against the ruthless on-march of winter. Douglas, in spite of the last few words with Peter, was in a curiously uplifted frame of mind which for some time he could not dissect. Part of it he knew to be relief from the sudden suspicion that had overwhelmed him, but he was half-way home before he told himself that Peter's essential fineness had revived his faith in the goodness and kindliness in human nature. In a life where one could know a Peter, he thought, there must be beauty and a kind of beauty that Inez could neither find nor appreciate. Poor old Inez!
The dinner hour was long past when he jingled along the trail past his father's place. On sudden impulse he turned the Moose into the yard. Judith opened the door. She was in sweater and riding-skirt. Her black hair was bundled up under a round beaver cap under which her bright beauty glowed in a way to lift a far less interested heart than Doug's.
"Hello, Douglas!"
"Hello, Judith! Where are you going?"
"Just out to jump the little wild mare. Where have you been?"
"Down to the post-office. I saw Dad heading for Charleton's."
"Yes, I'm alone. Mother went over to Grandma's. The old lady is ailing."
Douglas jumped from the saddle. "You haven't mentioned it, but, thanks, I will come in. Is there any grub in the house? I haven't had dinner yet."
Judith laughed. "I was expecting that! I just finished my own. Come along!"
Douglas ate his dinner while Judith watched with speculative eyes.
"Peter is a funny old duck," she said finally.
"Funny? How?"
"O, he's so lonely and so cross and such good company and so kind! I'd like to have known him when he was young."
Douglas looked at her closely. "Jude, could you get to care for Peter if you thought he cared for you?"
"Who, me? Peter? What's the matter with you, Doug? Why, Peter is as old as Dad!"
"What difference does that make?"
"It wouldn't make any difference if I cared for him," admitted Judith, tapping thoughtfully on the tablecloth with slim brown fingers.
"But do you care for him, Judith?" insisted Douglas.
Judith's fine lips twisted contemptuously. "What an idiot you are,
Doug!"
"Do you, hang it? Answer me, Jude!"
"No! No! No! Does that satisfy you?"
"Well, partially. Guess I'll have to ask Inez the same question."
Judith smiled and shrugged her shoulders. Douglas went on.
"I'll bet if you could get the truth out of Inez, Judith, you'd find her suffering torments because she can't marry."
"Can't marry? Why can't Inez marry?" demanded Judith belligerently.
"Because no decent man would marry her," returned Douglas flatly.
Judith laughed. "You poor old male, you! Will you kindly tell me what man in this valley you consider more decent than Inez?"
"I'm decent," said Douglas, flushing, but not the less firmly.
Judith's eyes softened. "You've kept that promise, Doug?"
"Yes," briefly. "And I wouldn't have a woman like Inez if she was as beautiful as Cleopatra and as rich as Hetty Green!"
"Well," airily, "that eliminates you, of course. But let me warn you, Douglas, that if Inez Rodman really loved a man and wanted to marry him, he'd have about as much chance as a coyote used to have when Sister was young enough to run them. Only, if Inez ever does love a man, she won't marry him. She'll keep herself a mystery to him. 'And forever would he love and she be fair.'"
"What's that you're quoting?" asked Douglas.
Judith, her eyes on the window through which shouldered the great flank of Dead Line Peak, repeated the immortal lines. When she had finished, Douglas sighed.
"It's very beautiful!" he said. "But life isn't a procession round a
Grecian Urn. It's hard riding from start to finish. And it's a poor
sport that won't accept that fact and ride according to the rules.
Marriage is one of the rules. I believe in it."
Judith walked slowly round the table and put a hand on either shoulder.
There was a baffling light in her splendid gray eyes as she said,
"Douglas, do you think for a minute that if I told you I loved you
madly, I couldn't persuade you not to marry me?"
Her touch was flame. Douglas drew a long, uncertain breath.
"If you said that you loved me madly, you could do almost anything with me, I suppose. The only thing that keeps me steady is believing that you don't love me."
Judith smiled curiously. Douglas lifted her hands from his shoulders. "Don't torture me, Jude," he said, his voice husky and his fingers uncertain, as he lighted a cigarette.
"I wouldn't torture you, any more than I'd torture myself," replied
Judith.
She leaned against the window-frame, looking out at the serenity of the mountain.
"Life," she said suddenly, "is like climbing to the top of Falkner's Peak. Terribly difficult and frightfully wearing, but O, what marvelous views as you reach shoulder after shoulder! Inez is beginning to find life rather a dreary kind of mess. But not I! The Lord knows, my life looks stupid to every one but me, and the Lord knows, I'm restless and unhappy. But I never stop thinking for a minute that it's great, just great to be alive and—and alive."
Douglas smiled a little uncertainly. "Do you ever think twice the same way, Jude?"
"Once in a while! In fact, I'm getting that way more and more. You'll see! I'm going to get me educated, Douglas, and find me a real job. See if I don't!"
Douglas put on his gloves. "I couldn't be any prouder of you, Judith, if you had all the education in the world. Don't forget to come up on Sunday."
"I suppose I'll have to lend my support," said Judith. "But I still think you are a fool."
"You can think me all the fools you want to, if you'll just keep backing me," replied Douglas, striding out to the whinnying Moose.
He found old Johnny and the preacher on terms of easy friendship. Johnny was inclined to be patronizing but Douglas caught the twinkle in Fowler's eyes and made no attempt to control Johnny's manners.
It was not until nearly bed time that Doug missed Prince. The old dog was gradually giving up the solitary coyote hunts he had taken in his younger days and, contrary too, to his earlier habits, he now liked to sleep indoors. He was usually shivering on the doorstep waiting for a chance to scramble under the stove when Doug went out to look at the stock for the night.
But to-night he was not there, nor did his short bark come in response to Doug's whistling. Old Johnny and the preacher came to the door.
"Stop your whistling and listen, Douglas," suggested Fowler.
Douglas obeyed, and faintly on the frosty air sounded the reiterated yelps of a dog.
"That's Prince and he's in trouble!" exclaimed Doug.
"He's up on the shoulder of Lost Chief, I depone," said Johnny.
"I'll go up there." Douglas took his rifle from behind the door and hurried out to the corral. The two men followed him, and by the time Doug had buckled on his spurs, they had saddled his horse.
"Either he's got into a trap or he's tackled something too big for him," said Douglas; "and it's up to me to look out for my pal."
The moon had risen and the snow was very light. Prince continued to yelp and it was not long before Douglas found the dog's tracks and was able to follow them without difficulty. They led up to the tree line on the east flank of Lost Chief Peak. The yelps appeared to come from not far within the border of pines.
Douglas chuckled. "He sure has bitten off more than he can chew this time! I'll have to tell that old dog that—"
A revolver shot interrupted his thoughts. The yelps abruptly ceased. Douglas spurred his horse and in a moment saw the figure of a man standing beside an outcropping rock. It was Charleton Falkner. Douglas threw himself from his horse, Prince, his paw in a trap, lay motionless on the ground beside the badly mangled body of a wolverine. Charleton's face in the moonlight was coolly vindictive.
"I'll teach a dog to spoil a pelt for me!" he said. "He didn't realize there were two traps here."
"But that was my dog, Prince!" exclaimed Doug.
"I don't care if it was the Almighty's dog! He can't rob my traps if I know it!" snarled Charleton.
Douglas advanced slowly. "You don't seem to get the idea, Charleton.
That was my old dog that grew up with me—the faithfulest little chap in
Lost Chief. I'd have paid you for the pelt and you know it. What did you
shoot him for?"
Charleton's jaws worked. "I'll show you and Scott and the whole valley that my traps and my hunts are not to be interfered with!"
"Still you don't get the idea," Douglas was now not an arm's-length from
Charleton. "You can't shoot a man's dog, at least this man's dog and go
unpunished. You and Dad have bullied this valley long enough, Charleton.
Put up your hands and take your punishment."
He struck the six-shooter from Charleton's hand and the battle was joined. Douglas' only advantage over his adversary was in point of youth, for Charleton was as lean and powerful as a gorilla. But youth was a powerful ally and eventually it was Charleton who lay in the snow, blinking at the moon. Douglas, panting and still so angry that it was difficult for him not to kick Charleton where he lay, released Prince's paw and threw the familiar gray body across the saddle. Then he mounted, laying Prince across his knees.
Charleton sat up slowly.
"That licking wasn't all for poor old Prince," said Douglas. "Part of it was for the kid whose mind you deliberately tried to poison, and part of it is for Inez. You were the first man, you boasted to me, who ever went to Rodman's. And part of it's for the loneliness you've made in Lost Chief. What have you got to say—huh?"
Charleton rose. "Nice young buck you are to attack a man old enough to be your father! This is what I get for my kindness to you. This is a bad night's work for you, you young whelp!"
Douglas, one hand on his old dog's stiffening shoulder, bit back his resurging wrath and tapped his horse with the spurs. Fowler and Old Johnny came out to meet him. He gave Prince to Johnny and then dismounted.
"Charleton shot my dog!" he said.
"What shall I do with him?" asked Johnny.
"Shut him up in the feed shed and I'll bury him in the morning." Douglas stalked into the house, where the two others shortly followed him. They looked at his face and for a moment even old Johnny hesitated to speak. In spite of his cold ride, Doug's face was deadly white, his lips worked, and his eyes were dark with feeling. He took off his spurs slowly, and hung them carefully on their nail. Then he sat down on his bunk and stared at the preacher.
"What happened, Douglas?" asked Fowler.
"Prince evidently tackled a wolverine in one of Charleton's traps and I'm not so sure either but it might have been Scott's. Anyhow he surprised some kind of a deal Charleton was trying to put over. Then he got his paw in a free trap and started yelping. Charleton got to him before I did and shot him."
"What was he doing riding his traps at this hour?" asked the preacher.
"I don't know. I loved that dog and so did Jude. It will make her sick when she hears. He was good for two or three years more and he should have died like a good rancher, right at home, here."
"What did you say to Charleton?"
"I said what I thought beside knocking him down."
Fowler said nothing more but he put his hand on Doug's knee. Doug cleared his throat and rose ostensibly to put a stick of wood in the stove.
Old Johnny picked up the rifle and started for the door.
"Where are you going, Johnny?" asked Douglas, huskily.
"I'm going to watch. Charleton he ain't never going to stop now till he fixes you. He's got to get me first. Maybe I ain't as smart as Prince was but I depone I'll do my best."
Douglas laughed a little brokenly. He put his arm around old Johnny's shoulder and with his free hand took the gun.
"Don't you worry about me, Johnny. Your job is the church and the preacher and you remember you promised not to shoot until you told me about it."
"That's right," exclaimed the preacher. "And now I suggest that you let me read a chapter from the Bible and that we then get to bed."
Johnny looked at Douglas in embarrassment, but Douglas nodded and his old guard sat down beside him on the bunk with a contented sigh.
"'I am the true vine and my father is the husband-man.—As the Father hath loved me so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.—This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you.—Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'" Fowler closed the book and bowed his head over it. "O God," he prayed, "give us patience and kindness and understanding. Amen."
He rose then and Douglas, vaguely comforted by the sympathy of the two old men, went to bed and to sleep. It had been a day of such stress as even his young years of mental conflicts had seldom endured.
The next day, when Douglas went down to the Spencer ranch to borrow the paraphernalia for dehorning, his father beckoned him mysteriously into the cowshed. John had been surly for six months and Douglas was surprised to hear the note of gratification in his voice.
"What have you been doing to Charleton, Doug?"
"What does he say I've been doing?" asked Douglas, picking the snow out of his spurs.
"He says you knocked him down. He came in here last night breathing fire."
"Did he say why I knocked him down?"
"Yes. Because he wouldn't let your dog rob his traps."
"Prince got after a wolverine in his or Scott's traps and Charleton shot the old pup. He'd better be thankful I didn't boot him all the way home."
Douglas' face was growing white again. John looked at his tall son with a mixture of admiration and bewilderment in his eyes.
"By the Great Sitting Bull, Doug, I can't understand you! Here you go for six months making a blank sissy of yourself over a sky pilot and then you give the most dangerous man in the Valley the gol-dingest mauling and beating he ever had in his life! Why, even I won't go up against Charleton. He's a bad man!"
"He's a bag of wind!" said Douglas contemptuously. "I found that out years ago when his boy was born. Does Jude know?"
"No; she was asleep and he stayed in the kitchen with me and washed up.
But don't think you've finished with him. He's a mean man, Douglas."
"Yes, he's mean enough. On the other hand, Charleton knows I've got his number and he'll let me alone. I'm not worrying about him. That guy can't even keep his temper. Loan me the tar-pot, will you, and the searing-iron."
John suddenly laughed. Douglas grinned faintly, then said, "I know now how Jude felt when you shot that little old Swift horse."
"I suppose if you'd been big enough, you'd have treated me as you did
Charleton," said John cheerfully.
"I sure would have tried to," replied Douglas. "Where's Jude?"
"Working on the little wild mare in the corral."
Douglas nodded to his father and went in search of Judith. She nodded gaily from the saddle.
"Why so sober, old-timer?"
"Overwork!" exclaimed Douglas. "Jude, will you come up and help me with the handful of steers I want to dehorn?"
"What's the matter with Old Gentlemen's Home?" asked Judith with her impish smile.
"They are taken up with reforming each other," replied Douglas; adding more seriously, "they are too old to be much help with the rope, Jude."
"I know," she nodded. "I'll come right along."
It was not until they had nearly reached Doug's corral that he found courage to tell her about the death of Prince. She said nothing, for a moment, but she brought the mare up close to the Moose and laid her hand on Douglas' knee.
"Dear old boy!" she said. "I know!" Then she sobbed for a moment against his shoulder. But when he would have put his arm about her she straightened herself and said, "But weren't you glad you were strong enough to thrash him!"
"Yes!" replied Douglas.
They said no more about it, but after the dehorning was done, Douglas saw Judith stand for a long time beside the chapel. He knew how her heart was aching, for she too was a lover of dogs.
CHAPTER XIV
THE BATTLE OF THE BULLS
"The free plains were wonderful, but Judith's hand on my bit is more wonderful."
—The Little Wild Mare.
Douglas felt somehow, after this day, that Judith was nearer to him. Not that she changed in her manner at all, but there was an indefinable something about her that gave him hope: hope strong enough at least to put up a creditable struggle with the despair that was forever creeping upon him at unguarded moments.
He slept in the chapel on Saturday night, just to make sure that no mischief was done under cover of the darkness. And on Sunday, Mr. Fowler preached an uninterrupted sermon. Scott was present, giving apparently an undivided ear to the preacher's discourse. Charleton was there, too. He ignored Douglas entirely. He had probably told no one of his trouble with Douglas and, knowing Douglas, he apparently felt that Lost Chief would remain in ignorance of the fight. So his saturnine face was as serenely insolent as ever, barring the remains of a very black eye.
Considered from an entirely detached point of view, the sermon was a thing of exceeding beauty. Inez should have been satisfied. The old preacher had a fine voice and he spoke without notes. Many a noted interpreter of the gospel might have envied him his control of voice and language.
The text was one of the most intriguing in the Bible. "Jesus said, I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world seeth me no more. But ye see me. Because I live, ye shall live also." Around about this, Mr. Fowler wove picture after picture of passionate faith in an hereafter. He told of the death of his own father, who with the death-rattle in his throat had sat erect in his bed crying, "O Christ, I see your face at last!"
He told of hardened criminals who had heard God's voice in their dreams. He told of children, who like little Samuel had been called by the Almighty in a voice as articulate as that of their own fathers. He told of the authenticity of the Biblical history of Christ and of the scientific explanations of Christ's miracles. He told of the faith of the ancestors of the people of Lost Chief, a faith which had led them across the Atlantic and through those first terrible years on the bleak New England shores. He concluded with a prayer for the return of the sheep to the fold, a prayer delivered with tears pouring down his weather-beaten cheeks, a prayer delivered in anguish of spirit and in a voice of heart-moving sincerity.
At the end, he sank into his chair by the table and covered his eyes with his shaking hand. Lost Chief sat silent for a moment, then Grandma Brown said in a quavering voice, "Let us sing Rock of Ages." But only she knew the words, and after a single verse she stopped, in some embarrassment.
Charleton coughed, yawned and rose. The little congregation followed him out into the yard, where horses and dogs were milling the half-melted snow into yellow muck.
"Well, Grandma," asked Charleton as he helped the old lady into her saddle, "what did you think of the sermon?"
"A pretty good sermon!" replied Grandma. "Made me feel like a girl again."
"My gawd, Grandma," exclaimed Charleton, "do you mean to say that an old
Indian fighter like you swallowed that stuff!"
"I was believing that stuff before you were born, Charleton! If Fowler is going to keep this pace up, I'll say I'm sorry I ever called him a sissy. What did you think of it, Peter?"
Peter was leaning thoughtfully against his horse. "It was interesting. Ethics, as such, are too cold to interest most folks. So we sugar-coat 'em with flowery speech and sleight-of-hand and try to give 'em authority with a big threat. Then some hard-head like Charleton says, because the sugar-coating is silly, that there is nothing to ethics. Which is where he talks like a fool."
He whistled to Sister and trotted homeward. There was considerable elation in Doug's cabin that evening. The preacher said little but old Johnny was in fine fettle.
"Guess we showed 'em!" he said, frying the bacon with a skilled hand. "I bet we had words in that sermon none of 'em ever dreamed of before. You'd ought to use 'gregus,' Mr. Fowler. It's a hard word and so's depone. I told Grandma to come up Sunday and we'd have words looked out that would sure twist her gullet to say."
Mr. Fowler was seized with a sudden coughing fit from which he merged into violent laughter.
"What did your sister say?" he asked when he found his voice.
"She told me not to go any crazier than I already was, and I deponed to her how Doug felt about me, and she went home."
The sermon had indeed gone so well and the week that followed was so peaceful that Douglas did not sleep in the chapel on the following Saturday night. When Mr. Fowler unlocked the door on Sunday morning, a skunk fled from under the pulpit out into the aspens, and there was no service that day.
On the next Sunday, Charleton gave an all-day dance in the post-office hall and only half a dozen of the older people appeared at the chapel, to listen to a sermon on the Resurrection. He repeated the dance for three Sundays in succession and Douglas was in despair. Old Johnny was deeply wrought up over Douglas' state of mind, and one Saturday night he disappeared, returning at dawn. On that Sunday it was found that the stove in the dance-hall had disappeared and a check was put upon Charleton's competition.
And still, with no dances to rival the sermons, the attendance at the log chapel grew smaller and smaller. The lack of interest that was growing, now that the Valley's first curiosity had been satisfied, was more deadly than open warfare. Douglas saw clearly enough that the sermons were dull and he spent evening after evening sounding Fowler's mind to its depths in the endeavor to find some angle in it that would tempt Lost Chief into the chapel.
It was a good mind, that of this preacher, stored with a very fair amount of classical learning and packed with stories of western adventure. But classical lore had no appeal for modern-minded Lost Chief and Mr. Fowler's adventure could be surpassed by any man in the Valley.
Judith treated the sermons with open scorn. "No, indeed; I won't come up to the chapel," she replied to Doug's appeal. "Why should I suffer when I don't have to? If it would help you—! But it wouldn't! The sooner you learn what a fool the old sky pilot is, the better. Or, I tell you, Douglas! You preach the next sermon and I promise to come and bring the crowd."
Douglas grinned feebly. "I value my life," he answered.
Mary Spencer, who was listening to the conversation which took place in her kitchen, now made a suggestion.
"Why don't you feed 'em, Doug? Announce a series of fifty-cent dinners up at the chapel and while the folks eat, let Mr. Fowler preach."
Douglas laughed delightedly. "That's a 'gregus' idea! I'll do it. I'll begin this Sunday with a venison dinner!"
Mary nodded. "You get the food together and there are three or four of us women who would be glad to cook it for you."
"You are a real friend, Mother!" exclaimed Douglas. "I believe you've solved my problem!"
And so, in spite of Mr. Fowler's protest, a venison dinner was announced for Sunday and received by the Valley in a spirit of hilarious enthusiasm. The preacher refused to deliver the sermon while the meal was in progress, but it was such a gustatory success that at its close, the guests sat in complete docility through a sermon on future punishment. It was a good sermon, quite as modern in most aspects as Lost Chief. Douglas had seen to that. Mr. Fowler had reached the closing sentence when a bull bellowed outside and the door opened disclosing Elijah Nelson, with his horse close behind him. The preacher paused.
"Excuse me!" exclaimed Nelson. "I thought this was just a dinner!"
He was a big man, perhaps fifty years of age, with a smooth-shaven ruddy face. He wore a sheepskin vest over his corduroy coat, and one of the small boys bleated. Grandma Brown promptly smacked him on the mouth.
"Will you come in and eat?" asked Fowler.
"No, thank you," replied the Mormon; adding with a determined thrust of his lower jaw, "I want Scott Parsons to come out. I won't disturb the rest of you."
"What do you want of me?" demanded Scott from his place between Judith and Inez.
"Come outside and I'll tell you."
Scott grunted derisively. "It sure-gawd has got to be something more than that to win me out of this position. I'm the envy of Lost Chief, old sheep-man!"
There was a general laugh.
"Go on out and see what he wants, Scott," said Peter.
Scott sighed and detached himself. The congregation waited a moment; then curiosity had its own way and the chapel emptied itself into the yard. Several Mormons were sitting their horses before the line of quivering aspens that bound the little clearing. A big red bull was tied to the corral fence. Elijah Nelson remained on the doorstep.
"Well," he began, "since you are all out here, I'll say to all of you what I rode down here to say to Scott Parsons, he and anybody that may be helping him are hereby served notice that they've got to keep out of Mormon Valley. We are decent, God-fearing Americans, and we are not going to stand being robbed any more."
"How do you mean, being robbed?" asked Peter Knight.
"Well, I brought this along as a sample," replied Elijah. "Some five years or so ago, I had some cattle grazing on Lost Chief and somebody ran off a dozen head, this bull among the lot. Anybody that can't do a better job of rebranding than this, ought to try another line of business."
There was an interested craning of necks toward the huge brand offered in evidence; then every one looked at Scott. Scott said nothing, and Elijah went on.
"That fellow Parsons patrolled Mormon Creek, that heads up at Lost Chief Springs, all summer. He built a brush dam and threw the water out of our creek into his own ditch, whenever he felt like it. I didn't want to start a fight going. That's not a Mormon's business. We are peaceful folks, homesteading the wilderness. It was a wet summer and we managed to get enough water out of White Horse Creek to take care of us. But right is right and wrong is wrong and we aren't going to stand that next summer. Last week, a coyote was fastened into my chicken run; and last night a mountain lion with a trap hanging to his leg got into my corral, where I had two foals, and he killed them before I could get out. The trap had Scott Parsons' name cut onto it. I don't know who is helping him, if any, but I'm here with my neighbors to serve notice that it's got to stop. I see you've got a preacher here now. I begin to have hopes you may become peaceable yet."
A sudden gust of laughter swept Lost Chief.
"Well, Scott," asked Peter, "what have you got to say?"
"Me?" asked Scott. "I'm not a preacher or a Mormon. I haven't got the gift of gab. Charleton is a good talker. Let him say something."
"All right, old trapper," said Charleton obligingly. He grinned at Inez and began:
"Yet, ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose, That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close,—"
Elijah Nelson interrupted. "Is this the way you are going to answer a decent protest against injustice? Is this—"
"Wait now!" cried Grandma Brown. "Don't get all prodded up. Scott, you give this man a straight answer."
"Very well, Grandma; I'll do that little thing for you," drawled Scott. "Nelson, you and the rest of you Mormons and Jack-Mormons go plumb to hell, but leave my bull behind."
One of Nelson's neighbors rose in his stirrups and shook his fist at Scott. "You dogy-faced Gentile! I've got you marked! You are the one who ran our cattle off Lost Peak five years ago, and we know who helped you."
"Well, I think you Mormons had better get back to your plural wives!" cried John Spencer. "We've had about enough of this."
"Judith," said Douglas, "you take your mother and go home."
Judith turned bright eyes toward him. "Think I'm going to run away? No sir!"
Elijah's neighbor laid his gun across his own arm. "Say that again, Spencer," he suggested, "unless you aren't willing to fight for your daughter!"
Mr. Fowler sprang up beside Nelson on the doorstep. "I beg of you all to disperse to your homes and don't desecrate the Sabbath by such a scene as this."
"O, don't talk like a fool, Fowler!" exclaimed Grandma Brown. At this moment her little grandson came roaring lustily up the trail. He was covered with muck and snow.
"Judith's bull has got away from us kids and he's headed this way!"
"What were you doing with him?" shrieked Grandma,
"We was going to bring him up here and put him in the church like Scott paid us for. And he said—"
But what the child intended to divulge was not to be known, for there was a bellow from the thickest of blue spruce and Sioux, with various chains and ropes dangling from his neck and legs, charged into the clearing. There was a sudden wild scattering of human beings. Judith whistled shrilly, but Sioux had been goaded beyond her control.
"Let me get my rope!" she cried.
"Hold up!" shouted Charleton. "Something's going to happen!"
The Mormon's bull had broken his halter and had turned to meet the on-coming Sioux. Sioux's bloodshot eyes fell on the stranger, and instantly the battle was joined. Snow flew. The buck fence crashed. The bulls bellowed, locked horns, retreated, charged, slipped, fell, rose again with a rapidity only equalled by the ferocity of the attack.
"They'll kill each other if they aren't stopped!" cried Fowler. "Stop them, Douglas! O God, what a place! What a place!"
"What a fight, you mean!" laughed Charleton. "I put up ten dollars on
Sioux."
"Take you!" said Scott.
"If Spencer's bull kills mine, he'll pay for it!" cried Nelson.
"If they work into the corral," shouted Douglas, "some of you help me put up the fence again and we'll have them!"
"Well, but don't stop the fight." Young Jeff gesticulated excitedly.
"I'm going to put up ten on Sioux!"
"Take you!" said Scott.
Nelson's bull ripped Sioux's flank for six inches and blood spurted to the ground. Both the great heads were undistinguishable masses of blood. Their hot breath hung frozen in the air. The western sun turned all the world beneath the aspens to crimson. The betting became more general and more hectic as the battle waxed more furious. The Mormons forgot their grievance for the moment and backed their bull freely.
Suddenly Sioux freed himself, retreated and charged with the full force of his two thousand pounds. He caught Nelson's bull on the fore shoulder. The visitor slid sideways, stumbled to his knees and rose, shaking the blood from his eyes. He gave a look at Sioux, who was preparing to charge again, and turning he fled along the trail toward Scott's ranch, uttering as he went the longdrawn and continuous bellow of the defeated bull.
Douglas, Judith, and John Spencer immediately roped Sioux. Scott spurred his horse across the trail and drew his gun. "Get back!" he said to two of the Mormons. "That's my bull!"
"No gun-play, Scott!" called Peter.
There was a sudden exodus of women and children down the home trail, but
Judith continued talking soothingly to her bull.
Scott did not heed the postmaster. He went on, to the Mormons. "You blank-blanks have trimmed me out of my year's profits! I'm not going to lose the bull too!"
"Judith Spencer!" shouted Elijah Nelson, turning his horse toward Judith and her pet, "is that Scott Parsons' bull?"
There was sudden silence, broken only by the distant bellow of the retreating warrior. Judith sat very erect on Buster, her beaver cap on the back of her head, her wide gray eyes brilliant. She looked at Scott. His hard handsome face was expressionless. Douglas ran across the yard and reached up to tap Elijah Nelson on the chest.
"Don't drag a woman into this, you bastard American, you! I was up there that summer running your cattle and I lost every one of them, if you want to know, and there was no woman helping me out, either. Now, what are you going to do about that?"
Nelson lifted his hand.
"Wait a minute!" drawled Charleton.. "It sure-gawd is your bull, Nelson. Scott ran it up to Mountain City, rebranded it there, and brought it back here in the spring."
"Why, you traitor!" roared Scott. "You staged the whole play, and I'll bet you staged this with your traps."
"I never let a debt go unpaid," chuckled Charleton.
"Aw, come off, Scott!" cried John Spencer. "Give them the bull and send them home. We are sick of your rows in this valley!"
Scott forgot that he was guarding the trail. He spurred his horse furiously toward John, flourishing his six-shooter. The two Mormons slipped quickly away.
"If you think you can sacrifice me for Jude, John Spencer!" cried Scott. He got no farther, for Douglas, now on the Moose, cracked him on the right wrist with the butt of his own gun. At the same time, Peter knocked John's arm into the air. Scott's weapon dropped into the snow.
"Now," said Douglas with his quiet grin, "this venison dinner party of mine is announced as over. You Mormons take yourselves and your dogs off my place. Frank," to the sheriff, who had been an amused spectator up to this point, "come over here and soothe Scott. He's a right nervous cowman to-day. Dad, you take Jude home."
Frank rode slowly over to take Scott's bridle.
"Well," said Peter, "looks like our host wants to get rid of us. Come on, Charleton."
"I'll get you later, Charleton!" shouted Scott.
"But how about—" began Nelson.
Douglas turned in his saddle and faced the older man. His young eyes suddenly looked grim and hard. "Nelson, you have seen what Lost Chief is like to-day. We have no fear and we have no friends and we have no God. But Lost Chief is ours and we intend to keep it. No Mormon is welcome. Don't use our trails or our range or our herd waters. Now, go!"
"Those are hard words, such as a man can't afford to speak to a neighbor," said Elijah, turning his horse slowly.
Douglas did not reply, and not at all reluctantly the visitors spurred up the drifted trail.
"Come on, Judith!" John nodded to the girl.
"I'm going to stay and doctor Sioux up," she said.
"Go on home, Judith," urged Douglas.
"I'll take care of the bull for you," said old Johnny, who had not spoken a word during the entire episode.
"Nobody can touch him in the state he's in but me. You know that!" declared Judith.
"Judith," repeated Douglas, "you go home."
"Why?" demanded the girl.
"You know why, Judith. Go on with Dad."
Judith set her lips, and slowly, very slowly spurred Buster after John's horse. Not until she was out of earshot did Douglas say to Scott:
"Scott, let's you and me settle our differences once and for all." It was dark now and cold. "You gather up that gun, Johnny, and we'll go into the cabin where it's warm."
"I'll not go near your house!" Scott spoke gruffly.
"Look here, Scott! Don't be a grouch! Let's see if we can't get together."
"Get together? What for? Some of this pious stuff, I suppose!"
"No, it's not! It's just common sense. We both plan to spend our lives in this valley. Why fight all the time?"
"You can bet I do plan to spend my life in this valley. Neither you nor
Charleton can run me out. Lost Chief is as much mine as it is yours.
Don't you ever get it into that thick head of yours that you can be Big
Chief here. I am going to have a finger in this pie myself."
"Aw, draw it mild, Scott!" protested the sheriff. "Nobody's afraid of your threats. Doug's advice is good. Come out of your grouch and join the crowd."
"Whose crowd? Doug's? I didn't know he had one except for idiots," sneered Scott.
"No," said Douglas cheerfully, "we don't want any idiots in our crowd. We want good friends and watchmen, hey, Johnny? Come on in, Scott. The going is pretty good."
Scott uttered an oath. Douglas, a straight, rather tense figure in the dusk, did not speak again for a long moment; then he said quietly, "All right, Scott! I'm through. Get off my place, quick!"
He dismounted and unsaddled the Moose. Scott rode off at a gallop.
"Want any help with the bull, Doug?" asked Frank Day.
"No, thanks! We'll get him into the stable and then look him over. Get the lantern, will you, Johnny?"
"Then I'll be riding," said the sheriff. "My chores should have been done an hour ago," and he jingled down the trail.
It was not difficult to lead Sioux into the little log cow stable. But here all progress ceased. The bull became so frantic whenever they tried to examine his wounds that after a prolonged struggle they left him. Johnny and Douglas finished the chores while the preacher went into the cabin and got supper. They sat long over the meal. Old Johnny was deeply excited. A fight always upset his poor old tangled nerves. Douglas finally suggested that he take the lantern and clean up after the dinner; and the old man, who loved to potter about the chapel almost as much as did the preacher, acquiesced enthusiastically.
After he had gone, Fowler said, "Douglas, that little chap is going to do some one bodily harm if we aren't careful. He is getting fanatically devoted to you. I had to keep my hand on his arm all the afternoon."
"The poor old dogy!" Doug shook his head. "We'll keep the guns away from him, and then he won't get into trouble. I'm more bothered about you and Scott than I am about me and Johnny, though!"
"Scott means mischief," said the preacher.
Douglas nodded. "I don't want you to go anywhere without me. He is plenty smart enough to know that the best way to get me is through you—or Judith!"
"Don't worry about me, Douglas. I heard Bryan say once, 'My body is covered with the callouses of defeat. No one can hurt me.' I am like Bryan. No one can hurt me. And I would guess that Judith can look out for herself."
Douglas grunted. The two sat staring at the fire in a silence that was not broken until Judith called from without, "Douglas, I want to see Sioux!"
Douglas took up the lantern and, followed by Fowler, went out. Judith stood beside Buster.
"You give me the lantern, Doug, and neither of you follow me. I can manage him best alone." She was not gone long. "He's not as bad off as I feared," she said when she returned. "I'll let him feed and rest for another hour, then I'll take him down home where I can tend to him right."
"Then let's go in out of the cold," suggested Fowler.
When they were established around the stove, Judith asked, "How did you and Scott get along, Douglas?"
Douglas told her of the conversation. Judith looked serious.
"You see, Doug, Dad keeps Scott sore all the time about me. I don't think he'd be half so ugly to you if it were not for that."
"O yes, he would!" replied Douglas. "Scott and I were born to fight with each other, just like old Prince and Charleton's Nero. We can't help our backs bristling when we see each other."
"Inez could make Scott behave if she cared anything about it. Scott isn't in love with her, but she has a lot of influence over him, like she has over the other men in this valley." Judith watched her hunting-boots steam against the hearth.
"She has too much influence over you, Judith," said Mr. Fowler.
"She's my friend," returned Judith briefly.
"Your friend!" cried Fowler. "Your friend! Do you realize what you are saying?"
"Yes, I certainly do, and I don't want a lecture about it either."
Judith sat erect.
Mr. Fowler leaned forward, his eyes glowing with indignation. "I've swallowed all I can swallow about Inez Rodman. I allowed Douglas to bring her to the table and I ate with her though my gore rose in my throat. Because I felt that my only chance to win the confidence of Lost Chief was to countenance for a time that which cannot be countenanced. But I am through. How long do you think you can be a friend to Inez, Judith, and not become like her?"