Judith jumped to her feet. "O, I am so sick of this kind of thing!" she cried.
"Fowler is dead right and you know it, Judith," said Douglas.
"You don't dare to say these things to her face!" Judith's eyes were full of the tears of anger.
"I'd just as soon," Douglas grinned.
"I'm going to tell her what I think of her and what she is doing to the youth of Lost Chief," stated Mr. Fowler.
"She's not a bit worse for Lost Chief than Charleton Falkner," exclaimed
Judith. "And you don't pick on him!"
"He couldn't be as bad as Inez," insisted the preacher. "There is nothing so bad for a community as her kind of a woman."
"That just isn't so, Mr. Fowler," protested Douglas. "Charleton is worse than Inez ever thought of being. All I'm complaining about is her influence on Judith."
"You both talk as if I had no mind of my own!" Judith said indignantly. "If you knew the temptations I'd withstood, you'd not be so free with your comments about me. And if all I'm going to get when I come up here is criticism, I'm not coming any more. Don't you follow me, Douglas!" and Judith, in her short khaki suit, swept out of the cabin with a grace and dignity that would have done credit to a velvet train.
The preacher was deeply perturbed. He rose and paced the floor. "Douglas, I've tried to play this thing your way. But now I am through compromising. There can be no compromise with God. I'm no longer going to keep silence when events like those this afternoon take place. Undoubtedly my stay in Lost Chief will be short. But while I'm here I am going to stand openly and vehemently for the ten commandments."
Douglas tilted his chair back, folded his arms on his chest, and dropped his chin. "Something's wrong with your religion," he said.
"Nothing is wrong with my religion," retorted the preacher. "But Lost Chief is more wrong than most places. It's a transplanted New England community, and people who come from Puritan stock can't get along without God. They are worse than any one else without Him."
"I'm sick of worrying about it!" cried Douglas irritably.
"Do you mean you are sick of the fight? That you are going to let Inez have Judith?"
Douglas straightened up. "No, by God! Not if I have to shoot Inez! You go ahead and preach your own way. I'll see that you are not hurt."
And this was his last word on the subject that night.
CHAPTER XV
THE FLAME IN THE VALLEY
"The coyote is a coward, so his bite is the nastiest."
—Old Sister, the dog.
The next day when Douglas went down to the ranch to help out with a
day's work for which John had asked him, Judith obviously avoided him.
Douglas made no attempt to enforce a tête-à-tête until mid-afternoon.
Then he followed Jude into the empty cow stable.
"Jude, I can't bear to have you think I'm not fair about Inez. If that's what you are sore about."
Judith laid carefully back the eggs she had taken out of the manger. Her face was set when she turned to him. "It doesn't matter much, I suppose, whether you are fair to Inez or not. She can take care of herself. What I'm angry about is your being so stupid with me, always picking at me about the things that don't count and so wrapped up in your own ideas that you can't see what I really need, and why I am so terribly restless."
Douglas leaned against the door-post, his face eager, his breath a little quickened. Now, at last, perhaps he was to win past the threshold and gaze upon Judith's inner solitude. But he would not crowd her.
"What is it that makes you so restless, Judith?" he asked gently.
"Well, it certainly isn't lack of religion and it certainly isn't lack of marrying," she retorted. "Those are the only suggestions you've ever been able to make about my state of mind."
"But, you see," Doug's voice was still gentle, "I don't even know what your state of mind is! Sometimes you tell me you find life a bitter disappointment. Sometimes you find it very beautiful. Sometimes you want to spend all your days in Lost Chief. Sometimes you must sell your heart's blood to get away from it. All that I really know about your state of mind is that you are lonely and uneasy, like me."
Judith watched him with less perhaps of anger than of resentment in her deep gray eyes.
"It's the unfairness of it! The utter unfairness of life to women!" she burst out. "Don't you see?"
Douglas shook his head. "How can I see? You are very beautiful. You have the strength of a fine boy. You have a splendid mind. You have a very special gift in handling animals. You are gay and brave-hearted and lovable. Why in the world should I feel that life isn't fair to you?"
"Don't you see?" wringing her hands together. "I have all that, and no chance to use any of it so that it's put to any sort of big use at all. I'm buried alive!"
"Oh!" Douglas gasped. He had indeed seen Judith's trouble. All the vital beauty, the splendid talents—was marriage to him a big use of them? "Oh!" he repeated. He brushed his hand across his eyes. "God! Judith," he muttered, "what can I do?"
"I don't know," she said, "but at least you can stop trying to thrust old Fowler down my throat. As for Inez, I judge Inez a good deal more exactly than you do and in many ways more harshly. But what I do insist on is that no man in Lost Chief is fit to judge her."
Judith again picked up the eggs, and went out.
Douglas put in the rest of the week placing his traps up the canyon, and purposely avoided talking with Fowler about his next sermon. He was not surprised, however, when he read the announcement which the preacher gave him to tack up on the post-office door. The sermon was to deal with the modern Magdalene.
Fowler had chosen his subject with the idea of exciting popular interest: his choice was almost perfect. Every soul in Lost Chief was packed into the log chapel long before the services began—every soul, that is, but Inez. Mr. Fowler never had been more eloquent and never, probably, had preached to a more deeply interested congregation. His sermon was a vitriolic arraignment, thinly disguised by Biblical nomenclature, of Inez Rodman.
When Fowler had finished, Young Jeff rose slowly to his feet. Douglas, from his usual place in a rear seat, smiled a little. He liked Young Jeff and liked him best when he rose as now, to do battle for a friend.
"Fowler," said Young Jeff, "I don't like that sermon. We all know who you are driving at, and as for me, you make me very sore. That's a Lost Chief girl and no outsider can come in here and insult her."
"Right! Right!" called several men.
"I didn't expect you to like the sermon," said Mr. Fowler. "I'm through saying pleasant things to you folks. You are going to get straight facts from now on."
"That's as it may be. But you keep your tongue off of Lost Chief women."
"I don't know why you get your back up, Young Jeff!" cried Grandma Brown. "The people of Lost Chief aren't ignorant. They do what they do because they prefer it that way. They know what the world calls their doings. Why be squeamish when Fowler comes in here and just repeats the world's attitude on such doings? Inez is the ruination of our young folks, and we all know it."
"That's right!" called Mrs. Falkner; and Mary Spencer added a low, "Yes!
Yes!"
"She's better than any man in the room, right now!" cried Judith. "If you are going to drive her out, you ought to drive the men out."
"Fine!" called Charleton Falkner.
There was a quick guffaw of laughter, during which John Spencer rose.
"Fowler, I don't want to seem to go against my own son, but I want to say that if you try any more sermons like this one, I'm going to head a committee to run you out of the Valley."
"I'd want to be head of that committee myself. Don't be a hog, John!" drawled Charleton.
"That's a good idea!" exclaimed Scott Parsons. "If the preacher says,
'Drive Inez out,' we'll say, 'Out with the preacher!'"
"You're all talking like a parcel of children!" said Grandma Brown.
"Come on!" shouted Scott. "The Pass is open. Let's send him out now!"
Douglas slid to the end of the seat. Fowler stood tensely behind the table, pale, but calm. Peter Knight spoke for the first time.
"I've got an idea. Let's give the sky pilot just one more chance. Let's ask him to preach a sermon next Sunday that we can all feel the right kind of an interest in, or else resign, himself."
Douglas spoke suddenly, "Just what would that kind of a sermon be about,
Peter?"
"Well, that's Fowler's job," replied Peter. "He's been at it all his life. He's probably learned by this time the kind of sermons people don't like. I don't want to see him driven out of Lost Chief. I want him to have his chance."
"That's fair enough," exclaimed Charleton. "This isn't such bad fun. Why drive him out while the fun lasts? How about it, John?"
"Fair enough!" agreed John.
"Nothing doing!" cried Scott.
"Now, Scott," warned Charleton amiably, "you run the bull business and you'll have your hands full. We old regulars will handle the preacher."
"Huh!" sniffed Grandma Brown. "Wonderful! 'Old regulars!' Well, don't any of you old regulars forget that Douglas Spencer has grown up and that his brand mark is the same as his grandfather's. I think you all are acting like a parcel of children!"
Nobody spoke for a moment. Douglas watched Mr. Fowler anxiously, but the old preacher appeared to have no weapons with which to meet the occasion. Douglas felt that the situation was getting out of hand. He knew how to meet physical resistance, but he realized that he was only a novice in the sort of strategy that controls by mental superiority alone. He ground his teeth together.
"I'm young yet and I'll learn! See if I don't!" Then he pressed his lips together and waited.
Peter broke the silence.
"How about it, Fowler?"
"I'll agree to nothing. I am through compromising." The old man's eyes were blazing in a white face.
"You're foolish!" exclaimed the postmaster. "But we insist on giving you one more chance. Let's see what you can do for us next Sunday. I move we adjourn." And the meeting broke up with a considerable amount of laughter.
There was very little discussion of the situation in the cabin, that night. Mr. Fowler seemed inexpressibly tired and broken, and Douglas, with a sudden welling of pity to his throat, persuaded him to go to bed. Nor did he, later, interfere with the old preacher's choice of a sermon. There was a deep conviction growing within Douglas that the religious issue of the situation was entirely beyond his own directing.
Peter, however, had no such conviction and he took considerable pains to try to get Fowler to go back to the subject of immortality. But the old man had the bit in his teeth and there was no holding him. The post-office door on Saturday bore the announcement that Sunday's sermon would be on The Sins of Lost Chief. Just below the preacher's placard was an invitation from Jimmy Day for Lost Chief to attend his birthday dance on Saturday evening.
Douglas told of the invitation at the supper table. Mr. Fowler made no comment, but old Johnny said, "I suppose Scott will be taking Judith."
"I don't see why!" exclaimed Douglas suddenly.
"You're all rejus like in the church now. You ain't got the time for womaning. Are you still fond of Jude?" peering at Douglas anxiously.
"I guess you know how I feel about Judith, Johnny," said Doug in a low voice.
"Like I used to feel about her mother?" The old man put a hand on Doug's arm.
Douglas nodded.
"And would it break your heart if Scott or any other man got her?"
Douglas nodded again, then rose. "I think I'll run down to see her a minute. I won't be gone long."
Mr. Fowler smiled. "Good luck to you, boy!"
"Keep your fingers crossed for me," said Doug, slamming out of the door.
Judith kept her finger in "Vanity Fair." "We were all going in a crowd," she said. "You've been cutting us a good deal lately. Why not come in out of the wet and be just one of us?"
"I want to take you, myself," insisted Douglas in a low voice. They were standing in the kitchen, with the door into the living-room closed. "I want you to wear that white dress with the thing-ma-jiggers on the waist and your hair all loose around your face. And I'm going to make love to you every minute."
His eyes were entirely earnest. Judith smiled, then drew a sudden short breath. The color deepened in her cheeks, then retreated.
"All right, Douglas! I'll go with you!" she said.
Douglas looked at her as if he scarcely believed the evidence of his ears. Then he flushed. "Thank you, Judith," he said. "Good-night!" and he bolted into the night.
On Saturday evening, old Johnny was restless. "I have a feeling like I ought to sleep in the chapel," he said.
"Pshaw!" exclaimed Douglas, who was knotting a wonderful new blue neckerchief around his throat. "Everybody will be at the party. You two keep each other company and have the coffee-pot going for me when I get home."
"Charleton ain't going to be at the party," said Johnny. "I heard Jimmy Day deponing at the post-office to-day that Charleton was still off on a trip."
Douglas hesitated and looked at Mr. Fowler. "Go along, Douglas," said the preacher. "We'll bolt the door and no one is going to bother us two old men. You can't sit over me like a mother hen all the time, you know."
"All right," agreed Douglas. "I suppose I do act like an old woman. I'll be home a little after midnight."
The dance was in full swing by the time Douglas and Judith reached the hall, with all the Lost Chief familiars present except Charleton. Inez came with Scott. The vague feeling of uneasiness that Johnny's report had given him did not leave Douglas, not even when he swung into his first dance with Judith. She looked into his eyes mischievously.
"This is nice, Doug, but is it what you call making love?"
Douglas laughed. "Give me time to find words, Jude!" His arm tightened around her, but his face settled with worried lines.
"What's the matter, Douglas?" asked Judith.
"I don't know. I just have the feeling that something is going wrong."
"It would be a foolish feeling if Charleton were here," said Judith.
"But ever since poor old Prince—you know—I've had the feeling that
Charleton was just waiting for a chance to hurt you."
"Has he said anything to you?" quickly.
"Of course not! Charleton is clever. Well, don't let it spoil your evening, Douglas. You knew you were courting trouble when you took the preacher in."
"And I sure have found it!" exclaimed Douglas with sudden cheerfulness. "If they don't hurt my old sky pilot, I don't care. Come on, Jude, a little more pep, if you please!"
Judith chuckled. "Ah! perhaps this is your idea of love making!"
"You'll recognize it all right when I begin," said Douglas, skilfully steering Jude past his father, who had been visiting the pail in the corner and was swinging Inez in a wild fandango down the center of the room.
Douglas had not the least desire to dance with any one but Judith, and
when she danced with other men he wandered uneasily around the room.
About eleven o'clock he missed Scott. "Where's Scott gone?" he asked
Jimmy.
"O he only stayed for the first dance! I guess he and Inez had a row."
Douglas scowled thoughtfully and wandered over to the phonograph, which
Peter was manipulating.
"Where's Charleton, Peter?"
"He went out after a stray stallion he thinks has wandered up on Lost
Chief."
Douglas gave Peter a startled glance. "Jimmy Day just said he'd gone into Mountain City."
Peter shrugged his shoulders. "All I know is what Charleton told me last
Monday." He slid a new record into the machine.
"Wait a moment!" Douglas put his hand on the starting-lever. "Isn't that the telephone ringing downstairs?"
Peter listened; then nodded.
"I'll answer it!" exclaimed Douglas.
He dashed downstairs and jerked the receiver off the hook. "I want Doug!
I gotta depone to Doug," came a breathless old voice over the wire.
"Yes, Johnny, here I am! Where are you?"
"At Mary's. They got the preacher, Doug!"
"Who? Be cool now, Johnny, and help me. Who did it?"
"Two men. They had things over their faces and they were loco and they never—never—" Johnny's voice trailed into an incoherent muttering.
Douglas jammed up the receiver and leaped back up the stairs. He spoke hurriedly to Peter. "They've got the preacher. I can't get sense out of Johnny. You take care of Jude."
He jerked on his mackinaw and darted for the door. Peter followed him into the cold starlight.
"Wait a moment, Doug. You'd better let me give a general alarm."
"Maybe they're all in on it!" Douglas paused with his hand on the pommel of his saddle. Then he gave a hoarse cry, pointing as he did so at Dead Line Peak. "Peter! There's a fire up there!"
He leaped into the saddle and drove the spurs home. The Moose broke into a gallop. A moment later there were shouts on the trail behind him.
"Keep going, old trapper! The birthday party is with you!" roared Jimmy
Day.
Douglas did not reply. He saw the flames leap higher as he covered the miles. He felt rage mounting swiftly within him, rage that was akin to what he had felt over the shooting of old Prince, but a thousand times more poignant. But he handled the old Moose coolly. Up the ever-rising trail, between drifted fences, up and up, with the Moose groaning for breath, until the quivering aspens showed clear and black against the leaping flames.
He threw himself from his horse, conscious now of a confusion of voices behind him, of dogs barking, horses groaning and squealing, and coyotes shrieking excitedly from the blue spruce thicket behind the corral. The cabin and the chapel were in full flame. Old Johnny limped up to Douglas. Douglas put a gentle hand on the quivering old shoulder.
"Johnny, when did they come?"
"Right soon."
"You mean after I had gone."
"Yes. They broke the window out. I knew it would happen. This is an awful gregus bad valley."
"Steady now, old boy! Did they hurt the sky pilot?"
"No. They tied him up and took him away. Then I rode down to telephone and they burned it."
"Who was it, Johnny?"
"I don't know but I depone it was Scott and Charleton. They never spoke but I depone it. Like it was Charleton and John tied me to the mule and that was how."
"Steady, Johnny! Which way did they go?"
"I don't know. I was riding down to Mary. I knew Mary—"
"Steady, Johnny." Douglas looked up at the circle of faces.
"Is there anybody friendly enough here, if they knew who did this, to tell me?"
There was no reply, and Peter said, "I don't think if it was Scott and
Charleton working together, they'd confide in anybody!"
There was a murmur of assent. Douglas stood, the kind hand still on
Johnny's shoulder, drawing long shuddering breaths.
"If they hurt my old sky pilot," he said, "God pity 'em, for I sha'n't.
'Are any of you folks going to help me organize a hunt for him?"
"How do you know the two old fools didn't set fire to it themselves?" demanded John thickly. "The sky pilot was in bad and that would be a good way out."
Douglas swung himself up on the Moose. In the vivid light his lips were twisted contemptuously.
"Glad to help you out personally any way, Doug!" exclaimed Jimmy Day.
"But you'd better let the sky pilot go. They ain't going to hurt him.
You've been the church buildingest damn fool in the Rockies."
"Speak for yourself, Jimmy!" cried Peter. "I'm with you, Doug."
"And so am I!" exclaimed Judith. "This is the rottenest trick ever sprung in Lost Chief!"
"You will not stir a step after the preacher, miss!" roared John.
Douglas stood in the stirrups facing his old friends and neighbors. But words failed him. He spurred the Moose out onto the trail.
Peter urged his horse up beside the Moose. "Where are you heading for,
Doug? You mustn't go off half-cocked."
"I'm going down to Inez' place and see if I can sweat the truth out of her."
"It's a slim chance!"
"I don't think so! It's too dark to follow tracks now, and you can bet they've covered themselves well, anyhow. I have a feeling that Inez knows. She must have been willing to murder the sky pilot after his sermon. If we don't get anything out of her by dawn, we'll get Frank Day and start. I know I can count on him."
"Well, perhaps you're right. Inez has been venomous about this and I can't say that I blame her. Easy now, Doug. The Moose is about all in."
Douglas grunted and the way to Inez' house was covered in silence. Douglas had no sense of confusion, nor of defeat. He was angry, but with his anger was a lust for battle and an exultation in the opportunity for it that smacked almost of joy. I'll get him back, he told himself, and I'll rebuild the chapel and I'll punish Charleton and Scott. Maybe I am nothing but a rancher a thousand miles from anywhere but no old crusader ever fought for the grail harder than I'm going to fight for my little old sky pilot. And if they hurt him—! Old Moose groaned as Douglas involuntarily thrust the spurs home.
There was a light in the kitchen of the Rodman ranch house. Douglas banged on the door, and when Inez called, he strode in, followed by Peter. Inez was sitting before the stove, on which a coffee-pot simmered. Scott Parsons stood beside the fire, coffee-cup in hand. Douglas helped himself to a chair and Peter imitated him.
"You folks didn't come up to my fire," said Doug.
Inez, who had followed his movements intently, smiled sardonically. "Did you expect either of us?"
"Not exactly. I didn't expect to see Scott here, either. It was rumored that you'd had a quarrel and that was why you left the party early."
Inez shrugged her shoulders. "Where's Judith?"
"She's probably helping old Johnny up at my place. There didn't seem to be anybody else likely to stay, after the fireworks."
"And what are you and Peter doing down here at a time like this?" asked
Inez, looking at the postmaster as she spoke.
"I was going to get you to tell me what Scott and Charleton had told you about this partnership affair of theirs. But as long as Scott is here, I'll just sweat it out of him."
Scott laughed.
"What makes you think I know anything about it?"
"You have cause to hate the preacher more than any one," replied Douglas simply.
Inez' chin came up proudly. "I'm glad you realize that!" she exclaimed.
"But it's not exactly evidence," said Scott suddenly, "that Charleton and I had anything to do with the affair."
"No, nor, if they did put over the job, that I knew about it," added
Inez.
"Which job do you refer to?" asked Peter.
"Running the preacher," replied Inez.
"But how did you happen to know he had been run?" Peter's eyes were half shut. "You came home early and didn't go up to the fire."
Inez bit her lip. Peter smiled grimly, his long, sallow face wearier than ever in the lamplight. "You aren't the kind to get away with a plot, Inez. Leave that to Charleton."
"No reason why some one couldn't have telephoned, is there?" demanded
Scott.
"No reason at all," replied Peter, "except that Inez' phone has been out of order for a week and I promised to come up to-morrow and fix it for her."
"I didn't think," said Douglas, "that you were the kind to get mixed up in a rough deal like this, Inez. I'll admit that Fowler's sermon was raw and all that, but still you are no hand to blink facts. Didn't you have it coming to you?"
Inez' lip twitched. She looked from one man to the other, finally focussing on Peter.
"Did I?" she asked.
"Yes, you did," he answered. "You've got to lay the blame finally on the women. Otherwise civilization would cease."
"Oh, forget it!" growled Scott. "What are you dragging Inez in on this for? She's always been a good friend to you, Peter."
"I like Inez," said Peter slowly, "but no one is a good friend of mine who is bucking against Douglas in this stunt he's at himself. Douglas is easily the coming man of this valley and if I'm not mistaken, of this State, and I'm back of him, boots, spurs and saddle."
Douglas flushed and twisted uneasily in his chair.
Scott sneered, inaudibly. Inez stared at Douglas, nostrils quivering slightly. "I've always admired Doug," she spoke coolly, "but it wasn't playing the game for him to let the preacher attack me and I'll never forgive him for it."
"I'll never ask you to!" exclaimed Douglas cheerfully. "And I'm not going to start a debate with you. I know that Charleton and Scott put over this deal and that you knew about it."
"I'm going to make just one statement." Inez was looking again at Peter. "I think whoever set fire to your place, Douglas, was a fool and a crook."
Scott buttoned up his mackinaw. "Well, I'll be riding. I'm a long way from home."
Douglas stretched his right arm along the table. His six-shooter was in his hand. "Don't hurry away, old-timer! I want to talk to you."
Scott stood rigidly, a forefinger in a buttonhole. "Don't get funny,
Doug. This ain't a sheep-herder's war."
"No, it's more serious than that," agreed Douglas. "You don't get the idea, Scott. You can't run the preacher out of the Valley, because I shall keep bringing him back. You can't burn down my chapel, because I shall keep building it up. Now, you tell me what you know about this man, because I don't calculate to let you eat, drink, or sleep until you do tell."
"You must think I'm a tenderfoot! Inez, you open that door into the yard."
"Peter, you engage Inez' attention, will you?" asked Douglas in his gentle voice. "Now then, Scott, where is Fowler?"
Peter moved his chair over beside Inez. Scott made a wry face.
"I ain't his herder. That's your job. But you've sure lost him on the range, Doug. A religious round-up ain't what you thought it was, huh?"
"Just keep both hands in the buttonholes. That's right, Scott. Now when you get ready to tell daddy all your little sins, speak right up."
"Look here, Doug, don't you start any shooting in my house. I never have had any trouble here and I'm not going to begin now. You'll never get anything out of Scott, this way. You let him go."
Peter took Inez' hand. "My dear girl, you'd better keep out of this.
Douglas is a right nervous rider, to-night."
Inez attempted to free her hand. Peter smiled. "You can't be my friend and Scott's too, you know."
"I don't want to be your friend!" panted Inez.
"Don't you?" asked Peter, looking at her through half-closed eyes. "Why not, Inez?"
Douglas, intrigued in spite of himself by this half-whispered conversation, glanced toward Inez. Instantly, Scott thrust the table against him and leaped toward the door. But Doug thrust out a spurred boot and the two young riders went down among the table legs. Inez twisted in Peter's grasp, but he pinioned both of her hands and watched the struggle anxiously. Suddenly he saw Douglas drive his knee violently into Scott's groin. Scott groaned and went limp. Douglas got to his knees and tied Scott's hands together with his own neckerchief. Then he dragged Scott to a sitting position against the wall and again covered him with his gun. Slowly the agony receded from Scott's face.
"Where's the preacher?" demanded Douglas.
Scott did not answer.
"I'm going to stay here till dawn," said Doug. "If you don't see fit to answer by then, you'll start on the hunt with me. Think it over."
Peter, both of Inez' wrists in one of his long, powerful hands, put fresh wood on the fire, then sat down again. Inez leaned against him, breathing unevenly. For a long time, no one spoke. Douglas, the sense of exultation still upon him, lighted cigarette after cigarette and waited patiently. How long a time went by he did not trouble himself to note, though he believed dawn could not be far distant.
The silence was broken by the galloping of a horse up to the door. A moment later, Mary Spencer burst into the kitchen. She was wind-blown and wild-eyed. Her coat was open. Her head was bare.
"Is Judith here?" she cried, without appearing to observe the peculiar postures of the inmates of the kitchen.
"No!" exclaimed Inez. "What's happened?"
Douglas looked at his mother with startled eyes. "I don't know!" cried
Mary, bursting into tears.
Douglas tore down the roller-towel and tossed it to Peter.
"Tie up Scott's ankles. Inez won't bother!"
Inez, indeed, was giving no heed to the men. She ran over to Mary. "For heaven's sake, what's happened?"
Mary wiped her eyes and fought to speak calmly. "Up at the fire she insisted that she was going out to help find the preacher. John had been drinking and he argued with her, and followed her down the trail. They quarrel so much I didn't think anything of it. I stayed a long while up at the fire with the others. Then I went home. I noticed when I turned old Beauty into the corral that it was empty, and I was surprised. I hadn't thought Judith would start out till daylight. I rushed into the house. The living-room table had been tipped over and the chairs pulled round. I telephoned everywhere, but nobody had seen her. And this 'phone wouldn't answer. Old Johnny came down and he rode toward the post-office and I came here."
Douglas started for the door.
"Where are you going?" asked Peter.
"After Judith!"
"What about Scott and the preacher?"
Douglas turned to face the others, his lips white, his eyes burning.
"What do I care about them, when Judith is in question!"
"You go ahead, Doug!" cried Inez. "Don't wait for anything. Judith's been talking about running away for years, but she never planned to go off in the winter, I can tell you that."
"John had been drinking, you must remember," half-sobbed Mary. "He's always so ugly then."
Douglas rushed out of the door. Peter followed him. "I'm going up to the old ranch and see if I can pick up their trail. I need another horse. My corral is cleared out and Dad's is too. But I—O, Peter!" Douglas' voice broke.
"Keep your nerve up, Douglas. I've got a couple of horses in fair condition down at my place. We'll ride there after we look over things at your father's ranch."
They hardly had cleared the corral when Mary overtook them. She was still crying, but except for her sobs they rode in a heavy silence to the ranch house.
Old Johnny was gone. They found a curious note on the kitchen table.
"Going after Jud for Douglas. J.B."
"She's started for Mountain City, I'm certain," said Mary. "She's been terribly uneasy ever since Doug left home, always saying a girl had no chance to make anything of herself here. It would be exactly like her to lose her temper and start off, hard pelt on that hundred-mile ride with no preparations at all."
"That's not what worries me," said Peter. "It's John when he's drunk."
"It's light enough to start!" exclaimed Douglas. "Mother, you give us some breakfast. Let's roll up some blankets and take some grub and get gone, Peter."
In little more than a half-hour they were on the trail. And all the exultation which had carried Douglas through the night had fled, leaving him with the sense of impending calamity that had spoiled the dance for him. And he knew now that it had been a well-founded prescience. A door had closed behind him, forever, and, with horror in his heart, he was facing a void. For something had gone wrong with Judith. And Judith was his life.
CHAPTER XVI
THE TRAIL OVER THE PASS
"Some riders' spurs are the lightest when their hearts are the heaviest."
—The Moose.
It was a clear day, but in the increasing light, white clouds could be seen whirling from the crest of Lost Chief.
"Lost Chief is making snow, but we won't get it before evening," said Peter, as they dismounted at the post-office corral. "Now we'll just outfit for a couple of days. I'm believing we'll overtake one or both before night, but you can't tell. If Jude was crazy enough to run away in zero weather, she's crazy enough to have taken any kind of a risk and to be paying for it."
Douglas went swiftly and silently to work. The sun was just pushing over the Indian Range when, each leading a pack-horse, they crossed Lost Chief Creek and started up the long climb to the Pass. Here the wind was rising and dry snow sifted constantly across the trail, obliterating any trace of hoofs that might have been there. It was slow going, too, for there had been much snow on the Pass and the drifts were frequent and deep. Douglas was extremely sparing of his mount. Nothing that he could do should interfere with his efficiency in the search, and although his mad desire bade him rowell the straining brute, he rode light of heel, resting at frequent enough intervals to satisfy even Peter's large ideas of what was owing to a horse.
It was not until they were half-way to the summit, pushing between towering jade green walls, where the wind was excluded, that Douglas suddenly pulled up. The snow was level and hard-packed. There were hoof and wheel marks, leading south. Friday's mail stage. A number of hoof marks leading north. The two men dismounted and for many minutes studied these.
"Here!" exclaimed Peter at last. "Four horses in a walk, up to this point. Here, they break into a trot; and this is old Johnny on Jingo, and that is the Wolf Cub.
"Easy, Doug! Don't kill the horses. It's only a guess you are following."
Douglas grunted impatiently and set his horse, Justus, to the trot. At the summit, still following trail, they pulled up to breathe the horses, then plunged downward. Half through the afternoon they followed the hoof marks. The biting wind rose and the sun warmed their backs as they crested the ridges. The wind fell and the sun darkened as they dropped into the valleys. Eagles on the hunt hung watchfully in the sky. Coyotes now and again sneaked across the trail before them. The two men threshed their arms across their chests or dropped their aching feet from the stirrups, and still the hoof marks of five horses led on before them.
Their shadows had grown long and blue-black on the trail before them when suddenly Douglas pulled Justus up, and Peter pushed up beside him. About a quarter of a mile farther on lay the half-way house. They were crossing a broad, flat valley into which the trail dipped lazily. Just before them, the tracks of two horses and a dog led sharply to the left and disappeared. Some one had fallen. There was a confusion of tracks, then a two-horse trail led on toward the half-way house. Without a word, they put their horses to a gallop that did not ease until they pulled in at the little log corral, of the half-way house. There were two horses, John's and old Johnny's, in the shed.
Crumpled on the doorstep was old Johnny, Doug's shot-gun across his
knees, at first glance, sound asleep. It was bitter cold. Douglas and
Peter pounded their numbed fingers, then examined the little old cowman.
He was, indeed, asleep, but his was the sleep that knows no waking.
"I thought he knew better than this," said Douglas, pitifully.
"He hadn't any outside clothes on." Peter fingered the cotton jumper. "Had a sudden thought and went off as crazy as Jude. Let's lift him into the house."
They opened the door. On the floor beside the stove lay John, his right leg bloody. They laid old Johnny carefully against the wall. Douglas stood rigidly staring at his father. Peter hurriedly lifted the wounded man's hands, then forced some whiskey down his throat.
"Start a fire, Doug!" he ordered.
Douglas did not stir. He stood, blue eyes haggard, cheeks frost-burned, staring at his father. John opened his eyes.
"Get my right boot off, for God's sake!" he said faintly.
"Wait!" said Douglas peremptorily, when Peter would have obeyed. "Give him some more whiskey so I can hear the story and be off. Those were Judith's tracks back, there."
"The pain is killing me!" protested John.
"Where is Judith? Have you hurt her?" demanded Doug.
Peter applied his flask again to John's mouth. John drank, then groaned. "I was drunk. Awful drunk. If Doug hadn't been so crazy about the preacher he'd have seen that. Jude went down to the house to get some warm things while she hunted for the preacher. I followed her. The house was warm and got me even more fuddled than I was. I don't know what I said but she came at me like a wild cat. Then she ran out of the house and me after her. I never touched her. I never saw such riding. I could just keep her in sight, and it wasn't till daylight that I came up to her in this valley. After I sobered up I kept yelling at her, trying to explain. But she didn't even turn her head. Then I rode my horse round in front of her and she turned that devilish little wild mare loose on me, kicking and biting my horse like a stallion. In the middle of the mix-up, that blank old fool of a Johnny gallops up, half-dressed and shooting in every direction. Jude she takes off up the valley and Johnny gave me this leg when I tried to follow. I got up here, him following me, and the fool wouldn't help me. Just sat guard outside the door. I kept telling him he'd freeze to death. He kept saying he was saving Jude for Douglas." John ended with another groan.
Douglas stood clenching and unclenching his gloved hands. Suddenly he turned on his heel. "Come on, Peter."
"We can't leave your father this way, Doug."
"Come on, I tell you!" Doug's low voice was as hard as his eyes.
"Wait!" cried Peter.
"Wait! Wait! While Judith freezes to death too!" exclaimed Douglas.
"She couldn't freeze to death. She's too mad!" groaned John.
"An hour won't make any difference," urged Peter. "I guess Jude had this thing planned out."
"Planned!" Douglas' blue eyes burned. "She's gone off her head with anger and disgust and she doesn't care where she goes as long as she's rid of him. I know Jude!"
"You don't know Jude!" contradicted Peter. "Help me to lift John to the bunk. He's gat to be taken care of."
Douglas turned on his heel, took a quilt from the bunk and laid it over old Johnny, gray and silent against the wall. Then without a word, he lifted the door-latch.
"Don't forget that this is your father after all."
"But I have forgotten!" returned Douglas clearly.
"Stop that kind of talk," said Peter sharply, "and help me get his boot off!"
Douglas gave Peter a long stare of resentment; then, without a word, he rushed out of the cabin. He watered the horses, mounted Justus, and took the lead rope of his pack-animal, putting both horses to the gallop. When he reached the point where Judith had left the main trail he turned and followed her tracks, which were rapidly drifting over with snow.
The whole world was white. Lifting from the valley to the right, little hills rolled over into one another like foaming billows. Beyond these were distant ranges blue, white, and gold. Judith's trail led along the base of the little hills into a grove of Lebanon cedars, gnarled and wind-distorted. There was little snow among the trees and so for a while the trail was lost. But when the cedars opened out on a circular mesa where the snow was taking on the saffron tints of the evening sky, he picked it up again.
The mesa ended abruptly in a drifted mountain, opalescent pink from its foot to its cone-shaped head. The snow on the mesa was not deep, and Douglas realized that Judith had followed an old trapper's trail that worked south toward Lost Chief Peak.
By the time Doug reached the foot of the mountain it was so dark that he barely could discern that Judith had circled to the right, around the base of the peak. There would be a moon a little later. Douglas dismounted in the shelter of a huge rock, cut down a small cedar, and made himself a fire and cooked some coffee. And he fed the horses.
He sat for an hour over the fire, waiting for the moon. He was not conscious of weariness. He was not thinking. It was as if there had been no burning of his ranch, no preacher, no old Johnny. His whole mind was focussed on finding Judith. On finding her and somehow ending the intolerable uncertainty and longing which he had endured for so many years.
The threatened snow thus far had held off. If the clear weather would hold for another twelve hours, he was sure that he could overtake her. He was impatient of delay and watched restlessly for the moon. Shortly after seven o'clock it sailed over the mountain, flooding the world with a light so intense and pure that the unbelievable colors of the daytime returned like prismatic ghosts.
Douglas mounted and slowly and carefully followed the trail around the mountain. He found the spot where Judith had made a fire. He paused over a drift where one of her horses had floundered. He urged his tired horses to a trot where Judith had followed a beaten coyote trail along a hidden brook. Hours of this, and then—a thickening cloud across the moon and a sudden thickening blast of snow in his face. He had been fearing this all day, yet the moon had risen so clearly that his fears had been lulled. He pushed on as long as he could distinguish the trail. Then, with a groan, he pulled up beside a clump of bushes. The horses sighed gratefully. Justus' shoulders were quivering with fatigue.
Douglas unsaddled the horses and hobbled them; then he shoveled snow away from beneath some of the bushes and made a rough shelter over the open space with a blanket. He built a fire, crept under his rude canopy, and rolled himself in many blankets. He was very, very tired, and after a time he dropped miles deep into slumber.
It was gray dawn when he awoke and he was snug beneath a foot of snow that had blown over his bed-covering. He crawled out stiffly and made a fire. Then he fed the horses and ate his breakfast, examining the landscape as he did so.
Lost Chief Range rose to the left. To the right lay a broad mesa cut by impassable canyons. Far to the south and to the right lifted Black Devil Range, forming, with Lost Chief, a deep valley, the valley in which Elijah Nelson had settled. From Douglas' camp, the valley was almost inaccessible: almost, but not quite. Just under the crest of Black Devil Peak lay a pass. If this could be crossed one dropped southward into a cup-shaped valley called Johnson's Basin. Beyond the basin a lesser pass into sheep country, and thence still south to the railroad and the whole wide world.
Black Devil Pass was used in summer but only by seasoned hunters and cattle-men. In winter, it was closed by snow and ice. Yet now, Douglas was convinced that, unless big snows had stopped her, Judith was attempting that perilous passage. She was by now cooled down; she would not turn back. Pride, resentment, restlessness, and that virile love of adventure which only increased as she grew older, would urge her on and on. And to cross Black Devil Pass in winter was a feat which even Charleton would refuse to undertake. Yet, he did not believe that Judith would attempt such a journey without carefully outfitting. And where could she have done this? Had she foreseen her flight and cached food and fodder? Douglas shrugged this suggestion aside as highly improbable. But she could have gone into Mormon Valley for supplies. It was possible to reach Black Devil Pass from the upper end of Mormon Valley, possible in summer at least. Possible also to reach the Pass by swinging around to the right of the Black Devil Range.
Douglas, with a grim tightening of his lips, looked over his supplies. Bacon, coffee, flour, matches; enough for a week if eked out by cottontails and porcupines. But the horses had only a day's fodder. He remade the pack, mounted and pushed on through the snows, which grew deeper as the elevation increased.
On either hand, the two ranges flung mountain beyond mountain, in shades of jade, creviced by deep blue snow. The tiny, weary cavalcade wound on and on with not a trace of Judith to lighten the way. It was noon when Douglas reached the forest which choked the end of Mormon Valley. He knew the spot. Nature first had covered the floor of the passage with boulders. Between the boulders, she had planted the pine-trees. The pine had grown thick and tall and had waxed old and fallen, and other pines had grown above the dead tree-trunks. In summer, if extreme care and patience were used, a horse could be led through this chaos. In winter, deep-blanketed with snow—!
Douglas drew up before the pines and dismounted. The snow was waist-deep. Very slowly, he began to pick a winding, intricate path between the trees. He fell many times but he finally emerged into the smoother floor of the valley. Then he turned and followed his own trail back, kicking and pounding the snow to make better footing for the horses. He took Justus' reins and led him into the trail.
Horses hate the snow. These shied and balked, stood trembling and uncertain, shook their heads and kicked, and Justus nipped at Doug's shoulder with ugly, yellow teeth. But he pulled them on and by mid-afternoon they were in the open valley with snow not above the animals' knees. Gradually the Mormon buck fences appeared, and, just at dusk, a twinkling light.
Douglas rode up to the cabin and, dismounting, knocked at the door.
It was opened by Elijah Nelson, his big bulk silhouetted in the door-frame.
"Good-evening!" said Douglas.
"Good-evening!" returned the Mormon.
"Did Judith Spencer come through this way?"
Nelson shrugged his shoulders. "I don't care to hold converse with any one from Lost Chief."
Douglas moistened his wind-fevered lips. "I'm not trying to hold converse with you. My sister has run away from home. I've lost her trail and I'm scared about her. I won't stop a minute if you'll just answer my question."
A woman pushed up beside Elijah. "Who is it, Pa? For pity's sake, young man, come in! It's a fearful cold night and this open door is freezing the whole house."
Elijah stood back and Douglas strode into the kitchen. Several children were sitting around the supper table. Nelson repeated Douglas' query to his wife, adding, "He's the young man who brought the preacher into Lost Chief and who called me a bastard American."
The woman stared at Douglas. He was haggard and unshaved. Nevertheless, standing, with his broad shoulders back, his blue eyes wide and steady yet full of a consuming anxiety, his youth was very appealing.
"Have you been out long?" she asked.
"Since Sunday dawn."
"She's your sister, you say?"
Douglas looked down at the woman. She could not have been much over thirty and her brown eyes were kindly. "She's only a foster sister," he replied, his low voice a little husky. "I—I—" he hesitated, then gave way for a moment. "If I'd stayed at home as her mother wanted me to, instead of bringing the preacher in, it never would have happened! Religion! Look what it's brought me and Judith!"
"Religion never brought anything but good to any one," said Elijah
Nelson. "It's religion now that makes me allow you within my doors."
Douglas gave the Mormon a quick glance. Somewhere back of his anxiety it occurred to him that he would like to ask this man some of the questions that had troubled him for years. But now he said urgently to the woman, "If Judith was here, for God's sake, tell me! She must not try to cross Black Devil Pass."
The woman turned to Elijah. "Tell him, Pa!"
Elijah scratched his head, eying Douglas keenly the while. "Peter Knight told me something about you. You don't seem to have been tarred with the same brush as the rest of the Gentiles in Lost Chief. That isn't saying I excuse the way you talked to me up at your chapel, but I guess you're to be trusted as far as women are concerned. The girl came in here last night. She was pretty well tuckered but as mad as hops. She told me that Saturday night she had a violent quarrel with John Spencer and that she fled from home in a burst of anger that was still on her when she got here. She's headed for the Pass and the railroad beyond and nothing that I know of can stop her. My wife and I did all we could to make her give up the idea but she was sure she could make it. And I almost believe she can! She's as strong as a young mountain lion: the way God intended women to be. She stayed here all night and got away about an hour before dawn. We outfitted her good. She thought maybe she could make through the Pass by to-night, but I doubt it. Snow is awful deep up on Black Devil. We've been looking for her back all day."
Douglas drew a long breath. "Thank you, Mr. Nelson!" he said, and started for the door.
"Wait! Wait!" cried Mrs. Nelson. "You must have some supper and you must rest. You look terrible!"
Douglas shook his head. "Every minute counts. I'm not tired, only terribly worried. I couldn't rest."
Nelson walked over to the door deliberately, and put a big hand on Doug's shoulder. "You fill yourself with some hot food, Spencer. You know better than to tackle this job empty. That girl is in a desperate frame of mind. You are going to have a struggle with her, if you do overtake her. You must be cool and save your mind and body. How did she come to be in such, a state of mind?"
"She wasn't desperate," said Mrs. Nelson, unexpectedly. "She was sort of—of wild. I can't just find the word for it. But lots of young women are like that now-a-days."
Douglas looked at her curiously. Some phrase of Peter's, half forgotten, came back to him. "Revolt," he muttered. "Revolt, that's it."
The woman nodded. "Yes, revolt's the word."
Elijah shook Doug's shoulder. "How many horses have you?"
"Two."
"I'll feed 'em. Go sit down to that table and let my wife fix you up."
Douglas slowly pulled off his gloves, and his voice broke boyishly as he said, "You folks are awful kind."
"Yes, I've sometimes suspected that us Mormons was almost human beings," grunted Elijah as he pulled on his mackinaw.
Doug's cracked lips managed a shadow of his old whimsical smile. Mrs. Nelson heaped his plate and filled his cup with scalding coffee. Then she shooed the children to bed in the next room and, returning, looked down at Douglas half tenderly.
"She's a splendid big thing, that girl of yours. If I was a man I'd be plumb crazy about her. Has to be something fine in a girl to go crazy mad, just the way she was. It wasn't all about your father. It had heaped up for years. Though undoubtedly it was your father started her off this weather."
Elijah came in and sat down to his interrupted meal. "Good horses you've got," he said. "But you've worked them hard."
"Will you sell me some oats?" asked Douglas.
Elijah nodded. "I'll fix you up. Do you know how to get to the Pass?"
"No; I've never crossed, even in summer."
"Well, I can direct you, though I've never made it myself in winter. After you get over the Pass and into the Basin it will be easy going and you can get fodder there. A Mormon friend of mine is in the Basin this winter with sheep. I told Judith that and exactly how to get there."
"Was she in bad trim?" asked Douglas abruptly.
"No. A little used up for lack of sleep, that was all," replied Elijah.
Mrs. Nelson suddenly chuckled. "My, she was mad! It did me good to see her."
Her husband looked at her curiously. "How was that, Ma?"
"It's the way I've wanted to feel, lots of times," said Mrs. Nelson. "Go on with your directions, Pa. You wouldn't understand in a hundred years."
Elijah snorted, then went on. "There's no trail. But if you reach the summit, get a line on a bare patch in the middle of the basin, that's the lake, and the highest peak across the basin. It's got the mark of a big cross on it. You can't miss it. If you keep on this line, it will bring you out at Bowdin's sheep ranch. I don't know whether the snows are as bad on the other side of Black Devil as they are on this. Johnson's Basin drops down to about three thousand feet elevation and there's not enough snow in the basin itself to stop sheep grazing. But the climb down is something awful, even in summer. Ma, you put up a bundle of grub."
"I've got grub for a week, thanks!" exclaimed Douglas. Then he asked
Elijah, hesitatingly, "Will you tell me why you are so kind to me?"
"As I said, it's my religion."
Douglas stared at his host's kindly face. "I'm dog sorry," he said, "for what I called you. But, how was I to know? I've been brought up to hate Mormons."
Elijah nodded. "I guess we're square. What kind of a man is Fowler?"
"I like him. But I don't know whether he's the man for the job I set him, or not. But he's going to stay," lips tightening. "I'll see to that! Have you always been a Mormon, Mr. Nelson?"
"Brought up in it. And I've brought my children up in it. Judith told us about the rotten trick they did you over in Lost Chief. What are you going to do about it?"
"Get them!" replied Douglas. "That is, after I find Judith. I think I know the men who did it, and the sooner they get out of our valley, the more comfortable they'll be and so will I."
"But where is that poor old man?" cried Nelson. "Have you looked for him?"
"I was trying to get a line on him from Scott Parsons when her mother brought word Judith was gone." Douglas paused and gave Elijah a straight look. "I wouldn't stop to look for any one on earth, if Judith needed me."
"Judith can take care of herself better than that old man," insisted
Elijah.
"Nothing to it!" grunted Douglas. "He's been in the cow country forty years. Not but what I know it was a frightful thing to leave him. But it can't be helped."
"What shall you do about a church now?" asked Mr. Nelson.
"Build it again for the hounds to burn again! If I believed in a God I'd say he was off his job as far as I'm concerned."
"Humph!" exclaimed Elijah. "If I don't miss my guess, the Almighty is directing your business these days as he never has before. You are just about doing what He says and flattering yourself it's your own plan. God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform."
"I wish I could believe it," muttered Douglas, starting for the door.
"Now, I shifted saddle and pack for you to two horses of mine!" said Elijah. "If you find that girl, bring her back here. I want to have some talk with you both. You can pay me rent for 'em, so don't waste your breath arguing."
"Well, whether you are a Sioux or a Mormon," exclaimed Douglas, "you sure are white!"
Elijah grinned broadly. "Well, that's a real concession for a Gentile!
Be sure you stop here on the way out."
It was Douglas' turn to grin. "We'll sure be glad to head straight for here. But I'll warn you now. You can't make Mormons of us!"
"I'm not a-going to try. But I want to say a few things to you. No harm in that, is there?"
"None at all!" Douglas shook hands with his host, then turned to Mrs.
Nelson. "I'm sure obliged to you," he said.
"That's nothing. But look, Mr. Spencer, don't you be too sure you're going to bring that girl back with you, even if you overtake her."
Douglas nodded. "I know," he agreed huskily, "I've got my work cut out for me." Then he went out into the starlight.
Elijah followed. "The moon will be up by the time you need it. Follow trail up to the timber line. Skirt the timber line till you reach the first shoulder of Black Devil. After that, God help you! The horse you are on is named Tom. If you aren't back in five days, I'll go over to Lost Chief and get help to look for you."
"Thanks," said Douglas, and he rode away.
Warmed, refreshed, and with hope shadowing his anxiety, Douglas turned the horses southward. Tom horse was a big, broad-hoofed brute, hard-bitted and not at all enthusiastic about his prospective trip. But —he was a stronger animal than Justus and Douglas pushed him sharply through the snow.
The trail through the fields for three or four miles was easy to find in the starlight. The valley narrowed as it rose and finally Lost Chief and Black Devil thrust foot to foot in a narrow canyon. Douglas did not enter the canyon but twined upward to the right along the timber line that clothed the ankles of Black Devil. The moon had not yet risen when the timber disappeared at the foot of the first shoulder. Douglas pulled up the panting horses, turned back to the wind and rested for a few moments, then put Tom to the climb. The snow was without crust but it was knee-deep and Tom didn't like it. He floundered and snorted, but Douglas spurred him relentlessly and they crested the shoulder without pause. Here, however, Doug decided to wait for the moon.
He moved into the shelter of a rock heap, for the wind was huge, and, beating his arms across his chest, waited with what patience he could muster. Where was she now? Could even her splendid courage stand up against the eerie loneliness. If only he could see her now, returning defeated, though still defiant. But he knew that he would not meet her so. She would not give up while she had strength to pursue the adventure.
There was no view of the peak from this spot. Before him lifted a dark, shadowy wall, sloping interminably to the remote heavens. To the east, Lost Chief Range was silhouetted against a faint glow that told of the coming moon. To the west was a chaos of unfamiliar peaks. When the dusk of the mountain-slope before him turned to radiant silver, Douglas started the horses on and spurred Tom relentlessly. And if he had known how to pray, he told himself, he would have asked the Almighty to give him strength for the tremendous venture which lay before him.