He had reason, not long after his conversation with Peter, to recall the postmaster's comments on Charleton. Very early one morning Charleton roused him and told him to ride like forty furies after Grandma Brown.
Douglas obeyed him literally and arrived at the Brown ranch with the Moose in a sweating lather. When he banged on the door, Grandma, clutching her nightdress at the throat, put her head out.
"The baby, I suppose!" she snapped. "Is Little Marion there?"
"Yes!"
"Well, let me dress."
"Hurry, please, Grandma! Charleton seemed awful scared."
"Charleton! Huh! I'm going to get my proper clothes on and drink my coffee, no matter how Charleton Falkner worries. He always was a baby. You go saddle Abe."
Abe was saddled and the Moose was breathing normally before Grandma appeared, plump and calm. Nor would she allow Abe to be hurried out of his usual gentle trot.
"Douglas, when you've seen as many new eyes open and old eyes close as I have, you'll quit hurrying," she said. "The Almighty generally looks out for mothers, anyhow."
So, sedately, in the glory of the sun bursting over the top of the Indian range, they trotted up to Falkner's cabin.
Charleton burst out of the door. "Where in the blank-blank have you been?
Hurry, Grandma! I've been nearly crazy!"
"I'll bet your wife ain't crazy." Grandma dismounted with Doug's help. "Now, Douglas, you keep this lunatic outside, no matter what he says or does. It's just the way he acted when Little Marion came." She stamped into the house and closed the door.
"Let's go do the chores!" suggested Douglas.
"Chores! Chores! Don't you know that—"
"Yes, I know all about it," interrupted Doug. "Come on and get the milking done. Are you afraid your wife will die, Charleton, or what?"
"Or what!" gasped Charleton. "You poor, half-baked idiot!"
For an hour, Douglas sweated with Charleton. Then, as they rested for a time on the corral gate, the kitchen door opened and Grandma's head appeared.
"You go, Doug," said Charleton feebly.
But Grandma did not wait. "It's a boy, Charleton!" she shrieked. "A fine, big boy!" And she closed the door.
Charleton sat perfectly still on the fence. His lips moved but for several seconds no sound came forth. Then he said, "Charleton Falkner, Jr.! Charleton Falkner, Jr.! All my life I've been waiting for this moment!" Tears were on his cheeks. "Doug, you go up and ask 'em how my wife is and give her my love."
Douglas stared at his mentor, wonderingly, unwound his long legs from the fence and crossed the yard. Grandma answered his timid rap.
"Charleton says how's his wife and sends his love."
"O, he does!" witheringly. "Why don't he go over to the post-office and telephone us? You tell him she did fine like she always does everything. You folks go up and get Peter to give you some breakfast."
"I'm not going near Peter till I see the boy and my wife!" called
Charleton.
Grandma slammed the door.
"I wouldn't go near the post-office," said Douglas, established again on the fence beside Charleton.
"Why not?"
"If—if I felt like you do, I'd want to stay by myself, just take a ride alone up to the top of Fire Mesa."
"I don't care what I do as long as the boy's here. Charleton Falkner, Jr.! I'll tell you, Doug, you'll never know what happiness life can hold for you till a woman like Marion gives you a son."
"Say!" cried Douglas in an outraged voice. "What's all this talk you've been giving me for a year about whiskey and women and horses?"
Charleton did not hear him. "Charleton Falkner, Jr.!" he was murmuring over an unlighted cigarette.
It seemed a very long time before they were admitted to the baby and breakfast. Douglas was entirely unimpressed by the squirming red morsel of humanity that Little Marion proudly brought into the kitchen for their inspection. But Charleton was maudlin with admiration. It was, it seemed, easily the first child ever born in Lost Chief, not excepting Little Marion who had been a wonderful baby herself.
Douglas listened, eating his breakfast grimly the while, filled with an embarrassed consternation at last beholding his mentor with, as Peter had said, his outer skin off.
This, then, was what Charleton really wanted; not whiskey, or promiscuous women, or wild horses, or Omar Khayham. What he wanted was a son, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, to carry on his name. And yet what had Charleton ever done to that name except to besmirch it? For Douglas now in his heart had no illusions about the proper nomenclature for his mentor's mysterious little deals.
"Charleton," he demanded suddenly, "do you want the kid to grow up to be just like you?"
Charleton looked at Douglas in astonishment. "Like me? Listen, Doug, old-timer, I'm going to spend the rest of my life licking out of him anything I see in him like me!"
Douglas gave up in despair and went out to finish the chores.
It was a disjointed day, of course. In the afternoon Charleton went to a choice gathering of spirits at the post-office; and Douglas, feeling particularly lonely and unsettled, rode up the south trail after three of Charleton's young mules which had strayed. He felt somehow that, with the dereliction of Charleton, the last hold he had on reality had gone.
CHAPTER VII
THE POST-OFFICE CONFERENCE
"Ride with your finger on the trigger—but smile before you shoot."
—Sheriff Frank Day.
Douglas had no luck at all on his mule hunt. And as if to add to his discomfort, while climbing down the trail from the cemetery, he saw Judith on Buster, accompanied by the leaping Wolf Cub, overtake Scott Parsons and saw them race toward the post-office. Twilight came on, with the mud of the trail stiffening in the frosty air. An overpowering sense of loneliness urged Douglas across the valley and brought him to pause beside the Rodman corral. He dismounted at the buck fence and stood for a moment in the shadow of the Moose, wondering why he had stopped here. He had stood thus but a few moments when two riders came up the trail. They trotted into the door-yard.
"I don't think I want to dance, after all, Scott," said Judith's voice.
"What harm is there in it?" demanded Scott.
"I make it a point never to go in here except when Inez is alone."
"I suppose you're afraid to meet Doug!" exclaimed Scott. "He's here half the time."
Douglas leaped over the fence, rushed to Scott's side and struck him twice.
"That's a lie! Get down and fight with your fists, you thief and murderer!" Doug's voice was low with passion.
There was a quick movement of Scott's right hand to his hip and Douglas felt a stinging pain in his left shoulder. Simultaneously with the shot, Scott put the spurs to Ginger, and Doug reeled as the mare's shoulder thrust against him. Judith jumped from Buster.
"Doug, did he get you?"
Douglas had not fallen. He pushed the girl aside and ran to the plunging
Moose. Inez Rodman called from the door.
"Who's shooting?"
Still without speaking, Douglas threw himself on his horse and was off after the dim figure that raced down the west trail which led to the Pass. He did not heed Judith's call nor the quick patter of hoofs behind him. On and on through the frosty April night, Prince barking joyfully before, the Moose galloping at top speed, the stars sliding overhead. On past the Browns' noisy corral, past Falkner's brightly lighted cabin, and up the lifting trail to the Pass. The broken black line of the Pass, usually so clean-cut against the stars, looked wavering and uncertain. Douglas dropped forward and put his arms about the neck of the Moose.
Once in a while a horse is born with as much acumen as a mule plus the sensibility of a dog. The Moose, when he felt Doug's arms about his neck, dropped from a gallop to a trot and from a trot to a walk. Shortly, when Judith called, "Whoa-up, Moose!" he stopped and stood nickering uneasily. Judith dismounted and pulled the reins over Buster's head. Then she ran up to put her hand on Doug's knee.
"Doug! Doug! Where did he get you?"
"Don't hold me back, Jude!" said Douglas thickly. "Tie me onto the Moose and leave me after him. I'm going to finish him, now."
"You can't catch him. You're hurt too bad. Let me take you home, Doug."
There was no reply for a moment. The Moose moved his head uneasily up and down. Then, breathing heavily and brokenly, Douglas said, "Not—while you—think I told—Charleton."
That was the last he knew for some time. When he returned to consciousness, Peter and Judith were half dragging him, half lifting him into the post-office.
"I don't care what you want, Jude," Peter was saying, "you aren't going to drag him another hour over the trail. We'll get him onto my bed and see how bad off he is."
"My shoulder!" grunted Douglas.
"All right, Doug! Now, Judith, one more heave onto the bed. Get off there, Sister. Jude, pass me that bottle of whiskey, then go lock the outside door so's no one can bother till I've finished. Then come back here."
Judith, her eyes wide and brilliant, her cheeks feverish, obeyed without a word. She drew off Doug's short leather rider's coat and cut off his blood-saturated shirt and undershirt. Douglas watched her with beads of sweat on his lips. Peter in the meantime had thrust his late supper back from the front of the stove and had put a couple of disreputable looking towels to boil in the dishpan. When Judith had finished and Doug's beautiful thin torso lay white against the dingy Indian blanket, Peter scoured his hands and examined the hole in the shoulder from which the blood pulsed slowly.
"It's gone clean through from front to back," said Peter cheerfully. "Guess I can fix him. Eight years in the regular service is useful sometimes. Come here and hold him, Jude. I'm going to clean this hole with peroxide and he'll try to climb the wall."
"No, I won't! Go to it!" whispered Douglas.
Nor did he, for as Peter, with a piece of stove-pipe wire he had boiled as a probe, began his very thorough process of sterilization, Douglas quietly fainted. When he came to his senses, his shoulder was bandaged and Judith was pulling an old shirt of Peter's over his head.
"Now, Judith, make a fresh pot of coffee and drink some of it," said
Peter. "You are as white as a sheet. How are you, Doug, my boy?"
"Fine! Peter, you get me drunk. I'm going after Scott to-night."
"Let's have the story." Peter's lips were grim, "You begin, Judith."
Judith set the coffee-pot on the red-hot stove and perched on the edge of the bed. She was wearing a middy blouse of dull blue. It was small for her and showed her fine shoulder and full-muscled throat and chest. She drew a deep breath and began at once.
"I was riding past Inez' place with Scott. He teased me to go in for a dance. When I wouldn't go, he asked me if I was sore at Inez because Douglas spent half his time there with her. Doug must have been behind his horse. He came out like a crazy man, called Scott a liar and told him to come down and fight, and hit him. Scott drew on him and shot him. Then he rode away like mad, and Doug after him. I followed and caught Doug part way up the Pass and brought him here."
Judith paused and Peter turned to Douglas. "All correct, Doug?"
But the young rider was staring at Judith. "Did you believe Scott,
Judith?" he demanded.
"How do I know what you've been up to? You were there to-night."
"I hadn't seen Inez. I haven't been near her place since I made you a promise, once. I went over to-night because I was discouraged. I'd made up my mind that there wasn't anything real about anybody. Even Charleton isn't real. Now, Peter, you give me a quart of whiskey and help me onto the Moose. I'll—"
"You'll calm down, that's what you'll do," said Judith succinctly. "Won't he, Peter? When Scott finds he hasn't killed you, he'll be back and then you can settle with him. Peter, you telephone my mother I'm going to stay down here for a while and take care of Doug."
Peter hesitated. "I don't need you, Jude, though of course, it'll be pleasant to have you here."
"It's just as well you feel that way," said Judith, "because I intend to stay, anyhow."
Douglas blinked round eyed at Judith, then smiled seraphically and closed his eyes. He was asleep before Peter had succeeded in getting Mrs. Spencer on the telephone. All Lost Chief was on a party line and he carried on his conversation not without difficulty. Judith sat listening with a broad grin of appreciation.
"Hello, Mary. This is Peter Knight. Doug had an accident and I have him here with me—O, Inez telephoned you. Well, Judith overtook him and brought him here. He's in no particular danger—That you, Grandma? How's Marion?—No, it was Scott drew on Doug.—Wait a minute till I finish with his mother.—Listen, Mary! Don't get excited—You keep quiet, Inez.—Everybody butt out! Now, listen, you folks, if you've got to, but don't interrupt!—Scott said something that riled Doug and Doug hit him. Scott drew and got Doug through the left shoulder, bad, but clean, and I've got the wound dressed.—Say, if you women don't keep quiet, I'll sure-gawd hang up. O, hello, Charleton! Yes, Scott made a clean get-away.—Now, listen, Mary. I'm going to keep Judith here to-night to help me and you can come down to-morrow.—Yes, that you, John? Well, you come along now, but not Mary. She's too weepy.—What's that you say, Inez? The sheriff and Jimmy gone out after Scott? When did they start—Hello, Mrs. Day. Half an hour ago? That's good. Now, listen, John. You stop by here before you go crazy. Understand me? All right! Good-night, everybody!"
He turned from the telephone with a wry smile. "John's coming down."
"He's been worse than a wolverine since Doug left," said Judith.
"How do you and he get along?" asked Peter, sitting down to his belated supper.
"O, I patch along for Mother's sake. But it's no way to live! I don't see what Dad gets out of his own ugliness."
"You'd probably find out, if he'd tell you the truth, that John doesn't consider himself ugly-tempered. He'd admit he was firm and misunderstood and unappreciated." Peter smiled grimly.
Judith laughed. "Well, thank heaven John doesn't belong to me, and I don't belong to him!" She sipped a cup of coffee slowly, her eyes on Douglas in his uneasy sleep.
He was still asleep when John came in. He nodded to Peter then strode over to the bed, where he stood for a moment scowling down at his son, his lower lip caught between his teeth. Douglas opened his eyes.
"Douglas," said John hoarsely, "before I go out after Scott, tell me all is straight between you and me. Judith made up, long ago."
"That's a whopper!" exclaimed Judith. "I'll never forgive you as long as I live! I'm just sticking round for Mother's sake. My mother that once could ride an unbroken mule. When I think of that—" She paused as Peter laid a hand on her arm.
"It's not a matter of making up," said Douglas. "It wasn't a thing you could make up. It was just one more fact to knock a fellow's faith in life's being a straight deal."
John did not answer for a moment, but something very like a blush rolled over his tanned face. For the first time in his life, perhaps, he felt that he had done something shameful. But he made no admission.
"You'll come home and let us nurse you, Doug?" he asked when the blush had gone.
"I guess I'd better stay with Peter. I never want to come home while
Judith believes I squealed to Charleton."
"Jude doesn't believe anything of the kind. She's just a flighty, fool girl."
"Thanks, dear Father!" sniffed Judith.
John did not glance at the girl. He was watching Douglas eagerly. "I thought it was me that kept you away from home. I can make Jude apologize as soon as I get Scott back here. If I clear that up, then will you come home, old boy?"
"Yes, I guess so. But that won't keep me from settling with Scott for to-night."
"Sure! But you get well, Dougie!" John turned from the bed with the look of sullenness wiped as by magic from his face.
Douglas stared at Judith. His mind was confused but he realized that the loneliness and despondency of the day was gone. He was blindly angry with Scott yet grateful to the event which had brought Judith to his aid.
John held a low-voiced colloquy with Peter as to the nature of Douglas' wound; then with a cheerful goodnight, he went out. Douglas closed his eyes.
"You fix yourself up a bed on the floor, Judith," said Peter. "I'll keep the fire going and an eye on Douglas. To-morrow you can take your turn."
Judith answered pleadingly, "I'm not tired or sleepy, Peter. And I almost never get a chance to talk alone with you. Let me sit up with you!"
Peter's long, harsh face softened. "All right, Jude! We'll keep the old coffee-pot going and make a night of it. Then—"
He was interrupted by the sound of wordy altercation among the dogs outside. Judith cocked a knowing ear. "Wolf Cub's in trouble! I'd better let him in, Peter. He and Sister will snarl and quarrel all night. They get along about like Dad and I do."
"It'll break Sister's heart, but go ahead. I always tell her, guests first," said Peter.
Judith opened the door a crack and whistled. There was a rush outside of many paws, and Wolf Cub's long gray muzzle appeared in the narrow orifice. There was a scramble, a yip from Wolf Cub, and he was inside, licking Judith's hand and trying to climb into Peter's lap at the same time. He was two-thirds grown now and as big as a day-old calf. Judith gazed at him with utter pride. "Isn't he a lamb, Peter? Now, you get over in the corner, Wolf, and don't let me hear a sound from you to-night!"
The great puppy looked up into her face with ears cocked, then turned slowly and crept into the corner indicated and with a groan lay down. Peter jerked his head in admiration.
"You are some person, Jude! Keep boiling water going. I'm going to wash that wound of Doug's every hour. This cattle country is the devil for infection."
"Oughtn't we to take him up to Mountain City?" asked Jude, in sudden anxiety. "We could get Young Jeff's auto."
"At the first sign of trouble, I will," replied Peter. "But I think I've had more experience with gunshot wounds than Doc Winston's had."
There was a renewed sound of scratching and whining at the door. Douglas opened his eyes. "Better let Prince in long enough to see that I'm all right," he said.
Peter groaned. "Another insult to Sister! However, if he and the pup won't fight—"
"I'll answer for Wolf Cub." Judith tossed a warning glance at the corner where gray ears were twitching restlessly.
Peter opened the door carefully. Sister and Prince stormed in. There was a mix-up, during which the pup did not stir from his corner and Sister was shoved out the door, snapping at Prince as she went. Prince wagged his tail at Judith and Peter, then put his forepaws on the bed and gazed anxiously at Douglas. He sniffed at the wounded shoulder, wriggled and gave a short, sharp bark.
Doug opened his eyes. "It's all right, Prince."
Prince licked Doug's cheek.
"So that's understood," said Peter, taking Prince by the collar, "and you can just step out and talk it over with gentle little Sister."
Douglas closed his eyes again. Judith sat down on the floor, her back against the bed. Peter lighted his pipe and put a fresh panful of towels on to boil, before settling himself in his homemade armchair.
"I understand Scott gave you a little blue roan that's a real bucker," he said.
"He didn't give him to me. It was pay for some work I did for him."
"Uhuh! What do you aim to do with him?"
"Keep him unbroke for the Fourth of July rodeo. And, Peter, I'm going to enter my Sioux bull for some stunts."
"Dangerous work, I'd say. What kind of stunts?"
The young girl chuckled. "You wait and see! That Sioux weighs a good two thousand pounds and he thinks he's a bear cub!"
"Bear cub! I don't know what John Spencer's thinking of!" grunted Peter.
"John doesn't think. He just feels," said Judith. There was a short silence which the girl broke by saying, "Peter, were you ever in love?"
The postmaster took his pipe from his mouth, stared at Judith's earnest eyes, put the pipe back and replied, "Yes."
"How many times?"
"How many times? Can you really be in love more than once, Judith?"
"Now, what's the use of saying that to me, Peter? I'm not a baby!"
"In many ways you are," returned Peter, serenely. "Why this interest in love? What's his name?"
"I'm not sure it's any one. But of course I think a lot about it. You aren't laughing, are you, Peter?"
"God forbid! I feel much more like crying."
Judith smiled up at him, doubtfully.
"Crying?"
"Yes; you are so young, Jude. I hate to think of your dreams going by you."
"Well, I'm not such a kid as you think I am. I'll bet I know all there is to know about love."
"My God, Judith, you don't even know the real thing when it's offered you. All you know is the rot you've seen all your life. Love!" Peter snorted derisively.
Judith gave a little shiver of excitement. "Well, if you know so much about love, Peter, what is it?"
"I don't know what it is, except that all of it, every aspect of it, understand, is bred right here." He tapped his forehead. "It begins in the brain, not in the body. Love is not lust, Judith."
Judith scowled thoughtfully. Peter let the thought soak in; then he said, "And when real love comes, it takes possession of your mind and turns it into heaven and hell."
"Is that the way it came to you, Peter?"
"Yes!"
"How many times?"
"Twice. And I wouldn't want to endure it again."
"There's a poem like that," said Judith, somewhat blushingly, "Do you mind poetry? I read lots of it."
"One should at sixteen," returned the postmaster. "No, I don't mind poetry. What were you thinking of?"
Judith, still blushing, gave a cautious glance at the bed and began:
"He who for love hath undergone
The worst that can befall,
Is happier thousandfold than he
Who never loved at all.
A grace within his soul hath reigned
Which nothing else can bring.
Thank God for all that I have gained
By that high suffering!"
Peter, watching Judith with something deeply sad in his blue eyes, nodded when she had finished. "Youth!" he muttered. "Youth!"
"Do you believe it, Peter?" demanded Judith.
"Yes, I do. Girl, how much high suffering will you get out of your goings on with Scott?"
"None at all, Peter."
"I wish I were twenty years younger," said Peter.
"If you were twenty years younger you wouldn't be as wise as you are now."
"And what happiness has wisdom brought me?" exclaimed Peter.
"It must be mighty fine to really know things," said Judith.
"What kind of things?"
"O, love and all that kind of thing."
"I'd like a drink of water, please!" Douglas opened his eyes.
"Have you been listening, Douglas?" demanded Judith.
"I don't think I missed any of it," Doug smiled. "You're growing up,
Jude."
Judith tossed her head. "I think it was rotten of you to listen to my conversation with another man!" And although she and Peter talked in a desultory way until dawn, the vasty subject of love was not mentioned again.
About ten o'clock the next morning Charleton Falkner came to see Douglas. He hardly had established himself when the thunder of many hoofs sounded without, a wrangling of dogs began, and John Spencer thrust open the door to Peter's living quarters. He was spattered with mud from head to foot. So was Scott Parsons, who followed him, as well as Sheriff Frank Day and Jimmy Day, who brought up the procession.
Judith, who had been washing dishes, hastily dumped the dish-water out of the window. Charleton, with his familiar, sardonic grin, propped Douglas up on a pillow.
"What're you bringing him in here for, John?" demanded Peter harshly.
"Doug's in no state for a row."
"I don't know why not!" exclaimed Douglas coolly. "I don't have to talk or listen with my shoulder. Where'd you pick him up, Dad?"
"Never mind that!" replied John impatiently. "He's here. What do you want done with him, Doug?"
All eyes focused on Scott. In mud-spattered chaps and leather coat, his sombrero on the back of his head, a cigarette hanging from his hard, handsome mouth, Scott leaned easily against the table, eying Judith. Douglas looked from Scott to Judith and from Judith out of the window where beyond the yellow green of rabbit bush that carpeted the valley there lay the green shadow of the Forest Reserve. After a moment's thought he said:
"What made you draw on me like that, Scott?"
"I thought you'd pulled your gun."
"I punched you right and left. You knew I hadn't pulled a gun. As far as
I'm concerned, you're too free and easy with that six-shooter of yours."
"Me, too," agreed the sheriff, scratching Prince's ear.
"He's the gun pullingest guy in the Rockies," volunteered Jimmy.
"All I want to say," Doug announced, "is that when I get use of my shooting arm again, I'm going to pot Scott on sight."
Peter looked at Douglas' tanned face beneath the tumbled golden hair.
"Let's sit down," said Peter, "and go over this thing carefully. Scott's leading with the wrong foot in this valley, but I don't know as shooting him on sight is the answer."
Scott and Jimmy perched on the table, John and Judith on the foot of the bed. The others found chairs. Doug stared at Peter, at first with resentment, then with an air of curiosity.
"Don't you try any soft stuff, Peter!" protested John. "Scott's worn his welcome out in Lost Chief and that's all there is to it."
"My folks came here a year before yours did, John," retorted Scott. "I've got as good a right in this valley as anybody."
"Nobody that makes a nuisance of himself has got any rights in this valley," asserted Douglas. "I suppose you think because your grandfather killed Indians here you've got a right to shoot white men. Well, sir, I'm going to teach you different."
"Pot-shooting at him isn't going to teach him anything except perhaps what is over the Great Divide, Doug," said Peter dryly.
Scott laughed sardonically.
"The law has got something to say in this case," announced the sheriff, lighting a small black pipe.
"No, it hasn't," exclaimed Douglas; "not if I don't want it to."
"You aren't the whole of Lost Chief, Doug," said Charleton. "I've got a small grudge to settle with Scott, myself."
"And I've got several," added John.
"Enjoy yourself, folks," suggested Scott, winking openly at Judith over the cigarette he was lighting.
This infuriated John. "Jude, you clear out! Scott, you blank-blank—"
Douglas flung up a protesting hand. "O, cut that, Dad! Judith, you stay right where you are. You're at the bottom of this whole trouble and I want you to see and hear it."
"Draw it mild, Douglas!" protested the postmaster.
"Don't bother about me," said Jude. "I sure-gawd can take care of myself."
"What happens next?" inquired Jimmy Day.
Nobody spoke for a moment; then very deliberately, Peter turned to the sheriff.
"You remember Doug's mother, don't you, Frank? I can't help thinking how much he looks like her, to-day, although he's the image of John."
"Remember her! I tried for five years to get her to marry me. But her old dad wouldn't stand for it."
"You mean she couldn't see you because of me, Frank!" exclaimed John, a sudden light in his handsome eyes.
Douglas again favored the postmaster with a contemplative stare.
"Some old wolf, her dad, I've heard," Peter went on.
"He was," agreed the sheriff. "He ran the valley and he ran it right.
Every Fourth of July he made a speech about making Lost Chief the
Plymouth Rock of the West."
Charleton Falkner roared. "I remember those speeches!"
Peter was grinning. "But in spite of them, from what I've heard I believe he came mighty near being a great man, old Bill Douglas."
"What did he lack?" demanded Douglas suddenly.
"Religion!" answered Peter, promptly.
"Religion? What's that?" asked John with a guffaw. "You never had any,
Peter."
"Right!" agreed Peter. "Worse luck for me that I didn't have that kind of a mind. But I know any kind of a social idea fails without it. And I know if old Bill Douglas had built a church up there beside the schoolhouse, the chances are that Scott wouldn't have plugged Douglas last night. And mind, I don't believe in God, or the hereafter, or any of the dope they drug you with."
"What the hell are you driving at, Peter?" demanded Charleton.
"Say," shouted John, "is this a trial or a sermon?"
"It's neither," replied Peter. "We're just talking things over. My idea is that Doug shall sort of sit in judgment on Scott and the rest of us abide by his decision."
"Now, listen here!" exclaimed Scott. "This may be a funny joke, but I don't see it!"
Charleton laughed. "I'm with you, Peter. Only that won't pay my grudge."
John laughed too, with a little glance of pride toward his son's set, white face. "I'm on! Make it include his leaving Jude alone."
"Aw, you folks act plumb loco!" snarled Scott.
"Wait and see! Wait and see!" protested Peter. "And while Doug thinks it over, let me add something to what we were saying about old Bill Douglas. He used to act as a kind of unofficial judge in the valley?"
The others nodded.
"Did he ever," Peter went on, "make an important decision that he didn't try to look to the good and the future of Lost Chief? At least, I gathered that from the things Doug's mother used to tell me about the old man's pipe dreams."
John spoke soberly. "He was a just man. They don't make 'em that way any more."
"He was more than just," insisted Peter. "He was forward looking. But he led with the wrong foot. He laughed at the church."
"Sure he did," agreed Charleton. "Why not? Remember old Fowler? A fine sample of the church!"
Peter rose and paced the floor a minute. "Let me tell you folks something. I laugh at the cant they've wrapped the church up in. But I don't laugh at the system of ethics Christ taught. I'm here to tell you folks, He put out the finest, most workable system of ethics the world has ever known. And folks can't live together without a system of ethics."
"It's a wonder you don't subscribe to 'em, Peter," jibed Charleton.
"It's too late. But that don't say that I don't realize clearly that I've failed in life because of it. What do you say to that, Charleton?"
Charleton's lips twisted.
"Why all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd
Of the two Worlds so wisely—they are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth: their Words to Scorn
Are scattered and their mouths are stopt with Dust."
John laughed. Peter shrugged his shoulders and said, "Suit yourselves. As for me I believe everybody is destined sooner or later to deal squarely with right and wrong. Sooner or later every community has to wrestle with the question of social ethics, or fail. Fate has written it of Lost Chief. You'll see."
"I'm with you there." Frank Day spoke soberly. "I believe in fate. You can't ride these hills and not. It's all written beforehand."
Douglas cleared his throat. "I've got an idea," hesitatingly. "I've been thinking for a long time that somebody in Lost Chief that has a homestead right ought to homestead that shoulder of Lost Chief mountain that cuts off Elijah Nelson from our valley. If we don't, he will. I can't do it because I'm not of age. But Scott can, and he can find plenty of work for that six-shooter of his, worrying the Mormons and keeping 'em out of Lost Trail. I'll agree to let Scott alone if he'll let me alone and undertake that job."
There was silence, Scott staring at Douglas with a mixture of contempt, belligerency and surprise in his face.
"But," protested John, "that's no punishment, and it don't say a thing about Judith!"
Douglas shifted his feet impatiently. "I'm not going to punish any guy for running after Jude. That's a fair fight. What I'm sore about is his lying about me and shooting at me when I wasn't armed."
"I'd planned," said Scott gruffly, "to try to buy back our old place from the Browns. They've got more than they can carry and I'm sure getting nowhere renting that piece from Charleton."
"And," suggested Charleton with a grin, "if you encourage those broncos of yours, they each might have three or four slicks every spring, and if you keep up practice with the blacksnake on the old milch cow—"
"Dry up, Charleton!" exclaimed Peter. "What do you think of the idea,
Frank?"
"It ain't bad," answered the sheriff slowly, "though I ain't afraid of the Mormons coming in."
"That's where you are wrong," said Charleton. "They are going to get Lost Chief Valley by any straight or crooked method they can think up. With an ornery devil like Scott to climb over, they won't try to come in that entrance, that's sure."
"How about it, Scott?" asked the sheriff.
"I'd just as soon, and I'd just as soon say that I sure went crazy when
Doug gave me those two good ones and I did what I wouldn't have done if
I'd taken time to think."
"Well," grinned Douglas, "nobody is going to kick if you don't take time to think over in the Mormon valley."
Sheriff Day rose with a laugh. "I've got to get to the alfalfa field I'm plowing. Come on, Jimmy."
Jimmy rose to his good six feet of height and pulled on his gloves. "I feel like I'd been praying," he said. "That is, if I'd ever heard a prayer, I'd say so." He made a face at Judith and followed his father.
John Spencer looked from Douglas to Peter and from Peter to Charleton with a little lift of his chin. Then he said, "When are you coming home, Doug?"
"Not till Jude believes I didn't tell on her last summer."
"I'll get the truth out of Scott!" exclaimed John, drawing his six-shooter.
"Aw, put it up, John, you feather-brain you," drawled Scott. "I told Charleton, Jude. He paid me for the information. I never supposed he'd hold it against a girl."
Judith turned very red. "Scott Parsons, I hope you go up that Mormon valley and that they get you, you blank-blank double-crosser you!"
Scott shrugged his shoulders. Judith glared at each of the men in turn. "I hate you all, every one of you!" she cried. "What chance has a girl among you? You're just like a lot of coyotes after a rabbit!"
"Rabbit! Say lynx-cat, Jude!" laughed John.
Judith tossed her head and rushed out of the room. The men laughed hugely as she banged the door. Only Douglas remained sober.
"Well," said John, "I suppose you'll be home in a day or two, Doug."
"If Charleton can find some one I will be."
"I'll give him half time," volunteered Scott.
"Nothing doing!" replied Charleton. "Nobody gets a second chance to double-cross me!"
Scott flushed angrily but shrugged his shoulders. Charleton went on, "Of course, Charleton, Jr. won't be able to ride for a month or so but Jimmy Day will help me out in the meantime."
"Son smoke yet?" asked Peter.
"No; I have to spend so much time doing jury duty on my neighbors, I haven't got round to teaching him. He weighs a big ten pounds, the little devil."
"Come on, let's get out," said Scott.
They clanked out, leaving Douglas alone with Peter, and he fell into a long sleep.
CHAPTER VIII
JUDITH AT THE RODEO
"If you break the heart of a thoroughbred, she doesn't even make a good cart horse."
—Mary Spencer.
Late in the afternoon, when Douglas awoke, Judith was sitting beside the bed, chin in palm. Peter was not to be seen. Douglas stared at the young girl until her gaze lifted from the floor and she smiled at him.
"Judith," he said, "it's been a long time, hasn't it?"
Judith nodded. "I've been sitting here thinking how much you've changed.
You were just a boy, last summer. Now you look like a man, lying there."
"You've changed yourself. Jude, you're going to be very beautiful."
Judith chuckled. "You and Scott agree on one point, then!"
"Jude! Honestly, I don't see how you can stand that crook!"
"He's a woman's man," said Judith shortly.
"I can't see it!"
"Don't let's quarrel the first thing, Douglas. How is Little Marion?"
"Same as usual. Did you know that she is engaged to Jimmy Day?"
"I knew she ought to be," said Judith bluntly. "They sure make a good-looking pair! When will they be married?"
"When Jimmy has got a good start with his herd. Judith, Charleton isn't a bit like I thought he was."
"He's an ornery mean devil, if you ask me," said Judith succinctly. "He's the worst influence that ever came into your life."
"Did Peter say that?"
"No; I said it. You are too good to waste on Charleton. What has finally waked you up about him?"
"He's always talked to me against marriage and women and children and everything like that. Said awful hard things about 'em, Jude. He really got me to the point this winter where I felt as if marriage was wrong. But do you know, when the boy was born, yesterday morning, he just went plumb loco. He cried and was sentimental like these young fathers you read about in books."
Judith's great eyes widened incredulously. "He was!" She turned this over in her mind for some time, then shook her head. "I give it up. I can't understand men at all. I thought I had Charleton's number. I always did agree with him about marriage."
Douglas drew a quick breath. If men were difficult to understand, how much more so were women, particularly of Judith's type! One never got to the end of them.
"How do you mean that, Judith?" he asked.
"I mean I'd rather be dead than married. Just look at the couples we know, Doug! Just look at 'em!"
"I'm looking at 'em! What's the trouble?" demanded Doug.
"They don't love each other any more. That's all!" Judith tossed her head knowingly.
"Pshaw! How do you know?"
"Because I've watched them for years and studied about it. There is nothing in marriage, Doug. No, sir!"
"Pshaw! And you were sitting and quoting love poetry to Peter last night!"
"Yes, I was! Certainly! I'm not idiot enough to say there's no such thing as love. But I do know that a few years of marriage kills it. Yes, sir!"
Douglas eyed her wistfully. She was so vivid. Yes, vivid, that was the word. Her eyes glowed as if her brain glowed too, and her lips were so full of meanings, too changing and too subtle for him to read. If only they could work out this strange enigma of life together!
"They can't hold out against the years," Judith repeated dreamily. "It's as if love was too delicate for every-day use. They get over caring."
"I wonder why?" said Douglas.
"I think people get sick of each other, Doug! Why, I think a lot more of you, since you've been away for a few months. And I get tired of my own mother, bless her dear old heart, and I love her to death. But she's my mother and I can't stop loving her. But I certainly couldn't stand a man around the house, year after year. No marriage for me! No, sir!"
"But what will you do about love?" asked Douglas.
Judith's burning eyes grew soft. "Cherish it," she answered in a low voice. "Keep it forever. Never murder it by marriage. It's the most wonderful thing that comes into human life."
Douglas smiled sadly. "You talk as if you were a thousand years old, Judith, on the one hand and like a baby on the other. What will you do, marry without love? Somehow the children have got to be cared for by responsible parties."
"Responsible parties!" Jude was derisive. "Do you call Dad a responsible party?"
"He's fed and clothed us."
"What does that amount to?" said Judith largely. "An orphan asylum would do that. The kind of parents kids need are the ones that will answer your questions. I mean the real questions. The ones we don't dare to ask."
"About life and sex and all those things!" Doug nodded understandingly. There was silence, then Doug shook his head. "I don't know how things would go along without marriage. Just you wait until you fall in love and see how you feel. You'll want to marry just like all the rest of us."
"Never! I'm with Inez on that!"
"Inez!"
"Yes, Inez! She's got more sense about living than all the women in this valley put together. And she knows life."
Douglas sighed. "What are some of Inez' ideas about marriage?"
"Well, she just says it won't do! She says that the children have got to be taken care of but that it isn't fair to put the curse of marriage on parents. And she says her way isn't the answer, either, but that anyhow it's honest, which is a darn sight more than a lot of marriages in Lost Chief."
Judith paused to take breath and Douglas asked, "Say, now listen, Jude, was Inez ever in love?"
"She says she's in love right now but she won't say who he is."
"I don't believe she knows what love is! Her ideas aren't worth anything. I've lost faith in these folks that tell you they know life. They're exactly like the rest of us under their skins. I'm getting to believe that we all get happiness in the same way and over mighty few things. Loving and having children, that's about all."
"Inez says it's nothing of the kind; that the only way to be happy is to know what is beautiful when you see it."
"I suppose that's smart," said Douglas crossly, "but I haven't any idea what it means."
"I know what it means; but you never will until you can ride across Fire
Mesa with your heart aching because it's so beautiful."
"I don't see where in the world you get the idea that I don't see the beauty in things!" protested Douglas. "I can't gush like a girl and quote poetry, but this sure is a lovely country to me. And I want my children's children to have this valley and hold it till the very bones of their bodies are made out of the dust of Lost Chief. That's how I feel about these old hills. More than that, I can see how a marriage here in Lost Chief might be a life-long dream of beauty."
Judith looked at Douglas with astonishment not unmixed with admiration.
But she returned sturdily to her own line of defense.
"Doug, do you see any beautiful marriage around here?"
Douglas stared at her tragically, then answered with a groan: "No, I don't! But," with new firmness, "that's not saying I don't firmly believe I couldn't make marriage a lovely thing."
"Why, do you think you are cleverer than anybody else?"
"Not clever, but—but—" Douglas paused, powerless to tell Judith of that something within him that suddenly told him that his fate was to bring to Lost Chief the thing of the soul it never had had. How or what this was to be, he did not know.
After a time, he said softly, "Judith, were you ever in love?"
Judith returned his look with a curiously impersonal glance. "I'm not sure," she answered slowly. "Not what Inez calls love, that's sure."
"Isn't there any other woman in Lost Chief that could give you ideas except Inez?" asked Douglas impatiently.
"What woman would you suggest?" Judith waggled one foot airily and tossed her head.
"Charleton's wife. She has brain and she's interesting."
"She's too old. I mean she looks at everything from an old-fashioned viewpoint. I wouldn't care what her age was if she could just see things the way they look to a person sixteen or seventeen years old. Now, Inez is awfully modern."
"Modern!" snorted Douglas. "Where'd you read that? It sure is a new word for Inez' kind!"
Judith flushed angrily but was denied a retort, for Peter suddenly appeared in the door.
"What in the world do you children mean by this kind of talk?" he shouted. "I couldn't help hearing while I was sorting mail. What do you mean by thinking such thoughts, Judith? Have you the nerve to admit that you are patterning your ideas on a woman like Inez?"
"I don't care what she is," replied Judith obstinately. "She's the only woman in Lost Chief who can talk about anything but babies and cattle raising. And more than that, and anyhow, I like her."
Peter took a turn or two up and down the room.
"I don't object so much to your liking her," he said, "as I do to your absorbing her cynical ideas."
"Pshaw, Peter! I don't notice you're displaying a wife and a happy home for us to copy after!" sniffed Judith. "What I want you old people to do is to show me by example how practical and true all these fine old precepts are that you are so free about laying down for us kids. Where's your happy marriage, Peter?"
Peter's lips twisted painfully. "My happy marriage is in Limbo, Judith, with the rest of my dreams. As for being old—why, Jude, I'm still in my forties."
"Forty!" gasped Judith.
"Yes, forty; and if I hadn't been a fool I'd still be facing the most useful part of my life. Heaven knows, children, I'm not offering myself or any one else in Lost Chief as an example to you."
"What do you offer?" asked Jude with an impish smile.
Again Peter paced the room before coming to pause by Douglas' pillow.
"You both heard what I said this morning about the lack of a church in Lost Chief. That's what you children need for a pattern. Disagree with his creed as you might, the right kind of a preacher in here could answer your questions as they should be answered. If the church doesn't form ideals for young people like you, loose women and loose men will."
"That might be true, Peter," said Douglas; "but I don't see why you should expect us to believe the stuff you can't believe yourself."
Peter winced, then said gruffly, "I don't know as I do. All I know is that when I was a boy I went to church on Sunday morning with my mother and that there was an old vicar who would have set me straight on the things you are talking about, if I'd have let him."
"Couldn't you believe what he said?" asked Douglas.
"I never went to him. I preferred my own rotten ideas. I—" He drew himself up with a sudden expression of disgust. "Faugh! How like a fool I'm talking!" He stalked out, this time closing the door of the room behind him.
"I wonder who Peter really is?" said Judith in a low voice.
Douglas shook his head. "Dad says he's seen better days. He sure has suffered a lot over something or other."
"I wish I knew all about life that he does!" exclaimed Judith.
"I don't wish either of us did," said Douglas. Then he put out his hand to touch Judith's knee with infinite tenderness. "Couldn't you manage to fall in love with me, Jude dear? I'd stay your lover all my life."
Judith put her hand over Douglas' and her fine eyes were all that was womanly and soft as she answered, "O my dear, you don't know what you are talking about. What you promise is impossible."
"But how do you know, Judith? I am an unchanging sort of a chap. You realize that, don't you?"
Judith shook her head. "You don't know what you are promising. You can't force love to stay, once it has begun to fade."
"Try me, Judith! Try me, dear!"
Judith looked at him, lips parted, eyes sad. "Douglas, I'm afraid!" she whispered.
And again the sense of loneliness flooded Doug's heart. There was a look of remoteness in Judith's expression, a look of honest fear that had no response for the fine assured emotion that had held him captive for so many years.
The two were still staring at each other when Peter returned.
Doug's wound healed quickly and with no complications. He remained with Peter for a week or so, then returned to his home. Scott Parsons began preparations at once for carrying out Doug's sentence and for a time the post-office and the west trail to Inez' place saw him most infrequently. The excitement over the shooting having abated, Lost Chief began preparations for the great event of the year, the Fourth of July rodeo.
All the world knows the story of a rodeo, knows the beauty and the daring of both riders and horses, knows the picturesque patois of the sand corral. But all the world does not know of Judith's performance at this particular rodeo.
Mary, lax and helpless enough on most matters concerning her daughter's conduct, held out on one point. Judith could not enter the Fourth of July rodeo until she was at least sixteen. But now, at sixteen, Judith asked permission of no one. She entered the exhibition with Buster and Sioux and Whoop-la, the bronco Scott had given her.
The rodeo was held on the plains to the east of the post-office. The Browns owned the great corral, strongly fenced, and with a smooth sandy floor bordered by a grandstand weathered and unpainted but still sturdy enough to withstand the swaying and stamping of the crowd. Neither the Browns nor any other of the Lost Chief families made money out of the exhibition. It was a community affair in which was felt an intense pride. All Lost Chief attended, of course, and people came in automobiles and in sheep wagons and in the saddle from the ranches for a radius of a hundred miles.
Burning heat and cloudless heavens, the high west wind and the nameless exhilaration and urge of the Rockies at seven thousand feet, this was the day of the rodeo. The exhibition began at ten in the morning and lasted all day, with an hour at noon for dinner.
There was the usual roping and throwing of steers and the usual riding of bucking broncos by men and women young and old. Douglas rode and rode well, but he had his peer in Jimmy Day and in Charleton. Judith rapidly eliminated all the women contestants and then began to vie with the men in the riding of buckers. By four o'clock as one of the four best riders, bar none, she was ready to enter the last competition on the program. This was listed as an original exhibition to be given by each of the four best riders. Douglas, Jimmy, and Charleton were the other contestants. Judith entered first.
She trotted into the sand corral on Buster, leading the blindfolded Sioux and followed at a short distance by Peter Knight, who was master of ceremonies for the day. A little murmur went through the grandstand. Judith's curls were bundled up under a sombrero. She wore a man's silk shirt with a soft collar. It was of the color of the sky. Her khaki divided skirt came just below the knee, meeting a pair of high-heeled riding-boots. Her gauntleted gloves were deep fringed. She rode slowly, silhouetted against the distant yellow of the plains. Sioux, a russet red, silken flanks gleaming in the sun, moved his head uneasily, but followed like a dog on leash.
Having crossed to the north end of the corral, Judith waited for Peter to come up on Yankee. Douglas, circling outside the fence uneasily, heard him say:
"You are a plumb fool, Judith. Anybody that plays round on foot with a bull isn't a cowman. It's a life and death matter with a brute like Sioux, and you know it."
"You slip his blindfold off when I dismount," she said, and she trotted back to the south end of the enclosure. Here she dismounted, slipped the reins over Buster's head and turned to face the bull. Peter jerked the blindfold from the bull's eyes. The great creature lifted his head and Peter backed away. Judith spread her arms wide and whistled. Sioux snorted, pawed the ground, and started on a thundering gallop toward his mistress.
There was a startled murmur from the grandstand. Buster snorted and turned. Without moving, Judith gave a shrill whistle. Buster wheeled and came back to his first position, where he stood trembling. On came Sioux, his hoofs rocking the echoes, and with every apparent intention of goring his mistress. But ten feet from Judith he pulled up with a jerk and with stiffened fore legs slid to her side, and rubbed his great head against her shoulder. Judith threw her arm about his neck and hugged him, white teeth flashed at the grandstand, which rose to its feet and shouted.
Judith raised her hand for quiet, then leaped to Buster's saddle without touching the stirrups. She put the uneasy horse to a slow trot and gave a peculiar soft whistle to Sioux. Obediently he fell in behind the horse, and Judith gave her audience a unique exhibition of "follow your leader." Buster trotted, galloped, and backed. Sioux imitated him without protest, until Judith brought up before the grandstand with both animals kneeling on their fore legs, noses to the sand. Then Sioux jumped excitedly to his feet as again applause broke out. Judith took his lead rope now and led him to the middle of the corral where she blindfolded him and backed to Peter. Peter strode across the corral carrying a saddle.
"Once more, Judith," he said, "I ask you not to do this."
"Saddle him quick, Peter. Then get on Buster and ride him off when I'm up."
Peter adjusted the saddle as best he could to the bull's great girth while Judith rubbed the brute's forehead, talking to him softly. Sioux stood with head lowered, his red nostrils dilating and contracting rapidly. But he did not move. When Peter nodded, Judith jerked the blindfold free and leaped into the saddle. Sioux brought his mighty fore legs together and leaped into the air. Peter hesitated a fraction of a minute before putting his foot into Buster's stirrup, and the bull's leap brought him against the flank of the uneasy horse. Buster reared and Peter fell, his left foot in the stirrup. The horse started at a gallop, dragging Peter toward the east gate.
Sioux, glimpsing from his wild, bloodshot eyes the prostrated figure of a man, gave a great bellow and charged. Judith brought her quirt down on the bull's flanks, at the same time whistling shrilly. But Sioux was now out on his own. He overtook Buster half-way down the corral and thrust a wicked horn at the wildly kicking Peter. Judith leaped from the saddle and, running before Sioux, seized his horns and threw herself across his face. The bull paused.
At this moment came the full blast of Sister's hunting cry from the west gate. She crossed the corral like a hunted coyote and buried her fangs in Sioux's shoulder just as Douglas on the Moose caught Buster's bridle. Sioux cast Judith off as if she were a rag and gave his full attention to Sister. Judith picked herself up, rushed to the still plunging Buster and jerked Peter's foot from the stirrup. She ran to the blindfold lying in the sand a short distance away, then whistling shrilly above Sioux's bellowing and Sister's yelping, she again caught one of the bull's horns in her slender brown hand. Sioux had rubbed Sister free against the fence and was now charging the dog as she snarled just under his dewlap.
Again and yet again he flung Judith against his shoulders, but she did not fall nor lose her grip. Suddenly, so quickly that the grandstand could not follow the motion, she had wrapped the blindfold over the burning eyes. As the bull stopped confused and trembling she hobbled his fore-legs to his head with the bridle-chain. Then she seized Sister's collar and stood panting, her hair tumbled about her neck. The grandstand shouted its delight.
Peter had risen and was wiping the sand from his face.
"Call Sister, Peter!" cried Judith. "She'll bite me in a minute."
Peter mounted Yankee, whistled to Sister, and with a rueful grin and shake of his head for the audience, he trotted from the corral. Judith loosened the bridle-chain and jumped once more into Sioux's saddle.
"Pull off his blindfold, Doug!" she cried.
"Nothing doing," returned Douglas succinctly. "You get off that bull,
Jude, before I take you off."
"I'm going to ride him up to the grandstand," said Judith between set teeth.
She whistled to Sioux and he lunged forward. Doug twisted his lariat. It coiled round one of the bull's hind legs. Doug brought his horse to its haunches.
"You get off that bull, Judith," he said. "You've put up the real show of the day. Be satisfied before you are killed. Sioux is almost crazy."
Frank Day, who was one of the judges, now trotted up. "Doug is right,
Jude."
"There's not a bit of danger," cried Jude, "if you men would do what you're told to do! Peter had to stop and look instead of hurrying as I told him."
Her eyes were full of tears. She dismounted slowly and after freeing Sioux from Doug's lariat, she led the uneasy bull before the grandstand and made her bow. Jimmy Day brought her a horse and, mounting, she trotted out of the corral followed by the now half-crazed Sioux.
The three men contestants laughingly refused to put on their exhibitions. There was no hope, they agreed, of competing successfully against Sioux and Judith; so Judith received the prize, a twenty-dollar gold piece.
The day ended with this award. It was some time before Douglas and Judith freed themselves from the crowd. John and Mary, still laughing over Peter's discomfiture, led the postmaster off that Mary might treat his really badly skinned face at the ranch. The ranchers who had come from distant valleys began to scatter toward the Pass. When at last Judith and Douglas, with their string of horses and the still unchastened Sioux, started up the trail toward the post-office, they were held up by a stranger in a smart, high-powered automobile.
"Listen, Miss Spencer," he called, "how about your riding in the rodeo at
Mountain City, this fall?"
Doug and Judith both gasped. The rodeo at Mountain City was the ultimate and almost hopeless dream of every young rider.
"How do you know they'd let me in?" asked Judith.
"I'm chairman of the program committee this year," answered the stranger. "If you are interested, I'll write you details when I get back home. I've got to run for it now."
"Interested!" exclaimed Judith. "I guess you know just what it means to be competing in the Mountain City rodeo!"
The stranger nodded. "Then you'll hear from me." He turned his panting car away from the plunging horses and was a receding dot up the trail to the Pass before Judith and Douglas found their tongues.
"Well, you deserve it, Judith," cried Douglas. "You beat anything I've seen. It's not only what you do but the way you do it. You've got to have a good outfit. I'll help you buy it."
"Do you really think I'm good enough for Mountain City?" exclaimed
Judith.
"Good enough for the world!" declared Douglas.
Judith laughed and gave her attention to the unhappy Sioux.
Peter was at supper with John and Mary when they reached home. His whole face was covered with boric powder. Judith and Douglas shouted with laughter. Peter buttered another biscuit.
"I never was vain of my looks," he said plaintively. "It was mean of you,
Judith, to ruin what I had."
"I was never so surprised in my life, honestly, as when you fell, Peter," cried Judith.
"O yes; you were more surprised an hour ago," contradicted Douglas. He turned to his father. "Judith's been asked to ride at the Mountain City rodeo. The chairman of their program committee stopped us and asked her."
"Bully for the girl!" cried John. "I'm not surprised, myself. Some show,
Jude!"
"The Mountain City rodeo is a tough proposition for a young girl to tackle," said Peter.
"O, I'll go with her," John spoke quickly, "and let Mary and Doug run the place for a week. We'll be back in time for the round-up."
"If Judith goes, I go," said Mary with unwonted firmness.
"What do you think I am?" demanded John. "A millionaire or a Mormon?"