Judith of the Godless Valley/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII
THE FIRST SERMON
"I ain't able to think. That's why I'm pretty generally happy."
BY dawn the next morning Douglas was half-way up the trail to the Pass. He did not know at what hour the preacher would arrive, but he did not propose that the old man should enter Lost Chief without his protection. When he reached the crest, he unsaddled the Moose and settled himself against a gigantic jade rock beside the trail and prepared to wait patiently.
The sun lifted slowly over the unspeakable glory of the ranges and poured its glory down upon the Pass, then swung westward, leaving a chill shadow beside the rock where Douglas was camping. It was mid-afternoon when the stage came through from the half-way house. Old Johnny Brown was driving.
As he pulled up the horses for a rest, he saw Douglas and smiled delightedly.
"Waiting for me, Douglas?"
Douglas shook his head. "I came up to meet a friend, Johnny."
The little old man stared at Douglas; then he said fretfully, "I don't see why Grandma Brown had to go and make me drive the gregus old stage for a week. I deponed to her that I had to get up there and take care of you. When that preacher comes, you'll need me, Doug. There's lots of trouble brewing, boy."
"What kind, Johnny?"
"They always shut up and look rejus when I come round. But I know enough to sabez that bunch even if I am a half-wit."
"I'm not so sure you are a half-wit, Johnny," said Douglas sincerely.
The old man's face brightened. "That's just the way I feel about it too, Douglas. You're the only person in the Valley understands me. You could have my shirt, Doug."
Douglas nodded. "You get through with the stage as soon as you can, Johnny. Tell Grandma I expect you on Monday."
Johnny clucked firmly at his team. "I'll be there. Nothing can't propone me," and he was gone in a cloud of dust.
It was an hour later that the preacher rounded the curve to the crest. Douglas threw the saddle on the Moose and Fowler pulled up his bony blue roan in surprise. He was thinner and grayer than ever and his blue jumper was patched with pieces of burlap. But his eyes were bright as he shook hands with Douglas.
"I'm the Committee on Welcome!" said the young rider.
"How long have you been waiting for me, Douglas?" asked Fowler.
"Since daybreak. I couldn't be sure when you'd come. And I didn't want you to come into Lost Chief alone."
"Are you expecting trouble immediately?" asked the preacher.
"Well," replied Douglas frankly, "the folks are just about as enthusiastic as if I were bringing a Mormon into the Valley. And I just don't aim to give them a chance to start anything till we get a little bit settled."
The old man's jaw set, under his beard. "Humph! They'll find the Lord and me both ready for them. I have an idea they are going to be surprised before they are through with this."
Douglas nodded and they rode down into the Valley. When they trotted past the post-office, the usual group was gathered on the steps. Doug and the preacher nodded but did not draw rein. Old Sister came out sedately and growled at Prince, but Peter did not leave the doorstep.
"What's your hurry, old-timers?" shouted Jimmy Day.
"A long way to go," called Douglas.
"Your hazer needs a shave!" said some one else.
"We'll do it for him Sunday!" cried another voice.
"Oil up your cannon, Doug," laughed Charleton, "and unchain the dogs of war."
Douglas trotted sedately on.
"I wonder why it is! I wonder why!" said Fowler, very real pain in his voice.
"They think we're criticizing them," answered Douglas; adding, with his pleasant grin, "which we are!"
It was dark when they reached Douglas' ranch. Before they had unsaddled, Fowler insisted on lighting a lantern and inspecting the chapel. Douglas, not at all adverse, for he was very proud of this work of his hands, followed the old man in his microscopic inspection of the little building. It was small and dim, with a smell of new cedar. To Douglas, already there was something hallowed about the quiet interior as if somehow the yearning with which he had builded it had given the insensate wood a curious high purposefulness.
Fowler examined the benches and sat for a moment on several of them. He flashed the lantern along the carefully chinked walls, the rose tints of the cedar glowing warmly back at him. He walked slowly up and down the center aisle and paused before the platform, on which was a table and chair. For a long time he stood with one hand on the table. Then he said:
"It's beautiful, Douglas! Beautiful! A chapel for me! Built by a young man that has faith in me. Wonderful! And built with such free-hearted care! For me to preach in! Why, a minister of a great metropolis might well envy me such a gift!"
He paused again, turning the lantern so that the tapestried colors of the walls again flashed forth.
"Stained glass!" half whispered the old man. "Already it has the air of a church. Douglas, we'll consecrate it now."
He knelt before the platform and Douglas bowed his head.
"O God, my Father and my Shepherd," said Fowler, "You have led my wandering steps to this fragrant evidence of a young man's heart. How beautiful it is, O God, and how holy, You know. Help me to keep it so, Heavenly Father, and help me to make Lost Chief find it so. And, O God, put Your great arm about this young man and keep it there until he realizes that it is Your arm supporting him. I thank You, O Everlasting Mercy, for leading me to this resting-place for my soul. Amen."
And it seemed to Douglas, bowing his head in the dusk, that the chapel itself was listening in a brooding peace.
After a moment, the old man rose and led the way out the door, which Douglas locked, then turned the key over to the preacher.
"It's yours, now," he said with a little, embarrassed laugh. "I'm only the guard."
Fowler put the key carefully into his pocket. "If anything should happen to that chapel, it would break my heart," he said.
"We mustn't let anything happen to it. That's our job," returned Douglas stoutly.
The next morning, Saturday, Douglas left the preacher while he went down to his father's place for his day's work. He was as nervous as a mother with her first baby all day and he galloped the Moose back up the trail long before sunset. When Mr. Fowler waved at him from the door of the cabin, he gave a gusty sigh of relief.
While Doug was cooking the bacon for supper he asked the preacher what was to be the subject of the morrow's sermon.
"I was going to preach on the Golden Rule," replied Mr. Fowler.
"No," said Douglas decidedly. "You give 'em a talk on the hereafter and why you think there is one." He lighted a cigarette and cut more bacon.
"Young man, are you presuming to dictate to me how to preach the word of God?"
"I sure am!" grinning with the cigarette between his white teeth. "I'm in this thing up to my horns and I don't aim to make any false moves that I can help. I've been reading the New Testament this summer. So far, the most I've got out of it is that Christ was the most diplomatic preacher that ever lived. Let's be as diplomatic as we can. What's the use of preaching slush to a lot of sensible, hard-thinking folks who don't believe in anything."
The preacher bit his knuckles and took a turn or two up and down the cabin. Douglas noted with a little sense of pity the extreme thinness of the rounded shoulders under the denim jumper. Douglas dished the bacon and put a loaf of Mary's bread beside the fried otatoes.
"Show us that our souls go marching on like old John Brown's," said the young man, persuasively, "and you'll have all Lost Chief eating out of your hand."
"You talk of faith," cried Fowler impatiently, "as if it were a problem in algebra."
Douglas hesitated. "Maybe I do." His voice suddenly trembled.
Fowler paused as he was about to seat himself at the table. "I hear a horse!" he said.
Douglas went to the door.
"It's just me!" called Grandma Brown's voice. "Come and help me down. I was up to see your mother this afternoon," she went on as Douglas helped her dismount, "and I thought I'd come along up and have a visit with the preacher."
"That's fine!" exclaimed Douglas. "Come in, Grandma. We're just drawing up to the table."
"Good," sighed the old lady; "I'm half starved. Howdy, Mr. Fowler! Haven't had enough of Lost Chief yet, huh?"
The preacher rose and shook hands. "Not yet, Mrs. Brown! Will you draw up?"
The old lady plumped down at the table and Douglas loaded her plate and poured her a cup of coffee. "The older folks," she said abruptly, "won't make you any trouble. Charleton Falkner and some of his pals will be smarty, but the young fry will sure try to break up every meeting you have."
"The modern youngster is pretty rough!" sighed the preacher.
"Here in Lost Chief," agreed Grandma promptly, "they are the most rough-and-tumble, catch-as-catch-can batch of young coyotes that ever lived. They don't respect God, man, nor the devil. And why should they? That's educated into children, not born into them."
"How do you feel about my coming back, Mrs. Brown?" asked Fowler.
Grandma hesitated; then she said, "I'm too old to be polite, James Fowler. I'm a religious woman, myself, and I've often said we'd ought to have a church in Lost Chief. But it isn't men like you can start a church here. You are too religious and too goody-goody."
The preacher winced. Douglas came to his rescue. "We're going to show Lost Chief that he's not goody-goody."
Grandma shook her head. "I wish you luck, but, with all the nerve in the world, you can't preach to them that won't hear."
"Do you know what deviltry they've planned for to-morrow?" asked Douglas.
Grandma shook her head. "All I know is, Scott Parsons is the leader. He sees a chance to get back at you."
Douglas finished his bacon thoughtfully. "All right," he said finally; "let 'em come. I'm waiting."
"Well," said Grandma briskly, "I didn't come up here to give advice. I wanted a gossip with an old-tinker. Mr. Fowler, you was up in Mountain City when that Black Sioux outbreak took place. Did you know Emmy Blake, she that was stolen by old Red Feather?"
"Yes," replied Fowler, with a sudden clearing of his somber fade. "I saw her when—" and he plunged into a tale that, matched by one from Grandma, consumed the evening.
At nine o'clock the old lady rose.
"I'll ride down the trail with you," said Douglas.
"You fool!" sniffed the old lady. "Since when have folks begun nursing me cover these trails?"
"That's not the point," returned Doug. "I want to see Peter."
"Well, come along, then," conceded Grandma. She pulled on her mackinaw and buttoned it. The nights were very cold.
The next morning, a placard on the post-office door announced to Lost Chief that a meeting would be held in the log chapel on Sunday at two o'clock; and by that hour every soul in Lost Chief capable of moving was packed into the little cabin.
After his talk with Peter, Douglas had changed his program. The postmaster, not the preacher, sat at the table. He wore a black coat over a blue flannel shirt, a coat that Lost Chief never saw except at funerals or weddings. His denim pants were turned up with a deep cuff over his riding-boots. The preacher sat on a chair, just below the platform. Douglas occupied a rear pew where he could keep an eye on Scott Parsons. There was very little talking among the members of the congregation, but much spitting of tobacco juice into the red-hot stove.
Promptly at two o'clock, Peter rose and cleared his throat. "Well, folks, Douglas says he's trying to put into practice some of the stuff I've been preaching to him. So I suppose I'm to blame for this meeting. Now, there isn't anybody can accuse me of being religious."
"A fourth-class postmaster couldn't be religious," remarked Charleton Falkner.
"They always go crazy about the second year of office," volunteered John Spencer.
Everybody laughed, even Peter. Then he went on: "So when I say I'm going to back Doug up in this experiment you none of you can say it's because I'm pious. It's because I think Lost Chief ought to have a church to help the young people decide the right and wrong of things."
"How come, Peter?" demanded Jimmy Day. "Ain't the young folks round here pleasing to your bachelor eye?"
"To my eye, yes!" answered the postmaster. "Best-looking crowd I ever saw. But to my mind, no! And there isn't one of you over fifteen who doesn't know what I mean when I say it. Now, Doug's idea seems sensible enough ta me. He says he'd be happier if he could believe in a life after death. He says if any preacher can prove to him that the soul is immortal, he is willing to play the game so as to win that future if it is proved that you have to follow rules to win it. Folks, if there is anything sissy about that, I'd like to have one of you rear up and say so."
"There isn't a preacher in the world can prove that," said Mrs. Falkner. "If there was, he'd be greater than Christ."
"Didn't Christ prove it?" cried Mr. Fowler quickly.
"No!" replied Mrs. Falkner. "He believed it Himself and He lived like He believed it, but He didn't prove it."
Fowler jumped to his feet. "He proved it over and over; by fulfilling the prophecies, by the miracles He performed and by returning after death."
"How do you know He returned after death?" asked Mrs. Falkner.
"The Bible says so."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Falkner. "The Bible is just history, most of it hearsay. And I read in the Atlantic the other day that Napoleon said that history was just a lie agreed upon."
"This is blasphemy!" shouted Mr. Fowler. "This is—"
"Wait!" Peter interrupted with a firm hand. "Every one is to say what they decently please. You'll never get anywhere in this valley, if you show yourself shocked by anything anybody says."
"I don't want to shock the preacher, Peter,"—Mrs. Falkner's beautiful face was wistful—"I'd like to have his faith. I sure-gawd would! But I just want to make him see that to folks like us in Lost Chief who read and think and look at these hills a lot, the Bible never could prove a hereafter to us."
"But the Bible is the inspired word of God," insisted Fowler.
"Who says so?" asked Mrs. Falkner.
"The Bible."
"Good heavens, isn't that childish?" she appealed to the congregation. "Seems to me only God could prove that and we don't even know He exists."
There was silence in the room. Douglas, looking over the backs of many familiar heads, felt a curious yearning affection for these neighbors who so far had met his experiment so kindly. Then his eyes turned to the aspens without the window and beyond these to the far red clouds over Fire Mesa. The first snow of the season was beginning to sift through the trees. He wished that he had the courage to ask Mrs. Falkner what she thought of Inez' poem:
A fire mist and a planet,
A crystal and a cell—
but he would rather have cut out his tongue than repeat the verse before this audience.
Mr. Fowler was running his fingers through his beard, glancing hesitatingly from Douglas to Peter.
"Well, is it the sense of this meeting," asked the postmaster, "to let the preacher tell us how he feels about it?"
"Go to it, old wrangler," said Charleton. "I can spout the Persian Poet to 'em if you run short of Bible stuff."
"Baa—a—a!" bleated a small boy in the back of the room.
"I'm going to give the first young one that makes a disturbance a dose of aspen switch," said Grandma Brown.
There was a general chuckle that quieted as Mr. Fowler began to speak.
"Religion doesn't rest on proof. It rests on Faith. And faith is something every human being possesses. If you plant a seed, you have faith that it will produce a plant. No power of yours can bring the plant. But you have faith—in what?—that the plant will appear. Every night that you go to bed you believe that a new day will come. You cannot bring that day but you have absolute faith that to-morrow will be brought by—what? The stars come nightly to the sky, the moon and the earth whirl in their appointed places. You have absolute confidence that they will continue to float in the heavens. On what do you place that confidence?
"Friends, I cannot prove to you that there is a God. But if you will be patient with me, I will give you a faith that asks no proof." He opened his Bible and began to read.
"And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth in me shall never thirst....
"If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. . . .
"He that believeth in me, believeth not in me but in Him that sent me. And he that seeth me, seeth Him that sent me. I come a light unto the world, that whosoever believeth in me should not abide in darkness.
"I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me though he were dead, yet shall he live: and hosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."
Mr. Fowler paused and closed the book.
"Words!" said Charleton. "Just poetry!"
"You are speaking of the living words of the Almighty!" shouted the preacher. "You—" But he was interrupted. There was a sudden unearthly uproar of dogs without. The door burst open and old Sister, howling at the top of her lungs, bolted straight up the aisle to Peter. A can was tied to her tail. Prince, similarly adorned, and ably seconding his old friend's outcry, followed her. Several cats, all dragging tin cans, were flung spitting and yowling through a window.
Chaos reigned. Douglas seized Prince. Peter grabbed Sister. A dozen people took after the cats. They were not as easy to capture as the dogs; and during the progress of the chase, a sudden noxious odor filled the room. Douglas saw a thick black vapor rising from a bubbling mess on the top of the stove. The congregation bolted, leaving the field to one lone cat who climbed the wall to the window and disappeared with a final yowl.
There was no attempt to bring the audience back, and shortly the trail was dotted with riders. But that evening as he sat alone with Douglas, the preacher was not at all sad.
"You were right," he said to the young man, "in having Peter open the meeting. The older people were interested. No doubt they were interested; and in spite of the mischief that broke us up, I feel as if a start had been made. It's a rarely intelligent group of people. I admit that."
Douglas nodded. "We'll wear 'em down. See if we don't. The kids certainly put it over on me. I was feeling safe as long as I could watch Scott and Jimmy, and they had Grandma Brown's grandson doing the work for them." He chuckled and shook his head. "I just can't head them off on that kind of work. All we can do, as I say, is to wear them down. And maybe we can win Judith and one or two of the others, right soon."
Mr. Fowler sighed. "We can certainly interest some of the older people for a while with a discussion like we had this afternoon. But not the young people. Beauty and emotion and mystery must make the religious appeal to young folks. A church can't exist as a debating society."
Douglas turned this over in his mind, finally focussing his thoughts on Inez; she who loved beauty and dragged her emotions in the mire.
"Mr. Fowler," he said finally, "I'll bet Inez would have been a very religious person if she'd been started with the beauty and emotion and mystery!"
"That's a queer thing to say!" The preacher's voice was a little resentful.
Douglas went on as if he had not heard. "But you can't get Judith that way. She hasn't any emotions except temper and a sense of humor!"
"There isn't a woman born who isn't full of emotion," said Mr. Fowler, dryly. "And the deeper they conceal it, the more they have. I think I'll go to bed, Douglas. I feel as if I'd come through a hard day."
"Same here," agreed Douglas, and shortly the cabin was in darkness.
For a day or so the preacher stayed quietly in and about the cabin. He swept the chapel and cleaned out the stove and polished the windows and each day made a little fife. Douglas frequently found him there at night, on his knees. At least once, a day he said, "It was a wonderful thing, Doug, for a young man like you to build me this little chapel, in my old age." He insisted on grace before meals and a chapter aloud from the Bible before bed. Douglas was embarrassed; but entirely acquiescent. Mr. Fowler was to have a free hand with his spiritual development.
About the middle of the week, Judith rode down to the post-office with Douglas. "Well, how's the sky pilot, and his disciple?" she asked.
"I believe the old boy is almost happy," replied Douglas. "He thinks that little old church I built is pretty fine."
"Inez says it looks like a big cow stable."
"That's nice of Inez. Why didn't she tell me how to make it better looking?'
"What does Inez care about it? Honest, Doug, you are making an awful fool of yourself. A man like Fowler can't preach to us."
"Why he never had a chance to preach here yet!" exclaimed Douglas. "And, what do you expect in a place like Lost Chief, a ten-thousand-dollar-a-year sky pilot? Besides, I don't want preaching from him. I just want the one thing like Peter said. And Fowler has that in him just as strong as the highest paid preacher in the world. Give him a show, Judith. Come up, every Sunday. You might back me that much."
"And have everybody in the crowd laughing at me like they are at you? I won't do anything against the old man, Douglas, for your sake. But that's all I'll promise."
"I'm not going to let you off that easy, Jude. Come up to supper to-night. I won't let him talk religion. Honest, he's as interesting as a book when he gets to telling some of his experiences."
Judith shook her head. "I'd rather stay at home with 'Pendennis."
"If I get Inez to come, will you?" urged Douglas.
Judith grinned impishly. "Yes, I'd come with Inez."
They returned from the post-office via the west trail and stopped at Inez' place. She was eating a belated dinner in her slatternly kitchen, and waved a hospitable hand over the table.
"Thanks, no," said Doug. "I just stopped by to see if you and Judith wouldn't come up and have supper with the sky pilot and me. I won't let him talk religion and he's got some good stories to tell."
Inez looked Douglas over. He and the tall Judith seemed to fill the kitchen. Doug finally had covered his big frame with muscles and he was a larger and handsomer man than his father.
"Doug," said Inez, "I am truly flattered. What are you trying to do? Convert me?"
Douglas answered with simple sincerity. "I don't care a hang whether you get converted or not."
"O you don't! Well, just to spite you, I'll come and let the old fellow try his hand!"
"Not really, Inez?" gasped Judith.
"I'd do more than that for Doug and for Lost Chief," said Inez soberly. "Doug isn't the only person who loves this old hole in the hills."
Judith turned to Douglas with a sudden wistfulness in her eyes, a sudden flare of a fire he had not seen in them before. He waited for her to speak but she only turned away toward the door.
"I'll look for you about six then, Inez," he said, and he followed Judith.
When the girls appeared at the cabin that evening, the table was set and the steak was frying. Inez and Judith winked at each other when Mr. Fowler said grace but otherwise the meal progressed decorously enough. It was Inez who brought up the tabooed subject. They had been sitting round the stove listening to a tale of old lynch law which the preacher told with real skill, when Inez interrupted him with entire irrelevance.
"Mr. Fowler, do you really believe there is such a thing as right and wrong?"
The preacher paused, studying Inez' face. Her dark eyes were steady and thoughtful. Her mouth, except for the slightly heavy lower lip, was sensitive. Her whole expression was one of pride and independence.
"Yes, I believe in right and wrong," replied Mr. Fowler, deliberately.
"What makes you believe that a man who lived nearly two thousand years ago can decide what is right or wrong for Lost Chief?" she asked.
"The Bible," answered the preacher.
"But the Bible is full of things that I would call crooked. Those prophets were always putting slick tricks over on each other and the people. There was a lot of dirty work done in the name of the Lord by those ancient Jews."
The preacher leaned toward the woman. "Do you believe in right and wrong, Inez Rodman?"
"No, I don't. I believe in kindness and in beauty. That's all."
"How does one believe in beauty?" asked Mr. Fowler.
"I mean," she replied, "that if you fill your mind with the beauty of this Lost Chief country and with poetry, there is no room for anything ugly."
"What would you call ugly?"
"Being mean to other people is one kind of ugliness."
"That's what I believe too," said Judith suddenly.
"Then, of course, neither of you two would have anything to do with the attempt to run the preacher out," suggested Douglas.
"No, I wouldn't," replied Inez; "and I told Scott so. That doesn't mean that I don't consider you plumb loco, Doug. Mr. Fowler isn't the kind to make the folks see the beauty of these hills. If he was I'd be helping instead of indifferent."
"If the folks would let God enter their hearts," cried the preacher, "they'd see beauty in these hills they never dreamed of."
"Well, as far as beauty goes, Inez," Douglas spoke thoughtfully, "you can't say there isn't considerable of that in the Bible. Take the Songs of Solomon. There never was finer love-making than that!"
"The Songs of Solomon don't deal with human passion," said Mr. Fowler hastily. "They are a recital of man's love for the Almighty and His works."
"O, no, Mr. Fowler!" cried Doug. "'Behold thou art fair, my loved one, behold thou art fair. Thou hast doves eyes within thy locks.' No man ever said that about anything but a woman."
No one spoke for a moment. Old Prince, who was lying with his head baking under the stove, growled and barked, then made for the door. Wolf Cub barked without, and a dog answered.
"Sister!" exclaimed Inez. "Peter must be coming."
Douglas opened the door and Prince shot out. Shortly Peter, then Charleton, came in, stamping the snow from their spurs and pulling off their gauntlets.
"Where did you two come from?" asked Judith, as the newcomers established themselves on up-ended boxes close to the stove.
"Just met here," replied Peter. "I had supper at Spencer's and came up to argue with the sky pilot."
"I'm setting traps up on Lost Chief," said Charleton, lighting a cigarette.
"Look out you don't mistake any of Scott's traps for yours," suggested Inez.
Everybody chuckled, and Peter said, "Elijah Nelson was down at my place yesterday. He's a pleasant, easy spoken man. I guess he and Scott have been having a lot of quiet fighting up there we haven't heard about."
"Is that what he came to see you about?" asked Doug.
"No. It seems his trail out to the Mountain City road is snowed up. He wants to get his mail over here if Scott will let him use his trail. He wants me to speak to Scott about it."
"What Scott will claim," Charleton smiled, "is that he positively must have a retired location and complete privacy on his trail."
There was another chuckle, during which the preacher looked from one keen face to another, but he did not speak.
"What has the scrapping been about, Peter?" asked Inez.
Douglas turned quietly to look at her. It suddenly occurred to him that Inez used Peter's name with a cadence that was new to him. He saw that she was watching Peter's thin sallow face with a shadow of strain about her eyes.
"O it's about a bull again," laughed Peter. "It seems that Scott has an old red bull that Nelson says is one of his, rebranded."
"But I thought," began Judith; then she caught Charleton's sardonic eye and subsided.
What did you think, Judith?" asked Peter.
"Nothing. Go on with your story."
There is no story to it. Scott's been keeping a six-shooter guard on the upper springs of Lost Chief, so's old Nelson hasn't had but half his usual allowance for his ditches. He is sorer about that than he is over the bull, though he certainly is determined to get the critter back. But he got small comfort out of me. I told him to keep his plural fingers off of Lost Chief Creek, on he would lose more than an old red bull."
"Right!" grunted Charleton.
"Are you going to ask Scott to let Nelson use his trail, Peter? asked Inez
"Sure! Why not?" laughed Peter.
"You will make Scott sore at you," replied Inez. "I haven't any quarrel with Scott myself, but I know he has a mean streak in him. If he thinks you are in cahoots with Nelson he will make you trouble."
"I'm not afraid of Scott," said Peter.
"Well, you'll need to be if you mix up in his affairs. He holds grudges over nothing."
"Awful bad man, Scott!" Douglas spoke with his quiet smile.
"I'm telling you he is!" insisted Inez. "He's been more than half in love with Judith for years and he'd just as soon double-cross Jude as anybody else. I want you to let him alone, please, Peter."
Peter was watching Judith. Only Douglas seemed aware of the concentrated entreaty in Inez' voice. "Poor Inez," he thought, "if she's caring for Peter, she'll be having her own little double Hades for everything she's done." He looked at Peter. Judith was staring thoughtfully at the stove and the postmaster's deep eyes were fastened on the girl's fine, clean-cut features, with a burning fire that suddenly brought Doug's heart to his throat.
"What's your opinion of Scott, Judith?" asked Peter.
"The same as Inez'. But I can't help liking him. He's done me lots of favors and he's kept me from making a fool of myself a number of times, even if he did double-cross me once. And he admires me. He certainly does!" She laughed with girlish naïvete and the others joined her.
"Then you must like me too!" said Peter.
"You are a nice old gentleman," retorted Judith.
Peter's lips closed grimly.
The preacher spoke with sudden vehemence. "Yet you people are allowing this same Scott to try to destroy Douglas' dream for Lost Chief."
"I say Scott is a valuable citizen," drawled Charleton. "He guards us from Mormons, from Christians, and from wild women."
Douglas did not join in the laugh that greeted this sally. An entirely new fear had come upon him. He bit his lip and stared from Judith to Peter and back again.
Inez rose suddenly. "Well, the moon is up. Come, Judith! It's time for wild women to retire to their caves."
Judith gave a gigantic yawn, stretched her beautiful long body till the tips of her fingers almost touched the low rafters, and said, "It's a good thing Charleton and Peter will be going along to protect us from Scott, the bad man."
The four presently jingled off down the snowy trail. Prince took up his shivering night-watch on the steps. Douglas and Mr. Fowler looked at each other soberly and went to bed.