Judith of the Godless Valley/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
THE GRADUATION DANCE
"Horses, dogs, guns, women, whiskey, the open country of the Rockies—enough for any man."
—Charleton Falkner.
INSTEAD of riding home with Judith, after the ceremony, Douglas, on sudden impulse, took a roundabout way to the post-office, thence toward the Browns' ranch. Dusk was settling in the valley. The quivering aspens along Lost Chief creek were etched gray rose on the deep blue snow. Far to the east a single scarlet mountain-top pierced through the twilight blue. Buster loped swiftly through the swimming landscape.
When he reached the post-office Douglas did not stop but rode on along Black Gulch trail to the Browns'. Grandma, returning by the direct route from the cemetery, had been home for a half-hour before Doug arrived. She was coming out of the cow stable, lantern in hand, when the boy dismounted at the corral. Spurs clanking, brave chaps flapping, Douglas ran to her like a child and caught her apron in his gauntleted hand.
"Grandma! Tell me something! Did you believe what you said at the grave?"
The old lady held the lantern up to his face. "Come into the cow stable out of the wind, Doug."
Within the dim shelter she hung the lantern on a nail and sat down on a box, indicating another to the young rider.
"Yes, I believed it, boy. Didn't you?"
"No, Grandma! And none of the men do that count in this valley. Is it just old woman stuff, like they say?"
"Maybe!" sniffed Grandma.
"And if you believe it," Doug rushed on, "why did you let us run the preacher out?"
"O, the preacher! Pooh! He's nothing but a blankety blank sissy like the rest of the sky pilots!"
"But can't I believe like you do, Grandma? I'm just the unhappiest guy in the world!"
"You mean," the old lady spoke deliberately, "that this is the first funeral you've seen that's set you to thinking and the fear of death is on you for the first time. I hope it'll do you good, Doug. You're an awful rough little devil."
Douglas swallowed audibly. "Grandma," he cried passionately, "how can I get to believe what you do?"
Grandma looked thoughtfully from her plump milch cow to the lantern, and from the lantern to Douglas. "Doug, I don't think you can, living among the folks you do. To have my kind of faith, you've got to have a mother that breeds it in you from the time you're a baby."
Douglas, his face looking absurdly young above his broad shoulders, said despairingly, "I don't believe you want to help me."
"Well," Grandma was still deliberate, "I don't believe a wild young devil like you really wants help. You're just scared."
Douglas rose, drawing himself to his full height. He was deeply offended. "I thought you might understand me!" he exclaimed. He strode out to Buster and galloped home.
It was extremely difficult to find a moment alone with Judith in the two-room cabin; but the chores were late that night and Judith, instead of helping her mother with the supper preparations, went out to milk, and so Doug's second interview that evening was in the cow shed, for when he reached the home corral, Judith had not finished her task.
This time, he was not precipitate. He sauntered into the little stable with a manner of large leisure.
"Hello, Jude!"
"Hello, Douglas! Finished feeding?"
"No. I just got back. What did you think of the funeral?"
"I'm not thinking of it at all."
"Jude, don't you believe there's any hereafter?"
"Doug, I don't want to talk about it."
"But, Judith, I'm lonely and I've got to talk to some one."
Judith turned an indignant face toward the tall boy. "Don't you suppose I'm lonely, too? What good does talk do? Religion is all right for little kids but you can't believe in fairy tales as you grow up."
"But what can we do?" insisted Douglas, the sweat breaking out above his lips again. "Doesn't the thought of no God, no hereafter, just paralyze you?"
"I tell you," repeated Judith obstinately, "I just don't let myself think about it."
"Then what's made you so cross ever since that night?"
Judith rose and set the brimming milk pail in a feed box. Her eyes, in the lantern light, widened with a horror so devastating that Douglas clutched the manger behind him.
"How did you know? Doug, that's it and there's no place to go for help because there isn't any help for that!"
The sudden revelation of her need roused Douglas. He moistened his lips and said, "We've got to harden ourselves to stand it, like the rest of 'em do. And when it gets too bad we can talk to each other about it. That'll help."
Judith clutched his arm as if she felt the need of touching a human being. Douglas did not stir but as he stood looking down at her a strange aching gladness at her nearness and at her splendid girlhood flooded the horror out of his thought.
"I'll carry the milk pail in for you, Jude," he said.
"Fudge!" she returned scornfully. "As if I hadn't carried it in every night for four years! You'd better do your feeding before Dad gets after you."
Douglas suddenly laughed and went out.
For a day or so he was haunted, particularly after he went to bed, by the thought of the grave scene and by the comments Grandma Brown had made. But Doug was only sixteen, after all, and shortly he was absorbed by other matters: the hunt for Scott Parsons, the preparations for the dehorning, and his new and thrilling and secret feeling toward Judith.
The search for Scott delayed the round-up only for a short time. A day or so after the funeral it snowed and removed the last chance of finding Scott's tracks. The cold was intense, and the job really belonged to Sheriff Frank Day, so the posse broke up after a few days and the dehorning was undertaken.
Early in the morning, half a dozen young riders helped Douglas and Judith to cut out of the great herd in the swamp field the steers in need of dehorning. In proportion to their strength, Lost Chief girls were as clever as the men in handling horses and cattle. Judith was easily the best of them. There was a fire and vim about her work, a wild grace, that the other girls lacked. Douglas, his vision sharpened by his new attitude toward Judith, thought she never had looked so handsome as she did this morning, in her beaver cap, her new scarlet mackinaw, curls flying, sitting the excited little Swift as easily as a boy.
Out of the circular corral led a smaller one. A cedar fire burned in the middle of the lesser enclosure. John Spencer and two helpers stood near the fire, saws at hand, searing-iron heating, tar-pot simmering. The herd bellowed in the outer corral. The riders, ropes in hand, sat with laughing faces turned toward Judith, who was to rope the first steer. Douglas wished that there were not so many of the riders with admiration in their eyes. Judith sat Swift lightly, edging mischievously now against one rider, now another. Swift bit Buster, who reared while Douglas swore laughingly. Magpies swooped from the blue spruce at the edge of the corral, black and white against pale blue. The cattle, all Herefords, red and white, milled about and lowed and tossed worried heads. The riders, sheepskin chaps flapping, bright neckerchiefs fluttering, shouted and cursed and fingered their lariats. Dogs, yellow dogs, black dogs, gray dogs, spotted dogs, continuously encroached from without the fence and were ordered or lashed away.
Suddenly Swift shot from the group of horses. Judith spun her lariat and a lusty young steer, well back toward the south fence, turned and stumbled. Swift sat back on her haunches, turned as she rose and leaped toward the dehorning corral. The bellowing steer was dragged backward, his left foot securely roped. He fell as they reached the gate and skidded helplessly on his side through the trampled yellow snow.
The men by the fire were ready. One of them perched on the steer's flank and freed the lariat, while another sat astride his neck and amidst a gush of blood sawed off the horns close to the head. John seared the stubs with the hot iron dipped in tar. The poor brute bellowed with fright and pain. Judith recoiled her lariat and made way for Jimmy Day, who slid up with a protesting heifer.
"Jude!" he shouted. "You're the cow ropingest girl in the Rockies! Say, Jude, ain't you afraid that baa-baa you're riding will buck with you? Swift! What a hell of a name for that thing!"
"She can beat you roping 'em at that, Jimmy!" cried Douglas.
"Better ride light, Jimmy," warned John. "She thinks more of that mare than she does of me."
"All right, John," laughed Jimmy. "Take this heifer, fellows! She thinks she's a moose!"
"She'll think she's a kitten when we finish with her," chuckled John.
There was an uproar now in the two corrals that echoed from mountain to mountain. The trampled snow was crimson. White angora and sheepskin chaps were gaumed with thick clots of blood. The horses, half frantic from the smell of the bleeding cattle, tried every means in their not limited repertoires to bolt the hateful job.
The work had gone fast and furiously for some time when Douglas touched his father on the arm.
"Dad, look up on the shoulder of old Dead Line!"
John straightened his back and shaded his eyes. A rider leading a Hereford was coming down the ridge.
"That's Scott's horse, Grover," said Douglas. "Can you make out the rider?"
"Not yet." John continued to stare intently. Others noticed his posture and followed his gaze.
"It's Scott Parsons!" cried Charleton Falkner.
"Shall we go get him?" exclaimed Jimmy Day.
"No. He's starved out and giving up. Let's hear what he has to say," said John.
The dehorning went on. Half a dozen more bleeding steers had been turned out before Scott, weary, gaunt, haggard beyond words, leading an emaciated young bull, drew rein beside the smaller corral. The roping came to a pause. John twisted a lariat round the neck of a steer he was working on and led it to the fence. The others followed.
"Well, why the committee of welcome?" asked Scott hoarsely. His bloodshot eyes turned from one to another.
"Where'd you find the bull, Scott?" asked John.
"First located him on Fire Mesa. Been round about considerable since."
"Whose bull is it now?" Charleton Falkner pushed Democrat toward the fence.
"Mine!" Scott spoke shortly, his freckled face unmoved.
"Do you think it was worth the price?" demanded Spencer.
Scott looked searchingly at the crowd before him. The steer John was holding had been dehorned but not seared. The blood had run down the brute's white face and formed a crimson icicle on its under lip. John had run his fingers through his ashen hair, leaving it blood-smeared. Charleton was lighting a bloodstained cigarette with the hot searing-iron. Judith pounded her half-frozen fingers together.
"What price did I pay?" asked Scott.
"Doug," commanded John, "you tell your story."
Douglas, with considerable embarrassment and assisted by Judith, told of their trip with the mail stage. Scott listened with little apparent interest. He said nothing when the story was done.
"It's like this, Scott," said John. "It looks like you killed him. You've got a bad temper. So had Oscar. You fought for over a year about that fool bull, first one of you branding it, then the other. You're young and you'd better give yourself up. You'll stand a better chance."
"Go ahead, Scott!" cried Judith. "I'll stand your friend like you did mine when I rode old Oscar's milch cow 'most to death!"
"Shut up, Jude!" exclaimed Douglas.
"Go ahead, Scott," John half smiled. "You needn't worry. You have a friend!"
"A friend won't do him much good, if he's guilty," grunted Charleton Falkner.
"Anybody's better off for at least one friend," repeated Judith stoutly. "Darn it! All of you picking on poor old Scott!"
"Lean on me, Grandpa!" piped Jimmy Day.
Scott's haggard eyes focused on Judith. "I'll hold you to that, Jude! By God, you're the only white man in the valley! I came in to give myself up, Jude. The cold got me. I shot him, after he'd rebranded the bull before my eyes and after he'd given me this."
He ripped open his mackinaw and shirt and tore a rag from his shoulder, disclosing a vivid wound. "I ain't the only one that's quick on the trigger!"
There was a quick murmur among the riders. John and Charleton, the oldest men in the group, looked at each other.
"Charleton, you and Jimmy Day ride to Scott's house with him," said John. "I'll go to the house and telephone to the sheriff." He mounted and rode off.
"Can your horse carry you so far, Scott?" asked Judith.
Scott nodded, with something curiously like tears in his hard hazel eyes. "You take the bull, Jude," he said. "I'd like for you to have him. He's standard bred."
Judith's eyes shone like stars. "If Dad'll only let me! Do you think he will, Doug?"
Douglas shrugged his shoulders. The bull was tied to the fence and Scott rode slowly away with his escort. When John returned from telephoning he gave a grudging consent to Judith's taking the bull, and the dehorning went on. Not until the blue velvet shadow of Falkner's Peak lay heavy on the incarnadined corral and the last bellowing steer had found solace at the haystacks did the riders start homeward. Douglas followed Judith, as she led the scare-crow bull.
"He's a good mate for Swift," he said.
"You're just jealous!" retorted Judith.
"Of what?" demanded Douglas.
"Of me starting a herd before you do!"
"Ha! Ha!" ejaculated Doug, without a smile, and nothing more was said until they reached the house.
At supper that night John asked Judith why she had shown so much friendship for Scott Parsons.
"I was sorry for him," she replied.
"But he killed our old neighbor!" exclaimed John.
"Yes, and Oscar had a notch on his gun, Dad; and you have one on yours."
"We put those notches there in the early days," returned John, "when every cowman carried the law on his hip. It's different now. You're altogether too highty-tighty, Jude, for a girl. You keep away from Scott Parsons, or I'll make you regret it."
Judith made no reply.
Scott's trial took place in April. It was a matter of deep interest, of course, to Lost Chief, and every one who could get to Mountain City by horse, wagon, or automobile, attended the court sessions. Judith and Douglas were chief witnesses and were royally entertained by young Jeff, who had returned to Lost Chief a week or so after his father's funeral.
Scott was acquitted on the plea of self-defense but he did not return at once to Lost Chief. The attitude of young Jeff did not make an early return seem diplomatic.
Douglas, when he came home from the trial, had a curious feeling that the winter just passed had ended his boyhood. He did not know why. He was not old enough to realize that when the fires of desire and the fear of death begin to sear a boy's mind, adolescence is passing and manhood has all but arrived.
Judith, who had accomplished her fifteenth birthday in March, a day or so before Doug arrived at the dignity of seventeen, had changed too. She had been less profoundly affected by the murder than Douglas; not that she was less sensitive or intelligent than he, but she was far less introspective than her foster-brother. And Judith had two unfailing foods for all hungers of the mind. One was her love of reading, the other, her love of riding; both absorbing, to the elimination of self investigation.
Douglas read a great deal, himself. Books and magazines furnished the only mental stimulants in the valley and it was a surprisingly well-read community. But Douglas, caring for Judith as he did, found it impossible to become fully absorbed in his old pastimes. He was restless, moody and lonely as only youth can be.
He and Judith both graduated from the log school early in June. There was the usual graduation dance at the post-office at which, as usual, Peter Knight officiated. It was a heavenly moonlit night. The air was fragrant from the acres of budding alfalfa and full of the lift and tingle that can belong to June only in the high altitudes. The ever strong, steady west wind of Lost Chief summers swirled down the valley.
The hail was dimly lighted by a single kerosene lamp. Cigarette smoke mingled with the pungent smell of whiskey, which seemed to be the chief ingredient of a concoction in a large pail, under the lamp. In the corner opposite the pail was a phonograph over which Peter presided.
Everybody danced. Even the dogs were not prohibited the floor. Only when Sister started a fight with Prince did any one protest and the dogs were driven back, temporarily, under the benches.
The schoolgirls in their white dresses were, of course, the belles of the occasion. Lost Chief, living its intensive life of isolation, probably did not realize of what superb physique were the youngsters of its third generation. Jimmy Day devoted himself to Little Marion Falkner, aged fourteen. Marion was called little to distinguish her from her mother, also Marion. The daughter at fourteen was five feet ten inches in height, the mother an inch taller. Even a badly cut muslin dress could not fully conceal the fine breadth of Little Marion's shoulders nor the splendid length and straightness of her legs.
Jocelyn Brown, Grandma's grand-daughter, dancing frequently with Charleton Falkner, was at twelve only slightly shorter than Little Marion. She had the face of an angel, the vocabulary of a cowman, and was built of steel.
Inez Rodman, very fair and slender, easily five feet nine, was scorned by the older women but was brazenly popular with their husbands and the younger set of boys and girls.
Judith danced all the time but only occasionally with Douglas, who took her to task for her neglect.
"But, Doug, you and Dad are no novelty to dance with. What's the matter with you anyhow? You never used to want to dance with me."
"I'm just trying to keep you from dancing with all these roughneck riders." Douglas' chin was in the air above his bright blue silk neck scarf.
Judith's eyes swept him appraisingly. His white silk shirt hung loose on his thin, fine shoulders. His broad rider's belt, studded with blue enameled rings, encircled a waist almost as slender as Jude's own. His white duck trousers were turned up to display new riding boots, and his spurs, a graduation gift, were of silver and chimed at his slightest movement
"You're almost as good-looking as Jimmy Day," she said with a sudden chuckle. "Run along, Doug. You aren't old enough to protect me from these bad men!" And she turned to dance with the waiting Jimmy.
It was nearing midnight when Douglas achieved his first dance with Inez. She was the best dancer in the room, and Douglas told her so.
"I'll bet you haven't told that to the other girls," she said with a flash of her white teeth.
"I have! I said it to Jude when she turned me down for Dad."
"Smart! Helps both you and me with Jude, of course!"
"Much you care about that!" retorted Douglas.
"I like to be liked, of course," said Inez.
"You do?" Douglas' voice was so honestly incredulous that Inez exclaimed resentfully:
"Am I so much worse than a lot of the kids at school?"
Douglas shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Judith's straight. I've kept her so."
Inez laughed. "Judith's straight because she's that kind of a girl. Why don't you watch your dad instead of Jude?"
Douglas' lips tightened and Inez studied his face in silence for a moment; then she went on, "Pretty fond of Jude, aren't you, Doug? Your father is a devil with women—that big, bossy, good-looking kind always is. I tell Jude so every time I see her."
"How often do you see her?" demanded Douglas quickly.
"I guess she has a right to come to my house as often as she wants to."
"No, she hasn't," brusquely.
Inez sniffed, then smiled. She had a frank and lovely smile. Douglas' face softened and they finished the waltz in silence.
Not all the music was of the cheaply popular variety. Between dances Peter slipped on occasional opera records. He was playing from Martha:
"Ah, so pure, so bright,
Burst her beauty upon my sight,
Ah, so mild, ah, so divine
She beguiled this heart of mine."
when a man called from the open door, "Good evening, folks!"
"Why, it's Scott Parsons!" cried Grandma Brown.
There was a pause, during which the tender voice of the phonograph thrilled on. Young Jeff, his red face even redder than his visits to the pail would warrant, put his hand to his hip. Judith darted before him and ran the length of the room.
"Hello, Scott! Welcome home! The next dance is yours."
"No, it's not!" shouted John Spencer. "You let Judith alone, you blank young outlaw you!"
"Get out of my way, Jude!" shouted Young Jeff. "I told Scott not to come back to Lost Chief!"
He strode down the room, his hand still, on his gun. Scott's hand had been equally quick. Peter Knight turned off the machine. "Hold on, Jeff!" he cried. "You turned Scott over to the law, and the law acquitted him. If you'd wanted to take things in your own hands, you should have done so before the trial. If you kill Scott, you're no better than he is."
"That's right!" cried Grandma Brown. "And your record ain't so clean, Young Jeff, that you can afford to start anything!"
Judith tossed her head, "I don't see why Young Jeff should be allowed to spoil a perfectly good party."
"If you can't put him out, Jude, I can!" cried Inez.
Everybody laughed. Jude seized one of Young Jeff's big hands, Inez the other. There was an uproarious scuffle which ended in the three, laughing immoderately, executing a hybrid folk dance to the one-step which Peter began to play. And Scott danced unmolested during the remainder of the night.
Charleton Falkner had drunk a good deal but was as yet little the worse for it. He and Douglas met at the pail shortly after midnight. Charleton gave the young man an amused glance.
"You look sort of bored, Doug! Come outside and talk a little."
Douglas gave a quick glance around the hall—at Judith, swooping in great circles with Scott Parsons, at Inez dancing with his father. "All right!" he said, and followed Charleton out into the moonlight. They perched on the buck fence and smoked for a time in silence.
"That's a good horse of Young Jeff's, eh?" said Charleton finally.
"Not as good as the dapple gray he gave me will be when I get time to break him," replied Douglas. "I don't know! I'm not as interested in things as I was."
"What's the matter?" asked Charleton, sympathetically.
"I guess Oscar's killing upset me," said Douglas vaguely.
"I don't suppose you ever heard of Weltschmerz," mused Charleton. "It's a kind of mental stomach-ache most young fellows get about the time they begin to fall in love."
Douglas grunted.
"Though you were pretty young to run into Oscar that way," Charleton went on thoughtfully.
"It isn't that; though I was scared stiff, of course. But it was seeing Oscar laid in the ground to rot and hearing you and Peter and Dad say that was all there was to it."
Charleton nodded. "I know! But you'll reach my state of don't give a hoop-la, when you're a little older. Wine and women and a good horse. They help."
Douglas drew a shuddering breath. "Is that all you've found out? All?"
"Of course, there's ambition," said Charleton. "I was ambitious, myself, once. You know my father was a college man and he wanted me to go back East to school. I almost went."
"Why didn't you go?" asked Douglas, immensely flattered at the mark of confidence being shown him. Charleton Falkner was notoriously reticent about himself.
"O, it's this easy life of the open! Why should I have gone into politics as my father wanted me to, when I could be happier with an easy living right here? And it would all end up there in the cemetery, anyhow. And what had ambition to offer me in comparison to the sport of running wild horses on Fire Mesa, or riding herd in the Reserve or hunting deer on Falkner's Peak. Horses, dogs, guns, women, whiskey, the open country of the Rockies. Enough for any man."
"Maybe!" muttered Douglas.
"What are you going to do now you're through school?" asked Charleton abruptly.
"Ride for Dad. He's promised me a herd of my own when I'm twenty-one."
"Listen!" said Charleton. "How'd you like to do a little business with me once in a while when John can spare you? You know, cattle, horses and such!"
Douglas grinned delightedly. "Do you really mean it? Why, you know, Charleton, as well as I do, there isn't a young rider in Lost Chief who wouldn't give anything to go out on trips with you."
"Fine! I'll be tipping you the wink one of these days. In the meantime, keep your mouth shut to every one but your father. Come in and we'll have a drink on the new partnership."
Douglas had as yet acquired no great taste for such fiery pollutions as the pail contained. But Charleton now applied himself so strenuously to the business of getting drunk that shortly he was leaning on the phonograph and reciting with powerful lungs:
"'Tis but a tent where takes his one day's rest
A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest;
The Sultan rises and the dark Ferrash
Strikes and prepares it for another Gueet."
No one heeded him particularly. He smiled amiably at Peter, leaned farther on the machine, and said, "Somebody will have to ease me to my horse," then he drowsed forward over the phonograph. Douglas and Peter, laughing, eased him to his horse, and Charleton, his arms around Democrat's neck, jogged slowly off on the home trail.
June dawn was peering over the Indian Range when the party broke up. Scott disappeared with Judith. When John discovered this, he bolted after the two.
"You'd better go see that nothing happens, Doug," said Mary Spencer. "John's drunk too much."
"I'm going home," declared Douglas. "I got some pride, and Judith's treated me like a dog to-night. She's too fond of starting something she don't know the finish of."
Mary and he were riding alone in the dawn. "You promised me you'd look out for her. Don't you care for her any more, Douglas?"
"Yes, I do!"
"Have you ever told her so?"
"She's too young."
"No, she isn't, Douglas. You remember you told me she knew more than I do."
Douglas said nothing; and after a moment, his stepmother said, hesitatingly, "Doug, I hate to see you dancing so much with Inez."
"What harm was there in it?"
"I don't know that I can tell you, Doug. When I was a girl, going to the log schoolhouse, we girls never thought of touching whiskey. Our mothers would have killed us if we had."
"The world do move!" grunted Douglas.
"I don't believe it's the world. Not from the books I read. I think it's just Lost Chief. The old folks in my day had real influence in the valley. There were many like Grandma Brown. But now! Why, your father will never be the good influence his father was, and I'd never be like Grandma. I don't know why."
"You can't even train your own daughter," said Douglas with entire frankness.
"Can the other mothers?" asked Mary resentfully. "What can I do when the other mothers are so easy?"
"It ain't exactly easy." Douglas spoke thoughtfully. "The Lord knows, all the kids in Lost Chief work hard enough and get walloped enough."
Mary sighed deeply. Douglas watched her face, so like Judith's but bearing tragic lines it would have broken his heart to see around Judith's young lips. With unwonted gentleness he leaned over to put his hand on Mary's while he smiled at her half sadly.
"Poor Mother! We are an ornery lot! But you are as good as gold, and Jude and I both know it!"
Quick tears stung Mary's gray eyes. She lifted his hand to her cheek for a moment, then, as he drew it away, she tried to return his smile. But nothing more was said until they reached home.
Just as they entered the living-room, Judith rushed in.
"I hate Dad! I hate him! Scott and I were jogging home by way of the west trail as peaceful as anything when Dad has to come along and start a row going!"
"Anybody hurt?" asked Douglas, watching Judith as she sat down on the edge of her bed, big tears on her cheeks.
"No, but no thanks to Dad! Scott turned round and left because I asked him to. There's Dad now!"
John clanked in, but before he could speak Judith rose and shook her forefinger in his face.
"Now, Dad," she said steadily, "there's going to be no rowing and no cursing. I'm sick of it! Right here and now I warn you to stop interfering with me or I'll leave!"
John raised his ready fist.
"None of that!" Doug's voice was quiet. "Finish what you have to say, Jude."
John scowled, breathing heavily, his eyes never leaving Judith.
"I'm sick of it," she repeated. "There must be places in the world where there's something beside family rows."
"Are you through?" demanded John.
"Yes, I am."
"Then I've got one thing to say. You let Scott Parsons alone." John flung himself on the bed, and before Mary had taken off his spurred riding boots he was asleep.
Douglas went out to the corral where, soon after, Judith appeared with her milking pail. The tender pink mists rolled slowly away from the yellow wall of Lost Chief range. Judith, with heavy eyes and burning cheeks, looked from the mists to Douglas, who leaned on the fence and watched her.
"Jude," he said, "you are on the wrong foot. You ought to let whiskey and Inez Rodman alone."
"Why don't you let 'em alone?" demanded Judith.
"It's different with a man!"
"O, don't give me that old stuff!" cried the girl. "We women do men's work in this valley. We'll have the men's kind of fun if we want it!"
"That's not the point," returned Douglas. "Women have to pay a price the men don't and that's all there is to it."
"It's not fair! It's not fair! I hate the world! I hate it! Looks like you'd either got to be like Mother or Inez Rodman."
"Your mother's all right. Only Dad's broke her just like he broke old Molly horse."
"Did I ever say my mother wasn't all right? Only I'll tell you one thing, Doug Spencer, Inez Rodman's given me more sensible warnings about men than my mother ever did."
Douglas wore a worried expression. "Seems like there's something wrong about that. Mother knows all about those things." He cleared his throat.
The half angry look on Judith's face gave way to a smile.
"O Doug! Doug! You old owl! What's the matter with you? After all, it's good to be alive! I wish I had a horse as good as Buster and I wouldn't ask for much more in life."
"I'll give you Buster," said Douglas suddenly.
Judith's jaw dropped. "Give me Buster!"
"I mean it."
"But—but—why, Douglas, what's happened to you?"
"Judith!" Douglas tossed back his yellow hair and put a brown hand over Judith's. "Judith! I love you. Won't you be engaged to me?"
"Love me?" Judith's beautiful gray eyes opened their widest. "Why, it doesn't seem more than yesterday that you were calling me a pug-nosed maverick. And besides, I'm only fifteen and you're only seventeen."
"Is it Scott?" asked Douglas.
"It isn't anybody! Why, Douglas, you must be crazy!"
"Do I look crazy?"
Judith stared deep into Douglas' blue eyes. "No," slowly, "you don't."
"You can have Buster and Prince too," said Douglas.
"No, sir, Doug! Why, they're all you've got in the world!"
"I have that dapple gray Young Jeff gave me after the trial. He's old enough to break now."
There were tears in Judith's eyes. "Douglas Spencer, you are a gentleman! If I do have a horse like Buster, I can be lots more help handling the cattle."
"He's yours from this minute," repeated Douglas. "And so am I yours. But I'm not going to nag you about it. I'm just going to try to look out for you."
There was something so sober, so gentle, and so determined about Douglas that for once in her life Judith was at a loss for a reply. She started slowly for the cow shed. Then she turned back.
"But I'm not going to take Prince, Douglas. That's too much!"
"Well," said Douglas. "Maybe I will keep Prince for a while. It'll be kind of lonesome."
"Lonesome!" Judith repeated the phrase as though it struck a familiar chord. "Life is lonesome, isn't it Doug! Seems as though I never dare to be myself any more, since Oscar's death. That was the first time I ever realized how lonely you can be."
Douglas nodded, his eyes full of an understanding that was pitiful. Youth should not be allowed to contemplate this sort of loneliness. It is soul searing.
"But remember, Judith," he said, "that you've always got me."
She gave him an enigmatic look and returned to her work.