JUDITH OF THE GODLESS VALLEY
BY HONORÉ WILLSIE
Author of "The Enchanted Canyon," "The Forbidden Trail,"
"Still Jim," "The Heart of the Desert," etc.
1922
CONTENTS
I LOST CHIEF SCHOOLHOUSE
II OSCAR JEFFERSON
III THE GRADUATION DANCE
IV THE HOUSE IN THE YELLOW CANYON
V THE HUNT ON LOST CHIEF
VI LITTLE SWIFT CROSSES THE DIVIDE
VII THE POST-OFFICE CONFERENCE
VIII JUDITH AT THE RODEO
IX THE TRIP TO MOUNTAIN CITY
X WILD HORSES
XI THE LOG CHAPEL
XII THE FIRST SERMON
XIII PRINCE GOES MARCHING ON
XIV THE BATTLE OF THE BULLS
XV THE FLAME IN THE VALLEY
XVI THE TRAIL OVER THE PASS
XVII BLACK DEVIL PASS
XVIII ELIJAH NELSON'S RANCH
XIX HOME
JUDITH OF THE GODLESS VALLEY
CHAPTER I
LOST CHIEF SCHOOLHOUSE
"To believe in a living God; to preach His Holy Writ without fear or
favor; to sacrifice self that others may find eternal life; this is true
happiness."
--_The Rev. James Fowler_.
It was Sunday in Lost Chief; Sunday and mid-winter. For the first time
in nearly ten years there was to be a sermon preached in the valley and
every one who could move was making his way to the schoolhouse.
Douglas Spencer drove his spurs into Buster and finished the last hundred
yards at a gallop. Judith, his foster sister, stood up in her stirrups,
lashed Swift vigorously over the flanks with the knotted reins and when
Buster slid on his haunches to the very doorstep, Swift brought her
gnarled fore legs down on his sweeping tail and slid with him. She
brought up when he did with her nose under his saddle blanket. The boy
and girl avoided a mix-up by leaping from their saddles and jerking their
mounts apart.
"Now look at here, Jude!" shouted Douglas, "you keep that ornery cow-pony
of yours off of me or I'll make you sorry for it!"
Judith put her thumb to her small red nose, and without touching the
stirrups leaped back into the saddle. Then she looked calmly about her.
"First ones here!" she said complacently. "Even the preacher hasn't
come."
"I suppose,"--Doug's voice was bitter--"that if I rode over toward Day's
to meet Jimmy you'd have to tag!"
"I sure-gawd would. Swift would like the extra exercise."
Douglas swept Judith's thin bay mare with a withering glance. "That
thing! Looks like the coyotes had been at it!"
Judith wore but one spur and this had a broken rowell, but she kicked
Swift with it and Swift whirled against the nervous Buster and bit him on
the cheek. Buster reared. "Take that back, you dogy cowboy you!" shrieked
Judith.
Douglas brought Buster round and raised his hand to strike the girl. She
eyed him fearlessly. The boy slowly lowered the threatening hand and
returned her gaze, belligerently.
Prince, a gray, short-haired dog, of intricate ancestry, squatted on his
haunches in the snow with his tongue between his teeth and his eyes on
the two horses. Swift sagged with a sigh onto three legs. Perhaps the
little mare deserved some of the aspersions Douglas and his father daily
cast upon her. She was a half-broken, half-fed little mare which Douglas'
father had cast off. She did not look strong enough to bear even Judith's
slim weight. But as the only horse Judith was permitted to call her own,
the little bay was the very apple of the young girl's eyes, and she
wheedled wonderful performances from Swift in endurance and cat-like
quickness.
Buster was a black which the older Spencer had bred as a cow-pony but had
given up because he could not be broken of bucking. Doug had begged his
father for the horse, and Buster, nervous, irritable and speedy, was a
joy to the boy's sixteen-year-old heart.
Douglas sat tall in the saddle. He measured, in fact, a full five feet
ten inches without his high-heeled riding-boots. He was so thin that
his leather rider's coat bellowed in the wind, and the modeling of his
cheekbones showed markedly under his tanned skin. His sombrero, pushed
back from his forehead, disclosed a thick thatch of bright yellow hair
above wide blue eyes that were set deep and far apart. His nose was
high bridged, and his mouth, though still immature, gave promise of
full-lipped strength in its curves.
Judith was fourteen and only a couple of inches shorter than Douglas. She
was even thinner than he, but, like him, glowing with intense vitality.
She had hung her cap on the pommel of her saddle and her curly black
hair whipped across her face. She had a short nose, a large mouth,
magnificent gray eyes and cheeks of flawless carmine. She wore a faded
plaid mackinaw, and arctics half-way up her long, thin legs.
"I hate you, Doug Spencer," she said finally and fiercely, "and I'm glad
you're not my real brother!"
"I don't see why my father ever married a woman with an ornery brat like
you!" retorted Douglas.
"I wouldn't stay to associate with you another minute if you offered me a
new pair of spurs! I'm going to meet Maud!" And Judith disappeared down
the trail.
Douglas eased back in his saddle and lighted a cigarette, while he
watched the distant figures approaching across the valley. The glory
of the landscape made little impression on him. He had been born in Lost
Chief and he saw only snow and his schoolmates racing over the converging
trails.
The Rockies in mid-winter! High northern cattle country with purple sage
deep blanketed in snow, with rarefied air below the zero mark, with sky
the purest, most crystalline deep sapphire, and Lost Chief Valley, high
perched in the ranges, silently awaiting the return of spring.
Fire Mesa, huge, profoundly striated, with red clouds forever forming on
its top and rolling over remoter mesas, stood with its greatest length
across the north end of the valley. At its feet lay Black Gorge, and
half-way up its steep red front projected the wide ledge on which the
schoolhouse stood. Dead Line Peak and Falkner's Peak abruptly closed the
south end of the valley. From between these two great mountains, Lost
Chief Creek swept down across the valley into the Black Gorge. Lost Chief
Range formed the west boundary of the valley, Indian Range, the east.
They were perhaps ten miles apart.
All this gives little of the picture Douglas might have been absorbing.
It tells nothing of the azure hue of the snow that buried Lost Chief
Creek and Lost Chief ranches. It gives no hint of the awful splendor of
Dead Line and Falkner's Peaks, all blue and bronze and crimson, backed by
myriads of other peaks, pure white, against the perfect sky.
It does not picture the brilliant yellow canyon wall which thrust Lost
Chief Range back from the valley, nor the peacock blue sides of the
Indian Range, clothed in wonder by the Forest Reserve. And finally, it
does not tell of the infinite silence that lay this prismatic Sunday
afternoon over the snow-cloaked world.
Douglas did not see the beauty of the valley, but as, far below, he saw
Judith trot up to the Day's corral, he was smitten suddenly by his sense
of loneliness. Too bad of Jude, he thought, always to be flying off at a
tangent like that! A guy couldn't offer the least criticism of her fool
horse, that she didn't lose her temper. Funny thing to see a girl with a
hot temper. Ordinary enough in a man, but girls were usually just mean
and spitty, like cats. A guy had to admit that there was nothing mean
about Judith. She was fearless and straight like a first-class fellow.
But temper! Whew! Funny things, tempers! He himself always found it hard
to let go of his rage. It smouldered deep and biting inside of him and
hard to get out into words. He usually had to tell himself to hit back.
Funny about that, when his father was always boiling over like Judith.
He wondered if her temper would grow worse as she grew older, as his
father's had. Funny things, tempers! People in a temper always looked and
acted fools. The guy that could keep hold was the guy that won out. Like
being able to control a horse with a good curb-bit. Funny why he felt
lonely. It was only lately that he had noticed it. Here was Buster and
here was Prince, and here was the approaching joke of the preacher. Why
then this sense of loneliness? Maybe loneliness wasn't the right word.
Maybe it was longing. And for what? Not for Jude! Lord, no! Not for that
young wildcat. But the feeling of emptiness was there, as real as hunger,
and at this moment as persistent. Funny thing, longing. What in the world
had a guy like him to long for?
A long coo-ee below the ledge interrupted his meditation. A young rider
leaped from the trail to the level before the schoolhouse, broke into a
gallop and slid, with sparks flying, to the door.
"Hello, Scott!" said Douglas, without enthusiasm.
"I thought Jude was here!" returned Scott. He was older and heavier than
Douglas, freckled of face and sandy of hair, with something hard in his
hazel eyes.
"He'd better leave Jude alone," thought Douglas, "the mangy pinto!"
There was a shriek and a gray horse, carrying a youth with the schoolmarm
clinging behind him, flew across the yard and reared to avoid breaking
his knees on the steps. The schoolmarm scrambled down, still screaming
protests at the grinning rider. One after another now arrived, perhaps a
dozen youngsters, varying in age from five to eighteen, each on his or
her own lean, half-broken horse, each appearing with the same flying leap
from the steep trail to the level, each racing across the yard as if with
intent to burst through the schoolhouse door, each bringing up with the
same pull back of foaming horse to its haunches. And with each horse came
a dog of highly varied breed.
The youngsters had been racing about the ledge for some time before
the grown people began to appear. The women, most of them very handsome,
were dressed dowdily in mackinaws and anomalous foot covering. But the
men were resplendent in chaps and short leather coats, with gay silk
neckerchiefs, with silver spurs and embossed saddles.
When Judith returned with Maud Day there were thirty or forty people and
almost as many dogs milling about the yard. The log school had weathered
against the red wall of the mesa for fifty years. There probably was not
a person in the crowd who had not gone to school there, who did not, like
Judith, love every log in its ugly sides. Judith caught Douglas' sardonic
gaze, tossed her curly head and urged Swift up the steps, where she
looked toward the road to the Pass, shading her fine eyes with a mittened
hand.
Finally she cried, "I see the preacher coming!"
"Somebody ought to go in and build the fire if we ain't going to freeze
to death!" exclaimed Grandma Brown, jogging up on a flea-bitten black
mule.
"He invited himself. Let him build his own fire!" cried Douglas.
Grandma pulled her spectacles down from her forehead to the bridge of her
capable nose, and stared at Douglas.
"Well! Well! Doesn't take 'em long away from the nursing bottle to get
smarty. Where's your father, Douglas?"
"Home with the toothache," replied Doug, flushed and irritated.
"Did he bring you up to let a stranger come to the house and build his
own fire?"
"No, but it's the schoolmarm's job to build this one," replied Douglas.
"Jimmy Day, you and Doug go in and get that old stove going!" ordered
Grandma.
Both boys dismounted slowly, tied their horses, and amidst a general
chuckle, disappeared into the schoolhouse.
Charleton Falkner, a black-browed rider of middle age, with a heavy black
mustache, turned his horse toward Grandma.
"That's right, Charleton," the old lady went on, "you come over here and
help me off of Abe. I ain't going to stay out here freezing till old
Fowler comes. Riding ain't the novelty to me it seems to be to the rest
of you."
This was the signal for all the grown people to tie up their horses and
enter the building. Shortly Douglas and Jimmy came out, and scarcely had
remounted when the minister rode slowly up over the ledge. He dismounted
at the door and greeted the youngsters. They replied with cat-calls.
Fowler stared at the group of robust young riders, his gray-bearded face
somber, then he shook his head and opened the door.
Douglas jumped from his horse and, giving the reins to Jimmy Day, he
followed the minister. The people within were seated quietly, and Doug
slid into a rear bench. His eyes were very bright and he watched the
preacher with eager interest. Mr. Fowler dropped his overcoat on a chair
and strode up to the platform, where he smiled half wistfully, half
benignly at his congregation. Then he raised his right hand.
"Let us pray!" he said. "O God, help me to speak truth to these people
who ten years ago laughed me from this room. Help me to open their eyes
that they may behold You! Show them that they lead a life of wickedness
from the babes in arms to the very aged, from--"
"Tain't any such thing!" interrupted Grandma Brown. "There you go again,
after all these years!"
"If you've come here to preach old-fashioned fire and brimstone, Fowler,"
said Charleton Falkner, "you might as well quit now. None of us believe a
word of it. We most of us think everything ends when they plant us in the
cemetery yonder, that is, if they put on enough rocks so the coyotes get
discouraged."
Douglas shivered. "I wonder if that's what I'll believe when I get to
thinking about such things," he thought. "Hanged if I'll think of 'em
till I'm old!"
"I'm with you, Charleton!" called Oscar Jefferson, rumpling his silvery
hair with his soft white cowman's hand.
The Reverend Mr. Fowler leaned over the desk. "Charleton Falkner, aren't
you man enough to admit that you folks here in Lost Chief lead a wicked
life?"
"How do you mean, wicked?" demanded Charleton.
"I mean that you steal cattle, that you shoot to kill, that there is
indecency among your children, that your young girls go unguarded and
that your young men are no better than wild horses. I mean that your
little girls drink whiskey. And I defy you to show me two mothers in
the valley who have taught their children to pray and to walk with God."
"Aw!" sniffed Oscar Jefferson, "if that's what you've come a hundred
miles to tell us, you'd better quit! That may do for foreigners and city
slums, but it won't go down with the Lost Chief cowman. We're Americans,
here."
"Americans!" cried Mr. Fowler. "How much does that mean?"
Jefferson rose to his full six feet. "By God, I'll tell you what it
means! It means our ancestors conquered the Indians, in New England, that
we fought the British in the Revolution and the rebels in the Civil War
and the hombres in the Spanish-American War. It means that fifty years
ago the father or the grandfather of every man in this room came out here
and fought the Indians and the wolves and the Mormons--"
Charleton Falkner interrupted with his twisted smile that showed even,
tobacco stained teeth. "Jeff, this ain't the Fourth of July celebration,
you know!"
Jefferson somewhat sheepishly subsided to the desk on which he had been
sitting.
"That's exactly why I came back!" cried the preacher. "I know that you
and Lost Chief belong to the heroic early history of America. This should
be a valley of old Puritan ideals. A church should stand here beside the
school. You never have built a church. You never have allowed a minister
to settle here. You never--"
Here Grandma Brown's brother-in-law, Johnny Brown, spoke. "I've deponed
that many a time to this crowd of mavericks! You'd ought to--"
"Keep quiet, Johnny!" ordered Grandma. "Fowler, if you are going to give
us a regular Bible sermon, go ahead. Otherwise, I'm going home. I can
jaw, myself."
"Also, cuss some, Grandma," suggested a slow voice. Grandma did not heed.
"If you're going to preach, preach," she said to the minister.
Mr. Fowler threw his head back. "Ten years ago I let you drive me out of
Lost Chief before I'd preached a sermon. God has never let me rest since,
no matter where I was, and when I was re-appointed to Mountain City,
before I preached my first sermon there, I came out here. You are going
to have the Word of God preached to you to-day if you shoot me for it.
And beware lest you come to Esau's fate for ye know how afterward, when
he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no
place for repentance, though he sought it carefully, with tears."
He paused, took a Bible from his pocket and opened it.
Douglas waited tensely. The preacher looked to him as if weighted with
mysterious knowledge, as if something infinitely illuminating were to
issue from his bearded lips. The boy had a sudden conviction that Fowler
was about to say something that would answer the longing that had so
oppressed him lately. He hunched his broad, thin shoulders forward, his
clear blue eyes on the preacher's face.
Fowler cleared his throat. "'Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me,
saying, Now thou son of man, wilt thou judge, wilt thou hide the guilty
city? Yea, thou shalt show her all her abominations.'"
He closed the Bible. "Friends, this is my message and my text. I am going
to show you your abominations of crookednesses. I am going to show you
that hell is yawning for such as you."
Douglas sighed. "Old fool!" he muttered. "As Grandma Brown says, she can
jaw. He's lost his chance with me." He slipped out of the door, mounted
his horse and nodded to the group of youngsters waiting for him. Then he
urged Buster up the steps, through the door and up the aisle. The others
followed him. A moment later, the schoolroom was chaos. Horses pranced
over the desks. Dogs barked and fought among the horses' legs. Babies
screamed. Oaths filled the air. Lost Chief rocked with laughter.
Fowler jumped upon the teacher's desk, appealing in dumb show for order.
A plunging horse tipped the desk over and the minister went down among
the prancing legs. In a moment he was up, and again he raised both hands
in a plea for silence. Douglas, laughing gaily, twirled his lariat, and
pinioned the two pleading hands, then, amidst shouts of laughter, he
backed Buster from the room, drawing the minister none too gently with
him.
Outside, whither the crowd quickly followed, Douglas halted and, still
laughing, allowed the preacher to free his hands.
"Now go on back to Mountain City, Mr. Preacher," he cried, "and don't
come back till you've learned not to scold like an old woman."
Fowler pulled on his overcoat which somebody tossed him, and mounted his
horse. Then he stood in his stirrups and pointed a trembling finger at
Douglas.
"Ye shall find no place for repentance, though ye seek for it with
tears."
"Why should I repent?" demanded Douglas.
"Aw, run him! Run the bastard!" shouted Scott Parsons.
But Doug rode between the preacher and the threatening young rider. "Let
him go, Scott. He's had enough!"
Fowler disappeared down the trail. Scott turned scowling toward Douglas,
but before he could do more Judith cried, "Come on, everybody! Let's go
down to the post-office and get Peter to open the hall for a dance!"
"I will if somebody brings whiskey," agreed Scott, turning his horse
toward Swift.
"I'll go over to Inez Rodman's and get some if Maud will go with me,"
volunteered Judith.
"Let's all go to Rodman's," cried Maud.
The older people were riding slowly down the trail to the valley. The
youngsters waited until the way was clear before leaving the school-yard,
agreeing in the meantime that Judith and Maud should go after the whiskey
while the others went to interview Peter; and the two girls departed
forthwith.
"Some one besides me will have to work on Peter," said Scott. "He's sore
at me. I tried to kick Sister."
"What did you do that for?" asked Jimmy Day. "Are you sick of living?"
"She bit Ginger on the shoulder. I hate that dog."
"Jude can handle Peter," said Douglas. "Come on, let's get going."
The little cavalcade moved noisily down the trail, crossed the deep snows
of Black Gorge and broke into a wild race when the road opened a mile
below the post-office. The horses lunged and kicked through the drifts,
the dogs barked, the girls squealed, the boys shouted. The post-office
lay in the middle of the valley with neither tree nor house in its
vicinity. It was a square log structure, two stories high, originally an
inner fort built as a final retreat from the Indians. The upper room was
now used as a dance-hall. The lower floor contained the post-office, a
general store, and Peter Knight's living quarters.
Peter Knight was the only outsider in Lost Chief. He had lived there a
scant twenty years. No one knew whence he came, nor why. He was a man
of education and an ardent lover of animals, a somewhat sardonic, very
lonely man, yet somehow having more influence in the valley than any
one save Grandma Brown. He showed no actual fondness for any particular
person save Judith and his big mongrel wolf-hound, Sister, Sister being
every inch a person! Douglas had sometimes thought that Peter showed
a real interest in him, but this interest was shown almost entirely by
scathing vituperations, so the boy made no attempt to form the interest
into friendship.
The crowd of riders drew up at the post-office, sparks and snow flying,
just as Maud and Judith lashed their horses in from the west trail.
Judith waved a bottle of whiskey.
"Some providers!" cried Scott, putting out his hand for the flask.
He took a pull, then passed it on. Boys and girls alike took a drink,
then Scott pocketed the bottle. During this procedure, the door of the
post-office opened and Peter Knight appeared.
He was about forty-five years old, very tall, very, very thin, and
as straight as he was thin. Thick, closely clipped gray hair stood up
straight from his forehead. His eyes were deep sunk in his head and a
piercing, light blue. He possessed a belligerent chin below an obstinate
lower lip and a close-cropped gray mustache. He wore a gray flannel shirt
and blue denim pants turned high over riding-boots.
He watched the passing of the whiskey bottle without comment.
"Hello, Peter!" called Judith. "Will you open the hall and let us have a
dance?"
"What have you been doing to your horse, Jude?" demanded Peter, eying the
panting and dejected Swift.
"Nothing!"
"Nothing! I tell you what, the way you little devils treat your horses
would draw tears out of a coyote. Starving 'em, beating 'em, running 'em!
You ought to be thrashed, every one of you worthless young slicks."
Curiously enough, none of the group which had shown so much temerity in
man-handling the preacher now attempted to reply to Peter. A great shaggy
gray dog, exactly like a coyote except that she was much larger, now
appeared in the door beside the postmaster. A chorus of growls and whines
immediately arose from the dogs congregated among the horses.
"What happened at the schoolhouse?" asked Peter abruptly.
"You're always preaching, yourself; I suppose that's why you didn't
attend," grinned Scott Parsons.
"My Yankee horse is sick," said Peter, "and I couldn't leave him. How did
it go?"
"We ran him out," laughed Douglas. "We gave him a chance to give us real
talk but he couldn't come across, so we roped him and ran him."
"I thought that would happen. Poor Fowler!" Peter's voice was grave.
"Listen, Peter," cried Judith, "I want to ask you a favor."
She mounted the steps and stood before the man. She was as thin as he and
as straight. Peter looked down at her, still scowling.
"Now, Peter, listen! You know I love Swift and wouldn't hurt her for
anything."
"Wouldn't hurt her! Haven't I told you a hundred times that running a
horse through drifts like you do ruins 'em? No, don't try to soft-soap
me, Judith! When you kids want a favor from me, don't come up with your
horses dripping sweat in below zero weather."
He jerked Sister back into the building and slammed the door.
Judith turned. "Well, we can all go over to Inez' place. She asked us."
"Who's there?" demanded Doug.
"Nobody. She says we can dance if we want to."
There was a silence, broken after a moment by Jimmy Day. "You can't go,
Maud."
"I am going if you do!" exclaimed Maud. "Make him let me go, Doug."
"What's the use of being so fussy about poor old Inez?" asked Scott.
"What harm is there in a dance at her place?"
"I don't see why, if my mother don't stop me, yours should stop you,"
protested Judith.
"O, your mother couldn't boss a day-old calf!" said Jimmy impatiently.
"Don't you knock my mother!" shrilled Judith.
"Your mother--" began Maud.
"Dry up, Maud, or I'll smack your mouth!" ordered Douglas.
"No you won't!" cried Jimmy.
"I will, anybody that says anything against Jude's mother," returned
Douglas promptly.
"Aw, if you folks are going to start fighting, as usual I'm going home,"
growled Scott Parsons. "Every time the crowd gets together, Jude has to
start a scrap. It's getting god-awful cold, anyhow, and I've got chores
to do." He spurred Ginger and was off.
"Same here!" chimed half a dozen voices, and more horses were spurred
away.
Douglas glared at Judith. "Always making trouble! I should think you'd
get sick of it."
"Let 'em not knock my mother, or my horse, or my dog, then," replied
Judith, tossing her head.
"Your dog! Prince is my dog, miss, and don't you forget it for a minute,"
cried Douglas.
He spurred Buster onto the main trail which lifted gradually toward Dead
Line Peak. Judith, after a pouting moment, followed him.
Except for this steady lift from seven thousand feet at Black Gorge to
eight thousand feet at the base of Dead Line and Falkner's Peaks, the
valley was as level as a floor. The sun was setting as the two left the
post-office. Lost Chief Range, on their right, was black against fire.
The snow of the valley was as blue as indigo. A gentle but bitterly
cold wind rose from the east. Prince, yelping, set off after a skulking
coyote. When he had disappeared beyond a distant herd grazing through the
snow, Judith pushed her horse up beside Buster.
"Doug, am I any scrappier than the rest of them?"
Douglas, his cigarette hanging negligently from a corner of his mouth,
nodded.
"Well, I have to be, Doug," insisted Judith.
"No, you don't. You just look for trouble, all the time. Why do you have
to be?"
"Who is there to look out for me?" demanded the girl, chin in the air.
"Pshaw! You don't need a guard, do you? Besides, what's the matter with
me?"
"Huh! You don't really care what happens to me. I'm not your real sister
and you never forget it. I'm lonely."
Douglas gave her a curious glance. Was she, he wondered, experiencing
that feeling of loneliness and longing which had been haunting him for
months? He wanted to ask her about it but he could not. She laughed at
him too easily.
They rode on in silence for a while, Judith's thin young body sagging
dejectedly in the saddle. The lavendar twilight was gathering. White
stars hung within hand touch. Prince returned to the trail and a coyote
barked derisively from beyond an alfalfa stack.
"Douglas," exclaimed Judith suddenly, "if I thought when I got married,
my husband would treat me like Dad does Mother, I'd never get married.
Getting married in real life isn't a bit like the books show it."
Douglas grunted. "I wouldn't worry about getting married for a few years
yet."
"I'm fourteen," returned Judith. "I've got a right to think about it.
Don't you ever?"
"No."
"You think about girls, though," insisted Judith.
"That isn't thinking about marrying, is it?"
"What do you think about mostly, Doug?"
Douglas sighed. "It's hard to say. I've been awful sad lately. I don't
know why. I think about that and I plan a lot about what I'm going to do
when I finish school."
"Would you like to marry Maud Day?"
"Who's talking about marrying!" shouted Doug with sudden and overwhelming
exasperation. "What makes you such a fool, Jude?"
"How can I help talking about it when it's my mother your father's so
rough with. Of course, you don't care."
"I do, too, care. I think a lot of her, but he don't mean half he says."
"Well, he'd better begin to stop knocking me around when he's mad, or
I'll run away."
"Especially in the winter, I suppose," sniffed Douglas, "when it would be
plain suicide."
"I don't care if it's in a blizzard," insisted Judith. "When I've had
enough, I'll go."
Douglas laughed. "Hanged if I don't think you would, too, Jude. You've
got the nerve of a wolverine."
"I hope Dad's tooth is better," said Judith, as dim buildings and a
lighted window shone though the dusk.
"Are you really afraid of Dad?" asked Douglas suddenly.
"No," replied Judith, thoughtfully, "but sometimes I hate him."
"I think he's a pretty good old scout in spite of his temper," said the
boy.
"Well," admitted Judith, "I guess I do too. At least, I can see why so
many women like him. He's awful good-looking. I can see that now I'm
growing up."
"Growing up!" mocked Douglas.
But before Judith could pick up the gauntlet, the horses came to pause
before the lighted window. Judith jumped from Swift, unsaddled her and
turned her into the corral. Then she went hurriedly into the house.
Douglas unsaddled more slowly, and strode toward the sheds where calves
were bellowing and cows lowing.
For half an hour he worked in the starlight, throwing alfalfa to the
crowding stock. It was so cold that by the time he had finished he
scarcely could turn the door-knob with his aching fingers. He entered the
kitchen.
It was a large room, with the log walls neatly chinked and whitewashed.
An unshaded kerosene lamp burned on the big table in the middle of the
room. Judith was cutting bread. The air was heavy with smoke from frying
beef. A tall, slender woman, with round shoulders, stood over the red-hot
stove, stirring the potatoes. She was a very beautiful, very worn edition
of Judith, though one wondered if she ever burned with even a small
portion of Judith's eager, wistful fires. She turned as Douglas came in
and gave him a quick smile.
"Cold, Douglas?" she asked.
The boy nodded. "Where's Dad?"
"In the other room. His tooth still aches, I guess."
"Is he sore because I'm late?" asked the boy, scowling.
Judith answered with a curious jerking of her breath. "He tried to kick
me. I hate him!"
Douglas grunted and marched through the inner door into the one other
room of the house. It was at least twenty-five feet square. The log walls
were whitewashed like the kitchen and from one of the huge pine rafters
hung a lamp which shed a pleasant light on a center table. Beds occupied
three corners of the room. There were several comfortable rocking-chairs,
a big mahogany bureau and a sewing-machine. Over the double bed hung an
ancient saber and over a low bookcase was a framed sampler. There were
several good old-fashioned engravings and some framed lithographs with
numerous books and piles of dilapidated magazines. Doug's father stood
by the table with a book in his hand.
John Spencer at forty-six was still a superb physical specimen, standing
six feet two in his felt slippers. His face, so like, yet so unlike his
son's, showed heavy lines from the nostril to the corner of the mouth.
Beneath his eyes were faint pouches. The thick thatch of yellow hair had
lost its yellow light and now was drab in tone. His flannel shirt,
unbuttoned at the throat, showed a strong neck, and the rider's belt that
circled the top of his blue denim pants outlined a waist as slim and hard
as Doug's.
He looked up. "What do you mean by coming in at this hour, you young
hound?"
"I think I might have Sunday afternoon to myself," said Douglas sulkily.
"So do I. But that don't mean you are to have all Sunday night, too. Did
you feed the calves?"
"Yes."
"Next Sunday you be here by five o'clock, understand?"
"Yes."
"Supper's ready!" called Judith.
The table was covered by a red-checked cloth. A huge platter of fried
beef, another of fried potatoes, another of baking-powder biscuits, and a
pot of coffee steamed on the table. John did not speak until his first
hunger had been satisfied. When he received his second cup of coffee,
however, he said, "Well, my tooth's better. What happened this afternoon,
children?"
Judith did not reply, but Douglas, with a chuckle, told the story of Mr.
Fowler's discomfiture. John and Mary shouted with laughter.
"By old Sitting Bull, it serves him right!" John wiped his eyes. "What
became of him?"
"O, he beat it for the Pass!" replied Douglas.
"What did you do after that?" inquired Mrs. Spencer.
"We went up to the post-office to get Peter to let us have a dance, but
there was nothing doing. He just gave us all a jaw because our horses
were sweating."
"I'll bet Swift was the worst off," chuckled John.
"That's right! Pick on me!" cried Judith.
"Judith! Be careful!" protested her mother.
"Let her alone, Mary." John's blue eyes twinkled as he watched the young
girl. "She's kept out of a row about as long as she can without choking."
"Some day, when you least expect it," said Judith with a little quiver in
her voice, "I'm going to run away."
The others laughed.
"Where to, Jude?" asked her stepfather.
"To some place where folks like me."
"I like you, Jude!" protested John.
Judith turned to him quickly. "Why do you thrash me and kick me, then?"
"Kids have to be trained, and you are as hard bitted as Buster," answered
John.
"No such thing!" Judith suddenly rose from the table. "It's just bad
temper."
"Judith! Judith! Don't!" pleaded her mother.
"Let her alone!" John's voice was not angry. He was eying Judith with
inscrutable gaze.
"The next time you even try to kick me, I'm going to run away."
She paused and suddenly Douglas thought, "Jude knows what real loneliness
is. She's a very lonely person." He leaned forward and watched her with
unwonted sympathy. She swallowed once or twice, and then went on:
"A woman, a dog, and a horse, you don't kick any of them. Peter Knight
says so. Maud Day's father never kicks her. He hits her with a belt,
maybe, when she doesn't get his horse quickly enough, and maybe he hits
her mother when he's drinking, but that's all." Judith began to gather
up the dishes with trembling fingers.
"How old are you, Judith?" asked John.
"You know. I was fourteen last spring."
"By jove, you are almost a woman grown!" John swept her with a look, then
rose and went into the living room.
Douglas followed him and, sitting down on the edge of his bed, he
unbuckled his spurs. John settled himself under the lamp with his book,
but he did not begin to read at once.
"Yes, Doug; that girl is a woman now and she has any woman in Lost Chief
beaten for beauty and nerve."
Douglas gave his father a startled glance; then he said, with elaborate
carelessness, "Rats! She's just a fighting kid!"
John chuckled. "I'm glad you're still only a sixteen-year-old fool,
Doug."
The boy said nothing more. He scowled and sat staring at his father long
after that strenuous person was absorbed in his book. Then he kicked off
his boots, pulled off his vest and trousers and crawled into bed. Not
long after, Mrs. Spencer came in, glanced at her husband, sighed wearily,
then she too went to bed. Judith finished wiping the dishes, sauntered in
to the center table and shortly was absorbed in "Bleak House." Mrs.
Spencer was snoring quietly and Douglas had not stirred for an hour when
he heard his father say in a low voice:
"Jude, old girl, I'm never going to lay finger on you again."
Jude gave a little gasp of surprise. "What's happened, Dad?"
"You've happened! By jove, you've grown to be a beautiful woman!"
"Huh! Doug says I'm a homely, pug-nosed outlaw."
"Doug's a fool kid. It takes a man like me that knows women to appreciate
you, Jude."
"Doug'll hear you," warned the girl.
"He's been dead for an hour. Give me a kiss, Judith."
"I don't think I will, I'm too sleepy and tired. Guess I'll go to bed!"
She rose, dropping "Bleak House" as she did so.
Mrs. Spencer woke with a start. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing! I just dropped a book." Judith retired to her own corner and
shortly she too was asleep.
But Douglas, new thoughts surging through his brain, lay awake long after
his father had turned out the light and crawled in beside Mary. Of a
sudden, he had seen Judith through his father's eyes and he found himself
very unwilling to permit John to see her so. Her loneliness had assumed
an entirely new aspect to him. It was the loneliness of girlhood, of
girlhood without father, mother, or brother. That was what it amounted
to, he told himself. He never had been a real brother to Judith, never
had looked out for her as if she had been his sister. And Jude's mother!
Just tired and sweet and broken, about as well fitted to cope with her
fiery daughter as with the unbroken Morgan colt which was John's pride.
As for his father--! Douglas turned over with a deep breath. Let his
father take heed! Judith! Judith with her glowing wistful eyes, her
crimson cheeks, her dauntless courage, her vivid mind! Judith, with her
loneliness, was his to guard from now on. Funny how a guy could feel so
all of a sudden! Funny, if he really should love old Jude, with her
fiery temper and more fiery tongue. And if this were love, love was not
so comfortable a feeling, after all. It was a profound uneasiness, that
uprooted every settled habit of his spiritual being. It was, he told
himself, before he fell asleep, a funny thing, love!