THE TRIP TO MOUNTAIN CITY
"Don't think. Just whistle. And always keep your poncho on the back of
the saddle for when it rains."
--_Jimmy Day_.
Lost Chief was very proud of Judith's invitation and deeply interested in
her preparations for the contest. Every day, now, she put Sioux and
Whoop-la through their paces. Late in the afternoon when she was working
the animals in the corral, it seldom happened that one of Lost Chief's
riders was not perched on the buck fence, watching her and criticizing
her and always assuring her, with the cowman's pessimism toward the
outer world, that she had no chance of winning a prize.
Douglas watched the preparations with deep interest, but said nothing
further against the trip. He usually joined the audience on the buck
fence and smoked as he watched the really wonderful work in the corral.
One brilliant afternoon Grandma Brown and old Johnny rode up. Jimmy Day
already was perched on the fence.
"Well," called Grandma, "I hear you've finally reached the goal of your
ambition, Judith."
Judith, leaving Sioux for the moment, strolled over toward the old lady.
"Who told you that, Grandma?"
"Well, ain't you?"
"I don't know what my goal is, but it sure isn't this."
"I'm glad you haven't lost your head entirely," said the old lady.
"Jimmy, I wish you'd ask Little Marion to come over and help me out for a
day or so. Lulu is coming home for a little visit."
"I'll ask her," said Jimmy. "But she won't come. She isn't so well. You'd
better stop by and see her."
Old Johnny suddenly laughed. "He depones like you was a doctor that went
out to make visits, Sister."
The old lady grunted as she gave Jimmy a keen look. "What's her mother
say about her?"
"Why, you know Mrs. Falkner isn't back from Mountain City yet. She left
before Charleton went out after wild horses," replied Jimmy.
"How should I know? I've hardly been off the ranch this summer. I guess I
will stop by."
Old Johnny cleared his throat. "I was thinking I'd ask John if he'd let
me go along up with him and Judith when they went to Mountain City. I got
quite a gregus sum of money saved up and I never did see Frontier Day
yet."
"That's right, Johnny! You ask him," said Douglas, with a remote twinkle
in his eye.
"Johnny, you are a fool, I swear!" exclaimed Grandma. "Let me catch you
lally-gagging off to Mountain City! Come on, let's get started."
"Anyhow, Doug is my friend," said the old man, belligerently, as he
followed his sister.
"If I go, I'll take you along, Johnny!" exclaimed Douglas. "See if I
don't!"
"You sure are crazy, Doug!" laughed Jimmy.
"I like the old boy," insisted Douglas. "He and I had better go up and
see Jude rake in the prizes."
"Right now every prize has been doled out to the regulars," cried Jimmy.
"But you should care, Jude! You'll have the grandstand with you, every
minute, if the judges aren't."
"It will be the big event of my life whether I win or not," said Judith.
"What's the matter with Little Marion, Jimmy? I don't even remember her
at the rodeo."
"O, she's busy, you see. I never did know a busier girl than Marion. I'm
busy too, with Charleton gone so long. And that fourth-class postmaster
of ours sent a lot of unclaimed magazines and mail order catalogs up
to the house. We've been reading those. Say, I bet I know everything
that's for sale in the United States. I'm the most price-listed rider in
the Rockies."
"I'll be getting down to see Marion to-night or to-morrow," said Judith.
"O, you needn't bother," returned Jimmy. "It's a long trip, and she'll be
all right."
"So you and Little Marion have been baching it!" mused Douglas. "Hang
Charleton, he promised to take me out after wild horses!"
"He generally goes by himself." Jimmy mounted his horse. "He's a lone
hunter, Charleton."
"When are you folks going to be married?" asked Douglas.
Jimmy turned his roan homeward. "I don't know," he answered soberly.
"I wish I could have gone with Charleton," remarked Douglas, watching
Judith as she rubbed Sioux's head.
"Charleton! I should think you'd hate a long trip with that old coyote. I
hate him."
"It isn't to be with Charleton I want to go. I want to get me some wild
horses. But there was a time when I sure was crazy about being with him.
I thought he knew more about how a fellow could get happiness out of life
than any one."
"Nobody in the Valley knows as much as Inez."
"Do you call her happy?"
"No; she's really sad. That's why she knows what real happiness is."
"Judith, how do you suppose Inez will end?"
"Over in the cemetery with a coyote-proof grave like the rest of us. And
I ask you, Doug, since that's the end of it, why worry?"
"That's the very reason I worry! Life is so short and if we don't find
happiness here, we are clean out of luck, forever."
Judith spurred the nervous Whoop-la into five minutes of active bucking,
then she leaped from the saddle and came to perch on the fence beside
Douglas. Her gaze wandered from his wistful face to the eternal crimson
and orange clouds rolling across Fire Mesa.
"Outside of my riding," she said slowly, "I get most happiness out of my
eyes."
Douglas followed her gaze. "Inez likes it too."
Judith nodded. "She got me to using my eyes years ago. She's a funny
person. Reads almost nothing but poetry. She's got one she always quotes
when she and I are looking at Fire Mesa."
"What is it?" asked Doug.
"I don't know but one verse:
"A fire mist and a planet,
A crystal and a cell,
A jelly-fish and a saurian,
And caves where the cave-men dwell,
Then a sense of law and beauty
And a face turned from the clod,
Some call it Evolution
And others call it God."
"Say it again, slow!" ordered Douglas, his eyes still on Fire Mesa.
Judith obeyed.
"I didn't know Inez had got religious," he said, when Judith finished.
"She hasn't. She doesn't believe anything except that beauty is right and
ugliness is wrong."
"Then she'd better clean up her door-yard!" exclaimed Douglas.
"O darn it!" sighed Judith. "I can't even discuss poetry with you without
your heaving a brick."
"I'm not heaving bricks. O Judith, I'm so devilishly unhappy!"
"You ought to quit thinking so much and have something you are crazy
about doing. When I get blue, I put Whoop-la to bucking."
"I'm crazy about something, all right. Judith, don't you think you're
ever going to care about me."
"I don't know, Doug. Who does know, at sixteen?"
"I did."
"I wouldn't marry a man that expected me to be a ranch wife in Lost
Chief, if I loved him black in the face." Judith jumped down from the
fence and turned Whoop-la free for the night.
Douglas sat staring at her, wondering whether or not to mention the
subject of the trip to Mountain City. He was firmly resolved that unless
Judith gave in to her mother on the matter, he was going with her and his
father. But finally he decided that he would not end their friendly
conversation with a row and he clambered down and went about his chores.
And so the days passed and the time grew close for the departure to
Mountain City. One evening, two days before the start, Douglas and Judith
went to call on Little Marion and Jimmy. When they reached the ranch
house, they found Little Marion in the big bed in the living-room and
Jimmy sitting beside the unshaded lamp, reading to her.
"Well!" exclaimed Douglas. "What's happened to you, Marion?"
Marion put back her great braid of hair, but what answer she might have
made they were not to know, for at that moment Charleton returned from
his wild horse hunt. Dust-covered and sunburned he strode into the room
with a pleasant grin.
"Hello, folks! Why, Marion, are you sick?"
"Kind of. What luck, Dad?"
"Fair. Brought in a good stallion and some weedy stuff. How's the ranch,
Jimmy?"
He asked this with his eyes still on his daughter.
"O.K., Charleton," replied Jimmy.
"You made a long trip, Charleton," said Douglas.
"Left the day after the rodeo," tossing his hat and gloves on the floor
and sitting down on the edge of the bed. "I remember Little Marion was
laid up then with a sprained ankle or something. What do you hear from
your mother, Marion?"
"She's well and so's the baby. They'll be home anytime now."
"What's the matter with you, Marion?"
"O, I'm sort of used up."
"How do you mean used up? I don't like your looks. I'm not a fool, you
know."
Marion burst into tears. "You know what it is!"
Charleton made a sudden spring at Jimmy; but Douglas caught him by the
arm.
"Hold on, Charleton!" cried Doug. "If things have gone wrong, you're as
much to blame as any one."
"You clear out of here, Doug!" shouted Charleton.
"Don't you go, Doug and Judith!" sobbed Marion. "I need some one to stand
by me."
"I'm standing by you, Marion," said Jimmy, who had not stirred from his
chair. "I'd just as soon you'd beat me up, Charleton. A little sooner.
But that isn't going to help matters."
Charleton stood glaring at his prospective son-in-law.
"Come off, Charleton!" cried Douglas disgustedly. "You are a fine one to
raise trouble over a situation like this. Strikes me you've done
everything you could do to bring it about."
Charleton did not seem to hear. His face was cold and hard. "Marion, you
and Jimmy pack up and get out of here!"
"I can't, Dad! I'm too sick!" sobbed the girl.
"Sick or no sick, you get out of here!"
"Don't you do it, Marion!" cried Judith. "No man's got a right to act so
at a time like this. I'll stick by you. Jimmy, you go get Grandma Brown.
I'll bet she can fix Charleton."
Jimmy rushed out of the house.
"Now, Doug," Judith went on, walking over to take Marion's hand, "you and
Charleton go on out while I have a talk with Marion."
"This happens to be my house," said Charleton. "Marion, get up and get
out!"
"I can't!" repeated the girl.
"You are a fine guy to tell a fellow how to live on wine, women and
horses," exclaimed Douglas, "and then raise the devil when your chickens
come home to roost. We all know Little Marion was born a month before you
were married."
Charleton gave Douglas an ugly look. "I'll settle with you, for that,
young fellow!" He stepped toward the bed. "Are you going to get out,
Marion?"
"No, she isn't!" snapped Douglas. He made a sudden rush at Charleton and
pushed him into the kitchen, Judith slammed and locked the door behind
them.
It was on this scene that John Spencer appeared, closing the outer door
innocently behind him.
"I wanted to borrow your buckboard for a couple of weeks," he began. Then
he paused and looked inquiringly from his son to his old friend.
"Marion's in trouble," said Douglas, "and Charleton is trying to drive
her out. Jude and I won't let him."
"Why should you butt in?" demanded John.
"Anybody with a decent heart would," replied Douglas.
"Get your kids out of here, John!" roared Charleton. "Judith's in there
with the door locked!"
"Judith!" called John. "'Come here!"
"I can't, Dad. I promised Marion to stick by her."
"You come out or I'll break the door down and bring you!"
"If you do, I'll not go to Mountain City with you!"
John hesitated, though his face was purple.
"You couldn't keep her away from the rodeo and you know it," sneered
Charleton. "Fetch her out, John, unless you're afraid of Doug."
"Jude, are you coming?" shouted John.
"No, sir."
John heaved against the flimsy door and it broke on its hinges. He rushed
into the inner room. Judith, her great eyes blazing, stood with one hand
on Marion's shoulder.
"Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Dad! You put a finger on me or Marion if
you dare!"
"Don't touch her, Dad!" Douglas' voice had the old note of warning in it.
But John, furious that his children should be defying him in public, was
quite beyond any effort at self control. He rushed on toward the bed.
"You blank-blank!" screamed Judith. "You aren't fit to touch Little
Marion's feet! You or Charleton either!"
John seized Judith's arm. Quick as a lynx-cat, Douglas leaped across the
room, seized his father from behind and was dragging him toward the door
when Grandma Brown ran in.
"Now," she cried sternly, "what does this mean? Every one of you get out
of here as fast as your feet will carry you!"
John stood up, sheepishly, Douglas eying him belligerently.
"Look here, Grandma," Charleton shook his finger in the old lady's face,
"I want you to understand that--"
"Understand!" shrilled Grandma. "Understand! You have the face to try to
say anything to me, Charleton Falkner? Do you think any man in this
valley can have anything to tell me I want to hear, least of all you,
Charleton Falkner? I know your history, man! And yours too, John Spencer.
And you can either get out or listen while I tell these children a few
facts about you."
Charleton put a cigarette between his teeth, handed one to John, lighted
his own, gave a light to John and, John at his heels, walked out into the
night.
"You and Douglas go home, Judith," said Grandma briskly. "Jimmy, I want a
talk with Little Marion. You put that door back on the hinges, then
disappear."
So Judith and Douglas rode away. It was a heavenly night, with more than
a hint of frost in the air, and the horses were as frolicsome as Prince.
"Now, will you tell me," asked Judith as she brought Buster back into the
trail for the third time, "just why Charleton acted so?"
"It's just like I told you once," replied Douglas. "A man wants his own
women to be straight no matter how much he does to make 'em crooked."
"Men are yellow," said Judith succinctly. "What's the use of
Charleton--" She paused as if words failed her, and they rode their
prancing horses in silence till John galloped up and pushed Beauty
between them.
"I hope you two fools feel better!" he shouted. "You've got a row going
with Charleton."
"Lot I care!" chuckled Judith. "I'll sic Grandma Brown on him again if he
bothers me."
"I'd rather have a wolverine after me than Charleton," John went on
excitedly. "You both ought to be licked!"
"Try it," suggested both the young people together.
"I've a notion not to take you up to Mountain City and I wouldn't if--"
Judith interrupted him. "You're not going to take me. I'm going with
Doug."
"O, no, you're not!" snarled John.
"And I'm not going to quarrel with you," Judith went on. "I'm sick of
men. I don't like the way you acted to me to-night. I told you if you
broke that door down I wouldn't go with you, and I always keep my word.
I'm not going to take money from Douglas, either. I'll borrow from Inez.
And I don't want to hear another word from you about it."
She put the spurs to Buster and was gone into the starlight. The men
spurred after her, but she reached the home corral before they did. And
John could storm only at the deeply perturbed Mary, for Doug and Judith
went to bed, pulled the covers over their heads and were heard no more
that night.
The next morning, before breakfast, half of Lost Chief had called the
Spencers on the telephone to tell them that Little Marion had a daughter.
The dominant note in the reports was one of huge laughter. Judith was
serene, and so was John. But the serenity was not to last. When she went
out to the corral to look after Sioux she came back stormily.
"Where's Sioux and Whoop-la?" she demanded of John, who was mending a
spur strap.
"Put away!"
"Have you killed them?"
"No. I'll produce them as soon as you agree to keep your promise to go to
Mountain City with me."
"I never promised. I intended to go with you, but I never promised."
"Remember if we don't get started by to-morrow," roared John, "we can't
get there in time."
"I said I wouldn't go with you after last night, and now, I wouldn't go
with you if you were the last man on earth."
She rushed from the house, and Douglas followed her.
"I'll help you hunt for them, Judith," he said.
She turned to him, white to the lips. "We're not going to hunt for them.
There are other Mountain City rodeos coming. If he thinks I'm going to
make a joke of myself rushing round the neighborhood after my outfit,
he's mistaken! I'm not a child. Don't bother me, Douglas; I'm going to
Inez."
She put Buster to a gallop and was off, the dust following her in a
golden, whirling spiral. Douglas went into the house and stood before his
father, face flushed, golden hair rumpled, soft shirt clinging to his big
gaunt chest.
"Dad, that's a rotten deal to put over Judith."
John rose slowly to his full height and the two men looked levelly into
each other's eyes. John's expression was curiously concentrated. He
tapped Douglas on the arm.
"Doug, you keep out of this, or I'll forget you are my son. You're smart
and you've got a bossy way with you. But I'm still master here. There
never was a Spencer that didn't rule his own family. Now, understand
me. Keep out of this matter between me and Jude. I'm going to break that
highty-tighty filly; and by God, she knows it!"
"You'll never break her while I'm alive," said Douglas, and he walked out
of the house.
Mary, coming from the cow shed with a pail of milk, looked at him
anxiously. "Let it go, Doug," she said in a low voice. "It's hard on
Judith, but she's been very headstrong and she's point-blank disobeyed me
in the matter. She deserves what she's got. Let it go."
Douglas looked at Mary's care-worn face, so appealingly like, yet so
unlike Judith's. Suddenly his tense muscles relaxed. "I guess you are
right. I'd better be thankful it is as it is. But it sure is a rotten
trick of Dad's."
Mary shrugged her shoulders and went on into the house. Douglas went off
to bring up horses for the fall round-up. A number of people rode up
during the morning to see the start for Mountain City. They found the
ranch deserted, except for Mary, who pleaded a sick headache and refused
to talk. Inez had no such reticence, however, and at the post-office that
night Judith's troubles ran neck and neck in popular interest with Little
Marion's. Both situations were of a nature to appeal to Lost Chief's
sense of humor. Douglas appeared during the session and learned that
Charleton's wife had come home.
"I hope she won't go crazy too," he said.
"No danger!" Peter tossed a letter to Frank Day. "Charleton'll be in line
by to-morrow. Too bad some one can't hobble John too."
"Plumb unnecessary, the whole affair," grunted the sheriff. "I suppose
the next thing on the program will be a big wedding."
"I guess they'll manage it like the Browns did," volunteered Young Jeff,
squirting his quid accurately to the center of the hearth. "Be around
borrowing my car in two or three weeks, run up to Mountain City for to be
married, then give a big party upstairs here, and nobody the worse off
for anything."
Everybody nodded and grinned. Douglas sat on a pile of mail order
catalogs smoking, his hat on the back of his head, his eyes thoughtful.
"Anybody know how Jimmy's been behaving to-day?"
Frank Day laughed heartily. "I rode up there this morning after I heard
the news, friendly like, of course. Grandma had Jimmy out in the yard,
washing baby dresses, while she stood in the door giving him what for.
Jimmy was dribbling cigarette ashes over the suds but he sure was game.
He grinned and got red when he saw me. 'I'm the hen-peckedest damn fool
in the Rockies,' he says."
There was a roar of laughter.
"What was Charleton doing?" asked Young Jeff, wiping his eyes.
"I found him in the corral. He'd slept in the alfalfa stack and he wasn't
quoting poetry. I didn't stay with him but a minute."
Again there was laughter.
"Big Marion will calm him," said Peter.
"I know one thing," exclaimed Douglas. "None of us will be saying the
things to Charleton we've been saying behind his back."
"We sure won't," agreed Frank. "I suppose Judith's all broke up, poor
little devil!"
Douglas nodded.
"I saw her and Inez hobnobbing in the Rodmans' corral to-day," said Young
Jeff. "She'd better cut Inez out."
Douglas stared at the familiar faces around the room as if he never
before had seen them. Peter, thin, melancholy, his long sinewy throat
exposed by his buttonless blue shirt; Frank Day, big and keen of eye,
squatting as usual against the wall; Young Jeff, ruddy and heavy-set,
with his kind blue eyes and heavy jaw. All clean shaven, all in chaps and
spurs, all good fellows, and all as helpless before the nameless mystery
of life as Doug himself. The sweat started to his forehead. He rose,
pulling on his gloves.
"It's early yet, Doug," said Peter.
"I'm going to call for Judith," replied Douglas. He went out into the
night, whistled to Prince, mounted the Moose and galloped across to the
west trail.
It was sharp and frosty but Inez and Judith, in mackinaws, were sitting
on the back steps with a little fire of chips at their feet. Douglas
dismounted and came into the fireglow. The light caught the point of his
chin, his clean-cut nostrils, and the heavy overhang of his brows.
"Ready to come home, Jude, old girl?" he asked.
"Sit down and talk to us a little, Douglas," suggested Inez.
Douglas hauled up a broken wagon seat and sat down. Prince crawled up
beside him and went to sleep with his head and one paw on Doug's knee.
"I suppose congress was sitting at the post-office, to-night?" said
Judith.
"Yes. Everybody's strong for you and Little Marion."
"I don't see why I should be bunched with her. Not that I care though!"
Judith tossed her head and then dropped her chin to the palm of her hand.
"I swear some one ought to give John Spencer a good thrashing!" exclaimed
Inez.
"Don't worry!" Judith spoke through set teeth. "I'll be even with him
some day."
"I just as soon try to lick him," said Doug. "But what good would it do?"
The three sat in silence for a moment; then Douglas asked suddenly,
"Inez, do you believe that poetry about the Fire Mist that you taught
Judith?"
"No; but I think it's a beautiful poem, just the same."
"Say it all for me, will you, Inez?"
Inez, in her soft contralto, repeated the lines.
"And you don't believe it?" Douglas' voice was wistful. "Don't you wish
you did?"
"I don't know as I do," replied Inez.
"But don't you see," urged Douglas, "that without believing it, there's
no meaning to anything?"
"Well, what of it?" asked Inez.
"I'm the kind of a guy that has to see a purpose to things, I guess,"
replied Douglas, heavily. "Peter is dead right. Lost Chief is a rotten
hole."
"It's a rotten place for women and a paradise for men," stated Judith
flatly.
"Never was any place in the world more beautiful," mused Inez. "If you'd
just see the beauty all around you, Doug, you'd do without the religion."
"I do see the beauty," replied Douglas. "I've been seeing it ever since
you told me to look for it. But it just makes me blue."
"You're no cowman, Douglas," Inez spoke thoughtfully. "You ought to go
East to college and get into politics or something!"
Douglas shook his head. "I'm like Charleton. I couldn't leave these hills
and plains for anything the East has to offer me." He rose slowly, and
Inez stared up at him. Tall, slender, straight, his young face a little
strained, a little wistful, he was to the older woman something finer
than Lost Chief knew.
"Judith," she said suddenly, "you're an awful fool!"
Judith grunted, immersed in her own troubles.
"Come, old lady," said Douglas. "We must get home."
"I'm going to stay all night with Inez."
"No, you're not, Jude," said Douglas quietly, and he stood waiting.
"Let her stay, Doug. She'll be all right," urged Inez.
"No," replied the young rider, with the familiar straightening of his
chin. "Come, Judith!"
The tall girl rose, shrugged her shoulders, and followed slowly to the
corral after Douglas. Inez did not move and shortly they trotted away,
leaving her alone in the firelight.
The next day, sullenly enough, John ordered Doug to make the horses ready
for the round-up. Frost had set in and he suddenly announced himself as
fearful lest snows catch the herds high on the mountains. So Douglas
and Judith spent the day bringing in several stout horses from the range.
On the morning following, before breakfast was finished, Scott Parsons
hallooed from the corral. The family went to the door.
Scott was leading Sioux and Whoop-la.
"Found these in the old Government corral up on Lost Chief Mountain," he
said laconically.
"I suppose you're going to get something worth while from Dad for this!"
cried Judith passionately.
Scott looked at the girl curiously. "You sure are crazy, Jude! Do you
suppose I'd help John Spencer do you like that? John's a blank-blank and
he knows it."
Douglas moved to stand by Ginger's head.
"No man says that to me without a grin." John drew his gun.
"Jude!" said Doug sharply. He reached up and seized Scott's hand and with
a sudden twist relieved him of his six-shooter.
Judith struck up her father's arm and a shot scattered dust from the sod
roof of the cabin. John smacked Judith on the cheek. She threw herself on
him like a fighting she-bear. John dropped his gun to seize her wrists
and Mary promptly picked the weapon up and gave it to Douglas.
"Now," said Doug, when Judith stood panting like a young Diana, her eyes
black with anger and excitement, "if you two men want to fight, take your
fists and go to it!"
John suddenly grinned, his eyes on Judith. "I don't see anybody spoiling
for a fist fight but Judith. You little lynx-cat! You get handsomer every
day!"
"I'd hate to let a woman make putty of me like that," sneered Scott. "Let
me have my shooting-iron, Doug."
Douglas had broken the revolver and unloaded it. He gave it back,
receiving the lead ropes of the two animals in return, and Scott trotted
away.
"I'm much obliged to you, Scott!" shrieked Judith. "I'll ride up and tell
you all about it, some day."
Scott waved his hand but did not look back. John, still holding Judith's
wrists, suddenly drew her to him and kissed her full on the lips. Then,
with a laugh, he freed her and returned to his breakfast. Douglas swore
under his breath and turned the uneasy Sioux and Whoop-la into the
corral. The day went forward as if nothing had happened.
That night, Charleton and John appeared at the post-office gathering for
the first time since the birth of Little Marion's baby. Only Peter had
the intrepidity to comment on recent events.
"I didn't want Judith to go alone with you to Mountain City, John," he
said. "But, all the same, that was a rotten deal you gave her."
"She's a disobedient little hussy," John's voice was truculent, "and it
was the only way I could get at her."
"You mean the fight she put up to help Little Marion?" demanded Peter.
"O, dry up, Peter!" exclaimed Charleton. "Me, I'm sick of the sound of a
woman's name. They're all alike, ungrateful minxes."
"Ungrateful is the word," agreed Peter grimly. "But I'd like to know just
what Marion was under obligation to you for?"
Charleton did not reply.
"When are they going to be married?" asked Peter, after a moment.
"First of the month. We'll give 'em a party up here in the hall that Lost
Chief will never forget. John, do you ride to-morrow?"
"Yes, Charleton. Everybody's reported but you."
"I'll be there. Start from your place, as usual?"
John nodded, and the rest of the evening was given over to a discussion
of details of the round-up.
The fall round-up was always a long and arduous affair. The cattle were
scattered all through the ranges covered by the Forest Reserve. Slowly
and with infinite labor and skill, they were sought out and herded down
into Hidden Gorge Canyon, below Fire Mesa. Thence, they were driven to
the plains east of the post-office, where the riders cut out their own
cattle.
The weather held for two weeks, star-brilliant at night, with the low of
mother-cows separated from their calves from mountain to mountain, with
the crisp wind bringing down the frosted leaves of the aspens, and at
noon the hot dust swirling up from the horses' hoofs into the sweating
faces of the riders.
Perhaps thirty men rode in the Lost Chief crowd. The work was more or
less solitary by day, but at night over the camp-fires, there was society
enough. Douglas enjoyed it all to the very tips of his being. He was
coming now into the great strength that belonged to his height and could
do his full share of the heavy work. He had thought that, rolled in his
blankets, under the stars, he would find inspiration that would help him
solve the problem of life. But long before the camp-fire was low, he
would drop into slumber that ended only when his father shook him at
dawn.
When the round-up reached the plains, the women set up a camp kitchen and
served hot meals. The weather this year held clear to the last day, when
a blizzard swept down from Dead Line Peak and the last of the cutting out
was finished in blinding snow. Douglas and John, after putting the last
of their yearlings into the cut over fields, staggered into the warm
ranch kitchen half-perished with the cold.