ELIJAH NELSON'S RANCH
"Call it Fate, call it Destiny, something stronger than my own will is
shaping my destiny."
--_Douglas Spencer_.
At dawn Judith stirred, blinked at Douglas, and sat up, staring. Her
eyes were bloodshot and deep sunk in her head, but her look was full of
energy, nevertheless. Douglas was standing on the opposite side of the
fire.
"Have you been up all night?" she demanded.
"Had to keep the fire," he mumbled, swaying as he spoke.
Judith crawled out of the blankets, took Doug by the arm, and pushed him
down in the warm nest she had left. Then she covered him carefully.
"It's my turn now," she said.
He slept until noon. When he woke, Judith was making coffee, and the
little wild mare was munching oats with the other horses. The Wolf Cub
was gnawing on a bone, and the sun sifted brilliantly through the
cedars. Douglas got to his feet stiffly and Judith looked up at him from
her cooking with a smile.
"Nothing like having your breakfast served immediately on waking," said
Douglas.
"Come and eat, Doug. We must be on our way." Judith poured a tin cup of
coffee and offered Douglas a bacon sandwich as she spoke.
"You shouldn't have let me sleep so long. A couple of hours would have
kept me going the rest of the day."
"You talk as foolish as old Johnny!" exclaimed Judith. "You were in
almost as bad shape as I was, and two hours' sleep would have been a
mere aggravation to me. Will you let me have enough grub to see me down
to the Bowdins' ranch, Doug?"
"No, I won't," replied Douglas succinctly, bracing himself for battle as
he spoke.
"Don't let's quarrel, Doug." Judith kept her eyes on the fire. "I
haven't any intention of going back to Lost Chief. I've broken away and
I shall stay away."
"I don't blame you for feeling that way, Jude, but surely you can see
that this is no way to go."
Judith set her fine jaw firmly. Finally she said, "Where did you pick up
my trail?"
"Where you left the stage road. Jude, did you know that old Johnny gave
Dad a nasty one above the knee?"
"No! Old Johnny came to my rescue, but I didn't think he could hit a
canyon wall. Good old Johnny! What became of him?"
Douglas moistened his lips. "He followed my father to the half-way
house. Dad was all in. Couldn't even build himself a fire. Johnny
wouldn't do a thing for him. He went outside and sat down on the
doorstep with my shot-gun across his knees; every time Dad yelled at him
he said he was saving Jude for Douglas. The last of the afternoon Peter
and I came up and found old Johnny there."
"Good old Johnny!" said Judith again.
Douglas nodded, hesitated, then said. "He was asleep and we couldn't
wake him up."
Judith's eyes suddenly filled with horror. "You couldn't wake him up?
You mean--"
Again Douglas nodded. "He was gone, poor old Johnny. For you and me. I
came on after you, alone."
Judith twisted her hands together. "But dead, Doug! And in such a simple
way! O the poor little old chap! I can't forgive myself, Douglas!"
"It's the way he'd like to have gone. You are not to blame."
"O, yes, I am. I should have stopped and sent him home. But I was beside
myself, Doug,--O, you don't know! you can't know!"
"You're not to blame yourself about Johnny, I tell you."
"Now I never do want to go back! You'll just have to grub-stake me,
Doug. Please!"
Douglas pushed his hair back from his forehead. If only she would not
plead with him! She never had done that. He did not believe that he
could stand out against it.
"You mustn't think of going on alone, Jude," he said.
"Then you come as far as Bowdins' with me and get rested up for your
trip back."
"I want you to come back with me," repeated Doug.
"No!" said Judith. "I'm never going back to Lost Chief!"
"Then come as far as the Mormon's. Get rested and get some clothes
together and I'll take you out to Mountain City, and I'll loan you
enough money to live on while you get a job, or I'll put you through
college. Either you want. You've done a great stunt, Judith, crossing
Black Devil in winter. But putting over a stunt isn't necessarily acting
with judgment."
"How could I act with judgment, under the circumstances?" demanded
Judith.
Douglas looked at her with passionate earnestness.
"Judith," he said, "you must believe that I'm not criticizing you. I'm
just trying to help you do the wise thing."
"Why can't I go on across the Basin and get the A.B. railroad at
Doty's?" asked Judith.
Douglas looked down the terrible mountainside. "We aren't equipped for
it, Jude."
She drew a deep breath. "I don't want to go back where I have to breathe
the same air he does."
"Judith, what did he do?" Doug's lips were stiff and his eyes contracted
as if with pain.
"I didn't give him a chance to do anything. I don't want even to talk
about it."
Douglas sat silent for a moment; then he said huskily, "I'm ashamed of
him."
Suddenly Judith put her hands before her eyes and began to sob. Douglas
groaned. He put his arms about her and presently she leaned against him
and wept with complete abandonment. Finally she began to talk.
"He's always worried me, a little--but I wasn't really afraid of him. I
don't want to think about him--or talk about him--to anybody. Up till
Saturday night he was just one of the hard things that heckled me--I
didn't have anybody to go to. If I went to you, you'd want to--marry me.
And--Inez--Inez has gone back on all the ideas she got me to believe.
She's gone--and fallen in love--with Peter! She--she told me not long
ago that she was going to do everything she could to make him marry
her.--Just as soon as something touched her selfish interests she went
to pieces.--I want to get away from Lost Chief!"
Douglas patted her shoulder in silence. It was inexpressibly sweet to
have her there.
"A girl has a brain, as well as a man," she went on. "She doesn't want
to be just a servant to a rough old rancher. She wants to live by her
brain as well as he does. What's the use of a woman being fine if that's
all her fineness comes to? You can say she hands it on to her children.
But she don't. It's something she acquires and it's lost--in the
scrubbing pail."
Douglas listened with the whole of his mind. Judith's sobs had ceased
now, and she went on, slowly. "It's not that I'm against children. I'd
love to have a half a dozen babies. But what I am against is giving all
that is in me--the brain side of me, to something that demands only a
small part of my brain. I want a life like a man's and a woman's too,
that makes me give all, all. Surely I can find a place somewhere where I
can give that."
Douglas drew an uncertain breath. The Mormon woman had known. A sense of
his own inadequacy settled on him like a cloud.
"I know you think I'm a fool. Yet you have big dreams for yourself or
you wouldn't have felt as you have about the preacher. One has to have
an ideal to live by. I thought Inez had given me one and--" with a sob
that shook her whole fine body--"I don't see how it can work out!"
"I suppose," said Douglas, in his gentle voice, "that folks have been
trying out Inez' idea ever since love began, and the homely, every-day
details of living make it impossible."
Judith drew a long breath and was silent.
"And so," said Douglas, "you are through with love and marriage. Yet no
human being can be happy without both. Life is like that."
Judith sprang to her feet and Douglas rose with her. She began to walk
rapidly up and down before the fire. It was so evident that a tempest
was raging within her that Douglas watched her with astonishment and
dismay. The sunshine flickered gloriously through the cedar branches.
Wolf Cub gave cry after a coyote. It might have been a moment or a
lifetime to the young rider before Judith halted in front of him. Her
tear-stained face was tense. Her wide eyes burned with a light he never
before had seen in them.
"And if," she exclaimed, "I told you that I loved you; that for years I
had fought off a love for you that was like a burning flame in my heart;
if I told you that to me you are as beautiful as all the lovers in the
world; but that I never, never would give myself to you in marriage,
what would you say?"
Douglas' gloved hands clenched and unclenched, as he fought for self
control. After a moment he managed to return, steadily, "I'd ask you
why?"
The tensity of Judith's expression did not relax. "I've told you why. I
cannot bear to think of killing love by marriage. And it always works
so. Always. And yet, O Douglas, I love you, love you!"
Douglas threw back his head with a sudden breath, swept Judith into his
arms and kissed her, kissed her with all the ardor of years of
repression. Judith clung to him as if she could not let him go. And yet,
when he lifted his face from hers, she said, none the less firmly
because her voice was husky:
"But, Douglas, I won't marry you!"
Douglas lifted his chin. "Perhaps you won't, my dearest! I'm not going
to let that thought spoil the big moment of my life."
He put his hands on her shoulders and looked at her, at the long
brilliant face beneath the beaver cap, at the fine steel slenderness of
her, and then he said in his low-voiced way:
"O Judith! Judith! why didn't you tell me, long ago!"
"Because nothing would satisfy you but marriage," replied Judith, with a
half sob.
Douglas smiled wistfully. "But I haven't changed! Why did you tell me
now?"
"I didn't want to! I didn't mean to! But I couldn't help it. You saved
my life, Doug! It ought to belong to you, but O, I can't give it to you!
I must go on. I must find out what is the thing I'm meant to do. I
must!"
Douglas turned from her troubled face to gaze at the mad descent that
must be made before Johnson's Basin could be won. Then he put up his
hand and turned her face to follow his glance.
"Judith, do you think that I can let you go down there? If it was
impossible before, think how I feel about it now I know that you love
me. Somehow we have got to compromise on this thing, my dearest."
Judith clung to him. "I don't want to leave you, Douglas. But I can't go
back to Lost Chief. I can't!"
Douglas held her close and for a long moment there was no sound in the
wide solitudes except the Wolf Cub's faint hunting-cry.
At last Douglas said slowly, "If I give you my word that I'll take you
out to Mountain City as soon as I can outfit, will you come back to
Nelson's with me? Look at me, Jude!"
Judith lifted her eyes and searched Doug's face long and wistfully. Then
she said, brokenly, "Yes, I'll come, if you will give me your promise.
Not because I think it's sensible but because, now I've given away this
much, I don't want to be separated from you till--till I've unpacked my
heart to you!"
"And after you've done that," asked Douglas, "do you think I can ever
let you go?"
"But I thought you were not going to spoil this moment by arguing about
marriage!" exclaimed Judith.
"I'll not!" cried Douglas. "Truly, I'll not."
The Wolf Cub trotted importantly into the camp with a scrawny
jack-rabbit dragging against his shaggy gray breast. Douglas gave a
quick look at the sky.
"Judith, either we must put this place into shape for a night camp or we
must strike out at once so as to get over the Pass to-night."
"We'd better break camp," said Judith. "It's getting frightfully cold
and there's mighty little fodder left."
They fell to work swiftly, and before the Wolf Cub had half finished his
meal they were on the march. Douglas led on Tom, followed by his
pack-horse. Judith followed on the little wild mare. The crest of Black
Devil hung over their heads, the purple of his front crosshatched by
myriad crevisses filled with peacock-blue snow. The same strange blue
snow had obliterated their trail, and Tom, his bloody flanks deep in the
drifts, leaped and slid and turned, leaving a wake, Judith said, like
that of a drunken elephant.
The drifts had blown clear of the narrow ridge down which poor Buster
had slid. They dared not trust the horses here, but dismounted and crept
gingerly across, the animals slipping and snorting behind them. They
rested after the crossing, and Douglas saw that tears were frozen on
Judith's lashes.
"Judith, I believe the old horse was glad to go in service that way,"
he said.
Judith shook her head. "It's been a terribly expensive trip," she said.
"Old Johnny and Buster."
"Expensive for them, yes,--poor old scouts both of them," Douglas
sighed, then added, "But, God, what a marvelous trip for me!"
"And for me!" Judith nodded soberly.
They beat their hands across their breasts and remounted, silently.
All the brilliant afternoon, they worked their uneven way upward. Each
of the horses was down again and again. Both Judith and Douglas were
bruised and cut by ice. Both were drawing breath in rapid sobs when,
just before sunset, they fought the last few yards to the level of the
Pass, won to it, and lay on the icy ledge, exhausted. Wolf Cub nosed
them and whined disconsolately.
"You're right--old hunter--!" gasped Douglas. "If we--don't--keep
moving--the cold--will get us!"
Judith, who had been lying on her back staring at the sky, rolled over
on her face and struggled to her hands and knees.
"Keep that--wild--elephant--you call--a horse in a long lead--or he'll
step on you--Doug!" she called.
"Give me--a long--start, then!"
Douglas started forward on hands and knees. The little wild mare was as
careful in following Judith as was the Wolf Cub. But Tom gave constant
evidence of an earnest desire to walk on Douglas instead of the trail.
He was too tired now, however, to be ugly, and the Pass was crossed
without accident or incident.
It was dusk when they made the great rocks where Douglas had camped
before. Judith's strength was gone. She pulled the reins over the little
wild mare's head and tried to pull her ax from its sheath. But her
benumbed fingers refused to act.
"Keep moving, Jude!" urged Douglas. "Just till I can get a fire started.
Don't stop walking for a moment!"
When at last a blaze was going before the rocks, Doug unrolled the
blankets from the lead-horse and wrapped Judith in them. She crouched
against the face of the rocks in silence while Douglas put the
coffee-pot to boil and thawed out the bacon. It was not until she had
swallowed a second cup of the steaming beverage that the snow stupor
left her eyes.
Suddenly she smiled, and said, "It almost nipped us that time, Douglas!"
"And yet you thought you could make Bowdin's ranch alone!" grunted
Douglas.
"It would have been getting warmer all the time. There would have been
nothing like this!" shivering as a great blast of wind swept over the
top of the rock heap.
"You risked death in every step," insisted Douglas. "It was like going
down a canyon wall, not a mountainside. The drifts and ice made it
impossible to tell how your next movement would end."
"Well," sighed Judith, "I don't think I'm regretting my decision. This
might be worse," stretching out her mittened hands to the blaze.
"Nice, girlish kind of amusements you enjoy!" grunted Douglas, with a
little grin. "Something quiet and restful about playing games with you,
Jude! Now listen, my dearest, don't close your eyes until I tell you you
may. A night camp under Black Devil Pass is plain suicide, if you
forget for a moment."
Judith threw off the blankets. "I'll chop some wood and get warmed up."
"Aren't you warm now?" asked Douglas.
"All but around the edges," replied Jude.
"Well, you put the blankets round yourself again and save your strength
for to-morrow. You'll need it. It won't take me long to get things ready
for the night."
Judith snuggled back in the blankets. "I'm really not a bit more done up
than you are, but it's worth a trip over the Pass to see a Lost Chief
rancher take such care of a girl. I didn't know you had it in you,
Doug!"
Douglas laughed and began making the camp ready for the night. When he
had finished his preparations, he sat down beside Judith, pulled a part
of the blankets over his shoulders and drew her close against him. The
Wolf Cub lay as close as he could crowd against Judith's other side, his
nose almost in the embers.
Judith looked into Doug's face attentively. His eyes were heavy and deep
sunk in his head.
"You are very, very tired, Douglas. Why don't you get some sleep?"
Douglas shook his head. "To-morrow, if all goes well, we'll reach
Nelson's place. This is to be my one last night alone with you. I'm not
going to sleep until I have to. This camp might seem sort of cold and up
in the air to some people, but to me, it's pretty close to heaven!"
"I never can connect the man you've grown to be," mused Judith, "with
the horrid boy you were once. I wonder what has changed you so?"
"Boys are rotten," agreed Douglas cheerfully. "Loving you is what has
changed me most. Everything else came out of that."
"I suppose," Judith looked at the fire thoughtfully, "that if I'm going
to work in an office, I'd better begin to polish up my manners."
"You'll be a wonder in an office!" said Douglas. "I can just see you
coaxing and taming a typewriter same as you coaxed and tamed old Sioux.
And just about as easy a job. You won't miss your horses and the Wolf
Cub. You won't be homesick for the range. O no!"
"I've thought that all out, too," returned Judith coolly. "I'll hate
every moment of it. But I'll be learning."
"Learning what, Judith?"
"About life!"
"About life! Judith, this is life. All of life. This!" He turned her
face to his and kissed her lingeringly.
She was silent for a moment and there were tears in her eyes. Then she
said, softly, "No, it's only a part of life. Things of the mind count
heavily as you grow older. They count very much with you right now. What
else is your fight for the sky pilot but a thing of the mind?"
"It's all based on my love for you, Judith," repeated Doug. "Judith, you
never can stay away from Lost Chief."
"I'll stick it out. See if I don't! Will-power is the best thing I
possess. Inez always said I'd never get up courage to leave. Perhaps I
wouldn't have if I hadn't been so angry. But I did leave. She didn't
know me."
"I wish Inez had run away. She's been your and my curse."
"How is she worse than Charleton?"
"She's more likable and a lot finer and so she has more influence. You
don't really think for a moment that Peter will marry her, do you?"
Douglas spoke contemptuously.
"Well, if he doesn't marry her, it won't be because he considers that
he's led a perfect life, I hope."
"That isn't the point. I think that men insist on marrying decent women
because there's a race instinct that makes a man turn to something
better than himself for his mate. It's what lifts the race, keeps the
spiritual side of life moving uphill instead of down. If this wasn't
true, human beings would never have got out of the monkey stage."
Judith looked at Doug with interest. "That might all be true, but I hope
you don't put that up as an excuse for the double code."
"No. I don't. I'm just stating one of the selfish, brutal facts of
life."
Judith made no reply, and for a long time Douglas made no attempt to
break the silence. It was enough to be sitting under the brilliant
heavens with Judith's wonderful body warm against his side. The
far-drawn cry of the coyotes disturbing him now no more than it did the
Wolf Cub listening but unheeding.
"I can't help thinking about old Johnny," said Judith at last. "It's
going to worry me terribly when I'm by myself again. I should have
stopped and taken care of him."
"It's not going to worry me," returned Douglas quietly. "The poor old
fellow was unhappy and useless. He died a real hero's death for some one
he loved. Folks in Lost Chief are going to remember that instead of his
poor old feeble mind."
"I'm glad you were kind to him! You have been wise and kind in many
ways, Doug, and you are only a boy. I believe Peter is right in saying
you are going to be a big man."
"Shucks! Peter doesn't know that all the good there is in me is built on
you."
"That isn't true," contradicted Judith. "You're big within yourself.
Even Inez said that."
Douglas grunted and his voice was without enthusiasm as he said, "Inez
can't see anything straight that is related to love. I'll admit she's
dangerously interesting. If I hadn't always been caring for you, she
might have got me twisted the same as she has you."
"I'm not twisted," protested Judith stoutly. "I'm just not afraid to see
marriage as it is. Sordid!"
"Inez!" sniffed Douglas.
"Let's not begin that again!" exclaimed Judith. "Just love me, Douglas,
and let me go away."
He drew her closer still. "Love you!" he repeated in his quiet voice.
"You might as well tell me to breathe or my heart to keep on beating. I
haven't done anything else since the day I drove the preacher out of the
schoolhouse. Even when I've tried to stop caring, I couldn't do it!"
with a whimsical smile. "Do you remember how I wouldn't let you go with
Dad to feed the yearlings?"
"Yes, I remember because from that moment you were a little different
from other Lost Chief men in my mind. Tell me some more."
Douglas stared at the fire, going in retrospect over the long, long
fight, the fight that still was only half over.
"I can't put it into words that will make it seem as big to you as it
is to me, Judith. Tell me, have you been lonely all your life?"
"Yes. Very, very lonely. With the feeling that there was no one to
understand."
"That's the way it's been with me, only I always knew that if you could
care for me we could understand each other. I want to make you know me
to-night, Jude. I want to fix my real self so in your mind that wherever
you go, you'll have me with you."
"You did that long ago, Douglas," said Judith softly.
"Have I?" wistfully. "You see, Jude, you are so mixed up in my mind with
Grandfather's dream of Lost Chief, and mine, and the preacher, and God,
that I don't know myself where one leaves off and another begins. And
to-night, one part of me is on fire with happiness and another is frozen
with discouragement. Are you sure you can care for me, Judith?"
"Ever since that night in the hay-loft when you kissed me, after your
father shot Swift. I didn't want to love you. There didn't seem much
romance about a boy you'd lived with all your life. I didn't want to
marry. I wanted to give all there was in me to some one big and fine
enough to appreciate it. And after all, it's only you."
"Only me!" ejaculated Douglas, comically.
Judith did not smile. "I fought and fought against it. But every year I
saw you growing into a bigger, finer man than Lost Chief ever had
known--a lonely sort of a man, not afraid to be laughed at even when it
was about a matter of religion. I hated to see you making a fool of
yourself, and yet I admired you for it. You grew so straight and
self-controlled, and Doug, you are so wonderful to look at! Your father
never dreamed of being as handsome as you. He's just a great animal. But
no one can look into your eyes and not see how you've fought to make a
man of yourself. I love you, Douglas!"
They clung to each other in the firelight, heedless of the unthinkable
loneliness that hemmed them in, of the ardors of the day, of the terror
of to-morrow.
"Judith! Judith! I cannot let you go!" breathed Douglas.
"I must go!" Judith freed herself suddenly. "Nothing shall persuade me
to go back to the commonness of marriage in Lost Chief."
"Marriage is exactly what you make it," declared Douglas. "I believe we
can keep it beautiful."
"I'm afraid!" repeated Judith. "It's hard to do or be anything fine in
Lost Chief. You know that. See what they did to you! Douglas, what are
you going to do about their burning up your ranch?"
Judith felt his muscles stiffen. "I'm going to fix Scott and Charleton,
once and for all," he replied.
"Shall you rebuild the chapel?"
"Yes--" Douglas made the affirmation then stopped, abruptly. Rebuild the
chapel? And Judith not there? Put up the big fight for old Fowler, and
Judith never returning to Lost Chief? Where now was all the zest for the
fight? Why the chapel, why the ranch, why the big dream for the children
who were to grow up properly in the Valley?
"No!" he exclaimed suddenly. "I shan't rebuild the chapel!"
"Fowler was the wrong man," Judith said. "You must realize that now. I
wonder what they did with the poor old chap. I don't want any harm to
come to him even if he did make you a lot of trouble."
"It doesn't matter," muttered Doug. "It's all over for me if you are
going away--" his voice broke and he shivered violently.
Judith looked into his face with quick anxiety. His lips were blue. "You
go chop some wood!" she ordered. "And when you are warmed up, you creep
into the blankets with Wolf Cub and sleep for four hours. I'll keep the
fire up. You are so tired, Doug, that the cold will get you if you
aren't careful."
Douglas rose stiffly, and wearily began an attack on another cedar. But
he had not taken a dozen strokes when he began to sink slowly to the
ground. Judith, ran to him and helped him back to the blankets. Then she
covered him snugly, and in a moment he was asleep.
It was midnight when she wakened Douglas. She was blue and shivering.
"I'm a new man, Judith. Roll in quickly!" and he picked up the faithful
ax.
It was long and biting cold till dawn. Douglas was too weary, too much
menaced by the cold, to think coherently; for now, conscious of the
depletion of his strength, even his new-found happiness could not blur
the fact that he and Judith were playing with death on Black Devil Peak.
He kept the fire going and fought the desire to sleep until, far below
and to the east, the Indian Range turned black against a crimson sky.
Then he awakened Judith. They made a hasty breakfast, then started the
stiff and weary horses through the drifts toward Mormon Valley.
But Tom horse, facing homeward, needed none of the rowelling that he had
demanded on the way up. The cold and wind were difficult to bear, for
the two young people were inexpressibly weary of brain as well as body.
By noon they made the valley. It was a slow-moving little outfit that
finally limped past Nelson's corral and was greeted by a shout from the
cabin door.
Elijah, his wife, and children, rushed out to meet them and led them
into the big bed-living-room off the kitchen.
"Well," said Mrs. Nelson, "I knew she'd have to come back with you!"