Judith of the Godless Valley Part 14

"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.

CHAPTER IV

THE HOUSE IN THE YELLOW CANYON

"Beauty: to see it, to hear it, to feel it: that's all that makes life worth while."

--_Inez Rodman_.

Douglas was both elated and dejected by his conversation with Judith. He was elated to feel that at last Judith knew his feeling toward her. He was dejected because he felt that she had no understanding of the depth and sincerity of this feeling. And with that marvelously naive egotism of the male, he gave many hours of heavy thought to Judith's weaknesses and temptations, none at all to his own. Perhaps more than anything, Judith's friendship with Inez began to worry him. The more he pondered on it, the more perturbed he became; and finally, a week or so after the dance, he resolved to ask Inez to break with Judith.

The Rodman house was built against the sheer yellow stone facing at the base of Lost Chief range, known incorrectly as the Yellow Canyon. The house of half a dozen rooms was the most picturesque cabin in the valley, for Grandfather Rodman had built the roof with an overhang, giving the house the hospitable shadows of a little Swiss chalet. There were several hundred acres belonging to the ranch. Free range had grown small before Inez' father died and he had gotten his acres well into gra.s.s and alfalfa. But when he and Inez' mother were wiped out by smallpox, leaving the ranch to Inez, the fields rapidly returned to the wild. Inez, fifteen at the time of her parents' death, was unwilling to lead the life of a ranch woman and for ten years the ranch had been going to pieces.

When Douglas rode up to the outer corral in the dusk of the June evening, he was struck anew by the disorder of the place. Cattle tramped freely about the house. An old steer was poking his head in at the kitchen window. Chickens roosted on a saddle, which was flung in the stable muck.

Tin cans, old wagon wheels, the ruin of a sheep wagon, were heaped in confusion at one end of the cabin. Three or four dogs barked as Doug rode up on old Mike. He called Prince in and looked inquiringly at two other horses tied to the dilapidated corral fence. They were Beauty, his father's horse, and Yankee, Peter's roan.

As Doug sat hesitating, John and Peter came out of the kitchen laughing.

They swung, spurs clanking, up to the fence.

"What the devil are you doing here, Doug?" asked Peter Knight.

"Hasn't he got a right to call on the Harlot of the Canyon?" demanded John, with a chuckle. "Hustle up, Peter! The crowd'll be there for the game before you are."

"They can't get in till I unlock," replied Peter. "Here, John, take the key and ride on. I want to talk to Doug."

John caught the key and trotted off. Sister snarled at Prince, who wagged his tail apologetically.

"Sister's a shrew, all right," grinned Douglas.

"She sure can run coyotes, though," said Peter.

"She and Grandma Brown run this valley," added Douglas.

Peter laughed. "I'm strong for the ladies! Did you ever watch the moon rise, Doug, from the top of the bench back of the cabin there?"

"No," answered Douglas.

"Come on up! It's not a long ride. I've been wanting to make you a proposition for some time."

Douglas followed the postmaster silently. The horses were panting and sweating by the time they reached the top, and the rim of the moon was just peering over the edge of the Indian Range. All the valley lay in darkness. The two dismounted and threw themselves down on the ledge.

Douglas lighted a cigarette while Peter filled his pipe.

"What are you planning to do with yourself now you're through school, Douglas?"

"Ride for Dad."

"How'd you like to go East to school?"

"Nothing doing! I've got more education now than I'll need as a rancher."

"Well, I guess that's not particularly so," said Peter. "I was thinking--you know I'm alone in the world--that I might help you out if you had any leaning toward college or a profession."

"Ranching is good enough for me, thank you all the same, Peter."

For some moments Peter did not speak again. Coyotes wailed in the peaks above them. The moon showed more of its golden face.

"Does your father ever talk to you about your own mother, Doug?"

"No; I quit asking him questions years ago. Peter, all I know about my mother is that her name was Esther, that the smallpox wiped her folks out, and that they owned the north half of our ranch. There's an old photograph of her in Dad's bureau drawer. She was awful pretty."

"She was more than that, Doug! I knew her well. You see, I'm the only man in the valley that's a stranger, as you might say. I've only lived here twenty years. So I could appreciate your mother more than the natives.

I came here a roundabout way from Boston. So did your mother's folks, about forty-five years ago. She looked as Yankee as her blood, thin and delicate, with a refined face. And all the coa.r.s.e work women have to do in Lost Chief didn't coa.r.s.en her."

"How do you mean, coa.r.s.e work?" asked Doug.

Dimly in the moonlight he saw the postmaster rub his hand across his forehead.

"Why don't you put Buster to hauling and plowing?" asked Peter.

"Too light and nervous."