Judith of the Godless Valley Part 29

"Remember her! I tried for five years to get her to marry me. But her old dad wouldn't stand for it."

"You mean she couldn't see you because of me, Frank!" exclaimed John, a sudden light in his handsome eyes.

Douglas again favored the postmaster with a contemplative stare.

"Some old wolf, her dad, I've heard," Peter went on.

"He was," agreed the sheriff. "He ran the valley and he ran it right.

Every Fourth of July he made a speech about making Lost Chief the Plymouth Rock of the West."

Charleton Falkner roared. "I remember those speeches!"

Peter was grinning. "But in spite of them, from what I've heard I believe he came mighty near being a great man, old Bill Douglas."

"What did he lack?" demanded Douglas suddenly.

"Religion!" answered Peter, promptly.

"Religion? What's that?" asked John with a guffaw. "You never had any, Peter."

"Right!" agreed Peter. "Worse luck for me that I didn't have that kind of a mind. But I know any kind of a social idea fails without it. And I know if old Bill Douglas had built a church up there beside the schoolhouse, the chances are that Scott wouldn't have plugged Douglas last night. And mind, I don't believe in G.o.d, or the hereafter, or any of the dope they drug you with."

"What the h.e.l.l are you driving at, Peter?" demanded Charleton.

"Say," shouted John, "is this a trial or a sermon?"

"It's neither," replied Peter. "We're just talking things over. My idea is that Doug shall sort of sit in judgment on Scott and the rest of us abide by his decision."

"Now, listen here!" exclaimed Scott. "This may be a funny joke, but I don't see it!"

Charleton laughed. "I'm with you, Peter. Only that won't pay my grudge."

John laughed too, with a little glance of pride toward his son's set, white face. "I'm on! Make it include his leaving Jude alone."

"Aw, you folks act plumb loco!" snarled Scott.

"Wait and see! Wait and see!" protested Peter. "And while Doug thinks it over, let me add something to what we were saying about old Bill Douglas.

He used to act as a kind of unofficial judge in the valley?"

The others nodded.

"Did he ever," Peter went on, "make an important decision that he didn't try to look to the good and the future of Lost Chief? At least, I gathered that from the things Doug's mother used to tell me about the old man's pipe dreams."

John spoke soberly. "He was a just man. They don't make 'em that way any more."

"He was more than just," insisted Peter. "He was forward looking. But he led with the wrong foot. He laughed at the church."

"Sure he did," agreed Charleton. "Why not? Remember old Fowler? A fine sample of the church!"

Peter rose and paced the floor a minute. "Let me tell you folks something. I laugh at the cant they've wrapped the church up in. But I don't laugh at the system of ethics Christ taught. I'm here to tell you folks, He put out the finest, most workable system of ethics the world has ever known. And folks can't live together without a system of ethics."

"It's a wonder you don't subscribe to 'em, Peter," jibed Charleton.

"It's too late. But that don't say that I don't realize clearly that I've failed in life because of it. What do you say to that, Charleton?"

Charleton's lips twisted.

"Why all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd Of the two Worlds so wisely--they are thrust Like foolish Prophets forth: their Words to Scorn Are scattered and their mouths are stopt with Dust."

John laughed. Peter shrugged his shoulders and said, "Suit yourselves. As for me I believe everybody is destined sooner or later to deal squarely with right and wrong. Sooner or later every community has to wrestle with the question of social ethics, or fail. Fate has written it of Lost Chief. You'll see."

"I'm with you there." Frank Day spoke soberly. "I believe in fate. You can't ride these hills and not. It's all written beforehand."

Douglas cleared his throat. "I've got an idea," hesitatingly. "I've been thinking for a long time that somebody in Lost Chief that has a homestead right ought to homestead that shoulder of Lost Chief mountain that cuts off Elijah Nelson from our valley. If we don't, he will. I can't do it because I'm not of age. But Scott can, and he can find plenty of work for that six-shooter of his, worrying the Mormons and keeping 'em out of Lost Trail. I'll agree to let Scott alone if he'll let me alone and undertake that job."

There was silence, Scott staring at Douglas with a mixture of contempt, belligerency and surprise in his face.

"But," protested John, "that's no punishment, and it don't say a thing about Judith!"

Douglas shifted his feet impatiently. "I'm not going to punish any guy for running after Jude. That's a fair fight. What I'm sore about is his lying about me and shooting at me when I wasn't armed."

"I'd planned," said Scott gruffly, "to try to buy back our old place from the Browns. They've got more than they can carry and I'm sure getting nowhere renting that piece from Charleton."

"And," suggested Charleton with a grin, "if you encourage those broncos of yours, they each might have three or four slicks every spring, and if you keep up practice with the blacksnake on the old milch cow--"

"Dry up, Charleton!" exclaimed Peter. "What do you think of the idea, Frank?"

"It ain't bad," answered the sheriff slowly, "though I ain't afraid of the Mormons coming in."

"That's where you are wrong," said Charleton. "They are going to get Lost Chief Valley by any straight or crooked method they can think up. With an ornery devil like Scott to climb over, they won't try to come in that entrance, that's sure."

"How about it, Scott?" asked the sheriff.

"I'd just as soon, and I'd just as soon say that I sure went crazy when Doug gave me those two good ones and I did what I wouldn't have done if I'd taken time to think."

"Well," grinned Douglas, "n.o.body is going to kick if you don't take time to think over in the Mormon valley."

Sheriff Day rose with a laugh. "I've got to get to the alfalfa field I'm plowing. Come on, Jimmy."

Jimmy rose to his good six feet of height and pulled on his gloves. "I feel like I'd been praying," he said. "That is, if I'd ever heard a prayer, I'd say so." He made a face at Judith and followed his father.

John Spencer looked from Douglas to Peter and from Peter to Charleton with a little lift of his chin. Then he said, "When are you coming home, Doug?"

"Not till Jude believes I didn't tell on her last summer."

"I'll get the truth out of Scott!" exclaimed John, drawing his six-shooter.

"Aw, put it up, John, you feather-brain you," drawled Scott. "I told Charleton, Jude. He paid me for the information. I never supposed he'd hold it against a girl."