Judith of the Godless Valley Part 37

"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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+rt 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 G.o.d, 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 n.o.body 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, was.h.i.+ng 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 d.a.m.n 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 hobn.o.bbing 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 b.u.t.tonless blue s.h.i.+rt; 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!"