Judith of the Godless Valley Part 42

Two hours later, Douglas was banging on the door frame of Fowler's sheep-wagon.

"It's just me, Douglas Spencer," he replied to the preacher's startled query. "I had to come over to ask you something."

A light flashed through the canvas. Then the door opened. "Come in! Come in! Light the fire while I pull my boots on. This is like the days when I was saving souls and marrying couples."

Douglas quickly had a fire blazing and pulled the coffee-pot forward. He pushed his hat back on his head and the candle-light threw into sharp relief the firm set of his lips. His six-shooter banged on the bench as he sat down and put one spurred boot on the hearth. The preacher perched blinking on the edge of the bunk. Through the canvas came the endless restless movement of myriad sheep.

"Mr. Fowler," said Douglas, "I own some land that came to me from my mother when I was twenty-one. If I build you a little church on it, will you come to Lost Chief and live there and preach? I'll be responsible for your wages."

Fowler's face was inscrutable. "Why do you want me to come, Douglas?"

For the first time, Doug's voice thickened. "I want you to help Lost Chief and to save Judith."

"Tell me about Judith."

Douglas hesitated, then he asked, "Catholics have a thing they call the confessional, haven't they? Well, it's a good idea if the chap they confess to is the right kind. I don't believe a word of your religion and yet I have a feeling that you are the right kind. Judith! She's twenty-one now. I'm six foot one. She's about two inches shorter. Weighs, I guess, fifty pounds lighter. Finest gray eyes you ever saw. Red cheeks.

Her mouth used to be too big, but now it's perfect. Rides and breaks a horse better than any man in the Valley, bar none. Loves animals and can tame and train anything. A great reader."

Douglas paused.

"She sounds very attractive. What's the trouble?" asked the preacher.

Douglas twisted his hands together. "You know who Inez Rodman is. Well, she is Jude's best friend! And she has formed all of Judith's ideas about love and marriage."

"Yet you say Judith is straight?"

"She sure-gawd is! But how can it last? She's restless and discontented and Inez is brilliant, feeds Judith's mind."

"Has her mother any influence over her?"

"None at all."

"How about her father?" asked the preacher.

"Of course, he's only her foster-father. She likes him and she hates him.

He certainly couldn't help her."

"And you are sure there is no hope in Judith's mother?"

"O she's just broken, like a patient fool horse. Good as gold, you know, but with about as much influence over Jude as a kitten. Judith hasn't any one to tie to, not any one. Peter is all right but he jaws too much. She hasn't any one."

"Doesn't she care for you?"

"She says she's fond of me. Fond of me! I'd rather she hated me. I'd as soon have a dish of cold mush from a woman like Jude, as fondness."

"And do you think I could influence Judith?"

"I don't know. But I want you to try. And it isn't all Judith with me. I love Lost Chief. I never want to live anywhere else. And I'd like to see it the kind of a place my grandfather Douglas wanted it to be. No, it honestly isn't all for Judith, though she's the beginning and the end of it."

There was something almost affectionate in the preacher's deep-set eyes as he watched Douglas.

"Do you realize, my boy, what you are asking? When you bring a preacher into Lost Chief, you are going to rouse an antagonism against yourself that will astound you. These people are of New England stock. There is no more intelligent stock in America, nor stock that is more conceited, more narrow, more obstinate, nor more ruthless. And the farther a New Englander gets from religion, the more brutal his virtues become. If you take me into Lost Chief, you are going to start a depth of strife of which we cannot foresee the end."

"I hadn't thought of that," said Douglas. He rested his chin on his palm and eyed the glowing stove thoughtfully. "I guess you are right,"

finally; "nothing makes Lost Chief folks so mad as to have some one hint they aren't perfect." Then he chuckled. "It'll be a real man's fight. I wonder what Jude will say! Are you afraid, Mr. Fowler?"

"Afraid? Yes! I'm not as young as I was once and I am not over-anxious for such a struggle. But this thing isn't in my hands. If ever the Almighty showed Himself a directing force, He is showing it here. This is what He ordained from the day you drove me out of the schoolhouse.

Do you remember what I said to you?"

"You quoted the Bible, I think. I don't remember what it was."

"I said, 'Ye shall find no place to repent you, though ye seek for it with tears.'"

Douglas murmured the words over to himself. His face worked a little.

"It's true! It's the living truth!" he exclaimed unevenly. "Not that I've got anything to repent--" he hesitated. "What is repentance? What is life? Where is G.o.d, if there is a G.o.d? What does it all mean, anyhow?"

The preacher said slowly, "'There is a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will.' That's what it all means. When shall you be ready for me, Douglas?"

"I think the fall would be best. Suppose we say right after the round-up.

I'll look for you on the twentieth of September."

"That will suit me. I can then give my boss ample notice."

"What pay will you want, Mr. Fowler?"

"Just enough to feed and clothe me. We'll arrange that after we get a church established."

Douglas rose with a broad grin. "I sure-gawd have let myself in for something now," he said. "But I'll take care of you, Mr. Fowler."

"All right, young Moses," returned the preacher, smiling into Doug's eager face. "Good-night."

Charleton was still sound asleep when Douglas at dawn lay down beside him and slipped into dreamless slumber.

CHAPTER XI

THE LOG CHAPEL

"Don't take any responsibility that you don't have to. That's my idea of a happy life."

--_Young Jeff_

By eight o'clock the next morning they had broken camp and had started homeward, with their kicking, squealing herd of wild horses. The little black mare alone led docilely. It was a difficult trip back to the valley and Douglas was grateful for this, for it kept Charleton from airing the cynical comments Douglas knew he was evolving in regard to the preacher. And Douglas was filled with a new purposefulness that was almost happiness. He did not want Charleton to obtrude himself upon this new-found content.

They reached Lost Chief late one afternoon and Douglas found himself and the trembling mare at home in time for supper. The family came out to the corral to examine the prize.