Judith of the Godless Valley Part 67

"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 circ.u.mstances?" demanded Judith.

Douglas looked at her with pa.s.sionate 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 Sat.u.r.day 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.