Judith of the Godless Valley. Honoré Morrow
bull is it now?" Charleton Falkner pushed Democrat toward the fence.
"Mine!" Scott spoke shortly, his freckled face unmoved.
"Do you think it was worth the price?" demanded Spencer.
Scott looked searchingly at the crowd before him. The steer John was holding had been dehorned but not seared. The blood had run down the brute's white face and formed a crimson icicle on its under lip. John had run his fingers through his ashen hair, leaving it blood-smeared. Charleton was lighting a blood-stained cigarette with the hot searing-iron. Judith pounded her half-frozen ringers together.
"What price did I pay?" asked Scott.
"Doug," commanded John, "you tell your story."
Douglas, with considerable embarrassment and assisted by Judith, told of their trip with the mail stage. Scott listened with little apparent interest. He said nothing when the story was done.
"It's like this, Scott," said John. "It looks like you killed him. You've got a bad temper. So had Oscar. You fought for over a year about that fool bull, first one of you branding it, then the other. You're young and you'd better give yourself up. You'll stand a better chance."
"Go ahead, Scott!" cried Judith. "I'll stand your friend like you did mine when I rode old Oscar's milch cow 'most to death!"
"Shut up, Jude!" exclaimed Douglas.
"Go ahead, Scott," John half smiled. "You needn't worry. You have a friend!"
"A friend won't do him much good, if he's guilty," grunted Charleton
Falkner.
"Anybody's better off for at least one friend," repeated Judith stoutly.
"Darn it! All of you picking on poor old Scott!"
"Lean on me, Grandpa!" piped Jimmy Day.
Scott's haggard eyes focused on Judith. "I'll hold you to that, Jude! By God, you're the only white man in the valley! I came in to give myself up, Jude. The cold got me. I shot him, after he'd rebranded the bull before my eyes and after he'd given me this."
He ripped open his mackinaw and shirt and tore a rag from his shoulder, disclosing a vivid wound. "I ain't the only one that's quick on the trigger!"
There was a quick murmur among the riders. John and Charleton, the oldest men in the group, looked at each other.
"Charleton, you and Jimmy Day ride to Scott's house with him," said John. "I'll go to the house and telephone to the sheriff." He mounted and rode off.
"Can your horse carry you so far, Scott?" asked Judith.
Scott nodded, with something curiously like tears in his hard hazel eyes. "You take the bull, Jude," he said. "I'd like for you to have him. He's standard bred."
Judith's eyes shone like stars. "If Dad'll only let me! Do you think he will, Doug?"
Douglas shrugged his shoulders. The bull was tied to the fence and Scott rode slowly away with his escort. When John returned from telephoning he gave a grudging consent to Judith's taking the bull, and the dehorning went on. Not until the blue velvet shadow of Falkner's Peak lay heavy on the incarnadined corral and the last bellowing steer had found solace at the haystacks did the riders start homeward. Douglas followed Judith, as she led the scare-crow bull.
"He's a good mate for Swift," he said.
"You're just jealous!" retorted Judith.
"Of what?" demanded Douglas.
"Of me starting a herd before you do!"
"Ha! Ha!" ejaculated Doug, without a smile, and nothing more was said until they reached the house.
At supper that night John asked Judith why she had shown so much friendship for Scott Parsons.
"I was sorry for him," she replied.
"But he killed our old neighbor!" exclaimed John.
"Yes, and Oscar had a notch on his gun, Dad; and you have one on yours."
"We put those notches there in the early days," returned John, "when every cowman carried the law on his hip. It's different now. You're altogether too highty-tighty, Jude, for a girl. You keep away from Scott Parsons, or I'll make you regret it."
Judith made no reply.
Scott's trial took place in April. It was a matter of deep interest, of course, to Lost Chief, and every one who could get to Mountain City by horse, wagon, or automobile, attended the court sessions. Judith and Douglas were chief witnesses and were royally entertained by young Jeff, who had returned to Lost Chief a week or so after his father's funeral.
Scott was acquitted on the plea of self-defense but he did not return at once to Lost Chief. The attitude of young Jeff did not make an early return seem diplomatic.
Douglas, when he came home from the trial, had a curious feeling that the winter just passed had ended his boyhood. He did not know why. He was not old enough to realize that when the fires of desire and the fear of death begin to sear a boy's mind, adolescence is passing and manhood has all but arrived.
Judith, who had accomplished her fifteenth birthday in March, a day or so before Doug arrived at the dignity of seventeen, had changed too. She had been less profoundly affected by the murder than Douglas; not that she was less sensitive or intelligent than he, but she was far less introspective than her foster-brother. And Judith had two unfailing foods for all hungers of the mind. One was her love of reading, the other, her love of riding; both absorbing, to the elimination of self investigation.
Douglas read a great deal, himself. Books and magazines furnished the only mental stimulants in the valley and it was a surprisingly well-read community. But Douglas, caring for Judith as he did, found it impossible to become fully absorbed in his old pastimes. He was restless, moody and lonely as only youth can be.
He and Judith both graduated from the log school early in June. There was the usual graduation dance at the post-office at which, as usual, Peter Knight officiated. It was a heavenly moonlit night. The air was fragrant from the acres of budding alfalfa and full of the lift and tingle that can belong to June only in the high altitudes. The ever strong, steady west wind of Lost Chief summers swirled down the valley.
The hall was dimly lighted by a single kerosene lamp. Cigarette smoke mingled with the pungent smell of whiskey, which seemed to be the chief ingredient of a concoction in a large pail, under the lamp. In the corner opposite the pail was a phonograph over which Peter presided.
Everybody danced. Even the dogs were not prohibited the floor. Only when Sister started a fight with Prince did any one protest and the dogs were driven back, temporarily, under the benches.
The schoolgirls in their white dresses were, of course, the belles of the occasion. Lost Chief, living its intensive life of isolation, probably did not realize of what superb physique were the youngsters of its third generation. Jimmy Day devoted himself to Little Marion Falkner, aged fourteen. Marion was called little to distinguish her from her mother, also Marion. The daughter at fourteen was five feet ten inches in height, the mother an inch taller. Even a badly cut muslin dress could not fully conceal the fine breadth of Little Marion's shoulders nor the splendid length and straightness of her legs.
Jocelyn Brown, Grandma's grand-daughter, dancing frequently with
Charleton Falkner, was at twelve only slightly shorter than Little
Marion. She had the face of an angel, the vocabulary of a cowman, and was
built of steel.
Inez Rodman, very fair and slender, easily five feet nine, was scorned by the older women but was brazenly popular with their husbands and the younger set of boys and girls.
Judith danced all the time but only occasionally with Douglas, who took her to task for her neglect.
"But, Doug, you and Dad are no novelty to dance with. What's