Judith of the Godless Valley. Honoré Morrow
fire and brimstone, Fowler," said Charleton Falkner, "you might as well quit now. None of us believe a word of it. We most of us think everything ends when they plant us in the cemetery yonder, that is, if they put on enough rocks so the coyotes get discouraged."
Douglas shivered. "I wonder if that's what I'll believe when I get to thinking about such things," he thought. "Hanged if I'll think of 'em till I'm old!"
"I'm with you, Charleton!" called Oscar Jefferson, rumpling his silvery hair with his soft white cowman's hand.
The Reverend Mr. Fowler leaned over the desk. "Charleton Falkner, aren't you man enough to admit that you folks here in Lost Chief lead a wicked life?"
"How do you mean, wicked?" demanded Charleton.
"I mean that you steal cattle, that you shoot to kill, that there is indecency among your children, that your young girls go unguarded and that your young men are no better than wild horses. I mean that your little girls drink whiskey. And I defy you to show me two mothers in the valley who have taught their children to pray and to walk with God."
"Aw!" sniffed Oscar Jefferson, "if that's what you've come a hundred miles to tell us, you'd better quit! That may do for foreigners and city slums, but it won't go down with the Lost Chief cowman. We're Americans, here."
"Americans!" cried Mr. Fowler. "How much does that mean?"
Jefferson rose to his full six feet. "By God, I'll tell you what it means! It means our ancestors conquered the Indians, in New England, that we fought the British in the Revolution and the rebels in the Civil War and the hombres in the Spanish-American War. It means that fifty years ago the father or the grandfather of every man in this room came out here and fought the Indians and the wolves and the Mormons—"
Charleton Falkner interrupted with his twisted smile that showed even, tobacco stained teeth. "Jeff, this ain't the Fourth of July celebration, you know!"
Jefferson somewhat sheepishly subsided to the desk on which he had been sitting.
"That's exactly why I came back!" cried the preacher. "I know that you and Lost Chief belong to the heroic early history of America. This should be a valley of old Puritan ideals. A church should stand here beside the school. You never have built a church. You never have allowed a minister to settle here. You never—"
Here Grandma Brown's brother-in-law, Johnny Brown, spoke. "I've deponed that many a time to this crowd of mavericks! You'd ought to—"
"Keep quiet, Johnny!" ordered Grandma. "Fowler, if you are going to give us a regular Bible sermon, go ahead. Otherwise, I'm going home. I can jaw, myself."
"Also, cuss some, Grandma," suggested a slow voice. Grandma did not heed.
"If you're going to preach, preach," she said to the minister.
Mr. Fowler threw his head back. "Ten years ago I let you drive me out of Lost Chief before I'd preached a sermon. God has never let me rest since, no matter where I was, and when I was re-appointed to Mountain City, before I preached my first sermon there, I came out here. You are going to have the Word of God preached to you to-day if you shoot me for it. And beware lest you come to Esau's fate for ye know how afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully, with tears."
He paused, took a Bible from his pocket and opened it.
Douglas waited tensely. The preacher looked to him as if weighted with mysterious knowledge, as if something infinitely illuminating were to issue from his bearded lips. The boy had a sudden conviction that Fowler was about to say something that would answer the longing that had so oppressed him lately. He hunched his broad, thin shoulders forward, his clear blue eyes on the preacher's face.
Fowler cleared his throat. "'Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Now thou son of man, wilt thou judge, wilt thou hide the guilty city? Yea, thou shalt show her all her abominations.'"
He closed the Bible. "Friends, this is my message and my text. I am going to show you your abominations of crookednesses. I am going to show you that hell is yawning for such as you."
Douglas sighed. "Old fool!" he muttered. "As Grandma Brown says, she can jaw. He's lost his chance with me." He slipped out of the door, mounted his horse and nodded to the group of youngsters waiting for him. Then he urged Buster up the steps, through the door and up the aisle. The others followed him. A moment later, the schoolroom was chaos. Horses pranced over the desks. Dogs barked and fought among the horses' legs. Babies screamed. Oaths filled the air. Lost Chief rocked with laughter.
Fowler jumped upon the teacher's desk, appealing in dumb show for order. A plunging horse tipped the desk over and the minister went down among the prancing legs. In a moment he was up, and again he raised both hands in a plea for silence. Douglas, laughing gaily, twirled his lariat, and pinioned the two pleading hands, then, amidst shouts of laughter, he backed Buster from the room, drawing the minister none too gently with him.
Outside, whither the crowd quickly followed, Douglas halted and, still laughing, allowed the preacher to free his hands.
"Now go on back to Mountain City, Mr. Preacher," he cried, "and don't come back till you've learned not to scold like an old woman."
Fowler pulled on his overcoat which somebody tossed him, and mounted his horse. Then he stood in his stirrups and pointed a trembling finger at Douglas.
"Ye shall find no place for repentance, though ye seek for it with tears."
"Why should I repent?" demanded Douglas.
"Aw, run him! Run the bastard!" shouted Scott Parsons.
But Doug rode between the preacher and the threatening young rider. "Let him go, Scott. He's had enough!"
Fowler disappeared down the trail. Scott turned scowling toward Douglas, but before he could do more Judith cried, "Come on, everybody! Let's go down to the post-office and get Peter to open the hall for a dance!"
"I will if somebody brings whiskey," agreed Scott, turning his horse toward Swift.
"I'll go over to Inez Rodman's and get some if Maud will go with me," volunteered Judith.
"Let's all go to Rodman's," cried Maud.
The older people were riding slowly down the trail to the valley. The youngsters waited until the way was clear before leaving the school-yard, agreeing in the meantime that Judith and Maud should go after the whiskey while the others went to interview Peter; and the two girls departed forthwith.
"Some one besides me will have to work on Peter," said Scott. "He's sore at me. I tried to kick Sister."
"What did you do that for?" asked Jimmy Day. "Are you sick of living?"
"She bit Ginger on the shoulder. I hate that dog."
"Jude can handle Peter," said Douglas. "Come on, let's get going."
The little cavalcade moved noisily down the trail, crossed the deep snows of Black Gorge and broke into a wild race when the road opened a mile below the post-office. The horses lunged and kicked through the drifts, the dogs barked, the girls squealed, the boys shouted. The post-office lay in the middle of the valley with neither tree nor house in its vicinity. It was a square log structure, two stories high, originally an inner fort built as a final retreat from the Indians. The upper room was now used as a dance-hall. The lower floor contained the post-office, a general store, and Peter Knight's living quarters.
Peter Knight was the only outsider in Lost Chief. He had lived there a scant twenty years. No one knew whence he came, nor why. He was a man of education and an ardent lover of animals, a somewhat sardonic, very lonely man, yet somehow having more influence in the valley than any one save Grandma Brown. He showed no actual fondness for any particular person save Judith and his big mongrel wolf-hound, Sister, Sister being every inch a person! Douglas had sometimes thought that Peter showed a real interest in him, but this interest was shown almost entirely by scathing vituperations, so the boy made