Judith of the Godless Valley. Honoré Morrow
but to no avail. When she finally did move it was to lie down with deliberate slowness. Douglas jumped out into the drifts and by risking his life among her agitated legs he managed to get her up. An hour passed in the intense cold before she finally was harnessed and meekly pulling more than her share.
At the top of the Pass, Douglas drew up to breathe the team. Bleak, snow-covered rocks rose on either side of the trail, but opening beyond, snow-topped ranges in rainbow tints gleamed against a sky of intensest blue. Behind him, as he turned to look, lay Lost Chief Valley, with blue clouds rolling from the tops of Dead Line and Falkner's Peaks. Douglas shivered and urged the team on. But the mule again balked, and as Doug gathered up the whip a gruff voice cried, "Hold up your hands!"
A six-shooter in a mittened fist appeared over a rock heap at the roadside.
Douglas blanched, then looked keenly at the mitten. "Come out of that,
Jude! Darn it, I thought you'd gone to Grandma Brown's!"
Judith led Swift from behind the rock, and mounted. Her eyes were bright with mischief.
"You turn right round and go home again, miss!" he cried, as Swift ranged beside the buckboard.
Judith giggled. "You sure do need a hazer, Doug, while you're driving that mule! I left a note for Mother."
"Go home! Don't speak to me. This is no trip for a girl!"
"You mean you want me to go home and help Dad feed the two-year-olds?" demanded Judith.
Douglas glared at her. For all the biting cold, her old knit cap was hanging to the pommel, her mackinaw was open at the throat. Her cheeks were deep scarlet, her gray eyes half filled with tears.
Douglas scrowled and his mouth settled into sullen lines. This was a man's trip. Judith had no business to make it seem easy enough for a girl! And with this new feeling for Judith, she was making the adventure too difficult. Hang it all! The place for a girl was at home! But he knew Jude and he was not going to try to repeat the triumph of Monday morning. He called to the team and started on.
Judith, having won her point, dropped behind the buckboard and the journey continued in silence. They reached the half-way cabin late in the afternoon. The little log hut, with a rude horse shelter beside it, stood in a clump of cedar close beside the trail. The snow was fresh trampled, for the up stage had left at three o'clock. Judith and Douglas were very cold. They hastily unharnessed, broke the ice at the little spring and watered the horses, then rushed into the cabin. There was a bunk, covered by soiled and ragged quilts, a table, a few cooking utensils, and boxes for seats. They lighted a candle and unearthed canned beans, coffee, and canned brown bread from beneath the bunk. After he had eaten his supper, Doug grinned for the first time.
"Forgiven me, huh?" asked Judith.
Douglas nodded. "It would be darned lonely without you. You'd better get to bed, Jude."
"Who gets the bunk?" asked Judith.
"You of course!" Douglas' voice was suddenly harsh again.
Judith sat down on the edge of the bunk. In the uncertain light of the candle she looked all eyes.
"Doug, what is the matter lately? I never know when you're going to take my head plumb off."
"Oh, shut up, can't you! I don't see why girls can't let a fellow alone!"
"Tell me, Doug: Why did you keep me from going with Dad on Monday morning?"
Douglas straightened up, his back to the stove, scowled, sighed, then said, "I feel like I wanted you to be like the girls in books and not like these wild women round here. And if you don't know what I mean, you are a fool."
"Douglas Spencer, you know I'm just as good as any girl that ever lived in any book!"
"I know that, and I propose to keep you so." Doug lighted a cigarette.
"Since when were you so interested, I'd like to know?"
"That is none of your business. Only, from now on you toe the mark, miss."
"You're not my boss, Doug Spencer!"
"Yes, I am," returned Douglas serenely. He finished making up a bed on the floor, rolled himself in two of the quilts and pulled the corner of one over his head.
Judith put out her tongue at his muffled form and crept under the quilts that remained on the bunk. By and by the moonlight appeared through the window. The stove grew cold. The howling of the coyotes circled nearer and nearer. Suddenly a rifle-shot rung out, then another. The shots did not waken the sleeping boy and girl, but the mule brayed and began to kick with the rapidity of machine-gun fire. They both jumped up and ran out. The mule was just disappearing across the trail. Douglas jumped on Swift's bare back, catching the lariat from the saddle that lay on the manger.
"I'll come too, on James!" cried Judith. "I'll ride to the right!"
Douglas urged Swift through the drifts, circled a cedar grove, and saw the mule stop to sniff at a horse which stood beside a dark heap in the snow. Judith appeared around the opposite side of the grove and the mule dashed away. They both hurried toward the quiet heap on the ground. A man lay in the drifts, his rifle beside him. It was Oscar Jefferson, with blood running out of his temple into the snow.
"Is he dead?" whispered Judith, crowding James up against Swift.
"I guess so. Must have been the shot that scared the mule. Come on,
Judith! We've got to get him into the cabin, somehow."
Judith began to cry. "I couldn't touch a dead man, Douglas!"
Douglas' own lips were very uncertain in the moonlight but he answered, firmly enough, "We've got to do it. The coyotes will get him here."
"They'll say we shot him!" sobbed Judith.
Doug gave a start. "They sure-gawd will! What shall we do, Jude?"
"Go off and leave him and say nothing about it."
"With our horses' tracks all round him! You're crazy! Anyhow, we couldn't go off and leave a neighbor like this. 'Tisn't Lost Chief manners."
"All right." Jude wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "Let's put the lariat round his feet and let Jeff's horse pull him to the cabin. It won't hurt him in the soft snow."
"Nothing will hurt him any more, poor old Jeff," said Douglas.
He dismounted and moved toward the body. Then, with teeth chattering audibly, he tied the lariat round Jeff's feet and told Jude to get on to the saddled horse.
"Guide him easy. I'll walk and lead the other horses and see that nothing goes wrong."
Still whimpering, Judith obeyed, and the strange little procession moved toward the cabin. When they reached the shed, Doug loosened the lariat. "Judith," he said, "the best thing we can do is to put him in the buckboard and take him home."
"I'm so afraid of a dead man, Doug!"
"So am I. But it's only poor old Oscar, after all, who's been our next-door neighbor all our lives. We can't leave him here alone, like a dead horse. We'll take him home. That's what Dad or any of the men would do. Come on, Jude."
They established poor Oscar on the floor of the buckboard, among the mail bags. They hitched up James and Oscar's big black, and tied Swift to the tail end. All this time the moon shone coldly on the white hills, and the coyotes howled nearer and nearer.
"Cover him deep with the quilts, Doug," whispered Judith. "I'm going to make up a pot of hot coffee, before we start."
"How about that mule?" whispered Douglas.
"Let it go plumb to hell!" returned Judith. "Scott's the one should have been shot, for sending you out with such a brute!"
"If it hadn't been for the mule, we'd never have found him," muttered
Douglas.
It was not much