Judith of the Godless Valley | Page 9

to her own corner and
shortly she too was asleep.
But Douglas, new thoughts surging through his brain, lay awake long
after his father had turned out the light and crawled in beside Mary. Of
a sudden, he had seen Judith through his father's eyes and he found
himself very unwilling to permit John to see her so. Her loneliness had

assumed an entirely new aspect to him. It was the loneliness of
girlhood, of girlhood without father, mother, or brother. That was what
it amounted to, he told himself. He never had been a real brother to
Judith, never had looked out for her as if she had been his sister. And
Jude's mother! Just tired and sweet and broken, about as well fitted to
cope with her fiery daughter as with the unbroken Morgan colt which
was John's pride. As for his father--! Douglas turned over with a deep
breath. Let his father take heed! Judith! Judith with her glowing wistful
eyes, her crimson cheeks, her dauntless courage, her vivid mind! Judith,
with her loneliness, was his to guard from now on. Funny how a guy
could feel so all of a sudden! Funny, if he really should love old Jude,
with her fiery temper and more fiery tongue. And if this were love, love
was not so comfortable a feeling, after all. It was a profound uneasiness,
that uprooted every settled habit of his spiritual being. It was, he told
himself, before he fell asleep, a funny thing, love!
CHAPTER II
OSCAR JEFFERSON
"Help those that need help."
_--Grandma Brown_.
The next morning while Doug was feeding in the corral, his father
hitched a team to the hay wagon. Just as he prepared to climb over the
wheel, Judith came out, ready for her ride to the Days' ranch, where she
was to spend the day.
"Say, Jude," called John. "I want Doug to go to the old ranch after
some colts. You come with me and help feed. I'm going to get all I can
out of you two until school begins again."
Judith crossed silently to the wagon and climbed aboard. Douglas
dropped his pitchfork and walked deliberately toward the fence. As he
climbed it, he said, "Judith, you aren't going. You keep your date with
Maud." He dropped from the fence to his father's side.

John turned to him with a look of entire astonishment.
"Jude's growing up, as you say," explained Douglas heavily. "If you
aren't going to look out for her, I am."
"O, you are! And why?" demanded his father.
"Because!" replied Doug. "Jude, you get down and get started on
Swift."
Astonishment, amusement, anger, pursued their way across the older
man's face. Judith put out her tongue at her brother.
"Chase yourself, Doug Spencer! You're not my boss, you bet!"
John put his foot on the hub. "Good-by, Doug; I hope you recover from
your insanity by to-night."
Douglas put an unsteady hand on his father's shoulder. "She can't go
with you, Dad!"
His father struck him roughly aside. Douglas ran around the wagon.
Judith was sitting on the edge of the rick. He reached up, pulled her
into his arms, ran her into the feed shed, turned the key in the padlock
and put the key in his pocket. As he turned, his father met him with a
blow between the eyes. Mary Spencer appeared on the doorstep, pale
and silent.
It was but the work of a moment to subdue the boy, and to unlock the
door.
"Get into the wagon, Judith!" ordered John.
Douglas strode uncertainly to his father's side. "Judith, you go get on
your horse!"
The young girl stood staring at the two, something impish in the curl of
her lips, something wistful and unafraid and puzzled in her beautiful
gray eyes. Back of the two men lay the unblemished blue white of the

snow-choked fields and in awful proximity to these, Dead Line Peak
flung its head against the cloudless heavens. Judith looked from the
Peak to father and son as though deliberately appraising them. John,
with ashen hair, with bloodshot eyes and the tell-tales lines from nose
to lip corner, but handsome, dominating, choleric, with his reputation
as a conqueror of women, as a subduer of horses, as a two-gun man.
Douglas, with his thatch of gold blowing in the cold morning air, thin,
awkward, only a boy but with a spirit glowing in his blue eyes that
Judith never before had seen there. The girls of Lost Chief were
sophisticated almost from the cradle. Judith could interpret the lines in
her stepfather's face. But she did not know what the strange light in
Douglas' eyes might mean. Suddenly she sprang to Swift's back and put
her to the gallop.
"You know what to expect when