Judith of the Godless Valley Part 52

"Well, Doug," he said, "how does the reform movement progress?"

"We added Johnny Brown to our side this morning," replied Douglas. "Some line-up, I'd say!"

"Old Johnny is certainly your man," Peter chuckled. "How do he and the sky pilot hit it off?"

"It's too early to say. By the way, did you have a run-in with Scott?"

"Not at all. Scott said Elijah was welcome to use the trail if he kept to it."

Doug's mouth opened and closed. He took a letter from his pocket and laid a pile of bills beside it on the table. "Will you send that mail order off for me to-day, Peter? I'm blowing myself to a new saddle."

"Must be money in staking a sky pilot," grinned the postmaster. "I didn't notice you taking up a collection on Sunday, though."

Douglas laughed. "It pays so well that I've got to ride the traps again this winter to pay for the grub-stake. Dad is so sore that he isn't allowing me all he might."

"I'll help you if you are too much squeezed. I hope you won't be as bull-headed about taking a loan from me as Judith is. By the way, how are matters coming between you and Jude, Douglas?"

"Report no progress!" grunted Doug.

"She's a restless young colt. I wish she could begin to get a sense of direction as you are. Maybe she will, now she can get a bird's-eye view of you. You've always lived too close to each other to understand each other. You'll learn a lot about Jude and she about you, now you've moved a few miles away."

"Do you honestly want me to have Judith, Peter?" asked Douglas with a sudden huskiness in his voice.

Peter, who was standing by the window examining the buckles of the belt, looked up at Douglas with surprise in the lift of his eyebrows. After a moment, he said, "What are you driving at, Doug?"

Douglas took a quick turn up and down the room, then halted before Peter, his sensitive mouth twitching, his blue eyes glowing. It seemed to him that he could not ask the question that must be asked; but finally he spoke, in a voice that was tense in the effort for self-control.

"Peter, I've thought of nothing else since last night. Something about the way you looked at her--! You are the best friend that I have, Peter, but I can't give Judith up, even to you; it would be like trying to tear the veins out of my body. She's my life, Judith is!"

The older man put the rider's belt carefully on the window-ledge, walked over to the table and slowly filled his pipe. When he had filled it, he laid it down beside the belt, put his hands in his pocket, and turned to Doug, who, with the cold sweat standing on his forehead, was watching Peter's every movement. The wind swept snow down through the sod roof.

It hissed faintly on the stove. Peter's long face was knotted and hard.

"You have given me a shock, Douglas," he said at last. "You've given me a shock!"

Douglas' heart thudded heavily. It was true, then! Peter did care, though perhaps he had not realized it before.

Peter went on, with painful concentration on Douglas' blue eyes. "I hadn't known it, till this minute, Doug. I thought I was through. I'm fifty-six. G.o.d! Does life never finish with a man?" He laughed drearily.

"Don't look at me like that, Douglas! You and I will never be rivals!

This sort of thing can't undo me again. I swear it!"

He paced the room again, and once more paused before the young rider.

"Not that I underestimate the strength of the thing. Who knows so well as I that love is the most powerful force in the world? Mind you, Doug, I make a sharp distinction between love and l.u.s.t. l.u.s.t can be controlled by any one. Love can be controlled by a man as old as I am. But when love grips a young fellow like you, he is powerless to throw it off. I'd be a cur, Douglas, at my age, to refuse to throttle a love that would conflict with you--the man I like best in the world."

He paused. Douglas did not stir. Peter lifted his pipe, laid it down, and set a match carefully beside it.

"Douglas," he said, "my market is made. I sold my birthright for a mess of pottage. Whatever regrets or grief I may have are just. To contemplate a girl like Judith having any interest in me, is ghastly.

Judith is yours, whether she realizes it or not. Will you stay for dinner?"

He put his pipe in his mouth, and lighted it. Douglas gave a long, uncertain sigh.

"No, thanks, Peter! I must get back to my sky pilot. You will be at the log chapel early on Sunday?"

"Yes. But you'd better let him handle the meeting. Have him preach on immortality. You've sort of got them going on that."

Douglas nodded, put his hand on the door-k.n.o.b, then turned back.

"Peter, does life never finish with a man? Don't you find peace anywhere along the line?"

"Not your kind of a man. There are a number of sure springs in the desert, though, where a man can be certain of a mighty pleasant camp.

But it's only a camp."

Douglas moistened his lips. "What can a fellow do about it?" he demanded.

"Well," replied the older man, "he can make up his mind to find it devilishly interesting, even the dry marches."

The young rider threw back his head. "Me--I'm going to find more than interest! I'll find color and some thrills, too. See if I don't!"

Peter laughed grimly. "Yes, you'll find a thrill or two but always where you least expect it."

Douglas' smile was twisted. He opened the door and went out into the wind-swept day. Smoke drove horizontally from the low chimneys that dotted the valley. Cattle bellowed as if in disconsolate protest against the ruthless on-march of winter. Douglas, in spite of the last few words with Peter, was in a curiously uplifted frame of mind which for some time he could not dissect. Part of it he knew to be relief from the sudden suspicion that had overwhelmed him, but he was half-way home before he told himself that Peter's essential fineness had revived his faith in the goodness and kindliness in human nature. In a life where one could know a Peter, he thought, there must be beauty and a kind of beauty that Inez could neither find nor appreciate. Poor old Inez!

The dinner hour was long past when he jingled along the trail past his father's place. On sudden impulse he turned the Moose into the yard.

Judith opened the door. She was in sweater and riding-skirt. Her black hair was bundled up under a round beaver cap under which her bright beauty glowed in a way to lift a far less interested heart than Doug's.

"h.e.l.lo, Douglas!"

"h.e.l.lo, Judith! Where are you going?"

"Just out to jump the little wild mare. Where have you been?"

"Down to the post-office. I saw Dad heading for Charleton's."

"Yes, I'm alone. Mother went over to Grandma's. The old lady is ailing."

Douglas jumped from the saddle. "You haven't mentioned it, but, thanks, I will come in. Is there any grub in the house? I haven't had dinner yet."

Judith laughed. "I was expecting that! I just finished my own. Come along!"

Douglas ate his dinner while Judith watched with speculative eyes.

"Peter is a funny old duck," she said finally.

"Funny? How?"

"O, he's so lonely and so cross and such good company and so kind! I'd like to have known him when he was young."

Douglas looked at her closely. "Jude, could you get to care for Peter if you thought he cared for you?"

"Who, me? Peter? What's the matter with you, Doug? Why, Peter is as old as Dad!"