Judith of the Godless Valley Part 64

Douglas, with a grim tightening of his lips, looked over his supplies.

Bacon, coffee, flour, matches; enough for a week if eked out by cottontails and porcupines. But the horses had only a day's fodder. He remade the pack, mounted and pushed on through the snows, which grew deeper as the elevation increased.

On either hand, the two ranges flung mountain beyond mountain, in shades of jade, creviced by deep blue snow. The tiny, weary cavalcade wound on and on with not a trace of Judith to lighten the way. It was noon when Douglas reached the forest which choked the end of Mormon Valley. He knew the spot. Nature first had covered the floor of the pa.s.sage with boulders. Between the boulders, she had planted the pine-trees. The pine had grown thick and tall and had waxed old and fallen, and other pines had grown above the dead tree-trunks. In summer, if extreme care and patience were used, a horse could be led through this chaos. In winter, deep-blanketed with snow--!

Douglas drew up before the pines and dismounted. The snow was waist-deep. Very slowly, he began to pick a winding, intricate path between the trees. He fell many times but he finally emerged into the smoother floor of the valley. Then he turned and followed his own trail back, kicking and pounding the snow to make better footing for the horses. He took Justus' reins and led him into the trail.

Horses hate the snow. These s.h.i.+ed and balked, stood trembling and uncertain, shook their heads and kicked, and Justus nipped at Doug's shoulder with ugly, yellow teeth. But he pulled them on and by mid-afternoon they were in the open valley with snow not above the animals' knees. Gradually the Mormon buck fences appeared, and, just at dusk, a twinkling light.

Douglas rode up to the cabin and, dismounting, knocked at the door.

It was opened by Elijah Nelson, his big bulk silhouetted in the door-frame.

"Good-evening!" said Douglas.

"Good-evening!" returned the Mormon.

"Did Judith Spencer come through this way?"

Nelson shrugged his shoulders. "I don't care to hold converse with any one from Lost Chief."

Douglas moistened his wind-fevered lips. "I'm not trying to hold converse with you. My sister has run away from home. I've lost her trail and I'm scared about her. I won't stop a minute if you'll just answer my question."

A woman pushed up beside Elijah. "Who is it, Pa? For pity's sake, young man, come in! It's a fearful cold night and this open door is freezing the whole house."

Elijah stood back and Douglas strode into the kitchen. Several children were sitting around the supper table. Nelson repeated Douglas' query to his wife, adding, "He's the young man who brought the preacher into Lost Chief and who called me a b.a.s.t.a.r.d American."

The woman stared at Douglas. He was haggard and unshaved. Nevertheless, standing, with his broad shoulders back, his blue eyes wide and steady yet full of a consuming anxiety, his youth was very appealing.

"Have you been out long?" she asked.

"Since Sunday dawn."

"She's your sister, you say?"

Douglas looked down at the woman. She could not have been much over thirty and her brown eyes were kindly. "She's only a foster sister," he replied, his low voice a little husky. "I--I--" he hesitated, then gave way for a moment. "If I'd stayed at home as her mother wanted me to, instead of bringing the preacher in, it never would have happened!

Religion! Look what it's brought me and Judith!"

"Religion never brought anything but good to any one," said Elijah Nelson. "It's religion now that makes me allow you within my doors."

Douglas gave the Mormon a quick glance. Somewhere back of his anxiety it occurred to him that he would like to ask this man some of the questions that had troubled him for years. But now he said urgently to the woman, "If Judith was here, for G.o.d's sake, tell me! She must not try to cross Black Devil Pa.s.s."

The woman turned to Elijah. "Tell him, Pa!"

Elijah scratched his head, eying Douglas keenly the while. "Peter Knight told me something about you. You don't seem to have been tarred with the same brush as the rest of the Gentiles in Lost Chief. That isn't saying I excuse the way you talked to me up at your chapel, but I guess you're to be trusted as far as women are concerned. The girl came in here last night. She was pretty well tuckered but as mad as hops. She told me that Sat.u.r.day night she had a violent quarrel with John Spencer and that she fled from home in a burst of anger that was still on her when she got here. She's headed for the Pa.s.s and the railroad beyond and nothing that I know of can stop her. My wife and I did all we could to make her give up the idea but she was sure she could make it. And I almost believe she can! She's as strong as a young mountain lion: the way G.o.d intended women to be. She stayed here all night and got away about an hour before dawn. We outfitted her good. She thought maybe she could make through the Pa.s.s by to-night, but I doubt it. Snow is awful deep up on Black Devil. We've been looking for her back all day."

Douglas drew a long breath. "Thank you, Mr. Nelson!" he said, and started for the door.

"Wait! Wait!" cried Mrs. Nelson. "You must have some supper and you must rest. You look terrible!"

Douglas shook his head. "Every minute counts. I'm not tired, only terribly worried. I couldn't rest."

Nelson walked over to the door deliberately, and put a big hand on Doug's shoulder. "You fill yourself with some hot food, Spencer. You know better than to tackle this job empty. That girl is in a desperate frame of mind. You are going to have a struggle with her, if you do overtake her. You must be cool and save your mind and body. How did she come to be in such, a state of mind?"

"She wasn't desperate," said Mrs. Nelson, unexpectedly. "She was sort of--of wild. I can't just find the word for it. But lots of young women are like that now-a-days."

Douglas looked at her curiously. Some phrase of Peter's, half forgotten, came back to him. "Revolt," he muttered. "Revolt, that's it."

The woman nodded. "Yes, revolt's the word."

Elijah shook Doug's shoulder. "How many horses have you?"

"Two."

"I'll feed 'em. Go sit down to that table and let my wife fix you up."

Douglas slowly pulled off his gloves, and his voice broke boyishly as he said, "You folks are awful kind."

"Yes, I've sometimes suspected that us Mormons was almost human beings,"

grunted Elijah as he pulled on his mackinaw.

Doug's cracked lips managed a shadow of his old whimsical smile. Mrs.

Nelson heaped his plate and filled his cup with scalding coffee. Then she shooed the children to bed in the next room and, returning, looked down at Douglas half tenderly.

"She's a splendid big thing, that girl of yours. If I was a man I'd be plumb crazy about her. Has to be something fine in a girl to go crazy mad, just the way she was. It wasn't all about your father. It had heaped up for years. Though undoubtedly it was your father started her off this weather."

Elijah came in and sat down to his interrupted meal. "Good horses you've got," he said. "But you've worked them hard."

"Will you sell me some oats?" asked Douglas.

Elijah nodded. "I'll fix you up. Do you know how to get to the Pa.s.s?"

"No; I've never crossed, even in summer."

"Well, I can direct you, though I've never made it myself in winter.

After you get over the Pa.s.s and into the Basin it will be easy going and you can get fodder there. A Mormon friend of mine is in the Basin this winter with sheep. I told Judith that and exactly how to get there."

"Was she in bad trim?" asked Douglas abruptly.

"No. A little used up for lack of sleep, that was all," replied Elijah.

Mrs. Nelson suddenly chuckled. "My, she was mad! It did me good to see her."

Her husband looked at her curiously. "How was that, Ma?"

"It's the way I've wanted to feel, lots of times," said Mrs. Nelson. "Go on with your directions, Pa. You wouldn't understand in a hundred years."

Elijah snorted, then went on. "There's no trail. But if you reach the summit, get a line on a bare patch in the middle of the basin, that's the lake, and the highest peak across the basin. It's got the mark of a big cross on it. You can't miss it. If you keep on this line, it will bring you out at Bowdin's sheep ranch. I don't know whether the snows are as bad on the other side of Black Devil as they are on this.

Johnson's Basin drops down to about three thousand feet elevation and there's not enough snow in the basin itself to stop sheep grazing. But the climb down is something awful, even in summer. Ma, you put up a bundle of grub."