Judith of the Godless Valley Part 69

Judith threw off the blankets. "I'll chop some wood and get warmed up."

"Aren't you warm now?" asked Douglas.

"All but around the edges," replied Jude.

"Well, you put the blankets round yourself again and save your strength for to-morrow. You'll need it. It won't take me long to get things ready for the night."

Judith snuggled back in the blankets. "I'm really not a bit more done up than you are, but it's worth a trip over the Pa.s.s to see a Lost Chief rancher take such care of a girl. I didn't know you had it in you, Doug!"

Douglas laughed and began making the camp ready for the night. When he had finished his preparations, he sat down beside Judith, pulled a part of the blankets over his shoulders and drew her close against him. The Wolf Cub lay as close as he could crowd against Judith's other side, his nose almost in the embers.

Judith looked into Doug's face attentively. His eyes were heavy and deep sunk in his head.

"You are very, very tired, Douglas. Why don't you get some sleep?"

Douglas shook his head. "To-morrow, if all goes well, we'll reach Nelson's place. This is to be my one last night alone with you. I'm not going to sleep until I have to. This camp might seem sort of cold and up in the air to some people, but to me, it's pretty close to heaven!"

"I never can connect the man you've grown to be," mused Judith, "with the horrid boy you were once. I wonder what has changed you so?"

"Boys are rotten," agreed Douglas cheerfully. "Loving you is what has changed me most. Everything else came out of that."

"I suppose," Judith looked at the fire thoughtfully, "that if I'm going to work in an office, I'd better begin to polish up my manners."

"You'll be a wonder in an office!" said Douglas. "I can just see you coaxing and taming a typewriter same as you coaxed and tamed old Sioux.

And just about as easy a job. You won't miss your horses and the Wolf Cub. You won't be homesick for the range. O no!"

"I've thought that all out, too," returned Judith coolly. "I'll hate every moment of it. But I'll be learning."

"Learning what, Judith?"

"About life!"

"About life! Judith, this is life. All of life. This!" He turned her face to his and kissed her lingeringly.

She was silent for a moment and there were tears in her eyes. Then she said, softly, "No, it's only a part of life. Things of the mind count heavily as you grow older. They count very much with you right now. What else is your fight for the sky pilot but a thing of the mind?"

"It's all based on my love for you, Judith," repeated Doug. "Judith, you never can stay away from Lost Chief."

"I'll stick it out. See if I don't! Will-power is the best thing I possess. Inez always said I'd never get up courage to leave. Perhaps I wouldn't have if I hadn't been so angry. But I did leave. She didn't know me."

"I wish Inez had run away. She's been your and my curse."

"How is she worse than Charleton?"

"She's more likable and a lot finer and so she has more influence. You don't really think for a moment that Peter will marry her, do you?"

Douglas spoke contemptuously.

"Well, if he doesn't marry her, it won't be because he considers that he's led a perfect life, I hope."

"That isn't the point. I think that men insist on marrying decent women because there's a race instinct that makes a man turn to something better than himself for his mate. It's what lifts the race, keeps the spiritual side of life moving uphill instead of down. If this wasn't true, human beings would never have got out of the monkey stage."

Judith looked at Doug with interest. "That might all be true, but I hope you don't put that up as an excuse for the double code."

"No. I don't. I'm just stating one of the selfish, brutal facts of life."

Judith made no reply, and for a long time Douglas made no attempt to break the silence. It was enough to be sitting under the brilliant heavens with Judith's wonderful body warm against his side. The far-drawn cry of the coyotes disturbing him now no more than it did the Wolf Cub listening but unheeding.

"I can't help thinking about old Johnny," said Judith at last. "It's going to worry me terribly when I'm by myself again. I should have stopped and taken care of him."

"It's not going to worry me," returned Douglas quietly. "The poor old fellow was unhappy and useless. He died a real hero's death for some one he loved. Folks in Lost Chief are going to remember that instead of his poor old feeble mind."

"I'm glad you were kind to him! You have been wise and kind in many ways, Doug, and you are only a boy. I believe Peter is right in saying you are going to be a big man."

"Shucks! Peter doesn't know that all the good there is in me is built on you."

"That isn't true," contradicted Judith. "You're big within yourself.

Even Inez said that."

Douglas grunted and his voice was without enthusiasm as he said, "Inez can't see anything straight that is related to love. I'll admit she's dangerously interesting. If I hadn't always been caring for you, she might have got me twisted the same as she has you."

"I'm not twisted," protested Judith stoutly. "I'm just not afraid to see marriage as it is. Sordid!"

"Inez!" sniffed Douglas.

"Let's not begin that again!" exclaimed Judith. "Just love me, Douglas, and let me go away."

He drew her closer still. "Love you!" he repeated in his quiet voice.

"You might as well tell me to breathe or my heart to keep on beating. I haven't done anything else since the day I drove the preacher out of the schoolhouse. Even when I've tried to stop caring, I couldn't do it!"

with a whimsical smile. "Do you remember how I wouldn't let you go with Dad to feed the yearlings?"

"Yes, I remember because from that moment you were a little different from other Lost Chief men in my mind. Tell me some more."

Douglas stared at the fire, going in retrospect over the long, long fight, the fight that still was only half over.

"I can't put it into words that will make it seem as big to you as it is to me, Judith. Tell me, have you been lonely all your life?"

"Yes. Very, very lonely. With the feeling that there was no one to understand."

"That's the way it's been with me, only I always knew that if you could care for me we could understand each other. I want to make you know me to-night, Jude. I want to fix my real self so in your mind that wherever you go, you'll have me with you."

"You did that long ago, Douglas," said Judith softly.

"Have I?" wistfully. "You see, Jude, you are so mixed up in my mind with Grandfather's dream of Lost Chief, and mine, and the preacher, and G.o.d, that I don't know myself where one leaves off and another begins. And to-night, one part of me is on fire with happiness and another is frozen with discouragement. Are you sure you can care for me, Judith?"

"Ever since that night in the hay-loft when you kissed me, after your father shot Swift. I didn't want to love you. There didn't seem much romance about a boy you'd lived with all your life. I didn't want to marry. I wanted to give all there was in me to some one big and fine enough to appreciate it. And after all, it's only you."

"Only me!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Douglas, comically.