Page:Honore Willsie--Judith of the godless valley.djvu/187

 stack and he wasn't quoting poetry. I didn't stay with him but a minute."

Again there was laughter.

"Big Marion will calm him," said Peter.

"I know one thing," exclaimed Douglas. "None of us will be saying the things to Charleton we've been saying behind his back."

"We sure won't," agreed Frank. "I suppose Judith's all broke up, poor little devil!"

Douglas nodded.

"I saw her and Inez hobnobbing in the Rodmans' corral to-day," said Young Jeff. "She'd better cut Inez out."

Douglas stared at the familiar faces around the room as if he never before had seen them. Peter, thin, melancholy, his long sinewy throat exposed by his buttonless blue shirt; Frank Day, big and keen of eye, squatting as usual against the wall; Young Jeff, ruddy and heavy-set, with his kind blue eyes and heavy jaw. All clean shaven, all in chaps and spurs, all good fellows, and all as helpless before the nameless mystery of life as Doug himself. The sweat started to his forehead. He rose, pulling on his gloves.

"It's early yet, Doug," said Peter.

"I'm going to call for Judith," replied Douglas. He went out into the night, whistled to Prince, mounted the Moose and galloped across to the west trail.

It was sharp and frosty but Inez and Judith, in mackinaws, were sitting on the back steps with a little fire of chips at their feet. Douglas dismounted and came into the fireglow. The light caught the point of his chin, his clean-cut nostrils, and the heavy overhang of his brows.

"Ready to come home, Jude, old girl?" he asked.