Page:Honore Willsie--Judith of the godless valley.djvu/254



HE next morning Johnny Brown trotted up on his old cow-pony. The preacher and Douglas were at breakfast. All the world was bristling with frost and a million opalescent lights danced on every snowdrift. Douglas swung the door open.

"Well, Johnny, did you finally break away from everybody?"

The little old man slid briskly from the saddle, brushed the icicles from his beard, and grinned broadly.

"Even Inez, she tried to stop me. Says some one has got to get her some cedar wood for her heater stove. 'You get you some squaw-wood, Inez,' I deponed. 'Them that can't make the men chop regular wood for 'em, don't deserve nothing better than brittle stuff like alder. Get you some squaw-wood, Inez,' I deponed. Douglas, they are plumb jealous of you. Since you seen there was something to me beside a old half-wit, they've all been horning round, jealous like, to get me."

Douglas, his yellow hair a glory in the rising sun, nodded seriously.

"Look to your saddle, Johnny, then come in to breakfast. I've got a few steers I want to dehorn to-day, so you're just in time."

The preacher was still at breakfast when old Johnny came in. The two old men stared at each other with unmixed interest. Douglas stood with his back to the