Page:Honore Willsie--Judith of the godless valley.djvu/26

 lower lip and a close-cropped gray mustache. He wore a gray flannel shirt and blue denim pants turned high over riding-boots.

He watched the passing of the whiskey bottle without comment.

"Hello, Peter!" called Judith. "Will you open the hall and let us have a dance?"

"What have you been doing to your horse, Jude?" demanded Peter, eying the panting and dejected Swift.

"Nothing!"

"Nothing! I tell you what, the way you little devils treat your horses would draw tears out of a coyote. Starving 'em, beating 'em, running 'em! You ought to be thrashed, every one of you worthless young slicks."

Curiously enough, none of the group which had shown so much temerity in man-handling the preacher now attempted to reply to Peter. A great shaggy gray dog, exactly like a coyote except that she was much larger, now appeared in the door beside the postmaster. A chorus of growls and whines immediately arose from the dogs congregated among the horses.

"What happened at the schoolhouse?" asked Peter abruptly.

"You're always preaching, yourself; I suppose that's why you didn't attend," grinned Scott Parsons.

"My Yankee horse is sick," said Peter, "and I couldn't leave him. How did it go?"

"We ran him out," laughed Douglas. "We gave him a chance to give us real talk but he couldn't come across, so we roped him and ran him."

"I thought that would happen. Poor Fowler!" Peter's voice was grave.

"Listen, Peter," cried Judith, "I want to ask you a favor."