Page:Honore Willsie--Judith of the godless valley.djvu/260

 mind to find it devilishly interesting, even the dry marches."

The young rider threw back his head. "Me—I'm going to find more than interest! I'll find color and some thrills, too. See if I don't!"

Peter laughed grimly. "Yes, you'll find a thrill or two but always where you least expect it."

Douglas' smile was twisted. He opened the door and went out into the wind-swept day. Smoke drove horizontally from the low chimneys that dotted the valley. Cattle bellowed as if in disconsolate protest against the ruthless on-march of winter. Douglas, in spite of the last few words with Peter, was in a curiously uplifted frame of mind which for some time he could not dissect. Part of it he knew to be relief from the sudden suspicion that had overwhelmed him, but he was half-way home before he told himself that Peter's essential fineness had revived his faith in the goodness and kindliness in human nature. In a life where one could know a Peter, he thought, there must be beauty and a kind of beauty that Inez could neither find nor appreciate. Poor old Inez!

The dinner hour was long past when he jingled along the trail past his father's place. On sudden impulse he turned the Moose into the yard. Judith opened the door. She was in sweater and riding-skirt. Her black hair was bundled up under a round beaver cap under which her bright beauty glowed in a way to lift a far less interested heart than Doug's.

"Hello, Douglas!"

"Hello, Judith! Where are you going?"

"Just out to jump the little wild mare. Where have you been?"