door.

"Get into the wagon, Judith!" ordered John.

Douglas strode uncertainly to his father's side. "Judith, you go get on
your horse!"

The young girl stood staring at the two, something impish in the curl of
her lips, something wistful and unafraid and puzzled in her beautiful
gray eyes. Back of the two men lay the unblemished blue white of the
snow-choked fields and in awful proximity to these, Dead Line Peak flung
its head against the cloudless heavens. Judith looked from the Peak to
father and son as though deliberately appraising them. John, with ashen
hair, with bloodshot eyes and the tell-tales lines from nose to lip
corner, but handsome, dominating, choleric, with his reputation as a
conqueror of women, as a subduer of horses, as a two-gun man. Douglas,
with his thatch of gold blowing in the cold morning air, thin, awkward,
only a boy but with a spirit glowing in his blue eyes that Judith never
before had seen there. The girls of Lost Chief were sophisticated almost
from the cradle. Judith could interpret the lines in her stepfather's
face. But she did not know what the strange light in Douglas' eyes might
mean. Suddenly she sprang to Swift's back and put her to the gallop.

"You know what to expect when you come back, miss!" roared John.

But Judith did not seem to hear. Spencer turned to his son. "Now, sir,
you go into the house and get the whip!"

Douglas did not stir. "You aren't going to whip me any more, Dad. If you
want to fight me, put up your fists."