She had hung her cap on the pommel of her saddle and her curly black
hair whipped across her face. She had a short nose, a large mouth,
magnificent gray eyes and cheeks of flawless carmine. She wore a faded
plaid mackinaw, and arctics half-way up her long, thin legs.

"I hate you, Doug Spencer," she said finally and fiercely, "and I'm glad
you're not my real brother!"

"I don't see why my father ever married a woman with an ornery brat like
you!" retorted Douglas.

"I wouldn't stay to associate with you another minute if you offered me a
new pair of spurs! I'm going to meet Maud!" And Judith disappeared down
the trail.

Douglas eased back in his saddle and lighted a cigarette, while he
watched the distant figures approaching across the valley. The glory
of the landscape made little impression on him. He had been born in Lost
Chief and he saw only snow and his schoolmates racing over the converging
trails.

The Rockies in mid-winter! High northern cattle country with purple sage
deep blanketed in snow, with rarefied air below the zero mark, with sky
the purest, most crystalline deep sapphire, and Lost Chief Valley, high
perched in the ranges, silently awaiting the return of spring.

Fire Mesa, huge, profoundly striated, with red clouds forever forming on
its top and rolling over remoter mesas, stood with its greatest length
across the north end of the valley. At its feet lay Black Gorge, and
half-way up its steep red front projected the wide ledge on which the