"Fudge!" she returned scornfully. "As if I hadn't carried it in every
night for four years! You'd better do your feeding before Dad gets after
you."

Douglas suddenly laughed and went out.

For a day or so he was haunted, particularly after he went to bed, by the
thought of the grave scene and by the comments Grandma Brown had made.
But Doug was only sixteen, after all, and shortly he was absorbed by
other matters: the hunt for Scott Parsons, the preparations for the
dehorning, and his new and thrilling and secret feeling toward Judith.

The search for Scott delayed the round-up only for a short time. A day
or so after the funeral it snowed and removed the last chance of finding
Scott's tracks. The cold was intense, and the job really belonged to
Sheriff Frank Day, so the posse broke up after a few days and the
dehorning was undertaken.

Early in the morning, half a dozen young riders helped Douglas and Judith
to cut out of the great herd in the swamp field the steers in need of
dehorning. In proportion to their strength, Lost Chief girls were as
clever as the men in handling horses and cattle. Judith was easily the
best of them. There was a fire and vim about her work, a wild grace, that
the other girls lacked. Douglas, his vision sharpened by his new attitude
toward Judith, thought she never had looked so handsome as she did this
morning, in her beaver cap, her new scarlet mackinaw, curls flying,
sitting the excited little Swift as easily as a boy.

Out of the circular corral led a smaller one. A cedar fire burned in
the middle of the lesser enclosure. John Spencer and two helpers stood