“How old are you, Douglas?” asked Mr. Fowler.

“Twenty-three.  I just want to say this one thing more, then I’m through.  When things like that happen to Jimmy and Little Marion, they aren’t doing the right thing by Lost Chief, and”—­rising with sudden restless fire—­“I’d like to see Lost Chief be the kind of place my grandfather Douglas wanted it to be!”

Charleton yawned.  “We’d better be moving along.”

“Don’t go for a minute,” pleaded Mr. Fowler.  “Douglas was right when he said that the whole world is hungry for a belief in immortality.  And as long as the world exists it will have that hunger.  And religion is God’s answer to that hunger.  Civilization without religion is the body without a soul.  Religion brings a spiritual peace that man perpetually craves and that riches or women or horses or the hunt never brought and never can bring.  At heart, there’s not an unhappier man than you, Falkner.  Why?  Because you have no belief in immortality.”

“Great God, Fowler, how can I believe in it when I can’t?” shouted Charleton.

“Exactly!  How can you?” returned Fowler, deliberately.  “No foul-minded man ever yet had an ear for the word of the living God.”

Charleton jumped to his feet.  “What do you mean, you bastard cleric, you!”

“Aw, come off, Charleton!” exclaimed Douglas.  “I’ve learned more dirt from you than I bet Judith ever has from Inez.  Come on, let’s go get the horses.  Thanks for the grub, Mr. Fowler.”

“You are very welcome.  Don’t go away angry with me, Falkner.  If I called you foul-minded, you called me by a foul name.”

“I guess we’re even,” agreed Charleton.  “I’m obliged to you for the meal.”  He swung out of the wagon, mounted his horse and was off, Douglas following.

Charleton had hobbled his capture of horses in a little draw, several miles from the sheep camp.  In the excitement and hard work of herding the creatures into the camp and re-hobbling them, there was no opportunity to discuss the visit with the preacher sheep-herder.  Nor did Douglas wish to bring the matter up when, long after dark, they sat down to their supper of venison and biscuits.  He kept Charleton firmly to the story of his capture of each horse and when this was done and the dishes washed, he went to bed.

But long after Charleton had crawled in beside him, Doug lay awake thinking of Judith and of the preacher.  He wondered what influence a man like Fowler would have on a girl like Judith.  He wondered if Judith would come out with him to call on the preacher.  He thought it highly improbable.  And then he thought of Peter and what Peter might have said that day had he and not Charleton interrupted Doug and the preacher.  For the thousandth time, he thought of Peter’s love for his mother and he wondered how his mother had kept herself fine as Peter said she had.  Perhaps she had had some sort of religious faith.

“I wish Grandfather Douglas had put the church up with the schoolhouse,” he said to himself.  “Maybe it would have saved Judith as well as Scott Parsons.”