Then he gasped.  An idea of overwhelming importance had come to him.  He lay for an instant contemplating it, then he crept from the bunk and the sheep wagon into the open.  It was a frosty, star-lit night.  The river rushed like black oil, silver cakes of ice grinding above the roar of the current.  The Moose was munching on a wisp of alfalfa.  Douglas saddled him and led him softly out of hearing of the wagon, then sprang upon his back and put him to the canter.

Two hours later, Douglas was banging on the door frame of Fowler’s sheep-wagon.

“It’s just me, Douglas Spencer,” he replied to the preacher’s startled query.  “I had to come over to ask you something.”

A light flashed through the canvas.  Then the door opened.  “Come in!  Come in!  Light the fire while I pull my boots on.  This is like the days when I was saving souls and marrying couples.”

Douglas quickly had a fire blazing and pulled the coffee-pot forward.  He pushed his hat back on his head and the candle-light threw into sharp relief the firm set of his lips.  His six-shooter banged on the bench as he sat down and put one spurred boot on the hearth.  The preacher perched blinking on the edge of the bunk.  Through the canvas came the endless restless movement of myriad sheep.

“Mr. Fowler,” said Douglas, “I own some land that came to me from my mother when I was twenty-one.  If I build you a little church on it, will you come to Lost Chief and live there and preach?  I’ll be responsible for your wages.”

Fowler’s face was inscrutable.  “Why do you want me to come, Douglas?”

For the first time, Doug’s voice thickened.  “I want you to help Lost Chief and to save Judith.”

“Tell me about Judith.”

Douglas hesitated, then he asked, “Catholics have a thing they call the confessional, haven’t they?  Well, it’s a good idea if the chap they confess to is the right kind.  I don’t believe a word of your religion and yet I have a feeling that you are the right kind.  Judith!  She’s twenty-one now.  I’m six foot one.  She’s about two inches shorter.  Weighs, I guess, fifty pounds lighter.  Finest gray eyes you ever saw.  Red cheeks.  Her mouth used to be too big, but now it’s perfect.  Rides and breaks a horse better than any man in the Valley, bar none.  Loves animals and can tame and train anything.  A great reader.”

Douglas paused.

“She sounds very attractive.  What’s the trouble?” asked the preacher.

Douglas twisted his hands together.  “You know who Inez Rodman is.  Well, she is Jude’s best friend!  And she has formed all of Judith’s ideas about love and marriage.”

“Yet you say Judith is straight?”

“She sure-gawd is!  But how can it last?  She’s restless and discontented and Inez is brilliant, feeds Judith’s mind.”

“Has her mother any influence over her?”

“None at all.”

“How about her father?” asked the preacher.