“Then you must like me too!” said Peter.

“You are a nice old gentleman,” retorted Judith.

Peter’s lips closed grimly.

The preacher spoke with sudden vehemence.  “Yet you people are allowing this same Scott to try to destroy Douglas’ dream for Lost Chief.”

“I say Scott is a valuable citizen,” drawled Charleton.  “He guards us from Mormons, from Christians, and from wild women.”

Douglas did not join in the laugh that greeted this sally.  An entirely new fear had come upon him.  He bit his lip and stared from Judith to Peter and back again.

Inez rose suddenly.  “Well, the moon is up.  Come, Judith!  It’s time for wild women to retire to their caves.”

Judith gave a gigantic yawn, stretched her beautiful long body till the tips of her fingers almost touched the low rafters, and said, “It’s a good thing Charleton and Peter will be going along to protect us from Scott, the bad man.”

The four presently jingled off down the snowy trail.  Prince took up his shivering night-watch on the steps.  Douglas and Mr. Fowler looked at each other soberly and went to bed.

CHAPTER XIII

PRINCE GOES MARCHING ON

“A wise dog won’t tackle a trapped wolverine.”

—­Old Prince.

The next morning Johnny Brown trotted up on his old cow-pony.  The preacher and Douglas were at breakfast.  All the world was bristling with frost and a million opalescent lights danced on every snowdrift.  Douglas swung the door open.

“Well, Johnny, did you finally break away from everybody?”

The little old man slid briskly from the saddle, brushed the icicles from his beard, and grinned broadly.

“Even Inez, she tried to stop me.  Says some one has got to get her some cedar wood for her heater stove.  ‘You get you some squaw-wood, Inez,’ I deponed.  ’Them that can’t make the men chop regular wood for ’em, don’t deserve nothing better than brittle stuff like alder.  Get you some squaw-wood, Inez,’ I deponed.  Douglas, they are plumb jealous of you.  Since you seen there was something to me beside a old half-wit, they’ve all been horning round, jealous like, to get me.”

Douglas, his yellow hair a glory in the rising sun, nodded seriously.

“Look to your saddle, Johnny, then come in to breakfast.  I’ve got a few steers I want to dehorn to-day, so you’re just in time.”

The preacher was still at breakfast when old Johnny came in.  The two old men stared at each other with unmixed interest.  Douglas stood with his back to the stove, a cigarette drooping from his lips, a remote twinkle in his eyes.

Johnny lushed down his second saucer of coffee before he attempted to marshall his thoughts into speech.  But, having accomplished this, he said, “Doug and me are gregus great friends, Mr. Fowler.  There ain’t anybody in Lost Chief thinks as much of him as I do.”