“Old Johnny is certainly your man,” Peter chuckled.  “How do he and the sky pilot hit it off?”

“It’s too early to say.  By the way, did you have a run-in with Scott?”

“Not at all.  Scott said Elijah was welcome to use the trail if he kept to it.”

Doug’s mouth opened and closed.  He took a letter from his pocket and laid a pile of bills beside it on the table.  “Will you send that mail order off for me to-day, Peter?  I’m blowing myself to a new saddle.”

“Must be money in staking a sky pilot,” grinned the postmaster.  “I didn’t notice you taking up a collection on Sunday, though.”

Douglas laughed.  “It pays so well that I’ve got to ride the traps again this winter to pay for the grub-stake.  Dad is so sore that he isn’t allowing me all he might.”

“I’ll help you if you are too much squeezed.  I hope you won’t be as bull-headed about taking a loan from me as Judith is.  By the way, how are matters coming between you and Jude, Douglas?”

“Report no progress!” grunted Doug.

“She’s a restless young colt.  I wish she could begin to get a sense of direction as you are.  Maybe she will, now she can get a bird’s-eye view of you.  You’ve always lived too close to each other to understand each other.  You’ll learn a lot about Jude and she about you, now you’ve moved a few miles away.”

“Do you honestly want me to have Judith, Peter?” asked Douglas with a sudden huskiness in his voice.

Peter, who was standing by the window examining the buckles of the belt, looked up at Douglas with surprise in the lift of his eyebrows.  After a moment, he said, “What are you driving at, Doug?”

Douglas took a quick turn up and down the room, then halted before Peter, his sensitive mouth twitching, his blue eyes glowing.  It seemed to him that he could not ask the question that must be asked; but finally he spoke, in a voice that was tense in the effort for self-control.

“Peter, I’ve thought of nothing else since last night.  Something about the way you looked at her—!  You are the best friend that I have, Peter, but I can’t give Judith up, even to you; it would be like trying to tear the veins out of my body.  She’s my life, Judith is!”

The older man put the rider’s belt carefully on the window-ledge, walked over to the table and slowly filled his pipe.  When he had filled it, he laid it down beside the belt, put his hands in his pocket, and turned to Doug, who, with the cold sweat standing on his forehead, was watching Peter’s every movement.  The wind swept snow down through the sod roof.  It hissed faintly on the stove.  Peter’s long face was knotted and hard.

“You have given me a shock, Douglas,” he said at last.  “You’ve given me a shock!”

Douglas’ heart thudded heavily.  It was true, then!  Peter did care, though perhaps he had not realized it before.

Peter went on, with painful concentration on Douglas’ blue eyes.  “I hadn’t known it, till this minute, Doug.  I thought I was through.  I’m fifty-six.  God!  Does life never finish with a man?” He laughed drearily.  “Don’t look at me like that, Douglas!  You and I will never be rivals!  This sort of thing can’t undo me again.  I swear it!”