“Doug, what is the matter lately?  I never know when you’re going to take my head plumb off.”

“Oh, shut up, can’t you!  I don’t see why girls can’t let a fellow alone!”

“Tell me, Doug:  Why did you keep me from going with Dad on Monday morning?”

Douglas straightened up, his back to the stove, scowled, sighed, then said, “I feel like I wanted you to be like the girls in books and not like these wild women round here.  And if you don’t know what I mean, you are a fool.”

“Douglas Spencer, you know I’m just as good as any girl that ever lived in any book!”

“I know that, and I propose to keep you so.”  Doug lighted a cigarette.

“Since when were you so interested, I’d like to know?”

“That is none of your business.  Only, from now on you toe the mark, miss.”

“You’re not my boss, Doug Spencer!”

“Yes, I am,” returned Douglas serenely.  He finished making up a bed on the floor, rolled himself in two of the quilts and pulled the corner of one over his head.

Judith put out her tongue at his muffled form and crept under the quilts that remained on the bunk.  By and by the moonlight appeared through the window.  The stove grew cold.  The howling of the coyotes circled nearer and nearer.  Suddenly a rifle-shot rung out, then another.  The shots did not waken the sleeping boy and girl, but the mule brayed and began to kick with the rapidity of machine-gun fire.  They both jumped up and ran out.  The mule was just disappearing across the trail.  Douglas jumped on Swift’s bare back, catching the lariat from the saddle that lay on the manger.

“I’ll come too, on James!” cried Judith.  “I’ll ride to the right!”

Douglas urged Swift through the drifts, circled a cedar grove, and saw the mule stop to sniff at a horse which stood beside a dark heap in the snow.  Judith appeared around the opposite side of the grove and the mule dashed away.  They both hurried toward the quiet heap on the ground.  A man lay in the drifts, his rifle beside him.  It was Oscar Jefferson, with blood running out of his temple into the snow.

“Is he dead?” whispered Judith, crowding James up against Swift.

“I guess so.  Must have been the shot that scared the mule.  Come on, Judith!  We’ve got to get him into the cabin, somehow.”

Judith began to cry.  “I couldn’t touch a dead man, Douglas!”

Douglas’ own lips were very uncertain in the moonlight but he answered, firmly enough, “We’ve got to do it.  The coyotes will get him here.”

“They’ll say we shot him!” sobbed Judith.

Doug gave a start.  “They sure-gawd will!  What shall we do, Jude?”

“Go off and leave him and say nothing about it.”

“With our horses’ tracks all round him!  You’re crazy!  Anyhow, we couldn’t go off and leave a neighbor like this.  ’Tisn’t Lost Chief manners.”

“All right.”  Jude wiped her eyes on her sleeve.  “Let’s put the lariat round his feet and let Jeff’s horse pull him to the cabin.  It won’t hurt him in the soft snow.”