“Charleton,” he said slowly, “doesn’t the thought of lying in a forgotten grave give you dumb horrors?”

“Sometimes,” replied Charleton laconically, as he beat his cold hands together.  “But only sometimes.”

Douglas strained forward in the intensity of his interest.

Douglas’ father straightened his broad shoulders.  “If I let myself think about it, I have to go out and get drunk,” he muttered.

“You don’t conject right about them things,” cried Johnny.  “You got to listen to things.”

No one heeded the sad-faced little man.  Peter stooped for another frozen clod.  “I’d give my right hand for my mother’s faith in a living God,” he said.

“But if there isn’t any God, what is there?” cried Douglas, with passionate protest in his voice.

“Don’t you try to discuss matters you ain’t old enough to understand, son,” ordered John Spencer.

“Unbelief is the price we pay for scientific progress,” said Charleton.  “Me, I’m willing to pay.”

“I’m not,” growled Peter, “but I don’t see any way round it.  Come on, Johnny, do your share.”

“I ain’t going to dig any more,” declared the little man.  “You all say I ain’t all here, and the part that ain’t here is the part that works.  Sabez?”

Everybody laughed.

“And,” Johnny went on, seriously, “I ain’t sure it’s a good idea to plant ’em so deep.  It takes a long time to grow up to heaven.  It’s a gregus far away place.”

“Right you are, Johnny, old man,” agreed Peter.  “It sure is gregus far away.”

Nobody urged Johnny to return to the job and the rest of the work was finished in silence.

That afternoon the funeral took place.  There were services at the post-office, where any one who wished spoke in praise of the dead man.  There were many speeches and it was late afternoon when the funeral cortege reached the cemetery.  The Forest Reserve was mysterious with shadows and with the unending murmur of the pines.  Snow gleamed blue over the valley.  The saddle horses and teams were hitched to the stout fence that surrounded the cemetery, and Lost Chief Valley crowded about the open grave.

John Spencer drove Mary down in the old bobsled but Judith and Douglas rode Swift and Buster as usual.  Judith had been nervous and irritable ever since the trip to the half-way house, but she had refused to admit that the murder had anything to do with her state of mind.  She had a boyish horror of admitting to fears, mental or physical.  She stood opposite Douglas, with a round beaver cap pulled down over her curly hair, her cheeks not so red as usual, her dark eyes rimmed and puzzled.  Douglas wondered what she was puzzling over and resolved that after the ceremonies were over, he would ask her.

Douglas could not know with what intensity his deep-set eyes turned from Judith and fastened upon Grandma Brown, who stood at the head of the grave.  There was a contented assurance in the old lady’s manner that was vaguely comforting to the boy.  He wondered what she knew that his father and Peter and Charleton did not know.