Douglas did not see the beauty of the valley, but as, far below, he saw Judith trot up to the Day’s corral, he was smitten suddenly by his sense of loneliness.  Too bad of Jude, he thought, always to be flying off at a tangent like that!  A guy couldn’t offer the least criticism of her fool horse, that she didn’t lose her temper.  Funny thing to see a girl with a hot temper.  Ordinary enough in a man, but girls were usually just mean and spitty, like cats.  A guy had to admit that there was nothing mean about Judith.  She was fearless and straight like a first-class fellow.  But temper!  Whew!  Funny things, tempers!  He himself always found it hard to let go of his rage.  It smouldered deep and biting inside of him and hard to get out into words.  He usually had to tell himself to hit back.  Funny about that, when his father was always boiling over like Judith.  He wondered if her temper would grow worse as she grew older, as his father’s had.  Funny things, tempers!  People in a temper always looked and acted fools.  The guy that could keep hold was the guy that won out.  Like being able to control a horse with a good curb-bit.  Funny why he felt lonely.  It was only lately that he had noticed it.  Here was Buster and here was Prince, and here was the approaching joke of the preacher.  Why then this sense of loneliness?  Maybe loneliness wasn’t the right word.  Maybe it was longing.  And for what?  Not for Jude!  Lord, no!  Not for that young wildcat.  But the feeling of emptiness was there, as real as hunger, and at this moment as persistent.  Funny thing, longing.  What in the world had a guy like him to long for?

A long coo-ee below the ledge interrupted his meditation.  A young rider leaped from the trail to the level before the schoolhouse, broke into a gallop and slid, with sparks flying, to the door.

“Hello, Scott!” said Douglas, without enthusiasm.

“I thought Jude was here!” returned Scott.  He was older and heavier than Douglas, freckled of face and sandy of hair, with something hard in his hazel eyes.

“He’d better leave Jude alone,” thought Douglas, “the mangy pinto!”

There was a shriek and a gray horse, carrying a youth with the schoolmarm clinging behind him, flew across the yard and reared to avoid breaking his knees on the steps.  The schoolmarm scrambled down, still screaming protests at the grinning rider.  One after another now arrived, perhaps a dozen youngsters, varying in age from five to eighteen, each on his or her own lean, half-broken horse, each appearing with the same flying leap from the steep trail to the level, each racing across the yard as if with intent to burst through the schoolhouse door, each bringing up with the same pull back of foaming horse to its haunches.  And with each horse came a dog of highly varied breed.

The youngsters had been racing about the ledge for some time before the grown people began to appear.  The women, most of them very handsome, were dressed dowdily in mackinaws and anomalous foot covering.  But the men were resplendent in chaps and short leather coats, with gay silk neckerchiefs, with silver spurs and embossed saddles.