Douglas pondered over this for a long time, his eyes on the glory of the Indian peaks.  Then he said, “You knew my mother well?”

“Yes.  I’d have married her, Doug, if she hadn’t already married your father.  She—­she was so devilishly overworked and unhappy!  But she never complained.  Your father was crazy about her but he treats a woman like he does a horse.  He doesn’t know any different.”

“O, don’t tell me any more!” said Douglas brokenly.  “The poor little thing!  Seems as if I couldn’t stand it.  Peter, I’m glad she died!”

The older man was silent for a time, then went on.  “Your mother came of good people.  Her grandfather was a friend of Emerson’s.  Tucked away somewhere she had some letters the two men exchanged.  Your grandfather dreamed dreams about establishing a new New England out here.  Those letters should have been saved for you.”

The radiant light now swept across Lost Chief creek and to the foot of the wall, drenching the Rodman ranch in beauty and mystery.  Sister crowded against her master’s back and snored.  Prince whined dolefully as he always did at the moon.

“So taking one thing with another,” Peter Knight explained, “I thought I might see if you had anything in your head except horse wrangling; whether you’re as much your Dad inside as outside.”

“I don’t see why ranching isn’t a good enough profession for any one!” protested the boy.

“In lots of places it is.  But it’s not in Lost Chief.”

“I don’t see why,” repeated Douglas.

“It’s awful hard here on the women is one reason.  I never heard your mother swear or use a foul word,” said Peter.  “I’ve been on ranches in other places where the women would have been shocked at the idea.  How about Judith?”

“You know she only curses like the other women do around here.”

“Do you like it?” asked the postmaster.

“I never thought anything about it.”

“There you are!” groaned Peter.  “If I can only make you see!  Doug, a woman lets down the first bar when she begins to swear and drink.  She begins where Judith is beginning.  She’s mighty apt to end where Inez is ending.  You just think about ranching in Lost Chief from your mother’s point of view.  It’s a rough kind of a community, Douglas, compared with the same class of people in other communities.  The talk itself is rough; how rough you can’t appreciate because you’ve never heard anything else.”

There was another silence.  Then Douglas asked heavily:  “Peter, what am I going to do to keep Judith from going to Inez for advice?”

“Might not be such bad advice!  Inez has no illusions about what she’s doing or what she’s paying.”

“You don’t mean to say Judith ought to go there?”

“No, I don’t!  But if a kid like you goes there himself, how can you preach to Judith?  And she only goes there for the dancing and fun.”

“But I’m a man!”