“You’ll come after me, miss, before I speak to you again!”

“That’s exactly what I want!” retorted Judith.

During this dialogue, Mary stood with the tears running down her cheeks, begging the two to stop quarreling.  John leaned against the table, his eyes half closed, his mouth distorted.

“So that’s how the land lies with Scott?” he shouted suddenly.

“Yes, and if you lay hands on me, I’ll shoot you,” said Judith succinctly.

“I know how to get you, miss,” sneered John.

He rushed out of the house.  A moment later he galloped past the window on Beauty.  Judith walked defiantly to the door and looked after him.  Douglas went out to the corral.  Shortly, John returned, leading Swift.  He pulled up in front of the door and dismounted.  He kicked Swift in the haunch to make her turn, and before Judith could do more than start toward him from the door, he put his six-shooter to Swift’s patient little head and pulled the trigger.  Swift dropped to her knees and rolled over.

“Now, Jude, try it again and I’ll give Buster a dose,” said John, standing tense as he waited for the girl’s attack.

But with a look of such horror that John recoiled, she stopped in her tracks.  She threw her arms about her head with a groan, ran across the yard to the stable and climbed into the hay-loft.  Douglas stood for a moment as if turned to stone.  Then he picked up a bridle and went into the corral for the Moose.  As he adjusted the saddle, John led Beauty to the fence.

“You finish those chores, Doug!”

Douglas went on tightening the cinch.

“It was just a broken-down cow pony that should have been shot long ago,” said John, sullenly.

Douglas leaped into the saddle, took the fence like a swallow, and was gone.  Prince yelped on the trail before him.

Where he was going, Doug did not know.  He thrust the spurs into the Moose and set him straight up the sheer barren side of Falkner’s Peak until the Moose was winded, then he dismounted and led him up and up until they both were exhausted.  Then Doug looped the reins over a clump of sage-brush and dropped to the ground.  Prince squatted beside him, panting.

A blind despair had engulfed Doug.  He could think of nothing to do.  Nothing that would adequately punish his father, nothing that would solace Judith or bring her to her senses.

Nothing is so intolerably bitter to youth as its first realization of the fact that one is helpless to change life as it is.  Douglas, biting his nails and railing at the heavens, was draining one of life’s bitterest drinks.  He was in deep trouble, utterly alone, and he had no spiritual star for guidance.

But when he finally descended the mountainside he had taken a resolve.  He was going to leave home for a while.  He was going to work for Charleton, who was greatly in need of a rider.  He was not yet of age, but he was not afraid of John’s forcing him to return.