His father and mother were in bed when he reached home.  Judith’s bed was empty.  Douglas went out to the stable and climbed noiselessly to the loft.  On the hay close to the open door lay Judith, her face dimly outlined in the moonlight.  She was still sobbing in her sleep.  Douglas stood looking down on her till his own eyes were tear-blinded.  Then he knelt in the hay and kissed her softly on the lips.  She stirred but did not open her eyes, and he slipped back to the ladder and down, without a sound.

He went to bed at once but was up in the morning before his father, leaving a note on the kitchen table: 

I am going to work for Charleton till things are better here at home.

Douglas.

He found Charleton grooming Democrat.  “Charleton,” he said, “you made a lot of trouble for Jude last night.”

“What happened?” asked Charleton.

Douglas told him.

“That was a rotten trick!” exclaimed Charleton.  “I just thought he’d lick her.  John’s got a mean temper.”

“I want to work for you a while, Charleton.  I’m sick of the rows at home.”

“John willing?”

“I haven’t asked him.”

Charleton grinned.  “I need a rider, sure.  You finish currying Democrat while I go in and talk to the missis.  Little Marion’s visiting at Lone Bend.  Maybe my wife will think it’s too much cooking for two men.”  But he came back in a little while, smiling cheerfully.  “Come on in to breakfast.  It’s all right.”

So Douglas settled to riding for Charleton Falkner.  His father did not come after him, and when the two met on the Black Gorge trail a day or so after Doug’s departure, John returned Douglas’ muttered greeting with a silent, ugly stare.  There was comment and conjecture in Lost Chief, but the fall round-up was coming and this soon engrossed the attention of the community.  Of Scott, Douglas saw nothing.

The fall slipped into winter, which in Lost Chief country begins in September, and Christmas passed with none of the Spencers at the schoolhouse party excepting Judith, who attended with Scott.  February slipped into March and Douglas’ eighteenth birthday passed unnoticed.  The snows were too deep to allow Charleton to undertake any of those mysterious missions for which he was so much admired, and Elijah Nelson was allowed to flourish unmolested.  It was reported that the Mormon had accused Lost Chief of running some of his cattle, but he evidently had no desire to start a controversy with the valley.  And Douglas came more and more under Charleton’s influence.

Peter Knight, watching the boy more closely than Doug at all realized, was deeply troubled by what he felt might permanently distort Doug’s ideas of life.

“How are you and Judith making it, Doug?” Peter asked him one Sunday afternoon early in April, when he and the young rider were sunning themselves in the post-office door.

“You know Judith hasn’t spoken to me since last August,” replied Doug impatiently.