She rushed from the house, and Douglas followed her.

“I’ll help you hunt for them, Judith,” he said.

She turned to him, white to the lips.  “We’re not going to hunt for them.  There are other Mountain City rodeos coming.  If he thinks I’m going to make a joke of myself rushing round the neighborhood after my outfit, he’s mistaken!  I’m not a child.  Don’t bother me, Douglas; I’m going to Inez.”

She put Buster to a gallop and was off, the dust following her in a golden, whirling spiral.  Douglas went into the house and stood before his father, face flushed, golden hair rumpled, soft shirt clinging to his big gaunt chest.

“Dad, that’s a rotten deal to put over Judith.”

John rose slowly to his full height and the two men looked levelly into each other’s eyes.  John’s expression was curiously concentrated.  He tapped Douglas on the arm.

“Doug, you keep out of this, or I’ll forget you are my son.  You’re smart and you’ve got a bossy way with you.  But I’m still master here.  There never was a Spencer that didn’t rule his own family.  Now, understand me.  Keep out of this matter between me and Jude.  I’m going to break that highty-tighty filly; and by God, she knows it!”

“You’ll never break her while I’m alive,” said Douglas, and he walked out of the house.

Mary, coming from the cow shed with a pail of milk, looked at him anxiously.  “Let it go, Doug,” she said in a low voice.  “It’s hard on Judith, but she’s been very headstrong and she’s point-blank disobeyed me in the matter.  She deserves what she’s got.  Let it go.”

Douglas looked at Mary’s care-worn face, so appealingly like, yet so unlike Judith’s.  Suddenly his tense muscles relaxed.  “I guess you are right.  I’d better be thankful it is as it is.  But it sure is a rotten trick of Dad’s.”

Mary shrugged her shoulders and went on into the house.  Douglas went off to bring up horses for the fall round-up.  A number of people rode up during the morning to see the start for Mountain City.  They found the ranch deserted, except for Mary, who pleaded a sick headache and refused to talk.  Inez had no such reticence, however, and at the post-office that night Judith’s troubles ran neck and neck in popular interest with Little Marion’s.  Both situations were of a nature to appeal to Lost Chief’s sense of humor.  Douglas appeared during the session and learned that Charleton’s wife had come home.

“I hope she won’t go crazy too,” he said.

“No danger!” Peter tossed a letter to Frank Day.  “Charleton’ll be in line by to-morrow.  Too bad some one can’t hobble John too.”

“Plumb unnecessary, the whole affair,” grunted the sheriff.  “I suppose the next thing on the program will be a big wedding.”

“I guess they’ll manage it like the Browns did,” volunteered Young Jeff, squirting his quid accurately to the center of the hearth.  “Be around borrowing my car in two or three weeks, run up to Mountain City for to be married, then give a big party upstairs here, and nobody the worse off for anything.”