Judith of the godless valley online

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES



IN MEMORY OF
MRS. VIRGINIA B. SPORER



JUDITH OF THE GODLESS VALLEY



JUDITH OF THE
GODLESS VALLEY



BY



HONORE WILLSIE

Author of "The Enchanted Canyon," "The Forbidden Trail,
"Still Jim," "The Heart of the Desert," etc.




NEW YORK

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

PUBLISHERS



Copyright, 1922, bj
HONORS WlLLSIE



Printed in the United States of America



CONTENTS

PAOB

I LOST CHIEF SCHOOLHOUSE i

II OSCAR JEFFERSON 25

III THE GRADUATION DANCE 46

IV THE HOUSE IN THE YELLOW CANYON . . 68
V THE HUNT ON LOST CHIEF 84

VI LITTLE SWIFT CROSSES THE DIVIDE . . . 105

VII THE POST-OFFICE CONFERENCE . . . .122

VIII JUDITH AT THE RODEO 142

IX THE TRIP TO MOUNTAIN CITY 162

X WILD HORSES 181

XI THE LOG CHAPEL 202

XII THE FIRST SERMON 221

XIII PRINCE GOES MARCHING ON 242

XIV THE BATTLE OF THE BULLS 259

XV THE FLAME IN THE VALLEY 276

XVI THE TRAIL OVER THE PASS 295

XVII BLACK DEVIL PASS 312

XVIII ELIJAH NELSON S RANCH 322

XIX HOME 340



2042124



JUDITH OF THE GODLESS VALLEY



CHAPTER I

LOST CHIEF SCHOOLHOUSE

"To believe in a living God; to preach His Holy Writ
without fear or favor; to sacrifice self that others may
find eternal life; this is true happiness."

The Rev. James Fowler.

IT was Sunday in Lost Chief ; Sunday and mid-winter.
For the first time in nearly ten years there was to be a
sermon preached in the valley and every one who could
move was making his way to the schoolhouse.

Douglas Spencer drove his spurs into Buster and
finished the last hundred yards at a gallop. Judith, his
foster sister, stood up in her stirrups, lashed Swift vigor
ously over the flanks with the knotted reins and when
Buster slid on his haunches to the very doorstep, Swift
brought her gnarled fore legs down on his sweeping tail
and slid with him. She brought up when he did with her
nose under his saddle blanket. The boy and girl avoided
a mix-up by leaping from their saddles and jerking their
mounts apart.

"Now look at here, Jude !" shouted Douglas, "you keep
that ornery cow-pony of yours off of me or I ll make you
sorry for it !"

Judith put her thumb to her small red nose, and with
out touching the stirrups leaped back into the saddle.
Then she looked calmly about her.

"First ones here!" she said complacently. "Even the
preacher hasn t come."



2 JUDITH OF THE GODLESS VALLEY

"I suppose/ Doug s voice was bitter "that if I rode
over toward Day s to meet Jimmy you d have to tag!"

"I sure-gawd would. Swift would like the extra ex
ercise."

Douglas swept Judith s thin bay mare with, a withering
glance. "That thing! Looks like the coyotes had been
at it!"

Judith wore but one spur and this had a broken
rowell, but she kicked Swift with it and Swift whirled
against the nervous Buster and bit him on the cheek.
Buster reared. "Take that back, you dogy cowboy
you!" shrieked Judith.

Douglas brought Buster round and raised his hand to
strike the girl. She eyed him fearlessly. The boy
slowly lowered the threatening hand and returned her
gaze, belligerently.

Prince, a gray, short-haired dog, of intricate ancestry,
squatted on his haunches in the snow with his tongue
between his teeth and his eyes on the two horses. Swift
sagged with a sigh onto three legs. Perhaps the little
mare deserved some of the aspersions Douglas and his
father daily cast upon her. She was a half -broken,
half -fed little mare which Douglas father had cast off.
She did not look strong enough to bear even Judith s
slim weight. But as the only horse Judith was permit
ted to call her own, the little bay was the very apple of the
young girl s eyes, and she wheedled wonderful perform
ances from Swift in endurance and cat-like quickness.

Buster was a black which the older Spencer had bred
as a cow-pony but had given up because he could not
be broken of bucking. Doug had begged his father for
the horse, and Buster, nervous, irritable and speedy, was
a joy to the boy s sixteen-year-old heart.

Douglas sat tall in the saddle. He measured, in fact,



LOST CHIEF SCHOOLHOUSE 3

a full five feet ten inches without his high-heeled rid
ing-boots. He was so thin that his leather rider s coat
bellowed in the wind, and the modeling of his cheek
bones showed markedly under his tanned skin. His som
brero, pushed back from his forehead, disclosed a thick
thatch of bright yellow hair above wide blue eyes that
were set deep and far apart. His nose was high bridged,
and his mouth, though still immature, gave promise of
full-lipped strength in its curves.

Judith was fourteen and only a couple of inches shorter
than Douglas. She was even thinner than he, but,
like him, glowing with intense vitality. She had hung
her cap on the pommel of her saddle and her curly black
hair whipped across her face. She had a short nose, a
large mouth, magnificent gray eyes and cheeks of flawless
carmine. She wore a faded plaid mackinaw, and arctics
half-way up her long, thin legs.

"I hate you, Doug Spencer," she said finally and
fiercely, "and I m glad you re not my real brother!"

"I don t see why my father ever married a woman
with an ornery brat like you!" retorted Douglas.

"I wouldn t stay to associate with you another
minute if you offered me a new pair of spurs! I m
going to meet Maud!" And Judith disappeared down
the trail.

Douglas eased back in his saddle and lighted a ciga
rette, while he watched the distant figures approaching
across the valley. The glory of the landscape made little
impression on him. He had been born in Lost Chief
and he saw only snow and his schoolmates racing over
the converging trails.

The Rockies in mid-winter ! High northern cattle
country with purple sage deep blanketed in snow, with
rarefied air below the zero mark, with sky the purest,



4 JUDITH OF THE GODLESS VALLEY

most crystalline deep sapphire, and Lost Chief Valley,
high perched in the ranges, silently awaiting the return
of spring.

Fire Mesa, huge, profoundly striated, with red clouds
forever forming on its top and rolling over remoter
mesas, stood with its greatest length across th north
end of the valley. At its feet lay Black Gorge, and
half-way up its steep red front projected the wide ledge
on which the schoolhouse stood. Dead Line Peak and
Falkner s Peak abruptly closed the south end of the
valley. From between these two great mountains, Lost
Chief Creek swept down across the valley into the Black
Gorge. Lost Chief Range formed the west boundary of
the valley, Indian Range, the east. They were perhaps
ten miles apart.

All this gives little of the picture Douglas might have
been absorbing. It tells nothing of the azure hue of the
snow that buried Lost Chief Creek and Lost Chief
ranches. It gives no hint of the awful splendor of Dead
Line and Falkner s Peaks, all blue and bronze and crim
son, backed by myriads of other peaks, pure white,
against the perfect sky.

It does not picture the brilliant yellow canyon wall
which thrust Lost Chief Range back from the valley,
nor the peacock blue sides of the Indian Range, clothed
in wonder by the Forest Reserve. And finally, it does
not tell of the infinite silence that lay this prismatic Sun
day afternoon over the snow-cloaked world.

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 crk-



LOST CHIEF SCHOOLHOUSE 5

icism 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 bit
ing 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 per
sistent. Funny thing, longing. What in the world had
a guy like him to long for?

A long coo-ee below the ledge interrupted his medita
tion. 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



6 JUDITH OF THE GODLESS VALLEY

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 scream
ing 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 foam
ing 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
d owdily 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.

When Judith returned with Maud Day there were
thirty or forty people and almost as many dogs milling
about the yard. The log school had weathered against
the red wall of the mesa for fifty years. There prob
ably was not a person in the crowd who had not gone
to school there, who did not, like Judith, love every log
in its ugly sides. Judith caught Douglas sardonic
gaze, tossed her curly head and urged Swift up the steps,
where she looked toward the road to the Pass, shading
her fine eyes with a mittened hand.

Finally she cried, "I see the preacher coming!



LOST CHIEF SCHOOLHOUSE 7

"Somebody ought to go in and build the fire if we
ain t going to freeze to death!" exclaimed Grandma
Brown, jogging up on a flea-bitten black mule.

"He invited himself. Let him build his own fire!"
cried Douglas.

Grandma pulled her spectacles down fram her fore
head to the bridge of her capable nose, and stared at
Douglas.

"Well ! Well ! Doesn t take em long away from the
nursing bottle to get smarty. Where s your father,
Douglas ?"

"Home with the toothache," replied Doug, flushed and
irritated.

"Did he bring you up to let a stranger come to the
house and build his own fire?"

"No, but it s the schoolmarm s job to build this one,"
replied Douglas.

"Jimmy Day, you and Doug go in and get that old
stove going!" ordered Grandma.

Both boys dismounted slowly, tied their horses, and
amidst a general chuckle, disappeared into the school-
house.

Charleton Falkner, a black-browed rider of middle age,
with a heavy black mustache, turned his horse toward
Grandma.

"That s right, Charleton," the old lady went on, "you
come over here and help me off of Abe. I ain t going to
stay out here freezing till old Fowler comes. Riding
ain t the novelty to me it seems to be to the rest of you."

This was the signal for all the grown people to tie
up their horses and enter the building. Shortly Doug
las and Jimmy came out, and scarcely had remounted
when the minister rode slowly up over the ledge. He
dismounted at the door and greeted the youngsters.



8 JUDITH OF THE GODLESS VALLEY

They replied with cat-calls. Fowler stared at the group
of robust young riders, his gray-bearded face somber,
then he shook his head and opened the door.

Douglas jumped from his horse and, giving the reins
to Jimmy Day, he followed the minister. The people
within were seated quietly, and Doug slid into a rear
bench. His eyes were very bright and he watched the
preacher with eager interest. Mr. Fowler dropped his
overcoat on a chair and strode up to the platform, where
he smiled half wistfully, half benignly at his congrega
tion. Then he raised his right hand.

"Let us pray!" he said. "O God, help me to speak
truth to these people who ten years ago laughed me from
this room. Help me to open their eyes that they may
behold You! Show them that they lead a life of wick
edness from the babes in arms to the very aged, from "

" Tain t any such thing!" interrupted Grandma Brown.
"There you go again, after all these years!

"If you ve come here to preach old-fashioned fire and
brimstone, Fowler," said Charleton Falkner, "you might
as well quit now. None of us believe a word of it. We
most of us think everything ends when they plant us
in the cemetery yonder, that is, if they put on enough
rocks so the coyotes get discouraged."

Douglas shivered. "I wonder if that s what I ll
believe when I get to thinking about such things," he
thought. "Hanged if I ll think of em till I m old!"

"I m with you, Charleton!" called Oscar Jefferson,
rumpling his silvery hair with his soft white cowman s
hand.

The Reverend Mr. Fowler leaned over the desk.
"Charleton Falkner, aren t you man enough to admit
that you folks here in Lost Chief lead a wicked life?"

"How do you mean, wicked?" demanded Charleton.



LOST CHIEF SCHOOLHOUSE 9

"I mean that you steal cattle, that you shoot to kill,
that there is indecency among your children, that your
young girls go unguarded and that your young men are
no better than wild horses. I mean that your little girls
drink whiskey. And I defy you to show me two mothers
in the valley who have taught their children to pray
and to walk with God."

"Aw!" sniffed Oscar Jefferson, "if that s what you ve
come a hundred miles to tell us, you d better quit ! That
may do for foreigners and city slums, but it won t go
down with the Lost Chief cowman. We re Americans,
here."

"Americans !" cried Mr. Fowler. "How much does
that mean?"

Jefferson rose to his full six feet. "By God, I ll tell
you what it means! It means our ancestors conquered
the Indians, in New England, that we fought the British
in the Revolution and the rebels in the Civil War and
the hombres in the Spanish-American War. It means
that fifty years ago the father or the grandfather of
every man in this room came out here and fought the
Indians and the wolves and the Mormons "

Charleton Falkner interrupted with his twisted smile
that showed even, tobacco stained teeth. "Jeff, this ain t
the Fourth of July celebration, you know !"

Jefferson somewhat sheepishly subsided to the desk on
which he had been sitting.

"That s exactly why I came back !" cried the preacher.
"I know that you and Lost Chief belong to the heroic
early history of America. This should be a valley of
old Puritan ideals. A church should stand here beside
the school. You never have built a church. You never
have allowed a minister to settle here. You never "

Here Grandma Brown s brother-in-law, Johnny Brown,



10 JUDITH OF THE GODLESS VALLEY

spoke. "I ve deponed that many a time to this crowd of
mavericks ! You d ought to "

"Keep quiet, Johnny!" ordered Grandma. "Fowler,
if you are going to give us a regular Bible sermon, go
ahead. Otherwise, I m going home. I can jaw, myself."

"Also, cuss some, Grandma," suggested a slow voice.
Grandma did not heed.

"If you re going to preach, preach," she said to the
minister.

Mr. Fowler threw his head back. "Ten years ago I
let you drive me out of Lost Chief before I d preached a
sermon. God has never let me rest since, no matter
where I was, and when I was re-appointed to Mountain
City, before I preached my first sermon there, I came
out here. You are going to have the Word of God
preached to you to-day if you shoot me for it. And
beware lest you come to Esau s fate for ye know how
afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he
was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though
he sought it carefully, with tears."

He paused, took a Bible from his pocket and opened it.

Douglas waited tensely. The preacher looked to him
as if weighted with mysterious knowledge, as if some
thing infinitely illuminating were to issue from his bearded
lips. The boy had a sudden conviction that Fowler was
about to say something that would answer the longing
that had so oppressed him lately. He hunched his broad,
thin shoulders forward, his clear blue eyes on the
preacher s face.

Fowler cleared his throat. " Moreover, the word of
the Lord came unto me, saying , Now thou son of man,
wilt thou judge, wilt thou hide the guilty city ? Yea, thou
shalt show her all her abominations. "



LOST CHIEF SCHOOLHOUSE 11

He closed the Bible. "Friends, this is my message
and my text. I am going to show you your abominations
of crookednesses. I am going to show you that hell is
yawning for such as you."

Douglas sighed. "Old fool!" he muttered. "As
Grandma Brown says, she can jaw. He s lost his chance
with me." He slipped out of the door, mounted his
horse and nodded to the group of youngsters waiting
for him. Then he urged Buster up the steps, through
the door and up the aisle. The others followed him.
A moment later, the schoolroom was chaos. Horses
pranced over the desks. Dogs barked and fought among
the horses legs. Babies screamed. Oaths filled the
air. Lost Chief rocked with laughter.

Fowler jumped upon the teacher s desk, appealing in
dumb show for order. A plunging horse tipped the
desk over and the minister went down among the prancing
legs. In a moment he was up, and again he raised both
hands in a plea for silence. Douglas, laughing gaily,
twirled his lariat, and pinioned the two pleading hands,
then, amidst shouts of laughter, he backed Buster from
the room, drawing the minister none too gently with him.

Outside, whither the crowd quickly followed, Douglas
halted and, still laughing, allowed the preacher to free
his hands.

"Now go on back to Mountain City, Mr. Preacher,"
he cried, "and don t come back till you ve learned not to
scold like an old woman."

Fowler pulled on his overcoat which somebody tossed
him, and mounted his horse. Then he stood in his
stirrups and pointed a trembling finger at Douglas.

"Ye shall find no place for repentance, though ye
seek for it with tears."



12 JUDITH OF THE GODLESS VALLEY

"Why should I repent? demanded Douglas.

"Aw, run him! Run the bastard!" shouted Scott
Parsons.

But Doug rode between the preacher and the threaten
ing young rider. "Let him go, Scott. He s had
enough !"

Fowler disappeared down the trail. Scott turned
scowling toward Douglas, but before he could do more
Judith cried, "Come on, everybody ! Let s go down to
the post-office and get Peter to open the hall for a
dance !"

"I will if somebody brings whiskey," agreed Scott,
turning his horse toward Swift.

"I ll go over to Inez Rodman s and get some if Maud
will go with me," volunteered Judith.

"Let s all go to Rodman s," cried Maud.

The older people were riding slowly down the trail
to the valley. The youngsters waited until the way was
clear before leaving the school-yard, agreeing in the
meantime that Judith and Maud should go after the
whiskey while the others went to interview Peter ; and the
two girls departed forthwith.

"Some one besides me will have to work on Peter,"
said Scott. "He s sore at me. I tried to kick Sister."

"What did you do that for?" asked Jimmy Day. "Are
you sick of living?"

"She bit Ginger on the shoulder. I hate that dog."

"Jude can handle Peter," said Douglas. "Come on,
let s get going."

The little cavalcade moved noisily down the trail,
crossed the deep snows of Black Gorge and broke into
a wild race when the road opened a mile below the
post-office. The horses lunged and kicked through the
drifts, the dogs barked, the girls squealed, the boys



LOST CHIEF SCHOOLHOUSE 13

shouted. The post-office lay in the middle of the valley
with neither tree nor house in its vicinity. It was a
square log structure, two stories high, originally an inner
fort built as a final retreat from the Indians. The upper
room was now used as a dance-hall. The lower floor
contained the post-office, a general store, and Peter
Knight s living quarters.

Peter Knight was the only outsider in Lost Chief.
He had lived there a scant twenty years. No one knew
whence he came, nor why. He was a man of education
and an ardent lover of animals, a somewhat sardonic,
very lonely man, yet somehow having more influence in
the valley than any one save Grandma Brown. He
showed no actual fondness for any particular person
save Judith and his big mongrel wolf-hound, Sister,
Sister being every inch a person! Douglas had some
times thought that Peter showed a real interest in him,
but this interest was shown almost entirely by scathing
vituperations, so the boy made no attempt to form the
interest into friendship.

The crowd of riders drew up at the post-office, sparks
and snow flying, just as Maud and Judith lashed their
horses in from the west trail. Judith waved a bottle of
whiskey.

"Some providers !" cried Scott, putting out his hand
for the flask. He took a pull, then passed it on. Boys
and girls alike took a drink, then Scott pocketed the
bottle. During this procedure, the door of the post-office
opened and Peter Knight appeared.

He was about forty-five years old, 1 very tall, very,
very thin, and as straight as he was thin. Thick, closely
clipped gray hair stood up straight from his forehead.
His eyes were deep sunk in his head and a piercing, light
blue. He possessed a belligerent chin below an obstinate



14 JUDITH OF THE GODLESS VALLEY

lower lip and a close-cropped gray mustache. He wore
a gray flannel shirt and blue denim pants turned high
over riding-boots.

He watched the passing of the whiskey bottle without
comment.

"Hello, Peter !" called Judith. "Will you open the hall
and let us have a dance?"

"What have you been doing to your horse, Jude?"
demanded Peter, eying the panting and dejected Swift.

"Nothing!"

"Nothing ! I teir you what, the way you little devils
treat your horses would draw tears out of a coyote.
Starving em, beating em, running em! You ought
to be thrashed, every one of you worthless young slicks."

Curiously enough, none of the group which had shown
so much temerity in man-handling the preacher now
attempted to reply to Peter. A great shaggy gray dog,
exactly like a coyote except that she was much larger,
now appeared in the door beside the postmaster. A
chorus of growls and whines immediately arose from the
dogs congregated among the horses.

"What happened at the schoolhouse ?" asked Peter
abruptly.

"You re always preaching, yourself; I suppose that s
why you didn t attend," grinned Scott Parsons.

"My Yankee horse is sick," said Peter, "and I couldn t
leave him. How did it go?"

"We ran him out," laughed Douglas. "We gave him
a chance to give us real talk but he couldn t come across,
so we roped him and ran him."

"I thought that would happen. Poor Fowler!"
Peter s voice was grave.

"Listen, Peter," cried Judith, "I want to ask you a
favor."



LOST CHIEF SCHOOLHOUSE 15

She mounted the steps and stood before the man. She
was as thin as he and as straight. Peter looked down at
her, still scowling.

"Now, Peter, listen! You know I love Swift and
wouldn t hurt her for anything."

"Wouldn t hurt her! Haven t I told you a hundred
times that running a horse through drifts like you do
ruins em? No, don t try to soft-soap me, Judith!
When you kids want a favor from me, don t come up
with your horses dripping sweat in below zero weather."

He jerked Sister back into the building and slammed