"All right! I don't promise unless you do."
"I can't promise, Jude. Honest, I can't."
Jude laughed and jumped to her feet. "You are a goose, Doug, but I sure am fond of you." Then she left him.
Douglas sat still, his head pressed against the indescribable sweetness of the alfalfa hay, eyes on the wonder of the stars. Finally he said aloud, "I wish there was somebody a fellow could talk to that knows things. I wish my grandfather Douglas was alive. Peter jaws too much. What I want is to know facts, then judge for myself."
His father passed by the haystack, pitchfork on shoulder. "Who are you talking to, Doug?" he asked.
"The biggest fool in Lost Chief," replied Douglas, rising and following his father to the house.
CHAPTER VI
LITTLE SWIFT CROSSES THE DIVIDE
"Ride 'em till they drop, then break another. That's what Nature does and that's what I do."
—John Spencer