"I wish I could have gone with Charleton," remarked Douglas, watching
Judith as she rubbed Sioux's head.
"Charleton! I should think you'd hate a long trip with that old coyote. I hate him."
"It isn't to be with Charleton I want to go. I want to get me some wild horses. But there was a time when I sure was crazy about being with him. I thought he knew more about how a fellow could get happiness out of life than any one."
"Nobody in the Valley knows as much as Inez."
"Do you call her happy?"
"No; she's really sad. That's why she knows what real happiness is."
"Judith, how do you suppose Inez will end?"
"Over in the cemetery with a coyote-proof grave like the rest of us. And
I ask you, Doug, since that's the end of it, why worry?"
"That's the very reason I worry! Life is so short and if we don't find happiness here, we are clean out of luck, forever."
Judith spurred the nervous Whoop-la into five minutes of active bucking, then she leaped from the saddle and came to perch on the fence beside Douglas. Her gaze wandered from his wistful face to the eternal crimson and orange clouds rolling across Fire Mesa.