"Tactful! What a word!" exclaimed Douglas, "For heaven's sake, Jude, don't you get the idea better than that? This is a matter of—" He hesitated, at a loss for a moment for a word that should tell Judith something of the yearning conflict that obsessed him. "This is a battle," he said finally, "a fight to the finish for—for—" then he blurted out the word that in Lost Chief was taboo—"for souls!" exclaimed Douglas.
Judith looked at him quickly; but to Douglas' vast relief she did not laugh. Instead, her eyes were deep with some emotion he could not name.
"I don't think I understand you, Doug," she said at last. "I couldn't get so worked up over anything that had to do with religion. But I do see that it means a lot to you and I think you're foolish to trust to a man like Fowler to put anything over in this valley for you."
"You don't know my old sky pilot like I do," insisted Doug.
"Yes, you must have got a deep knowledge of him in one night!"
"I sure did!" said Douglas simply.
"You are sure that you realize how bitterly the Valley resents your doing this?"
"Yes. And the Valley had better realize, if it plans trouble, that I'm neither soft, nor easy."
"I just wish you weren't trying to do it," repeated Judith.
"What do you want me to do?" asked Douglas.