"Thanks, no," said Doug. "I just stopped by to see if you and Judith wouldn't come up and have supper with the sky pilot and me. I won't let him talk religion and he's got some good stories to tell."
Inez looked Douglas over. He and the tall Judith seemed to fill the kitchen. Doug finally had covered his big frame with muscles and he was a larger and handsomer man than his father.
"Doug," said Inez, "I am truly flattered. What are you trying to do?
Convert me?"
Douglas answered with simple sincerity. "I don't care a hang whether you get converted or not."
"O you don't! Well, just to spite you, I'll come and let the old fellow try his hand!"
"Not really, Inez?" gasped Judith.
"I'd do more than that for Doug and for Lost Chief," said Inez soberly,
"Doug isn't the only person who loves this old hole in the hills."
Judith turned to Douglas with a sudden wistfulness in her eyes, a sudden flare of a fire he had not seen in them before. He waited for her to speak but she only turned away toward the door.
"I'll look for you about six then, Inez," he said, and he followed
Judith.
When the girls appeared at the cabin that evening, the table was set and the steak was frying. Inez and Judith winked at each other when Mr. Fowler said grace but otherwise the meal progressed decorously enough. It was Inez who brought up the tabooed subject. They had been sitting round the stove listening to a tale of old lynch law which the preacher told with real skill, when Inez interrupted him with entire irrelevance.