"I'll always read," retorted Judith loftily.
"I'd buy me a silver-mounted saddle and silver spurs," said Douglas, "and that dapple gray of Oscar Jefferson's and a good greyhound, and I'd go into the wild horse catching business."
John groaned. "We've sure-gawd got an ambitious pair of kids here, Mary!
What about the money you get from this trip, Doug?"
"Will you let me keep it?" asked Douglas, eagerly.
"I'll see!" John picked up his book again.
"Let me go with you, Doug!" pleaded Judith.
"Nothing doing!" exclaimed her stepfather succinctly. "You go to bed now before you get me aggravated."
Judith tossed her head but obediently retired to her corner of the room, undressed and crawled into her bed. Douglas was not long in following her example.
It was about eight o'clock Wednesday morning and twenty below zero when the mail buckboard driven by Douglas took the rising trail from Black Gorge eastward over the Mesa Pass. The snow was heavy and the trail only indifferently opened. To add to the difficulties, Scott had hitched Polly, a half-broken mule, to the stage in place of the mare who had gone lame. James, the remaining horse, was steady, however, and Douglas had only a moderate amount of trouble until the long steep grade up to the Pass began. Here, after a quarter of an hour of reluctant going, the mule balked. James did what he could to pull her along, Douglas plied the blacksnake; but to no avail. When she finally did move it was to lie down with deliberate slowness. Douglas jumped out into the drifts and by risking his life among her agitated legs he managed to get her up. An hour passed in the intense cold before she finally was harnessed and meekly pulling more than her share.
At the top of the Pass, Douglas drew up to breathe the team. Bleak, snow-covered rocks rose on either side of the trail, but opening beyond, snow-topped ranges in rainbow tints gleamed against a sky of intensest blue. Behind him, as he turned to look, lay Lost Chief Valley, with blue clouds rolling from the tops of Dead Line and Falkner's Peaks. Douglas shivered and urged the team on. But the mule again balked, and as Doug gathered up the whip a gruff voice cried, "Hold up your hands!"