"Keep your nerve up, Douglas. I've got a couple of horses in fair condition down at my place. We'll ride there after we look over things at your father's ranch."
They hardly had cleared the corral when Mary overtook them. She was still crying, but except for her sobs they rode in a heavy silence to the ranch house.
Old Johnny was gone. They found a curious note on the kitchen table. "Going after Jud for Douglas. J. B."
"She's started for Mountain City, I'm certain," said Mary. "She's been terribly uneasy ever since Doug left home, always saying a girl had no chance to make anything of herself here. It would be exactly like her to lose her temper and start off, hard pelt on that hundred-mile ride with no preparations at all."
"That's not what worries me," said Peter. "It's John when he's drunk."
"It's light enough to start!" exclaimed Douglas. "Mother, you give us some breakfast. Let's roll up some blankets and take some grub and get gone, Peter."
In little more than a half-hour they were on the trail. And all the exultation which had carried Douglas through the night had fled, leaving him with the sense of impending calamity that had spoiled the dance for him. And he knew now that it had been a well-founded prescience. A door had closed behind him, forever, and, with horror in his heart, he was facing a void. For something had gone wrong with Judith. And Judith was his life.
