LOST CHIEF SCHOOLHOUSE

"To believe in a living God; to preach His Holy Writ without fear or favor; to sacrifice self that others may find eternal life; this is true happiness."

— The Rev. James Fowler.

It was Sunday in Lost Chief; Sunday and mid-winter. For the first time in nearly ten years there was to be a sermon preached in the valley and every one who could move was making his way to the schoolhouse.

Douglas Spencer drove his spurs into Buster and finished the last hundred yards at a gallop. Judith, his foster sister, stood up in her stirrups, lashed Swift vigorously over the flanks with the knotted reins and when Buster slid on his haunches to the very doorstep, Swift brought her gnarled fore legs down on his sweeping tail and slid with him. She brought up when he did with her nose under his saddle blanket. The boy and girl avoided a mix-up by leaping from their saddles and jerking their mounts apart.

"Now look at here, Jude!"shouted Douglas,"you keep that ornery cow-pony of yours off of me or I'll make you sorry for it!"

Judith put her thumb to her small red nose, and without touching the stirrups leaped back into the saddle. Then she looked calmly about her.

"First ones here!"she said complacently."Even the preacher hasn't come."

"I suppose,"—Doug's voice was bitter—"that if I rode over toward Day's to meet Jimmy you'd have to tag!"

"I sure-gawd would. Swift would like the extra exercise."

Douglas swept Judith's thin bay mare with a withering glance."That thing! Looks like the coyotes had been at it!"

Judith wore but one spur and this had a broken rowell, but she kicked

Swift with it and Swift whirled against the nervous Buster and bit him on

the cheek. Buster reared."Take that back, you dogy cowboy you!"shrieked

Judith.

Douglas brought Buster round and raised his hand to strike the girl. She eyed him fearlessly. The boy slowly lowered the threatening hand and returned her gaze, belligerently.

Prince, a gray, short-haired dog, of intricate ancestry, squatted on his haunches in the snow with his tongue between his teeth and his eyes on the two horses. Swift sagged with a sigh onto three legs. Perhaps the little mare deserved some of the aspersions Douglas and his father daily cast upon her. She was a half-broken, half-fed little mare which Douglas'father had cast off. She did not look strong enough to bear even Judith's slim weight. But as the only horse Judith was permitted to call her own, the little bay was the very apple of the young girl's eyes, and she wheedled wonderful performances from Swift in endurance and cat-like quickness.

Buster was a black which the older Spencer had bred as a cow-pony but had given up because he could not be broken of bucking. Doug had begged his father for the horse, and Buster, nervous, irritable and speedy, was a joy to the boy's sixteen-year-old heart.

Douglas sat tall in the saddle. He measured, in fact, a full five feet ten inches without his high-heeled riding-boots. He was so thin that his leather rider's coat bellowed in the wind, and the modeling of his cheekbones showed markedly under his tanned skin. His sombrero, pushed back from his forehead, disclosed a thick thatch of bright yellow hair above wide blue eyes that were set deep and far apart. His nose was high bridged, and his mouth, though still immature, gave promise of full-lipped strength in its curves.

Judith was fourteen and only a couple of inches shorter than Douglas. She was even thinner than he, but, like him, glowing with intense vitality. She had hung her cap on the pommel of her saddle and her curly black hair whipped across her face. She had a short nose, a large mouth, magnificent gray eyes and cheeks of flawless carmine. She wore a faded plaid mackinaw, and arctics half-way up her long, thin legs.

"I hate you, Doug Spencer,"she said finally and fiercely,"and I'm glad you're not my real brother!"

"I don't see why my father ever married a woman with an ornery brat like you!"retorted Douglas.

"I wouldn't stay to associate with you another minute if you offered me a new pair of spurs! I'm going to meet Maud!"And Judith disappeared down the trail.

Douglas eased back in his saddle and lighted a cigarette, while he watched the distant figures approaching across the valley. The glory of the landscape made little impression on him. He had been born in Lost Chief and he saw only snow and his schoolmates racing over the converging trails.

The Rockies in mid-winter! High northern cattle country with purple sage deep blanketed in snow, with rarefied air below the zero mark, with sky the purest, most crystalline deep sapphire, and Lost Chief Valley, high perched in the ranges, silently awaiting the return of spring.

Fire Mesa, huge, profoundly striated, with red clouds forever forming on its top and rolling over remoter mesas, stood with its greatest length across the north end of the valley. At its feet lay Black Gorge, and half-way up its steep red front projected the wide ledge on which the schoolhouse stood. Dead Line Peak and Falkner's Peak abruptly closed the south end of the valley. From between these two great mountains, Lost Chief Creek swept down across the valley into the Black Gorge. Lost Chief Range formed the west boundary of the valley, Indian Range, the east. They were perhaps ten miles apart.

All this gives little of the picture Douglas might have been absorbing.

It tells nothing of the azure hue of the snow that buried Lost Chief

Creek and Lost Chief ranches. It gives no hint of the awful splendor of

Dead Line and Falkner's Peaks, all blue and bronze and crimson, backed by

myriads of other peaks, pure white, against the perfect sky.

It does not picture the brilliant yellow canyon wall which thrust Lost Chief Range back from the valley, nor the peacock blue sides of the Indian Range, clothed in wonder by the Forest Reserve. And finally, it does not tell of the infinite silence that lay this prismatic Sunday afternoon over the snow-cloaked world.

Douglas did not see the beauty of the valley, but as, far below, he saw Judith trot up to the Day's corral, he was smitten suddenly by his sense of loneliness. Too bad of Jude, he thought, always to be flying off at a tangent like that! A guy couldn't offer the least criticism of her fool horse, that she didn't lose her temper. Funny thing to see a girl with a hot temper. Ordinary enough in a man, but girls were usually just mean and spitty, like cats. A guy had to admit that there was nothing mean about Judith. She was fearless and straight like a first-class fellow. But temper! Whew! Funny things, tempers! He himself always found it hard to let go of his rage. It smouldered deep and biting inside of him and hard to get out into words. He usually had to tell himself to hit back. Funny about that, when his father was always boiling over like Judith. He wondered if her temper would grow worse as she grew older, as his father's had. Funny things, tempers! People in a temper always looked and acted fools. The guy that could keep hold was the guy that won out. Like being able to control a horse with a good curb-bit. Funny why he felt lonely. It was only lately that he had noticed it. Here was Buster and here was Prince, and here was the approaching joke of the preacher. Why then this sense of loneliness? Maybe loneliness wasn't the right word. Maybe it was longing. And for what? Not for Jude! Lord, no! Not for that young wildcat. But the feeling of emptiness was there, as real as hunger, and at this moment as persistent. Funny thing, longing. What in the world had a guy like him to long for?

A long coo-ee below the ledge interrupted his meditation. A young rider leaped from the trail to the level before the schoolhouse, broke into a gallop and slid, with sparks flying, to the door.

"Hello, Scott!"said Douglas, without enthusiasm.

"I thought Jude was here!"returned Scott. He was older and heavier than Douglas, freckled of face and sandy of hair, with something hard in his hazel eyes.

"He'd better leave Jude alone,"thought Douglas,"the mangy pinto!"

The re was a shriek and a gray horse, carrying a youth with the schoolmarm clinging behind him, flew across the yard and reared to avoid breaking his knees on the steps. The schoolmarm scrambled down, still screaming protests at the grinning rider. One after another now arrived, perhaps a dozen youngsters, varying in age from five to eighteen, each on his or her own lean, half-broken horse, each appearing with the same flying leap from the steep trail to the level, each racing across the yard as if with intent to burst through the schoolhouse door, each bringing up with the same pull back of foaming horse to its haunches. And with each horse came a dog of highly varied breed.

The youngsters had been racing about the ledge for some time before the grown people began to appear. The women, most of them very handsome, were dressed dowdily in mackinaws and anomalous foot covering. But the men were resplendent in chaps and short leather coats, with gay silk neckerchiefs, with silver spurs and embossed saddles.

When Judith returned with Maud Day there were thirty or forty people and almost as many dogs milling about the yard. The log school had weathered against the red wall of the mesa for fifty years. The re probably was not a person in the crowd who had not gone to school there, who did not, like Judith, love every log in its ugly sides. Judith caught Douglas'sardonic gaze, tossed her curly head and urged Swift up the steps, where she looked toward the road to the Pass, shading her fine eyes with a mittened hand.

Finally she cried,"I see the preacher coming!"

"Somebody ought to go in and build the fire if we ain't going to freeze to death!"exclaimed Grandma Brown, jogging up on a flea-bitten black mule.

"He invited himself. Let him build his own fire!"cried Douglas.

Grandma pulled her spectacles down from her forehead to the bridge of her capable nose, and stared at Douglas.

"We ll! We ll! Doesn't take'em long away from the nursing bottle to get smarty. Where's your father, Douglas?"

"Home with the toothache,"replied Doug, flushed and irritated.

"Did he bring you up to let a stranger come to the house and build his own fire?"

"No, but it's the schoolmarm's job to build this one,"replied Douglas.

"Jimmy Day, you and Doug go in and get that old stove going!"ordered

Grandma.

Both boys dismounted slowly, tied their horses, and amidst a general chuckle, disappeared into the schoolhouse.

Charleton Falkner, a black-browed rider of middle age, with a heavy black mustache, turned his horse toward Grandma.

"That's right, Charleton,"the old lady went on,"you come over here and help me off of Abe. I ain't going to stay out here freezing till old Fowler comes. Riding ain't the novelty to me it seems to be to the rest of you."

This was the signal for all the grown people to tie up their horses and enter the building. Shortly Douglas and Jimmy came out, and scarcely had remounted when the minister rode slowly up over the ledge. He dismounted at the door and greeted the youngsters. They replied with cat-calls. Fowler stared at the group of robust young riders, his gray-bearded face somber, then he shook his head and opened the door.

Douglas jumped from his horse and, giving the reins to Jimmy Day, he followed the minister. The people within were seated quietly, and Doug slid into a rear bench. His eyes were very bright and he watched the preacher with eager interest. Mr. Fowler dropped his overcoat on a chair and strode up to the platform, where he smiled half wistfully, half benignly at his congregation. Then he raised his right hand.

"Let us pray!"he said."O God, help me to speak truth to these people who ten years ago laughed me from this room. Help me to open their eyes that they may behold You! Show them that they lead a life of wickedness from the babes in arms to the very aged, from—"

"Tain't any such thing!"interrupted Grandma Brown."The re you go again, after all these years!"

"If you've come here to preach old-fashioned fire and brimstone, Fowler,"said Charleton Falkner,"you might as well quit now. None of us believe a word of it. We most of us think everything ends when they plant us in the cemetery yonder, that is, if they put on enough rocks so the coyotes get discouraged."

Douglas shivered."I wonder if that's what I'll believe when I get to thinking about such things,"he thought."Hanged if I'll think of'em till I'm old!"

"I'm with you, Charleton!"called Oscar Jefferson, rumpling his silvery hair with his soft white cowman's hand.

The Reverend Mr. Fowler leaned over the desk."Charleton Falkner, aren't you man enough to admit that you folks here in Lost Chief lead a wicked life?"

"How do you mean, wicked?"demanded Charleton.

"I mean that you steal cattle, that you shoot to kill, that there is indecency among your children, that your young girls go unguarded and that your young men are no better than wild horses. I mean that your little girls drink whiskey. And I defy you to show me two mothers in the valley who have taught their children to pray and to walk with God."

"Aw!"sniffed Oscar Jefferson,"if that's what you've come a hundred miles to tell us, you'd better quit! That may do for foreigners and city slums, but it won't go down with the Lost Chief cowman. We're Americans, here."

"Americans!"cried Mr. Fowler."How much does that mean?"

Jefferson rose to his full six feet."By God, I'll tell you what it means! It means our ancestors conquered the Indians, in New England, that we fought the British in the Revolution and the rebels in the Civil War and the hombres in the Spanish-American War. It means that fifty years ago the father or the grandfather of every man in this room came out here and fought the Indians and the wolves and the Mormons—"

Charleton Falkner interrupted with his twisted smile that showed even, tobacco stained teeth."Jeff, this ain't the Fourth of July celebration, you know!"

Jefferson somewhat sheepishly subsided to the desk on which he had been sitting.

"That's exactly why I came back!"cried the preacher."I know that you and Lost Chief belong to the heroic early history of America. This should be a valley of old Puritan ideals. A church should stand here beside the school. You never have built a church. You never have allowed a minister to settle here. You never—"

Here Grandma Brown's brother-in-law, Johnny Brown, spoke."I've deponed that many a time to this crowd of mavericks! You'd ought to—"

"Keep quiet, Johnny!"ordered Grandma."Fowler, if you are going to give us a regular Bible sermon, go ahead. Otherwise, I'm going home. I can jaw, myself."

"Also, cuss some, Grandma,"suggested a slow voice. Grandma did not heed.

"If you're going to preach, preach,"she said to the minister.

Mr. Fowler threw his head back."Ten years ago I let you drive me out of Lost Chief before I'd preached a sermon. God has never let me rest since, no matter where I was, and when I was re-appointed to Mountain City, before I preached my first sermon there, I came out here. You are going to have the Word of God preached to you to-day if you shoot me for it. And beware lest you come to Esau's fate for ye know how afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully, with tears."