"She was more than that, Doug! I knew her well. You see, I'm the only man in the valley that's a stranger, as you might say. I've only lived here twenty years. So I could appreciate your mother more than the natives. I came here a roundabout way from Boston. So did your mother's folks, about forty-five years ago. She looked as Yankee as her blood, thin and delicate, with a refined face. And all the coarse work women have to do in Lost Chief didn't coarsen her." "How do you mean, coarse work?" asked Doug. Dimly in the moonlight he saw the postmaster rub his hand across his forehead. "Why don't you put Buster to hauling and plowing?" asked Peter. "Too light and nervous." "So was your mother too light and nervous for the kind of ranch work women have to do here. Women with blood and brains like most of the Lost Chief women are best used to keep alive the decencies and gentler things of life. Men lose those things in a cattle country unless the women keep 'em alive. If you keep women too close to the details of handling cattle and horses, they get rough and coarse too. And I calculate that Lost Chief and the world needs some decency and delicacy." Douglas pondered over this for a long time, his eyes on the glory of the Indian peaks. Then he said, "You knew my mother well?" "Yes. I'd have married her, Doug, if she hadn't already married your father. She--she was so devilishly overworked and unhappy! But she never complained. Your father was crazy about her but he treats a woman like he does a horse. He doesn't know any different." "O, don't tell me any more!" said Douglas brokenly. "The poor little thing! Seems as if I couldn't stand it. Peter, I'm glad she died!" The older man was silent for a time, then went on. "Your mother came of good people. Her grandfather was a friend of Emerson's. Tucked away somewhere she had some letters the two men exchanged. Your grandfather dreamed dreams about establishing a new New England out here. Those letters should have been saved for you." The radiant light now swept across Lost Chief creek and to the foot of the wall, drenching the Rodman ranch in beauty and mystery. Sister crowded against her master's back and snored. Prince whined dolefully as he always did at the moon. "So taking one thing with another," Peter Knight explained, "I thought I might see if you had anything in your head except horse wrangling; whether you're as much your Dad inside as outside." "I don't see why ranching isn't a good enough profession for any one!" protested the boy. "In lots of places it is. But it's not in Lost Chief." "I don't see why," repeated Douglas. "It's awful hard here on the women is one reason. I never heard your mother swear or use a foul word," said Peter. "I've been on ranches in other places where the women would have been shocked at the idea. How about Judith?" "You know she only curses like the other women do around here." "Do you like it?" asked the postmaster.