"And give up your horses and dogs and the big old mountains? Jude, you'll never do it. I'd like to get out myself sometimes, but I know I'll never be happy anywhere else." "I don't expect to be happy, but I've got to know things." "What things, Judith?" The girl turned from Douglas to gaze at the far light on Fire Mesa. "The truth about things," she said at last. "Inez says there's just one big fact at the bottom of everything and that is sex, and that there's only one thing worth living for, to make sex beautiful." "She's a liar!" exclaimed Douglas indignantly, as if Inez had said something shameful. "Where does she get that rotten stuff?" "From Charleton and poetry, I guess. How do you know she's wrong, Doug?" Douglas sat up, his clear eyes blazing like blue stars out of his sunburned face. "Because I know! I want to have the biggest, finest ranch in the Rockies. Is that sex? You want a good education. Is that sex? Peter wants me to carry on some dreams my mother and grandfather had. Is that sex? What does that woman think the world was made for, I'd like to know?" "That's just it," Judith sighed with all the sadness of sixteen, "what is it made for?" There was silence for a moment on the hay rick while the two young questioners gazed at the incomparable grandeur about them. And as he gazed there returned to Douglas the sense of panic that had harassed him after Oscar's death. What did it all mean? Whither was he directed and by what? How long before he too would be swept into the awful void beyond the grave? "That's what religion did for folks all these years," he said suddenly. "They never asked these questions, I'll bet. I wish I had it." "I don't want to believe fairy tales just because I'm scared!" Judith tossed her head stoutly. "I don't either," agreed Douglas dejectedly. "I'm going to drive on home and get something to eat," said Judith, lifting the reins. "Food's the only thing that'll rid me of the dumb horrors." Douglas settled back against the hay, and the rest of the ride was continued in silence. Old Johnny Brown stayed on for a day or so to clean up odd jobs neglected during the haying season. He was a gentle, timid little chap, the butt of the entire valley, of course, and particularly of John Spencer. Douglas often wondered why old Johnny consented to work each year at this season for his father. This wonderment was solved the day after Doug's and Jude's conversation on the load of hay and in a manner destined in a small way to have its influence on Douglas' affairs in the years to come. Just before supper Judith returned from the post-office and rushed into the kitchen with a huge, long-legged, ugly puppy in her arms. She set him on the floor where his four knotty legs pointed in four different directions and where his long back sagged like the letter U. He was covered with rough gray hair and his eyes were huge and brown. "Isn't he a perfect lamb? He's mine!" cried Judith, squatting beside him.