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