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diff --git a/9267-0.txt b/9267-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d498fd6 --- /dev/null +++ b/9267-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5526 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Chip, of the Flying U, by B. M. Bower + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Chip, of the Flying U + +Author: B. M. Bower + +Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9267] +Last Updated: March 9, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHIP, OF THE FLYING U *** + + + + +Produced by Matthew H. Heller + + + + + + +CHIP, OF THE FLYING U + +By B. M. Bower (B. M. Sinclair) + + +AUTHOR OF “The Lure of the Dim Trails,” “Her Prairie Knight,” “The +Lonesome Trail,” etc. + +Illustrations by CHARLES M. RUSSELL + + + +LIST OF CONTENTS + + + I The Old Man's Sister + II Over the “Hog's Back” + III Silver + IV An Ideal Picture + V In Silver's Stall + VI The Hum of Preparation + VII Love and a Stomach Pump + VIII Prescriptions + IX Before the Round-up + X What Whizzer Did + XI Good Intentions + XII “The Last Stand” + XIII Art Critics + XIV Convalescence + XV The Spoils of Victory + XVI Weary Advises + XVII When a Maiden Wills + XVIII Dr Cecil Granthum + XIX Love Finds Its Hour + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + +Came down with not a joint in his legs and turned a somersault + +“The Last Stand.” + +Throwing herself from the saddle she slid precipitately into the +washout, just as Denver thundered up + + + + +CHAPTER I. -- The Old Man's Sister. + + + +The weekly mail had just arrived at the Flying U ranch. Shorty, who had +made the trip to Dry Lake on horseback that afternoon, tossed the bundle +to the “Old Man” and was halfway to the stable when he was called back +peremptorily. + +“Shorty! O-h-h, Shorty! Hi!” + +Shorty kicked his steaming horse in the ribs and swung round in the +path, bringing up before the porch with a jerk. + +“Where's this letter been?” demanded the Old Man, with some excitement. +James G. Whitmore, cattleman, would have been greatly surprised had +he known that his cowboys were in the habit of calling him the Old Man +behind his back. James G. Whitmore did not consider himself old, though +he was constrained to admit, after several hours in the saddle, that +rheumatism had searched him out--because of his fourteen years of +roughing it, he said. Also, there was a place on the crown of his head +where the hair was thin, and growing thinner every day of his life, +though he did not realize it. The thin spot showed now as he stood in +the path, waving a square envelope aloft before Shorty, who regarded it +with supreme indifference. + +Not so Shorty's horse. He rolled his eyes till the whites showed, +snorted and backed away from the fluttering, white object. + +“Doggone it, where's this been?” reiterated James G., accusingly. + +“How the devil do I know?” retorted Shorty, forcing his horse nearer. +“In the office, most likely. I got it with the rest to-day.” + +“It's two weeks old,” stormed the Old Man. “I never knew it to fail--if +a letter says anybody's coming, or you're to hurry up and go somewhere +to meet somebody, that letter's the one that monkeys around and comes +when the last dog's hung. A letter asking yuh if yuh don't want to get +rich in ten days sellin' books, or something, 'll hike along out here in +no time. Doggone it!” + +“You got a hurry-up order to go somewhere?” queried Shorty, mildly +sympathetic. + +“Worse than that,” groaned James G. “My sister's coming out to spend the +summer--t'-morrow. And no cook but Patsy--and she can't eat in the mess +house--and the house like a junk shop!” + +“It looks like you was up against it, all right,” grinned Shorty. Shorty +was a sort of foreman, and was allowed much freedom of speech. + +“Somebody's got to meet her--you have Chip catch up the creams so he can +go. And send some of the boys up here to help me hoe out a little. Dell +ain't used to roughing it; she's just out of a medical school--got her +diploma, she was telling me in the last letter before this. She'll be +finding microbes by the million in this old shack. You tell Patsy I'll +be late to supper--and tell him to brace up and cook something ladies +like--cake and stuff. Patsy'll know. I'd give a dollar to get that +little runt in the office--” + +But Shorty, having heard all that it was important to know, was +clattering down the long slope again to the stable. It was supper time, +and Shorty was hungry. Also, there was news to tell, and he was curious +to see how the boys would take it. He was just turning loose the horse +when supper was called. He hurried back up the hill to the mess house, +performed hasty ablutions in the tin wash basin on the bench beside the +door, scrubbed his face dry on the roller towel, and took his place at +the long table within. + +“Any mail for me?” Jack Bates looked up from emptying the third spoon of +sugar into his coffee. + +“Naw--she didn't write this time, Jack.” Shorty reached a long arm for +the “Mulligan stew.” + +“How's the dance coming on?” asked Cal Emmett. + +“I guess it's a go, all right. They've got them coons engaged to play. +The hotel's fixing for a big crowd, if the weather holds like this. +Chip, Old Man wants you to catch up the creams, after supper; you've got +to meet the train to-morrow.” + +“Which train?” demanded Chip, looking up. “Is old Dunk coming?” + +“The noon train. No, he didn't say nothing about Dunk. He wants a bunch +of you fellows to go up and hoe out the White House and slick it up for +comp'ny--got to be done t'-night. And Patsy, Old Man says for you t' git +a move on and cook something fit to eat; something that ain't plum full +uh microbes.” + +Shorty became suddenly engaged in cooling his coffee, enjoying the +varied emotions depicted on the faces of the boys. + +“Who's coming?” + +“What's up?” + +Shorty took two leisurely gulps before he answered: + +“Old Man's sister's coming out to stay all summer--and then some, maybe. +Be here to-morrow, he said.” + +“Gee whiz! Is she pretty?” This from Cal Emmett. + +“Hope she ain't over fifty.” This from Jack Bates. + +“Hope she ain't one of them four-eyed school-ma'ams,” added Happy +Jack--so called to distinguish him from Jack Bates, and also because of +his dolorous visage. + +“Why can't some one else haul her out?” began Chip. “Cal would like that +job--and he's sure welcome to it.” + +“Cal's too dangerous. He'd have the old girl dead in love before he got +her over the first ridge, with them blue eyes and that pretty smile of +his'n. It's up to you, Splinter--Old Man said so.” + +“She'll be dead safe with Chip. HE won't make love to her,” retorted +Cal. + +“Wonder how old she is,” repeated Jack Bates, half emptying the syrup +pitcher into his plate. Patsy had hot biscuits for supper, and Jack's +especial weakness was hot biscuits and maple syrup. + +“As to her age,” remarked Shorty, “it's a cinch she ain't no spring +chicken, seeing she's the Old Man's sister.” + +“Is she a schoolma'am?” Happy Jack's distaste for schoolma'ams dated +from his tempestuous introduction to the A B C's, with their daily +accompaniment of a long, thin ruler. + +“No, she ain't a schoolma'am. She's a darn sight worse. She's a doctor.” + +“Aw, come off!” Cal Emmett was plainly incredulous. + +“That's right. Old Man said she's just finished taking a course uh +medicine--what'd yuh call that?” + +“Consumption, maybe--or snakes.” Weary smiled blandly across the table. + +“She got a diploma, though. Now where do you get off at?” + +“Yeah--that sure means she's a doctor,” groaned Cal. + +“By golly, she needn't try t' pour any dope down ME,” cried a short, fat +man who took life seriously--a man they called Slim, in fine irony. + +“Gosh, I'd like to give her a real warm reception,” said Jack Bates, who +had a reputation for mischief. “I know them Eastern folks, down t' the +ground. They think cow-punchers wear horns. Yes, they do. They think +we're holy terrors that eat with our six-guns beside our plates--and +the like of that. They make me plum tired. I'd like to--wish we knew her +brand.” + +“I can tell you that,” said Chip, cynically. “There's just two bunches +to choose from. There's the Sweet Young Things, that faint away at sight +of a six-shooter, and squawk and catch at your arm if they see a garter +snake, and blush if you happen to catch their eye suddenly, and cry if +you don't take off your hat every time you see them a mile off.” Chip +held out his cup for Patsy to refill. + +“Yeah--I've run up against that brand--and they're sure all right. They +suit ME,” remarked Cal. + +“That don't seem to line up with the doctor's diploma,” commented Weary. + +“Well, she's the other kind then--and if she is, the Lord have mercy on +the Flying U! She'll buy her some spurs and try to rope and cut out and +help brand. Maybe she'll wear double-barreled skirts and ride a man's +saddle and smoke cigarettes. She'll try to go the men one better in +everything, and wind up by making a darn fool of herself. Either kind's +bad enough.” + +“I'll bet she don't run in either bunch,” began Weary. “I'll bet she's +a skinny old maid with a peaked nose and glasses, that'll round us up +every Sunday and read tracts at our heads, and come down on us with both +feet about tobacco hearts and whisky livers, and the evils and devils +wrapped up in a cigarette paper. I seen a woman doctor, once--she was +stopping at the T Down when I was line-riding for them--and say, she was +a holy fright! She had us fellows going South before a week. I stampeded +clean off the range, soon as my month was up.” + +“Say,” interrupted Cal, “don't yuh remember that picture the Old Man got +last fall, of his sister? She was the image of the Old Man--and mighty +near as old.” + +Chip, thinking of the morrow's drive, groaned in real anguish of spirit. + +“You won't dast t' roll a cigarette comin' home, Chip,” predicted Happy +Jack, mournfully. “Yuh want t' smoke double goin' in.” + +“I don't THINK I'll smoke double going in,” returned Chip, dryly. “If +the old girl don't like my style, why the walking isn't all taken up.” + +“Say, Chip,” suggested Jack Bates, “you size her up at the depot, and, +if she don't look promising, just slack the lines on Antelope Hill. The +creams 'll do the rest. If they don't, we'll finish the job here.” + +Shorty tactfully pushed back his chair and rose. “You fellows don't +want to git too gay,” he warned. “The Old Man's just beginning to forget +about the calf-shed deal.” Then he went out and shut the door after him. +The boys liked Shorty; he believed in the old adage about wisdom being +bliss at certain times, and the boys were all the better for his +living up to his belief. He knew the Happy Family would stop inside the +limit--at least, they always had, so far. + +“What's the game?” demanded Cal, when the door closed behind their +indulgent foreman. + +“Why, it's this. (Pass the syrup, Happy.) T'morrow's Sunday, so we'll +have time t' burn. We'll dig up all the guns we can find, and catch +up the orneriest cayuses in our strings, and have a real, old lynching +bee--sabe?” + +“Who yuh goin' t' hang?” asked Slim, apprehensively. “Yuh needn't think +I'LL stand for it.” + +“Aw, don't get nervous. There ain't power enough on the ranch t' pull +yuh clear of the ground. We ain't going to build no derrick,” said Jack, +witheringly. “We'll have a dummy rigged up in the bunk house. When Chip +and the doctor heave in sight on top of the grade, we'll break loose +down here with our bronks and our guns, and smoke up the ranch in style. +We'll drag out Mr. Strawman, and lynch him to the big gate before they +get along. We'll be 'riddling him with bullets' when they arrive--and +by that time she'll be so rattled she won't know whether it's a man or a +mule we've got strung up.” + +“You'll have to cut down your victim before I get there,” grinned Chip. +“I never could get the creams through the gate, with a man hung to the +frame; they'd spill us into the washout by the old shed, sure as fate.” + +“That'd be all right. The old maid would sure know she was out West--we +need something to add to the excitement, anyway.” + +“If the Old Man's new buggy is piled in a heap, you'll wish you had cut +out some of the excitement,” retorted Chip. + +“All right, Splinter. We won't hang him there at all. That old +cottonwood down by the creek would do fine. It'll curdle her blood like +Dutch cheese to see us marching him down there--and she can't see the +hay sticking out of his sleeves, that far off.” + +“What if she wants to hold an autopsy?” bantered Chip. + +“By golly, we'll stake her to a hay knife and tell her to go after him!” + cried Slim, suddenly waking up to the situation. + +The noon train slid away from the little, red depot at Dry Lake and +curled out of sight around a hill. The only arrival looked expectantly +into the cheerless waiting room, gazed after the train, which seemed the +last link between her and civilization, and walked to the edge of the +platform with a distinct frown upon the bit of forehead visible under +her felt hat. + +A fat young man threw the mail sack into a weather-beaten buggy and +drove leisurely down the track to the post office. The girl watched +him out of sight and sighed disconsolately. All about her stretched the +rolling grass land, faintly green in the hollows, brownly barren on the +hilltops. Save the water tank and depot, not a house was to be seen, and +the silence and loneliness oppressed her. + +The agent was dragging some boxes off the platform. She turned and +walked determinedly up to him, and the agent became embarrassed under +her level look. + +“Isn't there anyone here to meet me?” she demanded, quite needlessly. +“I am Miss Whitmore, and my brother owns a ranch, somewhere near here. +I wrote him, two weeks ago, that I was coming, and I certainly expected +him to meet me.” She tucked a wind-blown lock of brown hair under her +hat crown and looked at the agent reproachfully, as if he were to blame, +and the agent, feeling suddenly that somehow the fault was his, blushed +guiltily and kicked at a box of oranges. + +“Whitmore's rig is in town,” he said, hastily. “I saw his man at dinner. +The train was reported late, but she made up time.” Grasping desperately +at his dignity, he swallowed an abject apology and retreated into the +office. + +Miss Whitmore followed him a few steps, thought better of it, and paced +the platform self-pityingly for ten minutes, at the end of which the +Flying U rig whirled up in a cloud of dust, and the agent hurried out +to help with the two trunks, and the mandolin and guitar in their canvas +cases. + +The creams circled fearsomely up to the platform and stood quivering +with eagerness to be off, their great eyes rolling nervously. Miss +Whitmore took her place beside Chip with some inward trepidation mingled +with her relief. When they were quite ready and the reins loosened +suggestively, Pet stood upon her hind feet with delight and Polly lunged +forward precipitately. + +The girl caught her breath, and Chip eyed her sharply from the corner +of his eye. He hoped she was not going to scream--he detested screaming +women. She looked young to be a doctor, he decided, after that lightning +survey. He hoped to goodness she wasn't of the Sweet Young Thing order; +he had no patience with that sort of woman. Truth to tell, he had no +patience with ANY sort of woman. + +He spoke to the horses authoritatively, and they obeyed and settled to +a long, swinging trot that knew no weariness, and the girl's heart +returned to its normal action. + +Two miles were covered in swift silence, then Miss Whitmore brought +herself to think of the present and realized that the young man beside +her had not opened his lips except to speak once to his team. She turned +her head and regarded him curiously, and Chip, feeling the scrutiny, +grew inwardly defiant. + +Miss Whitmore decided, after a close inspection, that she rather liked +his looks, though he did not strike her as a very amiable young man. +Perhaps she was a bit tired of amiable young men. His face was thin, +and refined, and strong--the strength of level brows, straight nose +and square chin, with a pair of paradoxical lips, which were curved +and womanish in their sensitiveness; the refinement was an intangible +expression which belonged to no particular feature but pervaded the +whole face. As to his eyes, she was left to speculate upon their color, +since she had not seen them, but she reflected that many a girl would +give a good deal to own his lashes. + +Of a sudden he turned his eyes from the trail and met her look squarely. +If he meant to confuse her, he failed--for she only smiled and said to +herself: “They're hazel.” + +“Don't you think we ought to introduce ourselves?” she asked, +composedly, when she was quite sure the eyes were not brown. + +“Maybe.” Chip's tone was neutrally polite. + +Miss Whitmore had suspected that he was painfully bashful, after the +manner of country young men. She now decided that he was not; he was +passively antagonistic. + +“Of course you know that I'm Della Whitmore,” she said. + +Chip carefully brushed a fly off Polly's flank with the whip. + +“I took it for granted. I was sent to meet a Miss Whitmore at the train, +and I took the only lady in sight.” + +“You took the right one--but I'm not--I haven't the faintest idea who +you are.” + +“My name is Claude Bennett, and I'm happy to make your acquaintance.” + +“I don't believe it--you don't look happy,” said Miss Whitmore, inwardly +amused. + +“That's the proper thing to say when you've been introduced to a lady,” + remarked Chip, noncommittally, though his lips twitched at the corners. + +Miss Whitmore, finding no ready reply to this truthful statement, +remarked, after a pause, that it was windy. Chip agreed that it was, and +conversation languished. + +Miss Whitmore sighed and took to studying the landscape, which had +become a succession of sharp ridges and narrow coulees, water-worn and +bleak, with a purplish line of mountains off to the left. After several +miles she spoke. + +“What is that animal over there? Do dogs wander over this wilderness +alone?” + +Chip's eyes followed her pointing finger. + +“That's a coyote. I wish I could get a shot at him--they're an awful +pest, out here, you know.” He looked longingly at the rifle under his +feet. “If I thought you could hold the horses a minute--” + +“Oh, I can't! I--I'm not accustomed to horses--but I can shoot a +little.” + +Chip gave her a quick, measuring glance. The coyote had halted and was +squatting upon his haunches, his sharp nose pointed inquisitively toward +them. Chip slowed the creams to a walk, raised the gun and laid it +across his knees, threw a shell into position and adjusted the sight. + +“Here, you can try, if you like,” he said. “Whenever you're ready I'll +stop. You had better stand up--I'll watch that you don't fall. Ready? +Whoa, Pet!” + +Miss Whitmore did not much like the skepticism in his tone, but she +stood up, took quick, careful aim and fired. + +Pet jumped her full length and reared, but Chip was watching for some +such performance and had them well under control, even though he was +compelled to catch Miss Whitmore from lurching backward upon her baggage +behind the seat--which would have been bad for the guitar and mandolin, +if not for the young woman. + +The coyote had sprung high in air, whirled dizzily and darted over the +hill. + +“You hit him,” cried Chip, forgetting his prejudice for a moment. He +turned the creams from the road, filled with the spirit of the chase. +Miss Whitmore will long remember that mad dash over the hilltops and +into the hollows, in which she could only cling to the rifle and to +the seat as best she might, and hope that the driver knew what he was +about--which he certainly did. + +“There he goes, sneaking down that coulee! He'll get into one of those +washouts and hide, if we don't head him off. I'll drive around so you +can get another shot at him,” cried Chip. He headed up the hill again +until the coyote, crouching low, was fully revealed. + +“That's a fine shot. Throw another shell in, quick! You better kneel on +the seat, this time--the horses know what's coming. Steady, Polly, my +girl!” + +Miss Whitmore glanced down the hill, and then, apprehensively, at the +creams, who were clanking their bits, wild-eyed and quivering. Only +their master's familiar voice and firm grip on the reins held them there +at all. Chip saw and interpreted the glance, somewhat contemptuously. + +“Oh, of course if you're AFRAID--” + +Miss Whitmore set her teeth savagely, knelt and fired, cutting the +sentence short in his teeth and forcing his undivided attention to the +horses, which showed a strong inclination to bolt. + +“I think I got him that time,” said she, nonchalantly, setting her hat +straight--though Chip, with one of his quick glances, observed that she +was rather white around the mouth. + +He brought the horses dexterously into the road and quieted them. + +“Aren't you going to get my coyote?” she ventured to ask. + +“Certainly. The road swings back, down that same coulee, and we'll +pass right by it. Then I'll get out and pick him up, while you hold the +horses.” + +“You'll hold those horses yourself,” returned Miss Whitmore, with +considerable spirit. “I'd much rather pick up the coyote, thank you.” + +Chip said nothing to this, whatever he may have thought. He drove up to +the coyote with much coaxing of Pet and Polly, who eyed the gray object +askance. Miss Whitmore sprang out and seized the animal by its coarse, +bushy tail. + +“Gracious, he's heavy!” she exclaimed, after one tug. + +“He's been fattening up on Flying U calves,” remarked Chip, his foot +upon the brake. + +Miss Whitmore knelt and examined the cattle thief curiously. + +“Look,” she said, “here's where I hit him the first time; the bullet +took a diagonal course from the shoulder back to the other side. It must +have gone within an inch of his heart, and would have finished him in a +short time, without that other shot--that penetrated his brain, you see; +death was instantaneous.” + +Chip had taken advantage of the halt to roll a cigarette, holding the +reins tightly between his knees while he did so. He passed the loose +edge of the paper across the tip of his tongue, eying the young woman +curiously the while. + +“You seem to be pretty well onto your job,” he remarked, dryly. + +“I ought to be,” she said, laughing a little. “I've been learning the +trade ever since I was sixteen.” + +“Yes? You began early.” + +“My Uncle John is a doctor. I helped him in the office till he got +me into the medical school. I was brought up in an atmosphere of +antiseptics and learned all the bones in Uncle John's 'Boneparte'--the +skeleton, you know--before I knew all my letters.” She dragged the +coyote close to the wheel. + +“Let me get hold of the tail.” Chip carefully pinched out the blaze of +his match and threw it away before he leaned over to help. With a quick +lift he landed the animal, limp and bloody, squarely upon the top of +Miss Whitmore's largest trunk. The pointed nose hung down the side, the +white fangs exposed in a sinister grin. The girl gazed upon him proudly +at first, then in dismay. + +“Oh, he's dripping blood all over my mandolin case--and I just know it +won't come out!” She tugged frantically at the instrument. + +“'Out, damned spot!'” quoted Chip in a sepulchral tone before he turned +to assist her. + +Miss Whitmore let go the mandolin and stared blankly up at him, and +Chip, offended at her frank surprise that he should quote Shakespeare, +shut his lips tightly and relapsed into silence. + + + + + + +CHAPTER II. -- Over the “Hog's Back.” + + + +“That's Flying U ranch,” volunteered Chip, as they turned sharply to the +right and began to descend a long grade built into the side of a steep, +rocky bluff. Below them lay the ranch in a long, narrow coulee. Nearest +them sprawled the house, low, white and roomy, with broad porches and +wide windows; further down the coulee, at the base of a gentle slope, +were the sheds, the high, round corrals and the haystacks. Great, board +gates were distributed in seemingly useless profusion, while barbed wire +fences stretched away in all directions. A small creek, bordered with +cottonwoods and scraggly willows, wound aimlessly away down the coulee. + +“J. G. doesn't seem to have much method,” remarked Miss Whitmore, after +a critical survey. “What are all those log cabins scattered down the +hill for? They look as though J. G. had a handful that he didn't want, +and just threw them down toward the stable and left them lying where +they happened to fall.” + +“It does, all right,” conceded Chip. “They're the bunk house--where +us fellows sleep--and the mess house, where we eat, and then come the +blacksmith shop and a shack we keep all kinds of truck in, and--” + +“What--in--the world--” + +A chorus of shouts and shots arose from below. A scurrying group of +horsemen burst over the hill behind the house, dashed half down the +slope, and surrounded the bunk house with blood-curdling yells. Chip +held the creams to a walk and furtively watched his companion. Miss +Whitmore's eyes were very wide open; plainly, she was astonished beyond +measure at the uproar. Whether she was also frightened, Chip could not +determine. + +The menacing yells increased in volume till the very hills seemed to +cower in fear. Miss Whitmore gasped when a limp form was dragged from +the cabin and lifted to the back of a snorting pony. + +“They've got a rope around that man's neck,” she breathed, in a +horrified half whisper. “Are--they--going to HANG him?” + +“It kinda looks that way, from here,” said Chip, inwardly ashamed. All +at once it struck him as mean and cowardly to frighten a lady who had +traveled far among strangers and who had that tired droop to her mouth. +It wasn't a fair game; it was cheating. Only for his promise to the +boys, he would have told her the truth then and there. + +Miss Whitmore was not a stupid young woman; his very indifference told +her all that she needed to know. She tore her eyes from the confused +jumble of gesticulating men and restive steeds to look sharply at Chip. +He met her eyes squarely for an instant, and the horror oozed from her +and left only amused chagrin that they should try to trick her so. + +“Hurry up,” she commanded, “so I can be in at the death. Remember, I'm a +doctor. They're tying him to his horse--he looks half dead with fright.” + +Inwardly she added: “He overacts the part dreadfully.” + +The little cavalcade in the coulee fired a spectacular volley into the +air and swept down the slope like a dry-weather whirlwind across a patch +of alkali ground. Through the big gate and up the road past the stables +they thundered, the prisoner bound and helpless in their midst. + +Then something happened. A wide-open River Press, flapping impotently in +the embrace of a willow, caught the eye of Banjo, a little blaze--faced +bay who bore the captive. He squatted, ducked backward so suddenly that +his reins slipped from Slim's fingers and lowered his head between his +white front feet. His rider seemed stupid beyond any that Banjo had ever +known--and he had known many. Snorting and pitching, he was away +before the valiant band realized what was happening in their midst. The +prisoner swayed drunkenly in the saddle. At the third jump his hat flew +off, disclosing the jagged end of a two-by-four. + +The Happy Family groaned as one man and gave chase. + +Banjo, with almost human maliciousness, was heading up the road straight +toward Chip and the woman doctor--and she must be a poor doctor +indeed, and a badly frightened one, withal, if she failed to observe a +peculiarity in the horse thief's cranium. + +Cal Emmett dug his spurs into his horse and shot by Slim like a +locomotive, shouting profanity as he went. + +“Head him into the creek,” yelled Happy Jack, and leaned low over the +neck of his sorrel. + +Weary Willie stood up in his stirrups and fanned Glory with his hat. +“Yip, yee--e-e! Go to it, Banjo, old boy! Watch his nibs ride, would +yuh? He's a broncho buster from away back.” Weary Willie was the only +man of them all who appeared to find any enjoyment in the situation. + +“If Chip only had the sense to slow up and give us a chance--or spill +that old maid over the bank!” groaned Jack Bates, and plied whip and +spur to overtake the runaway. + +Now the captive was riding dizzily, head downward, frightening Banjo +half out of his senses. What he had started as a grim jest, he now +continued in deadly earnest; what was this uncanny semblance of a +cow-puncher which he could not unseat, yet which clung so precariously +to the saddle? He had no thought now of bucking in pure devilment--he +was galloping madly, his eyes wild and staring. + +Of a sudden, Chip saw danger lurking beneath the fun of it. He leaned +forward a little, got a fresh grip on the reins and took the whip. + +“Hang tight, now--I'm going to beat that horse to the Hog's Back.” + +Miss Whitmore, laughing till the tears stood in her eyes, braced herself +mechanically. Chip had been laughing also--but that was before Banjo +struck into the hill road in his wild flight from the terror that rode +in the saddle. + +A smart flick of the whip upon their glossy backs, and the creams sprang +forward at a run. The buggy was new and strong, and if they kept the +road all would be well--unless they met Banjo upon the narrow ridge +between two broad-topped knolls, known as the Hog's Back. Another tap, +and the creams ran like deer. One wheel struck a cobble stone, and the +buggy lurched horribly. + +“Stop! There goes my coyote!” cried Miss Whitmore, as a gray object slid +down under the hind wheel. + +“Hang on or you'll go next,” was all the comfort she got, as Chip braced +himself for the struggle before him. The Hog's Back was reached, but +Banjo was pounding up the hill beyond, his nostrils red and flaring, his +sides reeking with perspiration. Behind him tore the Flying U boys in a +vain effort to head him back into the coulee before mischief was done. + +Chip drew his breath sharply when the creams swerved out upon the broad +hilltop, just as Banjo thundered past with nothing left of his rider but +the legs, and with them shorn of their plumpness as the hay dribbled out +upon the road. + +A fresh danger straightway forced itself upon Chip's consciousness. +The creams, maddened by the excitement, were running away. He held +them sternly to the road and left the stopping of them to Providence, +inwardly thanking the Lord that Miss Whitmore did not seem to be the +screaming kind of woman. + +The “vigilantes” drew hastily out of the road and scudded out of sight +down a gully as the creams lunged down the steep grade and across the +shallow creek bed. Fortunately the great gate by the stable swung wide +open and they galloped through and up the long slope to the house, +coming more under control at every leap, till, by a supreme effort, Chip +brought them, panting, to a stand before the porch where the Old Man +stood boiling over with anxiety and excitement. James G. Whitmore was +not a man who took things calmly; had he been a woman he would have been +called fussy. + +“What in--what was you making a race track out of the grade for,” he +demanded, after he had bestowed a hasty kiss beside the nose of his +sister. + +Chip dropped a heavy trunk upon the porch and reached for the guitar +before he answered. + +“I was just trying those new springs on the buggy.” + +“It was very exciting,” commented Miss Whitmore, airily. “I shot a +coyote, J. G., but we lost it coming down the hill. Your men were +playing a funny game--hare and hounds, it looked like. Or were they +breaking a new horse?” + +The Old Man looked at Chip, intelligence dawning in his face. There was +something back of it all, he knew. He had been asleep when the uproar +began, and had reached the door only in time to see the creams come down +the grade like a daylight shooting star. + +“I guess they was breaking a bronk,” he said, carelessly; “you've got +enough baggage for a trip round the world, Dell. I hope it ain't all +dope for us poor devils. Tell Shorty I want t' see him, Chip.” + +Chip took the reins from the Old Man's hands, sprang in and drove back +down the hill to the stables. + + +The “reception committee,” as Chip sarcastically christened them, +rounded up the runaway and sneaked back to the ranch by the coulee +trail. With much unseemly language, they stripped the saddle and a +flapping pair of overalls off poor, disgraced Banjo, and kicked him out +of the corral. + +“That's the way Jack's schemes always pan out,” grumbled Slim. “By +golly, yuh don't get me into another jackpot like that!” + +“You might explain why you let that” (several kinds of) “cayuse get +away from you!” retorted Jack, fretfully. “If you'd been onto your job, +things would have been smooth as silk.” + +“Wonder what the old maid thought,” broke in Weary, bent on preserving +peace in the Happy Family. + +“I'll bet she never saw us at all!” laughed Cal. “Old Splinter gave +her all she wanted to do, hanging to the rig. The way he came down that +grade wasn't slow. He just missed running into Banjo on the Hog's Back +by the skin of the teeth. If he had, it'd be good-by, doctor--and Chip, +too. Gee, that was a close shave!” + +“Well,” said Happy Jack, mournfully, “if we don't all get the bounce for +this, I miss my guess. It's a little the worst we've done yet.” + +“Except that time we tin-canned that stray steer, last winter,” amended +Weary, chuckling over the remembrance as he fastened the big gate behind +them. + +“Yes, that was another of Jack's fool schemes,” put in Slim. “Go and +tin-can a four-year-old steer and let him take after the Old Man and +put him on the calf shed, first pass he made. Old Man was sure hot about +that--by golly, it didn't help his rheumatism none.” + +“He'll sure go straight in the air over this,” reiterated Happy Jack, +with mournful conviction. + +“There's old Splinter at the bunk house--drawing our pictures, I'll bet +a dollar. Hey, Chip! How you vas, already yet?” sung out Weary, whose +sunny temper no calamity could sour. + +Chip glanced at them and went on cutting the leaves of a late magazine +which he had purloined from the Dry Lake barber. Cal Emmett strode up +and grabbed the limp, gray hat from his head and began using it for a +football. + +“Here! Give that back!” commanded Chip, laughing. “DON'T make a dish rag +of my new John B. Stetson, Cal. It won't be fit for the dance.” + +“Gee! It don't lack much of being a dish rag, now, if I'm any +judge. Now! Great Scott!” He held it at arm's length and regarded it +derisively. + +“Well, it was new two years ago,” explained Chip, making an ineffectual +grab at it. + +Cal threw it to him and came and sat down upon his heels to peer over +Chip's arm at the magazine. + +“How's the old maid doctor?” asked Jack Bates, leaning against the door +while he rolled a cigarette. + +“Scared plum to death. I left the remains in the Old Man's arms.” + +“Was she scared, honest?” Cal left off studying the “Types of Fair +Women.” + +“What did she say when we broke loose?” Jack drew a match sharply along +a log. + +“Nothing. Well, yes, she said 'Are they going to H-A-N-G that man?'” + Chip's voice quavered the words in a shrill falsetto. + +“The deuce she did!” Jack indulged in a gratified laugh. + +“What did she say when you put the creams under the whip, up there? I +don't suppose the old girl is wise to the fact that you saved her neck +right then--but you sure did. You done yourself proud, Splinter.” Cal +patted Chip's knee approvingly. + +Chip blushed under the praise and hastily answered the question. + +“She hollered out: 'Stop! There goes my COYOTE!'” + +“Her COYOTE?” + +“HER coyote?” + +“What the devil was she doing with a COYOTE?” + +The Happy Family stood transfixed, and Chip's eyes were seen to laugh. + +“HER COYOTE. Did any of you fellows happen to see a dead coyote up on +the grade? Because if you did, it's the doctor's.” + +Weary Willie walked deliberately over and seized Chip by the shoulders, +bringing him to his feet with one powerful yank. + +“Don't you try throwing any loads into THIS crowd, young man. Answer me +truly-s'help yuh. How did that old maid come by a coyote--a dead one?” + +Chip squirmed loose and reached for his cigarette book. “She shot it,” + he said, calmly, but with twitching lips. + +“Shot it!” Five voices made up the incredulous echo. + +“What with?” demanded Weary when he got his breath. + +“With my rifle. I brought it out from town today. Bert Rogers had left +it at the barber shop for me.” + +“Gee whiz! And them creams hating a gun like poison! She didn't shoot +from the rig, did she?” + +“Yes,” said Chip, “she did. The first time she didn't know any +better--and the second time she was hot at me for hinting she was +scared. She's a spunky little devil, all right. She's busy hating me +right now for running the grade--thinks I did it to scare her, I guess. +That's all some fool women know.” + +“She's a howling sport, then!” groaned Cal, who much preferred the Sweet +Young Things. + +“No--I sized her up as a maverick.” + +“What does she look like?” + +“How old is she?” + +“I never asked her age,” replied Chip, his face lighting briefly in a +smile. “As to her looks, she isn't cross-eyed, and she isn't four-eyed. +That's as much as I noticed.” After this bald lie he became busy with +his cigarette. “Give me that magazine, Cal. I didn't finish cutting the +leaves.” + + + + + + +CHAPTER III. -- Silver. + + + +Miss Della Whitmore gazed meditatively down the hill at the bunk house. +The boys were all at work, she knew. She had heard J. G. tell two of +them to “ride the sheep coulee fence,” and had been consumed with +amazed curiosity at the order. Wherefore should two sturdy young men be +commanded to ride a fence, when there were horses that assuredly needed +exercise--judging by their antics--and needed it badly? She resolved to +ask J. G. at the first opportunity. + +The others were down at the corrals, branding a few calves which +belonged on the home ranch. She had announced her intention of going +to look on, and her brother, knowing how the boys would regard her +presence, had told her plainly that they did not want her. He said it +was no place for girls, anyway. Then he had put on a very dirty pair of +overalls and hurried down to help for he was not above lending a hand +when there was extra work to be done. + +Miss Della Whitmore tidied the kitchen and dusted the sitting room, +and then, having a pair of mischievously idle hands and a very feminine +curiosity, conceived an irrepressible desire to inspect the bunk house. + +J. G. would tell her that, also, was no place for girls, she supposed, +but J. G. was not present, so his opinion did not concern her. She had +been at the Flying U ranch a whole week, and was beginning to feel that +its resources for entertainment--aside from the masculine contingent, +which held some promising material--were about exhausted. She had +climbed the bluffs which hemmed the coulee on either side, had selected +her own private saddle horse, a little sorrel named Concho, and had made +friends with Patsy, the cook. She had dazzled Cal Emmett with her wiles +and had found occasion to show Chip how little she thought of him; a +highly unsatisfactory achievement, since Chip calmly over-looked her +whenever common politeness permitted him. + +There yet remained the unexplored mystery of that little cabin down the +slope, from which sounded so much boylike laughter of an evening. She +watched and waited till she was positive the coast was clear, then +clapped an old hat of J. G.'s upon her head and ran lightly down the +hill. + +With her hand upon the knob, she ran her eye critically along the outer +wall and decided that it had, at some remote date, been treated to a +coat of whitewash; gave the knob a sudden twist, with a backward +glance like a child stealing cookies, stepped in and came near falling +headlong. She had not expected that remoteness of floor common to cabins +built on a side hill. + +“Well!” She pulled herself together and looked curiously about her. What +struck her at first was the total absence of bunks. There were a couple +of plain, iron bedsteads and two wooden ones made of rough planks. There +was a funny-looking table made of an inverted coffee box with legs of +two-by-four, and littered with a characteristic collection of bachelor +trinkets. There was a glass lamp with a badly smoked chimney, a pack of +cards, a sack of smoking tobacco and a box of matches. There was a tin +box with spools of very coarse thread, some equally coarse needles and a +pair of scissors. There was also--and Miss Whitmore gasped when she saw +it--a pile of much-read magazines with the latest number of her favorite +upon the top. She went closer and examined them, and glanced around +the room with doubting eyes. There were spurs, quirts, chaps and +queer-looking bits upon the walls; there were cigarette stubs and +burned matches innumerable upon the rough, board floor, and here in +her hand--she turned the pages of her favorite abstractedly and a paper +fluttered out and fell, face upward, on the floor. She stooped and +recovered it, glanced and gasped. + +“Well!” + +It was only a pencil sketch done on cheap, unruled tablet paper, but +her mind dissolved into a chaos of interrogation marks and exclamation +points--with the latter predominating more and more the longer she +looked. + +It showed blunt-topped hills and a shallow coulee which she remembered +perfectly. In the foreground a young woman in a smart tailored costume, +the accuracy of which was something amazing, stood proudly surveying +a dead coyote at her feet. In a corner of the picture stood a +weather-beaten stump with a long, thin splinter beside it on the ground. +Underneath was written in characters beautifully symmetrical: “The old +maid's credential card.” + +There was no gainsaying the likeness; even the rakish tilt of the jaunty +felt hat, caused by the wind and that wild dash across country, was +painstakingly reproduced. And the fanciful tucks on the sleeve of the +gown--“and I didn't suppose he had deigned so much as a glance!” was her +first coherent thought. + +Miss Whitmore's soul burned with resentment. No woman, even at +twenty-three, loves to be called “the old maid”--especially by a +keen-witted young man with square chin and lips with a pronounced curve +to them. And whoever supposed the fellow could draw like that--and +notice every tiny little detail without really looking once? Of course, +she knew her hat was crooked, with the wind blowing one's head off, +almost, but he had no business: “The old maid's credential card!”--“Old +maid,” indeed! + +“The audacity of him!” + +“Beg pardon?” + +Miss Whitmore wheeled quickly, her heart in the upper part of her +throat, judging by the feel of it. Chip himself stood just inside the +door, eying her coldly. + +“I was not speaking,” said Miss Whitmore, haughtily, in futile denial. + +To this surprising statement Chip had nothing to say. He went to one of +the iron beds, stooped and drew out a bundle which, had Miss Whitmore +asked him what it was, he would probably have called his “war sack.” She +did not ask; she stood and watched him, though her conscience assured +her it was a dreadfully rude thing to do, and that her place was up at +the house. Miss Whitmore was frequently at odds with her conscience; +at this time she stood her ground, backed by her pride, which was her +chiefest ally in such emergencies. + +When he drew a huge, murderous-looking revolver from its scabbard and +proceeded calmly to insert cartridge after cartridge, Miss Whitmore was +constrained to speech. + +“Are you--going to--SHOOT something?” + +The question struck them both as particularly inane, in view of his +actions. + +“I am,” replied he, without looking up. He whirled the cylinder into +place, pushed the bundle back under the bed and rose, polishing the +barrel of the gun with a silk handkerchief. + +Miss Whitmore hoped he wasn't going to murder anyone; he looked keyed up +to almost any desperate deed. + +“Who--what are you going to shoot?” Really, the question asked itself. + +Chip raised his eyes for a fleeting glance which took in the pencil +sketch in her hand. Miss Whitmore observed that his eyes were much +darker than hazel; they were almost black. And there was, strangely +enough, not a particle of curve to his lips; they were thin, and +straight, and stern. + +“Silver. He broke his leg.” + +“Oh!” There was real horror in her tone. Miss Whitmore knew all about +Silver from garrulous Patsy. Chip had rescued a pretty, brown colt from +starving on the range, had bought him of the owner, petted and cared for +him until he was now one of the best saddle horses on the ranch. He was +a dark chestnut, with beautiful white, crinkly mane and tail and white +feet. Miss Whitmore had seen Chip riding him down the coulee trail only +yesterday, and now--Her heart ached with the pity of it. + +“How did it happen?” + +“I don't know. He was in the little pasture. Got kicked, maybe.” Chip +jerked open the door with a force greatly in excess of the need of it. + +Miss Whitmore started impulsively toward him. Her eyes were not quite +clear. + +“Don't--not yet! Let me go. If it's a straight break I can set the bone +and save him.” + +Chip, savage in his misery, regarded her over one square shoulder. + +“Are you a veterinary surgeon, may I ask?” + +Miss Whitmore felt her cheeks grow hot, but she stood her ground. + +“I am not. But a broken bone is a broken bone, whether it belongs to a +man--or some OTHER beast!” + +“Y--e-s?” + +Chip's way of saying yes was one of his chief weapons of annihilation. +He had a peculiar, taunting inflection which he could give to it, upon +occasion, which caused prickles of flesh upon the victim. To say that +Miss Whitmore was not utterly quenched argues well for her courage. She +only gasped, as though treated to an unexpected dash of cold water, and +went on. + +“I'm sure I might save him if you'd let me try. Or are you really eager +to shoot him?” + +Chip's muscles shrank. Eager to shoot him--Silver, the only thing that +loved and understood him? + +“You may come and look at him, if you like,” he said, after a breath or +two. + +Miss Whitmore overlooked the tolerance of the tone and stepped to his +side, mechanically clutching the sketch in her fingers. It was Chip, +looking down at her from his extra foot of height, who called her +attention to it. + +“Are you thinking of using that for a plaster?” + +Miss Whitmore started and blushed, then, with an uptilt of chin: + +“If I need a strong irritant, yes!” She calmly rolled the paper into a +tiny tube and thrust it into the front of her pink shirt-waist for want +of a pocket--and Chip, watching her surreptitiously, felt a queer grip +in his chest, which he thought it best to set down as anger. + +Silently they hurried down where Silver lay, his beautiful, gleaming +mane brushing the tender green of the young grass blades. He lifted his +head when he heard Chip's step, and neighed wistfully. Chip bent over +him, black agony in his eyes. Miss Whitmore, looking on, realized +for the first time that the suffering of the horse was a mere trifle +compared to that of his master. Her eyes wandered to the loaded revolver +which bulged his pocket behind, and she shuddered--but not for Silver. +She went closer and laid her hand upon the shimmery mane. The horse +snorted nervously and struggled to rise. + +“He's not used to a woman,” said Chip, with a certain accent of pride. +“I guess this is the closest he's ever been to one. You see, he's never +had any one handle him but me.” + +“Then he certainly is no lady's horse,” said Miss Whitmore, +good-naturedly. Somehow, in the last moment, her attitude toward Chip +had changed considerably. “Try and make him let me feel the break.” + +With much coaxing and soothing words it was accomplished, and it did not +take long, for it was a front leg, broken straight across, just above +the fetlock. Miss Whitmore stood up and smiled into the young man's +eyes, conscious of a desire to bring the curve back into his lips. + +“It's very simple,” she declared, cheerfully. “I know I can cure him. We +had a colt at home with his leg broken the same way, and he was entirely +cured--and doesn't even limp. Of course,” she added, honestly, “Uncle +John doctored him--but I helped.” + +Chip drew the back of his gloved hand quickly across his eyes and +swallowed. + +“Miss Whitmore--if you could save old Silver--” + +Miss Whitmore, the self-contained young medical graduate, blinked +rapidly and found urgent need of tucking in wind-blown, brown locks, +with her back to the tall cow-puncher who had unwittingly dropped his +mask for an instant. She took off J. G.'s old hat, turned it clean +around twice and put it back exactly as it was before; unless the tilt +over her left ear was a trifle more pronounced. Show me the woman who +can set a hat straight upon her head without aid of a mirror! + +“We must get him up from there and into a box stall. There is one, isn't +there?” + +“Y--e-s--” Chip hesitated. “I wouldn't ask the Old--your brother, for +the use of it, though; not even for Silver.” + +“I will,” returned she, promptly. “I never feel any compunction about +asking for what I want--if I can't get it any other way. I can't +understand why you wanted to shoot--you must have known this bone could +be set.” + +“I didn't WANT to--” Chip bent over and drove a fly from Silver's +shoulder. “When a horse belonging to the outfit gets crippled like that, +he makes coyote bait. A forty-dollar cow-puncher can't expect any better +for his own horse.” + +“He'll GET better, whatever he may expect. I'm just spoiling for +something to practice on, anyway--and he's such a beauty. If you can get +him up, lead him to the stable while I go and tell J. G. and get some +one to help.” She started away. + +“Whom shall I get?” she called back. + +“Weary, if you can--and Slim's a good hand with horses, too.” + +“Slim--is that the tall, lanky man?” + +“No--he's the short, fat one. That bean-pole is Shorty.” + +Miss Whitmore fixed these facts firmly in her memory and ran swiftly to +where rose all the dust and noise from the further corral. She climbed +up until she could look conveniently over the top rail. The fence seemed +to her dreadfully high--a clear waste of straight, sturdy poles. + +“J. G--e-e-e!” + +“Baw--h-h-h!” came answer from a wholly unexpected source as a big, +red cow charged and struck the fence under her feet a blow which nearly +dislodged her from her perch. The cow recoiled a few steps and lowered +her head truculently. + +“Scat! Shoo, there! Go on away, you horrid old thing you! Oh, J. +G--e-e-e!” + +Weary, who was roping, had just dragged a calf up to the fire and was +making a loop to catch another when the cow made a second charge at the +fence. He dashed in ahead of her, his horse narrowly escaping an ugly +gash from her long, wicked horns. As he dodged he threw his rope with +the peculiar, back-hand twist of the practiced roper, catching her by +the head and one front foot. Straight across the corral he shot to +the end of a forty-foot rope tied fast to the saddle horn. The red cow +flopped with a thump which knocked all desire for trouble out of her for +the time. Shorty slipped the rope off and climbed the fence, but the cow +only shook her aching sides and limped sullenly away to the far side of +the corral. J. G. and the boys had shinned up the fence like scared cats +up a tree when the trouble began, and perched in a row upon the top. The +Old Man looked across and espied his sister, wide-eyed and undignified, +watching the outcome. + +“Dell! What in thunder the YOU doing on that fence?” he shouted across +the corral. + +“What in thunder are you doing on the fence, J. G.?” she flung back at +him. + +The Old Man climbed shamefacedly down, followed by the others. “Is that +what you call 'getting put in the clear'?” asked she, genially. “I see +now--it means clear on the top rail.” + +“You go back to the house and stay there!” commanded J. G., wrathfully. +The boys were showing unmistakable symptoms of mirth, and the laugh was +plainly against the Old Man. + +“Oh, no,” came her voice, honey-sweet and calm. “Shoo that cow this way +again, will you, Mr..Weary? I like to watch J. G. shin up the fence. +It's good for him; it makes one supple, and J. G.'s actually getting +fat.” + +“Hurry along with that calf!” shouted the Old Man, recovering the +branding iron and turning his back on his tormentor. + +The boys, beyond grinning furtively at one another, behaved with quite +praiseworthy gravity. Miss Whitmore watched while Weary dragged a +spotted calf up to the fire and the boys threw it to the ground and held +it until the Old Man had stamped it artistically with a smoking U. + +“Oh, J. G.!” + +“Ain't you gone yet? What d'yuh want?” + +“Silver broke his leg.” + +“Huh. I knew that long ago. Chip's gone to shoot him. You go on to the +house, doggone it! You'll have every cow in the corral on the fight. +That red waist of yours--” + +“It isn't red, it's pink--a beautiful rose pink. If your cows don't like +it, they'll have to be educated up to it. Chip isn't either going to +shoot that horse, J. G. I'm going to set his leg and cure him--and I'm +going to keep him in one of your box stalls. There, now!” + +Cal Emmett took a sudden fit of coughing and leaned his forehead weakly +against a rail, and Weary got into some unnecessary argument with his +horse and bolted across to the gate, where his shoulders were seen to +shake--possibly with a nervous chill; the bravest riders are sometimes +so affected. Nobody laughed, however. Indeed, Slim seemed unusually +serious, even for him, while Happy Jack looked positively in pain. + +“I want that short, fat man to help” (Slim squirmed at this blunt +identification of himself) “and Mr. Weary, also.” Miss Whitmore might +have spoken with a greater effect of dignity had she not been clinging +to the top of the fence with two dainty slipper toes thrust between the +rails not so very far below. Under the circumstances, she looked like a +pretty, spoiled little schoolgirl. + +“Oh. You've turned horse doctor, have yuh?” J. G. leaned suddenly upon +his branding iron and laughed. “Doggone it, that ain't a bad idea. I've +got two box stalls, and there's an old gray horse in the pasture--the +same old gray horse that come out uh the wilderness--with a bad case uh +string-halt. I'll have some uh the boys ketch him up and you can start a +horsepital!” + +“Is that supposed to be a joke, J. G.? I never can tell YOUR jokes by +ear. If it is, I'll laugh. I'm going to use whatever I need and you can +do without Mr.--er--those two men.” + +“Oh, go ahead. The horse don't belong to ME, so I'm willing you should +practice on him a while. Say! Dell! Give him that truck you've been +pouring down me for the last week. Maybe he'll relish the taste of the +doggone stuff--I don't.” + +“I suppose you've labeled THAT a 'Joke--please laugh here,'” sighed Miss +Whitmore, plaintively, climbing gingerly down. + + + + + + +CHAPTER IV. -- An Ideal Picture. + + + +“I guess I'll go down to Denson's to-day,” said J. G. at the breakfast +table one morning. “Maybe we can get that grass widow to come and keep +house for us.” + +“I don't want any old grass widow to keep house,” protested Della. “I'm +getting along well enough, so long as Patsy bakes the bread, and meat, +and cake, and stuff. It's just fun to keep house. The only trouble is, +there isn't half enough to keep me busy. I'm going to get a license to +practice medicine, so if there's any sickness around I can be of some +use. You say it's fifty miles to the nearest doctor. But that needn't +make a grass widow necessary. I can keep house--it looks better than +when I came, and you know it.” Which remark would have hurt the feelings +of several well-meaning cow-punchers, had they overheard it. + +“Oh, I ain't finding fault with your housekeeping--you do pretty well +for a green hand. But Patsy'll have to go with the round-up when it +starts, and what men I keep on the ranch will have to eat with us. +That's the way I've been used to fixing things; I was never so good I +couldn't eat at the same table with my men; if they wasn't fit for my +company I fired 'em and got fellows that was. I've had this bunch a good +long while, now. You can do all right with just me, but you couldn't +cook for two or three men; you can't cook good enough, even if it wasn't +too much work.” J. G. had a blunt way of stating disagreeable facts, +occasionally. + +“Very well, get your grass widow by all means,” retorted she with much +wasted dignity. + +“She's a swell cook, and a fine housekeeper, and shell keep yuh from +getting lonesome. She's good company, the Countess is.” He grinned when +he said it “I'll have Chip ketch up the creams, and you get ready and go +along with us. It'll give you a chance to size up the kind uh neighbors +yuh got.” + +There was real pleasure in driving swiftly over the prairie land, +through the sweet, spring sunshine, and Miss Whitmore tingled with +enthusiasm till they drove headlong into a deep coulee which sheltered +the Denson family. + +“This road is positively dangerous!” she exclaimed when they reached a +particularly steep place and Chip threw all his weight upon the brake. + +“We'll get the Countess in beside yuh, coming back, and then yuh won't +rattle around in the seat so much. She's good and solid--just hang onto +her and you'll be all right,” said J. G. + +“If I don't like her looks--and I know I won't--I'll get into the front +seat and you can hang onto her yourself, Mr. J. G. Whitmore.” + +Chip, who had been silent till now, glanced briefly over his shoulder. + +“It's a cinch you'll take the front seat,” he remarked, laconically. + +“J. G., if you hire a woman like that--” + +“Like what? Doggone it, it takes a woman to jump at conclusions! The +Countess is all right. She talks some--” + +“I'd tell a man she does!” broke in Chip, tersely. + +“Well, show me the woman that don't! Don't you be bluffed so easy, Dell. +I never seen the woman yet that Chip had any time for. The Countess is +all right, and she certainly can cook! I admit she talks consider'ble--” + +Chip laughed grimly, and the Old Man subsided. + +At the house a small, ginger-whiskered man came down to the gate to +greet them. + +“Why, how--de-do! I couldn't make out who 't was comin', but Mary, she +up an' rek'nized the horses. Git right out an' come on in! We've had our +dinner, but I guess the wimmin folks can scare ye up a bite uh suthin'. +This yer sister? We heard she was up t' your place. She the one that +set one uh your horse's leg? Bill, he was tellin' about it. I dunno as +wimmin horse doctors is very common, but I dunno why not. I get a horse +with somethin' the matter of his foot, and I dunno what. I'd like t' +have ye take a look at it, fore ye go. 'Course, I expect t' pay ye.” + +The Old Man winked appreciatively at Chip before he came humanely to +the rescue and explained that his sister was not a horse doctor, and Mr. +Denson, looking very disappointed, reiterated his invitation to enter. + +Mrs. Denson, a large woman who narrowly escaped being ginger-whiskered +like her husband, beamed upon them from the doorway. + +“Come right on in! Louise, here's comp'ny! The house is all tore up--we +been tryin' t' clean house a little. Lay off yer things an' I'll git yuh +some dinner right away. I'm awful glad yuh come over--I do hate t' see +folks stand on cer'mony out here where neighbors is so skurce. I guess +yuh think we ain't been very neighborly, but we been tryin' t' clean +house, an' me an' Louise ain't had a minute we could dast call our own, +er we'd a been over t' seen yuh before now. Yuh must git awful lonesome, +comin' right out from the East where neighbors is thick. Do lay off yer +things!” + +Della looked appealingly at J. G., who again came to the rescue. Somehow +he made himself heard long enough to explain their errand, and to +emphasize the fact that they were in a great hurry, and had eaten dinner +before they started from home. In his sister's opinion he made one +exceedingly rash statement. He said that he wished to hire Mrs. Denson's +sister for the summer. Mrs. Denson immediately sent a shrill call for +Louise. + +Then appeared the Countess, tall, gaunt and muscular, with sallow skin +and a nervous manner. + +“The front seat or walk!” declared Miss Whitmore, mentally, after a +brief scrutiny and began storing up a scathing rebuke for J. G. + +“Louise, this is Miss Whitmore,” began Mrs. Denson, cheerfully, +fortified by a fresh lungful of air. “They're after yuh t' go an' +keep house for 'em, an' I guess yuh better go, seein' we got the house +cleaned all but whitewashin' the cellar an' milk room an' kals'minin' +the upstairs, an' I'll make Bill do that, an' 't won't hurt him a mite. +They'll give yuh twenty-five dollars a month an' keep yuh all summer, +an' as much longer as his sister stays. I guess yuh might as well go, +fer they can't git anybody else that'll keep things up in shape an' be +comp'ny fer his sister, an' I b'lieve in helpin' a neighbor out when yuh +can. You go right an' pack up yer trunk, an' don't worry about me--I'll +git along somehow, now the house-cleanin's most done.” + +Louise had been talking also, but her sister seemed to have a stronger +pair of lungs, for her voice drowned that of the Countess, who retreated +to “pack up.” + +The minutes dragged by, to the tune of several chapters of family +history as voluminously interpreted by Mrs. Denson. Miss Whitmore had +always boasted the best-behaved of nerves, but this day she developed a +genuine case of “fidgets.” Once she saw Chip's face turned inquiringly +toward the window, and telegraphed her state of mind--while Mrs. +Denson's back was turned--so eloquently that Chip was swept at once into +sympathetic good-fellowship. He arranged the cushion on the front seat +significantly, and was rewarded by an emphatic, though furtive, nod +and smile. Whereupon he leaned comfortably back, rolled a cigarette and +smoked contentedly, at peace with himself and the world--though he did +not in the least know why. + +“An' as I told Louise, folks has got t' put up with things an' not be +huntin' trouble with a club all the time, if they expect t' git any +comfort out uh this life. We ain't had the best uh luck, seems t' me, +but we always git along somehow, an' we ain't had no sickness except +when--” + +A confused uproar arose in the room above them, followed, immediately by +a humpety bump and a crash as a small, pink object burst open a door and +rolled precipitately into their midst. It proved to be one of the little +Densons, who kicked feebly with both feet and then lay still. + +“Mercy upon us! Ellen, who pushed Sary down them stairs? She's kilt!” + +Della sprang up and lifted the child in her arms, passing her hand +quickly over the head and plump body. + +“Bring a little cold water, Mrs. Denson. She's only stunned, I think.” + +“Well, it does beat all how handy you go t' work. Anybody c'd see t' you +know your business. I'm awful glad you was here--there, darlin', don't +cry--Ellen, an' Josephine, an' Sybilly, an' Margreet, you come down here +t' me!” + +The quartet, snuffling and reluctant, was dragged ignominiously to +the middle of the floor and there confessed, 'mid tears and much +recrimination, that they had been peeping down at the “comp'ny” through +various knot-holes in the chamber floor; that, as Sary's knot-hole was +next the wall, her range of vision was restricted to the thin spot upon +the crown of J. G.'s head, and the back of his neck. Sary longed for +sight of the woman horse doctor, and when she essayed to crowd in and +usurp Ellen's point of vantage, there ensued a war of extermination +which ended in the literal downfall of Sary. + +By the time this checked-apron court of inquiry adjourned, Louise +appeared and said she believed she was ready, and Miss Whitmore escaped +from the house far in advance of the others--and such were Chip's +telepathic powers that he sprang down voluntarily and assisted her to +the front seat without a word being said by either. + +Followed a week of dullness at the ranch, with the Countess scrubbing +and dusting and cleaning from morning till night. The Little Doctor, as +the bunk house had christened her, was away attending the State Medical +Examination at Helena. + +“Gee-whiz!” sighed Cal on Sunday afternoon. “It seems mighty queer +without the Little Doctor around here, sassing the Old Man and putting +the hull bunch of us on the fence about once a day. If it wasn't for Len +Adams--” + +“It wouldn't do you any good to throw a nasty loop at the Little +Doctor,” broke in Weary, “'cause she's spoken for, by all signs and +tokens. There's some fellow back East got a long rope on her.” + +“You got the papers for that?” jeered Cal. “The Little Doctor don't +act the way I'd want my girl t' act, supposin' I was some thousand or +fifteen hundred miles off her range. She ain't doing no pining, I tell +yuh those.” + +“She's doing a lot of writing, though. I'll bet money, if we called +the roll right here, you'd see there's been a letter a week hittin' the +trail to one Dr. Cecil Granthum, Gilroy, Ohio.” + +“That's what,” agreed Jack Bates. “I packed one last week, myself.” + +“I done worse than that,” said Weary, blandly. “I up and fired a shot at +her, after the second one she handed me. I says, as innocent: 'I s'pose, +if I lost this, there'd be a fellow out on the next train with blood in +his eye and a six-gun in both hands, demanding explanations'--and she +flashed them dimples on me and twinkled them big, gray eyes of hers, and +says: 'It's up to you to carry it safe, then,' or words to that effect. +I took notice she didn't deny but what he would.” + +“Two doctors in one family--gee whiz!” mused Cal. “If I hadn't got +the only girl God ever made right, I'd give one Dr. Cecil Granthum, of +Gilroy, Ohio, a run for his money, I tell yuh those. I'd impress it upon +him that a man's taking long chances when he stands and lets his best +girl stampede out here among us cow-punchers for a change uh grass. That +fellow needs looking after; he ain't finished his education. Jacky, you +ain't got a female girl yanking your heart around, sail in and show us +what yuh can do in that line.” + +“Nit,” said Jack Bates, briefly. “My heart's doing business at the old +stand and doing it satisfactory and proper. I don't want to set it to +bucking--over a girl that wouldn't have me at any price. Let Slim. The +Little Doctor's half stuck on him, anyhow.” + +While the boys amused themselves in serious debate with Slim, Chip put +away his magazine and went down to visit Silver in the box stall. He was +glad they had not attempted to draw him into the banter--they had never +once thought to do so, probably, though he had been thrown into the +company of the Little Doctor more than any of the others, for several +good reasons. He had broken the creams to harness, and always drove +them, for the Old Man found them more than he cared to tackle. And there +was Silver, with frequent discussions over his progress toward recovery +and some argument over his treatment--for Chip had certain ideas of his +own concerning horses, and was not backward about expressing them upon +occasion. + +That the Little Doctor should write frequent letters to a man in the +East did not concern him--why should it? Still, a fellow without a +home and without some woman who cares for him, cannot escape having his +loneliness thrust upon him at times. He wondered why he should care. +Surely, ten years of living his life alone ought to kill that latent +homesickness which used to hold him awake at nights. Sometimes even of +late years, when he stood guard over the cattle at night, and got to +thinking--oh, it was hell to be all alone in the world! + +There were Cal and Weary, they had girls who loved them--and they were +sure welcome to them. And Jack Bates and Happy Jack had sisters and +mothers--and even Slim had an old maid aunt who always knit him a red +and green pair of wristlets for Christmas. Chip, smoothing mechanically +the shimmery, white mane of his pet, thought he might be contented if he +had even an old maid aunt--but he would see that she made his wristlets +of some other color than those bestowed every year upon Slim. + +As for the Little Doctor, it would be something strange if she had gone +through life without having some fellow in love with her. Probably, if +the truth was known, there had been more than Dr. Cecil Granthum--bah, +what a sickening name! Cecil! It might as well be Adolphus or Regie +or--what does a man want to pack around a name like that for? Probably +he was the kind of man that the name sounded like; a dude with pink +cheeks. + +Chip knew just how he looked. Inspiration suddenly seizing upon him, he +sat down upon the manger, drew his memorandum book out of his inner +coat pocket, carefully sharpened a bit of lead pencil which he found in +another pocket, tore a leaf from the book, and, with Silver looking over +his shoulder, drew a graphic, ideal picture of Dr. Cecil Granthum. + + + + + + +CHAPTER V. -- In Silver's Stall. + + + +“Oh, are YOU here? It's a wonder you don't have your bed brought down +here, so you can sleep near Silver. How has he been doing since I left?” + +Chip simply sat still upon the edge of the manger and stared. His gray +hat was pushed far back upon his head and his dark hair waved and curled +upon his forehead, very much as a girl's might have done. He did not +know that he was a very good-looking young man, but perhaps the Little +Doctor did. She smiled and came up and patted Silver, who had forgotten +that he ever had objected to her nearness. He nickered a soft welcome +and laid his nose on her shoulder. + +“You've been drawing a picture. Who's the victim of your satirical +pencil this time?” The Little Doctor, reaching out quickly, calmly +appropriated the sketch before Chip had time to withdraw it, even if he +had cared to do so. He was busy wondering how the Little Doctor came to +be there at that particular time, and had forgotten the picture, which +he had not quite finished labeling. + +“Dr. Cecil--” Miss Whitmore turned red at first, then broke into +laughter. “Oh--h, ha! ha! ha! Silver, you don't know how funny this +master of yours can be! Ha! ha!” She raised her head from Silver's neck, +where it had rested, and wiped her eyes. + +“How did you know about Cecil?” she demanded of a very discomfited young +man upon the manger. + +“I didn't know--and I didn't WANT to know. I heard the boys talking and +joshing about him, and I just drew--their own conclusions.” Chip grinned +a little and whittled at his pencil, and wondered how much of the +statement was a lie. + +Miss Whitmore tamed red again, and ended by laughing even more heartily +than at first. + +“Their conclusions aren't very complimentary,” she said. “I don't +believe Dr. Cecil would feel flattered at this. Why those bowed legs, +may I ask, and wherefore that long, lean, dyspeptic visage? Dr. Cecil, +let me inform you, has a digestion that quails not at deviled crabs and +chafing-dish horrors at midnight, as I have abundant reason to know. I +have seen Dr. Cecil prepare a welsh rabbit and--eat it, also, with much +relish, apparently. Oh, no, their conclusions weren't quite correct. +There are other details I might mention--that cane, for instance--but +let it pass. I shall keep this, I think, as a companion to 'The old +maid's credential card.'” + +“Are you in the habit of keeping other folk's property?” inquired Chip, +with some acerbity. + +“Nothing but personal caricatures--and hearts, perhaps,” returned the +Little Doctor, sweetly. + +“I hardly think your collection of the last named article is very +large,” retorted Chip. + +“Still, I added to the collection to-day,” pursued Miss Whitmore, +calmly. “I shared my seat in the train with J. G.'s silent partner (I +did not find him silent, however), Mr. Duncan Whitaker. He hired a +team in Dry Lake and we came out together, and I believe--please don't +mention Dr. Cecil Granthum to him, will you?” + +Chip wished, quite savagely, that she wouldn't let those dimples dodge +into her cheeks, and the laugh dodge into her eyes, like that. It made a +fellow uncomfortable. He was thoroughly disgusted with her--or he would +be, if she would only stop looking like that. He was in that state of +mind where his only salvation, seemingly, lay in quarreling with some +one immediately. + +“So old Dunk's come back? If you've got his heart, you must have gone +hunting it with a microscope, for it's a mighty small one--almost as +small as his soul. No one else even knew he had one. You ought to have +it set in a ring, so you won't lose it.” + +“I don't wear phony jewelry, thank you,” said Miss Whitmore, and Chip +thought dimples weren't so bad after all. + +The Little Doctor was weaving Silver's mane about her white fingers and +meditating deeply. Chip wondered if she were thinking of Dr. Cecil. + +“Where did you learn to draw like that?” she asked, suddenly, turning +toward him. “You do much better than I, and I've always been learning +from good teachers. Did you ever try painting?” + +Chip blushed and looked away from her. This was treading close to his +deep-hidden, inner self. + +“I don't know where I learned. I never took a lesson in my life, except +from watching people and horses and the country, and remembering the +lines they made, you know. I always made pictures, ever since I can +remember--but I never tried colors very much. I never had a chance, +working around cow-camps and on ranches.” + +“I'd like to have you look over some of my sketches and things--and I've +paints and canvas, if you ever care to try that. Come up to the house +some evening and I'll show you my daubs. They're none of them as good as +'The Old Maid.'” + +“I wish you'd tear that thing up!” said Chip, vehemently. + +“Why? The likeness is perfect. One would think you were designer for a +fashion paper, the way you got the tucks in my sleeve and the braid on +my collar--and you might have had the kindness to TELL me my hat was on +crooked, I think!” + +There was a rustle in the loose straw, a distant slam of the stable +door, and Chip sat alone with his horse, whittling abstractedly at his +pencil till his knife blade grated upon the metal which held the eraser. + + + + + + +CHAPTER VI. -- The Hum of Preparation. + + + +Miss Whitmore ran down to the blacksmith shop, waving an +official-looking paper in her hand. + +“I've got it, J. G.!” + +“Got what--smallpox?” J. G. did not even look up from the iron he was +welding. + +“No, my license. I'm a really, truly doctor now, and you needn't laugh, +either. You said you'd give a dance if I passed, and I did. Happy Jack +brought it just now.” + +“Brought the dance?” The Old Man gave the bellows a pull which sent a +shower of sparks toward the really, truly doctor. + +“Brought the license,” she explained, patiently. “You can see for +yourself. They were awfully nice to me--they seemed to think a girl +doctor is some kind of joke out here. They didn't make it any easier, +though; they acted as if they didn't expect me to pass--but I did!” + +The Old Man rubbed one smutty hand down his trousers leg and extended it +for the precious document. “Let me have a look at it,” he said, trying +to hide his pride in her. + +“Well, but I'll hold it. Your hands are dirty.” Dr. Whitmore eyed the +hands disapprovingly. + +The Old Man read it slowly through, growing prouder every line. + +“You're all right, Dell--I'll be doggoned if you ain't. Don't you worry +about the dance--I'll see't yuh get it. You go tell the Countess to bake +up a lot of cake and truck, and I'll send some uh the boys around t' +tell the neighbors. Better have it Friday night, I guess--I'm goin t' +start the round-up out early next week. Doggone it! I've gone and burned +that weldin'. Go on and stop your botherin' me!” + +In two minutes the Little Doctor was back, breathless. + +“What about the music, J. G.? We want GOOD music.” + +“Well, I'll tend t' that part. Say! You can rig up that room off the +dining room for your office--I s'pose you'll have to have one. You make +out a list of what dope you want--and be sure yuh get a-plenty. I look +for an unhealthy summer among the cow-punchers. If I ain't mistook in +the symptoms, Dunk's got palpitation uh the heart right now--an' got it +serious.” + +The Old Man chuckled to himself and went back to his welding. + +“Oh, Louise!” The Little Doctor hurried to where the Countess was +scrubbing the kitchen steps with soft soap and sand and considerable +energy. “J. G. says I may have a dance next Friday night, so we must +hurry and fix the house--only I don't see much fixing to be done; +everything is SO clean.” + +“Oh, there ain't a room in the house fit fer comp'ny t' walk into,” + expostulated the Countess while she scrubbed. “I do like t' see a house +clean when folks is expected that only come t' be critical an' make +remarks behind yer back the minit they git away. If folks got anything +t' say I'd a good deal ruther they said it t' my face an' be done with +it. 'Yuh can know a man's face but yuh can't know his heart,' as the +sayin' is, an' it's the same way with women--anyway, it's the same way +with Mis' Beckman. You can know her face a mile off, but yuh never know +who she's goin' t' rake over the coals next. As the sayin' is: 'The +tongue of a woman, at last it biteth like a serpent an' it stingeth +like an addle,' an' I guess it's so. Anyway, Mis' Beckman's does. I do +b'lieve on my soul--what's the matter, Dell? What yuh laughin' at?” + +The Little Doctor was past speech for the moment, and the Countess stood +up and looked curiously around her. It never occurred to her that she +might be the cause of that convulsive outburst. + +“Oh--he--never mind--he's gone, now.” + +“Who's gone?” persisted the Countess. + +“What kinds of cake do you think we ought to have?” asked the Little +Doctor, diplomatically. + +The Countess sank to her knees and dipped a handful of amber, jelly-like +soap from a tin butter can. + +“Well, I don't know. I s'pose folks will look for something fancy, +seein' you're givin' the dance. Mis' Beckman sets herself up as a +shinin' example on cake, and she'll come just t' be critical an' find +fault, if she can. If I can't bake all around her the best day she ever +seen, I'll give up cookin' anything but spuds. She had the soggiest kind +uh jelly roll t' the su'prise on Mary last winter. I know it was hern, +fer I seen her bring it in, an' I went straight an' ondone it. I guess +it was kinda mean uh me, but I don't care--as the sayin' is: 'What's +sass fer the goose is good enough sass fer anybody'--an' she done the +same trick by me, at the su'prise at Adamses last fall. But she couldn't +find no kick about MY cake, an' hers--yuh c'd of knocked a cow down with +it left-handed! If that's the best she c'n do on cake I'd advise 'er to +keep the next batch t' home where they're used to it. They say't 'What's +one man's meat 's pizen t' the other feller,' and I guess it's so +enough. Maybe Mame an' the rest uh them Beckman kids can eat sech truck +without comin' down in a bunch with gastakutus, but I'd hate t' tackle +it myself.” + +The Little Doctor gurgled. This was a malady which had not been +mentioned at the medical college. + +“Where shall we set the tables, if we dance in the dining room?” she +asked, having heard enough of the Beckmans for the present. + +“Why, we won't set any tables. Folks always have a lap supper at ranch +dances. At the su'prise on Mary--” + +“What is a lap supper?” + +“Well, my stars alive! Where under the shinin' sun was you brought up if +yuh never heard of a lap supper? A lap supper is where folks set around +the walls--or any place they can find--and take the plates on their laps +and yuh pass 'em stuff. The san'wiches--” + +“You do make such beautiful bread!” interrupted the Little Doctor, very +sincerely. + +“Well, I ain't had the best uh luck, lately, but I guess it does taste +good after that bread yuh had when I come. Soggy was no name for--” + +“Patsy made that bread,” interposed Miss Whitmore, hastily. “He had bad +luck, and--” + +“I guess he did!” sniffed the Countess, contemptuously. “As I told Mary +when I come--” + +“I wonder how many cakes we'll need?” Miss Whitmore, you will observe, +had learned to interrupt when she had anything to say. It was the only +course to pursue with anyone from Denson coulee. + +The Countess, having finished her scrubbing, rose jerkily and upset the +soap can, which rolled over and over down the steps, leaving a yellow +trail as it went. + +“Well, there, if that wasn't a bright trick uh mine? They say the more +yuh hurry the less yuh'll git along, an' that's a sample. We'd ought t' +have five kinds, an' about four uh each kind. It wouldn't do t' run out, +er Mis' Beckman never would let anybody hear the last of it. Down t' +Mary's--” + +“Twenty cakes! Good gracious! I'll have to order my stock of medicine, +for I'll surely have a houseful of patients if the guests eat twenty +cakes.” + +“Well, as the sayin' is: 'Patience an' perseverance can git away with +most anything,'” observed the Countess, naively. + +The Little Doctor retired behind her handkerchief. + +“My stars alive, I do b'lieve my bread's beginnin' t' scorch!” cried the +Countess, and ran to see. The Little Doctor followed her inside and sat +down. + +“We must make a list of the things we'll need, Louise. You--” + +“Dell! Oh-h. Dell!” The voice of the Old Man resounded from the parlor. + +“I'm in the kitchen!” called she, remaining where she was. He tramped +heavily through the house to her. + +“I'll send the rig in, t'morrow, if there's anything yuh want,” he +remarked. “And if you'll make out a list uh dope, I'll send the order +in t' the Falls. We've got plenty uh saws an' cold chisels down in the +blacksmith shop--you can pick out what yuh want.” He dodged and grinned. +“Got any cake, Countess?” + +“Well, there ain't a thing cooked, hardly. I'm going t' bake up +something right after dinner. Here's some sponge cake--but it ain't fit +t' eat, hardly. I let Dell look in the oven, 'cause my han's was all +over flour, an' she slammed the door an' it fell. But yuh can't expect +one person t' know everything--an' too many han's can't make decent +soup, as the sayin' is, an' it's the same way with cake.” + +The Old Man winked at the Little Doctor over a great wedge of feathery +delight. “I don't see nothing the matter with this--only it goes down +too easy,” he assured the Countess between mouthfuls. “Fix up your list, +Dell, and don't be afraid t' order everything yuh need. I'll foot the--” + +The Old Man, thinking to go back to his work, stepped into the puddle of +soft soap and sat emphatically down upon the top step, coasting rapidly +to the bottom. A carpet slipper shot through the open door and landed +in the dishpan; the other slipper disappeared mysteriously. The wedge of +cake was immediately pounced upon by an investigative hen and carried in +triumph to her brood. + +“Good Lord!” J. G. struggled painfully to his feet. “Dell, who in +thunder put that stuff there? You're a little too doggoned anxious for +somebody t' practice on, seems t' me.” A tiny trickle of blood showed in +the thin spot on his head. + +“Are you hurt, J. G.? We--I spilled the soap.” The Little Doctor gazed +solicitous, from the doorway. + +“Huh! I see yuh spilled the soap, all right enough. I'm willin' to +believe yuh did without no affidavit. Doggone it, a bachelor never has +any such a man-trap around in a fellow's road. I've lived in Montana +fourteen years, an' I never slipped up on my own doorstep till you got +here. It takes a woman t' leave things around--where's my cake?” + +“Old Specie took it down by the bunk house. Shall I go after it?” + +“No, you needn't. Doggone it, this wading through ponds uh soft soap +has got t' stop right here. I never had t' do it when I was baching, +I notice.” He essayed, with the aid of a large splinter, to scrape the +offending soap from his trousers. + +“Certainly, you didn't. Bachelors never use soap,” retorted Della. + +“Oh, they don't, hey? That's all you know about it. They don't use +this doggoned, slimy truck, let me tell yuh. What d'yuh want, Chip? Oh, +you've got t' grin, too! Dell, why don't yuh do something fer my head? +What's your license good f er, I'd like t' know? You didn't see Dell's +license, did yuh, Chip? Go and get it an' show it to him, Dell. It's +good fer everything but gitting married--there ain't any cure for that +complaint.” + + + + + + +CHAPTER VII. -- Love and a Stomach Pump. + + + +An electrical undercurrent of expectation pervaded the very atmosphere +of Flying U ranch. The musicians, two supercilious but undeniably +efficient young men from Great Falls, had arrived two hours before and +were being graciously entertained by the Little Doctor up at the house. +The sandwiches stood waiting, the coffee was ready for the boiling +water, and the dining-room floor was smooth as wax could make it. + +For some reason unknown to himself, Chip was “in the deeps.” He even +threatened to stop in the bunk house and said he didn't feel like +dancing, but was brought into line by weight of numbers. He hated Dick +Brown, anyway, for his cute, little yellow mustache that curled up at +the ends like the tail of a drake. He had snubbed him all the way out +from town and handled Dick's guitar with a recklessness that invited +disaster. And the way Dick smirked when the Old Man introduced him to +the Little Doctor--a girl with a fellow in the East oughtn't to let her +eyes smile that way at a pin-headed little dude like Dick Brown, anyway. +And he--Chip--had given, her a letter postmarked blatantly: “Gilroy, +Ohio, 10:30 P. M.”--and she had been so taken up with those cussed +musicians that she couldn't even thank him, and only just glanced at the +letter before she stuck it inside her belt. Probably she wouldn't +even read it till after the dance. He wondered if Dr. Cecil Granthum +cared--oh, hell! Of COURSE he cared--that is, if he had any sense at +all. But the Little Doctor--she wasn't above flirting, he noticed. If HE +ever fell in love with a girl--which the Lord forbid--he'd take mighty +good care she didn't get time to make dimples and smiles for some other +fellow to go to heaven looking at. + +There, that was her, laughing like she always laughed--it reminded him +of pines nodding in a canyon and looking wise and whispering things +they'd seen and heard before you were born, and of water falling over +rocks, somehow. Queer, maybe--but it did. He wondered if Dick Brown had +been trying to say something funny. He didn't see, for the life of him, +how the Little Doctor could laugh at that little imitation man. Girls +are--well, they're easy pleased, most of them. + +Down in the bunk house the boys were hurrying into their “war +togs”--which is, being interpreted, their best clothes. There was a +nervous scramble over the cracked piece of a bar mirror--which had a +history--and cries of “Get out!” “Let me there a minute, can't yuh?” and +“Get up off my coat!” were painfully frequent. + +Happy Jack struggled blindly with a refractory red tie, which his face +rivaled in hue and sheen--for he had been generous of soap. + +Weary had possessed himself of the glass and was shaving as leisurely as +though four restive cow-punchers were not waiting anxiously their turn. + +“For the Lord's sake, Weary!” spluttered Jack Bates. “Your whiskers grow +faster'n you can shave 'em off, at that gait. Get a move on, can't yuh?” + +Weary turned his belathered face sweetly upon Jack. “Getting in a hurry, +Jacky? YOUR girl won't be there, and nobody else's girl is going to have +time to see whether you shaved to-day or last Christmas. You don't want +to worry so much about your looks, none of you. I hate to say it, but +you act vain, all of you kids. Honest, I'm ashamed. Look at that gaudy +countenance Happy's got on--and his necktie's most as bad.” He stropped +his razor with exasperating nicety, stopping now and then to test its +edge upon a hair from his own brown head. + +Happy Jack, grown desperate over his tie and purple over Weary's +remarks, craned his neck over the shoulder of that gentleman and leered +into the mirror. When Happy liked, he could contort his naturally plain +features into a diabolical grin which sent prickly waves creeping along +the spine of the beholder. + +Weary looked, stared, half rose from his chair. + +“Holy smithereens! Quit it, Happy! You look like the devil by +lightning.” + +Happy, watching, seized the hand that held the razor; Cal, like a cat, +pounced upon the mirror, and Jack Bates deftly wrenched the razor from +Weary's fingers. + +“Whoopee, boys! Some of you tie Weary down and set on him while I +shave,” cried Cal, jubilant over the mutiny. “We'll make short work of +this toilet business.” + +Whereupon Weary was borne to the floor, bound hand and foot with silk +handkerchiefs, carried bodily and laid upon his bed. + +“Oh, the things I won't do to you for this!” he asserted, darkly. +“There won't nary a son-of-a-gun uh yuh get a dance from my little +schoolma'am--you'll see!” He grinned prophetically, closed his eyes and +murmured: “Call me early, mother dear,” and straightway fell away into +slumber and peaceful snoring, while the lather dried upon his face. + +“Better turn Weary loose and wake him up, Chip,” suggested Jack Bates, +half an hour later, shoving the stopper into his cologne bottle and +making for the door. “At the rate the rigs are rolling in, it'll take +us all to put up the teams.” The door slammed behind him as it had done +behind the others as they hurried away. + +“Here!” Chip untied Weary's hands and feet and took him by the shoulder. +“Wake up, Willie, if you want to be Queen o' the May.” + +Weary sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Confound them two Jacks! What time is +it?” + +“A little after eight. YOUR crowd hasn't, come yet, so you needn't +worry. I'm not going up yet for a while, myself.” + +“You're off your feed. Brace up and take all there is going, my son.” + Weary prepared to finish his interrupted beautification. + +“I'm going to--all the bottles, that is. If that Dry Lake gang comes +loaded down with whisky, like they generally do, we ought to get hold of +it and cache every drop, Weary.” + +Weary turned clear around to stare his astonishment. + +“When did the W. C. T. U. get you by the collar?” he demanded. + +“Aw, don't be a fool, Weary,” retorted Chip. “You can see it wouldn't +look right for us to let any of the boys get full, or even half shot, +seeing this is the Little Doctor's dance.” + +Weary meditatively scraped his left jaw and wiped the lather from the +razor upon a fragment of newspaper. + +“Splinter, we've throwed in together ever since we drifted onto the +same range, and I'm with you, uh course. But--don't overlook Dr. Cecil +Granthum. I'd hate like the devil to see you git throwed down, because +it'd hurt you worse than anybody I know.” + +Chip calmly sifted some tobacco into a cigarette paper. His mouth was +very straight and his brows very close together. + +“It's a devilish good thing it was YOU said that, Weary. If it had been +anyone else I'd punch his face for him.” + +“Why, yes--an' I'd help you, too.” Weary, his mouth very much on one +side of his face that he might the easier shave the other, spoke in +fragments. “You don't take it amiss from--me, though. I can see--” + +The door slammed with extreme violence, and Weary slashed his chin +unbecomingly in consequence, but he felt no resentment toward Chip. +He calmly stuck a bit of paper on the cut to stop the bleeding and +continued to shave. + + +A short time after, the Little Doctor came across Chip glaring at Dick +Brown, who was strumming his guitar with ostentatious ease upon an +inverted dry-goods box at one end of the long dining room. + +“I came to ask a favor of you,” she said, “but my courage oozed at the +first glance.” + +“It's hard to believe your courage would ooze at anything. What's the +favor?” + +The Little Doctor bent her head and lowered her voice to a confidential +undertone which caught at Chip's blood and set it leaping. + +“I want you to come and help me turn my drug store around with its face +to the wall. All the later editions of Denson, Pilgreen and Beckman have +taken possession of my office--and as the Countess says: 'Them Beckman +kids is holy terrors--an' it's savin' the rod an' spoilin' the kid that +makes 'em so!'” + +Chip laughed outright. “The Denson kids are a heap worse, if she only +knew it,” he said, and followed her willingly. + +The Little Doctor's “office” was a homey little room, with a couch, a +well-worn Morris rocker, two willow chairs and a small table for the not +imposing furnishing, dignified by a formidable stack of medical books +in one corner, and the “drug store,” which was simply a roomy bookcase +filled with jars, bottles, boxes and packages, all labeled in a neat +vertical hand. + +The room fairly swarmed with children, who seemed, for the most part, to +be enjoying themselves very much. Charlotte May Pilgreen and Sary Denson +were hunched amicably over one of the books, shuddering beatifically +over a pictured skeleton. A swarm surrounded the drug store, the glass +door of which stood open. + +The Little Doctor flew across to the group, horror white. + +“Sybilly got the key an' unlocked it, an' she give us this candy, too!” + tattled a Pilgreen with very red hair and a very snub nose. + +“I didn't, either! It was Jos'phine!” + +“Aw, you big story-teller! I never tetched it!” + +The Little Doctor clutched the nearest arm till the owner of it +squealed. + +“How many of you have eaten some of these? Tell the truth, now.” They +quailed before her sternness--quailed and confessed. All told, seven +had swallowed the sweet pellets, in numbers ranging from two to a dozen +more. + +“Is it poison?” Chip whispered the question in the ear of the perturbed +Little Doctor. + +“No--but it will make them exceedingly uncomfortable for a time--I'm +going to pump them out.” + +“Good shot! Serves 'em right, the little--” + +“All of you who have eaten this--er--candy, must come with me. The rest +of you may stay here and play, but you must NOT touch this case.” + +“Yuh going t' give 'em a lickin'?” Sary Denson wetted a finger copiously +before turning a leaf upon the beautiful skeleton. + +“Never mind what I'm going to do to them--you had better keep out of +mischief yourself, however. Mr. Bennett, I wish you would get some +fellow you can trust--some one who won't talk about this afterward--turn +this case around so that it will be safe, and then come to the back +bedroom--the one off the kitchen. And tell Louise I want her, will you, +please?” + +“I'll get old Weary. Yes, I'll send the Countess--but don't you think +she's a mighty poor hand to keep a secret?” + +“I can't help it--I need her. Hurry, please.” + +Awed by the look in her big, gray eyes and the mysterious summoning of +help, the luckless seven were marched silently through the outer door, +around the house, through the coal shed and so into the back bedroom, +without being observed by the merrymakers, who shook the house to its +foundation to the cheerful command: “Gran' right 'n' left with a double +ELBOW-W!” “Chasse by yer pardner--balance--SWING!” + +“What under the shinin' sun's the matter, Dell?” The Countess, +breathless from dancing, burst in upon the little group. + +“Nothing very serious, Louise, though it's rather uncomfortable to be +called from dancing to administer heroic remedies by wholesale. Can you +hold Josephine--whichever one that is? She ate the most, as nearly as I +can find out.” + +“She ain't gone an' took pizen, has she? What was it--strychnine? +I'll bet them Beckman kids put 'er up to it. Yuh goin' t' give 'er an +anticdote?” + +“I'm going to use this.” The Little Doctor held up a fearsome thing to +view. “Open your mouth, Josephine.” + +Josephine refused; her refusal was emphatic and unequivocal, punctuated +by sundry kicks directed at whoever came within range of her stout +little shoes. + +“It ain't no use t' call Mary in--Mary can't handle her no better'n I +can--an' not so good. Jos'phine, yuh got--” + +“Here's where we shine,” broke in a cheery voice which was sweet to the +ears, just then. “Chip and I ain't wrassled with bronks all our lives +for nothing. This is dead easy--all same branding calves. Ketch hold of +her heels, Splinter--that's the talk. Countess, you better set your back +against that door--some of these dogies is thinking of taking a sneak on +us--and we'd have t' go some, to cut 'em out uh that bunch out there and +corral 'em again. There yuh are, Doctor--sail in.” + +Upheld mentally by the unfailing sunniness of Weary and the calm +determination of Chip, to whom flying heels and squirming bodies were as +nothing, or at most a mere trifle, the Little Doctor set to work with +a thoroughness and dispatch which struck terror to the hearts of the +guilty seven. + +It did not take long--as Weary had said, it was very much like branding +calves. No sooner was one child made to disgorge and laid, limp and +subdued, upon the bed, than Chip and Weary seized another dexterously +by heels and head. The Countess did nothing beyond guarding the door and +acting as chaperon to the undaunted Little Doctor; but she did her duty +and held her tongue afterward--which was a great deal for her to do. + +The Little Doctor sat down in a chair, when it was all over, looking +rather white. Chip moved nearer, though there was really nothing that +he could do beyond handing her a glass of water, which she accepted +gratefully. + +Weary held a little paper trough of tobacco in his fingers and drew the +tobacco sack shut with his teeth. His eyes were fixed reflectively upon +the bed. He placed the sack absently in his pocket, still meditating +other things. + +“She answered: 'We are seven,'” he quoted softly and solemnly, and the +Little Doctor forgot her faintness in a hearty laugh. + +“You two go back to your dancing now,” she commanded, letting the +dimples stand in her cheeks in a way that Chip dreamed about afterward. +“I don't know what I should have done without you--a cow-puncher seems +born to meet emergencies in just the right way. PLEASE don't tell +anyone, will you?” + +“Never. Don't you worry about us, Doctor. Chip and I don't set up nights +emptying our brains out our mouths. We don't tell our secrets to nobody +but our horses--and they're dead safe.” + +“You needn't think I'll tell, either,” said the Countess, earnestly. +“I ain't forgot how you took the blame uh that sof' soap, Dell. As the +sayin' is--” + +Weary closed the door then, so they did not hear the saying which seemed +to apply to this particular case. His arm hooked into Chip's, he led the +way through the kitchen and down the hill to the hay corral. Once safe +from observation, he threw himself into the sweetly pungent “blue-joint” + and laughed and laughed. + +Chip's nervous system did not demand the relief of cachinnation. He +went away to Silver's stall and groped blindly to the place where two +luminous, green moons shone upon him in the darkness. He rubbed the +delicate nose gently and tangled his fingers in the dimly gleaming mane, +as he had seen HER do. Such pink little fingers they were! He laid his +brown cheek against the place where he remembered them to have rested. + +“Silver horse,” he whispered, “if I ever fall in love with a girl--which +isn't likely!--I'll want her to have dimples and big, gray eyes and a +laugh like--” + + + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. -- Prescriptions. + + + +It was Sunday, the second day after the dance. The boys were scattered, +for the day was delicious--one of those sweet, soft days which come to +us early in May. Down in the blacksmith shop Chip was putting new rowels +into his spurs and whistling softly to himself while he worked. + +The Little Doctor had gone with him to visit Silver that morning, and +had not hurried away, but had leaned against the manger and listened +while he told her of the time Silver, swimming the river when it was +“up,” had followed him to the Shonkin camp when Chip had thought to +leave him at home. And they had laughed together over the juvenile seven +and the subsequent indignation of the mothers who, with the exception of +“Mary,” had bundled up their offspring and gone home mad. True, they +had none of them thoroughly understood the situation, having only the +version of the children, who accused the Little Doctor of trying to make +them eat rubber--“just cause she was mad about some little old candy.” + The mystification of the others among the Happy Family, who scented a +secret with a joke to it but despaired of wringing the truth from either +Weary or Chip, was dwelt upon with much enjoyment by the Little Doctor. + +It was a good old world and a pleasant, and Chip had no present quarrel +with fate--or with anybody else. That was why he whistled. + +Then voices reached him through the open door, and a laugh--HER laugh. +Chip smiled sympathetically, though he had not the faintest notion of +the cause of her mirth. As the voices drew nearer, the soft, smooth, +hated tones of Dunk Whitaker untangled from the Little Doctor's laugh, +and Chip stopped whistling. Dunk was making a good, long stay of it this +time; usually he came one day and went the next, and no one grieved at +his departure. + +“You find them an entirely new species, of course. How do you get on +with them?” said Dunk. + +And the Little Doctor answered him frankly and distinctly: “Oh, very +well, considering all things. They furnish me with some amusement, and I +give them something quite new to talk about, so we are quits. They are a +good-hearted lot, you know--but SO ignorant! I don't suppose--” + +The words trailed into an indistinct murmur, punctuated by Dunk's +jarring cackle. + +Chip did not resume his whistling, though he might have done so if he +had heard a little more, or a little less. As a matter of fact, it +was the Densons, and the Pilgreens, and the Beckmans that were under +discussion, and not the Flying U cowboys, as Chip believed. He no longer +smiled sympathetically. + +“We furnish her with some amusement, do we? That's good! We're a +good-hearted lot, but SO ignorant! The devil we are!” He struck the +rivet such a blow that he snapped one shank of his spur short off. +This meant ten or twelve dollars for a new pair--though the cost of it +troubled him little, just then. It was something tangible upon which +to pour profanity, however, and the atmosphere grew sulphurous in the +vicinity of the blacksmith shop and remained so for several minutes, +after which a tall, irate cow-puncher with his hat pulled low over angry +eyes left the shop and strode up the path to the deserted bunk house. + +He did not emerge till the Old Man called to him to ride down to +Benson's after one of the Flying U horses which had broken out of the +pasture. + +Della was looking from the window when Chip rode up the hill upon the +“coulee trail,” which passed close by the house. She was tired of the +platitudes of Dunk, who, trying to be both original and polished, +fell far short of being either and only succeeded in being extremely +tiresome. + +“Where's Chip going, J. G.?” she demanded, in a proprietary tone. + +“Down t' Benson's after a horse.” J. G. spoke lazily, without taking his +pipe from his mouth. + +“Oh, I wish I could go--I wonder if he'd care.” The Little Doctor spoke +impulsively as was her habit. + +“'Course he wouldn't. Hey, Chip! Hold on a minute!” The Old Man stood +waving his pipe in the doorway. + +Chip jerked his horse to a stand-still and half turned in the saddle. + +“What?” + +“Dell wants t' go along. Will yuh saddle up Concho for 'er? There's no +hurry, anyhow, you've got plenty uh time. Dell's afraid one uh the kids +might fall downstairs ag'in, and she'd miss the case.” + +“I'm not, either,” said the Little Doctor, coming to stand by her +brother; “it's too nice a day to stay inside, and my muscles ache for a +gallop over the hills.” + +Chip did not look up at her; he did not dare. He felt that, if he met +her eyes--with the laugh in them--he should do one of two undesirable +things: he should either smile back at her, weakly overlooking the +hypocrisy of her friendliness, or sneer in answer to her smile, which +would be very rude and ungentlemanly. + +“If you had mentioned wanting a ride I should have been glad to +accompany you,” remarked Dunk, reproachfully, when Chip had ridden, +somewhat sullenly, back to the stable. + +“I didn't think of it before--thank you,” said the Little Doctor, +lightly, and hurried away to put on her blue riding habit with its +cunning little jockey cap which she found the only headgear that would +stay upon her head in the teeth of Montana wind, and which made her +look-well, kissable. She was standing on the porch drawing on her +gauntlets when Chip returned, leading Concho by the bridle. + +“Let me help you,” begged Dunk, at her elbow, hoping till the last that +she would invite him to go with them. + +The Little Doctor, not averse to hiding the bitter of her medicine under +a coating of sugar, smiled sweetly upon him, to the delectation of Dunk +and the added bitterness of Chip, who was rapidly nearing that state of +mind which is locally described as being “strictly on the fight.” + +“I expect she thinks I'll amuse her some more!” he thought, savagely, as +they galloped away through the quivering sunlight. + +For the first two miles the road was level, and Chip set the pace--which +was, as he intended it should be, too swift for much speech. After that +the trail climbed abruptly out of Flying U coulee, and the horses +were compelled to walk. Then it was that Chip's native chivalry and +self-mastery were put to test. + +He was hungry for a solitary ride such as had, before now, drawn much of +the lonely ache out of his heart and keyed him up to the life which +he must live and which chafed his spirit more than even he realized. +Instead of such slender comfort, he was forced to ride beside the +girl who had hurt him--so close that his knee sometimes brushed her +horse--and to listen to her friendly chatter and make answer, at times, +with at least some show of civility. + +She was talking reminiscently of the dance. + +“J. G. showed splendid judgment in his choice of musicians, didn't he?” + +Chip looked straight ahead. This was touching a sore place in his +memory. A vision of Dick Brown's vapid smile and curled up mustache rose +before him. + +“I'd tell a man,” he said, with faint irony. + +The Little Doctor gave him a quick, surprised look and went on. + +“I liked their playing so much. Mr. Brown was especially good upon the +guitar.” + +“Y--e-s?” + +“Yes, of course. You know yourself, he plays beautifully.” + +“Cow-punchers aren't expected to know all these things.” Chip hated +himself for replying so, but the temptation mastered him. + +“Aren't they? I can't see why not.” + +Chip closed his lips tightly to keep in something impolite. + +The Little Doctor, puzzled as well as piqued, went straight to the +point. + +“Why didn't you like Mr. Brown's playing?” + +“Did I say I didn't like it?” + +“Well, you--not exactly, but you implied that you did not.” + +“Y--e-s?” + +The Little Doctor gave the reins an impatient twitch. + +“Yes, yes--YES!” + +No answer from Chip. He could think of nothing to say that was not more +or less profane. + +“I think he's a very nice, amiable young man”--strong emphasis upon the +second adjective. “I like amiable young men.” + +Silence. + +“He's going to come down here hunting next fall. J. G. invited him.” + +“Yes? What does he expect to find?” + +“Why, whatever there is to hunt. Chickens and--er--deer--” + +“Exactly.” + +By this they reached the level and the horses broke, of their own +accord, into a gallop which somewhat relieved the strain upon the mental +atmosphere. At the next hill the Little Doctor looked her companion over +critically. + +“Mr. Bennett, you look positively bilious. Shall I prescribe for you?” + +“I can't see how that would add to your amusement.” + +“I'm not trying to add to my amusement.” + +“No?” + +“If I were, there's no material at hand. Bad-tempered young men are +never amusing, to me. I like--” + +“Amiable young men. Such as Dick Brown.” + +“I think you need a change of air, Mr. Bennett.” + +“Yes? I've felt, lately, that Eastern airs don't agree with my +constitution.” + +Miss Whitmore grew red as to cheeks and bright as to eyes. + +“I think a few small doses of Eastern manners would improve you very +much,” she said, pointedly. + +“Y--e-s? They'd have to be small, because the supply is very limited.” + +The Little Doctor grew white around the mouth. She held Concho's rein so +tight he almost stopped. + +“If you didn't want me to come, why in the world didn't you have the +courage to say so at the start? I must say I don't admire people whose +tempers--and manners--are so unstable. I'm sorry I forced my presence +upon you, and I promise you it won't occur again.” She hesitated, and +then fired a parting shot which certainly was spiteful in the extreme. +“There's one good thing about it,” she smiled, tartly, “I shall have +something interesting to write to Dr. Cecil.” + +With that she turned astonished Concho short around in the trail--and as +Chip gave Blazes a vicious jab with his spurs at the same instant, the +distance between them widened rapidly. + +As Chip raced away over the prairie, he discovered a new and puzzling +kink in his temper. He had been angry with the Little Doctor for coming, +but it was nothing to the rage he felt when she turned back! He did not +own to himself that he wanted her beside him to taunt and to hurt with +his rudeness, but it was a fact, for all that. And it was a very surly +young man who rode into the Denson corral and threw a loop over the head +of the runaway. + + + + + + +CHAPTER IX. -- Before the Round-up. + + + +“The Little Doctor wants us all to come up t' the White House this +evening and have some music,” announced Cal, bursting into the bunk +house where the boys were sorting and packing their belongings ready to +start with the round-up wagon in the morning. + +Jack Bates hurriedly stuffed a miscellaneous collection of socks and +handkerchiefs into his war bag and made for the wash basin. + +“I'll just call her bluff,” he said, determinedly. + +“It ain't any bluff; she wants us t' come, er you bet she wouldn't say +so. I've learned that much about her. Say, you'd a died to seen old +Dunk look down his nose! I'll bet money she done it just t' rasp his +feelin's--and she sure succeeded. I'd go anyway, now, just t' watch him +squirm.” + +“I notice it grinds him consider'ble to see the Little Doctor treat us +fellows like white folks. He's workin' for a stand-in there himself. I +bet he gets throwed down good and hard,” commented Weary, cheerfully. + +“It's a cinch he don't know about that pill-thrower back in Ohio,” added +Cal. “Any of you fellows going to take her bid? I'll go alone, in a +minute.” + +“I don't think you'll go alone,” asserted Jack Bates, grabbing his hat. + +Slim made a few hasty passes at his hair and said he was ready. Shorty, +who had just come in from riding, unbuckled his spurs and kicked them +under his bed. + +“It'll be many a day b'fore we listen t' the Little Doctor's mandolin +ag'in,” croaked Happy Jack. + +“Aw, shut up!” admonished Cal. + +“Come on, Chip,” sang out Weary. “You can spoil good paper when you +can't do anything else. Come and size up the look on Dunk's face when +we take possession of all the best chairs and get t' pouring our incense +and admiration on the Little Doctor.” + +Chip took the cigarette from his lips and emptied his lungs of smoke. +“You fellows go on. I'm not going.” He bent again to his eternal +drawing. + +“The dickens you ain't!” Weary was too astounded to say more. + +Chip said nothing. His gray hat-brim shielded his face from view, save +for the thin, curved lips and firm chin. Weary studied chin and lips +curiously, and whatever he read there, he refrained from further +argument. He knew Chip so much better than did anyone else. + +“Aw, what's the matter with yuh, Splinter! Come on; don't be a chump,” + cried Cal, from the doorway. + +“I guess you'll let a fellow do as he likes about it, won't you?” + queried Chip, without looking up. He was very busy, just then, shading +the shoulders of a high-pitching horse so that one might see the tense +muscles. + +“What's the matter? You and the Little Doctor have a falling out?” + +“Not very bad,” Chip's tone was open to several interpretations. Cal +interpreted it as a denial. + +“Sick?” He asked next. + +“Yes!” said Chip, shortly and falsely. + +“We'll call the doctor in, then,” volunteered Jack Bates. + +“I don't think you will. When I'm sick enough for that I'll let you +know. I'm going to bed.” + +“Aw, come on and let him alone. Chip's able t' take care of himself, I +guess,” said Weary, mercifully, holding open the door. + +They trooped out, and the last heard of them was Cal, remarking: + +“Gee whiz! I'd have t' be ready t' croak before I'd miss this chance uh +dealing old Dunk misery.” + +Chip sat where they had left him, staring unseeingly down at the +uncompleted sketch. His cigarette went out, but he did not roll a fresh +one and held the half-burned stub abstractedly between his lips, set in +bitter lines. + +Why should he care what a slip of a girl thought of him? He didn't +care; he only--that thought he did not follow to the end, but started +immediately on a new one. He supposed he was ignorant, according to +Eastern standards. Lined up alongside Dr. Cecil Granthum--damn him!--he +would cut a sorry figure, no doubt. He had never seen the outside of a +college, let alone imbibing learning within one. He had learned some of +the wisdom which nature teaches those who can read her language, and he +had read much, lying on his stomach under a summer sky, while the cattle +grazed all around him and his horse cropped the sweet grasses within +reach of his hand. He could repeat whole pages of Shakespeare, and of +Scott, and Bobbie Burns--he'd like to try Dr. Cecil on some of them and +see who came out ahead. Still, he was ignorant--and none realized it +more keenly and bitterly than did Chip. + +He rested his chin in his hand and brooded over his comfortless past and +cheerless future. He could just remember his mother--and he preferred +not to remember his father, who was less kind to him than were +strangers. That was his past. And the future--always to be a +cow-puncher? There was his knack for drawing; if he could study and +practice, perhaps even the Little Doctor would not dare call him +ignorant then. Not that he cared for what she might say or might not +say, but a fellow can't help hating to be reminded of something that he +knows better than anyone else--and that is not pleasant, however you may +try to cover up the unsightliness of it. + +If Dr. Cecil Granthum--damn him!--had been kicked into the world +and made to fight fate with tender, childish little fists but lately +outgrown their baby dimples, as had been HIS lot, would he have amounted +to anything, either? Maybe Dr. Cecil would have grown up just common and +ignorant and fit for nothing better than to furnish amusement to girl +doctors with dimples and big, gray eyes and a way of laughing. He'd like +to show that little woman that she didn't know all about him yet. It +wasn't too late--he was only twenty-four--he would study, and work, and +climb to where she must look up, not down, to him--if she cared enough +to look at all. It wasn't too late. He would quit gambling and save his +money, and by next winter he'd have enough to go somewhere and learn to +make pictures that amounted to something. He'd show her! + +After reiterating this resolve in several emphatic forms, Chip's spirits +grew perceptibly lighter--so much so that he rolled a fresh cigarette +and finished the drawing in his hands, which demonstrated the manner in +which a particularly snaky broncho had taken a fall out of Jack Bates in +the corral that morning. + + +Next day, early in the afternoon, the round-up climbed the grade and +started on its long trip over the range, and, after they had gone, +the ranch seemed very quiet and very lonely to the Little Doctor, who +revenged herself by snubbing Dunk so unmercifully that he announced +his intention of taking the next train for Butte, where he lived in the +luxury of rich bachelorhood. As the Little Doctor showed no symptoms of +repenting, he rode sullenly away to Dry Lake, and she employed the rest +of the afternoon writing a full and decidedly prejudiced account to Dr. +Cecil of her quarrel with Chip, whom, she said, she quite hated. + + + + + +CHAPTER X. -- What Whizzer Did. + + + +“I guess Happy lost some of his horses, las' night,” said Slim at the +breakfast table next morning. Slim had been kept at the ranch to look +after the fences and the ditches, and was doing full justice to the +expert cookery of the Countess. + +“What makes yuh think that?” The Old Man poised a bit of tender, broiled +steak upon the end of his fork. + +“They's a bunch hangin' around the upper fence, an' Whizzer's among 'em. +I'd know that long-legged snake ten miles away.” + +The Little Doctor looked up quickly. She had never before heard of a +“long-legged snake”--but then, she had not yet made the acquaintance of +Whizzer. + +“Well, maybe you better run 'em into the corral and hold 'em till Shorty +sends some one after 'em,” suggested the Old Man. + +“I never c'd run 'em in alone, not with Whizzer in the bunch,” objected +Slim. “He's the orneriest cayuse in Chouteau County.” + +“Whizzer'll make a rattlin' good saddle horse some day, when he's broke +gentle,” argued the Old Man. + +“Huh! I don't envy Chip the job uh breakin' him, though,” grunted Slim, +as he went out of the door. + +After breakfast the Little Doctor visited Silver and fed him his +customary ration of lump sugar, helped the Countess tidy the house, and +then found herself at a loss for something to do. She stood looking out +into the hazy sunlight which lay warm on hill and coulee. + +“I think I'll go up above the grade and make a sketch of the ranch,” she +said to the Countess, and hastily collected her materials. + +Down by the creek a “cotton-tail” sprang out of her way and kicked +itself out of sight beneath a bowlder. The Little Doctor stood and +watched till he disappeared, before going on again. Further up the bluff +a striped snake gave her a shivery surprise before he glided sinuously +away under a sagebush. She crossed the grade and climbed the steep bluff +beyond, searching for a comfortable place to work. + +A little higher, she took possession of a great, gray bowlder jutting +like a giant table from the gravelly soil. She walked out upon it and +looked down--a sheer drop of ten or twelve feet to the barren, yellow +slope below. + +“I suppose it is perfectly solid,” she soliloquized and stamped one +stout, little boot, to see if the rock would tremble. If human emotions +are possible to a heart of stone, the rock must have been greatly amused +at the test. It stood firm as the hills around it. + +Della sat down and looked below at the house--a doll's house; at the toy +corrals and tiny sheds and stables. Slim, walking down the hill, was +a mere pigmy--a short, waddling insect. At least, to a girl unused to +gazing from a height, each object seemed absurdly small. Flying U +coulee stretched away to the west, with a silver ribbon drawn carelessly +through it with many a twist and loop, fringed with a tender green of +young leaves. Away and beyond stood the Bear Paws, hazily blue, with +splotches of purple shadows. + +“I don't blame J. G. for loving this place,” thought the Little Doctor, +drinking in the intoxication of the West with every breath she drew. + +She had just become absorbed in her work when a clatter arose from the +grade below, and a dozen horses, headed by a tall, rangy sorrel she +surmised was Whizzer, dashed down the hill. Weary and Chip galloped +close behind. They did not look up, and so passed without seeing her. +They were talking and laughing in very good spirits--which the Little +Doctor resented, for some inexplicable reason. She heard them call to +Slim to open the corral gate, and saw Slim run to do their bidding. She +forgot her sketching and watched Whizzer dodge and bolt back, and Chip +tear through the creek bed after him at peril of life and limb. + +Back and forth, round and round went Whizzer, running almost through +the corral gate, then swerving suddenly and evading his pursuers with an +ease which bordered closely on the marvelous. Slim saddled a horse and +joined in the chase, and the Old Man climbed upon the fence and shouted +advice which no one heard and would not have heeded if they had. + +As the chase grew in earnestness and excitement, the sympathies of +the Little Doctor were given unreservedly to Whizzer. Whenever a +particularly clever maneuver of his set the men to swearing, she clapped +her hands in sincere, though unheard and unappreciated, applause. + +“Good boy!” she cried, approvingly, when he dodged Chip and whirled +through the big gate which the Old Man had unwittingly left open. J. +G. leaned perilously forward and shook his fist unavailingly. Whizzer +tossed head and heels alternately and scurried up the path to the very +door of the kitchen, where he swung round and looked back down the hill +snorting triumph. + +“Shoo, there!” shrilled the Countess, shaking her dish towel at him. + +“Who--oo-oof-f,” snorted he disdainfully and trotted leisurely round the +corner. + +Chip galloped up the hill, his horse running heavily. After him came +Weary, liberally applying quirt and mild invective. At the house they +parted and headed the fugitive toward the stables. He shot through +the big gate, lifting his heels viciously at the Old Man as he passed, +whirled around the stable and trotted haughtily past Slim into the +corral of his own accord, quite as if he had meant to do so all along. + +“Did you ever!” exclaimed the Little Doctor, disgustedly, from her +perch. “Whizzer, I'm ashamed of you! I wouldn't have given in like +that--but you gave them a chase, didn't you, my beauty?” + +The boys flung themselves off their tired horses and went up to the +house to beg the Countess for a lunch, and Della turned resolutely to +her sketching again. + +She was just beginning to forget that the world held aught but soft +shadows, mellow glow and hazy perspective, when a subdued uproar reached +her from below. She drew an uncertain line or two, frowned and laid her +pencil resignedly in her lap. + +“It's of no use. I can't do a thing till those cow-punchers take +themselves and their bronchos off the ranch--and may it be soon!” she +told herself, disconsolately and not oversincerely. The best of us are +not above trying to pull the wool over our own eyes, at times. + +In reality their brief presence made the near future seem very flat and +insipid to the Little Doctor. It was washing all the color out of the +picture, and leaving it a dirty gray. She gazed moodily down at the +whirl of dust in the corral, where Whizzer was struggling to free +himself from the loop Chip had thrown with his accustomed, calm +precision. Whatever Chip did he did thoroughly, with no slurring of +detail. Whizzer was fain to own himself fairly caught. + +“Oh, he's got you fast, my beauty!” sighed the Little Doctor, woefully. +“Why didn't you jump over the fence--I think you COULD--and run, run, to +freedom?” She grew quite melodramatic over the humiliation of the horse +she had chosen to champion, and glared resentfully when Chip threw +his saddle, with no gentle hand, upon the sleek back and tightened the +cinches with a few strong, relentless yanks. + +“Chip, you're an ugly, mean-tempered--that's right, Whizzer! Kick him if +you can--I'll stand by you!” This assertion, you understand, was +purely figurative; the Little Doctor would have hesitated long before +attempting to carry it out literally. + +“Now, Whizzer, when he tries to ride you, don't you let him! Throw him +clear-over-the STABLE--so there!” + +Perhaps Whizzer understood the command in some mysterious, telepathic +manner. At any rate, he set himself straightway to obey it, and there +was not a shadow of doubt but that he did his best--but Chip did not +choose to go over the stable. Instead of doing so, he remained in the +saddle and changed ends with his quirt, to the intense rage of the +Little Doctor, who nearly cried. + +“Oh, you brute! You fiend! I'll never speak to you again as long as I +live! Oh, Whizzer, you poor fellow, why do you let him abuse you so? Why +DON'T you throw him clean off the ranch?” + +This is exactly what Whizzer was trying his best to do, and Whizzer's +best was exceedingly bad for his rider, as a general thing. But Chip +calmly refused to be thrown, and Whizzer, who was no fool, suddenly +changed his tactics and became so meek that his champion on the bluff +felt tempted to despise him for such servile submission to a tyrant in +brown chaps and gray hat--I am transcribing the facts according to the +Little Doctor's interpretation. + +She watched gloomily while Whizzer, in whose brain lurked no thought +of submission, galloped steadily along behind the bunch which Slim made +haste to liberate, and bided his time. She had expected better--rather, +worse--of him than that. She had not dreamed he would surrender so +tamely. As they crossed the Hog's Back and climbed the steep grade just +below her, she eyed him reproachfully and said again: + +“Whizzer, I'm ashamed of you!” + +It did certainly seem that Whizzer heard and felt the pricking of pride +at the reproof. He made a feint at being frightened by a jack rabbit +which sprang out from the shade of a rock and bounced down the hill like +a rubber ball. As if Whizzer had never seen a jack rabbit before!--he +who had been born and reared upon the range among them! It was a feeble +excuse at the best, but he made the most of it and lost no time seeking +a better. + +He stopped short, sidled against Weary's horse and snorted. Chip, in +none the best humor with him, jerked the reins savagely and dug him with +his spurs, and Whizzer, resenting the affront, whirled and bounded +high in the air. Back down the grade he bucked with the high, rocking, +crooked jumps which none but a Western cayuse can make, while Weary +turned in his saddle and watched with sharp-drawn breaths. There was +nothing else that he could do. + +Chip was by no means passive. For every jump that Whizzer made the +rawhide quirt landed across his flaring nostrils, and the locked rowels +of Chip's spurs raked the sorrel sides from cinch to flank, leaving +crimson streams behind them. + +Wild with rage at this clinging cow-puncher whom he could not dislodge, +who stung his sides and head like the hornets in the meadow, Whizzer +gathered himself for a mighty leap as he reached the Hog's Back. Like a +wire spring released, he shot into the air, shook himself in one last, +desperate hope of victory, and, failing, came down with not a joint in +his legs and turned a somersault. + +A moment, and he struggled to his feet and limped painfully away, +crushed and beaten in spirit. + +Chip did not struggle. He lay, a long length of brown chaps, +pink-and-white shirt and gray hat, just where he had fallen. + +The Little Doctor never could remember getting down that bluff, and her +sketching materials went to amuse the jack rabbits and the birds. Fast +as she flew, Weary was before her and had raised Chip's head upon one +arm. She knelt beside him in the dust, hovering over the white face +and still form like a pitying, little gray angel. Weary looked at her +impersonally, but neither of them spoke in those first, breathless +moments. + +The Old Man, who had witnessed the accident, came puffing laboriously up +the hill, taking the short cut straight across from the stable. + +“Is he--DEAD?” he yelled while he scrambled. + +Weary turned his head long enough to look down at him, with the same +impersonal gaze he had bestowed upon the Little Doctor, but he did +not answer the question. He could not, for he did not know. The Little +Doctor seemed not to have heard. + +The Old Man redoubled his exertions and reached them very much out of +breath. + +“Is he dead, Dell?” he repeated in an awestruck tone. He feared she +would say yes. + +The Little Doctor had taken possession of the brown head. She looked up +at her brother, a very unprofessional pallor upon her face, and down at +the long, brown lashes and at the curved, sensitive lips which held no +hint of red. She pressed the face closer to her breast and shook her +head. She could not speak, just then, for the griping ache that was in +her throat. + +“One of the best men on the ranch gone under, just when we need help the +worst!” complained the Old Man. “Is he hurt bad?” + +“J. G.,” began the Little Doctor in a voice all the fiercer for being +suppressed, “I want you to kill that horse. Do you hear? If you don't do +it, I will!” + +“You won't have to, if old Splinter goes down and out,” said Weary, with +quiet meaning, and the Little Doctor gave him a grateful flash of gray +eyes. + +“How bad is he hurt?” repeated the Old Man, impatiently. “You're +supposed t' be a doctor--don't you know?” + +“He has a scalp wound which does not seem serious,” said she in an +attempt to be matter-of-fact, “and his left collar bone is broken.” + +“Doggone it! A broken collar bone ain't mended overnight.” + +“No,” acquiesced the Little Doctor, “it isn't.” + +These last two remarks Chip heard. He opened his eyes and looked +straight up into the gray ones above--a long, questioning, rebellious +look. He tried then to rise, to free himself from the bitter ecstasy of +those soft, enfolding arms. Only a broken collar bone! Good thing it was +no worse! Ugh! A spasm of pain contracted his features and drew beads +of moisture to his forehead. The spurned arms once more felt the dead +weight of him. + +“What is it?” The Little Doctor's voice called to him from afar. + +Must he answer? He wanted to drift on and on--“Can you tell me where +the pain is?” + +Pain? Oh, yes, there had been pain--but he wanted to drift. He opened +his eyes again reluctantly; again the pain clutched him. + +“It's--my--foot.” + +For the first time the eyes of the Little Doctor left his face and +traveled downward to the spurred boots. One was twisted in a horrible +unnatural position that told the agonizing truth--a badly dislocated +ankle. They returned quickly to the face, and swam full of blinding +tears--such as a doctor should not succumb to. He was not drifting into +oblivion now; his teeth were not digging into his lower lip for nothing, +she knew. + +“Weary,” she said, forgetting to call him properly by name, “ride to +the house and get my medicine case--the little black one. The Countess +knows--and have Slim bring something to carry him home on. And--RIDE!” + +Weary was gone before she had finished, and he certainly “rode.” + +“You'll have another crippled cow-puncher on yer hands, first thing +yuh know,” grumbled the Old Man, anxiously, as he watched Weary race +recklessly down the hill. + +The Little Doctor did not answer. She scarcely heard him. She was +stroking the hair back from Chip's forehead softly, unconsciously, +wondering why she had never before noticed the wave in it--but then, she +had scarcely seen him with his hat off. How silky and soft it felt! +And she had called him all sorts of mean names, and had wanted Whizzer +to--she shuddered and turned sick at the memory of the thud when they +struck the hard road together. + +“Dell!” exclaimed the Old Man, “you're white's a rag. Doggone it, don't +throw up yer hands at yer first case--brace up!” + +Chip looked up at her curiously, forgetting the pain long enough +to wonder at her whiteness. Did she have a heart, then, or was it a +feminine trait to turn pale in every emergency? She had not turned so +very white when those kids--he felt inclined to laugh, only for that +cussed foot. Instead he relaxed his vigilance and a groan slipped out +before he knew. + +“Just a minute more and I'll ease the pain for you,” murmured the girl, +compassionately. + +“All right--so long as you--don't--use--the stomach pump,” he retorted, +with a miserable makeshift of a laugh. + +“What's that?” asked the Old Man, but no one explained. + +The Little Doctor was struggling with the lump in her throat that he +should try to joke about it. + +Then Weary was back and holding the little, black case out to her. She +seized it eagerly, slipping Chip's head to her knees that she might use +her hands freely. There was no halting over the tiny vials, for she had +decided just what she must do. + +She laid something against Chip's closed lips. + +“Swallow these,” she said, and he obeyed her. “Weary--oh, you knew what +to do, I see. There, lay the coat down there for a pillow.” + +Relieved of her burden, she rose and went to the poor, twisted foot. + +Weary and the Old Man watched her go to work systematically and disclose +the swollen, purpling ankle. Very gently she did it, and when she had +administered a merciful anaesthetic, the enthusiasm of the Old Man +demanded speech. + +“Well, I'll be eternally doggoned! You're onto your job, Dell, doggoned +if yuh ain't. I won't ever josh yuh again about yer doctorin'!” + +“I wish you'd been around the time I smashed MY ankle,” commented Weary, +fishing for his cigarette book; he was beginning to feel the need of a +quieting smoke. “They hauled me forty miles, to Benton.” + +“That must have been torture!” shuddered the Little Doctor. “A +dislocated ankle is a most agonizing thing.” + +“Yes,” assented Weary, striking a match, “it sure is, all right.” + + + + + + +CHAPTER XI. -- Good Intentions. + + + +“Mr. Davidson, have you nerve enough to help me replace this ankle? The +Countess is too nervous, and J. G. is too awkward.” + +Chip was lying oblivious to his surroundings or his hurt in the sunny, +south room which Dunk Whitaker chose to call his. + +“I've never been accused of wanting nerve,” grinned Weary. “I guess +I can stand it if you can.” And a very efficient assistant he proved +himself to be. + +When the question of a nurse arose, when all had been done that could be +done and Weary had gone, the Little Doctor found herself involved in an +argument with the Countess. The Countess wanted them to send for Bill. +Bill just thought the world and all of Chip, she declared, and would +just love to come. She was positive that Bill was the very one they +needed, and the Little Doctor, who had conceived a violent dislike for +Bill, a smirky, self-satisfied youth addicted to chewing tobacco, red +neckties and a perennial grin, was equally positive he was the very +one they did not want. In despair she retrenched herself behind the +assertion that Chip should choose for himself. + +“I just know he'll choose Bill,” crowed the Countess after the flicker +of the doctor's skirts. + +Chip turned his head rebelliously upon the pillow and looked up at +her. Something in his eyes brought to mind certain stormy crises in the +headstrong childhood of the Little Doctor-crises in which she was forced +to submission very much against her will. It was the same mutinous +surrender to overwhelming strength, the same futile defiance of fate. + +“I came to ask you who you would rather have to nurse you,” she said, +trying to keep the erratic color from crimsoning her cheeks. You see, +she had never had a patient of her very own before, and there were +certain embarrassing complications in having this particular young man +in charge. + +Chip's eyes wandered wistfully to the window, where a warm, spring +breeze flapped the curtains in and out. + +“How long have I got to lie here?” he asked, reluctantly. + +“A month, at the least--more likely six weeks,” she said with kind +bluntness. It was best he should know the worst at once. + +Chip turned his face bitterly to the wall for a minute and traced an +impossible vine to its breaking point where the paper had not been +properly matched. Twenty miles away the boys were hurrying through their +early dinner that they might catch up their horses for the afternoon's +work. And they had two good feet to walk on, two sound arms to subdue +restless horseflesh and he was not there! He could fairly smell the +sweet, trampled sod as the horses circled endlessly inside the rope +corral, and hear them snort when a noose swished close. He wondered who +would get his string to ride, and what they would do with his bed. + +He didn't need it, now; he would lie on wire springs, instead of on the +crisp, prairie grass. He would be waited on like a yearling baby and-- +“The Countess just knows you will choose Bill,” interrupted a whimsical +girl voice. + +Chip said something which the Little Doctor did not try to hear +distinctly. “Don't she think I've had enough misery dealt me for once?” + he asked, without taking his eyes from the poor, broken vine. He rather +pitied the vine--it seemed to have been badly used by fate, just as +he had been. He was sure it had not wanted to stop right there on that +line, as it had been forced to do. HE had not wanted to stop, either. +He--“She says Bill would just love to come,” said the voice, with a bit +of a laugh in it. + +Chip, turning his head back suddenly, looked into the gray eyes and felt +inexplicably cheered. He almost believed she understood something of +what it all meant to him. And she mercifully refrained from spoken pity, +which he felt he could not have borne just then. His lips took back some +of their curve. + +“You tell her I wouldn't just love to have him,” he said, grimly. + +“I'd never dare. She dotes on Bill. Whom DO you want?” + +“When it comes to that, I don't want anybody. But if you could get +Johnny Beckman to come--” + +“Oh, I will--I'll go myself, to make sure of him. Which one is Johnny?” + +“Johnny's the red-headed one,” said Chip. + +“But--they're ALL--” + +“Yes, but his head is several shades redder than any of the others,” + interrupted he, quite cheerfully. + +The Little Doctor, observing the twinkle in his eyes, felt her spirits +rise wonderfully. She could not bear that hurt, rebellious, lonely look +which they had worn. + +“I'll bring him--but I may have to chloroform the Countess to get +him into the house. You must try to sleep, while I'm gone--and don't +fret--will you? You'll get well all the quicker for taking things +easily.” + +Chip smiled faintly at this wholesome advice, and the Little Doctor laid +her hand shyly upon his forehead to test its temperature, drew down the +shade over the south window, and left him in dim, shadowy coolness to +sleep. + +She came again before she started for Johnny, and found him wide awake +and staring hungrily at the patch of blue sky visible through the window +which faced the East. + +“You'll have to learn to obey orders better than this,” she said, +severely, and took quiet possession of his wrist. “I told you not to +fret about being hurt. I know you hate it--” + +Chip flushed a little under her touch and the tone in which she spoke +the last words. It seemed to mean that she hated it even more than he +did, having him helpless in the house with her. It hadn't been so long +since she had told him plainly how little she liked him. He was not +going to forget, in a hurry! + +“Why don't you send me to the hospital?” he demanded, brusquely. “I +could stand the trip, all right.” + +The Little Doctor, the color coming and going in her cheeks, pressed her +cool fingers against his forehead. + +“Because I want you here to practice on. Do you think I'd let such a +chance escape?” + +After she was gone, Chip found some things to puzzle over. He felt that +he was no match for the Little Doctor, and for the first time in his +life he deeply regretted his ignorance of woman nature. + +When the dishes were done, the Countess put her resentment behind her +and went in to sit with Chip, with the best of intentions. The most +disagreeable trait of some disagreeable people is that their intentions +are invariably good. She had her “crochy work,” and Chip groaned +inwardly when he saw her settle herself comfortably in a rocking-chair +and unwind her thread. The Countess had worked hard all her life, and +her hands were red and big-jointed. There was no pleasure in watching +their clever manipulation of the little, steel hook. If it had been the +Little Doctor's hands, now--Chip turned again to the decapitated, pale +blue vine with its pink flowers and no leaves. The Countess counted +off “chain 'leven” and began in a constrained tone, such as some +well-meaning people employ against helpless sick folk. + +“How're yuh feelin' now? Yuh want a drink, or anything?” + +Chip did not want a drink, and he felt all right, he guessed. + +The Countess thought to cheer him a little. + +“Well, I do think it's too bad yuh got t' lay here all through this +purty spring weather. If it had been in the winter, when it's cold and +stormy outside, a person wouldn't mind it s' much. I know yuh must feel +purty blew over it, fer yuh was always sech a hand t' be tearin' around +the country on the dead run, seems like. I always told Mary 't you'n +Weary always rode like the sheriff wa'nt more'n a mile b'hind yuh. An' +I s'pose you feel it all the more, seein' the round-up's jest startin' +out. Weary said yuh was playin' big luck, if yuh only knew enough t' +cash in yer chips at the right time, but he's afraid yuh wouldn't be +watching the game close enough an' ud lose yer pile. I don't know what +he was drivin' at, an' I guess he didn't neither. It's too bad, anyway. +I guess yuh didn't expect t' wind up in bed when yuh rode off up the +hill. But as the sayin' is: 'Man plans an' God displans,' an' I guess +it's so. Here yuh are, laid up fer the summer, Dell says--the las' thing +on earth, I guess, that yuh was lookin' fer. An' yuh rode buckin' bronks +right along, too. I never looked fer Whizzer t' buck yuh off, I must +say--yuh got the name uh bein' sech a good rider, too. But they say +'t the pitcher 't's always goin' t' the well is bound t' git busted +sometime, an' I guess your turn come t' git busted. Anyway--” + +“I didn't get bucked off,” broke in Chip, angrily. A “bronch fighter” is +not more jealous of his sweetheart than of his reputation as a rider. “A +fellow can't very well make a pretty ride while his horse is turning a +somersault.” + +“Oh, well, I didn't happen t' se it--I thought Weary said 't yuh got +throwed off on the Hog's Back. Anyway, I don't know's it makes much +difference how yuh happened t' hit the ground--” + +“I guess it does make a difference,” cried Chip, hotly. His eyes took on +the glitter of fever. “It makes a whole heap of difference, let me tell +you! I'd like to hear Weary or anybody else stand up and tell me that +I got bucked off. I may be pretty badly smashed up, but I'd come pretty +near showing him where he stood.” + +“Oh, well, yuh needn't go t' work an' git mad about it,” remonstrated +the Countess, dropping her thread in her perturbation at his excitement. +The spool rolled under the bed and she was obliged to get down upon her +knees and claw it back, and she jarred the bed and set Chip's foot to +hurting again something awful. + +When she finally secured the spool and resumed her chair, Chip's eyes +were tightly closed, but the look of his mouth and the flush in his +cheeks, together with his quick breathing, precluded the belief that +he was asleep. The Countess was not a fool--she saw at once that fever, +which the Little Doctor had feared, was fast taking hold of him. She +rolled her half yard of “edging” around the spool of thread, jabbed the +hook through the lump and went out and told the Old Man that Chip was +getting worse every minute--which was the truth. + +The Old Map knocked the ashes out of his pipe and went in to look at +him. + +“Did Weary say I got bucked off?” demanded the sick man before the Old +Man was fairly in the room. “If he did, he lied, that's all. I didn't +think Weary'd do me dirt like that--I thought he'd stand by me if +anybody would. He knows I wasn't throwed. I--” + +“Here, young fellow,” put in the Old Man, calmly, “don't yuh git t' +rampagin' around over nothin'! You turn over there an' go t' sleep.” + +“I'll be hanged if I will!” retorted Chip. “If Weary's taken to lying +about me I'll have it out with him if I break all the rest of my bones +doing it. Do you think I'm going to stand a thing like that? I'll see--” + +“Easy there, doggone it. I never heard Weary say't yuh got bucked off. +Whizzer turned over on his head, 's near as I c'd make out fer dust. I +took it he turned a summerset.” + +Chip's befogged brain caught at the last word. + +“Yes, that's just what he did. It beats me how Weary could say, or even +think, that I--it was the jack rabbit first--and I told her the supply +was limited--and if we do furnish lots of amusement--but I guess I made +her understand I wasn't so easy as she took me to be. She--” + +“Hey?” The Old Man could hardly be blamed for losing the drift of Chip's +rapid utterances. + +“If we want to get them rounded up before the dance, I'll--it's a good +thing it wasn't poison, for seven dead kids at once--” + +The Old Man knew something about sickness himself. He hurried out, +returning in a moment with a bowl of cool water and a fringed napkin +which he pilfered from the dining-room table, wisely intending to bathe +Chip's head. + +But Chip would have none of him or his wise intentions. He jerked the +wet napkin from the Old Man's fingers and threw it down behind the bed, +knocked up the bowl of water into the Old Man's face and called him +some very bad names. The Countess came and looked in, and Chip hurled a +pillow at her and called her a bad name also, so that she retreated to +the kitchen with her feelings very much hurt. After that Chip had the +south room to himself until the Little Doctor returned with Johnny. + +The Old Man, looking rather scared, met her on the porch. The Little +Doctor read his face before she was off her horse. + +“What's the matter? Is he worse?” she demanded, abruptly. + +“That's fer you t' find out. I ain't no doctor. He got on the fight, a +while back, an' took t' throwin' things an' usin' langwidge. He can't +git out uh bed, thank the Lord, or we'd be takin' t' the hills by now.” + +“Then somebody has it to answer for. He was all right when I left him, +two hours ago, with not a sign of fever. Has the Countess been pestering +him?” + +“No,” said the Countess, popping her head out of the kitchen window and +speaking in an aggrieved tone, “I hope I never pester anybody. I went +an' done all I could t' cheer 'im up, an' that's all the thanks I +git fer it. I must say some folks ain't overburdened with gratitude, +anyhow.” + +The Little Doctor did not wait to hear her out. She went straight to the +south room, pulling off her gloves on the way. The pillow on the floor +told her an eloquent tale, and she sighed as she picked it up and patted +some shape back into it. Chip stared at her with wide, bright eyes from +the bed. + +“I don't suppose Dr. Cecil Granthum would throw pillows at anybody!” he +remarked, sarcastically, as she placed it very gently under his head. + +“Perhaps, if the provocation was great enough. What have they been doing +to you?” + +“Did Weary say I got bucked off?” he demanded, excitedly. + +The Little Doctor was counting his pulse, and waited till she had +finished. It was a high number--much higher than she liked. + +“No, Weary didn't. How could he? You didn't, you know. I saw it all from +the bluff, and I know the horse turned over upon you. It's a wonder you +weren't killed outright. Now, don't worry about it any more--I expect it +was the Countess told you that. Weary hated dreadfully to leave you. I +wonder if you know how much he thinks of you? I didn't, till I saw how +he looked when you--here, drink this, all of it. You've got to sleep, +you see.” + + +There was a week when the house was kept very still, and the south +room very cool and shadowy, and Chip did not much care who it was that +ministered to him--only that the hands of the Little Doctor were always +soft and soothing on his head and he wished she would keep them there +always, when he was himself enough to wish anything coherently. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XII. -- “The Last Stand.” + + + +To use a trite expression and say that Chip “fought his way back to +health” would be simply stating a fact and stating it mildly. He went +about it much as he would go about gentling a refractory broncho, and +with nearly the same results. + +His ankle, however, simply could not be hurried or bluffed into +premature soundness, and the Little Doctor was at her wits' end to keep +Chip from fretting himself back into fever, once he was safely pulled +out of it. She made haste to explain the bit of overheard conversation, +which he harped on more than he dreamed, when his head went light in +that first week, and so established a more friendly feeling between +them. + +Still, there was a certain aloofness about him which she could not +conquer, try as she might. Just so far they were comrades--beyond, Chip +walked moodily alone. The Little Doctor did not like that overmuch. +She preferred to know that she fairly understood her friends and was +admitted, sometimes, to their full confidence. She did not relish +bumping her head against a blank wall that was too high to look over or +to climb, and in which there seemed to be no door. + +To be sure, he talked freely, and amusingly, of his adventures and of +the places he had known, but it was always an impersonal recital, and +told little of his real self or his real feelings. Still, when she +asked him, he told her exactly what he thought about things, whether his +opinion pleased her or not. + +There were times when he would sit in the old Morris chair and smoke +and watch her make lacey stuff in a little, round frame. Battenberg, she +said it was. He loved to see her fingers manipulate the needle and the +thread, and take wonderful pains with her work--but once she showed him +a butterfly whose wings did not quite match, and he pointed it out to +her. She had been listening to him tell a story of Indians and cowboys +and with some wild riding mixed into it, and--well, she used the wrong +stitch, but no one would notice it in a thousand years. This, her +argument. + +“You'll always know the mistake's there, and you won't get the +satisfaction out of it you would if it was perfect, would you?” argued +Chip, letting his eyes dwell on her face more than was good for him. + +The Little Doctor pouted her lips in a way to tempt a man all he could +stand, and snipped out the wing with her scissors and did it over. + +So with her painting. She started a scene in the edge of the Bad Lands +down the river. Chip knew the place well. There was a heated discussion +over the foreground, for the Little Doctor wanted him to sketch in some +Indian tepees and some squaws for her, and Chip absolutely refused to +do so. He said there were no Indians in that country, and it would spoil +the whole picture, anyway. The Little Doctor threatened to sketch them +herself, drawing on her imagination and what little she knew of Indians, +but something in his eyes stayed her hand. She left the easel in disgust +and refused to touch it again for a week. + +She was to spend a long day with Miss Satterly, the schoolma'am, and +started off soon after breakfast one morning. + +“I hope you'll find something to keep you out of mischief while I'm +gone,” she remarked, with a pretty, authoritative air. “Make him take +his medicine, Johnny, and don't let him have the crutches. Well, I think +I shall hide them to make sure.” + +“I wish to goodness you had that picture done,” grumbled Chip. “It +seems to me you're doing a heap of running around, lately. Why don't you +finish it up? Those lonesome hills are getting on my nerves.” + +“I'll cover it up,” said she. + +“Let it be. I like to look at them.” Chip leaned back in his chair and +watched her, a hunger greater than he knew in his eyes. It was most +awfully lonesome when she was gone all day, and last night she had been +writing all the evening to Dr. Cecil Granthum--damn him! Chip always +hitched that invective to the unknown doctor's name, for some reason he +saw fit not to explain to himself. He didn't see what she could find to +write about so much, for his part. And he did hate a long day with no +one but Johnny to talk to. + +He craned his neck to keep her in view as long as possible, drew a long, +discontented breath and settled himself more comfortably in the chair +where he spent the greater part of his waking hours. + +“Hand me the tobacco, will you, kid?” + +He fished his cigarette book from his pocket. “Thanks!” He tore a narrow +strip from the paper and sifted in a little tobacco. + +“Now a match, kid, and then you're done.” + +Johnny placed the matches within easy reach, shoved a few magazines +close to Chip's elbow, and stretched himself upon the floor with a book. + +Chip lay back against the cushions and smoked lazily, his eyes half +closed, dreaming rather than thinking. The unfinished painting stood +facing him upon its easel, and his eyes idly fixed upon it. He knew +the place so well. Jagged pinnacles, dotted here and there with scrubby +pines, hemmed in a tiny basin below--where was blank canvas. He went +mentally over the argument again, and from that drifted to a scene he +had witnessed in that same basin, one day--but that was in the winter. +Dirty gray snow drifts, where a chinook had cut them, and icy side hills +made the place still drearier. And the foreground--if the Little Doctor +could get that, now, she would be doing something!--ah! that foreground. +A poor, half-starved range cow with her calf which the round-up had +overlooked in the fall, stood at bay against a steep cut bank. Before +them squatted five great, gaunt wolves intent upon fresh beef for their +supper. But the cow's horns were long, and sharp, and threatening, and +the calf snuggled close to her side, shivering with the cold and the +fear of death. The wolves licked their cruel lips and their eyes gleamed +hungrily--but the eyes of the cow answered them, gleam for gleam. If it +could be put upon canvas just as he had seen it, with the bitter, biting +cold of a frozen chinook showing gray and sinister in the slaty sky-- +“Kid!” + +“Huh?” Johnny struggled reluctantly back to Montana. + +“Get me the Little Doctor's paint and truck, over on that table, and +slide that easel up here.” + +Johnny stared, opened his mouth to speak, then wisely closed it and did +as he was bidden. Philosophically he told himself it was Chip's funeral, +if the Little Doctor made a kick. + +“All right, kid.” Chip tossed the cigarette stub out of the window. “You +can go ahead and read, now. Lock the door first, and don't you bother +me--not on your life.” + +Then Chip plunged headlong into the Bad Lands, so to speak. + +A few dabs of dirty white, here and there, a wholly original +manipulation of the sky--what mattered the method, so he attained the +result? Half an hour, and the hills were clutched in the chill embrace +of a “frozen chinook” such as the Little Doctor had never seen in her +life. But Johnny, peeping surreptitiously over Chip's shoulder, stared +at the change; then, feeling the spirit of it, shivered in sympathy with +the barren hills. + +“Hully gee,” he muttered under his breath, “he's sure a corker t' +paint cold that fair makes yer nose sting.” And he curled up in a chair +behind, where he could steal a look, now and then, without fear of +detection. + +But Chip was dead to all save that tiny basin in the Bad Lands--to the +wolves and their quarry. His eyes burned as they did when the fever held +him; each cheek bone glowed flaming red. + +As wolf after wolf appeared with what, to Johnny, seemed uncanny +swiftness, and squatted, grinning and sinister, in a relentless half +circle, the book slipped unheeded to the floor with a clatter that +failed to rouse the painter, whose ears were dulled to all else than the +pitiful blat of a shivering, panic-stricken calf whose nose sought his +mother's side for her comforting warmth and protection. + +The Countess rapped on the door for dinner, and Johnny rose softly and +tiptoed out to quiet her. May he be forgiven the lies he told that +day, of how Chip's head ached and he wanted to sleep and must not be +disturbed, by strict orders of the Little Doctor. The Countess, to whom +the very name of the Little Doctor was a fetich, closed all intervening +doors and walked on her toes in the kitchen, and Johnny rejoiced at the +funeral quiet which rested upon the house. + +Faster flew the brush. Now the eyes of the cow glared desperate +defiance. One might almost see her bony side, ruffled by the cutting +north wind, heave with her breathing. She was fighting death for herself +and her baby--but for how long? Already the nose of one great, gray +beast was straight uplifted, sniffing, impatient. Would they risk a +charge upon those lowered horns? The dark pines shook their feathery +heads hopelessly. A little while perhaps, and then--Chip laid down the +brush and sank back in the chair. Was the sun so low? He could do no +more--yes, he took up a brush and added the title: “The Last Stand.” + +He was very white, and his hand shook. Johnny leaned over the back of +the chair, his eyes glued to the picture. + +“Gee,” he muttered, huskily, “I'd like t' git a whack at them wolves +once.” + +Chip turned his head until he could look at the lad's face. “What do you +think of it, kid?” he asked, shakily. + +Johnny did not answer for a moment. It was hard to put what he felt into +words. “I dunno just how t' say it,” he said, gropingly, at last, “but +it makes me want t' go gunnin' fer them wolves b'fore they hamstring +her. It--well--it don't seem t' me like it was a pitcher, somehow. It +seems like the reel thing, kinda.” + +Chip moved his head languidly upon the cushion. + +“I'm dead tired, kid. No, I'm not hungry, nor I don't want any +coffee, or anything. Just roll this chair over to the bed, will you? +I'm--dead-tired.” + +Johnny was worried. He did not know what the Little Doctor would say, +for Chip had not eaten his dinner, or taken his medicine. Somehow there +had been that in his face that had made Johnny afraid to speak to him. +He went back to the easel and looked long at the picture, his heart +bursting with rage that he could not take his rifle and shoot those +merciless, grinning brutes. Even after he had drawn the curtain before +it and stood the easel in its accustomed place, he kept lifting the +curtain to take another look at that wordless tragedy of the West. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. -- Art Critics. + + + +It was late the next forenoon when the Little Doctor, feeling the spirit +of artistic achievement within her, gathered up brushes and paints for +a couple hours' work. Chip, sitting by the window smoking a cigarette, +watched her uneasily from the tail of his eye. Looking back to +yesterday's “spasm,” as he dubbed it mentally, he was filled with a +great and unaccountable shyness. What had seemed so real to him then he +feared to-day to face, as trivial and weak. + +He wanted to cry “Stop!” when she laid hand to the curtain, but he +looked, instead, out across the coulee to the hills beyond, the blood +surging unevenly through his veins. He felt when she drew the cloth +aside; she stopped short off in the middle of telling him something Miss +Satterly had said--some whimsical thing--and he could hear his heart +pounding in the silence which followed. The little, nickel alarm clock +tick-tick-ticked with such maddening precision and speed that Chip +wanted to shy a book at it, but his eyes never left the rocky bluff +opposite, and the clock ticked merrily on. + +One minute--two--the silence was getting unbearable. He could not +endure another second. He looked toward her; she stood, one hand full of +brushes, gazing, white-faced, at “The Last Stand.” As he looked, a tear +rolled down the cheek nearest him and compelled him to speech. + +“What's the matter?” His voice seemed to him rough and brutal, but he +did not mean it so. + +The Little Doctor drew a long, quivering breath. + +“Oh, the poor, brave thing!” she said, in a hushed tone. She turned +sharply away and sat down. + +“I expect I spoiled your picture, all right--but I told you I'd get into +mischief if you went gadding around and left me alone.” + +The Little Doctor stealthily wiped her eyes, hoping to goodness Chip had +not seen that they had need of wiping. + +“Why didn't you tell me you could paint like that?” She turned upon him +fiercely. “Here you've sat and looked on at me daubing things up--and +if I'd known you could do better than--” Looking again at the canvas she +forgot to finish. The fascination of it held her. + +“I'm not in the habit of going around the country shouting what I don't +know,” said Chip, defensively. “You've taken heaps of lessons, and I +never did. I just noticed the color of everything, and--oh, I don't +know--it's in me to do those things. I can't help trying to paint and +draw.” + +“I suppose old Von Heim would have something to say of your way of doing +clouds--but you got the effect, though--better than he did, sometimes. +And that cow--I can see her breathe, I tell you! And the wolves--oh, +don't sit there and smoke your everlasting cigarettes and look so +stoical over it! What are you made of, anyway? Can't you feel proud? Oh, +don't you know what you've done? I--I'd like to shake you--so now!” + +“Well, I don't much blame you. I knew I'd no business to meddle. Maybe, +if you'll touch it up a little--” + +“I'll not touch a brush to THAT. I--I'm afraid I might kill the cow.” + She gave a little, hysterical laugh. + +“Don't you think you're rather excitable--for a doctor?” scoffed Chip, +and her chin went up for a minute. + +“I'd like t' kill them wolves,” said Johnny, coming in just then. + +“Turn the thing around, kid, so I can see it,” commanded Chip, suddenly. +“I worked at it yesterday till the colors all ran together and I +couldn't tell much about it.” + +Johnny turned the easel, and Chip, looking, fell silent. Had HIS hand +guided the brush while that scene grew from blank canvas to palpitating +reality? Verily, he had “builded better than he knew.” Something in his +throat gripped, achingly and dry. + +“Did anybody see it yesterday?” asked the Little Doctor. + +“No--not unless the kid--” “I never said a word about it,” denied +Johnny, hastily and vehemently. “I lied like the dickens. I said you had +headache an' was tryin' t' sleep it off. I kep' the Countess teeterin' +around on her toes all afternoon.” Johnny giggled at the memory of it. + +“Well, I'm going to call them all in and see what they say,” declared +she, starting for the door. + +“I don't THINK you will,” began Chip, rebelliously, blushing over his +achievement like a girl over her graduation essay. “I don't want to +be--” + +“Well, we needn't tell them you did it,” suggested she. + +“Oh, if you're willing to shoulder the blame,” compromised Chip, much +relieved. He hated to be fussed over. + +The Little Doctor regarded him attentively a moment, smiled queerly to +herself and stood back to get a better view of the painting. + +“I'll shoulder the blame--and maybe claim the glory. It was mine in the +first place, you know.” She watched him from under her lashes. + +“Yes, it's yours, all right,” said Chip, readily, but something went +out of his face and lodged rather painfully in the deepest corner of his +heart. He ignored it proudly and smiled back at her. + +“Do such things really happen, out here?” she asked, hurriedly. + +“I'd tell a man!” said Chip, his eyes returning to the picture. “I was +riding through that country last winter, and I came upon that very cow, +just as you see her there, in that same basin. That's how I came +to paint it into your foreground; I got to thinking about it, and I +couldn't help trying to put it on canvas. Only, I opened up on the +wolves with my six-shooter, and I got two; that big fellow ready to +howl, there, and that one next the cut-bank. The rest broke out down the +coulee and made for the breaks, where I couldn't follow. They--” + +“Say? Old Dunk's comin',” announced Johnny, hurrying in. “Why don't yuh +let 'im see the pitcher an' think all the time the Little Doctor done +it? Gee, it'd be great t' hear 'im go on an' praise it up, like he +always does, an' not know the diffrunce.” + +“Johnny, you're a genius,” cried she, effusively. “Don't tell a soul +that Chip had a brush in his hand yesterday, will you? He--he'd rather +not have anyone know he did anything to the painting, you see.” + +“Aw, I won't tell,” interrupted Johnny, gruffly, eying his divinity with +distrust for the first time in his short acquaintance with her. Was she +mean enough to claim it really? Just at first, as a joke, it would be +fun, but afterward, oh, she wouldn't do a thing like that! + +“Don't you bring Dunk in here,” warned Chip, “or things might happen. +I don't want to run up against him again till I've got two good feet to +stand on.” + +Their relation was a thing to be watched over tenderly, since Chip's +month of invalidism. Dunk had notions concerning master and servant, and +concerning Chip as an individual. He did not fancy occupying the back +bedroom while Chip reigned in his sunny south room, waited on, petted +(Dunk applied the term petted) and amused indefatigably by the Little +Doctor. And there had been a scene, short but exceeding “strenuous,” + over a pencil sketch which graphically portrayed an incident Dunk fain +would forget--the incident of himself as a would-be broncho fighter, +with Banjo, of vigilante fame, as the means of his downfall--physical, +mental and spiritual. Dunk might, in time, have forgiven the crippled +ankle, and the consequent appropriation of his room, but never would he +forgive the merciless detail of that sketch. + +“I'll carry easel and all into the parlor, and leave the door open so +you can hear what they all say,” said the Little Doctor, cheerfully. +“I wish Cecil could be here to-day. I always miss Cecil when there's +anything especial going on in the way of fun.” + +“Yes?” answered Chip, and made himself another cigarette. He would be +glad when he could hobble out to some lonely spot and empty his soul +of the profane language stored away opposite the name of Dr. Cecil +Granthum. There is so little comfort in swearing all inside, when one +feels deeply upon a subject. + +“It's a wonder you wouldn't send for him if you miss him that bad,” + he remarked, after a minute, hoping the Little Doctor would not find +anything amiss with his tone, which he meant should be cordial and +interested--and which evinced plenty of interest, of a kind, but was +curiously lacking in cordiality. + +“I did beg, and tease, and entreat--but Cecil's in a hospital--as a +physician, you understand, not as a patient, and can't get off just yet. +In a month or two, perhaps--” + +Dinner, called shrilly by the Countess, interrupted her, and she flitted +out of the room looking as little like a lovelorn maiden as she did like +a doctor--which was little indeed. + +“She begged, and teased, and entreated,” repeated Chip, savagely to +himself when the door closed upon her, and fell into gloomy meditation, +which left him feeling that there was no good thing in this wicked +world--no, not one--that was not appropriated by some one with not sense +enough to understand and appreciate his blessing. + +After dinner the Little Doctor spoke to the unsuspecting critics. + +“That picture which I started a couple of weeks ago is finished at last, +and I want you good people to come and tell me what you think of it. +I want you all--you, Slim, and Louise, you are to come and give your +opinion.” + +“Well, I don't know the first thing about paintin',” remonstrated the +Countess, coming in from the kitchen. + +The Old Man lighted his pipe and followed her into the parlor with the +others, and Slim rolled a cigarette to hide his embarrassment, for the +role of art critic was new to him. + +There was some nervousness in the Little Doctor's manner as she set the +easel to her liking and drew aside the curtain. She did not mean to be +theatrical about it, but Chip, watching through the open door, fancied +so, and let his lip curl a trifle. He was not in a happy frame of mind +just then. + +A silence fell upon the group. The Old Man took his pipe from his mouth +and stared. + +The cheeks of the Little Doctor paled and grew pink again. She laughed a +bit, as though she would much rather cry. + +“Say something, somebody, quick!” she cried, when her nerves would bear +no more. + +“Well, I do think it's awfully good, Dell,” began the Countess. + +“By golly, I don't see how you done that without seein' it happen,” + exclaimed Slim, looking very dazed and mystified. + +“That's a Diamond Bar cow,” remarked J. G., abstractedly. “That outfit +never does git half their calves. I remember the last time I rode +through there last winter, that cow--doggone it, Dell, how the dickens +did you get that cow an' calf in? You must a had a photograph t' work +from.” + +“By golly, that's right,” chimed in Slim. “That there's the cow I had +sech a time chasin' out uh the bunch down on the bottom. I run her +till I was plum sick, an' so was she, by golly. I'd know her among a +thousand. Yuh got her complete--all but the beller, an', by golly, yuh +come blame near gittin' that, too!” Slim, always slow and very much in +earnest, gradually became infused with the spirit of the scene. “Jest +look at that ole gray sinner with his nose r'ared straight up in the air +over there! By golly, he's callin' all his wife's relations t' come an' +help 'em out. He's thinkin' the ole Diamon' Bar's goin' t' be one too +many fer 'em. She shore looks fighty, with 'er head down an' 'er eyes +rollin' all ways t' oncet, ready fer the first darn cuss that makes a +crooked move! An' they know it, too, by golly, er they wouldn't hang +back like they're a-doin'. I'd shore like t' be cached behind that ole +pine stub with a thirty--thirty an' a fist full uh shells--I'd shore +make a scatteration among 'em! A feller could easy--” + +“But, Slim, they're nothing but paint!” The Little Doctor's eyes were +shining. + +Slim turned red and grinned sheepishly at the others. + +“I kinda fergot it wasn't nothin' but a pitcher,” he stammered, +apologetically. + +“That is the gist of the whole matter,” said Dunk. “You couldn't ask +for a greater compliment, or higher praise, than that, Miss Della. One +forgets that it is a picture. One only feels a deep longing for a good +rifle. You must let me take it with me to Butte. That picture will make +you famous among cattlemen, at least. That is to say, out West, here. +And if you will sell it I am positive I can get you a high price for +it.” + +The eyes of the Little Doctor involuntarily sought the Morris chair in +the next room; but Chip was looking out across the coulee, as he had a +habit of doing lately, and seemed not to hear what was going on in the +parlor. He was indifference personified, if one might judge from his +outward appearance. The Little Doctor turned her glance resentfully to +her brother's partner. + +“Do you mean all that?” she demanded of him. + +“I certainly do. It is great, Miss Della. I admit that it is not +quite like your other work; the treatment seems different, in places, +and--er--stronger. It is the best picture of the kind that I have ever +seen, I think. It holds one, in a way--” + +“By golly, I bet Chip took a pitcher uh that!” exclaimed Slim, who had +been doing some hard thinking. “He was tellin' us last winter about +ridin' up on that ole Diamon' Bar cow with a pack uh wolves around her, +an' her a-standin' 'em off, an' he shot two uh the wolves. Yes, sir; +Chip jest about got a snap shot of 'em.” + +“Well, doggone it! what if he did?” The Old Man turned jealously upon +him. “It ain't everyone that kin paint like that, with nothin' but a +little kodak picture t' go by. Doggone it! I don't care if Dell had a +hull apurn full uh kodak pictures that Chip took--it's a rattlin' good +piece uh work, all the same.” + +“I ain't sayin' anything agin' the pitcher,” retorted Slim. “I was jest +wonderin' how she happened t' git that cow down s' fine, brand 'n all, +without some kind uh pattern t' go by. S' fur 's the pitcher goes, +it's about as good 's kin be did with paint, I guess. I ain't ever seen +anything in the pitcher line that looked any natcherler.” + +“Well, I do think it's just splendid!” gurgled the Countess. “It's +every bit as good 's the one Mary got with a year's subscription t' the +Household Treasure fer fifty cents. That one's got some hounds chasin' +a deer and a man hidin' in 'the bushes, sost yuh kin jest see his head. +It's an awful purty pitcher, but this one's jest as good. I do b'lieve +it's a little bit better, if anything. Mary's has got some awful nice, +green grass, an' the sky's an awful purty blue--jest about the color uh +my blue silk waist. But yuh can't expect t' have grass an' sky like that +in the winter, an' this is more of a winter pitcher. It looks awful cold +an' lonesome, somehow, an' it makes yuh want t' cry, if yuh look at it +long enough.” + +The critics stampeded, as they always did when the Countess began to +talk. + +“You better let Dunk take it with him, Dell,” was the parting advice of +the Old Man. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. -- Convalescence. + + + +“You don't mind, do you?” The Little Doctor was visibly uneasy. + +“Mind what?” Chip's tone was one of elaborate unconsciousness. “Mind +Dunk's selling the picture for you? Why should I? It's yours, you know.” + +“I think you have some interest in it yourself,” she said, without +looking at him. “You don't think I mean to--to--” + +“I don't think anything, except that it's your picture, and I put in a +little time meddling with your property for want of something else to +do. All I painted doesn't cover one quarter of the canvas, and I guess +you've done enough for me to more than make up. I guess you needn't +worry over that cow and calf--you're welcome to them both; and if you +can get a bounty on those five wolves, I'll be glad to have you. Just +keep still about my part of it.” + +Chip really felt that way about it, after the first dash of wounded +pride. He could never begin to square accounts with the Little Doctor, +anyhow, and he was proud that he could do something for her, even if it +was nothing more than fixing up a picture so that it rose considerably +above mediocrity. He had meant it that way all along, but the suspicion +that she was quite ready to appropriate his work rather shocked him, +just at first. No one likes having a gift we joy in bestowing calmly +taken from our hands before it has been offered. He wanted her to +have the picture for her very own--but--but--He had not thought of +the possibility of her selling it, or of Dunk as her agent. It was +all right, of course, if she wanted to do that with it, but--There was +something about it that hurt, and the hurt of it was not less, simply +because he could not locate the pain. + +His mind fidgeted with the subject. If he could have saddled Silver and +gone for a long gallop over the prairie land, he could have grappled +with his rebellious inner self and choked to death several unwelcome +emotions, he thought. But there was Silver, crippled and swung +uncomfortably in canvas wrappings in the box stall, and here +was himself, crippled and held day after day in one room and one +chair--albeit a very pleasant room and a very comfortable chair--and a +gallop as impossible to one of them as to the other. + +“I do wish--” The Little Doctor checked herself abruptly, and hummed a +bit of coon song. + +“What do you wish?” Chip pushed his thoughts behind him, and tried to +speak in his usual manner. + +“Nothing much. I was just wishing Cecil could see 'The Last Stand.'” + +Chip said absolutely nothing for five minutes, and for an excellent +reason. There was not a single thought during that time which would +sound pretty if put into words, and he had no wish to shock the Little +Doctor. + +After that day a constraint fell upon them both, which each felt +keenly and neither cared to explain away. “The Last Stand” was tacitly +dismissed from their conversation, of which there grew less and less as +the days passed. + +Then came a time when Chip strongly resented being looked upon as an +invalid, and Johnny was sent home, greatly to his sorrow. + +Chip hobbled about the house on crutches, and chafed and fretted, and +managed to be very miserable indeed because he could not get out and +ride and clear his brain and heart of some of their hurt--for it had +come to just that; he had been compelled to own that there was a hurt +which would not heal in a hurry. + +It was a very bitter young man who, lounging in the big chair by the +window one day, suddenly snorted contempt at a Western story he had been +reading and cast the magazine--one of the Six Leading--clean into the +parlor where it sprawled its artistic leaves in the middle of the floor. +The Little Doctor was somewhere--he never seemed to know just where, +nowadays--and the house was lonesome as an isolated peak in the Bad +Lands. + +“I wish I had the making of the laws. I'd put a bounty on all the darn +fools that think they can write cowboy stories just because they rode +past a roundup once, on a fast train,” he growled, reaching for his +tobacco sack. “Huh! I'd like to meet up with the yahoo that wrote that +rank yarn! I'd ask him where he got his lack of information. Huh! A +cow-puncher togged up like he was going after the snakiest bronk in the +country, when he was only going to drive to town in a buckboard! 'His +pistol belt and dirk and leathern chaps'--oh, Lord; oh, Lord! And spurs! +I wonder if he thinks it takes spurs to ride a buckboard? Do they think, +back East, that spurs grow on a man's heels out here and won't come off? +Do they think we SLEEP in 'em, I wonder?” He drew a match along the +arm of the chair where the varnish was worn off. “They think all a +cow-puncher has to do is eat and sleep and ride fat horses. I'd like to +tell some of them a few things that they don't--” + +“I've brought you a caller, Chip. Aren't you glad to see him?” It was +the Little Doctor at the window, and the laugh he loved was in her voice +and in her eyes, that it hurt him to meet, lately. + +The color surged to his face, and he leaned from the window, his thin, +white hand outstretched caressingly. + +“I'd tell a man!” he said, and choked a little over it. “Silver, old +boy!” + +Silver, nickering softly, limped forward and nestled his nose in the +palm of his master. + +“He's been out in the corral for several days, but I didn't tell you--I +wanted it for a surprise,” said the Little Doctor. “This is his longest +trip, but he'll soon be well now.” + +“Yes; I'd give a good deal if I could walk as well as he can,” said +Chip, gloomily. + +“He wasn't hurt as badly as you were. You ought to be thankful you can +walk at all, and that you won't limp all your life. I was afraid for a +while, just at first--” + +“You were? Why didn't you tell me?” Chip's eyes were fixed sternly upon +her. + +“Because I didn't want to. It would only have made matters worse, +anyway. And you won't limp, you know, if you're careful for a while +longer. I'm going to get Silver his sugar. He has sugar every day.” + +Silver lifted his head and looked after her inquiringly, whinnied +complainingly, and prepared to follow as best he could. + +“Silver--oh, Silver!” Chip snapped his fingers to attract his attention. +“Hang the luck, come back here! Would you throw down your best friend +for that girl? Has she got to have you, too?” His voice grew wistfully +rebellious. “You're mine. Come back here, you little fool--she doesn't +care.” + +Silver stopped at the corner, swung his head and looked back at Chip, +beckoning, coaxing, swearing under his breath. His eyes sought for sign +of his goddess, who had disappeared most mysteriously. Throwing up his +head, he sent a protest shrilling through the air, and looked no more at +Chip. + +“I'm coming, now be still. Oh, don't you dare paw with your lame leg! +Why didn't you stay with your master?” + +“He's no use for his master, any more,” said Chip, with a hurt laugh. “A +woman always does play the--mischief, somehow. I wonder why? They look +innocent enough.” + +“Wait till your turn comes, and perhaps you'll learn why,” retorted she. + +Chip, knowing that his turn had come, and come to tarry, found nothing +to say. + +“Beside,” continued the Little Doctor, “Silver didn't want me so +much--it was the sugar. I hope you aren't jealous of me, because I know +his heart is big enough to hold us both.” + +She stayed a long half hour, and was so gay that it seemed like old +times to listen to her laugh and watch her dimples while she talked. +Chip forgot that he had a quarrel with fate, and he also forgot Dr. +Cecil Granthum, of Gilroy, Ohio--until Slim rode up and handed the +Little Doctor a letter addressed in that bold, up-and-down writing that +Chip considered a little the ugliest specimen of chirography he had ever +seen in his life. + +“It's from Cecil,” said the Little Doctor, simply and unnecessarily, and +led Silver back down the hill. + +Chip, gazing at that tiresome bluff across the coulee, renewed his +quarrel with fate. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XV. -- The Spoils of Victory. + + + +“I wish, while I'm gone, you'd paint me another picture. Will you, +PLEASE?” + +When a girl has big, gray eyes that half convince you they are not gray +at all, but brown, or blue, at times, and a way of using them that makes +a fellow heady, like champagne, and a couple of dimples that will +dodge into her cheeks just when a fellow is least prepared to resist +them--why, what can a fellow do but knuckle under and say yes, +especially when she lets her head tip to one side a little and says +“please” like that? + +Chip tried not to look at her, but he couldn't help himself very well +while she stood directly in front of him. He compromised weakly instead +of refusing point-blank, as he told himself he wanted to do. + +“I don't know--maybe I can't, again.” + +“Maybe you can, though. Here's an eighteen by twenty-four canvas, and +here are all the paints I have in the house, and the brushes. I'll +expect to see something worth while, when I return.” + +“Well, but if I can't--” + +“Look here. Straight in the eye, if you please! Now, will you TRY?” + +Chip, looking into her eyes that were laughing, but with a certain +earnestness behind the laugh, threw up his hands--mentally, you know. + +“Yes, I'll try. How long are you going to be gone?” + +“Oh, perhaps a week,” she said, lightly, and Chip's heart went heavy. + +“You may paint any kind of picture you like, but I'd rather you did +something like 'The Last Stand'--only better. And put your brand, as you +call it, in one corner.” + +“You won't sell it, will you?” The words slipped out before he knew. + +“No--no, I won't sell it, for it won't be mine. It's for yourself this +time.” + +“Then there won't be any picture,” said Chip, shortly. + +“Oh, yes, there will,” smiled the Little Doctor, sweetly, and went away +before he could contradict her. + +Perhaps a week! Heavens, that was seven days, and every day had at least +sixteen waking hours. How would it be when it was years, then? When +Dr. Cecil Granthum--(er--no, I won't. The invective attached to that +gentleman's name was something not to be repeated here.) At any rate, a +week was a long, long time to put in without any gray eyes or any laugh, +or any dimples, or, in short, without the Little Doctor. He could not +see, for his part, why she wanted to go gadding off to the Falls with +Len Adams and the schoolma'am, anyway. Couldn't they get along without +her? They always had, before she came to the country; but, for that +matter, so had he. The problem was, how was he going to get along +without her for the rest of his life? What did they want to stay a week +for? Couldn't they buy everything they wanted in a day or so? And the +Giant Spring wasn't such great shakes, nor the Rainbow Falls, that +they need to hang around town a week just to look at them. And the +picture--what was he such a fool for? Couldn't he say no with a pair of +gray eyes staring into his? It seemed not. He supposed he must think up +something to daub on there--the poorer the better. + +That first day Chip smoked something like two dozen cigarettes, gazed +out across the coulee till his eyes ached, glared morosely at the canvas +on the easel, which stared back at him till the dull blankness of it +stamped itself upon his brain and he could see nothing else, look where +he might. Whereupon he gathered up hat and crutches, and hobbled slowly +down the hill to tell Silver his troubles. + +The second day threatened to be like the first. Chip sat by the window +and smoked; but, little by little, the smoke took form and substance +until, when he turned his eyes to the easel, a picture looked back at +him--even though to other eyes the canvas was yet blank and waiting. + +There was no Johnny this time to run at his beckoning. He limped about +on his crutches, collected all things needful, and sat down to work. + +As he sketched and painted, with a characteristic rapidity that was +impatient of the slightest interruption yet patient in its perfectness +of detail, the picture born of the smoke grew steadily upon the canvas. + +It seemed, at first, that “The Last Stand” was to be repeated. There +were the same jagged pinnacles and scrubby pines, held in the fierce +grip of the frozen chinook. The same? But there was a difference, not +to be explained, perhaps, but certainly to be felt. The Little Doctor's +hills were jagged, barren hills; her pines were very nice pines indeed. +Chip's hills were jagged, they were barren--they--were desolate; his +pines were shuddering, lonely pines; for he had wandered alone among +them and had caught the Message of the Wilderness. His sky was the cold, +sinister sky of “The Last Stand”--but it was colder, more sinister, for +it was night. A young moon hung low in the west, its face half hidden +behind a rift of scurrying snow clouds. The tiny basin was shadowy and +vague, the cut-bank a black wall touched here and there by a quivering +shaft of light. + +There was no threatening cow with lowered horns and watchful eye; there +was no panic-stricken calf to whip up her flagging courage with its +trust in her. + +The wolves? Yes, there were the wolves--but there were more of them. +They were not sitting in a waiting half circle--they were scattered, +unwatchful. Two of them in the immediate foreground were wrangling over +a half-gnawed bone. The rest of the pack were nosing a heap pitifully +eloquent. + +As before, so now they tricked the eye into a fancy that they lived. +One could all but hear the snarls of the two standing boldly in the +moonlight, the hair all bristly along the necks, the white fangs +gleaming between tense-drawn lips. One felt tempted to brace oneself for +the rush that was to come. + +For two days Chip shut himself in his room and worked through the long +hours of daylight, jealous of the minutes darkness stole from him. + +He clothed the feast in a merciful shade which hid the repugnance +and left only the pathos--two long, sharp horns which gleamed in the +moonlight but were no longer threatening. + +He centered his energy upon the two wolves in the foreground, grimly +determined that Slim should pray for a Gatling gun when he saw them. + +The third day, when he was touching up the shoulders of one of the +combatants, a puff of wind blew open the door which led to the parlor. +He did not notice it and kept steadily at work, painting his “brand” + into a corner. Beneath the stump and its splinter he lettered his +name--a thing he had never done before. + +“Well--I'll be--doggoned!” + +Chip jumped half out of his chair, giving his lame ankle a jolt which +made him grind his teeth. + +“Darn it, Chip, did YOU do that?” + +“It kind of looks that way, don't it?” Chip was plainly disconcerted, +and his ankle hurt. + +“H--m-m.” The Old Man eyed it sharply a minute. “It's a wonder you +wouldn't paint in a howl or two, while you're about it. I suppose that's +a mate to--doggone you, Chip, why didn't yuh tell us you painted that +other one?” + +“I didn't,” said Chip, getting red and uncomfortable, “except the cow +and--” + +“Yes, except the part that makes the picture worth the paint it's done +with!” snorted the Old Man. “I must say I never thought that uh Dell!” + +“Thought what?” flared Chip, hotly, forgetting everything but that the +Little Doctor was being censured. “It was her picture, she started it +and intended to finish it. I painted on it one day when she was gone, +and she didn't know it. I told her not to tell anyone I had anything to +do with it. It wasn't her fault.” + +“Huh!” grunted the Old Man, as if he had his own opinion on that matter. +“Well, it's a rattling good picture--but this one's better. Poor ole +Diamond Bar--she couldn't come through with it, after all. She put up a +good fight, out there alone, but she had t' go under--her an' her calf.” + He stood quiet a minute, gazing and gazing. “Doggone them measly wolves! +Why in thunder can't a feller pump lead into 'em like he wants t'?” + +Chip's heart glowed within him. His technique was faulty, his colors +daring, perhaps--but his triumph was for that the greater. If men could +FEEL his pictures--and they did! That was the joy of it--they did! + +“Darn them snarlin' brutes, anyway! I thought it was doggone queer if +Dell could dab away all her life at nice, common things that you only +think is purty, an' then blossom out, all of a sudden, with one like +that other was--that yuh felt all up an' down yer back. The little +cheat, she'd no business t' take the glory uh that'n like she done. I'll +give her thunder when she gits back.” + +“You won't do anything of the kind,” said Chip, quietly--too quietly not +to be menacing. “I tell you that was my fault--I gave her all I did to +the picture, and I told her not to say anything. Do you think I don't +know what I owe to her? Do you think I don't know she saved Silver's +life--and maybe mine? Forty pictures wouldn't square me with the Little +Doctor--not if they were a heap better than they are, and she claimed +every darned one. I'm doing this, and I'll thank you not to buy in where +you're not wanted. This picture is for her, too--but I don't want the +thing shouted from the housetops. When you go out, I wish you'd shut the +door.” + +The Old Man, thoroughly subdued, took the hint. He went out, and he shut +the door. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. -- Weary Advises. + + + +“I have a short article here which may interest you, Miss Della,” said +Dunk, coming out on the porch a few days later with a Butte paper in his +hand. The Little Doctor was swinging leisurely in the hammock. + +“It's about the picture,” he added, smiling. + +“The picture? Oh, let me see!” The Little Doctor stopped the hammock +with her toe and sat up. The wind had tumbled her hair about her face +and drawn extra color to her cheeks, and she looked very sweet, Dunk +thought. He held out the paper, pointing a well-kept finger at the place +he wished her to read. There was a rather large headline, for news was +scarce just then and every little thing was made the most of. The eyes +of the Little Doctor clung greedily to the lines. + +“It is reported that 'The Last Stand' has been sold. The painting, which +has been on exhibition in the lobby of the Summit Hotel, has attracted +much attention among art lovers, and many people have viewed it in +the last week. Duncan Gray Whitaker, the well-known mine owner and +cattleman, who brought the picture to Butte, is said to have received an +offer which the artist will probably accept. Mr. Whitaker still declines +to give the artist's name, but whoever he is, he certainly has a +brilliant future before him, and Montana can justly feel proud of him. +It has been rumored that the artist is a woman, but the best critics are +slow to believe this, claiming that the work has been done with a power +and boldness undoubtedly masculine. Those who have seen 'The Last Stand' +will not easily forget it, and the price offered for it is said to be +a large one. Mr. Whitaker will leave the city to-morrow to consult the +unknown artist, and promises, upon his return, to reveal the name of the +modest genius who can so infuse a bit of canvas with palpitating life.” + +“What do you think of that? Isn't the 'modest genius' rather proud of +the hit she has made? I wish you could have seen the old stockmen stand +around it and tell wolf stories to one another by the hour. The women +came and cried over it--they were so sorry for the cow. Really, Miss +Della, she's the most famous cow in Butte, just now. I had plenty of +smaller offers, but I waited till Senator Blake came home; he's a crank +on Western pictures, and he has a long pocketbook and won't haggle over +prices. He took it, just as I expected, but he insists that the artist's +name must be attached to it; and if you take his offer, he may bring the +picture down himself--for he's quite anxious to meet you. I am to wire +your decision at once.” + +The Little Doctor watched a pale green “measuring worm” loop its way +hurriedly along the floor of the porch. She was breathing rather quickly +and unevenly, and she seemed to be thinking very fast. When the worm, +reaching the end, doubled out of sight, she started the hammock swinging +and leaned back upon her cushions. + +“You may tell him to come--I should like very much to see him,” she +said. “And I am very much obliged to you for the service you have +performed.” She became very much interested in a magazine, and seemed to +dismiss Dunk and the picture entirely from her mind. Dunk, after waiting +till he was convinced she had no intention of saying more, went off to +the stables to find a messenger for the telegram, telling himself on the +way that Miss Della Whitmore was a very cool young person, and not as +grateful as he would like her to be. + +The Little Doctor went immediately to find Chip, but that young man, +who had been just inside the window and had heard every word, was not so +easily found. He was down in the bunk house, thinking things. And when +she did find him, near supper time, he was so utterly unapproachable +that her courage and her patience failed together, and she did not +mention the picture at all. + + +“Hello, Doctor!” It was a heartening voice, sounding very sweet to the +ears of the Little Doctor just then. She turned eagerly, her arms still +clasping Silver's neck. She had come down to the corral to feed him +sugar and tell him what a very difficult young man his master was, and +how he held her at arm's length with his manner, and yet was nice and +friendly and sunny enough--like the sun shining on an iceberg. But human +sympathy was within reach of her hand, and it was much more satisfying +than the mute sympathy of a horse. + +“Weary Willy Davidson, you don't know how glad I am to see you! As the +sayin' is: 'Yuh think of angels an' their opposets ain't fur off.' I AM +glad to see you.” + +“Dirt and all?” grinned Weary, for he had ridden far in the heat, and +was dust-grimed and travelworn. He pulled the saddle off Glory, also, +travelworn and sweat-grimed, and gave him an affectionate slap of +dismissal. + +“I'd chance money you wasn't thinking of me,” he said, pointedly. “How +is the old ranch, anyhow? Splinter up, yet?” + +“You must think I'm a feeble excuse for a doctor,” retorted she. “Of +course he's up. He walks all around the house and yard with a cane; I +promoted him from crutches yesterday.” + +“Good shot! That was sure a bad foot he had on him, and I didn't +know--What's he been putting in the time at? Making pictures--or love?” + +“Pictures,” said the Little Doctor, hastily, laying her cheek against +Silver's mane. “I'd like to see him making love!” + +“Yuh would?” said Weary, innocently, disregarding the irony of her tone. +“Well, if yuh ever do, I tell yuh right now you'll see the real thing. +If he makes love like he does other things, there won't any female girl +dodge his loop, that's straight. What about the pictures?” + +“Well, he drew a picture of J. G. sliding down the kitchen steps, before +he was out of bed. And he made a picture of Dunk, that time Banjo bucked +him off--you saw that happen, I suppose--and it was great! Dunk was +standing on his head in front of his horse, but I can't show you it, +because it blew out of the window and landed at Dunk's feet in the path, +and he picked it up and tore it into little bits. And he doesn't play in +Chip's yard any more.” + +“He never did,” grinned Weary. “Dunk's a great hand to go around +shooting off his mouth about things he's no business to buy into, and +old Splinter let him down on his face once or twice. Chip can sure give +a man a hard fall when he wants to, and not use many words, either. What +little he does say generally counts.” + +The Little Doctor's memory squirmed assentingly. “It's the tone he +uses,” she said, reflectively. “The way he can say 'yes,' sometimes--” + +“You've bumped into that, huh? Bert Rogers lit into him with a tent peg +once, for saying yes at him. They sure was busy for a few minutes. I +just sat in the shade of a wagon wheel and laughed till I near cracked a +rib. When they got through they laughed, too, and they played ten +games uh pool together that night, and got--” Weary caught himself up +suddenly. “Pool ain't any gambling game,” he hastened to explain. “It's +just knocking balls into the pockets, innocent like, yuh see.” + +“Mr. Davidson, there's something I'd like to tell you about. Will you +wait a few minutes more for your supper?” + +“Sure,” said Weary; wonderingly, and sat down upon the edge of the +watering trough. + +The Little Doctor, her arms still around Silver's neck, told him all +about “The Last Stand,” and “The Spoils of Victory,” and Chip, and Dunk, +and herself. And Weary listened silently, digging little trenches in +the hard soil with the rowels of his spurs, and, knowing Chip as he did, +understanding the matter much better than did the Little Doctor. + +“And he doesn't seem to know that I never meant to claim the picture as +my work, and I can't explain while he acts so--oh, you know how he +can act. And Dunk wouldn't have sold the picture if he had known Chip +painted it, and it was wrong, of course, but I did so want Chip to have +some real encouragement so he would make that his life work. YOU know +he is fitted for something better than cow-punching. And now the picture +has made a hit and brought a good price, and he must own it. Dunk will +be furious, of course, but that doesn't matter to me--it's Chip that I +can't seem to manage.” + +Weary smiled queerly down at his spurs. + +“It's a cinch you could manage him, easy enough, if you took the right +way to do it,” he said, quietly. + +“Probably the right way would be too much trouble,” said the Little +Doctor, with her chin well up. “Once I get this picture deal settled +satisfactorily, I'm quite willing to resign and let him manage himself. +Senator Blake is coming to-morrow, and I'm so glad you will be here to +help me.” + +“I'd sure like to see yuh through with the deal. Old Blake won't be hard +to throw--I know him, and so does Chip. Didn't he tell yuh about it?” + +“Tell me!” flashed the Little Doctor. “I told him Senator Blake was +coming, and that he wanted to buy the picture, and he just made him +a cigarette and said, 'Ye--e-es?' And after that there wasn't any +conversation of any description!” + +Weary threw back his head and laughed. + +“That sure sounds just like him,” he said, and at that minute Chip +himself hobbled into the corral, and the Little Doctor hastened to leave +it and retreat to the house. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. -- When a Maiden Wills. + + + +It was Dunk who drove to meet the train, next day, and it was an +extremely nervous young woman who met Senator Blake upon the porch. Chip +sprawled in the hammock on the east porch, out of sight. + +The senator was a little man whose coat did not fit, and whose hair was +sandy and sparse, and who had keen, twinkling blue eyes which managed to +see a great deal more than one would suspect from the rest of his face. +He pumped the Little Doctor's hand up and down three times and called +her “My dear young lady.” After the first ten minutes, the Little +Doctor's spirits rose considerably and her heart stopped thumping so she +could hear it. She remembered what Weary had told her--that “Old Blake +won't be hard to throw.” She no longer feared the senator, but +she refused to speculate upon what Chip might do. He seemed more +approachable to-day, but that did not count--probably he was only +reflecting Weary's sunshine, and would freeze solid the minute--“And +so you are the mysterious genius who has set the Butte critics by the +ears!” chuckled the senator. “They say your cloud treatment is all +wrong, and that your coloring is too bold--but directly they forget all +that and wonder which wolf will make the first dash, and how many the +cow will put out of business before she goes under herself. Don't be +offended if I say that you look more capable of portraying woolly white +lambs at play than ravening wolves measuring the strength of their +quarry. I must confess I was looking for the--er MAN behind that brush.” + +“I told the senator coming out that it was a lady he would have to make +terms with. He would hardly believe it,” smiled Dunk. + +“He needn't believe it,” said the Little Doctor, much more calmly +than she felt. “I don't remember ever saying that I painted 'The Last +Stand.'” + +Dunk threw up his head and looked at her sharply. + +“Genius is certainly modest,” he said, with a laugh that was not nice to +hear. + +“In this case, the genius is unusually modest,” assented she, getting +rather white. “Unfortunately for myself, senator, I did not paint the +'ravening wolves' which caught your fancy. It would be utterly beyond my +brush.” + +A glimmering of the truth came to Dunk, and his eyes narrowed. + +“Who did paint it for you? Your friend, Chip?” + +The Little Doctor caught her breath at the venomous accent he employed, +and the Old Man half rose from his chair. But Della could fight her own +battles. She stood up and faced Dunk, tight-lipped and proud. + +“Yes, Mr. Whitaker, my friend, Mr. Bennett, of whose friendship I am +rather proud, painted the best part of 'The Last Stand.'” + +“Senator Blake must forgive my being misled by your previous statement +that the picture was yours,” sneered Dunk. + +“I made no previous statement, Mr. Whitaker.” The Little Doctor's tone +was sweetly freezing. “I said that the picture which I had begun was +finished, and I invited you all to look at it. It was your misfortune +that you took too much for granted.” + +“It's a mistake to take anything for granted where a woman is concerned. +At the same time I shouldn't be blamed if I take it for granted Chip--” + +“Suppose you say the rest to me, Dunk,” suggested Chip from the doorway, +where he leaned heavily upon his cane. “It begins to look as though I +held a hand in this game.” + +Dunk wheeled furiously upon him. + +“You're playing a high hand for a forty-dollar man,” he grated, “and +you've about reached your limit. The stakes are beyond your reach, my +friend.” + +Chip went white with anger at the thrust, which struck deeper than Dunk +knew. But he stood his ground. + +“Ye--es? Wait till the cards are all turned.” It turned him sick, +though, the emptiness of the boast. It was such a pitiful, ghastly +bluff--for the cards were all against him, and he knew it. A man in +Gilroy, Ohio, would take the trick which decided the game. Hearts were +trumps, and Dr. Cecil Granthum had the ace. + +The little senator got out of his chair and faced Chip tactfully. + +“Kid Bennett, you rascal, aren't you going to shake hands?” His own was +outstretched, waiting. + +Chip crowded several hot words off his tongue, and gave up his hand for +a temporary pump handle. + +“How do you do, Blake? I didn't think you'd remember me.” + +“You didn't? How could I help it? I can feel the cold of the water yet, +and your rope settling over my shoulders. You never gave me a chance to +say 'God bless you' for that; you just coiled up your rope--swearing all +the time you did it, because it was wet--and rode off, dripping like a +muskrat. What did you do it for?” + +“I was in a hurry to get back to camp,” grinned Chip, sinking into a +chair. “And you weren't a senator then.” + +“It would have been all the same if I had been, I reckon,” responded +the senator, shaking Chip's hand again. “Well, well! So you are the +genius--that sounds more likely. No offense, Miss Whitmore. Do you +remember that picture you drew with charcoal on a piece of pine board? +It stands on the mantel in my library, and I always point it out to my +friends as the work of a young man with a future. And you painted 'The +Last Stand!' Well, well! I think I'll have to send the price up another +notch, just to get even with you for swearing at me when my lungs were +so full of water I couldn't swear back!” + +While he talked he was busy unwrapping the picture which he had brought +with him, and he reminded the Little Doctor of a loquacious peddler +opening his pack. He was much more genial and unpretentious since Chip +entered the room, and she wondered why. She wanted to ask about that +reference to the water, but he stood the painting against the wall, just +then, and she forgot everything but that. + +Chip's eyes clung to the scene greedily. After all, it was his--and he +knew in his heart that it was good. After a minute he limped into his +room and brought “The Spoils of Victory,” and stood it beside “The Last +Stand.” + +“A--h-h!” The senator breathed the word deep in his throat and fell +silent. Even the Old Man leaned forward in his chair that he might see +the better. The Little Doctor could not see anything, just then, but no +one noticed anything wrong with her eyes, for they were all down in the +Bad Lands, watching an old range cow defend her calf. + +“Bennett, do the two go together?” asked the senator, at last. + +“I don't know--I painted it for Miss Whitmore,” said Chip, a dull glow +in his cheeks. + +The Little Doctor glanced at him quickly, rather startled, if the truth +be known. + +“Oh, that was just a joke, Mr. Bennett. I would much rather have you +paint me another one--this one makes me want to cry--and a doctor must +forego the luxury of tears. I have no claim upon either of them, Mr. +Blake. It was like this. I started 'The Last Stand,' but I only had the +background painted, and one day while I was gone Mr. Bennett finished it +up--and it is his work that makes the picture worth anything. I let +it pass as mine, for the time, but I never intended to wear the laurel +crown, really. I only borrowed it for a little while. I hope you can +make Mr. Bennett behave himself and put his brand on it, for if he +doesn't it will go down to posterity unsigned. This other--'The Spoils +of Victory'--he cannot attempt to disown, for I was away at Great Falls +when he painted it, and he was here alone, so far as help of any kind is +concerned. Now do make him be sensible!” + +The senator looked at Chip, then at the Little Doctor, chuckled and sat +down on the couch. + +“Well, well! Kid Bennett hasn't changed, I see. He's just as ornery as +he ever was. And you're the mysterious, modest genius! How did you come +out after that dip into the old Missouri?” he asked, abruptly. “You +didn't take cold, riding in those wet clothes, I hope?” + +“I? No, I was all right. I stopped at that sheep camp and borrowed some +dry clothes.” Chip was very uncomfortable. He wished Blake wouldn't keep +bringing up that affair, which was four years old and quite trivial, in +his opinion. It was a good thing Dunk pulled out when he saw he'd got +the worst of it, or there'd have been trouble, most likely. And Blake-- +The senator went on, addressing the others. + +“Do you know what this young fellow did, four years ago this last +spring? I tried to cross the river near my place in a little boat, while +the water was high. Bennett, here, came along and swore that a man with +no more sense than I had ought to drown--which was very true, I admit. +I had just got out a nice little distance for drowning properly, when a +tree came bobbing along and upset my boat, and Kid Bennett, as we called +him then, rode in as far as he could--which was a great deal further +than was safe for him--and roped me, just as he would have roped a +yearling. Ha! ha! I can see him yet, scowling at me and whirling the +loop over his head ready to throw. A picture of THAT, now! When he had +dragged me to the bank he used some rather strong language--a cowboy +does hate to wet his rope--and rode off before I had a chance to thank +him. This is the first time I've seen him since then.” + +Chip got very red. + +“I was young and foolish, those days, and you weren't a senator,” he +repeated, apologetically. + +“My being a senator wouldn't have mattered at all. They've been changing +your name, over this side the river, I see. How did that happen?” + +Again Chip was uncomfortable. + +“We've got a cook that is out of sight when it comes to Saratoga chips, +and I'm a fiend for them, you see. The boys got to calling me Saratoga +Chip, and then they cut it down to Chip and stuck to it.” + +“I see. There was a fellow with you over there--Davidson. What has +become of him?” + +“Weary? He works here, too. He's down in the bunk house now, I guess.” + +“Well, well! Let's go and hunt him up--and we can settle about the +pictures at the same time. You seem to be crippled. How did that happen? +Some dare-devil performance, I expect.” + +The senator smiled reassuringly at the Little Doctor and got Chip out of +the house and down in the bunk house with Weary, and whatever means he +used to make Chip “behave himself,” they certainly were a success. For +when he left, the next day, he left behind him a check of generous size, +and Chip was not so aloof as he had been with the Little Doctor, and +planned with her at least a dozen pictures which he meant to paint some +time. + +There was one which he did paint at once, however--though no one saw it +but Della. It was the picture of a slim young woman with gray eyes and +an old felt hat on her head, standing with her fingers tangled in the +mane of a chestnut horse. + +If there was a heartache in the work, if the brush touched the slim +figure caressingly and lingered wistfully upon the face, no one knew but +Chip, and Chip had learned long ago to keep his own counsel. There were +some thoughts which he could not whisper into even Silver's ear. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. -- Dr. Cecil Granthum. + + + +The Little Doctor leaned from the window and called down the hill to her +recovered patient--more properly, her nearly recovered patient; for Chip +still walked with the aid of a cane, though by making use of only one +stirrup he could ride very well. He limped up the hill to her, and sat +down on the top step of the porch. + +“What's the excitement now?” he asked, banteringly. + +“I've got the best, the most SPLENDID news--you couldn't guess what in a +thousand years!” + +“Then I won't try. It's too hot.” Chip took off his hat and fanned +himself with it. + +“Well, can't you LOOK a little bit excited? Try and look the way I feel! +Anybody as cool as you are shouldn't suffer with the heat.” + +“I don't know--I get pretty hot, sometimes. Well, what is the most +splendid news? Can't you tell a fellow, after calling him up here in the +hot sun?” + +“Well, listen. The Gilroy hospital--you know, where Cecil is”--Chip +knew--“has a case of blighted love and shattered hopes”--Chip's foolish, +man-heart nearly turned a somersault. Was it possible?--“and it's the +luckiest thing ever happened.” + +“Yes?” Chip wished to goodness she would get to the point. She could be +direct enough in her statements when what she said was going to hurt a +fellow. His heart was thumping so it hurt him. + +“Yes. A doctor there was planning to get married and go away on his +honeymoon, you know--” + +Chip nodded, half suffocated with crowding, incredulous hopes. + +“Well, and now he isn't. His ladylove was faithless and loves another, +and his honeymoon is indefinitely postponed. Do you see now where the +good news comes in?” + +Chip shook his head once and looked away up the grade. Funny, but +something had gone wrong with his throat. He was half choked. + +“Well, you ARE dull! Now that fellow isn't going to have any vacation, +so Cecil can come out, right away! Next week! Think of it!” + +Chip tried to think of it, but he couldn't think of anything, just then. +He was only conscious of wishing Whizzer had made a finish of the job, +up there on the Hog's Back that day. His heart no longer thumped--it was +throbbing in a tired, listless fashion. + +“Why can't you look a little bit pleased?” smiled the torturer from the +window. “You sit there like a--an Indian before a cigar store. You've +just about the same expression.” + +“I can't help it. I never was fierce to meet strangers, somehow.” + +“Judging from my own experience, I think you are uncommonly fierce at +meeting strangers. I haven't forgotten how unmercifully you snubbed me +when I came to the ranch, or how you risked my neck on the grade, up +there, trying to make me scared enough to scream. I didn't, though! I +wanted to, I'll admit, when you made the horses run down the steepest +part--but I didn't, and so I could easily forgive you.” + +“Could you?” said Chip, in a colorless tone. + +“If you had gained your object, I couldn't have,” remarked she. + +“I did, though.” + +“You did? Didn't you do it just to frighten me?” + +Chip gave her a glance of weary tolerance. “You must think I've about +as much sense as a jack rabbit; I was taking long chances to run that +hill.” + +“Well, for pity's sake, what did you do it for?” + +“It was the only thing to do. How do you think we'd have come out of the +mix-up if we had met Banjo on the Hog's Back, where there isn't room to +pass? Don't you think we'd have been pretty well smashed up, both of us, +by the time we got to the bottom of that gully, there? A runaway horse +is a nasty thing to meet, let me tell you--especially when it's as +scared as Banjo was. They won't turn out; they just go straight ahead, +and let the other fellow get out of the way if he can.” + +“I--I thought you did it just for a joke,” said the Little Doctor, +weakly. “I told Cecil you did it to frighten me, and Cecil said--” + +“I don't think you need to tell me what Cecil said,” Chip remarked, with +the quiet tone that made one very uncomfortable. + +“It wasn't anything so dreadful, you know--” + +“I don't want to know. When is he coming, did you say?” + +“Next Wednesday--and this is Friday. I know you'll like Cecil.” + +Chip made him a cigarette, but he hadn't heart enough to light it. He +held it absently in his fingers. + +“Everybody likes Cecil.” + +“Yes?” Secretly, Chip had his doubts. He knew one that didn't--and +wouldn't. + +“We'll have all kinds of fun, and go everywhere and do everything. +As soon as the round-up is over, I think I'll make J. G. give another +dance, but I'll take care that the drug store is safely locked away. +And some day we'll take a lunch and go prowling around down in the Bad +Lands--you'll have to go, so we won't get lost--and we'll have Len Adams +and Rena and the schoolma'am over here often, and--oh, my brain +just buzzes with plans. I'm so anxious for Cecil to see the Countess +and--well, everybody around here. You, too.” + +“I'm sure a curiosity,” said Chip, getting on his feet again. “I've +always had the name of being something of a freak--I don't wonder you +want to exhibit me to your--friends.” He went down the hill to the bunk +house, holding the unlighted cigarette still in his fingers. + +When Slim opened the door to tell him supper was ready, he found Chip +lying on his bed, his face buried in his arms. + +If Chip never had understood before how a man can stand up straight on +the gallows, throw back his shoulders and smile at his executioner, he +learned the secret during that twenty-two mile drive to Dry Lake with +the Little Doctor. He would have shirked the ordeal gladly, and laid +awake o' nights planning subterfuges that would relieve him, but +the Little Doctor seemed almost malignantly innocent and managed to +checkmate every turn. She could not trust anyone else to manage the +creams; she was afraid Slim might get drunk while they waited for the +train, or forget his duties in a game. She hated J. G.'s way of fussing +over trifles, and wouldn't have him along. Chip was not able to help +much with the ranch work, and she knew he could manage the horses so +much better than anyone else--and Cecil had been in a runaway once, and +so was dreadfully nervous behind a strange team--which last declaration +set Chip's lips a-curl. + +The woman usually does have her own way in the end, and so Chip marched +to the gallows with his chin well up, smiling at his executioner. + +The train was late. The Little Doctor waited in the hotel parlor, and +Chip waited in the hotel saloon, longing to turn a deluge of whisky +down his throat to deaden that unbearable, heavy ache in his heart--but +instead he played pool with Bert Rogers, who happened to be in town that +day, and took cigars after each game instead of whiskey, varying the +monotony occasionally by lemon soda, till he was fairly sick. + +Then the station agent telephoned up that the train was coming, and Chip +threw down his billiard cue, swallowed another glass of lemon soda and +gagged over it, sent Bert Rogers to tell the Little Doctor the train was +coming, and went after the team. + +He let the creams lope in the harness all the way to the depot, excusing +himself on the plea that the time was short; the fact was, Chip wanted +the agony over as soon as possible; nothing so wears a man's patients +as to have a disagreeable duty drag. At the depot he drove around to the +back where freight was unloaded, with the explanation that the creams +were afraid of the train--and the fact of that matter was, that Chip was +afraid Dr. Cecil might greet the Little Doctor with a kiss--he'd be a +fool if he didn't--and Chip did not want to witness the salute. + +Sitting with his well foot in the brake, he pictured the scene on the +other side of the building when the train pulled in and stopped. He +could not hear much, on account of the noise the engine made pumping +air, but he could guess about what was taking place. Now, the fellow +was on the platform, probably, and he had a suit case in one hand and a +light tan overcoat over the other arm, and now he was advancing +toward the Little Doctor, who would have grown shy and remained by the +waiting-room door. Now he had changed his suit case to the other hand, +and was bending down over--oh, hell! He'd settle up with the Old Man and +pull out, back across the river. Old Blake would give him work on his +ranch over there, that was a cinch. And the Little Doctor could have her +Cecil and be hanged to him. He would go to-morrow--er--no, he'd have to +wait till Silver was able to make the trip, for he wouldn't leave him +behind. No, he couldn't go just yet--he'd have to stay with the deal +another month. He wouldn't stay a day longer than he had to, thought you +could gamble on that. + +There--the train was sliding out--say, what if the fellow hadn't come, +though? Such a possibility had not before occurred to Chip--wouldn't +the Little Doctor be fighty, though? Serve her right, the little +flirt--er--no, he couldn't think anything against the Little Doctor, no +matter what she did. No, he'd sure hate to see her disappointed--still, +if the fellow HADN'T come, Chip wouldn't be to blame for that, and Dr. +Cecil--“Can't you drive around to the platform now, to load in the +trunk?” + +“Sure,” said Chip, with deceitful cheerfulness, and took his foot off +the brake, while the Little Doctor went back to her Cecil. + +The agent had the trunk on the baggage truck and trundled it along +the platform, and Chip's eyes searched for his enemy. They were in the +waiting room; he could hear that laugh of the Little Doctor's--Lord, how +he hated to hear it--directed at some other fellow, that is. Yes, there +was the suit case--it looked just as he had expected it would--and there +was a glimpse of tan cloth just inside the door. Chip turned to help the +agent push the suit case under the seat, where it was an exceeding tight +fit getting it there, with the trunk taking up so much room. + +When he straightened up the Little Doctor stood ready to get into the +buggy, and behind her stood Dr. Cecil Granthum, smiling in a way that +disclosed some very nice teeth. + +“Cecil, this is Mr. Bennett--the 'Chip' that I have mentioned as being +at the ranch. Chip, allow me to present Dr. Cecil Granthum.” + +Dr. Cecil advanced with hand out invitingly. “I've heard so much about +Chip that I feel very well acquainted. I hope you won't expect me to +call you Mr. Bennett, for I shan't, you know.” + +Too utterly at sea to make reply, Chip took the offered hand in his. +Hate Dr. Cecil? How could he hate this big, breezy, blue-eyed young +woman? She shook his hand heartily and smiled deep into his troubled +eyes, and drew the poison from his wounds in that one glance. + +The Little Doctor plumped into the seat and made room for Cecil, like +the spoiled little girl that she was, compared with the other. + +“I'm going to sit in the middle. Cecil, you're the biggest and you can +easily hang on--and, beside, this young man is so fierce with strangers +that he'd snub you something awful if we'd give him a chance. He's been +scheming, ever since I told him you were coming, to get out of driving +in to meet you. He tried to make me take Slim. Slim!” + +Dr. Cecil smiled at Chip behind the Little Doctor's back, and Chip +could have hugged her then and there, for he knew, somehow, that she +understood and was his friend. + +I should like very much to say that it seemed to Chip that the sun shone +brighter, and that the grass was greener, and the sky several shades +bluer, on that homeward drive--but I must record the facts, which are +these: + +Chip did not know whether the sun shone or the moon, and he didn't +care--just so there was light to see the hair blowing about the Little +Doctor's face, and to watch the dimple come and go in the cheek next +him. And whether the grass was green and the sky blue, or whether the +reverse was the case, he didn't know; and if you had asked him, he might +have said tersely that he didn't care a darn about the grass--that is, +if he gave you sufficient attention to reply at all. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. -- Love Finds Its Hour. + + + +“Bay Denver's broke out uh the little pasture,” announced the Old Man, +putting his head in at the door of the blacksmith shop where Chip was +hammering gayly upon a bent branding iron, for want of a better way to +kill time and give vent to his surplus energy. “I wish you'd saddle +up an' go after him, Chip, if yuh can. I just seen him takin' down the +coulee trail like a scared coyote.” + +“Sure, I'll go. Darn that old villain, he'd jump a fence forty feet high +if he took a notion that way.” Chip threw down the hammer and reached +for his coat. + +“I guess the fence must be down som'ers. I'll go take a look. Say! Dell +ain't come back from Denson's yit. Yuh want t' watch out Denver don't +meet her--he'd scare the liver out uh her.” + +Chip was well aware that the Little Doctor had not returned from +Denson's, where she had been summoned to attend one of the children, who +had run a rusty nail into her foot. She had gone alone, for Dr. Cecil +was learning to make bread, and had refused to budge from the kitchen +till her first batch was safely baked. + +Chip limped hurriedly to the corral, and two minutes later was +clattering down the coulee upon Blazes, after the runaway. + +Denver was a beautiful bay stallion, the pride and terror of the +ranch. He was noted for his speed and his vindictive hatred of the more +plebeian horses, scarcely one of which but had, at some time, felt his +teeth in their flesh--and he was hated and feared by them all. + +He stopped at the place where the trail forked, tossed his crinkly mane +triumphantly and looked back. Freedom was sweet to him--sweet as it +was rare. His world was a roomy box stall with a small, high corral +adjoining it for exercise, with an occasional day in the little pasture +as a great treat. Two miles was a long, long way from home, it seemed to +him. He watched the hill behind a moment, threw up his head and trotted +off up the trail to Denson's. + +Chip, galloping madly, caught a glimpse of the fugitive a mile away, set +his teeth together, and swung Blazes sharply off the trail into a bypath +which intersected the road further on. He hoped the Little Doctor was +safe at Denson's, but at that very moment he saw her ride slowly over a +distant ridge. + +Now there was a race; Denver, cantering gleefully down the trail, Chip +spurring desperately across the prairie. + +The Little Doctor had disappeared into a hollow with Concho pacing +slowly, half asleep, the reins drooping low on his neck. The Little +Doctor loved to dream along the road, and Concho had learned to do +likewise--and to enjoy it very much. + +At the crest of the next hill she looked up, saw herself the apex of a +rapidly shortening triangle, and grasped instantly the situation; she +had peeped admiringly and fearsomely between the stout rails of the +little, round corral too often not to know Denver when she saw him, and +in a panic turned from the trail toward Chip. Concho was rudely +awakened by a stinging blow from her whip--a blow which filled him +with astonishment and reproach. He laid back his ears and galloped +angrily--not in the path--the Little Doctor was too frightened for +that--but straight as a hawk would fly. Denver, marking Concho for his +prey and not to be easily cheated, turned and followed. + +Chip swore inwardly and kept straight ahead, leaving the path himself +to do so. He knew a deep washout lay now between himself and the Little +Doctor, and his only hope was to get within speaking distance before she +was overtaken. + +Concho fled to the very brink of the washout and stopped so suddenly +that his forefeet plowed a furrow in the grass, and the Little Doctor +came near going clean over his head. She recovered her balance, and cast +a frightened glance over her shoulder; Denver was rushing down upon them +like an express train. + +“Get off--your--H-O-R-S-E!” shouted Chip, making a trumpet of his hands. +“Fight Denver off--with--your whip!” + +The last command the Little Doctor did not hear distinctly. The first +she made haste to obey. Throwing herself from the saddle, she slid +precipitately into the washout just as Denver thundered up, snorting a +challenge. Concho, scared out of his wits, turned and tore off down the +washout, whipped around the end of it and made for home, his enemy at +his heels and Chip after the two of them, leaning low over his horse +as Blazes, catching the excitement and urged by the spurs, ran like an +antelope. + +The Little Doctor, climbing the steep bank to level ground, gazed after +the fleeing group with consternation. Here was she a long four miles +from home--five, if she followed the windings of the trail--and it +looked very much as if her two feet must take her there. The prospect +was not an enlivening one, but she started off across the prairie very +philosophically at first, very dejectedly later on, and very angrily at +last. The sun was scorching, and it was dinner time, and she was hungry, +and hot, and tired, and--“mad.” She did not bless her rescuer; she +heaped maledictions upon his head--mild ones at first, but growing +perceptibly more forcible and less genteel as the way grew rougher, and +her feet grew wearier, and her stomach emptier. Then, as if her troubles +were all to come in a lump--as they have a way of doing--she stepped +squarely into a bunch of “pincushion” cactus. + +“I just HATE Montana!” she burst out, vehemently, blinking back some +tears. “I don't care if Cecil did just come day before yesterday--I +shall pack up and go back home. She can stay if she wants to, but I +won't live here another day. I hate Chip Bennett, too, and I'll tell him +so if I ever get home. I don't see what J. G.'s thinking of, to live in +such a God-forgotten hole, where there's nothing but miles upon miles +of cactuses--” The downfall of Eastern up-bringing! To deliberately say +“cactuses”--but the provocation was great, I admit. If any man doubts, +let him tread thin-shod upon a healthy little “pincushion” and be +convinced. I think he will confess that “cactuses” is an exceedingly +conservative epithet, and all too mild for the occasion. + +Half an hour later, Chip, leading Concho by the bridle rein, rode over +the brow of a hill and came suddenly upon the Little Doctor, sitting +disconsolately upon a rock. She had one shoe off, and was striving +petulantly to extract a cactus thorn from the leather with a hat pin. +Chip rode close and stopped, regarding her with satisfaction from the +saddle. It was the first time he had succeeded in finding the Little +Doctor alone since the arrival of Dr. Cecil Granthum--God bless her! + +“Hello! What you trying to do?” + +No answer. The Little Doctor refused even to lift her lashes, which +were wet and clung together in little groups of two or three. Chip also +observed that there were suggestive streaks upon her cheeks--and not a +sign of a dimple anywhere. He lifted one leg over the horn of the saddle +to ease his ankle, which still pained him a little after a ride, and +watched her a moment. + +“What's the matter, Doctor? Step on a cactus?” + +“Oh, no,” snapped the Doctor in a tone to take one's head off, “I didn't +step on a cactus--I just walked all over acres and acres of them!” + +There was a suspicious gurgle from somewhere. The Little Doctor looked +up. + +“Don't hesitate to laugh, Mr. Bennett, if you happen to feel that way!” + +Mr. Bennett evidently felt that way. He rocked in the saddle, and +shouted with laughter. The Little Doctor stood this for as much as a +minute. + +“Oh, no doubt it's very funny to set me afoot away off from +everywhere--” Her voice quivered and broke from self-pity; her head bent +lower over her shoe. + +Chip made haste to stifle his mirth, in fear that she was going to cry. +He couldn't have endured that. He reached for his tobacco and began to +make a cigarette. + +“I didn't set you afoot,” he said. “That was a bad break you made +yourself. Why didn't you do as I told you--hang to the bridle and fight +Denver off with your whip? You had one.” + +“Yes--and let him gnaw me!” + +Chip gurgled again, and drew the tobacco sack shut with his teeth. “He +wouldn't 'gnaw' you--he wouldn't have come near you. He's whip trained. +And I'd have been there myself in another minute.” + +“I didn't want you there! And I don't pretend to be a horse-trainer, Mr. +Bennett. There's several things about your old ranch life that I don't +know--and don't want to know! I'm going back to Ohio to-morrow, so +there!” + +“Yes?” He drew a match sharply along his stamped saddle-skirt and +applied it to the cigarette, pinched out the blaze with extreme care, +and tossed the match-end facetiously against Concho's nose. He did not +seem particularly alarmed at her threat--or, perhaps, he did not care. +The Little Doctor prodded savagely at her shoe, too angry to see the +thorn, and Chip drove another nail into his coffin with apparent relish, +and watched her. After a little, he slid to the ground and limped over +to her. + +“Here, give me that shoe; you'll have it all picked to pieces and not +get the thorn, either. Where is it?” + +“IT?” sniffed the Little Doctor, surrendering the shoe with hypocritical +reluctance. “It? There's a dozen, at the very least!” + +Chip emptied his lungs of smoke, and turned the shoe in his hands. + +“Oh, I guess not--there isn't room in this little bit of leather for a +dozen. Two would be crowded.” + +“I detest flattery above all things!” But, being a woman, the brow of +the Little Doctor cleared perceptibly. + +“Yes? You're just like me in that respect. I love the truth.” + +Thinking of Dr. Cecil, the Little Doctor grew guiltily red. But she had +never said Cecil was a man, she reflected, with what comfort she could. +The boys, like Dunk, had simply made the mistake of taking too much for +granted. + +Chip opened the smallest blade of his knife deliberately, sat down upon +a neighboring rock and finished his cigarette, still turning the shoe +reflectively--and caressingly--in his hand. + +“I'd smile to see the Countess try to put that shoe on,” he remarked, +holding the cigarette in some mysterious manner on his lip. “I'll bet +she couldn't get one toe in it.” + +“I don't see that it matters, whether she could or not,” snapped the +Little Doctor. “For goodness sake, hurry!” + +“You're pretty mad, aren't you?” inquired he, shoving his hat back off +his forehead, and looking at her as though he enjoyed doing so. + +“Do I look mad?” asked she, tartly. + +“I'd tell a man you do!” + +“Well--my appearance doesn't half express the state of my mind!” + +“Your mind must be in an awful state.” + +“It is.” + +Two minutes passed silently. + +“Dr. Cecil's bread is done--she gave me a slice as big as your hat, with +butter and jelly on it. It was out of sight.” + +The Little Doctor groaned, and rallied. + +“Butter and jelly on my hat, did you say?” + +“Not on your hat--on the bread. I ate it coming back down the +coulee--and I sure had my hands full, leading Concho, too.” + +The Little Doctor held back the question trembling on her hungry, +parched lips as long as she could, but it would come. + +“Was it good?” + +“I'd tell a man!” said Chip, briefly and eloquently. + +The Little Doctor sighed. + +“Dr. Cecil Granthum's a mighty good fellow--I'm stuck on him, +myself--and if I haven't got the symptoms sized up wrong, the Old Man's +GOING to be.” + +“That's all the good it will do him. Cecil and I are going somewhere +and practice medicine together--and we aren't either of us going to get +married, ever!” + +“Have you got the papers for that?” grinned Chip, utterly unmoved. + +“I have my license,” said the Little Doctor, coldly. + +“You're ahead of me there, for I haven't--yet. I can soon get one, +though.” + +“I wish to goodness you'd hurry up with that shoe! I'm half starved.” + +“Well, show me a dimple and you can have it. My, you are cranky!” + +The Little Doctor showed him two, and Chip laid the shoe in her +lap--after he had surprised himself, and the doctor, by planting a +daring little kiss upon the toe. + +“The idea!” exclaimed she, with a feeble show of indignation, and +slipped her foot hurriedly into its orthodox covering. Feeling his +inscrutable, hazel eyes upon her, she blushed uncomfortably and fumbled +the laces. + +“You better let me lace that shoe--you won't have it done in a thousand +years, at that gait.” + +“If you're in a hurry,” said she, without looking at him, “you can ride +on ahead. It would please me better if you did.” + +“Yes? You've been pleased all summer--at my expense. I'm going to please +myself, this time. It's my deal, Little Doctor. Do you want to know +what's trumps?” + +“No, I don't!” Still without looking at him, she tied her shoelaces with +an impatient twitch that came near breaking them, and walked haughtily +to where Concho stood dutifully waiting. With an impulsive movement, she +threw her arms around his neck, and hid her hot face against his scanty +mane. + +A pair of arms clad in pink-and-white striped sleeves went suddenly +about her. Her clasp on Concho loosened and she threw back her head, +startled--to be still more startled at the touch of lips that were +curved and thin and masterful. The arms whirled her about and held her +against a heart which her trained senses knew at once was beating very +irregularly. + +“You--you ought to be ashamed!” she asserted feebly, at last. + +“I'm not, though.” The arms tightened their clasp a little. + +“You--you don't SEEM to be,” admitted the Little Doctor, meekly. + +For answer he kissed her hungrily--not once, but many times. + +“Aren't you going to let me go?” she demanded, afterward, but very +faintly. + +“No,” said he, boldly. “I'm going to keep you--always.” There was +conviction in the tone. + +She stood silent a minute, listening to his heart and her own, and +digesting this bit of news. + +“Are you--quite sure about--that?” she asked at length. + +“I'd tell a man! Unless”--he held her off and looked at her--“you don't +like me. But you do, don't you?” His eyes were searching her face. + +The Little Doctor struggled to release herself from the arms which held +her unyieldingly and tenderly. Failing this, she raised her eyes to the +white silk handkerchief knotted around his throat; to the chin; to the +lips, wistful with their well defined curve; to the eyes, where they +lingered shyly a moment, and then looked away to the horizon. + +“Don't you like me? Say!” He gave her a gentle shake. + +“Ye--er-it doesn't seem to matter, whether I do or not,” she retorted +with growing spirit--witness the dimple dodging into her cheek. + +“Yes, it does--it matters a whole heap. You've dealt me misery ever +since I first set eyes on you--and I believe, on my soul, you liked to +watch me squirm! But you do like me, don't you?” + +“I--I'd tell a man!” said she, and immediately hid a very red face from +sight of him. + +Concho turned his head and gazed wonderingly upon the two. What amazed +him was to see Chip kissing his mistress again and again, and to hear +the idolatrous tone in which he was saying “MY Little Doctor!” + +THE END. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Chip, of the Flying U, by B. M. Bower + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHIP, OF THE FLYING U *** + +***** This file should be named 9267-0.txt or 9267-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/2/6/9267/ + +Produced by Matthew H. Heller + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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