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.