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 gla.s.s 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!" "Cha.s.se 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 wra.s.sled 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 gla.s.s 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 n.o.body 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.