"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 pa.s.s? 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 gla.s.s 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, h.e.l.l! 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s--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 gra.s.s, 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!"