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 G.o.d-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--G.o.d bless her!

"h.e.l.lo! 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 pa.s.sed silently.

"Dr. Cecil's bread is done--she gave me a slice as big as your hat, with b.u.t.ter and jelly on it. It was out of sight."

The Little Doctor groaned, and rallied.

"b.u.t.ter 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.