"Oh, J. G.!"

"Ain't you gone yet? What d'yuh want?"

"Silver broke his leg."

"Huh. I knew that long ago. Chip's gone to shoot him. You go on to the house, doggone it! You'll have every cow in the corral on the fight.

That red waist of yours--"

"It isn't red, it's pink--a beautiful rose pink. If your cows don't like it, they'll have to be educated up to it. Chip isn't either going to shoot that horse, J. G. I'm going to set his leg and cure him--and I'm going to keep him in one of your box stalls. There, now!"

Cal Emmett took a sudden fit of coughing and leaned his forehead weakly against a rail, and Weary got into some unnecessary argument with his horse and bolted across to the gate, where his shoulders were seen to shake--possibly with a nervous chill; the bravest riders are sometimes so affected. n.o.body laughed, however. Indeed, Slim seemed unusually serious, even for him, while Happy Jack looked positively in pain.

"I want that short, fat man to help" (Slim squirmed at this blunt identification of himself) "and Mr. Weary, also." Miss Whitmore might have spoken with a greater effect of dignity had she not been clinging to the top of the fence with two dainty slipper toes thrust between the rails not so very far below. Under the circ.u.mstances, she looked like a pretty, spoiled little schoolgirl.

"Oh. You've turned horse doctor, have yuh?" J. G. leaned suddenly upon his branding iron and laughed. "Doggone it, that ain't a bad idea. I've got two box stalls, and there's an old gray horse in the pasture--the same old gray horse that come out uh the wilderness--with a bad case uh string-halt. I'll have some uh the boys ketch him up and you can start a horsepital!"

"Is that supposed to be a joke, J. G.? I never can tell YOUR jokes by ear. If it is, I'll laugh. I'm going to use whatever I need and you can do without Mr.--er--those two men."

"Oh, go ahead. The horse don't belong to ME, so I'm willing you should practice on him a while. Say! Dell! Give him that truck you've been pouring down me for the last week. Maybe he'll relish the taste of the doggone stuff--I don't."

"I suppose you've labeled THAT a 'Joke--please laugh here,'" sighed Miss Whitmore, plaintively, climbing gingerly down.

CHAPTER IV. -- An Ideal Picture.

"I guess I'll go down to Denson's to-day," said J. G. at the breakfast table one morning. "Maybe we can get that gra.s.s widow to come and keep house for us."

"I don't want any old gra.s.s widow to keep house," protested Della. "I'm getting along well enough, so long as Patsy bakes the bread, and meat, and cake, and stuff. It's just fun to keep house. The only trouble is, there isn't half enough to keep me busy. I'm going to get a license to practice medicine, so if there's any sickness around I can be of some use. You say it's fifty miles to the nearest doctor. But that needn't make a gra.s.s widow necessary. I can keep house--it looks better than when I came, and you know it." Which remark would have hurt the feelings of several well-meaning cow-punchers, had they overheard it.

"Oh, I ain't finding fault with your housekeeping--you do pretty well for a green hand. But Patsy'll have to go with the round-up when it starts, and what men I keep on the ranch will have to eat with us.

That's the way I've been used to fixing things; I was never so good I couldn't eat at the same table with my men; if they wasn't fit for my company I fired 'em and got fellows that was. I've had this bunch a good long while, now. You can do all right with just me, but you couldn't cook for two or three men; you can't cook good enough, even if it wasn't too much work." J. G. had a blunt way of stating disagreeable facts, occasionally.

"Very well, get your gra.s.s widow by all means," retorted she with much wasted dignity.

"She's a swell cook, and a fine housekeeper, and sh.e.l.l keep yuh from getting lonesome. She's good company, the Countess is." He grinned when he said it "I'll have Chip ketch up the creams, and you get ready and go along with us. It'll give you a chance to size up the kind uh neighbors yuh got."

There was real pleasure in driving swiftly over the prairie land, through the sweet, spring sunshine, and Miss Whitmore tingled with enthusiasm till they drove headlong into a deep coulee which sheltered the Denson family.

"This road is positively dangerous!" she exclaimed when they reached a particularly steep place and Chip threw all his weight upon the brake.

"We'll get the Countess in beside yuh, coming back, and then yuh won't rattle around in the seat so much. She's good and solid--just hang onto her and you'll be all right," said J. G.

"If I don't like her looks--and I know I won't--I'll get into the front seat and you can hang onto her yourself, Mr. J. G. Whitmore."

Chip, who had been silent till now, glanced briefly over his shoulder.

"It's a cinch you'll take the front seat," he remarked, laconically.

"J. G., if you hire a woman like that--"

"Like what? Doggone it, it takes a woman to jump at conclusions! The Countess is all right. She talks some--"

"I'd tell a man she does!" broke in Chip, tersely.

"Well, show me the woman that don't! Don't you be bluffed so easy, Dell.

I never seen the woman yet that Chip had any time for. The Countess is all right, and she certainly can cook! I admit she talks consider'ble--"

Chip laughed grimly, and the Old Man subsided.

At the house a small, ginger-whiskered man came down to the gate to greet them.

"Why, how--de-do! I couldn't make out who 't was comin', but Mary, she up an' rek'nized the horses. Git right out an' come on in! We've had our dinner, but I guess the wimmin folks can scare ye up a bite uh suthin'.

This yer sister? We heard she was up t' your place. She the one that set one uh your horse's leg? Bill, he was tellin' about it. I dunno as wimmin horse doctors is very common, but I dunno why not. I get a horse with somethin' the matter of his foot, and I dunno what. I'd like t'

have ye take a look at it, fore ye go. 'Course, I expect t' pay ye."

The Old Man winked appreciatively at Chip before he came humanely to the rescue and explained that his sister was not a horse doctor, and Mr.

Denson, looking very disappointed, reiterated his invitation to enter.

Mrs. Denson, a large woman who narrowly escaped being ginger-whiskered like her husband, beamed upon them from the doorway.

"Come right on in! Louise, here's comp'ny! The house is all tore up--we been tryin' t' clean house a little. Lay off yer things an' I'll git yuh some dinner right away. I'm awful glad yuh come over--I do hate t' see folks stand on cer'mony out here where neighbors is so skurce. I guess yuh think we ain't been very neighborly, but we been tryin' t' clean house, an' me an' Louise ain't had a minute we could dast call our own, er we'd a been over t' seen yuh before now. Yuh must git awful lonesome, comin' right out from the East where neighbors is thick. Do lay off yer things!"

Della looked appealingly at J. G., who again came to the rescue. Somehow he made himself heard long enough to explain their errand, and to emphasize the fact that they were in a great hurry, and had eaten dinner before they started from home. In his sister's opinion he made one exceedingly rash statement. He said that he wished to hire Mrs. Denson's sister for the summer. Mrs. Denson immediately sent a shrill call for Louise.

Then appeared the Countess, tall, gaunt and muscular, with sallow skin and a nervous manner.

"The front seat or walk!" declared Miss Whitmore, mentally, after a brief scrutiny and began storing up a scathing rebuke for J. G.

"Louise, this is Miss Whitmore," began Mrs. Denson, cheerfully, fortified by a fresh lungful of air. "They're after yuh t' go an'

keep house for 'em, an' I guess yuh better go, seein' we got the house cleaned all but whitewashin' the cellar an' milk room an' kals'minin'

the upstairs, an' I'll make Bill do that, an' 't won't hurt him a mite.

They'll give yuh twenty-five dollars a month an' keep yuh all summer, an' as much longer as his sister stays. I guess yuh might as well go, fer they can't git anybody else that'll keep things up in shape an' be comp'ny fer his sister, an' I b'lieve in helpin' a neighbor out when yuh can. You go right an' pack up yer trunk, an' don't worry about me--I'll git along somehow, now the house-cleanin's most done."

Louise had been talking also, but her sister seemed to have a stronger pair of lungs, for her voice drowned that of the Countess, who retreated to "pack up."

The minutes dragged by, to the tune of several chapters of family history as voluminously interpreted by Mrs. Denson. Miss Whitmore had always boasted the best-behaved of nerves, but this day she developed a genuine case of "fidgets." Once she saw Chip's face turned inquiringly toward the window, and telegraphed her state of mind--while Mrs.

Denson's back was turned--so eloquently that Chip was swept at once into sympathetic good-fellowship. He arranged the cushion on the front seat significantly, and was rewarded by an emphatic, though furtive, nod and smile. Whereupon he leaned comfortably back, rolled a cigarette and smoked contentedly, at peace with himself and the world--though he did not in the least know why.

"An' as I told Louise, folks has got t' put up with things an' not be huntin' trouble with a club all the time, if they expect t' git any comfort out uh this life. We ain't had the best uh luck, seems t' me, but we always git along somehow, an' we ain't had no sickness except when--"

A confused uproar arose in the room above them, followed, immediately by a humpety b.u.mp and a crash as a small, pink object burst open a door and rolled precipitately into their midst. It proved to be one of the little Densons, who kicked feebly with both feet and then lay still.