The Little Doctor never could remember getting down that bluff, and her sketching materials went to amuse the jack rabbits and the birds. Fast as she flew, Weary was before her and had raised Chip"s head upon one arm. She knelt beside him in the dust, hovering over the white face and still form like a pitying, little gray angel. Weary looked at her impersonally, but neither of them spoke in those first, breathless moments.
The Old Man, who had witnessed the accident, came puffing laboriously up the hill, taking the short cut straight across from the stable.
"Is he--DEAD?" he yelled while he scrambled.
Weary turned his head long enough to look down at him, with the same impersonal gaze he had bestowed upon the Little Doctor, but he did not answer the question. He could not, for he did not know. The Little Doctor seemed not to have heard.
The Old Man redoubled his exertions and reached them very much out of breath.
"Is he dead, Dell?" he repeated in an awestruck tone. He feared she would say yes.
The Little Doctor had taken possession of the brown head. She looked up at her brother, a very unprofessional pallor upon her face, and down at the long, brown lashes and at the curved, sensitive lips which held no hint of red. She pressed the face closer to her breast and shook her head. She could not speak, just then, for the griping ache that was in her throat.
"One of the best men on the ranch gone under, just when we need help the worst!" complained the Old Man. "Is he hurt bad?"
"J. G.," began the Little Doctor in a voice all the fiercer for being suppressed, "I want you to kill that horse. Do you hear? If you don"t do it, I will!"
"You won"t have to, if old Splinter goes down and out," said Weary, with quiet meaning, and the Little Doctor gave him a grateful flash of gray eyes.
"How bad is he hurt?" repeated the Old Man, impatiently. "You"re supposed t" be a doctor--don"t you know?"
"He has a scalp wound which does not seem serious," said she in an attempt to be matter-of-fact, "and his left collar bone is broken."
"Doggone it! A broken collar bone ain"t mended overnight."
"No," acquiesced the Little Doctor, "it isn"t."
These last two remarks Chip heard. He opened his eyes and looked straight up into the gray ones above--a long, questioning, rebellious look. He tried then to rise, to free himself from the bitter ecstasy of those soft, enfolding arms. Only a broken collar bone! Good thing it was no worse! Ugh! A spasm of pain contracted his features and drew beads of moisture to his forehead. The spurned arms once more felt the dead weight of him.
"What is it?" The Little Doctor"s voice called to him from afar.
Must he answer? He wanted to drift on and on--"Can you tell me where the pain is?"
Pain? Oh, yes, there had been pain--but he wanted to drift. He opened his eyes again reluctantly; again the pain clutched him.
"It"s--my--foot."
For the first time the eyes of the Little Doctor left his face and traveled downward to the spurred boots. One was twisted in a horrible unnatural position that told the agonizing truth--a badly dislocated ankle. They returned quickly to the face, and swam full of blinding tears--such as a doctor should not succ.u.mb to. He was not drifting into oblivion now; his teeth were not digging into his lower lip for nothing, she knew.
"Weary," she said, forgetting to call him properly by name, "ride to the house and get my medicine case--the little black one. The Countess knows--and have Slim bring something to carry him home on. And--RIDE!"
Weary was gone before she had finished, and he certainly "rode."
"You"ll have another crippled cow-puncher on yer hands, first thing yuh know," grumbled the Old Man, anxiously, as he watched Weary race recklessly down the hill.
The Little Doctor did not answer. She scarcely heard him. She was stroking the hair back from Chip"s forehead softly, unconsciously, wondering why she had never before noticed the wave in it--but then, she had scarcely seen him with his hat off. How silky and soft it felt!
And she had called him all sorts of mean names, and had wanted Whizzer to--she shuddered and turned sick at the memory of the thud when they struck the hard road together.
"Dell!" exclaimed the Old Man, "you"re white"s a rag. Doggone it, don"t throw up yer hands at yer first case--brace up!"
Chip looked up at her curiously, forgetting the pain long enough to wonder at her whiteness. Did she have a heart, then, or was it a feminine trait to turn pale in every emergency? She had not turned so very white when those kids--he felt inclined to laugh, only for that cussed foot. Instead he relaxed his vigilance and a groan slipped out before he knew.
"Just a minute more and I"ll ease the pain for you," murmured the girl, compa.s.sionately.
"All right--so long as you--don"t--use--the stomach pump," he retorted, with a miserable makeshift of a laugh.
"What"s that?" asked the Old Man, but no one explained.
The Little Doctor was struggling with the lump in her throat that he should try to joke about it.
Then Weary was back and holding the little, black case out to her. She seized it eagerly, slipping Chip"s head to her knees that she might use her hands freely. There was no halting over the tiny vials, for she had decided just what she must do.
She laid something against Chip"s closed lips.
"Swallow these," she said, and he obeyed her. "Weary--oh, you knew what to do, I see. There, lay the coat down there for a pillow."
Relieved of her burden, she rose and went to the poor, twisted foot.
Weary and the Old Man watched her go to work systematically and disclose the swollen, purpling ankle. Very gently she did it, and when she had administered a merciful anaesthetic, the enthusiasm of the Old Man demanded speech.
"Well, I"ll be eternally doggoned! You"re onto your job, Dell, doggoned if yuh ain"t. I won"t ever josh yuh again about yer doctorin"!"
"I wish you"d been around the time I smashed MY ankle," commented Weary, fishing for his cigarette book; he was beginning to feel the need of a quieting smoke. "They hauled me forty miles, to Benton."
"That must have been torture!" shuddered the Little Doctor. "A dislocated ankle is a most agonizing thing."
"Yes," a.s.sented Weary, striking a match, "it sure is, all right."
CHAPTER XI. -- Good Intentions.
"Mr. Davidson, have you nerve enough to help me replace this ankle? The Countess is too nervous, and J. G. is too awkward."
Chip was lying oblivious to his surroundings or his hurt in the sunny, south room which Dunk Whitaker chose to call his.
"I"ve never been accused of wanting nerve," grinned Weary. "I guess I can stand it if you can." And a very efficient a.s.sistant he proved himself to be.
When the question of a nurse arose, when all had been done that could be done and Weary had gone, the Little Doctor found herself involved in an argument with the Countess. The Countess wanted them to send for Bill.
Bill just thought the world and all of Chip, she declared, and would just love to come. She was positive that Bill was the very one they needed, and the Little Doctor, who had conceived a violent dislike for Bill, a smirky, self-satisfied youth addicted to chewing tobacco, red neckties and a perennial grin, was equally positive he was the very one they did not want. In despair she retrenched herself behind the a.s.sertion that Chip should choose for himself.
"I just know he"ll choose Bill," crowed the Countess after the flicker of the doctor"s skirts.