"Oh!" There was real horror in her tone. Miss Whitmore knew all about Silver from garrulous Patsy. Chip had rescued a pretty, brown colt from starving on the range, had bought him of the owner, petted and cared for him until he was now one of the best saddle horses on the ranch. He was a dark chestnut, with beautiful white, crinkly mane and tail and white feet. Miss Whitmore had seen Chip riding him down the coulee trail only yesterday, and now--Her heart ached with the pity of it.
"How did it happen?"
"I don"t know. He was in the little pasture. Got kicked, maybe." Chip jerked open the door with a force greatly in excess of the need of it.
Miss Whitmore started impulsively toward him. Her eyes were not quite clear.
"Don"t--not yet! Let me go. If it"s a straight break I can set the bone and save him."
Chip, savage in his misery, regarded her over one square shoulder.
"Are you a veterinary surgeon, may I ask?"
Miss Whitmore felt her cheeks grow hot, but she stood her ground.
"I am not. But a broken bone is a broken bone, whether it belongs to a man--or some OTHER beast!"
"Y--e-s?"
Chip"s way of saying yes was one of his chief weapons of annihilation.
He had a peculiar, taunting inflection which he could give to it, upon occasion, which caused p.r.i.c.kles of flesh upon the victim. To say that Miss Whitmore was not utterly quenched argues well for her courage. She only gasped, as though treated to an unexpected dash of cold water, and went on.
"I"m sure I might save him if you"d let me try. Or are you really eager to shoot him?"
Chip"s muscles shrank. Eager to shoot him--Silver, the only thing that loved and understood him?
"You may come and look at him, if you like," he said, after a breath or two.
Miss Whitmore overlooked the tolerance of the tone and stepped to his side, mechanically clutching the sketch in her fingers. It was Chip, looking down at her from his extra foot of height, who called her attention to it.
"Are you thinking of using that for a plaster?"
Miss Whitmore started and blushed, then, with an uptilt of chin:
"If I need a strong irritant, yes!" She calmly rolled the paper into a tiny tube and thrust it into the front of her pink shirt-waist for want of a pocket--and Chip, watching her surrept.i.tiously, felt a queer grip in his chest, which he thought it best to set down as anger.
Silently they hurried down where Silver lay, his beautiful, gleaming mane brushing the tender green of the young gra.s.s blades. He lifted his head when he heard Chip"s step, and neighed wistfully. Chip bent over him, black agony in his eyes. Miss Whitmore, looking on, realized for the first time that the suffering of the horse was a mere trifle compared to that of his master. Her eyes wandered to the loaded revolver which bulged his pocket behind, and she shuddered--but not for Silver.
She went closer and laid her hand upon the shimmery mane. The horse snorted nervously and struggled to rise.
"He"s not used to a woman," said Chip, with a certain accent of pride.
"I guess this is the closest he"s ever been to one. You see, he"s never had any one handle him but me."
"Then he certainly is no lady"s horse," said Miss Whitmore, good-naturedly. Somehow, in the last moment, her att.i.tude toward Chip had changed considerably. "Try and make him let me feel the break."
With much coaxing and soothing words it was accomplished, and it did not take long, for it was a front leg, broken straight across, just above the fetlock. Miss Whitmore stood up and smiled into the young man"s eyes, conscious of a desire to bring the curve back into his lips.
"It"s very simple," she declared, cheerfully. "I know I can cure him. We had a colt at home with his leg broken the same way, and he was entirely cured--and doesn"t even limp. Of course," she added, honestly, "Uncle John doctored him--but I helped."
Chip drew the back of his gloved hand quickly across his eyes and swallowed.
"Miss Whitmore--if you could save old Silver--"
Miss Whitmore, the self-contained young medical graduate, blinked rapidly and found urgent need of tucking in wind-blown, brown locks, with her back to the tall cow-puncher who had unwittingly dropped his mask for an instant. She took off J. G."s old hat, turned it clean around twice and put it back exactly as it was before; unless the tilt over her left ear was a trifle more p.r.o.nounced. Show me the woman who can set a hat straight upon her head without aid of a mirror!
"We must get him up from there and into a box stall. There is one, isn"t there?"
"Y--e-s--" Chip hesitated. "I wouldn"t ask the Old--your brother, for the use of it, though; not even for Silver."
"I will," returned she, promptly. "I never feel any compunction about asking for what I want--if I can"t get it any other way. I can"t understand why you wanted to shoot--you must have known this bone could be set."
"I didn"t WANT to--" Chip bent over and drove a fly from Silver"s shoulder. "When a horse belonging to the outfit gets crippled like that, he makes coyote bait. A forty-dollar cow-puncher can"t expect any better for his own horse."
"He"ll GET better, whatever he may expect. I"m just spoiling for something to practice on, anyway--and he"s such a beauty. If you can get him up, lead him to the stable while I go and tell J. G. and get some one to help." She started away.
"Whom shall I get?" she called back.
"Weary, if you can--and Slim"s a good hand with horses, too."
"Slim--is that the tall, lanky man?"
"No--he"s the short, fat one. That bean-pole is Shorty."
Miss Whitmore fixed these facts firmly in her memory and ran swiftly to where rose all the dust and noise from the further corral. She climbed up until she could look conveniently over the top rail. The fence seemed to her dreadfully high--a clear waste of straight, st.u.r.dy poles.
"J. G--e-e-e!"
"Baw--h-h-h!" came answer from a wholly unexpected source as a big, red cow charged and struck the fence under her feet a blow which nearly dislodged her from her perch. The cow recoiled a few steps and lowered her head truculently.
"Scat! Shoo, there! Go on away, you horrid old thing you! Oh, J.
G--e-e-e!"
Weary, who was roping, had just dragged a calf up to the fire and was making a loop to catch another when the cow made a second charge at the fence. He dashed in ahead of her, his horse narrowly escaping an ugly gash from her long, wicked horns. As he dodged he threw his rope with the peculiar, back-hand twist of the practiced roper, catching her by the head and one front foot. Straight across the corral he shot to the end of a forty-foot rope tied fast to the saddle horn. The red cow flopped with a thump which knocked all desire for trouble out of her for the time. Shorty slipped the rope off and climbed the fence, but the cow only shook her aching sides and limped sullenly away to the far side of the corral. J. G. and the boys had shinned up the fence like scared cats up a tree when the trouble began, and perched in a row upon the top. The Old Man looked across and espied his sister, wide-eyed and undignified, watching the outcome.
"Dell! What in thunder the YOU doing on that fence?" he shouted across the corral.
"What in thunder are you doing on the fence, J. G.?" she flung back at him.
The Old Man climbed shamefacedly down, followed by the others. "Is that what you call "getting put in the clear"?" asked she, genially. "I see now--it means clear on the top rail."
"You go back to the house and stay there!" commanded J. G., wrathfully.
The boys were showing unmistakable symptoms of mirth, and the laugh was plainly against the Old Man.
"Oh, no," came her voice, honey-sweet and calm. "Shoo that cow this way again, will you, Mr..Weary? I like to watch J. G. shin up the fence.
It"s good for him; it makes one supple, and J. G."s actually getting fat."
"Hurry along with that calf!" shouted the Old Man, recovering the branding iron and turning his back on his tormentor.
The boys, beyond grinning furtively at one another, behaved with quite praiseworthy gravity. Miss Whitmore watched while Weary dragged a spotted calf up to the fire and the boys threw it to the ground and held it until the Old Man had stamped it artistically with a smoking U.