“I’d chance money you wasn’t thinking of me,” he said, pointedly. “How is the old ranch, anyhow ? Splinter up, yet?”
“You must think I’m a feeble excuse for a doctor,” retorted she. “Of course he’s up. He walks all around the house and yard with a cane; I promoted him from crutches yesterday.”
“Good shot! That was sure a bad foot he had on him, and I didn’t know— What’s he been putting in the time at? Making pictures—or love?”
“Pictures,” said the Little Doctor, hastily, laying her cheek against Silver’s mane. “I’d like to see him making love!”
“Yuh would?” said Weary, innocently, disregarding the irony of her tone. “Well, if yuh ever do, I tell yuh right now you’ll see the real thing. If he makes love like he does other things, there won’t any female girl dodge his loop, that’s straight. What about the pictures?”
“Well, he drew a picture of J. G. sliding down the kitchen steps, before he was out of bed. And he made a picture of Dunk, that time Banjo bucked him off—you saw that happen, I suppose—and it was great! Dunk was standing on his head in front of his horse, but I can’t show you it, because it blew out of the window and landed at Dunk’s feet in the path, and he picked it up and tore it into little bits. And he doesn’t play in Chip’s yard any more.”
“He never did,” grinned Weary. “Dunk’s a great hand to go around shooting off his mouth about things he’s no business to buy into, and old Splinter let him down on his face once or twice. Chip can sure give a man a hard fall when he wants to, and not use many words, either. What little he does say generally counts.”
The Little Doctor’s memory squirmed assentingly. “It’s the tone he uses,” she said, reflectively. “The way he can say ‘yes,’ sometimes—”
“You’ve bumped into that, huh? Bert Rogers lit into him with a tent peg once, for saying yes at him. They sure was busy for a few minutes. I just sat in the shade of a wagon wheel and laughed till I near cracked a rib. When they got through they laughed, too, and they played ten games uh pool together that night, and got—” Weary caught himself up suddenly. “Pool ain’t any gambling game,” he hastened to explain. “It’s just knocking balls into the pockets, innocent like, yuh see.”
“Mr. Davidson, there’s something I’d like to tell you about. Will you wait a few minutes more for your supper?”
“Sure,” said Weary; wonderingly, and sat down upon the edge of the watering trough.
The Little Doctor, her arms still around Silver’s neck, told him all about “The Last Stand,” and “The Spoils of Victory,” and Chip, and Dunk, and herself. And Weary listened silently, digging little trenches in the hard soil with the rowels of his spurs, and, knowing Chip as he did, understanding the matter much better than did the Little Doctor.
“And he doesn’t seem to know that I never meant to claim the picture as my work, and I can’t explain while he acts so—oh, you know how he can act. And Dunk wouldn’t have sold the picture if he had known Chip painted it, and it was wrong, of course, but I did so want Chip to have some real encouragement so he would make that his life work. You know he is fitted for something better than cow-punching. And now the picture has made a hit and brought a good price, and he must own it. Dunk will be furious, of course, but that doesn’t matter to me—it’s Chip that I can’t seem to manage.”
Weary smiled queerly down at his spurs.
“It’s a cinch you could manage him, easy enough, if you took the right way to do it,” he said, quietly.
“Probably the right way would be too much trouble,” said the Little Doctor, with her chin well up. “Once I get this picture deal settled satisfactorily, I’m quite willing to resign and let him manage himself. Senator Blake is coming tomorrow, and I’m so glad you will be here to help me.”
“I’d sure like to see yuh through with the deal. Old Blake won’t be hard to throw—I know him, and so does Chip. Didn’t he tell yuh about it?”
“Tell me!” flashed the Little Doctor. “I told him Senator Blake was coming, and that he wanted to buy the picture, and he just made him a cigarette and said, ‘Ye—e-es?’ And after that there wasn’t any conversation of any description!”
Weary threw back his head and laughed.
“That sure sounds just like him,” he said, and at that minute Chip himself hobbled into the corral, and the Little Doctor hastened to leave it and retreat to the house.
CHAPTER XVII
When a Maiden Wills
It was Dunk who drove to meet the train, next day, and it was an extremely nervous young woman who met Senator Blake upon the porch. Chip sprawled in the hammock on the east porch, out of sight.
The senator was a little man whose coat did not fit, and whose hair was sandy and sparse, and who had keen, twinkling blue eyes which managed to see a great deal more than one would suspect from the rest of his face. He pumped the Little Doctor’s hand up and down three times and called her “My dear young lady.” After the first ten minutes, the Little Doctor’s spirits rose considerably and her heart stopped thumping so she could hear it. She remembered what Weary had told her—that “Old Blake won’t be hard to throw.” She no longer feared the senator, but she refused to speculate upon what Chip might do. He seemed more approachable today, but that did not count—probably he was only reflecting Weary’s sunshine, and would freeze solid the minute—
“And so you are the mysterious genius who has set the Butte critics by the ears!” chuckled the senator. “They say your cloud treatment is all wrong, and that your coloring is too bold—but directly they forget all that and wonder which wolf will make the first dash, and how many the cow will put out of business before she goes under herself. Don’t be offended if I say that you look more capable of portraying woolly white lambs at play than ravening wolves measuring the strength of their quarry. I must confess I was looking for the—er man behind that brush.”
“I told the senator coming out that it was a lady he would have to make terms with. He would hardly believe it,” smiled Dunk.
“He needn’t believe it,” said the Little Doctor, much more calmly than she felt. “I don’t remember ever saying that I painted ‘The Last Stand.’”
Dunk threw up his head and looked at her sharply.
“Genius is certainly modest,” he said, with a laugh that was not nice to hear.
“In this case, the genius is unusually modest,” assented she, getting rather white. “Unfortunately for myself, senator, I did not paint the ‘ravening wolves’ which caught your fancy. It would be utterly beyond my brush.”
A glimmering of the truth came to Dunk, and his eyes narrowed.
“Who did paint it for you? Your friend, Chip?”
The Little Doctor caught her breath at the venomous accent he employed, and the Old Man half rose from his chair. But Della could fight her own battles. She stood up and faced Dunk, tight-lipped and proud.
“Yes, Mr. Whitaker, my friend, Mr. Bennett, of whose friendship I am rather proud, painted the best part of ‘The Last Stand.’”
“Senator Blake must forgive my being misled by your previous statement that the picture was yours,” sneered Dunk.
“I made no previous statement, Mr. Whitaker.” The Little Doctor’s tone was sweetly freezing. “I said that the picture which I had begun was finished, and I invited you all to look at it. It was your misfortune that you took too much for granted.”
“It’s a mistake to take anything for granted where a woman is concerned. At the same time I shouldn’t be blamed if I take it for granted Chip—”
“Suppose