The Complete Flying U Series – 24 Westerns in One Edition. B. M. Bower
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his lip curl a trifle. He was not in a happy frame of mind just then.
A silence fell upon the group. The Old Man took his pipe from his mouth and stared.
The cheeks of the Little Doctor paled and grew pink again. She laughed a bit, as though she would much rather cry.
“Say something, somebody, quick!” she cried, when her nerves would bear no more.
“Well, I do think it’s awfully good, Dell,” began the Countess.
“By golly, I don’t see how you done that without seein’ it happen,” exclaimed Slim, looking very dazed and mystified.
“That’s a Diamond Bar cow,” remarked J. G., abstractedly. “That outfit never does git half their calves. I remember the last time I rode through there last winter, that cow—doggone it, Dell, how the dickens did you get that cow an’ calf in? You must a had a photograph t’ work from.”
“By golly, that’s right,” chimed in Slim. “That there’s the cow I had sech a time chasin’ out uh the bunch down on the bottom. I run her till I was plum sick, an’ so was she, by golly. I’d know her among a thousand. Yuh got her complete—all but the beller, an’, by golly, yuh come blame near gittin’ that, too!” Slim, always slow and very much in earnest, gradually became infused with the spirit of the scene. “Jest look at that ole gray sinner with his nose r’ared straight up in the air over there! By golly, he’s callin’ all his wife’s relations t’ come an’ help ‘em out. He’s thinkin’ the ole Diamon’ Bar’s goin’ t’ be one too many fer ‘em. She shore looks fighty, with ‘er head down an’ ‘er eyes rollin’ all ways t’ oncet, ready fer the first darn cuss that makes a crooked move! An’ they know it, too, by golly, er they wouldn’t hang back like they’re a-doin’. I’d shore like t’ be cached behind that ole pine stub with a thirty—thirty an’ a fist full uh shells—I’d shore make a scatteration among ‘em! A feller could easy—”
“But, Slim, they’re nothing but paint!” The Little Doctor’s eyes were shining.
Slim turned red and grinned sheepishly at the others.
“I kinda fergot it wasn’t nothin’ but a pitcher,” he stammered, apologetically.
“That is the gist of the whole matter,” said Dunk. “You couldn’t ask for a greater compliment, or higher praise, than that, Miss Della. One forgets that it is a picture. One only feels a deep longing for a good rifle. You must let me take it with me to Butte. That picture will make you famous among cattlemen, at least. That is to say, out West, here. And if you will sell it I am positive I can get you a high price for it.”
The eyes of the Little Doctor involuntarily sought the Morris chair in the next room; but Chip was looking out across the coulee, as he had a habit of doing lately, and seemed not to hear what was going on in the parlor. He was indifference personified, if one might judge from his outward appearance. The Little Doctor turned her glance resentfully to her brother’s partner.
“Do you mean all that?” she demanded of him.
“I certainly do. It is great, Miss Della. I admit that it is not quite like your other work; the treatment seems different, in places, and—er—stronger. It is the best picture of the kind that I have ever seen, I think. It holds one, in a way—”
“By golly, I bet Chip took a pitcher uh that!” exclaimed Slim, who had been doing some hard thinking. “He was tellin’ us last winter about ridin’ up on that ole Diamon’ Bar cow with a pack uh wolves around her, an’ her a-standin’ ‘em off, an’ he shot two uh the wolves. Yes, sir; Chip jest about got a snap shot of ‘em.”
“Well, doggone it! what if he did?” The Old Man turned jealously upon him. “It ain’t everyone that kin paint like that, with nothin’ but a little kodak picture t’ go by. Doggone it! I don’t care if Dell had a hull apurn full uh kodak pictures that Chip took—it’s a rattlin’ good piece uh work, all the same.”
“I ain’t sayin’ anything agin’ the pitcher,” retorted Slim. “I was jest wonderin’ how she happened t’ git that cow down s’ fine, brand ‘n all, without some kind uh pattern t’ go by. S’ fur ‘s the pitcher goes, it’s about as good ‘s kin be did with paint, I guess. I ain’t ever seen anything in the pitcher line that looked any natcherler.”
“Well, I do think it’s just splendid!” gurgled the Countess. “It’s every bit as good ‘s the one Mary got with a year’s subscription t’ the Household Treasure fer fifty cents. That one’s got some hounds chasin’ a deer and a man hidin’ in ‘the bushes, sost yuh kin jest see his head. It’s an awful purty pitcher, but this one’s jest as good. I do b’lieve it’s a little bit better, if anything. Mary’s has got some awful nice, green grass, an’ the sky’s an awful purty blue—jest about the color uh my blue silk waist. But yuh can’t expect t’ have grass an’ sky like that in the winter, an’ this is more of a winter pitcher. It looks awful cold an’ lonesome, somehow, an’ it makes yuh want t’ cry, if yuh look at it long enough.”
The critics stampeded, as they always did when the Countess began to talk.
“You better let Dunk take it with him, Dell,” was the parting advice of the Old Man.
Chapter XIV. Convalescence
“You don’t mind, do you?” The Little Doctor was visibly uneasy.
“Mind what?” Chip’s tone was one of elaborate unconsciousness. “Mind Dunk’s selling the picture for you? Why should I? It’s yours, you know.”
“I think you have some interest in it yourself,” she said, without looking at him. “You don’t think I mean to—to—”
“I don’t think anything, except that it’s your picture, and I put in a little time meddling with your property for want of something else to do. All I painted doesn’t cover one quarter of the canvas, and I guess you’ve done enough for me to more than make up. I guess you needn’t worry over that cow and calf—you’re welcome to them both; and if you can get a bounty on those five wolves, I’ll be glad to have you. Just keep still about my part of it.”
Chip really felt that way about it, after the first dash of wounded pride. He could never begin to square accounts with the Little Doctor, anyhow, and he was proud that he could do something for her, even if it was nothing more than fixing up a picture so that it rose considerably above mediocrity. He had meant it that way all along, but the suspicion that she was quite ready to appropriate his work rather shocked him, just at first. No one likes having a gift we joy in bestowing calmly taken from our hands before it has been offered. He wanted her to have the picture for her very own—but—but—He had not thought of the possibility of her selling it, or of Dunk as her agent. It was all right, of course, if she wanted to do that with it, but—There was something about it that hurt, and the hurt of it was not less, simply because he could not locate the pain.
His mind fidgeted with the subject. If he could have saddled Silver and gone for a long gallop over the prairie land, he could have grappled with his rebellious inner self and choked to death several unwelcome emotions, he thought. But there was Silver, crippled and swung uncomfortably in canvas wrappings in the box stall, and here was himself, crippled and held day after day in one room and one chair—albeit a very pleasant room and a very comfortable chair—and a gallop as impossible to one of them as to the other.
“I do wish—” The Little Doctor checked herself abruptly, and hummed a bit of coon song.
“What do you wish?” Chip pushed his thoughts behind him, and tried to speak in his usual manner.
“Nothing much. I was just wishing Cecil could see ‘The Last Stand.’”
Chip said absolutely nothing for five minutes, and for an excellent reason. There was not a single