“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. “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. Nobody 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 circumstances, 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.”