“She answered: 'We are seven,'” he quoted softly and solemnly, and the Little Doctor forgot her faintness in a hearty laugh. “You two go back to your dancing now,” she commanded, letting the dimples stand in her cheeks in a way that Chip dreamed about afterward. “I don't know what I should have done without you--a cow-puncher seems born to meet emergencies in just the right way. PLEASE don't tell anyone, will you?” “Never. Don't you worry about us, Doctor. Chip and I don't set up nights emptying our brains out our mouths. We don't tell our secrets to nobody but our horses--and they're dead safe.” “You needn't think I'll tell, either,” said the Countess, earnestly. “I ain't forgot how you took the blame uh that sof' soap, Dell. As the sayin' is--” Weary closed the door then, so they did not hear the saying which seemed to apply to this particular case. His arm hooked into Chip's, he led the way through the kitchen and down the hill to the hay corral. Once safe from observation, he threw himself into the sweetly pungent “blue-joint” and laughed and laughed. Chip's nervous system did not demand the relief of cachinnation. He went away to Silver's stall and groped blindly to the place where two luminous, green moons shone upon him in the darkness. He rubbed the delicate nose gently and tangled his fingers in the dimly gleaming mane, as he had seen HER do. Such pink little fingers they were! He laid his brown cheek against the place where he remembered them to have rested. “Silver horse,” he whispered, “if I ever fall in love with a girl--which isn't likely!--I'll want her to have dimples and big, gray eyes and a laugh like--” CHAPTER VIII. -- Prescriptions. It was Sunday, the second day after the dance. The boys were scattered, for the day was delicious--one of those sweet, soft days which come to us early in May. Down in the blacksmith shop Chip was putting new rowels into his spurs and whistling softly to himself while he worked. The Little Doctor had gone with him to visit Silver that morning, and had not hurried away, but had leaned against the manger and listened while he told her of the time Silver, swimming the river when it was “up,” had followed him to the Shonkin camp when Chip had thought to leave him at home. And they had laughed together over the juvenile seven and the subsequent indignation of the mothers who, with the exception of “Mary,” had bundled up their offspring and gone home mad. True, they had none of them thoroughly understood the situation, having only the version of the children, who accused the Little Doctor of trying to make them eat rubber--“just cause she was mad about some little old candy.” The mystification of the others among the Happy Family, who scented a secret with a joke to it but despaired of wringing the truth from either Weary or Chip, was dwelt upon with much enjoyment by the Little Doctor.