As the chase grew in earnestness and excitement, the sympathies of the Little Doctor were given unreservedly to Whizzer. Whenever a particularly clever maneuver of his set the men to swearing, she clapped her hands in sincere, though unheard and unappreciated, applause. “Good boy!” she cried, approvingly, when he dodged Chip and whirled through the big gate which the Old Man had unwittingly left open. J. G. leaned perilously forward and shook his fist unavailingly. Whizzer tossed head and heels alternately and scurried up the path to the very door of the kitchen, where he swung round and looked back down the hill snorting triumph. “Shoo, there!” shrilled the Countess, shaking her dish towel at him. “Who--oo-oof-f,” snorted he disdainfully and trotted leisurely round the corner. Chip galloped up the hill, his horse running heavily. After him came Weary, liberally applying quirt and mild invective. At the house they parted and headed the fugitive toward the stables. He shot through the big gate, lifting his heels viciously at the Old Man as he passed, whirled around the stable and trotted haughtily past Slim into the corral of his own accord, quite as if he had meant to do so all along. “Did you ever!” exclaimed the Little Doctor, disgustedly, from her perch. “Whizzer, I'm ashamed of you! I wouldn't have given in like that--but you gave them a chase, didn't you, my beauty?” The boys flung themselves off their tired horses and went up to the house to beg the Countess for a lunch, and Della turned resolutely to her sketching again. She was just beginning to forget that the world held aught but soft shadows, mellow glow and hazy perspective, when a subdued uproar reached her from below. She drew an uncertain line or two, frowned and laid her pencil resignedly in her lap. “It's of no use. I can't do a thing till those cow-punchers take themselves and their bronchos off the ranch--and may it be soon!” she told herself, disconsolately and not oversincerely. The best of us are not above trying to pull the wool over our own eyes, at times. In reality their brief presence made the near future seem very flat and insipid to the Little Doctor. It was washing all the color out of the picture, and leaving it a dirty gray. She gazed moodily down at the whirl of dust in the corral, where Whizzer was struggling to free himself from the loop Chip had thrown with his accustomed, calm precision. Whatever Chip did he did thoroughly, with no slurring of detail. Whizzer was fain to own himself fairly caught. “Oh, he's got you fast, my beauty!” sighed the Little Doctor, woefully. “Why didn't you jump over the fence--I think you COULD--and run, run, to freedom?” She grew quite melodramatic over the humiliation of the horse she had chosen to champion, and glared resentfully when Chip threw his saddle, with no gentle hand, upon the sleek back and tightened the cinches with a few strong, relentless yanks.