Wild with rage at this clinging cow-puncher whom he could not dislodge, who stung his sides and head like the hornets in the meadow, Whizzer gathered himself for a mighty leap as he reached the Hog's Back. Like a wire spring released, he shot into the air, shook himself in one last, desperate hope of victory, and, failing, came down with not a joint in his legs and turned a somersault. A moment, and he struggled to his feet and limped painfully away, crushed and beaten in spirit. Chip did not struggle. He lay, a long length of brown chaps, pink-and-white shirt and gray hat, just where he had fallen. The Little Doctor never could remember getting down that bluff, and her sketching materials went to amuse the jack rabbits and the birds. Fast as she flew, Weary was before her and had raised Chip's head upon one arm. She knelt beside him in the dust, hovering over the white face and still form like a pitying, little gray angel. Weary looked at her impersonally, but neither of them spoke in those first, breathless moments. The Old Man, who had witnessed the accident, came puffing laboriously up the hill, taking the short cut straight across from the stable. “Is he--DEAD?” he yelled while he scrambled. Weary turned his head long enough to look down at him, with the same impersonal gaze he had bestowed upon the Little Doctor, but he did not answer the question. He could not, for he did not know. The Little Doctor seemed not to have heard. The Old Man redoubled his exertions and reached them very much out of breath. “Is he dead, Dell?” he repeated in an awestruck tone. He feared she would say yes. The Little Doctor had taken possession of the brown head. She looked up at her brother, a very unprofessional pallor upon her face, and down at the long, brown lashes and at the curved, sensitive lips which held no hint of red. She pressed the face closer to her breast and shook her head. She could not speak, just then, for the griping ache that was in her throat. “One of the best men on the ranch gone under, just when we need help the worst!” complained the Old Man. “Is he hurt bad?” “J. G.,” began the Little Doctor in a voice all the fiercer for being suppressed, “I want you to kill that horse. Do you hear? If you don't do it, I will!” “You won't have to, if old Splinter goes down and out,” said Weary, with quiet meaning, and the Little Doctor gave him a grateful flash of gray eyes. “How bad is he hurt?” repeated the Old Man, impatiently. “You're supposed t' be a doctor--don't you know?” “He has a scalp wound which does not seem serious,” said she in an attempt to be matter-of-fact, “and his left collar bone is broken.” “Doggone it! A broken collar bone ain't mended overnight.” “No,” acquiesced the Little Doctor, “it isn't.”