Chip, of the Flying U | Page 3

a mile off." Chip
held out his cup for Patsy to refill.
"Yeah--I've run up against that brand--and they're sure all right. They
suit ME," remarked Cal.
"That don't seem to line up with the doctor's diploma," commented
Weary.
"Well, she's the other kind then--and if she is, the Lord have mercy on
the Flying U! She'll buy her some spurs and try to rope and cut out and
help brand. Maybe she'll wear double-barreled skirts and ride a man's
saddle and smoke cigarettes. She'll try to go the men one better in
everything, and wind up by making a darn fool of herself. Either kind's
bad enough."
"I'll bet she don't run in either bunch," began Weary. "I'll bet she's a
skinny old maid with a peaked nose and glasses, that'll round us up
every Sunday and read tracts at our heads, and come down on us with
both feet about tobacco hearts and whisky livers, and the evils and

devils wrapped up in a cigarette paper. I seen a woman doctor,
once--she was stopping at the T Down when I was line-riding for
them--and say, she was a holy fright! She had us fellows going South
before a week. I stampeded clean off the range, soon as my month was
up."
"Say," interrupted Cal, "don't yuh remember that picture the Old Man
got last fall, of his sister? She was the image of the Old Man--and
mighty near as old."
Chip, thinking of the morrow's drive, groaned in real anguish of spirit.
"You won't dast t' roll a cigarette comin' home, Chip," predicted Happy
Jack, mournfully. "Yuh want t' smoke double goin' in."
"I don't THINK I'll smoke double going in," returned Chip, dryly. "If
the old girl don't like my style, why the walking isn't all taken up."
"Say, Chip," suggested Jack Bates, "you size her up at the depot, and, if
she don't look promising, just slack the lines on Antelope Hill. The
creams 'll do the rest. If they don't, we'll finish the job here."
Shorty tactfully pushed back his chair and rose. "You fellows don't
want to git too gay," he warned. "The Old Man's just beginning to
forget about the calf-shed deal." Then he went out and shut the door
after him. The boys liked Shorty; he believed in the old adage about
wisdom being bliss at certain times, and the boys were all the better for
his living up to his belief. He knew the Happy Family would stop
inside the limit--at least, they always had, so far.
"What's the game?" demanded Cal, when the door closed behind their
indulgent foreman.
"Why, it's this. (Pass the syrup, Happy.) T'morrow's Sunday, so we'll
have time t' burn. We'll dig up all the guns we can find, and catch up
the orneriest cayuses in our strings, and have a real, old lynching
bee--sabe?"

"Who yuh goin' t' hang?" asked Slim, apprehensively. "Yuh needn't
think I'LL stand for it."
"Aw, don't get nervous. There ain't power enough on the ranch t' pull
yuh clear of the ground. We ain't going to build no derrick," said Jack,
witheringly. "We'll have a dummy rigged up in the bunk house. When
Chip and the doctor heave in sight on top of the grade, we'll break loose
down here with our bronks and our guns, and smoke up the ranch in
style. We'll drag out Mr. Strawman, and lynch him to the big gate
before they get along. We'll be 'riddling him with bullets' when they
arrive--and by that time she'll be so rattled she won't know whether it's
a man or a mule we've got strung up."
"You'll have to cut down your victim before I get there," grinned Chip.
"I never could get the creams through the gate, with a man hung to the
frame; they'd spill us into the washout by the old shed, sure as fate."
"That'd be all right. The old maid would sure know she was out West--
we need something to add to the excitement, anyway."
"If the Old Man's new buggy is piled in a heap, you'll wish you had cut
out some of the excitement," retorted Chip.
"All right, Splinter. We won't hang him there at all. That old
cottonwood down by the creek would do fine. It'll curdle her blood like
Dutch cheese to see us marching him down there--and she can't see the
hay sticking out of his sleeves, that far off."
"What if she wants to hold an autopsy?" bantered Chip.
"By golly, we'll stake her to a hay knife and tell her to go after him!"
cried Slim, suddenly waking up to the situation.
The noon train slid away from the little, red depot at Dry Lake and
curled out of sight around a hill. The only arrival