Chip, of the Flying U | Page 6

cigarette, holding the
reins tightly between his knees while he did so. He passed the loose
edge of the paper across the tip of his tongue, eying the young woman
curiously the while.
"You seem to be pretty well onto your job," he remarked, dryly.
"I ought to be," she said, laughing a little. "I've been learning the trade
ever since I was sixteen."
"Yes? You began early."
"My Uncle John is a doctor. I helped him in the office till he got me
into the medical school. I was brought up in an atmosphere of
antiseptics and learned all the bones in Uncle John's 'Boneparte'-- the
skeleton, you know--before I knew all my letters." She dragged the
coyote close to the wheel.
"Let me get hold of the tail." Chip carefully pinched out the blaze of his
match and threw it away before he leaned over to help. With a quick lift
he landed the animal, limp and bloody, squarely upon the top of Miss
Whitmore's largest trunk. The pointed nose hung down the side, the
white fangs exposed in a sinister grin. The girl gazed upon him proudly
at first, then in dismay.
"Oh, he's dripping blood all over my mandolin case--and I just know it
won't come out!" She tugged frantically at the instrument.
"'Out, damned spot!'" quoted Chip in a sepulchral tone before he turned
to assist her.
Miss Whitmore let go the mandolin and stared blankly up at him, and
Chip, offended at her frank surprise that he should quote Shakespeare,

shut his lips tightly and relapsed into silence.
CHAPTER II.
Over the "Hog's Back."

"That's Flying U ranch," volunteered Chip, as they turned sharply to the
right and began to descend a long grade built into the side of a steep,
rocky bluff. Below them lay the ranch in a long, narrow coulee. Nearest
them sprawled the house, low, white and roomy, with broad porches
and wide windows; further down the coulee, at the base of a gentle
slope, were the sheds, the high, round corrals and the haystacks. Great,
board gates were distributed in seemingly useless profusion, while
barbed wire fences stretched away in all directions. A small creek,
bordered with cottonwoods and scraggly willows, wound aimlessly
away down the coulee.
"J. G. doesn't seem to have much method," remarked Miss Whitmore,
after a critical survey. "What are all those log cabins scattered down the
hill for? They look as though J. G. had a handful that he didn't want,
and just threw them down toward the stable and left them lying where
they happened to fall."
"It does, all right," conceded Chip. "They're the bunk house--where us
fellows sleep--and the mess house, where we eat, and then come the
blacksmith shop and a shack we keep all kinds of truck in, and--"
"What--in--the world--"
A chorus of shouts and shots arose from below. A scurrying group of
horsemen burst over the hill behind the house, dashed half down the
slope, and surrounded the bunk house with blood-curdling yells. Chip
held the creams to a walk and furtively watched his companion. Miss
Whitmore's eyes were very wide open; plainly, she was astonished
beyond measure at the uproar. Whether she was also frightened, Chip
could not determine.

The menacing yells increased in volume till the very hills seemed to
cower in fear. Miss Whitmore gasped when a limp form was dragged
from the cabin and lifted to the back of a snorting pony.
"They've got a rope around that man's neck," she breathed, in a
horrified half whisper. "Are--they--going to HANG him?"
"It kinda looks that way, from here," said Chip, inwardly ashamed. All
at once it struck him as mean and cowardly to frighten a lady who had
traveled far among strangers and who had that tired droop to her mouth.
It wasn't a fair game; it was cheating. Only for his promise to the boys,
he would have told her the truth then and there.
Miss Whitmore was not a stupid young woman; his very indifference
told her all that she needed to know. She tore her eyes from the
confused jumble of gesticulating men and restive steeds to look sharply
at Chip. He met her eyes squarely for an instant, and the horror oozed
from her and left only amused chagrin that they should try to trick her
so.
"Hurry up," she commanded, "so I can be in at the death. Remember,
I'm a doctor. They're tying him to his horse--he looks half dead with
fright."
Inwardly she added: "He overacts the part dreadfully."
The little cavalcade in the coulee fired a spectacular volley into the air
and swept down the slope like a dry-weather whirlwind across a patch
of alkali ground. Through the big gate and up the road past the