Chip, of the Flying U | Page 8

he
demanded, after he had bestowed a hasty kiss beside the nose of his
sister.
Chip dropped a heavy trunk upon the porch and reached for the guitar
before he answered.
"I was just trying those new springs on the buggy."
"It was very exciting," commented Miss Whitmore, airily. "I shot a
coyote, J. G., but we lost it coming down the hill. Your men were
playing a funny game--hare and hounds, it looked like. Or were they
breaking a new horse?"
The Old Man looked at Chip, intelligence dawning in his face. There
was something back of it all, he knew. He had been asleep when the
uproar began, and had reached the door only in time to see the creams
come down the grade like a daylight shooting star.
"I guess they was breaking a bronk," he said, carelessly; "you've got
enough baggage for a trip round the world, Dell. I hope it ain't all dope
for us poor devils. Tell Shorty I want t' see him, Chip."
Chip took the reins from the Old Man's hands, sprang in and drove
back down the hill to the stables.
The "reception committee," as Chip sarcastically christened them,
rounded up the runaway and sneaked back to the ranch by the coulee
trail. With much unseemly language, they stripped the saddle and a
flapping pair of overalls off poor, disgraced Banjo, and kicked him out
of the corral.
"That's the way Jack's schemes always pan out," grumbled Slim. "By
golly, yuh don't get me into another jackpot like that!"

"You might explain why you let that" (several kinds of) "cayuse get
away from you!" retorted Jack, fretfully. "If you'd been onto your job,
things would have been smooth as silk."
"Wonder what the old maid thought," broke in Weary, bent on
preserving peace in the Happy Family.
"I'll bet she never saw us at all!" laughed Cal. "Old Splinter gave her all
she wanted to do, hanging to the rig. The way he came down that grade
wasn't slow. He just missed running into Banjo on the Hog's Back by
the skin of the teeth. If he had, it'd be good-by, doctor--and Chip, too.
Gee, that was a close shave!"
"Well," said Happy Jack, mournfully, "if we don't all get the bounce for
this, I miss my guess. It's a little the worst we've done yet."
"Except that time we tin-canned that stray steer, last winter," amended
Weary, chuckling over the remembrance as he fastened the big gate
behind them.
"Yes, that was another of Jack's fool schemes," put in Slim. "Go and
tin-can a four-year-old steer and let him take after the Old Man and put
him on the calf shed, first pass he made. Old Man was sure hot about
that--by golly, it didn't help his rheumatism none."
"He'll sure go straight in the air over this," reiterated Happy Jack, with
mournful conviction.
"There's old Splinter at the bunk house--drawing our pictures, I'll bet a
dollar. Hey, Chip! How you vas, already yet?" sung out Weary, whose
sunny temper no calamity could sour.
Chip glanced at them and went on cutting the leaves of a late magazine
which he had purloined from the Dry Lake barber. Cal Emmett strode
up and grabbed the limp, gray hat from his head and began using it for
a football.
"Here! Give that back!" commanded Chip, laughing. "DON'T make a

dish rag of my new John B. Stetson, Cal. It won't be fit for the dance."
"Gee! It don't lack much of being a dish rag, now, if I'm any judge.
Now! Great Scott!" He held it at arm's length and regarded it derisively.
"Well, it was new two years ago," explained Chip, making an
ineffectual grab at it.
Cal threw it to him and came and sat down upon his heels to peer over
Chip's arm at the magazine.
"How's the old maid doctor?" asked Jack Bates, leaning against the
door while he rolled a cigarette.
"Scared plum to death. I left the remains in the Old Man's arms."
"Was she scared, honest?" Cal left off studying the "Types of Fair
Women."
"What did she say when we broke loose?" Jack drew a match sharply
along a log.
"Nothing. Well, yes, she said 'Are they going to H-A-N-G that man ?'"
Chip's voice quavered the words in a shrill falsetto.
"The deuce she did!" Jack indulged in a gratified laugh.
"What did she say when you put the creams under the whip, up there? I
don't suppose the old girl is wise to the fact that you saved her neck
right then--but you sure did. You done yourself proud, Splinter." Cal
patted Chip's knee approvingly.
Chip blushed under the praise and hastily answered the question.
"She hollered out: 'Stop! There goes my COYOTE!'"
"Her