going forward or back. And that second gave Time a chance to
play an accident. A big seven-passenger touring car mowed him
down and left him in a heap for the ambulance from the
nearest hospital to gather on its stretcher.

The Old Man did not die; he had lived long on the open range
and he was pretty tough and hard to kill. He went back to his
beloved Flying U, with a crutch to help him shuffle from bed
to easy chair and back again.

The Little Doctor, who was his youngest sister, nursed him
tirelessly; but it was long before there came a day when the
Old Man gave his crutch to the Kid to use for a stick-horse,
and walked through the living room and out upon the porch
with the help of a cane and the solicitous arm of the Little
Doctor, and with the Kid galloping gleefully before him on
the crutch.

Later he discarded the help of somebody's arm, and hobbled
down to the corral with the cane, and with the Kid still
galloping before him on "Uncle Gee Gee's" crutch. He stood
for some time leaning against the corral watching some of the
boys halter-breaking a horse that was later to be sold--when
he was "broke gentle"--and then he hobbled back again,
thankful for the soft comfort of his big chair.

That was well enough, as far as it went. The Flying U took it
for granted that the Old Man was slowly returning to the old
order of life, when rheumatism was his only foe and he could
run things with his old energy and easy good management. But