Something in his eyes brought to mind certain stormy crises in the
headstrong childhood of the Little Doctor-crises in which she was
forced to submission very much against her will. It was the same
mutinous surrender to overwhelming strength, the same futile defiance
of fate.

"I came to ask you who you would rather have to nurse you," she said,
trying to keep the erratic color from crimsoning her cheeks. You see,
she had never had a patient of her very own before, and there were
certain embarrassing complications in having this particular young
man in charge.

Chip's eyes wandered wistfully to the window, where a warm, spring breeze
flapped the curtains in and out.

"How long have I got to lie here?" he asked, reluctantly.

"A month, at the least--more likely six weeks," she said with kind
bluntness. It was best he should know the worst at once.

Chip turned his face bitterly to the wall for a minute and traced an
impossible vine to its breaking point where the paper had not been
properly matched. Twenty miles away the boys were hurrying through
their early dinner that they might catch up their horses for the
afternoon's work. And they had two good feet to walk on, two sound
arms to subdue restless horseflesh and he was not there! He could
fairly smell the sweet, trampled sod as the horses circled endlessly
inside the rope corral, and hear them snort when a noose swished close.
He wondered who would get his string to ride, and what they would do
with his bed.