It was most awfully lonesome when she was gone all day, and last
night she had been writing all the evening to Dr. Cecil Granthum--
damn him! Chip always hitched that invective to the unknown doctor's
name, for some reason he saw fit not to explain to himself. He
didn't see what she could find to write about so much, for his part.
And he did hate a long day with no one but Johnny to talk to.

He craned his neck to keep her in view as long as possible, drew a long,
discontented breath and settled himself more comfortably in the chair
where he spent the greater part of his waking hours.

"Hand me the tobacco, will you, kid?"

He fished his cigarette book from his pocket. "Thanks!" He tore a
narrow strip from the paper and sifted in a little tobacco.

"Now a match, kid, and then you're done."

Johnny placed the matches within easy reach, shoved a few magazines
close to Chip's elbow, and stretched himself upon the floor with a book.

Chip lay back against the cushions and smoked lazily, his eyes half
closed, dreaming rather than thinking. The unfinished painting stood
facing him upon its easel, and his eyes idly fixed upon it. He knew
the place so well. Jagged pinnacles, dotted here and there with scrubby
pines, hemmed in a tiny basin below--where was blank canvas. He went
mentally over the argument again, and from that drifted to a scene he
had witnessed in that same basin, one day--but that was in the winter.
Dirty gray snow drifts, where a chinook had cut them, and icy side hills
made the place still drearier. And the foreground--if the Little Doctor