manipulation of the sky--what mattered the method, so he attained
the result? Half an hour, and the hills were clutched in the
chill embrace of a "frozen chinook" such as the Little Doctor
had never seen in her life. But Johnny, peeping surreptitiously
over Chip's shoulder, stared at the change; then, feeling the
spirit of it, shivered in sympathy with the barren hills.

"Hully gee," he muttered under his breath, "he's sure a corker t'
paint cold that fair makes yer nose sting." And he curled up in a
chair behind, where he could steal a look, now and then, without
fear of detection.

But Chip was dead to all save that tiny basin in the Bad Lands--to the
wolves and their quarry. His eyes burned as they did when the fever
held him; each cheek bone glowed flaming red.

As wolf after wolf appeared with what, to Johnny, seemed uncanny
swiftness, and squatted, grinning and sinister, in a relentless half
circle, the book slipped unheeded to the floor with a clatter that
failed to rouse the painter, whose ears were dulled to all else than
the pitiful blat of a shivering, panic-stricken calf whose nose sought
his mother's side for her comforting warmth and protection.

The Countess rapped on the door for dinner, and Johnny rose softly and
tiptoed out to quiet her. May he be forgiven the lies he told that day,
of how Chip's head ached and he wanted to sleep and must not be disturbed,
by strict orders of the Little Doctor. The Countess, to whom the very
name of the Little Doctor was a fetich, closed all intervening doors and
walked on her toes in the kitchen, and Johnny rejoiced at the funeral
quiet which rested upon the house.