And the picture--what was he such a fool for? Couldn't he say no with
a pair of gray eyes staring into his? It seemed not. He supposed he
must think up something to daub on there--the poorer the better.

That first day Chip smoked something like two dozen cigarettes, gazed
out across the coulee till his eyes ached, glared morosely at the canvas
on the easel, which stared back at him till the dull blankness of it
stamped itself upon his brain and he could see nothing else, look where
he might. Whereupon he gathered up hat and crutches, and hobbled slowly
down the hill to tell Silver his troubles.

The second day threatened to be like the first. Chip sat by the window
and smoked; but, little by little, the smoke took form and substance
until, when he turned his eyes to the easel, a picture looked back at
him--even though to other eyes the canvas was yet blank and waiting.

There was no Johnny this time to run at his beckoning. He limped about
on his crutches, collected all things needful, and sat down to work.

As he sketched and painted, with a characteristic rapidity that was
impatient of the slightest interruption yet patient in its perfectness
of detail, the picture born of the smoke grew steadily upon the canvas.

It seemed, at first, that "The Last Stand" was to be repeated. There
were the same jagged pinnacles and scrubby pines, held in the fierce
grip of the frozen chinook. The same? But there was a difference,
not to be explained, perhaps, but certainly to be felt. The Little
Doctor's hills were jagged, barren hills; her pines were very nice
pines indeed. Chip's hills were jagged, they were barren--they--were
desolate; his pines were shuddering, lonely pines; for he had wandered