"Thought what?" flared Chip, hotly, forgetting everything but that the
Little Doctor was being censured. "It was her picture, she started it
and intended to finish it. I painted on it one day when she was gone,
and she didn't know it. I told her not to tell anyone I had anything
to do with it. It wasn't her fault."

"Huh!" grunted the Old Man, as if he had his own opinion on that matter.
"Well, it's a rattling good picture--but this one's better. Poor ole
Diamond Bar--she couldn't come through with it, after all. She put up a
good fight, out there alone, but she had t' go under--her an' her calf."
He stood quiet a minute, gazing and gazing. "Doggone them measly wolves!
Why in thunder can't a feller pump lead into 'em like he wants t'?"

Chip's heart glowed within him. His technique was faulty, his colors
daring, perhaps--but his triumph was for that the greater. If men could
FEEL his pictures--and they did! That was the joy of it--they did!

"Darn them snarlin' brutes, anyway! I thought it was doggone queer if
Dell could dab away all her life at nice, common things that you only
think is purty, an' then blossom out, all of a sudden, with one like
that other was--that yuh felt all up an' down yer back. The little cheat,
she'd no business t' take the glory uh that'n like she done. I'll give
her thunder when she gits back."

"You won't do anything of the kind," said Chip, quietly--too quietly not
to be menacing. "I tell you that was my fault--I gave her all I did to
the picture, and I told her not to say anything. Do you think I don't
know what I owe to her? Do you think I don't know she saved Silver's
life--and maybe mine? Forty pictures wouldn't square me with the Little
Doctor--not if they were a heap better than they are, and she claimed