"Well, you ARE dull! Now that fellow isn't going to have any vacation,
so Cecil can come out, right away! Next week! Think of it!"

Chip tried to think of it, but he couldn't think of anything, just then.
He was only conscious of wishing Whizzer had made a finish of the job,
up there on the Hog's Back that day. His heart no longer thumped--it
was throbbing in a tired, listless fashion.

"Why can't you look a little bit pleased?" smiled the torturer from the
window. "You sit there like a--an Indian before a cigar store. You've
just about the same expression."

"I can't help it. I never was fierce to meet strangers, somehow."

"Judging from my own experience, I think you are uncommonly fierce at
meeting strangers. I haven't forgotten how unmercifully you snubbed me
when I came to the ranch, or how you risked my neck on the grade, up
there, trying to make me scared enough to scream. I didn't, though!
I wanted to, I'll admit, when you made the horses run down the steepest
part--but I didn't, and so I could easily forgive you."

"Could you?" said Chip, in a colorless tone.

"If you had gained your object, I couldn't have," remarked she.

"I did, though."

"You did? Didn't you do it just to frighten me?"

Chip gave her a glance of weary tolerance. "You must think I've about