make a cigarette.

"I didn't set you afoot," he said. "That was a bad break you made
yourself. Why didn't you do as I told you--hang to the bridle and
fight Denver off with your whip? You had one."

"Yes--and let him gnaw me!"

Chip gurgled again, and drew the tobacco sack shut with his teeth.
"He wouldn't 'gnaw' you--he wouldn't have come near you. He's whip
trained. And I'd have been there myself in another minute."

"I didn't want you there! And I don't pretend to be a horse-trainer,
Mr. Bennett. There's several things about your old ranch life that I
don't know--and don't want to know! I'm going back to Ohio to-morrow,
so there!"

"Yes?" He drew a match sharply along his stamped saddle-skirt and
applied it to the cigarette, pinched out the blaze with extreme care,
and tossed the match-end facetiously against Concho's nose. He did
not seem particularly alarmed at her threat--or, perhaps, he did not care.
The Little Doctor prodded savagely at her shoe, too angry to see the
thorn, and Chip drove another nail into his coffin with apparent relish,
and watched her. After a little, he slid to the ground and limped over
to her.

"Here, give me that shoe; you'll have it all picked to pieces and not
get the thorn, either. Where is it?"

"IT?" sniffed the Little Doctor, surrendering the shoe with hypocritical