"You seem to be pretty well onto your job," he remarked, dryly.

"I ought to be," she said, laughing a little. "I've been learning the
trade ever since I was sixteen."

"Yes? You began early."

"My Uncle John is a doctor. I helped him in the office till he got
me into the medical school. I was brought up in an atmosphere of
antiseptics and learned all the bones in Uncle John's 'Boneparte'--
the skeleton, you know--before I knew all my letters." She dragged
the coyote close to the wheel.

"Let me get hold of the tail." Chip carefully pinched out the blaze
of his match and threw it away before he leaned over to help. With a
quick lift he landed the animal, limp and bloody, squarely upon the
top of Miss Whitmore's largest trunk. The pointed nose hung down the
side, the white fangs exposed in a sinister grin. The girl gazed upon
him proudly at first, then in dismay.

"Oh, he's dripping blood all over my mandolin case--and I just know it
won't come out!" She tugged frantically at the instrument.

"'Out, damned spot!'" quoted Chip in a sepulchral tone before he turned
to assist her.

Miss Whitmore let go the mandolin and stared blankly up at him, and
Chip, offended at her frank surprise that he should quote Shakespeare,
shut his lips tightly and relapsed into silence.