and without some woman who cares for him, cannot escape having his
loneliness thrust upon him at times. He wondered why he should care.
Surely, ten years of living his life alone ought to kill that latent
homesickness which used to hold him awake at nights. Sometimes even
of late years, when he stood guard over the cattle at night, and got
to thinking--oh, it was hell to be all alone in the world!

There were Cal and Weary, they had girls who loved them--and they were
sure welcome to them. And Jack Bates and Happy Jack had sisters and
mothers--and even Slim had an old maid aunt who always knit him a red
and green pair of wristlets for Christmas. Chip, smoothing mechanically
the shimmery, white mane of his pet, thought he might be contented if he
had even an old maid aunt--but he would see that she made his wristlets
of some other color than those bestowed every year upon Slim.

As for the Little Doctor, it would be something strange if she had gone
through life without having some fellow in love with her. Probably, if
the truth was known, there had been more than Dr. Cecil Granthum--bah,
what a sickening name! Cecil! It might as well be Adolphus or Regie
or--what does a man want to pack around a name like that for? Probably
he was the kind of man that the name sounded like; a dude with pink
cheeks.

Chip knew just how he looked. Inspiration suddenly seizing upon him,
he sat down upon the manger, drew his memorandum book out of his inner
coat pocket, carefully sharpened a bit of lead pencil which he found
in another pocket, tore a leaf from the book, and, with Silver looking
over his shoulder, drew a graphic, ideal picture of Dr. Cecil Granthum.