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But he was the son of his father he was Chip's kid; it would take a great deal more misery and unkindness to make him cry before this pilgrim who had been so mean to him. He rode along without saying a word. H. J. Owens did not say anything, either. He kept scanning each jagged peak and each gloomy canyon as they passed, and he seemed uneasy about something.
But Pink was on his way to the back door, and from there climbed like a cat to the roof of the coal-house, where, as he knew from experience, one could see the trail to the depot, and the depot itself. "It's sure her," he announced. "Chip's driving like hell, and the smoke uh the train's just coming around the bend from the big field. Wonder what struck her so sudden?"
"I betche we get a blizzard out uh this," gloomed Happy Jack, pulling his coat collar up another fraction of an inch. "And the way Chip's headed us, we got to cross that big flat going back in the thick of it; chances is, we'll git lost." No one made reply to this; it seemed scarcely worth while.
Miss Whitmore sighed and took to studying the landscape, which had become a succession of sharp ridges and narrow coulees, water-worn and bleak, with a purplish line of mountains off to the left. After several miles she spoke. "What is that animal over there? Do dogs wander over this wilderness alone?" Chip's eyes followed her pointing finger. "That's a coyote.
"It would have been all the same if I had been, I reckon," responded the senator, shaking Chip's hand again. "Well, well! So you are the genius that sounds more likely. No offense, Miss Whitmore. Do you remember that picture you drew with charcoal on a piece of pine board? It stands on the mantel in my library, and I always point it out to my friends as the work of a young man with a future.
He swung up on the nearest horse, which happened to be Chip's and raced out to the saddle bunch a quarter of a mile away. The Happy Family watched him go and called after him, urging him unnecessarily to speed. Weary did not waste time having the bunch corralled but rode in among the horses, his rope down and ready for business.
Instead they followed eagerly the trail Chip's cigarette-yellowed finger took across the map, and they listened intently to what he said about that trail. The clause about grazing the land, he said, simplified matters a whole lot. It was a cinch you couldn't turn loose and dry-farm that land and have even a fair chance of reaping a harvest.
The Kid lifted one small foot and laid a grimy finger in front of his heel by way of illustration. "Yes?" Chip's eyes twinkled briefly and immediately became intent upon his work. "Yes, and Doctor Dell has got to let me sleep in the bunk-house with the rest of the fellers. And I ain't going to wear a nightie once more! I don't have to, do I, Daddy Chip? Not with lace on it.
This was too much for the ducks, which cackled and bobbed their heads up and down and swam on, moved by an intense curiosity to find out what was Chip's particular game.
He was much more genial and unpretentious since Chip entered the room, and she wondered why. She wanted to ask about that reference to the water, but he stood the painting against the wall, just then, and she forgot everything but that. Chip's eyes clung to the scene greedily. After all, it was his and he knew in his heart that it was good.
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