elings, and he blundered awkwardly over it.

"I never did go much on them darned hospitals, anyway," Weary observed
gloomily. "He oughta be home, where folks can look after him. Mam-ma! It
sure is a fright."

"I betche Chip and the Little Doctor won't get there in time," Happy
Jack predicted, with his usual pessimism. "The Old Man's gittin' old--"

"He ain't but fifty-two; yuh call that old, consarn yuh? He's younger
right now than you'll be when you're forty."

"Countess is going along, too, so she can ride herd on the Kid," Pink
informed then. "I heard the Little Doctor tell her to pack up, and
'never mind if she did have sponge all set!' Countess seemed to think
her bread was a darned sight more important than the Old Man. That's the
way with women. They'll pass up--"

"Well, by golly, I like to see a woman take some interest in her own
affairs," Slim defended. "What they packin' up for, and where they
goin'?" Slim had just ridden up to the group in time to overhear Pink's
criticism.

They told him the news, and Slim swallowed twice, said "By golly!" quite
huskily, and then rode slowly away with his head bowed. He had worked
for the Flying U when it was strictly a bachelor outfit, and with the
tenacity of slow minds he held J. G. Whitmore, his beloved "Old Man,"
as but a degree lower than that mysterious power which made the sun to
shine--and, if the truth were known, he had accepted him as being quite
as eternal. His loyalty adjusted everything to the interests of the
Flying U. That the Old Man could die--the possibility stunned him.

They were a sorry company that gathered that night around the long table
with its mottled oil-cloth covering and benches polished to a glass-like
smoothness with their own vigorous bodies. They did not talk much about
the Old Man; indeed, they came no nearer the subject than to ask Weary
if he were going to drive the team in to Dry Lake. They did not talk
much about anything, for that matter; even the knives and forks seemed
to share the general depression of spirits, and failed to give forth the
cheerful clatter which was a daily accompaniment of meals in that room.

Old Patsy, he who had cooked for J. G. Whitmore when the Flying U
coulee was a wilderness and the brand yet unrecorded and the irons
unmade--Patsy lumbered heavily about the room and could not find his
dish-cloth when it was squeezed tight in one great, fat hand, and
unthinkingly started to fill their coffee cups