tongues of flame. Those three old
cats--I am using her own term, which was spiteful--would probably give
up now, and go back where they belonged. She hoped so. And for herself--

"By gracious, I'm glad to see that one go, anyhow!" Andy Green paused
long enough in his headlong gallop to shout to her. "I was going to
sneak up and touch it off myself, if it wouldn't start any other way.
Now you and me'll get down to cases, girl, and have a settlement. And
say!" He had started on, but he pulled up again. "The Little Doctor's
back here, somewhere. You go home with her when she goes, and stay till
I come and get you."

"I like your nerve!" Rosemary retorted ambiguously.

"Sure--folks generally do. I'll tell her to stop for you. You know
she'll be glad enough to have you--and so will the Kid."

"Where is Buck?" Rosemary was the first person who asked that question.
"I saw him ride up on the bench just before the fire started. I was
watching for him, through the glasses--"

"Dunno--haven't seen him. With his mother, I guess." Andy rode on to
find Patsy and send him back down the line with the water wagon. He did
not think anything more about the Kid, though he thought a good deal
about Miss Allen.

Now that her shack was burned, she would be easier to persuade into
giving up that practically worthless eighty. That was what filled the
mind of Andy Green to the exclusion of everything else except the fire.
He was in a hurry to deliver his message to Patsy, so that he could hunt
up the Little Doctor and speak her hospitality for the girl he meant to
marry just as soon as he could persuade her to stand with him before a
preacher.

He found the Little Doctor still fighting a dogged battle with death for
the life of the woman who laughed wildly because her home was a heap
of smoking embers. The Little Doctor told him to send Rosemary Allen on
down to the ranch, or take her himself, and to tell the Countess to send
up her biggest medicine case immediately. She could not leave, she said,
for some time yet. She might have to stay all night--or she would if
there was any place to stay. She was half decided, she said, to have
someone take the woman in to Dry Lake right away, and up to the hospital
in Great Falls. She supposed she would have to go along. Would Andy tell
J. G. to send up some money? Clothes didn't matter--she would go the way
she was; there were plenty of clothes in the stores, she declared. And
would Andy rustle a