“You keep out of the pasture, young man!” His tone was stern to match his perturbation. “And you leave Silver alone—”
The Kid did not wait for more. He lifted up his voice and wept in bitterness of spirit. Wept so that one could hear him a mile. Wept so that J. G. Whitmore reading the Great Falls Tribune on the porch, laid down his paper and asked the world at large what ailed that doggoned kid now.
“Dell, you better go see what's wrong,” he called afterwards through the open door to the Little Doctor, who was examining a jar of germ cultures in her “office.” “Chances is he's fallen off the stable or something—though he sounds more mad than hurt. If it wasn't for my doggoned back—”
The Little Doctor passed him hurriedly. When her man-child wept, it Needed no suggestion from J. G. or anyone else to send her flying to the rescue. So presently she arrived breathless at the blacksmith shop' and found Chip within, looking in urgent Need of reinforcements, and the Kid yelling ragefully beside the door and kicking the log wall with vicious boot-tees.
“Shut up now or I'll spank you!” Chip was saying desperately when his wife appeared. “I wish you'd take that Kid and tie him up, Dell,” he added snappishly. “Here he's been riding all the horses in the little pasture—and taking a chance on breaking his neck! And he ain't satisfied with Stubby—he thinks he's entitled to Silver!”
“Well, why not? There, there, honey—men don't cry when things go wrong—”
“No—because they can take it out in cussing!” wailed the Kid. “I wouldn't cry either, if you'd let me swear all I want to!”
Chip turned his back precipitately and his shoulders were seen to shake. The Little Doctor looked shocked.
“I want Silver for my string!” cried the Kid, artfully transferring his appeal to the higher court. “I can ride him—'cause I have rode him, in the pasture; and he never bucked once or kicked or anything. Doggone it, he likes to have me ride him! He comes a-runnin' up to me when I go down there, and I give him sugar. And then he waits till I climb on his back, and then we chase the other horses and play ride circle. He wants to be my string!” Something in the feel of his mother's arm around his shoulder whispered hope to the Kid. He looked up at her with his most endearing smile. “You come down there and I'll show you,” he wheedled. “We're pals. And I guess YOU wouldn't like to have the boys call you Tom Thumb, a-ridin' Stubby. He's nothing but a five-cent sample of a horse. Big Medicine says so. I—I'd rather walk than ride Stubby. And I'm going on roundup. The boys said I could go when I get a real horse under me—and I want Silver. Daddy Chip said 'yes' I could have him. And now he's Injun-giver. Can't I have him, Doctor Dell?”
The gray-blue eyes clashed with the brown. “It wouldn't hurt anything to let the poor little tad show us what he can do,” said the gray-blue eyes.