nt on ahead,
disgust in every line of his square-shouldered figure. "Combin' his
chaps, by cripes!" he snorted again, and straightway told the tale
profanely to his fellows, who laughed until they were weak and
watery-eyed as they listened.

Afterward, because Pink implored them and made a mystery of it, they
invited Miguel to take a hand in a long-winded game--rather, a series
of games--of seven-up, while his chaps hung to dry upon a willow by the
creek bank--or so he believed.

The chaps, however, were up in the white-house kitchen, where were also
the reek of scorched hair and the laughing expostulations of the
Little Doctor and the boyish titter of Pink and Irish, who were curling
laboriously the chaps of Miguel with the curling tongs of the Little
Doctor and those of the Countess besides.

"It's a shame, and I just hope Miguel thrashes you both for it," the
Little Doctor told them more than once; but she laughed, nevertheless,
and showed Pink how to give the twist which made of each lock a
corkscrew ringlet. The Countess stopped, with her dishcloth dangling
from one red, bony hand, while she looked. "You boys couldn't sleep
nights if you didn't pester the life outa somebody," she scolded. "Seems
to me I'd friz them diamonds, if I was goin' to be mean enough to do
anything."

"You would, eh?" Pink glanced up at her and dimpled. "I'll find you
a rich husband to pay for that." He straightway proceeded to friz the
diamonds of white.

"Why don't you have a strip of ringlets down each leg, with tight little
curls between?" suggested the Little Doctor, not to be outdone by any
other woman.

"Correct you are," praised Irish.

"And, remember, you're not heating branding-irons, mister man," she
added. "You'll burn all the hair off, if you let the tongs get red-hot.
Just so they'll sizzle; I've told you five times already." She picked
up the Kid, kissed many times the finger he held up for sympathy--the
finger with which he had touched the tongs as Pink was putting them
back into the grate of the kitchen stove, and spoke again to ease her
conscience. "I think it's awfully mean of you to do it. Miguel ought to
thrash you both."

"We're dead willing to let him try, Mrs. Chip. We know it's mean. We're
real ashamed of ourselves." Irish tested his tongs as he had been told
to do. "But we'd rather be ashamed than good, any old time."

The Little Doctor giggled behind the Kid's tousled curls, and reached
out a slim hand