a horse and let her ride beside
him. Chip was afraid to leave her at the ranch--afraid that she would
go mad. So he let her ride--they rode together. They did not go far from
the ranch. There was always the fear that someone might bring him in
while they were gone. That fear drove them back, every hour or two. Then
another fear would drive them forth again.

Up in another county there is a creek called Lost Child Creek. A child
was lost--or was it two children?--and men hunted and hunted and hunted,
and it was months before anything was found. Then a cowboy riding that
way found--just bones. Chip knew about that creek which is called Lost
Child. He had been there and he had heard the story, and he had seen
the--father and had shuddered--and that was long before he had known the
feeling a father has for his child. What he was deadly afraid of now
was that the Little Doctor would hear about that creek, and how it had
gotten its name.

What he dreaded most for himself was to think of that creek. He kept
the Little Doctor beside him and away from that Job's comforter, the
Countess, and tried to keep her hope alive while the hours dragged their
leaden feet over the hearts of them all.

A camp was hastily organized in One Man Coulee and another out beyond
Denson's place, and men went there to the camps for a little food and
a little rest, when they could hold out no longer. Chip and the Little
Doctor rode from camp to camp, intercepted every party of searchers they
glimpsed on the horizon, and came back to the ranch, hollow-eyed and
silent for the most part. They would rest an hour, perhaps. Then they
would ride out again.

The Happy Family seemed never to think of eating, never to want sleep.
Two days--three days--four days--the days became a nightmare. Irish,
with a warrant out for his arrest, rode with the constable, perhaps--if
the search chanced to lead them together. Or with Big Medicine, whom he
had left in hot anger. H. J. Owens and these other claim-jumpers hunted
with the Happy Family and apparently gave not a thought to claims.

Miss Allen started out on the second day and hunted through all the
coulees and gulches in the neighborhood of her claim--coulees and
gulches that had been searched frantically two or three times before.
She had no time to make whimsical speeches to Andy Green, nor he to
listen. When they met, each asked the other for news, and separated
without a thought for each other. The Kid--they