s knees where he was perched contentedly
relating his adventures with sundry hair-raising additions born of his
imagination. The Kid was telling Daddy Chip about the skunk he saw,
and he hated to be interrupted. He looked at his Doctor Dell and at the
familiar, white garment with lace at the neck and wristbands, and he
waved his hand with a gesture of dismissal.

"Aw, take that damn' thing away!" he told her in the tone of the real
old cowpuncher. "When I get ready to hit the bed-ground, a blanket is
all I'll need."

Lest you should think him less lovable than he really was, I must add
that, when Chip set him down hastily so that he himself could rush off
somewhere and laugh in secret, the Kid spread his arms with a little
chuckle and rushed straight at his Doctor Dell and gave her a real bear
hug.

"I want to be rocked," he told her--and was her own baby man again,
except that he absolutely refused to reconsider the nightgown. "And I
want you to tell me a story--about when Silver breaked his leg. Silver's
a good ole scout, you bet. I don't know what I'd a done 'theut Silver.
And tell about the bunch makin' a man outa straw to scare you, and the
horses runned away. I was such a far ways, Doctor Dell, and I couldn't
get back to hear them stories and I've most forgot about 'em. And tell
about Whizzer, Doctor Dell."

The Little Doctor rocked him and told him of the old days, and she
never again brought him his lace-trimmed nightie at bedtime. She never
mentioned his language upon the subject, either. The Little Doctor was
learning some things about her man-child, and one of them was this: When
he rode away into the Badlands and was lost, other things were lost,
and lost permanently; he was no longer her baby, for all he liked to
be rocked. He had come back to her changed, so that she studied him
amazedly while she worshipped. He had entered boldly into the life which
men live, and he would never come back entirely to the old order of
things. He would never be her baby; there would be a difference, even
while she held him in her arms and him rocked him to sleep.

She knew that it was so, when the Kid insisted, next day, upon going
home with the bunch; with Andy, rather, who was just now the Kid's
particular hero. He had to help the bunch he said; they needed him, and
Andy needed him and Miss Allen needed him.

"Aw, you needn't be scared, Doctor Dell," he told her shrewdly. "I ain't
going to find them brakes any more.