ay-blue
eyes.

"Oh--all right," yielded the brown, and their owner threw the iron bar
upon the cooling forge and began to turn down his sleeves. "Why don't
you make him wear a hat?" he asked reprovingly. "A little more and he
won't pay any attention to anything you tell him. I'd carry out that
sunbonnet bluff, anyway, if I were you."

"Now, Daddy Chip! I 'splained to you how I lost my hat," reproached the
Kid, clinging fast to the Little Doctor's hand.

"Yes--and you 'splained that you'd have gone into that deep hole and
drowned--with nobody there to pull you out--if you hadn't been scared of
a water snake," Chip pointed out relentlessly.

"I wasn't 'zactly scared," amended the Kid gravely. "He was havin' such
a good time, and he was swimmin' around so--comf'table--and it wasn't
polite to 'sturb him. Can't I have Silver?"

"We'll go down and ask Silver what he thinks about it," said the Little
Doctor, anxious to make peace between her two idols. "And we'll see if
Daddy Chip can get the hat. You must wear a hat, honey; you know what
mother told you--and you know mother keeps her word."

"I wish dad did," the Kid commented, passing over the hat question. "He
said I could have Silver, and keep him in a box stall and feed him my
own self and water him my own self and nobody's to touch him but me."

"Well, if daddy said all that--we'll have to think it over, and consult
Silver and see what he has to say about it."

Silver, when consulted, professed at least a willingness to own the Kid
for his master. He did indeed come trotting up for sugar; and when he
had eaten two grimy lumps from the Kid's grimier hand, he permitted
the Kid to entice him up to a high rock, and stood there while the Kid
clambered upon the rock and from there to his sleek back. He even waited
until the Kid gathered a handful of silky mane and kicked him on the
ribs; then he started off at a lope, while the Kid risked his balance
to cast a triumphant grin--that had a gap in the middle--back at his
astonished parents.

"Look how the little devil guides him!" exclaimed Chip surrenderingly.
"I guess he's safe enough, old Silver seems to sabe he's got a kid to
take care of. He sure would strike a different gait with me! Lord how
the time slides by; I can't seem to get it through me that the Kid's
growing up."

The Little Doctor sighed a bit. And the Kid, circling grandly on the far
side of the little pasture, came galloping back to hear the verdict