ok chuck for you fellers ven I'm sick," he mumbled
dazedly.

"Come out uh that, you damned Dutch belly-robber!" bawled Big Medicine
joyously, and somewhere behind a curtain a feminine shriek was heard
at the shocking sentence.

Four pairs of welcoming hands laid hold upon Patsy; four pairs of
strong arms dragged him out of the berth and through the narrow aisle
to the platform. The conductor, the head brakeman and the porter were
chafing there, and they pulled while the others pushed. So Patsy was
deposited upon the platform, grumbling and only half sober.

"Anyway, we've got him back," Weary remarked with much satisfaction
the next day when they were once more started toward the range land.
"When Irish blows in again, we'll be all right."

"By cripes, yuh just give me a sight uh that Irish once, and he'll
_come_, if I have to rope and drag 'im!" Big Medicine took his own way
of intimating that he held no grudge. "Did yuh hear what Patsy said,
by cripes, when he was loading up the chuck-wagon at the store? He
turned in all that oil and them olives and _anchovies_, yuh know, and
he told Tom t' throw in about six cases uh blueberries. I was standin'
right handy by, and he turns around and scowls at me and says: 'Py
cosh, der vay dese fellers eats pie mit derselves, I have to fill oop
der wagon mit pie fruit alreatty!' And then the old devil turns around
with his back to me, but yuh can skin me for a coyote if I didn't
ketch a grin on 'is face!"

They turned and looked back to where Patsy, seated high upon the
mess-wagon, was cracking his long whip like pistol shots and swearing
in Dutch at his four horses as he came bouncing along behind them.

"Well, there's worse fellers than old Patsy," Slim admitted
ponderously. "I don't want no more Jakie in mine, by golly."

"I betche Jakie cashes in, with all that lemon in him," prophesied
Happy Jack with relish. "Dirty little Dago--it'd serve him right.
Patsy wouldn't uh acted like that in a thousand years."

They glanced once more behind them, as if they would make sure that
the presence of Patsy was a reality. Then, with content in their
hearts, they galloped blithely out of the lane and into the grassy
hills.

THE END.

* * * * *

_WHAT THE CRITICS SAY OF_

CHIP OF THE FLYING U.

BY M. BOWER.

* * * * *

"'Chip' is all right. Better than 'The Virginian.'"

--_Brooklyn Eagle_.

"The n