In three days, then, Luck had chosen his men from among the Happy Family, and had convinced them that their future welfare and happiness depended upon their going back with him to Los Angeles.  In three days he had accomplished a good deal; but then, Luck was in the habit of crowding his days with achievement of one sort or another.  As a matter of fact, the third day he had looked upon as one given solely to the pleasure of staying at the Flying U while the boys completed their arrangements for leaving with him.  He had done all that he had planned to do, and he was in a very good humor with the world, or he had been until the Little Doctor had made his pride writhe under her innocent belittlement of his vocation.  To have her boy work in pictures would be a calamity in her eyes; in Luck’s eyes it would be an honor, provided he did the right kind of work in the right kind of pictures.

Luck’s own personal opinion, however, did not weigh in this case.  He had promised the Little Doctor that he would erase the impression he had made upon the Kid’s too vivid imagination; so he led him to a retired place where they would be sheltered from the wind by a great stack of alfalfa hay, and he began in this wise: 

“Old-timer, you’re the luckiest boy I’ve seen in all my travels,—­growing up here on the Flying U, with a mother like you’ve got, and a dad like Chip, and a ranch like this to get the swing of while you’re growing; so that in another five years I expect you’ll be running it yourself, and your folks will be larking around having the good time they’ve earned while they were raising you.  I’ll bet—­”

“So Doctor Dell went and got around you, did she?  I knew that was why she called you into the sett’n room.  Forget it, Luck.”  The Kid spat manfully into the trodden hay, and pushed his small-size Stetson back so that his curls showed, and set his feet as far apart as was comfortable.  “I knew she would,” he added with weary wisdom in his tone.  “Doctor Dell can get around anybody when she takes a notion.”

Luck held his face from smiling.  He looked surprised, and disappointed in the Kid, and sorry for the Kid’s parents.  At least, he made the Kid feel that he was thinking all these things, which proves how well one may master the art of facial expression.  He did not say a word; therefore he put the Kid upon the defensive and set his young wits to devising arguments in his favor.

“A woman never knows when a fellow begins to grow up.  Doctor Dell is the nicest girl in the world, but she needn’t think I’m a baby yet.  I can ride a buckin’ horse, and I went on round-up last spring—­and made a hand, too!  I can swing a rope as good as any of the bunch; you seen me whirl a loop and jump through it, and there’s more stunts than that I can do—­it was dinner time, so I had to quit before I showed you.”  The Kid paused.  He had not yet produced any effect whatever upon that surprised, pitying, disappointed look in Luck’s face, and the Kid began to feel worried.