“It makes me plumb sore when I think of all the years I’ve stood for Patsy’s slops,” sighed Cal Emmett, rolling over upon his back because he was too full for any other position—­putting it plainly.

“By golly, I never knowed there was such cookin’ in the world,” echoed Slim.  “Why, even Mis’ Bixby can’t cook that good.”

“The Countess had ought to come down and take a few lessons,” declared Jack Bates emphatically.  “I’m going to take up some uh that pudding and ask her what she thinks of it.”

“Yuh can’t,” mourned Happy Jack.  “There ain’t any left—­and I never got more’n a taste.  Next time, I’m going to tell Jakie to make it in a wash tub, and make it full; with some uh you gobblers in camp—­”

He looked up and discovered the Little Doctor approaching with Chip.  She was smiling a friendly welcome, and she was curious about the new cook.  By the time she had greeted them all and had asked all the questions she could think of and had gone over to meet Jakie and to taste, at the urgent behest of the Happy Family, a tiny morsel of salad which had been overlooked, it would seem that the triumph of the new cook was complete and that no one could possibly give a thought to old Patsy.

The Little Doctor, however, seemed to regret his loss—­and that in the face of the delectable salad and the smile of Jakie.  “I do think it’s a shame that Patsy left the way he did,” she remarked to the Happy Family in general, being especially careful not to look toward Big Medicine.  “The poor old fellow walked every step of the way to the ranch, and Claude”—­that was Chip’s real name—­“says it was twenty-five or six miles.  He was so lame and he looked so old and so—­well, friendless, that I could have cried when he came limping up to the house!  He had walked all night, and he got here just at breakfast time and was too tired to eat.

“I dosed him and doctored his poor feet and made him go to bed, and he slept all that day.  He wanted to start that night for Dry Lake, but of course we wouldn’t let him do that.  He was wild to leave, however, so J.G. had to drive him in the next day.  He went off without a word to any of us, and he looked so utterly dejected and so—­so old.  Claude says he acted perfectly awful in camp, but I’m sure he was sorry for it afterwards.  J.G. hasn’t got over it yet; I believe he has taken it to heart as much as Patsy seemed to do.  He’s had Patsy with him for so long, you see—­he was like one of the family.”  She stopped and regarded the Happy Family a bit anxiously.  “This new cook is a very nice little man,” she added after a minute, “but after all, he isn’t Patsy.”

The Happy Family did not answer, and they refrained from looking at one another or at the Little Doctor.