“I’ll bet your wife ain’t crazy.”  Grandma dismounted with Doug’s help.  “Now, Douglas, you keep this lunatic outside, no matter what he says or does.  It’s just the way he acted when Little Marion came.”  She stamped into the house and closed the door.

“Let’s go do the chores!” suggested Douglas.

“Chores!  Chores!  Don’t you know that—­”

“Yes, I know all about it,” interrupted Doug.  “Come on and get the milking done.  Are you afraid your wife will die, Charleton, or what?”

“Or what!” gasped Charleton.  “You poor, half-baked idiot!”

For an hour, Douglas sweated with Charleton.  Then, as they rested for a time on the corral gate, the kitchen door opened and Grandma’s head appeared.

“You go, Doug,” said Charleton feebly.

But Grandma did not wait.  “It’s a boy, Charleton!” she shrieked.  “A fine, big boy!” And she closed the door.

Charleton sat perfectly still on the fence.  His lips moved but for several seconds no sound came forth.  Then he said, “Charleton Falkner, Jr.!  Charleton Falkner, Jr.!  All my life I’ve been waiting for this moment!” Tears were on his cheeks.  “Doug, you go up and ask ’em how my wife is and give her my love.”

Douglas stared at his mentor, wonderingly, unwound his long legs from the fence and crossed the yard.  Grandma answered his timid rap.

“Charleton says how’s his wife and sends his love.”

“O, he does!” witheringly.  “Why don’t he go over to the post-office and telephone us?  You tell him she did fine like she always does everything.  You folks go up and get Peter to give you some breakfast.”

“I’m not going near Peter till I see the boy and my wife!” called Charleton.

Grandma slammed the door.

“I wouldn’t go near the post-office,” said Douglas, established again on the fence beside Charleton.

“Why not?”

“If—­if I felt like you do, I’d want to stay by myself, just take a ride alone up to the top of Fire Mesa.”

“I don’t care what I do as long as the boy’s here.  Charleton Falkner, Jr.!  I’ll tell you, Doug, you’ll never know what happiness life can hold for you till a woman like Marion gives you a son.”

“Say!” cried Douglas in an outraged voice.  “What’s all this talk you’ve been giving me for a year about whiskey and women and horses?”

Charleton did not hear him.  “Charleton Falkner, Jr.!” he was murmuring over an unlighted cigarette.

It seemed a very long time before they were admitted to the baby and breakfast.  Douglas was entirely unimpressed by the squirming red morsel of humanity that Little Marion proudly brought into the kitchen for their inspection.  But Charleton was maudlin with admiration.  It was, it seemed, easily the first child ever born in Lost Chief, not excepting Little Marion who had been a wonderful baby herself.

Douglas listened, eating his breakfast grimly the while, filled with an embarrassed consternation at last beholding his mentor with, as Peter had said, his outer skin off.