Arlie found she could manage a little laugh by this time.

“Well, if you ain’t going to, we might as well go in and have a look at that false-alarm patient of ours,” he continued.  “We’ll have to sit up all night with him.  I was sixty-three yesterday.  I’m going to quit this doctor game.  I’m too old to go racing round the country nights just because you young folks enjoy shooting each other up.  Yes, ma’am, I’m going to quit.  I serve notice right here.  What’s the use of having a good ranch and some cattle if you can’t enjoy them?”

As the doctor had been serving notice of his intention to quit doctoring for over ten years, Arlie did not take him too seriously.  She knew him for what he was—­ a whimsical old fellow, who would drop in the saddle before he would let a patient suffer; one of the old school, who loved his work but liked to grumble over it.

“Maybe you’ll be able to take a rest soon.  You know that young doctor from Denver, who was talking about settling here——­”

This, as she knew, was a sore point with him.  “So you’re tired of me, are you?  Want a new-fangled appendix cutter from Denver, do you?  Time to shove old Doc Lee aside, eh?”

“I didn’t say that, doc,” she repented.

“Huh!  You meant it.  Wonder how many times he’d get up at midnight and plow through three-foot snow for six miles to see the most ungrateful, squalling little brat——­”

“Was it me, doc?” she ungrammatically demanded.

“It was you, Miss Impudence.”

They had reached the door, but she held him there a moment, while she laughed delightedly and hugged him.  “I knew it was me.  As if we’d let our old doc go, or have anything to do with a young ignoramus from Denver!  Didn’t you know I was joking?  Of course you did.”

He still pretended severity.  “Oh, I know you.  When it comes to wheedling an old fool, you’ve got the rest of the girls in this valley beat to a fare-you-well.”

“Is that why you always loved me?” she asked, with a sparkle of mischief in her eye.

“I didn’t love you.  I never did.  The idea!” he snorted.  “I don’t know what you young giddy pates are coming to.  Huh!  Love you!”

“I’ll forgive you, even if you did,” she told him sweetly.

“That’s it!  That’s it!” he barked.  “You forgive all the young idiots when they do.  And they all do—­ every last one of them.  But I’m too old for you, young lady.  Sixty-three yesterday.  Huh!”

“I like you better than the younger ones.”

“Want us all, do you?  Young and old alike.  Well, count me out.”

He broke away, and went into the house.  But there was an unconquerably youthful smile dancing in his eyes.  This young lady and he had made love to each other in some such fashion ever since she had been a year old.  He was a mellow and confirmed old bachelor, but he proposed to continue their innocent coquetry until he was laid away, no matter which of the young bucks of the valley had the good fortune to win her for a wife.