"Oh, well," Heathcote chuckled, "have it any way you want to. Ole Doc had us coming and going, that's what I'm getting over. If he found he couldn't help folks to live, he plumped about and helped 'em to die. Great man, ole Doc! Came as you did, son, and settled. We never knew anything about his life before he took root here. Well, that night I'm telling you about, he was on his way back from the mines when he spied a fire on the up-side of the lake. He said it looked mighty curious shining and flaming in the blinding whiteness. It was Dan Hamlin's shack. Later we heard what had happened. Dan had come home drunk--when he wasn't drunk you couldn't find a decenter man than Hamlin, but liquor made him quarrelsome. His wife was going to have a baby--Mary-Clare, to be exact--and when he came in with Jack Seaver, the mail-carrier, there was a row on concerning something Seaver hadn't brought that Hamlin had ordered for his wife. There never was any reasoning with Hamlin when he was drunk, so Seaver tried to settle the question by a fight. Seaver was like that--never had any patience. Lamp turned over, set the shack on fire!" Peter breathed hard. "Mrs. Hamlin ran for her life and the two men ran from justice. Seaver came back later and told the story. Hamlin shot himself the following day when he heard what had happened. Blamed fool! Mary-Clare was left, but she didn't seem to amount to much in the beginning. It was this way: Mrs. Hamlin ran till she fell in a snowdrift. Ole Doc found her there." Heathcote paused. The logs fell apart and the room grew hot. Northrup started as if roused from a dream. "Yes, sir!" Heathcote went on. "Ole Doc found her there and, well, sir, he was doctor and minister for sure that night. There wasn't no choice as you might say. Mary-Clare was born in that snowdrift, and the mother died there! Ole Doc took 'em both home later." "Good God!" ejaculated Northrup. "That's the grimmest tale I ever listened to. What came next?" "The funeral--a double one, for they brought Hamlin's body back. Then the saving of Mary-Clare. Polly and I wanted her--but ole Doc said he'd have to keep an eye on her for a while--she seemed sorter petering out for some time, and then when she took a turn and caught on, you couldn't pry her away from ole Doc. He gave her his name and everything else. His wife was dead; his boy away to school, his housekeeper was a master hand with babies, and somehow ole Doc got to figuring out that Mary-Clare was a recompense for what he'd lost in women folks, and so he raised her and taught her. Good Lord, the education he pumped into that girl! He wouldn't let her go to school, but whenever he happened to think of anything he taught it to her, and he was powerful educated. Said he wanted to see what he could do by answering her questions and letting her think things out for herself. Remember, Polly, how Mary-Clare used to ride behind ole Doc with a book braced up against his back?"