“He may. It will depend on the care he receives,” replied Conway shortly. “I suppose, Mike,” he said, turning to the elder Higgins, “we can take him up to your place for a day or two?” But Norine interfered. “You say he wants good care? Bring him down to our place. It is not much farther, and we can give him better care.” The doctor remonstrated feebly. Of course it would be better for this unknown, but she must remember that he _was_ unknown; and think of the work it would entail on her. Norine, however, paid no attention to this; but calling the eldest Higgins girl to follow her, and telling the doctor that she would have a bed prepared by the time they got there, she started rapidly homeward. It was no easy job to get the inanimate figure through the woods; but they managed, with the aid of the last shutter the cabin could boast of, to extemporize a sort of litter. Placing the man on this, they succeeded, after overcoming many difficulties, in placing him in the bed prepared for him. It was many hours, however, before Lester Conway left his new patient. But when he did so, it was with the assurance that the man would live. “He will have no one but you to thank for it, Miss Norine,” he said, on leaving. “I hope he will not prove ungrateful.” And then the doctor, mild and sedate as ever, mounted his little pony and jogged home. CHAPTER III. IN THE WAY OF HISTORY. About the time these events were taking place at the farm, the manager and part owner thereof was striding over the fields at a good round pace on his way to the nearest village. A tall, well-formed man of about twenty-six or twenty-seven years, marching along with head erect and shoulders set well back; long, very long legs incased in trousers of the all-pervading gray homespun; close-fitting sack coat of the same material buttoned closely around him; a peakless round cap set somewhat jauntily over the curly brown hair--that was James, or, more commonly, “Jim,” Bright. If you had seen him now, as his long legs carried him over the ground at the rate of a good four miles an hour, you might have taken him to be anything rather than a small farmer. He had the erect figure and careless grace of a trained athlete--more like a soldier than a farmer, you would have thought. There was something in his commanding figure and watchful eye that caused an undefined wonder that he should be content to bury himself in this barren region; something incongruous, too, in the idea of coupling reaping, plowing, and the petty daily routine of the small farmer with that strong, upright figure and firm face. But he _was_ a farmer for all that, and a good one, too, albeit somewhat original in his methods. “A clever boy,” the neighbors thought, and then they would shake their heads doubtfully. They could not understand him; but they all respected him, and the greater part of them liked him. He was unlike the rest in all he did--and in all he said, too, for the matter of that.