"Yell again," said the physician with another laugh, and added dryly, "I won't tell." Gordon's Mills, on Gordon's creek, lay in a deep, narrow valley, shut in and hidden from the world, by many miles of rolling, forest-covered hills. The mill, the general store and post office, and the blacksmith shop were connected with Corinth, twelve miles away, by daily stage--a rickety old spring wagon that carried the mail and any chance passenger. Pure and clear and cold the creek came welling to the surface of the earth full-grown, from vast, mysterious, subterranean caverns in the heart of the hills--and, from the brim of its basin, rushed, boiling and roaring, along to the river two miles distant, checked only by the dam at the mill. For a little way above the dam the waters lay still and deep, with patches of long mosses, vines and rushes, waving in its quiet clearness--forming shadowy dens for lusty trout, while the open places--shining fields and lanes--reflected, as a mirror, the steep green-clad bluff, and the trees that bent far over until their drooping branches touched the gleaming surface. As the two friends tramped the little path at the foot of the bluff, or waded, with legs well-braced, the tumbling torrent, and sent their flies hither and yon across the boiling flood to be snatched by the strong-hearted denizens of the stream, Dan felt the life and freshness and strength of God's good world entering into his being. At dinner time they built a little fire to make their coffee and broil a generous portion of their catch. Then lying at ease on the bank of the great spring, they talked as only those can talk who get close enough to the great heart of Mother Nature to feel strongly their common kinship with her and with their fellows. After one of those long silences that come so easily at such a time, Dan tossed a pebble far out into the big pool and watched it sink down, down, down, until he lost it in the unknown depths. "Doctor, where does it come from?" "Where does what come from?" "This stream. You say its volume is always the same--that it is unaffected by heavy rains or long droughts. How do you account for it?" "I don't account for it," grunted the Doctor, with a twinkle in his eye, "I fish in it." Dan laughed. "And that," he said slowly, "is your philosophy of life." The other made no answer. Choosing another pebble carefully, Dan said, "Speaking as a preacher--please elaborate." "Speaking as a practitioner--you try it," returned the Doctor. The big fellow stretched himself out on his back, with his hands clasped beneath his head. He spoke deliberately.