A log cabin it was, containing two rooms and the unaccustomed luxury of glass windows; so new that the hewn cedar logs had not yet weathered to the habitual dull gray tone, but glowed jauntily red as the timbers alternated with the white and yellow daubing. A stanch stone chimney seemed an unnecessary note of ostentation, since the more usual structure of clay and sticks might serve as well. It reminded Ben Hanway that its occupant was not native to the place, and whetted anew his curiosity as he looked about, the reins on his horse's neck in his slow approach. It was a sheltered spot; the great mountain's curving summit rose high toward the north and west above the depression where the cabin stood; across the narrow valley a still more elevated range intercepted the east wind. Only to the south was the limited plateau open, sloping down to great cliffs, giving upon a vast expanse of mountain and valley and plain and far reaches of undulating country, promising in fair weather high, pure, soft air, a tempered gentle breeze, and the best that the sun can do. He noted the advantages of the situation in reference to the "lung complaint," feeling a loser in some sort; for he had begun to suspect that the consumptive tendencies of the stranger were a vain pretense, assumed merely to delude the unwary. He could not have doubted long, for when he dismounted and hitched his horse to the rail fence he heard the door of the house open, and as its owner, standing on the threshold in the wind and the gusty rain, called out to him a welcoming "Hello," the word was followed by a series of hacking coughs which told their story as definitely as a medical certificate. Ben Hanway was not a humane man in any special sense, but he was conscious of haste in concluding the tethering of the animal and in striding across the vacant weed-grown yard striped with the ever-descending rain. "Ye'd better git in out'n all this wind an' rain," he said in his rough voice. "A power o' dampness in the air." "No matter. There's no discount on me. Don't take cold nowadays. I've got right well here already." The passage-way was dark, but the room into which Ben was ushered, illumined by two opposite windows, was as bright as the day would allow. A roaring wood fire in the great chimney-place reinforced the pallid gray light with glancing red and yellow fluctuations. The apartment was comfortable enough, although its uses were evidently multifarious,--partly kitchen, and dining-room, and sitting-room. Its furniture consisted of several plain wooden chairs, a table and crockery, a few books on a shelf, a lounge in the corner, and a rifle, after the manner of the mountaineers, over the mantelpiece. Upon the shelf a cheap clock ticked away the weary minutes of the lonely hours of the long empty days while the valley man abode here, exiled from home and friends and his accustomed sphere, and fought out that hopeless fight for his life.