Ben nodded. He did not have to be told that fact. The explanation, however, was beyond him. Forest leaned forward. "You remember the Saskatchewan River?" Ben straightened, but the dim images in his mind were not clear enough for him to answer in the affirmative. "I'm afraid not." Melville leaned forward in his chair. "Ask him if he remembers winning the canoe race at Lodge Pole--or the time he shot the Athabaska Rapids." Ben turned brightly to him, but slowly shook his head. "I can't remember ever hearing of them before." "I think you would, in time," Forest remarked. "They must have been interesting experiences. Now what do these mean to you?--Thunder Lake--Abner Darby--Edith Darby--MacLean's College----" Ben relaxed, focusing his attention on the names. For the instant the scene about him, the anxious, interested faces, faded from his consciousness. Thunder Lake! Somewhere, some time, Thunder Lake had had the most intimate associations with his life. The name stirred him and moved him; dim voices whispered in his ears about it, but he couldn't quite catch what they said. He groped and reached in vain. There was no doubt but that an under-consciousness had full knowledge of the name and all that it meant. But it simply could not reach that knowledge up into his conscious mind. Abner Darby! It was curious what a flood of tenderness swept through him as, whispering, he repeated the name. Some one old and white-haired had been named Abner Darby: some one whom he had once worshipped with the fervor of boyhood, but who had leaned on his own, strong shoulders in latter years. Since his own name was Darby, Abner Darby was, in all probability, his father; but his reasoning intelligence, rather than his memory, told him so. The name of Edith Darby conjured up in his mind a childhood playmate,--a girl with towzled yellow curls and chubby, confiding little hands.... But these dim memory-pictures went no further: there were no later visions of Edith as a young woman, blossoming with virgin beauty. They stopped short, and he had a deep, compelling sense of grief. The child, unquestionably a sister, had likely died in early years. The third name of the three, MacLean's College, called up no memories whatever. "I can hardly say that I remember much about them," he responded at last. "I think they'll come plainer, though, the more I think about them. I just get the barest, vague ideas." "They'll strengthen in time, I'm sure," Forest told him. "Put them out of your mind, for now. Let it be blank." The alienist again leaned toward him, his eyes searching. There ensued an instant's pause, possessing a certain quality of suspense. Then Forest spoke quickly, sharply. "_Wolf_ Darby!" In response a curious tremor passed over Ben's frame, giving in some degree the effect of a violent start. "_Wolf_ Darby," he repeated hesitantly. "Why do you call me that?"