"Oh, it's a pretty long story for a sick man. The mere facts are that Asher Aydelot was to have bank stock, a good paying hotel, and a splendid big farm if he'd promise never to marry any descendant of Jerome Thaine, of Virginia. Asher hiked out West and enlisted in the cavalry and did United States scout duty for two years, hoping to forget Virginia Thaine, who is a descendant of this Jerome Thaine. But it wasn't any use. Distance don't count, you know, in cases like that." "Yes, I know." Shirley was too sick to notice Dr. Carey's face, and he did not remember afterward how low and hard those three words sounded. "It seems Virginia had pulled Asher through a fever in a Rebel hospital, and we all love our nurses." Jim patted the doctor's knee as he said this. "And when the father's will was read out against ever, ever, ever his son marrying a Thaine, Asher promptly said that the whole inheritance, bank stock, hotel, and farm, might go where--the old man Aydelot had already gone--maybe. Anyhow, he married Virginia Thaine and she was game to come out here and pioneer on a Grass River claim. Strange what a woman will do for love, isn't it? And to go on a forty-mile ride to save a worthless pup's life! That's me. Think of the daughter of one of those old Virginia homes up to a trick like that?" "You've talked enough now." Shirley looked up in surprise at this stern command, but Dr. Carey had gone to the other side of the cabin and sat staring out at the river running bank-full at the base of the little slope. When he turned to his patient again, the old tender look was in his eyes. Men loved Jim Shirley if they cared for him at all. And now the pathetic hopelessness of Jim's face cut deep as Carey studied it. "I say, Shirley, did you ever know a man back East named Thomas Smith?" he asked. "No. Strange name, that! Where'd you run onto it? Smith! Smith! How do you spell it?" Jim replied indifferently. "With a spoonful of quinine in epsom salts, taken raw, if you don't pay attention. Now listen to me." The doctor's tone was as cheery as ever. "Well, don't make it necessary for me to tell you when you've talked enough." In spite of the joking words, there was a listless hopelessness in Shirley's voice, matching the dull, listless eyes. And Horace Carey rose to the situation at once. "A stranger named Thomas Smith came to the Crossing the day I came down here. Rather a small man, with close-set, dark eyes; signed his name in a cramped, left-handed writing. I noticed his right hand seemed a little stiff, sort of paralyzed at the wrist. But here's the funny thing. He made me uneasy, and he made me think of you. Could you identify him? He looked as much like you as I look like that young darkey, Bo Peep, up at the Jacobs House." "None of my belongings. You are a delicate plant to be so sensitive to strangers." Jim sighed from mental weariness more than from physical weakness.