"I'll"--He
stopped short and putting his face down upon the table again he burst
into a storm of sobs and cried, "Oh, I am weak, I am weak, let me go,
let me go, I am not worth it!"

Then Shock got down beside him, put his arm around his shoulder, and
said: "I cannot let you go, doctor. I want you. And your Father in
Heaven wants you. Come," he continued after a pause, "we'll win yet."

For half an hour they walked the streets and then turned into Father
Mike's quarters.

"Father Mike," said Shock, opening the door, "we want coffee, and I'm
hungrier than I've been for three days."

"Come in," said Father Mike, with a keen glance at the doctor, "come
in, brother mine. You've earned your grub this day."

XVI

"STAY AT YOUR POST, LAD"

Relieved from his station at the Fort, Shock was able to devote himself
entirely to the western part of his field, which embraced the Loon Lake
district and extended twenty-five miles up to the Pass, and he threw
himself with redoubled energy into his work of exploration and
organisation. Long ago his little cayuse had been found quite unequal
to the task of keeping pace with the tremendous energy of his driver,
and so for the longer journeys Shock had come to depend mainly upon
Bob, the great rangey sorrel sent him by the Hamilton boys, the only
condition attached to the gift being that he should allow Bob to visit
the ranch at least once a month. And so it came that Shock and his
sorrel broncho became widely known over the ranges of all that country.
Many a little shack in far away valleys, where a woman with her
children lived in isolated seclusion from all the world, he discovered
and brought into touch with the world about, and by means of books and
magazines and illustrated papers brought to hearts sick with longing
some of the colour and brightness from the great world beyond, so often
fondly longed for. Many a cowboy, wild and reckless, with every link of
kin-ship broken, an unrelated unit of humanity keeping lonely watch
over his bunch of cattle, found in Shock a friend, and established
through him anew a bond with human society. The hour spent with Shock
in riding around the cattle often brought to this bit of human
driftwood a new respect for himself, a new sense of responsibility for
life, and a new estimate of the worth of his manhood. Away up in the
Pass, too, where the miners lived and wrought under conditions
wretched, debasing, and fraught with danger, and w