"Doctor Hardin is not in town," she said, "and I have to bring a
physician out to the ranch at once; my father is critically ill."

Randall Byrne rubbed his lean chin.

"I am not practicing at present," he said reluctantly. Then he saw that
she was watching him closely, weighing him with her eyes, and it came to
the mind of Randall Byrne that he was not a large man and might not
incline the scale far from the horizontal.

"I am hardly equipped--" began Byrne.

"You will not need equipment," she interrupted. "His trouble lies in his
nerves and the state of his mind."

A slight gleam lighted the eyes of the doctor.

"Ah," he murmured. "The mind?"

"Yes."

He rubbed his bloodless hands slowly together, and when he spoke his
voice was sharp and quick and wholly impersonal. "Tell me the symptoms!"

"Can't we talk those over on the way to the ranch? Even if we start now
it will be dark before we arrive."

"But," protested the doctor, "I have not yet decided--this
precipitancy--"

"Oh," she said, and flushed. He perceived that she was on the verge of
turning away, but something withheld her. "There is no other physician
within reach; my father is very ill. I only ask that you come as a
diagnostician, doctor!"

"But a ride to your ranch," he said miserably. "I presume you refer to
riding a horse?"

"Naturally."

"I am unfamiliar with that means of locomotion," said the doctor with
serious eyes, "and in fact have not carried my acquaintance with the
equine species beyond a purely experimental stage. Anatomically I have a
superficial knowledge, but on the one occasion on which I sat in a
saddle I observed that the docility of the horse is probably a poetic
fallacy."

He rubbed his left shoulder thoughtfully and saw a slight tremor at the
corners of the girl's mouth. It caused his vision to clear and
concentrate; he found that the lips were, in fact, in the very act of
smiling. The face of the doctor brightened.

"You shall ride my own horse," said the girl. "She is perfectly gentle
and has a very easy gait. I'm sure you'll have not the slightest trouble
with her."

"And you?"

"I'll find something about town; it doesn't matter what."

"This," said the doctor, "is most remarkable. You choose your mounts at
random?"

"But you will go?" she insisted.

"Ah, yes, the trip to the ranch!" groaned the doctor. "Let me see: the
physical obstacles to such a trip while many are not altogether
insuperable, I