n'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.

Ben Hanway gave him a keen, covert stare, as he slowly and clumsily
accepted the tendered chair and his host thre